Bored people are boring

What do your employment workshops look and sound like?

Here is a page with some example presentations for inspirational purposes: You are in the presentation business. I think the first one is the best use of design, and the voice is dramatic. Larry Lessig's delivery in #2 has good timing, but I don't find it interesting.

Here is my favorite TED video: Hans Rosling and "the best stats you've ever seen."

More slide shows: Slideshare.

I borrowed some style from "What teachers make" for a presentation on dressing during a job search (door to door visits). I took out the pictures for privacy reasons. You'll need to use your imagination.

Slides included photos of onestop employment specialists demonstrating the right and wrong ways to dress. Including staff made a huge impression on the audience, who commented that it was much better than generic pictures of models or strangers. For further involvement, ask job seekers to participate as models. As we went through the slideshow, we asked participants to critique the outfits.

Dressing for job search

View more presentations from employmentspecialist.

A Hamburger Today...or Two on Tuesday?

I'm catching up on the July posts that I promised! If you're having trouble waiting, there is bad news in store. Self-control and delayed gratification may be connected to success in life, according to a long-term study described in this New Yorker article by Jonah Lehrer.

In May, I accompanied a job seeker on a job hunting trip. We picked some employers in a nearby neighborhood and hit the sidewalk with resumes in hand. She was dressed nicely, business casual with a spring flair, and she had taken the time to fix her hair and makeup. It was a noticeable effort that I complimented. Then, she said, "And I can't smoke, right?"

That's right!

The next hour and a half was a battle over an extreme example of self-control: resisting nicotine addiction. She made it to 7 businesses before I let her have her cigarette reward. At that point, she looked through her purse and found that she had lost her last one.

Along the way on our trip, she found a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk. That made the lost cigarette a minor disappointment.

While cigarette cravings are not the type of impulse referenced in the New Yorker article, the situation helped me link the study with employment services. What kind of impact, I wondered, could an inability to delay gratification have on a job seeker?

Some ideas:

1. Unrealistic expectation of a short job search; frustration grows as time goes on.

2. A lack of long-term planning; no investment in training, education, or working oneself up from entry-level.

3. Disassociation between the effort necessary to apply and the reward of being hired; there may be too large a gap between the action (targeted resume and cover letter, fully completed application, follow-up calls or visits, interviewing) and the result (job offer).

This is where an employment plan with short-term goals -make a big deal about checking them off- can pay off.

Dying newspapers and growing application piles

Recent discussions with Portland, OR employers have revealed the following.

*A job listing in the daily Oregonian newspaper received only a few responses (walk-in applications only).

*The same job listing on craigslist a week later resulted in a steady stream of applicants, but only on the first day. Responses dropped off to only a handful on day 2. The employer was reluctant to post on craigslist due to previous issues with the quality of applicants ("interesting people").

*One discount department store is receiving up to 50 applications a day. Over the summer, hiring will slow down due to participation in the youth (WIA) summer jobs program.

Rags to Riches in 15 days!

I recently read Get Hired Fast: Tap the Hidden Job Market in 15 Days by Brian Graham, which I acquired as an impulse buy at FedEx Office. I bought it after skimming through and seeing that it focused on cold calling, which is a common deficiency in job searches. It is taxing to make enough cold calls to get good at it, and people generally stay away from doing things they are not good at, which leads to few cold calls.

According to Get Hired Fast, it is a mistake to shy away from cold calls, and I agree. The book's strong suit is its support for cold calling as the focus of a job search strategy, from researching employers to developing a script for calls. It's all part of a regiment that prescribes a short (3 weeks) but concentrated (150 calls) calling campaign.

There are 2 things I've started to tell job seekers lately. The first is that job search is what they do outside of my cubicle (meaning that they need to be active outside of our visits). The second is that of all the job seekers who have found jobs while in our program over the last year, only 1 has gotten a job from online-only sources. All the others have used personal contacts (including job developed by employment specialists), walk-in visits (including in-person visits to employers advertising online), or cold-calls to find open positions that they've applied for and gotten.

Get Hired Fast corroborates this position that job seekers need to get away from the computer as much as possible. Unfortunately, cold calling is only the subject of half the book. The rest of the pages are repeats of standard job seeking advice about interviewing and responding to job offers. This highlights the difficulty with cold-calling; even a book about cold-calling needs a little sugar to help the medicine go down. Instead of this generic advice, I wish it would have included more about script writing and more about dealing with rejection. It honestly states that there will be a lot of rejection.

