Survey says...

It has been a while since I have found time to write, boy the summer has gone by fast. With many economic signs appearing to conflict, especially when it comes to employment, I thought I'd write about a phenomenon that hits a bit close to home. The trend (if it is that) of jobs shifting away from full time and towards part time (or even temporary.)

Over on CNN/Money Tami Luhby has an article on some of the latest employment data:
"Want a job? Good luck finding full-time work." Different from the monthly jobs numbers this article discusses the rise in part-time and temporary jobs. While each is not at all times highs set back in 2010 the increase is a bit unsettling.

If you take the glass half full approach you might see this as amazing, considering as Ms. Luhby describes all the things working against hiring (payroll tax hikes, sequester, the Affordable Health Care Act, and general weak economic growth.) It is amazing that any hiring has been going on... But the half empty view would suggest that companies are intentionally shifting to less and less full time employment to avoid not only health care, but benefits in general.

Now I don't think I would fall squarely in either camp... but as someone who currently only has a part time job I can certainly see the effects. Many of the employers who I am looking to find work with are slowing hiring or moving towards part timers.

Higher education has traditionally used somewhere between 30% - 40% part time workers for the actually teaching (when you combined adjuncts, lecturers, and graduate assistants.) So for me personally the change may not be as drastic, but for many other fields like engineering and information technology the switch may be alarming.

My bachelor's degree is in computer science, and while I never saw my self as a programer if I had chosen that field and been working for the past decade and a half I can't imagine I would be looking fondly on the prospect of now having to work project by project and get far less than what I was worth. I guess I don't see the incentive for the programmer or engineer to work to the best of their ability when they know they will be out of work when the project is done. I suppose if there were large incentives to complete the project within the timeframe maybe... but otherwise why should I effectively shorten my usefulness.

Now I suppose that if I do very good work I might get hired back for more contract work... but again with no health and retirement benefits the situation would seem untenable.

Answering the BIG question...

We all know it's coming, yet we may not be fully prepared for it. The moment in the interview when the human resources representative/committee/interviewer asks "Why do you want this job?". Hopefully you have prepared and have a solid answer, if not you may want to read this from the Undercover Recruiter and how to answer the question.

In the article there a four steps to help you prepare your answer, but it seems to me the two keys are use the question as your chance to make your sales pitch (i.e. highlight why you are the perfect candidate) and second you want to know what they want in a candidate.

What this article fails to tell you is that in order to know what they want in a candidate you will undoubtedly need to do some research about the company, position, and possible the industry in which you hope to work. I have written pieces in the past about this type of research, the most useful may be this on Company research - business news.

Some additional things to remember are the power of LinkedIn and other social networks. Before the interview you may want to search by job title to see the career path of others in the career you are pursuing. You also will want to use Glassdoor.com or Career One Stop to look up salary data and interview question styles.

Use all the tools that are available to you, go into the interview prepared, relaxed and confident and hopefully everything will work out.

The value of personal websites.

Just in case you hadn't heard... a personal web site is valuable to the job seeker.

Author Jacquelyn Smith writes this article in Forbes, Why every job seeker should have a personal website and what it should include. At the beginning she shares some national statistics about the job market: the average job opening receives 118 applicants, only about 20% (or 36 get interviews.) Also she quotes a Workfolio study that reports that "56% of hiring managers are more  impressed by a personal website than any other branding tool - however, only 7% of job seekers actually have a personal website."

These statistics seem to match my personal experiences over the past few years. They also seem to match a gut feeling I have had in the past about the reasons to have a personal website, and I have one... but is it doing all it could for me? I would love to see examples of sites that other job seekers are using. By sharing we should all be able to get stronger as candidates.

"badges, we don't need no stinking badges"

Well maybe we do? This article on the future of credentials by Monica Guzman from the Seattle Times asks the important question about the future of the resume. It basically boils down to this: "If résumés are a bunch of claims, badges are a bunch of evidence."

So what do badges have do do with this, you may be asking yourself. Well if you are familiar with any kind of gamification you may already know the answer, but if you don't know what that is I will try to cover them both in brief.

