F i n d T h e W o r k . c o m

Thursday, November 29, 2007

What Do I Do? Depends on What Week It Is

What Do I Do? Depends on What Week It Is
By LISA BELKIN
Published: November 29, 2007
WHEN Sean Aiken was a boy, he thought he might like to be a professional basketball player once he grew up. Now he is 25, and he is decidedly less certain.
In that way he is like so many of his millennial generation — new workers wavering on the threshold of real life, determined to get it right, they say, and fearful that they might get it wrong.

“They’ve grown up in a world where their parents always told them to explore all their options, and they are entering the work force at a time when they can explore and explore and explore,” says Mary Crane, a business consultant whose expertise is bridging the generation gap at Fortune 500 companies. “In addition to that, they see their parents as stuck in thankless jobs, and they don’t want to end up that way.”

Or, as Mr. Aiken puts it: “We have been told our whole life that anything is possible. Well, our parents did a great job, because now we actually believe it.”

In the spirit of his generation — the one that brought us extreme sports, and made a mini celebrity out of a blogger who traded a paper clip for a house, and a mega celebrity out of a socialite who went on reality TV to move from job to job in “The Simple Life” — Mr. Aiken has begun a most unusual search. He will try a different job every week for a year. Depending on your point of view, his extreme job hunt either typifies or parodies his age group.

It all began at the dinner table last year, a few months after Mr. Aiken graduated from Capilano College in North Vancouver, British Columbia, with a degree in business administration. The son was telling the father (who took a job as an accountant 30 years ago in the Aiken family’s hometown of Port Moody, British Columbia) about wanting to find work about which he was passionate. “My father looked at me,” Mr. Aiken recalled, “and said, ‘I’ve been around 60 years and I’ve yet to find something I’m passionate about except your mother.’” Sobered by that thought, Mr. Aiken hatched his plan to work at 52 jobs in a year and to chronicle the search on a Web site, oneweekjob.com. He would take no salary for the work, but would encourage his “employers” to make a donation to charity. He spread the word through a mass e-mail message to friends and family and eventually through word of Web.

When offers came in that were far from home, he found a sponsor(nicejob.ca, a job search Web site) to pay for his travel, and he slept on the couches of “co-workers” and blog readers. As traffic to his Web site increased, he started taking along his best friend, a filmmaker, to create videos for the site.

The 20-somethings who turn to One Week Job find in Mr. Aiken “an ideal of the unstable life,” says Penelope Trunk, the author of “The Brazen Careerist” (Business Plus, 2007), who blogs and lectures on the transformation of the workplace. “He sends the message ‘job-hopping is O.K.,’ ‘moving around is O.K.’”

That is a comforting message, she says, because while Gen Y talks of seeking passion and embracing what is new, that is just brave cover for a less comfortable truth. “The reality is they might prefer one job that would last forever and end with retirement, but that kind of job doesn’t exist anymore,” Ms. Trunk says. “The alternative, the instability, terrifies them. Sean Aiken is an example of how uncertainty and constant change can be O.K.”

Mr. Aiken is on Week 36 of his journey now (he spent it at the studio of a Manhattan filmmaker). Since his first one-week-job, as a bungee-jumping instructor back in March, he has done practically everything, including teaching yoga, exterminating insects, trading stocks and baking apple pies.

He was surprised by how fond he was of some jobs. “The dairy farm was cool,” he says. “It’s all about milking cows, feeding cows, shoveling manure. I really enjoyed it.”

Others were not as fun. “Selling T-shirts at the Toronto film festival, I had three separate bosses,” he says. “I didn’t really know what was expected of me. I was always not doing the right thing for one of them.”

Mr. Aiken’s whirlwind schedule raises the question: can an understanding of real work be had in five-day snapshots? Or is this all just an example of other qualities often attributed to Gen Y — a short attention span and a tendency toward laziness?

Alex Frankel, for one, believes that the essence of a job can be learned in a week. Or three. A freelance business journalist, he is the author of “Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line Employee” (Collins, 2007). Published this month, the book tells of Mr. Frankel’s search through the workplace, one employer at a time, at places like Gap, Enterprise-Rent-a-Car and Apple.

His goal was to learn how corporations create “rah rah” employee cultures, but along the way he discovered much about himself.

“I don’t do well when I have to be part of a team all the time,” he says. “I’m better when I can be out on my own, my own boss of my part of the job.”

For that reason, he says, his work at Starbucks felt confining while his work delivering packages for UPS felt liberating. “There were passing thoughts when I was out in the truck, that I could see doing this full time,” he says. “A few weeks is certainly enough time to get a feel for whether or not a work culture is a good fit.”

Mr. Aiken started out hoping he would have a eureka moment, a cinematic swell of music heralding the epiphany that “this was what I was meant to do.”

But now that he has only 17 weeks left, he has toned down his expectations. “I was looking for the one perfect career that would make me happy,” he says. “Now I am using all the jobs together to see what I need to be happy, what works for me and what doesn’t.”

Like Mr. Frankel, he is realizing that he does not like the regimentation of an office. Also, he says, “I like changing tasks. I enjoy continual change. And it should be something interactive. With people.”

