The best of times, the worst of times.

Finding a job in your chosen career can be difficult at the best of times. We are certainly not in the best of times! I have now been looking for full time work for almost four years (it will be four years next month.) Right now according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics I am technically in the involuntary part time workers category, and it is no fun. Sometimes I feel like I am in the marginally attached category (those who want to work full time, but have stopped looking because they feel like they can't/won't be able to find a job.)

Either way I am suffering, and so are millions of Americans. For the raw data some of you may be interested in the actual BLS report for July. It is rather dry to read, but here is what I take away... little has changed in the past year. Thats a bad thing! In the last year the stock market has gone up over 20%,  home prices have risen a little over 12%, home sales are up, and every month it seems that the private sector hiring is higher than the overall number. For example in July ADP reported that private sector hiring created 200,000 jobs, yet the overall number just released by the BLS was a gain of 162,000 jobs. So the quick math would indicated that the public sector lost 38,000 jobs in July. Initial analysis by CNN/Money seems to agree with me that this is not good. Bloomberg News also notes that hours worked and earnings were down slightly for the month. All of this adds up to bad news.

I realize that this may be an oversimplified example... but if the Federal Reserve still contends that the government should be spending more on infrastructure (roads, bridges, schools, etc.) then instead of spending $85 billion per month to buy bonds, why can't they spend on infrastructure? Even $1 billion per month would make a difference.

Certainly some of the job loses in the public sector since the rescission began in 2008 were jobs that may have not been necessary... but we can't sustain this. The private sector can't hire all 12 million unemployed Americans. It certainly can't absorb all the unemployed/underemployed/marginally attached workers (I think that number is closer to 25 million!)

Yesterday I wrote about a disturbing trend to shift work to part time or temporary work. If we relay on the private sector to rehire all the people who want to work, this trend will get worse and so will the country as a whole. So while these are by no means the best of times, things will get a whole lot worse in my opinion if this trend continues.

To best position yourself remember to prepare your self for any opportunity with sound research about the company and industry you are interviewing with. Be prepared to make connections between your skills, abilities, and background to their position and situation. As always good luck, and fi you have any thoughts I would love to hear them.

Beating Unemployment.

J.T. O'Donnell is a career expert, and this recent piece (3 Tips to Beat an Unemployment Stigma) got me thinking. She starts out by mentioning a new study (written up in the Washington Post piece here) that says long term unemployment can be a source of discrimination during a job search. I first want to echo her sarcasm over the shocking nature of these results. It is certainly something I have written about, providing links to advice and offering my own thoughts.

I like the 3 tips that Ms. O'Donnell shares. They are more than just general advice/common sense things that we all already knew. Hopefully anyone reading this will take heart in that (to me at least) they are simple and actionable steps that I can apply today.

Her second tip can involve some heavy lifting with the research muscle.  Don't forget to refer back to my posts of research tips to find useful advice on how to approach learning about a company beyond just reading their web page.

When approaching this company research, while it is important to learn as much as possible from the information that the company produces, it is vital to gather background about the company from 3rd party news outlets and to learn about the industry that your target company is a part of and something about it's major competitors as well.

For anyone who has read this blog long enough will remember that I work in academic libraries. At my FPOW I had the pleasure of working closely with several campus offices that helped students find work. They mentioned time and again that the feedback they got from recruiters is that job candidates don't know enough about their company. Since leaving that university and starting this blog I have seen many advice articles that also mention this. Doing the research about the company is critical. So here is a senerio:

Candidate 1 has not done much research, and therefore the interview is mainly about them and their background.

You (as candidate 2) have done some of this research and you can mention things you have learned (big bonus), but if you can mention these things and make a connection to your background and how it will help you help them... (BIG BIG bonus)

Hopefully it is clear the power of this kind of research. Much of it can be done with smart web searching, but you can find better more reliable sources of information if you use a library. Try this post for a list of high quality resources provided by most state to all of their residents to perform this type of research.

I would love to hear from anyone who has used this type of approach to improve their interviewing.

What can be learned during a long job search.

Long job searches can be tough on the job seeker, I am sure if you are in that situation you don't need me to tell you that. Also each industry brings its own set of unique circumstances, even before we begin to analyze each persons unique situation. All that being said, I think that the advice of this librarian can be helpful for most job seekers in a long search (think 12 months or longer.)

If your job search has been too long (which is a totally personal decision) you may need to start thinking about a career change. This recent article on creating resumes for a career change may be helpful.  Also you may want to investigate my posts on employment trends, especially the recent post about thinking like a free agent.