Gamification is a process where elements of games are applied to non game situations to influence behavior. This is typically done by businesses but it is also making its way into education and other areas... many times the elements that are being brought in are levels, experience and rewards. Many of these have centered around the idea of earning a badge to demonstrate an accomplishment (hence the evidence in Ms. Guzman's quote.) So here are a few basic examples:

Using the Social Media app for smart phones FourSquare people can 'check in ' at locations and earn badges for things like the number of times they visit locations, the number of locations visited, etc. They can also become 'mayor' of a location when they reach the top of the list of check-ins. The business could then use this information to issue deals, coupons, or other rewards to help encourage people to stop by.

This is a fairly simple example, and there are many others on the gamification site linked above. I can also discuss this with anyone individually who is interested and/or recommend further reading.

Where it becomes interesting is (as the article from the Seattle Times hints at) when we expand these badges into other social media tools (perhaps LinkedIn for example.) Here is a frame work for how I could see this unfolding:

LinkedIn working with others creates a smooth and simple interface to allow users to display badges, certificates and other items demonstrating achievement (the evidence or virtual currency.) Then MOOCs and other systems where people can go to learn skills award some sort of badge, certificate, etc. and this gets loaded into LinkedIn or some other profile building site. Now along with the standard names and dates of schools and employers (the old resume), I have a skills section (LinkedIn already has this) with the endorsements from my network (LinkedIn has this as well) and a layer with badges, certificates, and other forms of evidence from a whole host of other potential sources.

The rating/point system would need to be fully developed, but  here is my initial thoughts of a hypothetical example:

• Being a member of network (think LinkedIn Groups)                    1 point each
• Being active in that group (writing posts, asking questions, etc.)     1 point each
• Having activity from the group voted up                                        0.5 points each
• Having appropriate connections (network)                                    0.25 points each
• Blogging about your professed expertise                                       0.1 points per post
• Followers of said blog                                                                  0.25 points each
• Comments on said blog                                                                0.5 points each
• Certificates, badges, awards                                                         1 point each
• Recommendations for work                                                          2 points each
• Endorsements of skills                                                                  0.5 points each
• Answering questions (Yahoo Answers, etc.)                                  0.1 point each
• Answer to question being voted up                                               0.25 points each
• Writing reviews (Amazon, Yelp, etc.)                                            0.1 point each
• Reviews being voted up                                                                0.25 points each
• Publications                                                                                  3 points each
• Presentations at conferences                                                         3 points each
• Invited to speak at a conference                                                    5 points each

Obviously this list would continue to grow as more systems were integrated, and the point system would have to be constantly adjusted to ensure its effectiveness. Hopefully It is clear that the value would lie in the usefulness that others place on the content that I as a job candidate create, not just me trying to inflate my standing by producing anything. I could also see layers being added if I wanted to integrate my purchases, for example if an online retailer could verify I bought a book or other tool needed for some task it would add a small bit of confidence that I am prepared to tackle the task.

Another benefit of such a system is that it would start to show specialization. By that I mean a sub field or area that you may not have received formal education in or that your job titles don't match... but that through experience you have learned. As an example my advanced degree is in Library Science, and I have worked in both public and academic libraries as a reference librarian. However through my experiences I have picked up a lot of knowledge about business, entrepreneurship and career development (which is why I write this blog!) If I wanted to get a job at a college in a career center I would probably have a hard time, since none of my education or employment background would lead the hiring manager to think I had the knowledge... but with such a system in place, it might be much more clear that I have the knowledge to complete the job duties. For example of my 186 LinkedIn connections 33 are career center people in higher ed and 24 are entrepreneurs or business school faculty that teach entrepreneurship. Then if you looked at my publications and presentations (something that any hiring manager outside of hiring for teaching faculty is unlikely to look at...) you might see most are related to creating resources for students to improve the job search. Then factor in this blog and you would begin to see that I am quite capable to take on a position in a career center for an institution of higher learning (not that I am currently pursuing this... but if I wanted to it might be hard for me with a standard resume/cover letter type hiring system in place today with most employers.)

Now I am sure I am not thinking of every possible result of creating and using such a system. I also know it would take some time for all the bugs to be shaken out and for everyone to catch up, but the bottom line is that it would be just a new piece of the pie that might help to bring together all of the things that hiring managers are already doing. We know they are checking our online presence and identity. We know that they are contacting not only the references we list for them, but others that may know us for insights.

Thoughts? Am I missing something?

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.