If he had to sign on for any of the positions he has held so far this year, he says, it would be the one raising funds for cancer research or the one in an advertising agency. But talking to him, and scrolling through his Web site, one can’t help but conclude that he has in fact already found his job, one not available to his parents’ generation, but which his will refine and perfect.

Mr. Aiken’s life work might well turn out to be the marketing of Sean Aiken.

As a French psychologist wrote on Mr. Aiken’s blog: “He has in effect created a new business, he is a ‘Sean — the-vocation-searcher.’ It is a job that only one applicant can fit and is made up of all the skills and talents of Sean. The best way to involve all your skills in your job is to create a job made of all your skills — instead of trying to fit in an existing and traditional one. Sean is now the hero of a quest turned into an adventure.”

One can already envision the book. And the reality show. And the Sean Aiken line of luggage.

E-mail:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/fashion/29Work.html

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Workers Driven to Work—Even When Not Driving to Work

Workers Driven to Work—Even When Not Driving to Work
Rather than abusing the privilege of telecommuting, most employees apparently give their all away from office.
By Garry Kranz
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Self-Starters: Enabling workers to telecommute elevates job satisfaction, lowers turnover, reduces stress, contributes to work/life balance and strengthens job performance. Those are the overarching findings of a comprehensive examination by researchers at Pennsylvania State University. They looked at nearly 50 studies on flexible scheduling, spanning 20 years and nearly 13,000 employees. “Our results show that telecommuting has an overall beneficial effect because the arrangement provides employees with more control over how they do their work,” says Dr. Ravi Gajendran, one of the co-authors. Gajendran and Prof. David Harrison also discovered that people’s relationships with co-workers and supervisors did not suffer as a result of working outside the office—with one exception. “Employees who worked away from their offices for three or more days a week reported worsening of their relationships with co-workers. However, managers who oversaw telecommuters reported that the telecommuters’ performance was not negatively affected by working from home.”

Also, women appear to derive greater benefits than men, according to the authors. That assertion is based on certain study samples that found women received higher performance rankings from supervisors, along with improved prospects for career growth.

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Garry Kranz is a freelance writer based in Richmond, Virginia. E-mail to comment.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Party Your Way To A New Job

Party Your Way To A New Job
11.20.07, 6:35 AM ET - Tara Weiss
Instead of shutting your job search down during November and December, use the season’s social events to network your way to a new job.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/20/holiday-party-networking-lead-careers-cx_tw_1120bizbasics.html?partner=smallbusiness_newsletter
One of the most common job-hunting mistakes people make is putting the search on hold from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. It might seem like entire offices are hibernating, but the truth is, they’re at holiday parties. Join them there.

The holiday season, with all its socializing and merry-making, is prime time for networking. Since managers tend to hire people they--and their colleagues--know, networking should play a major role in any job seeker’s process.

But don’t go blindly to every holiday party you’re invited to. To get the most out of each one, you need to develop a strategy.

In Pictures: Party Networking Made Simple

Start by doing your homework about each event. What type of people are attending--are they likely the type of people you want to meet? If it’s for a trade association or professional group, ask the organizer to forward you the list of people who are attending, says Lynne Waymon, co-author of Making Contacts Count. Peruse it to see if anyone’s name stands out.

If you’re attending a party thrown by a professional organization, look up the name of the group’s board of directors before the event. Those are the people you want to meet, because they are heavily involved in the industry and likely have a lot of useful contacts. Other key attendees are the party’s hosts. Like members of the board, they know most of the guests and can introduce you. Finally, think about who you met last year and put them on your list of people to chat with. Remembering someone’s name goes a long way.

“Good networks are very intentional,” says Waymon. “Give a lot of attention to details, especially surrounding names.”

Now that you’ve got a list of people to talk with, make sure to get there on time. Arriving when there are fewer people makes it easier to get time with the party’s hosts and the board of directors. For people who feel shy about meeting strangers, getting there while the crowd is small is much easier to manage than entering a room full of 200 partiers already having a good time, says Thom Singer , author of The ABCs of Networking.

Striking up conversation with strangers doesn’t come naturally to everyone. But there are ways to make it comfortable. If you arrive on time and say hello to the hosts, also take a minute to say, “I don’t know anyone here. Are there people you think I should meet and do you mind introducing me?”

It might sound silly, but there’s nothing wrong with introducing yourself to people in the food and drink lines. A common opening line: “How do you know the hosts?” Or, “How long have you been a member of the organization?”

“If you wait for someone else to start talking, you might be waiting all day,” says Andrea Nierenberg, who wrote Million Dollar Networking.

Have topics ready to discuss. Ask what they’re doing for the holidays, whether they’re taking a vacation or what they’ve been working on lately. “A lot of good connections start in a personal manner,” says Nierenberg. “Trust is built as you exchange information and resources. That’s what makes people want to hire you or refer you. They want to see your character and competence. Expert conversationalists know how to do that through behavior and conversation.”

Don’t start a conversation by saying you’re unemployed. And certainly don’t say that you’re at the party to find a new job. Networking is an investment that pays off in the future. “The mistake is people thinking the party is networking,” says Singer. “It’s not. It’s the tool to meet someone.” You build the relationship from there.

