This story is from abcnews.com and is filled with great points. The first “bad trend” speaks straight to me: Labyrinthine Job Application Systems If there’s one thing I hear more job hunters harrumph about, it’s the maddening online application tools so many companies use. No one’s suggesting employers do away with online job applications altogether, just that they bring their systems up to twenty-first century computing standards. “Not only do most of them have the job seeker input all of the information from their resume — redundantly at times — but half of them shut down, crash your computer or steer you into dead ends,” said Dick Barnes of The… Read More
Continue ReadingSwamped By Applicants
I am hearing more discussions about incredibly large responses to sales job postings in this present economy. Some of the companies I talk to are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of resumes they receive. I went back to look at an old article we wrote back in 2005 when the economy was in a much stronger position. In today’s economy, the points are even more applicable: If your ideal sale starts at the VP level, state in your ad that a needed skill is the ability to communicate at the VP level. If your sale involves many competitors, state in your ad that the successful candidate is able to close… Read More
Continue ReadingWhat Is Gen U?
“Generation Unretired” according to this BusinessWeek.com article. That is a new term to me. According to the article: The AARP says that 8 out of 10 baby boomers will work part- or full-time past retirement age. That’s 64 million unretiring Americans, the biggest demographic shift in the American workforce since WWII—and 93% of the growth in the American labor market from now until 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. This trend is one that has been in the making for some time. The current recession and housing bubble burst has only exacerbated the trend. Clearly there will be new management techniques needed to handle the Gen U employees. The… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen Will It End?
The Great Recession roars on during this holiday season. Our company is focused on sales hiring, both assessing candidates for our customers and running full recruiting processes. The hiring outlook is of great importance to us and a topic I try to track closely. That being said, this abcnews.com article provides a mixed bag (emphasis mine): The November outlook by the National Association for Business Economics, which is set to be released Monday, shows economists expect net employment losses to bottom out in the first quarter of next year. Employers are seen starting to add to their payrolls after that. I would be more comforted by these economists if I… Read More
Continue ReadingStates With Low Unemployment
From ABCnews.com: The 10 states with the lowest unemployment rates, by percentage, are: 1. North Dakota 4.2 2. Nebraska 4.9 3. South Dakota 5.0 4. Montana 6.4 5. Vermont 6.5 6. Utah 6.5 7. Virginia 6.6 8. Iowa 6.7 9. New Hampshire 6.8 10. Kansas 6.8 I’m guessing many of these states are dominated by agricultural professions which are obviously less effected by corporate employment.
Continue ReadingThe Non-Employed
Every week more numbers come out to reveal another level of ugliness in this economy. Today comes this article from CNNMoney.com. The state that speaks volumes: Every state had an unemployment rate in October that was higher than a year ago, and every state has lost jobs over the course of the year. The recovery from this recession is going to take a long time as the hole keeps getting deeper. I think it is safe to say that the unemployment rate is higher then what is being reported: Unemployment rates, which are taken from a separate survey, tend to rise even as the employers start hiring again, because the… Read More
Continue ReadingTrends From The Tech Support Line
Everything is so serious these days that it is nice to find some levity. This is good – a company recently tracked aspects of 75,000 tech support calls. They have some gender-related data (emphasis mine): Male callers: 64% didn’t bother to read the instruction manual before calling for help. Female callers: 24% didn’t bother to read the instruction manual before calling for help. Male callers: 12% just needed to plug in their gear to “resolve their issue”. Female callers: 7% ditto! Female callers stayed on the phone with tech support 32% longer than male callers. 66% of tech support operators said they preferred dealing with female clients, anyway. So according… Read More
Continue Reading‘Help Wanted’ Has Become Obsolete
Isn’t that the truth? Here are some sobering points from a CNNMoney.com article: Businesses with fewer than 50 employees cut another 75,000 workers in October, according to estimates released Wednesday from payroll processor ADP. … A telephone survey of 830 small business owners conducted by management consulting firm George S. May International from Oct. 28-30 found that 74% of the owners polled do not plan to increase their staff headcount in the next 90 days. It has been our experience that sales hiring typically slows down during the holiday season, but companies often discuss their Q1 hiring plans with the intention of a fast start to the new year. Unfortunately… Read More
Continue ReadingDecline Of The Dinosaur Boards
Here is a job title of a job posting I read this morning on one of the 2 large boards: SECRET CASH LOOPHOLE Here is the opening line of the ad: EARN AN EXTRA $1,000 a Week Working Less Than an Hour a Day, or $500 a Day Working 2-3 Hours a Day. As an aside, it is a good policy to be highly suspicious of any position that leads with your ability to earn more doing less. Perhaps couch potatoes are their top prospects. I realize in a recession with extremely high unemployment that these types of positions materialize. However, the two big boards are being overrun by these… Read More
Continue ReadingSpin Defined
From a CNNMoney.com article this morning (emphasis mine): Private sector employment fell more than expected in September, but the pace of job losses continued to slow, according to a report released Wednesday. Automatic Data Processing, a payroll-processing firm, said private-sector employers cut 254,000 jobs in September, down from a revised 277,000 in August. It was the smallest monthly total since July 2008. The decline was greater than the 200,000 loss economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast. But the difference was “not statistically meaningful,” according to Joel Prakken, an ADP spokesman and chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC. “Not statistically meaningful” – tell that to the 54,000 people who lost their job… Read More
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