• Tap your network and learn about different career paths you might explore.
• Once you have some ideas research these paths (try this post for a good starting point.)
• Generate questions you have about these options.
• Try to arrange informational interviews with people in your network (or from outside) to learn the answers to these questions.
• Think about volunteering to gain some experience in the new career path.
• Look to expand your network towards this new path.
• Look at LinkedIn groups that you might join to hear the perspective of experts in the area.
• Follow people on Twitter, Google+ or other social networks that allow to learn from/observe these experts.
• Once you feel comfortable join in on these conversations. This becomes part of your social resume.
• Remember to critically examine your skills and experience to identify areas that will apply to jobs in your new/desired field.
•  When performing this examination try a separate sheet (file) for each job (and possibly each major area of each job...) and begin to list in detail everything involved: skills, accomplishments, challenges.
• These lists will help you identify areas to highlight in a resume/cover letter for a job for which you have less experience, but feel that you have the right skills to succeed.

Above all keep the chin up and good luck.

Hiring the unemployed

This piece over on Recuriter.com covers the myth of hiring the unemployed. As Mr. Ladimeji explains, in times gone by it was assumed that if someone was unemployed they were undesirable as a candidate, but given the economy of the past few years this is becoming less true. This is welcome news for the nearly 2.5 million Americans who find themselves without employment as a results of the economic crisis of 2008.

This double-edged sword can still be tricky for many... in my personal experience I hope that after nearly two years out of work, my part-time job in my field is resharpening my skills and that it will help in all future employment searches. I know it is helping my professional network in my new home area. On the flip side however the time it takes out of my week makes it hard to juggle the job searching and application process for full time work.

This is a very personal decision and I wish everyone who is in the position to make it the best of luck. Just know that if you choose to stay unemployed in order to focus your full time on finding the work that best suits you, it should not hurt your chances as much as that decision may have five years ago.

Jobs outlook for 2013

CNN and Money Magazine have a this wonderful piece about the jobs outlook for 2013, which is in their series about Making More in 2013. While predictions like this are never guaranteed it looks like things will be improving for hiring and working conditions in 2013.

I encourage those both looking for employment and looking to improve their employment situation to read this piece. Then keep in mind both my advice and the advice of those I direct you to on employment trends to be aware of and preparing for the job search/interview.

I would love to hear from those who have good experiences in late  2012 and 2013.
Good Luck!

Dealing with long term unemployment

The Employable is an online community that seeks to fill the void for job seekers. This piece offers advice for dealing with long term unemployment. For the most part the advice in this piece are not radical, and things I have linked to in the past provide similar advice. My primary motivation to highlight this piece was the community itself. I like the idea on an online community with such a positive focus on this particular problem.

Hopefully it will be helpful for anyone out there that was unaware of it, and in this situation.

Fighting the Unemployment Stigma

Here is a post over at CareeRealism that offers some interesting advice for fighting the unemployment stigma. Now as I have mentioned before I was recently unemployed for very close to two years. There were many things about my situation that are likely unusual for the typical worker who is in this situation. The three tips from this piece are as follows (read their full post to get a better sense of the reasoning...):

• Stop looking for a job
• Press 'Play' on life
• Get a 360 degree evaluation

I agree with all of these, the second two are very good, and read well as stand alone tips. The first makes total sense if you read their entire description. There is always a reason you have been unemployed that long. Sometimes it is something you can control (being selective in you applications looking/waiting for a perfect fit, etc.) and sometimes they are things you can't control (living in an area with a high concentration of people in your industry, making the candidate pools very competitive, etc.)

By stopping and re-examining your situation and what you have been looking for can help put things back into perspective. As a personal example I live in between two highly ranked programs that produce librarians. Add to that many people in this area tend to stay close to where they have grown up, so there are many qualified librarians in the area. I have been typically told that I am one of one hundred or more candidates for most jobs I was applying for (I don't think any employer has ever given the exact number, not sure why?)

By slowing my search and spending some time to re-evaluate I was able to finally come to the conclusion that I need expand beyond traditional libraries. I found employers in my area that needed research/instructional skills and was making headway. Now if you have read this blog long term you will know I have settled into a part time librarian position. But if this opportunity had not come about, I was seeing positive signs that the re-evaluation was producing benefits (i.e. getting invited for the next round of interviews at one of the employers outside of my industry.)

What do others think?

Reasons for employers not calling back.

I have been intending to write about this for a little while, and this article from Fortune is a good place to get us started...

Their list includes:

• Job hoping
• Outdated skills
• Getting fired
• Age
• Unemployement

Three of these five you can't do much about if they are a factor for you (job hoping, getting fired, age.) One you can address/improve (outdated skills.) The final (unemployment) is more of a concern if you don't use the time to stay active in your field. Some of the suggestions from the article include:

• Online courses
• Certifications
• internships/volunteering
• networking

There is on item that they have overlooked, which if you are in the long-term unemployed you want to think about and try to improve. Your credit. If you are asking yourself why? keep this in mind: It is legal (and becoming more common) for employers to check your credit as a factor in employment decisions. Here are some articles that explain this further: Can credit kill a job offer? or Credit scores and jobs.

If you want to learn more about credit scores and how it can effect you, try this site I designed for the Community College I work at.