Focus on the give and take of conversation. The same question is likely to come up throughout the party: What do you do professionally? Have a succinct answer prepared. If you’re employed, Nierenberg recommends a few seconds introduction that speaks to your industry. For instance, if you sell software, she recommends saying something like, “I sell software that helps computers talk to each other.” First tell them what you do, then mention the organization’s name, she says.

If you’re unemployed, don’t blurt that out. “It’s too heavy,” says Waymon. “They don’t know you well enough to help yet.” You’ve got past work experience, so discuss that. Mention the industry you’re in and a few other jobs you’ve held--briefly. Then say, “I have the wonderful prospect of finding a new position in 2008.” Then briefly describe what you’re looking for.

Always carry a business card. If you’re unemployed, create a card with your name, e-mail and phone number. Business cards can also assist in making a graceful exit; sometimes extricating yourself from a conversation is just as hard as getting into one. An easy way to wrap up a conversation is by saying, “It was great to meet you. May I have your business card?” Or simply try saying, ‘I’m going to give you time to talk to other people here.’

If you meet someone you do want to speak more with, ask if he or she would like to continue the conversation over coffee when the holidays are over. If that feels too bold, follow up by answering some type of question that person had. For instance, if you learned he or she is planning a trip to Mexico and you recently went there, send an e-mail with some restaurant recommendations or day-trip ideas.

The payoff on this isn’t going to come overnight. Jobs aren’t going to come pouring in right after the party--think long term.

Most important, have fun--if you’ve been job hunting for months, that’s exactly what you need.

In Pictures: Party Networking Made Simple

http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/20/holiday-party-networking-lead-careers-cx_tw_1120bizbasics_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=20000

Businesses For Baby Boomers

Businesses For Baby Boomers
11.16.07, 7:16 AM ET - Elizabeth G. Olson
Not ready to retire but don’t want to invest all your money and time? Consider these entrepreneurial options.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/16/baby-boomer-business-ent-manage-cx_eo_1116boomerbusiness.html?partner=smallbusiness_newsletter
After two decades in the real estate business, 55-year-old Carol Cole mulled what to do next. Then she happened upon a radio news story about people who help downsize households.

A year later, Cole launched her own downsizing business covering a 16-zip-code territory around Roanoke, Va. Operating since September as a licensee of “Smooth Transitions” (a franchisor based in Louisville, Ky.), Cole helps fellow Boomers and other clients pare back their belongings and set up shop in smaller apartments and retirement facilities. Revenues are but a trickle at this point, but Cole has high hopes. “I am trying to replace my full-time salary [about $60,000 a year],” she says.

A huge swath of the U.S. population--some 80 million baby boomers--is edging toward retirement, though only a small percentage will hit the links on a permanent basis. The rest will keep working, either because they want to or because they can’t afford not to. The trick: working on one’s own terms.

In Pictures: Seven Businesses For Baby Boomers

Clearly it helps to have a specific expertise. Accountants, lawyers and money mangers can make their own consulting hours and charge a pretty penny to boot. But Boomers without specialized skills have entrepreneurial options, too. Many are aimed at a familiar audience--other Boomers and their parents--and demand neither 13-hour work days nor huge piles of capital.

Take Cole. To kick-start her downsizing business, she spent $800 on conferences to learn about the industry; $1,800 on a training course (essential, she says, for handling challenging customers like hoarders and Alzheimer’s sufferers); and $3,000 for “Smooth Transitions” training and license fee. Not a princely sum. Variable expenses include insurance ($650 a year), computer rental ($300), brochures and stationary ($650) and miscellaneous supplies and documents ($400).

Wellness coaching is another boomer-friendly option. Wellness coaches guide people through some of their tougher challenges, from dropping weight to quitting smoking. Typical rate: $100 per hour. Coaches with corporate experience can boost rates to $300 an hour by adding “executive coaching” to their repertoires.

That’s Charles Schroeder’s plan. After nearly three decades in the nuclear power utility industry, Schroeder found that woodworking and riding Harleys wasn’t enough. So he spent $1,000 on a 10-week online course about navigating issues as diverse as weight loss to recovering from an injury.

While he expects his Estes Park, Colo. business to take a couple of years to ramp up, Schroeder points up a nice perk: After the initial in-person meeting, wellness coaching can typically be done by telephone--“even from our motor home parked by a beach.”

Karolyn Wrightson, 65, turned a passion for Australia into a business opportunity: a specialty travel agency. Many Boomers have wanderlust, and that’s good news for travel agents. But with the onslaught of do-it-yourself trip-planning on the Web, agents have to specialize to thrive--either by focusing on specific geographies or customer demographics, such as intergenerational family groups or customers with disabilities.

Inspired by a three-month trip to the Outback, Wrightson left behind a career in historic preservation and founded Essential Down Under Travel in 1999. Since then, her number of clients has doubled every year, mainly via word of mouth, she says. Last year Essential sold $1 million in travel packages, of which the company takes an undisclosed cut.

Another in-demand profession for the newly retired is “professional organizer.” Plenty of people are a mess--or at least their homes are. Professional organizers impose order on everything from towel closets to home offices--and get paid $50 to $200 an hour to do it.