The Only Three True Interview Questions

From Forbes Magazine contributor George Bradt writes this piece about Acing the only three true interview questions. His questions are:

• Can you do the job?
• Will you love the job?
• Can we tolerate working with you?

and he has a more detailed piece about why these are the only three questions.  First I encourage everyone to read both of his pieces, but his advice for acing these interview questions he gives three simple steps:

1. Think before opening your mouth.
2. Answer the question asked.
3. Bridge to answer the true underlying question.

I have unfortunately not been  meticulously documenting all interview questions I have gotten in the past two and a half years of my job search. I can however give some examples of how I think I have done this well and how I have not done so well.

First the not so well...

I was interviewing for a job as an academic librarian where the primary job function was managing the information commons (which was being built in the new building.) My understanding of one of the primary job functions was that this position would be responsible for programming, that is organizing and putting on events to bring students, faculty, and the public to the library. I can freely admit that this was not my biggest strength, but I have experience putting on these types of events. So at several points in the interview (and for those of you who are unfamiliar with academic interviews, they average a day and a half!) when I was asked about programming background and/or ideas I described my experiences. Now my personal experiences primarily center around using games (board, computer, console, and trivia) and while I am sure I mentioned other ideas I can with hindsight see that if most of my ideas appeared to be centered on games and gaming this might not jive with the library and staff.

By using Mr. Bradt's three steps here is something closer to how I might have answered the question:

think about my gaming experience
Begin the answer with a brief example of one of these game events, but quickly pivot to how I have planned events, and programs around many themes depending on circumstances.

Where I think I did well...

In this case I was interviewing for an academic librarian where the primary job function was business reference. The question was about my experience developing a collection for students and faculty in this area. I answered by describing which business areas I had supported in a previous position, talked about how I worked with the faculty in these areas to learn what was important to them and their students, and then described a project at that previous job where we analyzed the collection and removed a large amount of material that was dated, and no longer as important for students and researchers.

Now I did not get that job either, but I did have a very positive conversation with the administrator in charge of the search about how well I did, and my strengths as a candidate (which is unfortunately rare) but how the candidate they chose had twenty years experience and an advanced degree in business.

I for one am going to be practicing the techniques that Mr. Bradt describes. Have you had any experiences positive or negative with job interviews and these types of questions? How do you answer them?

Not finding a job... 4 possible reasons

Over on AOL Jobs is an article giving four reasons why you are still unemployed. My first thoughts upon reading this was that these reasons were overly general and unhelpful. I hope that anyone who has been or still is in the long term unemployed (anything over six months) they have read many articles like this one. There list (if you don't have time to read the short piece) is as follows:

• do a little soul searching
• identify what your target employer wants
• ramp up your networking
• demonstrate your expertise

Are there any of these you aren't doing? If you answered yes, then maybe you want to start with the soul searching. But I feel that it would be fairly safe to assume that most of you have done these and many things like them. While I don't claim to be an expert on numbers 1, 3, &4 I hope I am qualified to speak on number 2. If you haven't read my past posts on researching companies you may want to start there (research tips, you may want to focus on the oldest three posts which are specifically on company research.)

But how do you do this research if you don't already have a list of target companies in mind. One of the best ways I know of would be to use RefUSA or some similar database that lets you filter by type of company, geography, and other characteristics. These are typically subscription tools, so you first step will be to visit your local public library (or it's web site) to find out if they provide access to such a tool (you may be surprised!) Here is a graphic showing just some databases useful for this research and what you may find:

From the Purdue University Career Wiki

There are many others, and if your library doesn't have access to these, start a conversation... explain what you are trying to learn and you may find that the librarian can be very helpful, they may have others that can help you in the same area.

If they do have access, then hopefully a reference librarian there can help demonstrate how to search effectively... but things to look for are the following:

• setting your geographic preferences (typically by zip code)
• setting your industry (or type of company you are looking for...) this can either be done with government codes or with common yellow page style headings

these are more or less essential, but some additional options you might want to use:

• company size (either number of employees or by sales volume)

once you have a reasonable list, you can begin with web searches... but you may want to consider reading about the companies in the business press, here are my thoughts about those types of searches.

Hopefully this advice is just a bit more practical  than the AOLJobs article, and I wish all job seekers out there good luck as the global economy slowly begins to turn around.

-George