MI:SE

Last week, I attended a training by Jon Larsen on Motivational Interviewing (MI) within Supported Employment programs.

Jon argued the case for MI (assessing interest and readiness for employment, identifying strengths and barriers) and provided practice on techniques and tools for putting it all into practice.

Some points:

Actively listen: Jon asked us to role play a dialogue where the Employment Specialist was only allowed 2o words. The challenge was to keep the conversation going as long as possible up to the 20 word limit.

Be patient as a problem-solver: This refers back to the listening point. Use MI to gather information, to guide a customer in thinking through a decision, or explore setbacks.

Ask permission: If you must absolutely interrupt and offer an opinion or suggestion during MI, ask permission first. Leadership Through People Skills offers a similar tactic for managers: gauge for reciptivity before beginning a discussion.

The training had good information and Jon was an excellent presenter. He had frontline knowledge from his own work and mixed in entertaining stories. My only recommendation is that Jon include more practice in the session.

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.

The employment specialist world of tomorrow, expanded

Michele Martin presented a workshop on Using Free Internet Technologies to Support Customer Job Searches and Provide High Quality Services at this year's Garden State Employment and Training Association Conference (GSETA). It's a great how-to for following through with using social media and other web tools for workforce development services. Check the conference wiki for the handouts to the other workshops as well.

Here is the outstanding GSETA blog.

The employment specialist world of tomorrow

Despite spending most of my day (work and personal time) on a computer, I'm a skeptic about the promises of world-changing web applications. I think MySpace is for kids and I figure that 99% of videos on Youtube are better off not seen. I follow people on Twitter, but don't tweet myself as I don't think my employer would approve. Of course, I do blog.

Still, I think these are all great tools for workforce development. Here's a roundup of the most hyped sites and thoughts on their potential in our field. Real life examples reveal the early adopters and some hiccups with blogs that were suspended after three posts or social networking profiles with zero friends.

Twitter

Basic:
1. Announce Events
2. Celebrate successes.

Advanced:
1. Connect to employers.
2. Advertise specific candidates.

-Workforce Solutions Heart of Texas tweets.
-Workforce Solutions Lower Rio Grande tweets.
-Wise (VA) Workforce Center tweets.
-Worksystems Inc (Portland, OR) tweets.

Youtube

Basic:
1. Recruiting/Informational Brochures
2. Event Recaps

Advanced:
1. Self-produced (targeted) training
2. Employer interviews/profiles

-Workforce Solutions (Houston-Galveston-Gulfcoast) application and interviewing videos on Youtube.


MySpace/Facebook

Basic
1. Announce events.
2. Recruit.

Advanced:
1. Maintain follow-up contact.
2. Connect participants to other resources.

-Workforce Solutions Heart of Texas Myspace.
-Columbia-Greene Workforce NY Myspace.
-Worksource Vancouver (WA) Myspace.


Other examples:

Workforce Solutions Gulf Coast blog.

Huron County (OH) employment specialist interview by the Toledo Blade on Youtube.

Cumberland County (NC) Workforce Development montage on Youtube.

WorkOne Southeast (IN) youth commercial on Youtube.

Wise (VA) Workforce Center podcasts.

More Job Development

Here are additional resources from job development consultants, training organizations, and state agencies:

Allen Anderson articles at Dover Training Group & Employment Management Professionals. Check out the whole site. I like this from the DTG-EMP About Us page:

1. Job seekers do not have to be job ready to go to work. Plenty of people who were not job ready are working.
2. A linear path works for the most able and a nonlinear path for the less able.
3. We respond to the job market; the job market does not respond to us.
4. Job development is sales and marketing, not education or counseling, although education and counseling are often sales and marketing.
5. Employer needs are the keys to jobs, not candidate skills.
6. Failing at a job is a good beginning, not a poor ending.
7. The employer is the linchpin to jobs - gain control here and all is possible.
8. The only absolute must in going to work is the motivation to work.

More from Allen Anderson and Employment Management Professionals. (May have duplicate articles.)

Job development powerpoint presentation to Oregon Office of Vocational Rehabilitation Services (OVRS).

Additional materials from OVRS.

Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) podcast, What Do Employers Want?

ICI article, Increasing Placement Through Professional Networking

Business Class

Job development is not on the job description of every employment specialist, and it can look very different across the spectrum of workforce development programs.

In Youth WIA, I've seen job development handled as an extension of paid work experience (or on-the-job training). As a core onestop service, I've seen job development refer to soliciting or receiving job orders. In customized and supported employment, it becomes an intensive hands-on part of most job searches.

The competitiveness of the current job market emphasizes job development as a key element in employment services for job seekers who face tough barriers to employment. Unfortunately, it is harder to be successful at job development than it is to make a good resume or teach a job readiness workshop.

Even for great and experienced job developers, approaching businesses leads to rejection!

Job seekers don't get every job they apply for, but we still encourage them to keep trying. With coaching and practice, they will get a job. Employment specialists need to summon the same courage, take on the urgency of the job seeker, and keep trying as well.