“It used to be a little secret,” says Standolyn Robertson, 51, founder of Things in Place Organizing Services in Waltham, Mass. There’s a reason for that: People are often reluctant to admit they use an organizer. (Hint: Don’t count on word-of-mouth marketing.) While The National Organization of Professional Organizers, now with 4,000 members, offers a professional organizer certificate, in reality anyone can hang out an organizer’s shingle.

The burgeoning number of people entering “driving retirement” was a clarion call for boomer entrepreneurs Jeff Maltz and Susan Steiner Saal, founders of SilverRide in San Francisco. Since its launch last January, SilverRide has nabbed 175 clients whom it transports--by scheduled appointment--to medical appointments, grocery stores and fun outings like the opera. The company has grown so rapidly, say the pair, that they plan to expand into other cities, probably through franchises.

Compared to office organizing and booking vacations, this is a more capital-intensive business. State laws mandate that SilverRide, which operates much like a limo company, has to carry nearly $1 million in insurance on each of its three black Chrysler PT Cruisers and the drivers, including both a former Buddhist monk and an airline stewardess.

Worth the investment? “We can make a living from this,” says Maltz.

In Pictures: Seven Businesses For Baby Boomers
http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/16/google-baby-boomer-ent-manage-cx_eo_1116boomerbusiness_slide_2.html

Friday, November 16, 2007

Role of Workplace Stress in Turnover Undervalued

Role of Workplace Stress in Turnover Undervalued
Whether it’s Boise or Beijing, employers worldwide underestimate the role that stress plays in a worker’s decision to leave a job. Almost 40 percent of employees participating in the study cited stress as the primary reason for resigning from a job.
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November 16, 2007
Role of Workplace Stress in Turnover Undervalued
Whether it’s Boise or Beijing, employers worldwide underestimate the role that stress plays in a worker’s decision to leave a job, according to the 2007/2008 Global Strategic Rewards report from Watson Wyatt and WorldatWork.

“There is a clear disconnect in the way companies and their employees perceive stress,” says Laura Sejen, global director of strategic rewards for Watson Wyatt in New York.

The survey, released in late October, surveyed 13,000 employees of 946 midsize to large companies. Those organizations employ 15 million workers across 22 countries.

Almost 40 percent of employees participating in the study cited stress as the primary reason for resigning from a job. Workers surveyed in the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region ranked stress as the top reason for leaving a company, while in Latin America, stress was second.

But on the employer side of the survey, 52 percent said dissatisfaction with base pay was the No. 1 reason employees walk out. They ranked stress fifth.

Employers perceived other factors—such as discontent with promotional opportunities or lack of career development initiatives—as the more likely culprits behind employee resignations, the survey said.

Such dynamics do play a role in why workers leave their jobs, so companies are not completely out of tune with the needs of employees. But that fact that stress was ranked so low on the employers’ list of reasons for resignations is a sign of trouble, Sejen says.

“This should be a wake-up call to employers,” she says, “particularly for those who are having a difficult time retaining workers.”

Sejen says many employers must update their approach to talent management. Base salary is important, but overemphasizing monetary rewards while minimizing such issues as job security and work/life balance could put companies in a bind.

Already, 65 percent of employers in the survey report difficulties holding on to workers. What’s more, 70 percent say recruiting qualified talent is a constant battle. Nowhere are the challenges greater than among companies in need of highly skilled employees, the study indicates.

Sejen says companies that want to reduce workplace stress should take a critical look at their organizational structure, staffing levels and job design to determine whether they are appropriate.

“Having overwhelmed employees can backfire on companies,” she says.

—Gina Ruiz

http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/22/64.html

Factors That May Be Holding You Back

Factors That May Be Holding You Back By Perri Capell
http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/strategies/20030114-capell.html

Your job search is dead in the water, even though you’ve done everything you can think of to find a new position, from writing a knockout resume to calling networking contacts. Now what do you do?

Perhaps three-fourths of all job seekers stall in their searches, some after only a few months, career counselors say. “The biggest risk is the first time they run out of leads, and this can happen in a matter of days,” says Janet Scarborough, a career coach with Bridgeway Career Development in Seattle. “They might have done all the things that seem easy. Then they say, ‘Now what?’ “

Searches break down at different stages for different people. Some people can’t get job leads. Others land interviews but no offers. To get it going again, the first thing to do is to analyze the factors that are holding you back. This usually can’t be done on your own.

“It isn’t easy to evaluate yourself,” adds Nancy Collamer, founder of Collamer Career Consulting in Old Greenwich, Conn. “After being out there a while, it’s a rare person who doesn’t start beating up on themselves. You need to get an outside perspective.”

Talk with colleagues, members of job-search support groups, advisers at a college career center or a career counselor who can impartially review your approach. Show your advisers your resume and tell them what you’ve done so far. Together, you should pinpoint where your search is stalling and work first on fixing that problem. “You need to determine the breakdown point and troubleshoot that part of the process, because you don’t have to fix everything,” says Ms. Scarborough.

Often, job seekers think they should know how to job hunt, which makes them defensive and unreceptive to suggestions. To break down this barrier, Ms. Scarborough will ask a job seeker who comes to her for advice whether what she’s doing now is achieving the results she wants. A “no” answer indicates “you have to change aspects of your search until you get results,” she says.

What’s Holding You Back?