Get Hired Fast is also like a guide to losing 10 pounds or quitting smoking. It tells you what to do and it tells you how to do it. It doesn't make it easy or fun, though, and the hard work is up to you. If you're advocating for job seekers to make cold calls, I recommend checking it out from a library; it is not essential to have it permanently on your bookshelf.

As a bonus, it can help with job development, where cold calling skills are useful.

I know how to job search, I've been doing it for YEARS

There are at least 2 struggles regarding job search knowledge as an Employment Specialist. One involves establishing authority as an "expert" at gaining employment. Another involves sorting through all the job search advice that is floating around in our universe.

A couple of weeks ago, I followed posts at Ask A Manager in which the Manager debated another blogger who advised readers that they are free to burn bridges with past employers/supervisors without repercussion. (I side with Ask a Manager; job seekers need those professional references!)

Then this week at a job fair, a workshop facilitator included this in a list of "10 truths" about job search:

"You do not need a resume to do a job search."

Is it possible to get a job without a resume? Sure. Can all my job seekers throw away their resumes? The idea frightens me.

There is probably a nuanced explanation to the "no resume" job search, but the 1/2 hour presentation didn't leave time for that.

Another "truth" revealed was:

"In most cases people hire people they know and like -- whether or not the candidate has the exact experience, background or skills to do the job."

I think it's absolutely true, BUT it needs to be managed carefully. If an employer doesn't know the job seeker, the qualifications are very necessary. The key word is "exact." Many people may replace "exact" with "any" and start applying for jobs that they should not be considering, and they may neglect opportunities they are qualified for in favor of long-shot applications.

My coworkers found a simple way to improve the statement: In most cases people hire people they know and like IN ADDITION to having the experience, background or skills to do the job.

I don't think the advice is wrong; I think it's careless advice in a sea of job seekers with different skills and abilities. We can't expect everyone to be able to discern when to use a resume and when not to, or when to overreach or not.

More Excel Chart Fun

This is in response to:

1. Job seekers who rush through applications and submit incomplete or half-hearted applications
2. Application forms that don't have areas that let individuals shine through.
3. The "Do I need a cover letter?" debate.

Full Speed Ahead

Here are some visual aids to remind job seekers to conduct a full job search. They are meant to help those who:

1. Stay within a comfort zone (usually too much internet and newspaper...passive job search)
2. Take too many days off and miss good opportunities






This week is off to a great start. It's sunny, one of my customer's started a new job today, a friend announced a FOURTH Urban Design/Landscape Architecture graduate school acceptance (UPenn, Harvard, U-Washington, and U-British Columbia!), and a college classmate won a Pulitzer! This is the kind of day that keeps me keeping on.

2nd Opinions

Last month, we had a recruiter from Comcast speak to a group of jobseekers about HR's perspective in the job search process. The jobseekers gave their full attention as she spoke about many of the job search strategies we try to teach every day. The fresh voice, and the recruiter's power to hire, helped the lessons sink in.

An unemployed accountant I worked with (college degree plus 20 years of experience) was disillusioned with the lack of feedback from employers he interviewed with, so I pointed him to a book on "insider secrets" from an HR veteran.

Today, I was exploring online and found some more advice from the recruiting field. Punk Rock HR led me to Peopleshark, where Carmen Hudson wrote some Cold, Hard Truth for Jobseekers in January.

What struck me most: "If you don't have a real network of people you know, have lunch or drinks with, who know your work, you're up a creek without a paddle."
I've met many jobseekers with such poor ties to their job history that they can't remember supervisors' names for their applications, and they never stayed in a job long enough to form real relationships with coworkers.

Also, from the comments on that post: "Some jobs that are posted or advertised are destined to be filled internally; advertising was just for show and you never had a chance."

Breaking news: Jobs!

Here's an update on the televised Rio Grande Valley Jobathon I posted about earlier in the week. KRGV Newschannel 5 has pictures and video from throughout the day's broadcast on a special job fair page.

