Getting Back in the Game. Keep your chin up!

A while back, as the economy was slowing down, I and a few other HR people were discussing if there was an interest in hiring a software person who had been laid off over a year before. The person had a good educational background, one 4-year job, and a couple of short term jobs during better times and was now at the Director’s level.

Some of the remarks were, “…what has he been doing for over a year?”, “if no one else wanted him all this time, why would we?”, “…looks like a job jumper to me, stayed long enough to keep the sign-on bonus”, etc.  It ended up with nobody interested in setting up an interview. I am sure if they met the person they would have been very impressed, unfortunately he had just made some bad career moves.

What can a person do who has been out of the job market for a year or more? First of all, you should be using a functional resume that highlights your accomplishments, not the dates of employment. Keep in mind the resume is a marketing piece, not a life story.  Also a good idea during this period would be to enroll in a school that offers you the chance to increase your skill level, offer to do some volunteer work for a non-profit, and/or start a consulting firm and try to get some short term work.

Most important is to be working at something.  Stay in the habit of getting up at the same time you did when you had a job. Looking for the right career position is a full time job. Keep a calendar, set up your daily schedule in advance for each week and don’t forget to exercise every day. The more active you are, the less depressed you get, and keep in mind that companies don’t hire depressed people.

Job Hunting can be a fun experience; make sure you play the game the right way.

Good hunting!

A ray of hope for the job market!

A new 16 month high for job openings was hit in April, according to the Department of Labor.  This is a good sign that private employers have started employing.

In April 2010, new jobs advertised rose to 3.1 million from 2.8 million in March. That’s the most openings since December 2008.

Private employers accounted for the entire net gain, government hiring decreased in April.

The competition for jobs still remains tough. There were 5 unemployed people on average for each new job offered. That was down from 5.4 in the previous month, but well above the pre-recession levels that average 1.8 jobless workers per opening

The biggest increase in available jobs were in professional  and business services, leisure and hospitality and health care services and education. Government job openings fell by 36,000.

The report comes from the Department of Labor, which stated the economy generated 431,000 jobs in May.

As always,

Good hunting!

Sometimes, help is a good idea!

Many years ago, when I started earning some real money, I completed my IRS Tax return, and realized I owed an additional $1800.  It was a surprise.  I talked to a friend of mine who suggested that I let his tax CPA take a look at it.  After about an hour of discussion, she re-did the return, and I ended up getting a $1250 refund. I never did my own tax returns again.

When looking for a new career position or changing careers, basically the same situation exists.  Using a Career Marketing Advisor is certainly not for everyone.  One thing to consider: according to the last U.S. government numbers, the average person change jobs 7.8 times in their lifetime.  A professional Career Marketing Advisor does that many every month that he/she works with clients.

Why Not Use an Advisor?

Lets first take a look at the cons – why wouldn’t you use a Career Marketing Advisor?  A lot of people like to do things themselves, and get a certain degree of pleasure out of successfully completing a project on their own. Some people enjoy and are good at fixing their cars, they change the brake lining, replace key motor parts, and even overhaul their complete engine.  I’ve known people with legal problems who will go on line and do research, file their own lawsuits, and represent themselves in court. Of course in all most of these cases they save a considerable amount of money, although it may end up being very time consuming.  The same can be said of self-diagnosing medical problems, home repairs, and financial planning.  So, there’s a gain of satisfaction and reduction in initial cost – but in many cases a lot more personal work, and a result that’s not as good as a professional would achieve.

Why Use an Advisor?

In looking at the pros, the first pro is professional.  Professional Career Marketing Advisors have been completely trained in the field and spend 40-50 hours every week working in on job searches.   Are all Advisors excellent?  Like any profession, the individual experience and qualifications make a huge difference.   Just like you’d check out a lawyer or CPA, you need to learn about your Advisor.  Learn the person’s years of experience and training, their success record, and determine how well you’ll be able to work with them.  After all, who would hire an attorney that has only been successful in 10% of the cases they have handled? What will the Advisor do for you?  They will speed up your search by keeping you at the top of your game, and help you with resume development and networking to secure job interviews, preparing for interviews, quality follow-up, and salary negotiation.  So for most people, there’s a reduction in the time to find a job, and an improvement in the quality of the job and the salary compared to doing it alone.

Looking for a job is the hardest job you can find. In times like these, where the job market is very tight, one little mistake can make the difference between getting the job, salary and benefits you deserve – or not. Can you afford to take a chance?  So there’s also a reduction in risk.

If you are just looking for a job and not a career position, using an Advisor would probably be a waste of time and effort. If for one time in your life, you would really like to do a complete search, maybe end up with multiple offers, and feel at the end of the campaign that you have found the best possible job, one  that matches your skills and gives you the challenge and future that you were looking for, then maybe you should consider using a skilled, experienced Career Marketing Advisor.

Layoffs hurt people and come back to bite businesses, too.

A recent article in Newsweek (February 15th, 2010) written by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, discusses the bad effects of lay-offs at corporations and on their employees.