If your search is stalled, try to keep an open mind and to not dismiss the suggestions you receive. The following are the most common reasons why job searches bog down, followed by suggestions from career counselors on how to revive them.

1. Emotional issues. It’s hard to say which comes first—a negative attitude or a stalled search—but attitude alone can cause a search to bog down. Career counselors cite depression or despondency as the most common reason why job hunters can’t achieve results. Candidates may feel that events are beyond their control and become defeatist. This affects all their job-hunting activities, from making calls to employers to interviewing.

Job hunters who lack support groups and are searching in isolation have a tougher time staying positive because they aren’t interacting with others. Moreover, it’s harder to stay upbeat during economic downturns or if you’re over 50, because in both cases, positions are harder to find.

When clients say they’re stalled, “the first thing I look at is their emotional state,” says Ms. Collamer. “I evaluate their frame of mind and see whether they need to get feeling better about themselves.”

2. Lack of focus. This can weaken your resume or cause you to seem desperate, because you’re likely to seek roles just because they’re available. Joanne Nix, president of A Great Resume in Van Buren, Ark., says she doesn’t work with clients who don’t know what they want until they determine their career goals. “Most of the time, job seekers tell me that any industry or any position will work for them,” she says. “I tell them to get focused.”

3. Poor self-marketing skills. Marketing requires finding customers who want your product, and then creating materials and a presentation that positions it as the solution to a problem. But many job seekers still believe they’ll get hired based on what they’ve done previously, not on what they can help an employer achieve in the future. They prepare resumes that don’t tout their accomplishments and are too modest during interviews, instead of saying that their skills are so good, the company can’t afford to not hire them.

“You must view yourself as CEO of your own company,” says Ms. Collamer. “If you had a product that isn’t selling, either something is wrong with the product or you aren’t addressing the right market. You need to evaluate your product and the market you’re looking at.”

4. Inability to network. This is the process of talking with people who might have information that could lead you closer to employment. Since networking often creates leads to people who know of unadvertised jobs, it’s considered the best way to find a position. However, many job hunters don’t understand how to network or refuse to do it because they fear seeming needy. “The problem is that people look at networking as ‘What can you do for me?’ vs. ‘How can I help you?’ “ says Ms. Collamer. “They need to make it a two-way street.”

5. Lack of structure. Finding a job requires accomplishing a series of interim goals, such as securing references, writing a resume, calling networking referrals or practicing mock interviews. Many job hunters whose searches have stalled haven’t created a structure that prompts them to complete these activities. Others spend too much time on the Internet or doing busywork when they should be contacting individuals personally, says Ms. Nix.

“I talk with dozens of people each day and quiz them on their job-search techniques,” she says. “Most tell me they use the Internet 80% to 90% of the time. In today’s market, they aren’t going to get interviews that way.”

Turn Over a New Leaf

The first step to kick-starting a search is to recognize you may have problems you aren’t aware of and to act as quickly as possible to resolve them. This way, you won’t have to undo mistakes you’ve made inadvertently – for instance, needing to change your image with networking contacts and employers.

“Don’t wait a year to get feedback,” says Ms. Scarborough. “It’s much more effective to do it right the first time.”

If you’ve been feeling depressed or defeated, your first goal should be to improve your outlook. Here are the steps career counselors suggest to reviving a job hunt:

1. Improve your state of mind. Physical activity helps improve mental well-being, so start exercising or going for walks if you aren’t already doing so. Be sure you schedule time to be with friends and family, or simply spend time with a pet. Above all, don’t stay cooped up in a home office for eight hours daily. “It’s important to get out there and be around other people,” says Ms. Collamer. “Many people just withdraw from their social life and that adds to the depression.”

2. Join a job-search group or form one yourself. Create a group of advisers for yourself. Seek feedback on your progress and be available to give advice to others. You may gain valuable information and insights. Moreover, being around other people is an antidote to depression.

3. Accomplish something worthwhile. If you’re feeling like you have no control over events, choose an activity or task you’ve been meaning to do and finish it. The chore needn’t be related to your career or job hunting. It could be as simple as cleaning out a closet or painting a room. Ms. Collamer knows one job hunter who trained for and ran a marathon during his unemployment. The mere act of accomplishing something will make you feel better about yourself and more in control, says Ms. Scarborough.

“I say, ‘Do better now and feel better later,’ she says, “but people fight me on this. They say, ‘I don’t see how this has anything to do with my job search,’ but it does. They gain a sense of autonomy and feel better, and that affects their job search.”

4. Volunteer. Helping others or working on a cause you care about can help you feel more upbeat. One job hunter who was out of work for 18 months always worked as a volunteer with his state’s highway patrol on Friday evenings, says Ms. Collamer. “He told me, ‘This is the one night of the week when I feel like a productive human being,’ “ she says. “It’s incredible how many people feel volunteering is a win-win situation for them.”

Volunteering offers other benefits: You’ll meet people who might become valuable career contacts.

5. Create structure for yourself. Each week, create a schedule outlining your goals for that week, and make sure you accomplish them. Do the difficult tasks first and reward yourself when you accomplish them with enjoyable activities, such as going to a movie with a friend. Your sense of well-being will improve as you reach these goals.