Here are a few links to job development tips & tricks from around the web:

The Toolbox from Cygnet Associates: 23 tips for job development, and other workforce development guidance for general customer populations.

Massworks Tips for Job Development During Tough Times. 5 tips addressing job development in tight job markets. This is a post from Massworks' blog which has a strong focus on workforce development for people with disabililities.

Job development best practices via Powerpoint for the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Project. Includes basic strategies for incorporating employment into case management, and job development tips useful for working with all job seekers.

Supported Employment job development tips & trends from Canada. The last post is dated 2006, but I didn't see the 3 tips under the heading Relationship-based marketing on other lists.

How To Design and Deliver an Effective Job Development and Placement Program. A Dept. of Housing and Urban Development guide for its Neighborhood Works program. This guide includes telemarketing tips and a sample phone script.

Building Your Pitch, an MS Word outline for an elevator pitch from the Department of Labor's Performance Enhancement Project.

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."

The Rust Belt and other lost souls

States I missed in my roundups:

Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth
Indiana Department of Workforce Development
Wyoming Department of Employment
Rhode Island Department of Labor & Training
Oklahoma Employment Security Commission

The Great State of...Part 2

Here's the remainder of state workforce resources. This is the eastern U.S. edition, of which there are a bit more states plus D.C.

Alabama Office of Workforce Development
Arkansas Department of Workforce Services
Connecticut Department of Labor
Delaware Department of Labor
District of Columbia Department of Employment Services
State of Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation
Georgia Department of Labor
Illinois Department of Employment Security
Iowa's Employment Security Agency
Kentucky Office of Employment and Training
Louisiana Workforce Commission
Maine Department of Labor
Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation
Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development
Mississippi Department of Employment Security
Missouri Department of Economic Development
New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development
New York State Department of Labor
Employment Security Division of North Carolina
New Hampshire Department of Employment Security
Ohio Department of Job and Family Services
Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry
South Carolina Employment Security Commission
Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development
Vermont Department of Labor
Virginia Employment Commission
Workforce West Virginia
Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development

Did I miss any?

The Great State of...part 1

Moving from Texas to Oregon has meant adjusting to different workforce models. Still, after a year, I return to the Texas Workforce Commission website to revisit technical assistance resources and see what's new back home. I've also started to look at other states to find ideas or strategies I can use day-to-day.

Here are state employment/labor/workforce agency websites from the western half of the US. (Western based on an arbitrary imaginary line I made in the map).

Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development
Arizona Employment Administration
California Employment Development Department
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment
Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations
Idaho Department of Labor
Kansas Department of Labor
Montana Department of Labor and Industry
Nebraska Workforce Development
Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation
New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions
Job Service North Dakota
Oregon Employment Department
South Dakota Department of Labor
Texas Workforce Commission
Utah Department of Workforce Services
Washington State Employment Security Department

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)

Keep on truckin'

The current job market and poor economy overall will equal stressful times for Employment Specialists working directly with frustrated job seekers. In addition to the hard work of motivating and counseling job seekers as the job search stretches onward, Employment Specialists face the burden of feeling like their efforts are not yielding results. All of these factors put Employment Specialists at risk of burning out.

I did some searching and found information on burnout in jobs such as human services, teaching, and counseling. I also found tips for avoiding burnout.

The Addiction Technology Transfer Center (established by SAMHSA in 1993) dedicates part of their website to Burnout and Compassion Fatigue, including definitions, signs/symptoms, and self-care. The site also provides management tips for keeping staff content and productive.

Social Work Burnout provides an overview and links to resources provided by an MSW with firsthand and research knowledge of burnout.

Fried Social Worker is less formal in design but has serious content. It also has lots of self care, humor, and relaxation content.

There is also an interesting journal article (and likely many more) from the Journal of Counseling & Development. Here is the abstract:

The Relationship of Work Environment and Client Contact to Burnout in Mental Health Professionals.
Explored the relationship of the work environment and client contact to scores of mental health professionals on the Emotional Exhaustion, Personal Accomplishment, and Depersonalization subscales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Work environments associated with low levels of general burnout were those in which workers were strongly committed to work, coworker relationships were encouraged, and supervisory relationships were supportive.

Journal access is required to read the article. I went through the ERIC database via my Multnomah County Library membership. Haven't visited a library in a while? In addition to saving money vs. buying books, many now provide services such as online journal access and streaming movies and audio.

The findings in this article about commitment to work, coworker relationships and supervisory relationships remind me of an organizational assessment from Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in Breaking All the Rules.

Questions they ask are:
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I recieved recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?

Bob Loblaw's Job Blog

A quick blog post on blogging:

CNN/Careerbuilder gives us 6 job blogs you should be reading.

Businessweek.com's Business Exchange features user-generated links to job-related news and blogs.

The Christian Science Monitor looked at blogs as a job-hunting tool.