In the early 60’s I was being recruited by IBM for a position in Human Resources.  I was told about IBM’s dedication to its employees and their families, and given a copy of the employee’s handbook, which even included company songs.  I was invited to a large company meeting at an auditorium in the Washington, D.C. area.  I went.  At the end of the 2 hour meeting, all the employees stood up and sang one of the company’s songs.  Morale and spirit were high, and in those days IBM ruled the roost of US corporations.  But, by the time the 80’s came around, IBM started a series of lay-offs, and the company started their great decline from the top.

After 9/11, all the US airlines, uncertain of their future and faced with a pending recession started laying off tens of thousands of employees.  One airline didn’t follow the crowd:  Southwest. Southwest Airlines, in its 40 year history has never had a involuntary lay-off, and today it’s the largest U.S. domestic airline and has a market capitalization bigger than all its domestic competitors combined.  In the 1930’s,when the Great Depression hit this country, most firms had huge lay-offs, and drastically cut back their advertising.  A few companies kept their employees, increased their marketing efforts and they became the number one company in their industries, and reigned in that position for 70+ years.

For some corporations, circumstances are such that lay-offs are necessary for the firm to survive.  If your industry is disappearing or permanently shrinking, layoffs may be needed to adjust to the new market size.  An example of that is the newspaper industry.  But, in most cases, layoffs are done to minimize hits to profits, not to ensure the company’s survival.  We continuously see companies announcing layoffs, and the stock market responds by increasing their share price. No thought, or not enough thought, is given to the effects on the morale and productivity of the remaining employees.  Thoughts like, “Will I be next?” infect the remaining employees.  Some companies will offer outplacement assistance to the laid-off employees ( in which the contracts are awarded to the lowest bidding company) in the hopes of showing the remaining employees that they care about what happens to their laid off people.  Some of these services are no more than a couple of seminars and some hand outs on how to do a resume, etc.

When most companies do layoffs, they reduce their R&D staff, marketing people, and their sales force…the same people they will need to take the company forward.  In some cases after a layoff, non-laid off key people will leave the company based upon what they feel is a low value placed on employees.  Layoffs weaken the entire organization, and affect its future growth.

People who lose jobs also lose income, and they spend less.  Even workers that aren’t directly affected, due to worries that they may be next, reduce their spending, creating less demand for products. If, for example, you worked for a computer maker, when purchasing your next computer would you buy one from a company that only months before laid you off?  I don’t think so.  So reduced sales continue the layoff spiral.

An example of that was Circuit City, the now defunct electronics retailer. They decided to lay off 3,400 of their highest-paid , most effective sale associates to cut costs. Companies such as Best Buy gained market share and Circuit City filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and closed its doors in March 2009.

Not to be left out is the effect on people and their loved ones.  When layoffs hit, studies have shown an increase in alcoholism, smoking, drug abuse and depression and these can become long term evil effects of layoffs.  Companies need to re-examine their employment philosophy and management decisions.

It might not be as bad as you think - keep your chin up!

Of course as you’ve read and heard, the media have been blasting over TV, Radio, net and newsprint that the nation has over 10% unemployment. Some articles break down the numbers for unemployment by race, sex, and age groups, which sometimes reveal interesting information.  But they often miss a different cut – some very critical numbers that affect you directly.

Now, a story published by Daily Finance called “Recession Hammers Low-Wage Workers, but Glances Off the Affluent” cites findings by researchers at The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University which tell a truly different story about unemployment numbers.  This survey covers the period of October to December 2009.  Here’s the deal:

Unemployment numbers for people earning over $150,000 are a low 3.2% and those in the $100,000 to $149,000 are just 4%. The Department of Labor, for years, has always claimed that anything under 5% unemployment is considered “full employment” since many times for personal reasons, transitions, etc. there are always some people not actively seeking a new job or in-between jobs.

The unfortunate fact for lower income earners is that unemployment is extremely high, particularly in the lowest wage brackets – such as under $12,499, where the unemployment rate is a mind numbing 30.8% and those in the range of $12,500 to $20,000 where the unemployment rate is 19.1%.  For those in those lower income brackets and in the hardest hit industries – we feel for you.

However, if you’re in the higher income brackets, it’s not as bad as it looks – and may be much better.  So next time when you read about unemployment rates, make sure you get the rest of the story before you get downright depressed or decide it is useless to look for a job. Job hunting for those people earning over $100,000 is never easy, and takes time, but the deep recession has really not affected that group significantly compared with normal times.  For high income earners, use best-practices in your job search, and remember job hunting is a full time job at your level.  And keep your chin up!

Good hunting!

At least the patient has a heartbeat!

As we previously mentioned, the job market in the Bay area has definitely improved, but with a slight glitch:  salaries (on an average) have either gone down or not kept up with inflation, as reported by a Dice.com salary survey of 1,260 Silicon Valley based technology professionals.

A key example is the IT field, where salaries were down 1%.  With inflation running about 3%, that’s a loss of 4% in buying power.