6. Follow through. Act on the suggestions you receive from advisers. After determining your focus, prepare a resume that targets these goals. Ask your advisers for feedback on your marketing documents. Research companies and hiring managers in your targeted industry and approach them directly. Some candidates find that writing a personal letter, then following up with a phone call, is easiest.

7. Spend the majority of your time on the most productive tasks. Limit your Internet activity to a maximum of about 15% to 20% of your search time. You may not realize that applying for jobs posted on the Internet decreases your chances of being hired because the competition is greatest for these positions. Contacting hiring managers personally increases your prospects because fewer people are likely to do so. To ensure you don’t stay on the Internet too long, set a timer for your allotted length and turn off the computer when the timer goes off.

Meanwhile, increase the time you spend networking. Ms. Nix’s clients often tell her that “their network is dead” because the people they know have lost jobs or no longer work in the same industry. She tells them about “six degrees of separation,” the concept about everyone in the world being no more than six people away from knowing everyone else in the world. “I try to get them to understand that there are infinite ways of talking with people,” she says.

Develop networking contacts by asking everyone you contact if they can suggest names of others for you to call. Offer to discuss what you’ve learned about the job market with people you talk with.

8. Don’t expect quick results. Candidates who are committed to hard work are more likely to persist in the face of adversity than those who don’t realize the challenges they face. “A job search is more like a marathon than a sprint,” says Ms. Scarborough. “You have to pace yourself because you’re at risk of crashing and burning, and then you might not do anything for a month or two.”

Email your comments to .

Eight Steps to Take To Revamp Your Search

Eight Steps to Take To Revamp Your Search By Perri Capell
http://www.careerjournaleurope.com/jobhunting/strategies/20030114-capell4.html

The first step to kick-starting a search is to recognize you may have problems you aren’t aware of and to act as quickly as possible to resolve them. This way, you won’t have to undo mistakes you’ve made inadvertently—for instance, needing to change your image with networking contacts and employers.

“Don’t wait a year to get feedback,” says Janet Scarborough, a career coach with Bridgeway Career Development in Seattle. “It’s much more effective to do it right the first time.”

If you’ve been feeling depressed or defeated, your first goal should be to improve your outlook. Here are the steps career counselors suggest to reviving a job hunt:

1. Improve your state of mind. Physical activity helps improve mental well-being, so start exercising or going for walks if you aren’t already doing so. Be sure you schedule time to be with friends and family, or simply spend time with a pet. Above all, don’t stay cooped up in a home office for eight hours daily. “It’s important to get out there and be around other people,” says Nancy Collamer, founder of Collamer Career Consulting in Old Greenwich, Conn. “Many people just withdraw from their social life and that adds to the depression.”

2. Join a job-search group or form one yourself. Create a group of advisers for yourself. Seek feedback on your progress and be available to give advice to others. You may gain valuable information and insights. Moreover, being around other people is an antidote to depression.

3. Accomplish something worthwhile. If you’re feeling like you have no control over events, choose an activity or task you’ve been meaning to do and finish it. The chore needn’t be related to your career or job hunting. It could be as simple as cleaning out a closet or painting a room. Ms. Collamer knows one job hunter who trained for and ran a marathon during his unemployment. The mere act of accomplishing something will make you feel better about yourself and more in control, says Ms. Scarborough.

“I say, ‘Do better now and feel better later,’ she says, “but people fight me on this. They say, ‘I don’t see how this has anything to do with my job search,’ but it does. They gain a sense of autonomy and feel better, and that affects their job search.”

4. Volunteer. Helping others or working on a cause you care about can help you feel more upbeat. One job hunter who was out of work for 18 months always worked as a volunteer with his state’s highway patrol on Friday evenings, says Ms. Collamer. “He told me, ‘This is the one night of the week when I feel like a productive human being,’ “ she says. “It’s incredible how many people feel volunteering is a win-win situation for them.”

Volunteering offers other benefits: You’ll meet people who might become valuable career contacts.

5. Create structure for yourself. Each week, create a schedule outlining your goals for that week, and make sure you accomplish them. Do the difficult tasks first and reward yourself when you accomplish them with enjoyable activities, such as going to a movie with a friend. Your sense of well-being will improve as you reach these goals.

6. Follow through. Act on the suggestions you receive from advisers. After determining your focus, prepare a resume that targets these goals. Ask your advisers for feedback on your marketing documents. Research companies and hiring managers in your targeted industry and approach them directly. Some candidates find that writing a personal letter, then following up with a phone call, is easiest.

7. Spend the majority of your time on the most productive tasks. Limit your Internet activity to a maximum of about 15% to 20% of your search time. You may not realize that applying for jobs posted on the Internet decreases your chances of being hired because the competition is greatest for these positions. Contacting hiring managers personally increases your prospects because fewer people are likely to do so. To ensure you don’t stay on the Internet too long, set a timer for your allotted length and turn off the computer when the timer goes off.

Meanwhile, increase the time you spend networking. Joanne Nix, president of A Great Resume in Van Buren, Ark., says her clients often tell her that “their network is dead” because the people they know have lost jobs or no longer work in the same industry. She tells them about “six degrees of separation,” the concept about everyone in the world being no more than six people away from knowing everyone else in the world. “I try to get them to understand that there are infinite ways of talking with people,” she says.