Good luck!
-George

How do we define ourselves?

I have seen this theme recurring over the past few months, without a career how does one define themselves? Here is the latest piece from NPR contributor Scott Simon. As someone who was looking for work until very recently I can say from personal experience that I continued to think of myself as a librarian. In web communication and when networking I would explain that I was a librarian without a library.

It appears from this story that I am fortunate in that my current part-time position is still in the field for which I am trained. When this is not the case how does that effect one's feelings of self worth and mental well being?

Would it possible be better to begin shifting our focus to our other interests? Family, hobbies, activities?

Also how does this tie into the American trait of working too much, and not using the vacation time they have earned? In study after study Americans consistently (myself includes, when I earned vacation) don't take all the vacation time they earn at their full time jobs. Is this healthy?

I would love to hear what others think.

Long term unemployment rolls on.

This piece from CNN/Money covers the increasing problem of the long term unemployed. This hits close to home, since I have now been out of work for twenty months and counting. Lets recap some of the general advice for dealing with long term unemployment:

consider additional schooling/training
maintain a strong professional network
start you own business

I am friends with one new business owner, and thought I would spend the next few posts discussing resources that any new entrepreneur should be aware of for their budding start-up.

How bad was it? May jobs report...

The May jobs report was released on Friday June 1st, and it appears to be bad. For full details and the possible outcomes I suggest this CNN/Money Magazine article. The keys for me, and I presume many of you, was the official unemployment rate went up to 8.2% and the underemployment rate went up to 14.8%. Hiring, especially in the public sector has not been stellar. I have blogged in the past about these two numbers and what it means to be unemployed. As I have stated in the past I will always try to remain apolitical... but if this trend continues, especially with the European economic troubles, the fall campaign season is going to be unpleasant.

For anyone out there still trying to find work (myself included) just remember to keep your chin up, follow the advice of myself and others regarding putting your best foot forward in all searching/career encounters. If you fully research both the job and company before applying/interviewing it should improve your chances. Please share any stories good or bad about your search or ask questions. Hopefully I can provide advice, perspective and/or words of encouragement. And if I can't maybe others will.

What does it mean to be unemployed? part 3

First I want to say how hard it is to be without a working computer for five days and counting! I am writing from my local public library (wonderful places libraries) and can't wait until our computer is fixed. Now to what I really intended to talk about, then new unemployment numbers.

So last Friday before the release of the report, I was listening to NPR (Morning Edition) and they had experts talking [3 min 39 sec] (transcript) about how it can be typical for the unemployment figure to go up as a recovery begins. Individuals who have been long unemployed may have stopped looking while things were bad, thus being uncounted by the government... and when things improve they return to the search and the survey suddenly starts counting them until they find work. OK, makes sense. Then the report came out and the rate actually dropped [50 sec] (transcript) and approximately 200,000 jobs were added. Great news right?

Well the market had other thoughts. Stocks ended the day mostly lower, but remember that the stock market is always looking at the future. In particular the future of the few (only 30 in the case of the DOW) companies on that particular exchange. In Paul La Monica's The Buzz he explains what many of the underlying problems are that are spooking investors.

What does it all really mean? Well I think that it means that despite all the dysfunction in Washington DC things are beginning to slowly improve. Good luck to all the job seekers out their (including myself.), stay active, things are looking brighter.

What does it mean to be unemployed? part 2.

About three weeks ago I wrote a short piece about the meaning of unemployment. First I'll state that it was by no means profound. And Second I'll correct a statement, the official government number comes from the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) each month. For the full explanation you can read Where do the statistics come from? which is on the FAQ page for How the Government measures unemployment? But the simple answer is that they survey households from their sample every month for four months (to maintain consistency) to arrive at the familiar percentage rate we all hear in the news every month.

In the first post I also mentioned marginally employed. Here is the table from the BLS that tracks this figure, and as I mentioned it is higher (at close to 16%.) I can report that I have not found much to corroborate the higher number I mentioned of 22%. But the BLS does explain in the FAQ that the sampling, while very meticulous, can be off by small amounts. This should not however result in a 6% point difference.

So what does it all mean? Obviously too many Americans are out of work, but how does that change? Well part of the answer seems to be training. Over at Business Ramblings my friend Jerry is writing about the issue. Who's responsibility should it be to help get the chronically unemployed back on their feet?

What does it mean to be unemployed?

As many people know the BLS calculates the 'official governmental' figure based on the number of individuals who collect benefits (had no job, could work, and actively was searching...). That rate has been hovering at or near 9% for the past 6 months or so... but a less known BLS statistic adds in discouraged or marginally employed individuals, and bumps the figure to around 16%.  Some independent statisticians claim the number is closer to 22%.

I am going to do some research to see if I can verify this last claim... but whatever the number is, it is clear that the 'official' rate is to low by at least half. What does that mean for our economy? Personally? Nationally?