The good news is that here in the Silicon Valley we still lead the nation in average IT salaries at $96,299, with the average national salary being $78,845.  The major area for salary growth was in Washington, DC (that figures), which had a jump of 4.3% to an average of $89,014.

Another interesting number was the increase in compensation for consultants, with an increase in Silicon Valley to $106,366 (nationwide average $98,964), and at an hourly rate of $67.67 (national average $61.56).  This correlates well with what we’re seeing at AA-Careers.  We’ve seen an increase in job offers for consultants, with companies being cautious about adding regular employees with the economic situation being as it is at present.

The article also quotes Tom Silver, Senior VP, North America at Dice, “Today, Silicon Valley has more available jobs than at this time last year”.  We agree, this is an improved market for technology job hunters.  The report went on to say, that in the survey, 46% stated they were satisfied with their compensation and only 37% were dissatisfied.  The Conference Board estimates a 2.8 wage increase in 2010, headlining “wage increases will barely cover inflation“.  At least covering inflation is better than losing ground, so that’s progress.

I think also we have to take in consideration that in some cases people have seen a reduction in rent, and for those who had the opportunity to re-fi their homes, that monthly payment has been reduced… that should also help to get thru these times.

Copies of both these reports can be found in the Client’s lounge at AA-Careers.

As always,
Good Hunting!

Beware what you post!

Saw a couple of interesting, related posts this weekend about social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace etc.) and job hunting.  I’d group the concerns into three areas:

First, be careful what you post about the job hunt itself.  If you’re updating your status to “just had a great interview” or “just interviewed a terrible company” you may be broadcasting to a much wider audience than you think.  Facebook, for example, recently changed the way that your information is shared (and many people clearly aren’t aware of this).  Yes, you can limit who can see your information if you’ve got everything set right, but it’s harder to protect than you think.  For example, Facebook applications that you use (like FamilyLink) have access to pretty much everything – again, unless you set the application access to limit this.  So, just assume your prospective employer can see your status.  That way, you can’t go wrong.

Second, be aware that many employers will look you up online…and any factual differences between your profile information and your resume may lead to problems (see related article).  This might lead your prospective employer thinking that perhaps you’re misleading them.  Dates and employers much match.  If your LinkedIn profile has more history than your resume, that may be okay, so long as the part that’s on your resume is the same as the profile.  But date discrepancies, title discrepancies, and employer discrepancies could be killers.  And you may not get a chance to explain.

Third, all of the information you have out there may influence whether you get hired.   This includes your statements of opinion, things you’ve said about prior employers, personal pictures, and, well – everything.  Things that might seem innocuous…like crude jokes you thought were private, to polarizing or political statements (see related article) could easily influence a hiring manager to pass over you.

Here’s what to do:

1. Get your public information in sync with your resume.
2. Purge anything problematic as best you can.  This can be a bit hard…and if you have a lot, you might consider hiring a reputation management firm to help.  I’ve read about one called Reputation Defender, but I can’t vouch for them personally – they’re just an example.
3. Set up your profile preferences (like on Facebook) to limit who can see things.  Here’s a good resource to take you through the steps for Facebook
4. Treat your posts and status messages as if they’re readable by anyone.  It’s just good practice.

Good hunting!

• Edward Jones
• Google
• Qualcomm
• Cisco
• Genentech, and
• Intel

Some other companies hiring (with a lesser presence in the Bay Area) include:  PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, and Accenture.

The article doesn’t detail exactly where the openings are – but sometimes companies are flexible on this, anyway.

-Good hunting!

Job Hunting in December? Yes!

A widely held belief is that Job Hunting in December is a waste of time. But, times and beliefs are changing rapidly – and that belief about Job Hunting in December now needs to get washed down the drain.

Thanks to a highly motivated staff of consultants and some hard working clients, December came in as the best month of the year for 2009 for our clients to land new jobs.  We refer to the job hunt as a “Market Campaign”, and we had more Market Campaign Completion (MCC’s) in December than any other month in 2009, and it was the best December since 1999 (the era of the dot.coms).

We started to see some good movement starting in the fall of 2009.  Many companies, who have trimmed their staff to the bone, were starting to hire consultants for 3-6 month contracts. Also, as noted in prior blog posts, some of the stimulus money finally made its way to Silicon Valley.  And the Dice Career Fair this month had 13 hiring companies; attendance came close to 1,000 job seekers.

In the MCC’s in December, the average compensation (base pay) was $117,000, with highest being $175,000.  We also saw our first sign-on bonus ($6,000) in over 6 months. The clients were fairly evenly divided, with 38% making career changes and 62% staying with their career path. The biggest gains were in IT and ‘Green Jobs’.

We got some great comments from clients this month which we’ll use to update the website at some point, like “all the effort and hard work paid off”, “had great confidence walking into the interview room”, and “improved my salary $30,000”.  100% of our December clients who completed their job hunting campaigns checked the box that they would be happy to receive referrals.

I feel confident that 2010 will be a good year for the Valley.

Good hunting!