The videos highlight employers as well as individual job seekers. Job seekers had less than a minute to make their pitch. Most were only able to give a brief description of their experience, the field they are interested in, and their Work in Texas ID number, which will allow employers to see their full resume and contact information.

Is your elevator pitch ready for primetime?

There is one video moment that made me cringe. In a story about onestop services, a staff person is identified as an UNEMPLOYMENT Specialist.

Workforce Solutions and Workforce Solutions Cameron organized the event.

Mystery shopping, emphasis on "mystery"

In a real world follow-up to this post on job search scams, a job seeker reported today that he has received two money orders (totalling $1500) from a mystery shopping job offer he replied to on craigslist.

Though he was suspicious of the checks' legitimacy, he had a small hope that it was a real opportunity. The job seeker gave me copies of the emails, and it appears to be a check-cashing scheme operating under the cover of mystery shopping. It was even being done under the name of a legitimate mystery/secret shopping company. The instructions were to cash the money orders, spend some of the money on shopping assignments, keep $150 per assignment, and wire the remainder back to an individual in another state while emailing scanned copies of the receipts and a report on the shopping assignment.

Suspicious elements that I pointed out to the job seeker:
1. He had never been interviewed or screened for the job. His only communication with the company was his email response via craigslist. Legitimate companies don't send $1500 to a stranger.
2. Reputable mystery shopper organizations frequently offer reimbursements on expenses as opposed to paying those costs upfront.
3. The "employer" was doing business through a free gmail account.
4. The company address was in Washington state, but instructions were to wire money to an individual in North Carolina
4. There was unusual pressure being applied as the "employer" stressed that the assignment needed to be completed within 24 hours.
5. The "employer" was asking for funds to be transferred to a name other than his own.

Basic safeguards I warn job seekers of:
1. Stay away from offers that charge a fee.
2. Stay away from offers that involve transferring money.

The prevalence of scams in the current job market is an opportunity for a onestop workshop topic: protecting oneself from identity theft and employment scams during a job search. Jobseekers who are new to the internet need to know what information should not be divulged and how to spot legitimate recruiters.

Mystery shopping resources:
Federal Trade Commission mystery shopping page
National Shopping Services Network (includes a section for scam alerts)

After these messages: Jobs!

Workforce Solutions (Lower Rio Grande Workforce Development Board) and Workforce Solutions Cameron (Cameron County WDB) will be participating in a televised job-a-thon on April 1st.

The job-a-thon will air on KRGV Newschannel 5 (Rio Grande Valley's ABC affiliate) throughout next Wednesday. Live segments will air from various onestop centers showcasing both employers and jobseekers. Traditional job fairs will be held the same day at the local onestops, which will allow jobseekers to reach employers without having to go on television.

While it's easy to imagine most employers are interested in the free advertising while announcing job openings, this may be quite a challenge for jobseekers. I would certainly be impressed by a candidate who is able to go on live tv and make a good pitch to employers.

Pssst...wanna buy a job...it's cheap?

I found a news article from the Enid News and Eagle (Enid, OK) warning of a scam targeting clients of Oklahoma's unemployment services. The perpetrators attempt to charge a fee for providing services that are free through the Oklahoma Unemployment Commission or Workforce Oklahoma.

Identifying scams and educating job seekers of them part of the hidden job duties of employment specialists.

Other scams to watch out for, most of which I've seen firsthand with jobseekers I serve:

Fake job postings, especially on free craigslist sites, that are either tools for spam, avenues to gain access to personal information, or are looking for participants in fraudulent schemes.

Spam job search sites, which require an extensive registration process that goes through many opt-out advertising offers and includes sensitive information such as social security numbers.

Re-mailing and fund transferring schemes.

A classic that happened in a onestop system I worked in: individuals posing as recruiters took advantage of onestop center conference rooms available to employers in order to receive applications and conduct interviews for imaginary jobs, which was a method of gaining personal information from dozens of jobseekers. Organizational policies changed to require verification of all employers conducting business through the onestop.

Work-at-home or buy-a-business scams seem to be lower risks to me because they require high upfront payments which the jobseekers I have worked with are not willing or able to pay.

Senior Class '09

Here's a Wall Street Journal article on the growing ranks of unemployed senior citizens, which coincides with more older people staying in the workforce.