Develop networking contacts by asking everyone you contact if they can suggest names of others for you to call. Offer to discuss what you’ve learned about the job market with people you talk with.

8. Don’t expect quick results. Candidates who are committed to hard work are more likely to persist in the face of adversity than those who don’t realize the challenges they face. “A job search is more like a marathon than a sprint,” says Ms. Scarborough. “You have to pace yourself because you’re at risk of crashing and burning, and then you might not do anything for a month or two.”

-- Ms. Capell is a senior correspondent for CareerJournal.com. She can be reached at .

Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Good News About Telecommuting

Below is an abbreviated summary of Sue Shellenbarger’s blog and corresponding article on Telecommuting from today’s WSJ. There are some good Reader’s Comments online.

“Writing today’s Work & Family column, about a budding trend toward employers’ allowing new hires to telecommute, made me irrationally happy.

“Working from a home office for this newspaper, I’ve often felt guilty shutting down readers who asked how to find a good, salaried telecommuting job with benefits. I’ve had to respond that no new employer is likely to offer such a thing. The obstacles to telecommuting – managers’ fears, deficient technology, and hidebound ideas that team-building and showing commitment can only be done in an office – have been too deeply entrenched.

“A growing number of employers, from UnitedHealth Group and Safeco to Capgemini, IBM, American Express and Sun Microsystems, are hiring skilled new employees to telecommute right from the start. These aren’t the piecework, independent-contractor gigs or commission-only sales jobs that have characterized at-home “employment” in the past. They are full-time corporate jobs with benefits, available without the prerequisite of working for the company for a few years first.

“...These new work-at-home opportunities number only in the thousands, a speck on a vast U.S. labor-force landscape of 150 million workers. Landing one often requires a serendipitous confluence of sought-after skills, experience, personal attributes and timing, along with a measure of luck.

“...the nascent trend is remarkable for the breadth of industries it encompasses, from financial services to health care, and for what it heralds for the future. The factors driving it—the unmet need for skilled workers, improvements in mobile-office technology and a drive to cut real-estate costs—are solid…

“...Networking is among the best ways to land one of these jobs. That’s how Steve Sisco became a telecommuting underwriter in Birmingham, Ala., for Phoenix Cos., an insurance and investment concern. A 25-year veteran of the insurance industry, Mr. Sisco sought a work-at-home position about three years ago. He likes knowing that “I could just pack up my computer and go anywhere.”

“Having a hot skill set is usually essential. Nurses, computer technicians, financial analysts, software engineers, project and marketing managers, programmers, recruiters and underwriters are among common targets at the moment...Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth expects to hire a total of 2,000 people into telecommuting jobs this year, says Tom Valerius, vice president, recruitment services.
“Beyond that, candidates must persuade employers they’re dependable. “If you say, ‘I want to be a telecommuter because I have kids at home,’ or, ‘I need to let my dog out,’ it’s not going to work,” Mr. Valerius says. Instead, prove that you can work unsupervised, be accountable for goals, and be available for meetings and training.
“Some work-at-home wannabes get hired by living in an employer’s target region. American Express has identified certain areas of the country for hiring at-home travel agents, including Nashville and parts of Texas...”

Candidate Age: Older is Getting Younger

Candidate Age: Older is Getting Younger
By: RW Special Reports

You hear it everyday. Businesses want to hire good people: loyal, mature, responsible, trustworthy, driven, creative. It would also be nice if the candidate had the stability and wherewithal to stay in the job for the long term. Sound like too much to ask? Well, it really isn’t. Great candidates not only exist, they are also in ready supply. To find these people, all you have to do is put those ageist stereotypes aside and take a second look at today’s over-50 workforce.

Despite their experience, older workers are often passed over in favor of candidates in their 20’s and 30’s. There are laws in place to protect workers over 40 against age discrimination, but ageism still happens. The reason? Employers are often looking for workers with “energy and drive” coupled with a long career horizon. Candidates over 50 suffer from the misperception that they are winding down their careers and aren’t motivated to work hard. Hiring companies also question how long they’ll stick around. They worry that an “experienced” employee won’t stay more than a few years.

Read the full article at the following link:
http://www.recruitersworld.com/articles/rw/special/age.asp

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

by Jack and Suzy Welch
Thursday, November 1, 2007 Business Week

Your question reminds us of a friend of ours, an investment manager at a highly regarded company in the Midwest, who drove to work one morning, parked his car in the usual spot, and then found he simply could not bring himself to get out of the car. “I guess I stayed on the farm one day too long,” he joked later. When we asked him what went wrong, he answered, “It wasn’t one thing. It was everything.” No wonder he drove home and called in his resignation.

Obviously, most people don’t decide they’ve over-stayed at their companies in such a dramatic fashion. Usually, angst about work creeps in, and then builds until it consumes you. And that can happen early or late in a career. Gone are the days when, after graduation, you took the best available job and stayed for as many years as you could possibly stand, frustration be damned. These days, it is not unusual to hear of perfectly legitimate careers built on multiple job stints.

More from BusinessWeek Online:

• Ten Tips for Negotiating Pay and Perks

• How to Field the Headhunter’s Call

• Wacky Ways to Land a Job

So, to your question, how can you tell when it’s time to move on? We wouldn’t set out specific criteria as much as offer four questions to help sort out an answer.

