EmploymentMetrix.com

Applying What You’ve Learned from Your NCAA Pool To Your Job Search

As March Madness gets underway and office pools around the country are run discretely under your managers’ noses, I thought it’d be fun to revisit a previous post about applying what you’ve learned from your NCAA pools over the years to your job search. 

Best of luck (my salute to St. Patrick’s Day) to those participating in March Madness pools, those conducting a job search, and those who are doing both.

To those of you, who called in sick to celebrate St. Patty’s Day and/or to watch the games, get back to work!

Is Your Job Search Driving You Mad?

It’s Time to Take Action: Five Nontraditional Job Search Methods To Get You Hired!

A few months ago we wrote a post called, “Is the Traditional Full-Time Job Doomed?” It touched on the topic of why employers are leaning toward hiring contractors rather than full-time employees.  While there are several logical reasons as to why its beneficial for an employer to hire temporary workers and the job market may remain on this path for the next decade job seekers NEED to take action to not let this happen!

Today, November 1, 2010 is the third annual Job Action Day, developed by QuintCareers.com to help empower job seekers in their job searches.  Given the circumstances we are currently facing—with a steady/high unemployment rate, there are several talented candidates out there searching for jobs—and now it seems like there’s no better time to incorporate some untraditional job seeking methods into your repertoire in order to get noticed in the sea of candidates out there.

Here are our top five nontraditional methods to get hired by an organization that NEEDS your talent.

1. Identify a problem or problems an organization is having and point out to them how you can help.  Craft a business plan on what methods you can help them implement in order to put them back on the path to success.
   
   
2. Buy some ad space and hit the streets—literally by buying outdoor advertising or passing out fliers alerting potential employers of your availability to start work right away.  Have the ad showcase your website that displays your resume and other pertinent information about you and you’ll hopefully be hearing from potential employers in no time!
   
   
3. Offer a finder’s fee to anyone who introduces you to your next employer. This way you’re really giving your network an incentive to help you land your next great job.
   
   
4. Trying to get your foot in the door?  Deliver your resume in a memorable way.  We’ve heard everything from delivering your resume along with a pizza, sending a potential employer a plant with hopes that they’ll be able to help you “grow in your career”, apply for a job in fashion by sending your resume along with a Barbie doll wearing your latest design, etc...
   
   
5. Expand your skills. While it can be hard to think about expanding your skills in a time when money can be tight, this is one investment that can pay off big!  Employers are looking for employees that can wear many different hats and if you’re one of them you’re a hot commodity.  While that need for a subject matter expert, won’t ever truly go away, the multi functional candidate will standout in today’s market.

Please check out these blog posts that are joining mine in supporting Job Action Day 2010:

• Quintessential Careers Blog, Third annual Job Action Day arrives with job-seekers struggling with a new and more challenging future of work, future of job-hunting.
• Career Doctor Blog Job Action Day 2010: 5 Things to Help You Thrive in the Relentlessly Changing World of Work.
• Quintessential Resume and Cover Letter Tips Blog, Career Experts Offer Tips for New Job-Search Realities: Job Action Day 2010.
• A Storied Career, Job Action Day 2010: Stories of Creating Opportunity Through LinkedIn.
• Susan Guarneri, New World of Work: Job Action Day 2010 Career Assessment Goddess.
• Wendy Terwelp, Job Action Day: Create Your Own Opportunity, Rock Your Career.
• Laura Labovich, Give-to-Get in the Protean Workplace!, Aspire! Empower!
• David Couper, Job Action: what can you do to help, David Couper Blog.
• Barbara Safani, Job Action Day-Opportunities Knock Harder When You Use Social Media, Career Solvers Blog.
• Maggie Mistal, Job Action Day: Soul Search, Research & Job Search To Create Real Opportunity, Career Advice Blog.
• Steven Rothberg, On Job Action Day 2010, Focus on Your Competencies, Interests, and values, CollegeRecruiter.com Blog
• Miriam Salpeter, Job Action Day -- how to create job opportunities by being a connector, Keppie Careers.
• The Career Management Alliance Blog [multiple posts].
• Stephen Hinton, Focus On Certifications: How Can a Certification Help My Green Job Search?, Hinton Human Capital Blog.
• Hannah Morgan, Job Action Day: Create Opportunity In Your Career, Executive Career Brand.
• Deb Brown-Volkman, Job Action Day 2010, Surpass Your Dreams.
• Jason Alba, I’m Dumb: Connect the Dots for me, JibberJobber Blog.
• Deborah Shane, Job Action Day 2010-Career Experts Offer Tips for New Job Realities, Deborah Shane Toolbox.
• Darrell Gurney, Job Action Day 2010, Career Guy Blog.
• Debra Wheatman, Don’t Let Fear Scare You Out of a New Job, Careers Done Write Blog.
• Willy Franzen, Creating Opportunity with No Experience, One Day One Job.