The article mentions the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) and service providers Experience Works and Senior Employment Center (Cleveland).

Writer Clare Anberry reports on the difficulties that seniors have in finding employment, mentioning that seniors have a hard time convincing others that they can work, but she also focuses on physical ailments that limit the abilities of those workers featured in the article. Readers may judge that these seniors aren't working because they aren't capable of fulfilling their job duties. Also, while the article states that the SCSEP only has enough funding to serve 1% of the citizens who may be eligible, there is a larger focus on workers who have spent years in SCSEP programs without progressing to unsubsidized employment.

Older workers are part of the changing workforce, but workforce initiatives such as retraining, IT jobs, and green jobs don't always include objectives for serving the oldest workers.

Word on the street

I spoke to a retail manager today while job developing, and he gave this summary of the hiring for a new store:

500 applicants
200 interviews
37 temporary hires

9 out of the 37 will be kept on permanently after the pre-opening work is complete.

A co-worker and I visited 4 employers this afternoon in inner NE Portland. Although none of them are currently hiring, there were bright spots in that 3 of them had made recent hires and the 4th expects to do some hiring in April. Plus, the managers at each place were friendly and helpful. Each invited us to check in periodically and send information on our program.

Job developing (and job search) frequently reminds me of The Endless Summer, in which the stars would reach a surf spot with disappointing waves and be told, "You should have been here yesterday."

Better working through chemistry

Someone recently told me about an interview she conducted where the candidate gave many intimate details of her life and was horrifyingly candid about her past employer. The candidate was eliminated due to the performance, but the Program Manager conducting the interview was so concerned about the candidate's frankness that she contacted the candidate afterwards to advise her never to do that in an interview again.

Last fall, a job seeker reported to a colleague after an interview that the hiring manager told him on the way out that he shouldn't be so nervous and shy in the future.

Both applicants were lucky to get feedback, because most employers disappear like a bad date.

"I'll call you."
"Don't call us, we'll call you."
"You should hear something in the next week or two."

Susan Kreimer explores the dating metaphor in an article on interview chemistry.

It touches on being personable without being too personal, as well as the focus for "getting the right fit" when hiring.

In this job market, and when working with populations with severe barriers to employment, we need to be generous when determining the right fit: it includes complementary work styles and backgrounds and doesn't mean that all staff are from the same mold.

All you really need to know pt. 2

I don't believe that this means that programs such as job training and GED preparation are useless. I agree though that they will not work without instilling fundamental social and behavioral skills in participants.

One challenge I have encountered as an Employment Specialist concerns resume development with job seekers who have erratic work histories. While exploring their experiences, common threads include a lack of lasting relationships with supervisor and coworkers, an indifference to details such as dates and addresses, and an inability to articulate job duties and accomplishments.

Where resume advice states to highlight outstanding achievements, these job seekers draw blanks.

If they bother to list references on applications, they only have personal ones to choose from.

As a tactic to pull out more information, give them an informal job interview. Rather than a mock interview, lead a conversation that asks questions such as "what were you proudest of at your last job?" or "what was hard about that position?" and follow-up until you get an answer that can be translated into an application, resume, and cover letter.

Inc.com has some good questions in their Top Job Interview Questions slideshow. My favorites:
How have you handled the last few difficult customers you've come across?
What is the most significant presentation you've given to clients?

With some tweaking, they can be directed at most job descriptions, and they give your customer the chance to talk about good things they've done.

By casually working through these kinds of questions, you will also begin preparing customers for interviews in a non-threatening manner. Customers should become comfortable speaking about their past jobs and sell themselves without trying to.

It is also important to review soft skills, such as showing up early, saying please and thank you, and writing thank you notes during the application process. For job retention, work on willingness to try new things and take direction, as well as building professional relationships.

Finally, I recognize some overlap between the traits Heckman finds important and the traits that Pixar looks for in their staff.

All you really need to know pt. 1

James J. Heckman is a Nobel Prizewinning economist at the University of Chicago.

From his bio: "His recent research deals with such issues as evaluation of social programs, econometric models of discrete choice and longitudinal data, the economics of the labor market, and alternative models of the distribution of income."

Heckman is featured in a This American Life episode, "Going Big", in reference to a social program in New York City that is trying to solve urban poverty through early childhood intervention.

