CNNMoney.com offers this quick story – Planned job cuts take big Dec. dip. The phrase “planned job cuts” is a poor construction, but it essentially means expected layoffs. Planned job cuts for all of 2006 fell below 1 million for the first time since 2000, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an employment consulting firm. Be wary of the naysayers spouting an impending doom for our economy. The economy is robust and it truly is an employee’s market right now. The reason why you should be aware of this fact: “With the American economy at full employment for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, the latest job-cut data… Read More
Continue ReadingJanuary Is Active
From a promotional email from CareerBuilder.com: Last year, job searches on CareerBuilder.com increased by over 60% in January, breaking all previous job search records. Obviously, CareerBuilder is trying to sell employment ads, but the quoted statistic is remarkable. We hear people complain about finding talented salespeople using the big online boards but we have consistent success with them. The boards may be a problem for some positions, but I don’t think that is the common cause. From what I see, many companies post ads that are . . . well, atrocious. Here’s my Minnesotan view on it: Imagine you are on a large lake that is renowned for good fishing.… Read More
Continue ReadingLosing Your Job Via MySpace
There is a fine line that has yet to be determined when it comes to blogs, social networking and other web 2.0 tools. Case in point, this post from Podcasting News: Last year, she was dismissed from the student teaching program at a nearby high school and denied her teaching credential after the school staff came across her photograph on her MySpace profile. She filed a lawsuit in April this year in federal court in Philadelphia contending that her rights to free expression under the First Amendment had been violated. No trial date has been set. Her photo, preserved at the “Wired Campus” blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education,… Read More
Continue ReadingOvertime Pay for Salespeople?
From our local Pioneer Press – Drug company sales reps sue for overtime wages. Her lawsuit, part of a series of class action claims filed in November against nine major drug companies, seeks tens of millions of dollars in back pay for the thousands of drug company salespeople across the country. Honestly, I have never in my life heard of such hogwash. The victim mentality of the plantiff is only outdone by her lawyer’s quote in the article. If you employ an outside sales force, you need to read this article. The one bit of common sense comes at the end of the short article: Not all sales reps support… Read More
Continue ReadingExtended Sourcing Times
Inc.com has a 3 paragraph article titled Job Seekers Expect Long Search. The article briefly reports on a “call-in survey.” I’m not sure how reliable that approach is, but the results are consistent with our present-day realities. Job seekers expect to spend seven to 14 months searching for work, according to a call-in survey conducted by outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Anyone who has been sourcing of late knows that it is a tight market.
Continue ReadingWorkplace Fibs (in Britain)
From Yahoo News – Gadgets seen as best way to tell white lies: More than four out of five people admit to telling little white lies at least once a day and the preferred way of being “economical with the truth” is to use technology such as cell phones, texts and e-mails, a survey on Thursday said. I’ve never seen the phrase “economical with the truth.” What a pathetic turn of phrase. This survey was conducted in the UK, for what that is worth. No surprises here: The workplace was a favorite location for fibbing with 67 percent of the 1,487 respondents admitting they had lied at work.The top lie… Read More
Continue ReadingInformation Motivation
Yesterday I posted on an interesting article involving the importance of providing information to your employees. Now I as I catch up on my RSS reading for this week, I have kicked up a complementary Selling Power article with a quick reference to the same topic – Low-Budget Motivation. From the article: 4. Keep them in the loop Your people often depend on you to be the intermediary to the corporate powers that be, and the information that may affect them and their jobs. You need to honor that role by keeping them abreast of whats going on as much as possible. In the midst of bad times, your candor… Read More
Continue ReadingUpward Mobility
Thomas Register has a blog. If you have worked in the industrial market, you probably are familiar with their encyclopedia-like register. I used to be a sales manager for a high precision sheet metal fabricator and was quite familiar with researching the Thomas Register. The fact that they have a blog today speaks volumes. ThomasNet.com (online name) has a post that plays off of the CareerBuilder.com 2007 Job Forecast that was released earlier this week. Their 7 tips are all excellent including number 7: 7) Better training In light of a seeming shortage of skilled workers within their own industries, employers are looking for transferable skills from other industries. Seventy-eight… Read More
Continue ReadingNew Job Resolutions
The recently sold StarTribune offers this article that states the top 3 resolutions are “losing weight, saving money and getting a new job.” Seems logical to me in talking with others. I have to admit, I am not a fan of resolutions, but a few paragraphs from the article caught my eye. Research by Dr. Robert Maurer, based on the principles of kaizen (the industrial science of continuous improvement), can help you take the right small steps toward you next job.Example: By asking yourself one small question every day, such as, “If finding a new job were my top priority, what would I be thinking and doing now?” you can… Read More
Continue ReadingOnline Ads
From Fortune/CNN Money.com: A market research firm called Borrell Associates is now claiming that in 2006, online ad spending for employee recruitment – a.k.a., help wanted – has for the first time surpassed comparable spending in newspapers. The actual amounts are $5.9 billion on the Web vs. $5.4 billion for newspapers.We haven’t seen the full report, but in a thorough post, Alan Mutter quotes this nugget: “When the history of Internet advertising is written, recruitment sites will undoubtedly dominate the first chapter,” says Borrell. “In 12 years, these sites have grown from a few job boards to hundreds of niche competitors. Online recruitment now accounts for 25% of Internet advertising.”… Read More
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