Beyond.com’s Mobile Job Apps Are Predicted to Experience a 1000% Increase in Downloads

The way in which people have secured employment has certainly changed over the years. While employers of retail establishments may still place “Help Wanted” signs in their windows or place ads in the newspaper, they’re probably missing out on reaching thousands of candidates if they don’t place their job opportunities online, because the first place job seekers turn to nowadays is certainly the internet. And while the internet is amazing (nice job Al Gore) it has certainly amplified our need for immediacy, which brings us to the Smartphone.

With more than 20% of mobile phone users owning a Smartphone and with the current unemployment rate at a steady 9.6%, it is no wonder that the number of mobile app downloads for job searching is exploding.

We asked Jason Stevens the Mobile Applications Manager at Beyond.com, the world’s largest network of niche career communities, for his expert opinion on mobile apps as well as searching jobs on the go.

EmploymentMetrix: Do you think Smartphones are here to stay?

Jason: Yes, whether it’s an iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, Palm, etc…we’re only going to see more of them. By 2014, it is predicted that the internet will be more frequently searched on a mobile device than on a computer, which is very impressive. In fact, Beyond.com has experienced a boom in our mobile app downloads already, so much so that we predict a 1,000% growth from last year.

Additionally, several companies are planning for the future of mobile apps as organizations are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to build apps as they see that platform as the future, so that is also a good indicator.  

EmploymentMetrix: When searching for a job what types of job apps are downloaded most frequently?

Jason: When searching for a job the job apps that are most frequently downloaded are those that are geared toward a specific industry or niche. Also, in general when it comes to apps, those that are branded from a trusted organization are typically downloaded most frequently. So if you already have a relationship with a user, they’re more likely to download your mobile app. 

But overall, the job apps that I’m seeing a lot of downloads for, and when I say a lot, I mean hundreds of thousands of downloads, are for niche job boards like TechCareers.com, HealthcareJobsite.com, ManhattanJobs.com and so forth. Which makes sense, if you’re in the market for a new job, why sift through hundreds of job opportunities that are not in your field or in your area? Searching by a specific industry or in a specific area is the fastest way to find a job.

Just to give an idea of the free mobile apps that are most downloaded for business purposes here is a look at the top mobile business apps in iTunes:
EmploymentMetrix:  What are your future plans for the mobile space?

Jason: Right now our apps, allow job seekers to search and share relevant jobs as well as read valuable articles and watch videos to help them find a job faster. As we continue to explore the mobile space we are working toward allowing the user to do even more from their mobile device.

We will also keep on top of the latest mobile trends and make the necessary investments to offer our users a quality product.

EmploymentMetrix: Do you value the feedback you receive from your users?

Jason: User feedback is the most important feedback we receive. If our users have suggestions—we want to hear about. In fact, we’ve already made several updates to our job apps based on suggestions from our users.

Given the increase in Smartphone use, it won’t be long until we hear more and more reports of successful job searches being conducted strictly through mobile job apps.  In the meantime, keep on downloading!

 

Powerful Social Website Platform Strengthens Commitment to Community Focus and Its Members

It was announced yesterday that Beyond.com, Inc., the world’s largest network of niche career communities, had acquired Orbius, a powerful social website platform that allows businesses to create and govern their own full featured social or professional networking community website for their members, employees or customers.

So what does this acquisition mean?  Well, according to Beyond.com, CEO, Rich Milgram this acquisition shows Beyond.com’s commitment to it’s community focus and will allow its members to evolve beyond the employment experience into new ways to connect and engage throughout their career, business and life. Milgram, also added that “This is an exciting time for business professionals and we want to help them as much as possible.”
 
Thought of as a “Facebook for small businesses,” the Orbius platform and technology has been very successful in providing flexible, scalable and search engine optimized social websites enabling businesses to provide content and community rich website features to connect and engage users through forums, blogs, calendars, videos, expert columns, feeds, groups and other forms to encourage personal and business interaction.

“For years, Beyond.com has remained focused and committed to providing our members with valuable and relevant communities in which to connect and interact across a variety of industry, geographic and specialty areas,” said Milgram. “Our members are embracing these communities and are hungry for more content and information and want to create their own online persona and evolve their personal and business networks. We continue to develop new ways in which to facilitate this evolution and the Orbius platform will enable us to further this vision.” 