Heckman's work is cited in "Going Big" for his finding that traditional approaches to poverty such as job training are ineffective. Correspondent Paul Tough states:

"The premise behind job training is that young people who can't find a good job are just missing one particular skill or body of knowledge; teach them that and they'll be fine. What Heckman found is that the people in these programs had a much bigger problem. There were some very basic skills and abilities that they had never learned. And it was hard for them to absorb anything new without those skills."

Heckman reports that the missing skills included "the ability to communicate, to solve simple mathematical puzzles, to understand how to even read the newspaper, as well as the non-cognitive: self control, motivation, the ability to get out of bed, to show up at work on time, to engage and be open to ideas. These traits were in very serious short supply for individuals that I was looking at."

A crowded field

One thing I hear from many job seekers, even from some in their early twenties, is that it used to be easy to walk into places, apply for jobs, and get hired at one of the first places they tried.

A common complaint is that they try to be proactive and visit employers but find they aren't able to talk to any managers and are directed to apply online. While hitting the streets to submit applications a few weeks ago, a job seeker and I were even stopped at the gates of one employer and given the "apply online" statement.

While employers have benefited from the online application process by saving time they used to spend answering inquiries at the store, office, or factory, and by being able to quickly scan for keywords and minimum qualifications, the ease by which job seekers can send a resume is beginning to overload human resources staff.

With affordable internet access at home, and near universal access at libraries, schools, and onestops, most job seekers are submitting online applications. It doesn't take much motivation to copy and paste, or attach, a resume multiple times. Someone who wouldn't make the effort to drive across town or buy a stamp to apply for a position will be willing to spend a few minutes on an email. The more lines in the water, the more fish I'll catch, they might think.

The problem is that there are fewer fish to catch today, and the person in the next boat is throwing out their lines as well. Even worse, anglers who used to chase salmon or tuna are now content to catch mullet.

CNN Money's Jessica Dickler writes about the rise in applications for entry-level and "less desirable" jobs. The flood of applications muddies the water for qualified job seekers and frustrates HR departments.

As an Employment Specialist, think about:
1. How will my customers stand out?
2. Where are my customers applying?
3. How can I get through to a real person for job development?
4. How can my customers get through to a real person?

Battle for the ages

Outside of a recession, older job seekers find that they are competing against others with experience, and against the stigma that some employers hold against them. Today, younger workers are being added to the mix of competition, as all workers find themselves in a shrinking job market.

The Wall Street Journal posted a Career Strategies article last year on Finding a new position as a mature job hunter. It shares good advice to increase competitiveness, address employer fears, and ease job finding stress.

Along with this information, it is good to know who is hiring and firing. According to Oregon Employment Department Workforce Analyst Christian Kaylor, the 25-50 year old* demographic loses jobs at a higher rate than do workers in other age groups. For various reason, older workers still hold some job security.

The Oregon Employment Department also has a recent article on hiring trends for workers over age 65: Will you still hire me, when I'm 65? Curiously, the Natural Resources and Mining industry has the largest percentage of new hires who are over 65. 9.0% of new hires in that field are over 65. Professional and business services had the largest overall new hires over 65, but only 2.2% of new hires in that field were in that age group.

Look forward to a post that compiles labor statistics websites from across the United States.

*Based on memory (without notes) from a presentation by Mr. Kaylor. The exact age range may vary.

Help Wanted: Sandwich Board Sign Maker

When does the wacky become the norm? Recent years have seen occasional job seekers heading out to city street corners with sandwich boards (or picket sign) advertising their qualifications, but I wonder if there's a point where it will be looked down on as cliche.

The latest story I've seen is from my current hometown of Portland, OR.

The most famous case is probably this man who made it into countless national and worldwide newspapers and magazines in the summer of 2008.

The thing that's most interesting is how news coverage of these individuals can enhance the job seeker's marketability. Do more people stop and talk to the person if there are news cameras rolling? Is it good advertising for a company to hire the person and become part of the story?

I would recommend the approach for adventurous public relations, advertising, journalism, and other communications professionals. From now on, though, it may take an additional twist to make a big splash.

What about a job search reality tv show? There are at least two premises:
1. Shadow job seekers through their search.
2. Contestants compete for a job (a down-to-earth Apprentice)