Job Search Advice: You at Your Best vs You at Your Average

You at Your Best

Originally published on Dec 28 2011 by Phil Rosenberg (Reposted with permission) Employers expect you will present your best …  so why do most job seekers present yourselves at your average? Of course, you don’t intentionally undersell yourself. However, there are many ingrained job search habits we’ve all been taught, that present us as average rather than as superior. We’ve been taught to sell ourselves at our average We learned most of our body of knowledge of job search from placement and career offices, starting with our College/Grad school placement office – even High School placement offices teach much of the same stuff. From the Great Depression up until the end of 2007, there was a valid assumption … [Read more...]

The Relationship of Greed, Slow Growth and High Unemployment

Greed is not good for the economy, the country or employees

by Mac Byrd What is the real reason companies are not hiring? Today, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled, “Why Companies Aren’t Getting the Employees They Need.”  In the article, Peter Cappelli references documentation that companies claim that they cannot find qualified talent for the openings that they have.  Cappelli states that the required talent that companies need is readily available, but just not at the discounted, post-recessionary, high-unemployment salary rate companies are now offering. I believe him.  Having been researching and writing about the American Jobs Market for over 2 years, I’ve come across a lot of advice, statistics, blogs, opinions and a whole lot of spam on this subject. … [Read more...]

Hidden Gems – Cold Calling and How to Improve a Job Search

Hidden Gems

by David Luke & Mark Lynch Do you hate cold calling as much as I do? In both the world of sales and the world of job search, it’s one of those things that lead to rejection and a feeling of inadequacy. Or does it? Last week I was lucky enough to make a new friend who had a totally different take on cold calling. His name is Mark Lynch, and he is the Business Development Director of Ilostymyjob.com. Mark believes that cold calling in the job search world not only speeds up your rejection time, but empowers you to stop waiting for the social media sites to answer your emails and job applications. And what’s most important, cold calling can help you get that job today! For example, in 2010, while working at three different … [Read more...]

The Forever Recession (And the Coming Revolution)

Seth Godin's Blog

By Seth Godin There are actually two recessions: The first is the cyclical one, the one that inevitably comes and then inevitably goes. There's plenty of evidence that intervention can shorten it, and also indications that overdoing a response to it is a waste or even harmful. The other recession, though, the one with the loss of "good factory jobs" and systemic unemployment--I fear that this recession is here forever. Why do we believe that jobs where we are paid really good money to do work that can be systemized, written in a manual and/or exported are going to come back ever? The internet has squeezed inefficiencies out of many systems, and the ability to move work around, coordinate activity and digitize data all combine to … [Read more...]