Online Recruitment: Past, Present & Future

The evolution of recruitment has certainly changed over the years.  Back in the day you would post an ad in the local newspaper and wait for the resumes to come in via mail or fax, but now that everything is so instantaneous and there are so many paths that the recruitment process can take it is hard to pin point where the online recruitment process is going to end up. 

Luckily, a few weeks ago, Mark Anderson, Senior Director of Enterprise Sales from Beyond.com presented on the topic of Online Recruitment, how it started, where it is now, and where it will go in the future at HR Florida. 

Thanks to everyone who attended Mark’s session and for those of you who were not able to be there, you can watch it here:

What’s Happening with Unemployment Benefits?

Yesterday, congress approved a six month extension of emergency unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.  But it wasn’t easy. 

Why was there so much debate over the extension?

This extension will reinstate aid to nearly 3 million people that lost their benefits on June 2 and it couldn’t have come at a better time.  Two weeks ago unemployment claims were at the lowest point since August 2008, but just last week, unemployment claims increased by 37,000. 

The extension wasn’t approved sooner because there were concerns regarding the national debt.  Those representatives who opposed the extension wanted the unemployment benefits paid for upfront with the stimulus package and not have anyone pay for it later.

Back in the day, extending unemployment benefits was a no brainer, but now, there is much apprehension including the thought that collecting unemployment is an attractive alternative to working (while historical research supports this view, we have to take into account that today’s economic climate is VERY different from that of the past).

With five unemployed workers for every job opening, it’s not as though those who are unemployed are not searching for work.  It’s just that corporations are hesitant to hire, despite four straight quarters of economic growth. 

So is the real issue here the fact that companies aren’t hiring at an accelerated rate? And will the extension of unemployment benefits slow them down even more?  To be honest, we don’t know—“Results may vary.”  Regardless, 3 million unemployed people are happy today. Some say they’ll use the money to pay bills while others say that the extended benefits have simply restored hope.

College Grads Are Finding Ways to Ditch Potential Employers On Social Sites

While Employers are discovering the benefits of using social media sites in their businesses, college students (the early adopters) are apparently shying away from them (at least they seem to be in their job searches).

 

As employers and recruiters are still discovering the remarkableness of sites like Twitter and Facebook, college students who were mainly using these sites as an avenue to share news, pictures, and the funniest video from last week’s frat party, are staying one step ahead of potential employers as these soon to be grads start searching for jobs.

More than 45 percent of employers and recruiters use Facebook or Twitter to screen job candidates, but college students are smart and are censoring their Facebook pages and their tweets. 

No, we’re not saying that they’re no longer posting hilarious videos and have instead converted all of their posts and tweets to be employer friendly—no, these soon to be graduates are simply changing their names.    

No, not legally.  They’re either purposely misspelling part of their name or using a variation of their name (i.e. using their middle name as their last name) in order to keep employers from finding them on social sites.  

A recent survey that was commission by Beyond.com and conducted by students of the Wharton Small Business Development Center asked college students if they were concerned that potential employers may discover their personal information on social networking sites.  And 51% said yes. Which is a shame given that these sites were originally designed to be used in a social setting (hence the name social).  

As a job seeker, if you have a Facebook or Twitter account, just be aware that there are potential employers out there scouring the internet trying to learn more about you.  If you want to be sure that they’ll only view you as a professional, there are a few options for you to consider:

 

1. Change your social media accounts to be employer friendly.
2. Change your name (be sure if you have a vanity URL, that you change that as well if your URL previously contained your name).
3. Change your privacy settings to ensure only your friends can access your pages.
4. Do something drastic and cancel your Facebook and Twitter accounts all together.
5. Use a service like Reputation Defender to help you clean up what’s been posted on the internet about you.
6. Create a LinkedIn profile and promote it on your resume.  There are also other professional sites out there to market yourself to employers. 

Happy Earth Day: Top Five Green Job Search Tips

In honor of Earth Day, here are our top five green tips (in no particular order) to help you make your job search more environmentally friendly.

1. Searching and Applying to Jobs? Conduct your job search online and save some trees mailing and faxing hard copies of your resume.
2. Have a Job Interview? Take public transportation to the interview. Save on gas by using public transit to get your interview, just make sure that you check the transit schedule so you arrive in plenty of time.
3. Making Hard Copies of Your Resume? If you’re going to a career fair or on a job interview and will be physically handing someone a copy of your resume use recycled paper to make your hard copies. No, we’re not talking about scrap paper with disregarded content on the back. There are some very nice resume papers out there that are made from recycled paper.
4. Building Your Network? Use social media sites to connect with and build your rolodex of networking contacts.
5. Negotiating a Job Offer? If you’re at the point of your job search where you’re negotiating a job offer throw telecommuting into the mix. Telecommuting can help you save on gas and all the energy that’s used for you to get to and from work. While working from home five times a week may be out of the question–telecommuting once or twice a week, is certainly an opportunity to pursue.