The first is so simple it almost goes without saying, but the fact that a lot of people don’t confront it, including our friend who ended up stuck in his car—a Harvard MBA, by the way—suggests we should go ahead and put it out there: Do you want to go to work every morning?

This is not a matter to be over-brained. Does the prospect of going in each day excite you or fill you with dread? Does the work feel interesting and meaningful or are you just going through motions to pull a paycheck? Are you still learning and growing?

We know of a woman who worked in consulting for seven years. She loved her firm and had originally planned a career with it, but suddenly started noticing that she wished every weekend was five days long. “Basically, I felt like we were putting together massive books in order to make recommendations to people who knew more than we did,” she said. “Every day at the office, I felt a little bit more of a hypocrite.” She now happily works on the “front lines,” to use her phrase, in the marketing department of a retail company.

Second, do you enjoy spending time with your co-workers or do they generally bug the living daylights out of you? We’re not saying you should only stay at your company if you want to barbecue with your team every weekend, but if you don’t sincerely enjoy and respect the people you spend 10 hours a day with, you can be sure you will eventually decide to leave your organization. Why not make the break sooner rather than later and start cultivating relationships at a company where you might actually plant roots?

Third, does your company help you fulfill your personal mission? Essentially, this question asks whether your company jibes with your life’s goals and values. Does it require you, for instance, to travel more than you’d like, given your chosen work-life balance? Does it offer enough upward mobility, given your level of ambition? There are no right or wrong answers to such questions, only a sense of whether you are investing your time at the right or wrong company for you.

Fourth and finally, can you picture yourself at your company in a year? We use that time frame because that’s how long it usually takes to find a new, better job once you decide to move on. So peer, as best you can, into the future, and predict where you’ll be in the organization, what work you’ll be doing, whom you will be managing, and who will be managing you. If that scenario strikes you with anything short of excitement, then you’re spinning your wheels. Or put another way, you’re just about to stay too long.

To be clear: We’re not suggesting people quit at the first inkling of discontent. No matter where you work, at some point you will have to endure difficult times, and even a deadly dull assignment, to survive a crisis or move up. But it makes little sense to stay and stay at a company because of inertia. Unlock your door and get out.

Copyrighted, Business Week. All rights reserved.

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/103837/Should-You-Stay-or-Should-You-Go

Friday, November 02, 2007

Job Outlook: Perhaps Weaker Than It Looks

Job Outlook: Perhaps Weaker Than It Looks
By JON E. HILSENRATH
WSJ November 2, 2007; Page C1

Last month’s jobs report reassured many investors that the economy wasn’t falling off a cliff. Not only did businesses increase their payrolls by a relatively healthy 110,000 in September, but the Labor Department also revised away a previously reported decline.

Take a look at some underlying trends, however, and it becomes clear there’s still reason to believe the job market isn’t on a great trajectory.

Some parts of the job market—manufacturing, construction, temporary help—tend to be more cyclical than others. Their moves tend to precede broader changes in employment. All three of these areas have softened in the past few months.

Consider manufacturing employment, which posted sharp declines during the 1990 and 2001 recessions. In both cases, manufacturing started softening well before the overall job market. It’s softening now, too. Year-over-year declines in manufacturing payrolls exceeded 200,000 in August and September, the biggest drops since early 2004.

Temp jobs are down roughly 70,000 from a year ago, the biggest decline in roughly five years. Construction employment held up in the 2001 recession, but was an important leading indicator before the 1990 recession. It is down more than 100,000 from a year ago, and it’s hard to imagine that turning higher anytime soon.

Many employers also choose to reduce the hours logged by workers when business slows, rather than jump right into layoffs. The government’s index of the hours logged by all workers has also been softening. It was up 1.7% in September from a year ago, compared to increases of more than 3% in 2006.

Economists expect today’s report to show payrolls grew a modest 80,000 in October. The job market isn’t falling off a cliff. But leading indicators suggest it’s moving in the wrong direction.

Basic Materials Show Signs of Softening

Financial stocks were the prime suspects in yesterday’s market tumble as more subprime skeletons leapt from the closet. Basic-materials stocks look shaky, too, after a big bull run during the past five years.

The Dow Jones Wilshire U.S. Basic Material Index dropped 3.5% yesterday and 2.3% on Tuesday, rebounding in between on the Fed rate cut.

Despite those declines, the index is up 30% year to date. The strong run by basic-materials companies—makers of raw materials from steel to aluminum to paper—is a reflection of booming global demand. The combination of a weakness in basic-materials and financial stocks, another longtime leader, could pose serious problems for the broader market if it lasts.

Basic-materials companies are suffering from the slowdown in the U.S. and high energy prices. Alcoa fell 4.3% yesterday, and has tumbled more than 20% since hitting a 52-week high in July.

U.S. Steel dropped 7.2% yesterday. The stock is down 11% since it posted a steep decline in net income and made gloomy comments about the fourth quarter.

“We’ve lost momentum in basic-materials leadership,” said Steve Shobin, chief investment strategist at AmeriCap Advisers."When you lose momentum in the market’s leadership, that suggests a more precarious environment.”

--Scott Patterson

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