Do your part! In honor of Earth Day put these five simple tips into action and go green in your job search.

New Website Allows You to Dish Openly About Your Coworkers

Over the past few days this news story has caught our attention. There is a new website out there called Unvarnished. So why is this website in the spotlight? Well for those of you who don’t know, this site allows anyone to go to their site and dish about their coworkers' and bosses' performances.

Should we be worried?

From what we understand the site was designed so that users can give kudos and constructive criticism to colleagues, however the site certainly sounds like it could be a vehicle for abuse.

1.    There’s no way to determine if what’s posted is indeed from a coworker.
2.    There’s no way to determine if what’s posted is even true.

It sounds like it is simply a medium to post damaging information about the targeted person.

The biggest concerns.

All information is posted anonymously with no way to remove a negative review. You heard right, once something’s posted, it’s up there indefinitely.

The site’s founders claim that they hope that the information posted to the site will eventually replace candidates’ personal reference sheets. If this is true, we just hope that employers know to take these online reviews with a grain of salt, how credible of a source can this really be? 

While they say that administrators will monitor posts to ensure that nothing too abusive is published, that doesn’t mean the admins will prevent negative reviews from going up. Unvarnished, does however give those who are targeted the chance to post rebuttals and they can also improve their reputations by inviting their own contacts to write positive reviews…but then doesn’t it come down to a simple game of “He Said, She Said”?

So how can you defend yourself?

There are resources out there to help business professionals just like you protect yourself from potential online attacks. Services like Reputation Defender ensure that your online presence is not smeared. For now —we’ll play to waiting game to see if this site takes off like planned…

How to Find a Bigger Job Opportunity

Given the current unemployment rate, if you asked a job seeker what motivates them most when searching for a new job, one would think the answer would be “the fact that I need a job”, but you’d be surprised.
 
In a recent poll taken by more than 2,900 business professionals, across the Beyond.com Network of thousands of niche career sites, we learned that more than 45 percent of professionals said that their primary motivator when searching for a new job is a bigger opportunity.

So if you are currently a job seeker looking for that “next big opportunity”, how can you ensure that you find it?  Here are some ways to help you get ahead in your career (in no particular order).

 

Don’t Limit Yourself. Don’t be intimidated by job postings where you don’t exactly fit the qualifications of the position.  A lot of times employers post qualifications for “the perfect candidate”, knowing that not all candidates who apply will fit those exact qualifications. Although it is always good to be realistic, don’t be afraid to apply for positions that you want.  

 

Don’t Overlook Small Companies. A lot of times, job seekers target large companies in their job search and overlook small corporate America.  This is a mistake.  Sometimes the best opportunities are with smaller organizations because they can offer the flexibility to get involved in more challenging work and allow you the ability to “climb the corporate ladder” more quickly because your hard work will get noticed more often.  

Tap into Your Network. Whenever you are job searching, it is important to tap into your networking contacts. They may be aware of non-published jobs or business contacts that can help you get your resume noticed by the right people in a company you want to work for.  

 

Make Your Desires Known. When interviewing, make sure that the employer is aware of your desire to work hard, grow in your role and take on challenging work where you will have the opportunity to make a difference and help the organization.  There’s nothing potential employers like hearing more than your desire to help them achieve their goals. 

Do Your Homework. Before applying to a position see what else you can learn about the position and organization before actually submitting your resume.  There are several services out there for job seekers that you can use to do company research. Some are free and others charge a fee, but both typically allow you to see who currently works at the organization, the company’s history, and the corporate culture.  Some services even have testimonials from past and present employees.

Look at The Big Picture. Don’t be hypnotized by the paycheck. While a good salary is certainly a positive, it should never be the most important part of the job. When you apply for a position, be sure to take into account the work you will be doing, the person you will be working for, the ability to get ahead and the corporate culture.  These things are all important when searching for a new job.

Improve Your Skills. Want to make a change but not sure you have the right skills? Check into some continuing education programs, seminars or courses in your area of interest.  Even attending a seminar or taking a course to get your feet wet should give you the confidence and skills you need to pursue a new job with big opportunity.

For more tips and tools to find and land the job you want visit our career resource center.