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Original Post: Consumerist Forget about mall-walking and midday bingo games. It seems that workers over 55 just aren't interested in retiring. This is problematic for the young people who, under different circumstances, would have replaced them in the workforce. These observations come from a new Pew Research Center report , which looks at current workforce trends and predicts what may happen in the near future. So why are people over 55 staying at their metaphorical desks? For many of them, it's not because of the hit their investments have taken—it's because they want to stay engaged and relevant. When asked to identify specific reasons for working, older workers emphasize psychological and social factors: 'to feel useful'; 'to give myself something to do'; 'to be with other people.' Younger and middle-aged workers are much more inclined to cite classic pocketbook considerations: 'to support myself and my family'; 'to live independen...

From Brazzen Careerist by Andrew Weitsman So I’m gonna gloss over the whole networking aspect of this, as I think it was covered pretty well in a previous post , and skip right on to the cold-call aspect of the job search, what with the Internets and the classifieds and the trade magazines and so on. When considering a job to apply for, there are only two questions that one needs to be able to answer: What kind of work do I want to do? How far (literally and figuratively) will I be willing to go to do it? The answer to the first question should come based off of your personal checklist and your prior work experience, education and so on. I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea to apply outside of your comfort zone, but rather to make sure that you have some expertise/logic/reasoning to bridge the different industries. Unless you’re prepared to jump into an entry-level position in your new field, you might want to rethink your options. According to a recent survey I lost the li...

from Consumerist by Chris Walters Don't hit on the interviewer. Don't ask whether they might be able to discover your past arrests. Don't ask what the company does, or see if they can pick you up when it rains. In fact, here are 43 things you shouldn't say during an interview if you actually want the job. On the bright side, if you're looking for work try to remember that there are people out there who do say stuff like this, so if you can learn from this list you'll already be one step ahead of them. "43 Things Actually Said in Job Interviews" [AOL Jobs] RELATED "Take A Coffee Break Before Your Next Job Interview" (Photo: Oskars )

Original Post: Turning Your Natural Born Talent into a Career Image via RagingRouge Crystal Cotton says: With 20 years of experience in Human Resources, Recruitment and Staff Development, I‘ve had my share of really bad interviews. I confess, early in my career the bad interview experience could have conceivably been my fault. After all, the interview process can be just as grueling for the interviewer as it is for the interviewee, especially if either are inexperienced, overly nervous or just have poor communication and social skills. But, as I became more experienced, more precise with my questions and more skilled at soliciting critical information without crossing any lines of legality (this takes a great deal of intuitive skill), it became apparent that sometimes…no, most of the time; it’s not me it’s you. Yes, YOU…the ill prepared, inexperienced, unprofessional and inconsiderate job applicant. YOU are the primary reason why you’ve gone on a dozen interviews and were not hire...

Recently Laid Off? Here’s A Quick Job Search Refresher Guide : " First job search in years? Use this refresher guide to get your new job search moving in the right direction. This a guest post by Pearl, a veteran Human Resources Specialist. The employee trap Searching for a new job can be very stressful and is actually a job in itself. If you are the one who just got laid off, do not forget that staying in the same job for years sometimes has its own share of disadvantages. When we know our jobs are secure and safe, we tend to become complacent and lazy and learning a new skill either never comes to mind or when we do think about it, it feels like an effort especially if it’s something that has no use in our current job. With many companies completely going out of business or closing their plants and offices, many of your skills may also be outdated and not needed by other companies. Solution: learn new skills Treat your time out of work as an opportunity by enrolling at a vocati...

Original Post: Why I Walked Away From A Job Opportunity This is the first year in a few that I do not have a job for the school year, and am not involved in any way in Welcome Week (McMaster’s orientation/frosh week). But I happen to have McMaster’s campus events co-ordinator on Facebook, and in my news feed it showed up that a company she knows of was hiring a promotion team for a few days during Welcome Week. It also turns out that I somehow managed to get both Thursdays and Fridays off for first semester this year (long weekend every weekend woohoo!). In my head, I thought “ Hey, this could be a good way to make some extra money before school, and maybe turn into something a bit more permanent during the year .” So I emailed the contact person asking what sort of information they wanted from me, hoping for a quick response. Shortly afterwards, I got a reply. They told me to send the sort of things I was expecting: Resumé Contact info Time available for a phone interview Availab...

Original Post: 13 More Weeks Of Unemployment Benefits For Some Americans [Unemployment] On Tuesday, the House voted to extend unemployment benefits for Americans who live in states where the unemployment rate is greater than 8.5 percent. 400,000 people were set to run out of benefits at the end of September, and will now continue to receive them until the end of the year if the bill passes. The new federal extension applies to 27 states, and will be funded, to the tune of $1.4 billion, with a tax on employers. As Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke stated earlier this month, while the recession may be over and the economy is growing , that isn't doing anything to reduce the jobless rate . In fact, many experts expect it to go higher. The House action reflects the continuing depressed state of the job market despite some signs that the economy is recovering. The unemployment rate now is 9.7 percent and economists see it topping 10 percent in 2010.Some 5 million people, about o...

Strategies to Enhance Your Job Application Recently, I attended a career fair at one of our local universities with many of the career development educators and industry representatives sharing some interesting and critical information that all graduates and current students should be aware of. Employers are now more than ever placing greater emphasis on a candidate’s employability skills than they are on a candidate’s grades in the selection process. While Australian employers have been following this principle for some time - interestingly international employers (who were, up until some time ago, focused primarily on grades) now too are far more interested in a candidate’s employability skills than just their grades alone. So students beware – if you think top grades alone are going to guarantee you a role, you could be sadly mistaken. The Australian Bureau of Statistics early this year stated that youth unemployment levels had risen to 24%. This means that all students should be im...

Original Post: Who Has Your Dream Job And Why Haven't You Emailed Him/Her/Them Yet? When most people think about career moves, they consider what is immediately available or achievable. However, if the goal is to build a career that is energizing and enjoyable, people should think in terms of what they want, regardless of immediate accessibility. Instead of building your career path based upon what's available now, why not start with your dream job and work backwards? With that in mind, who has your dream job and why haven't you emailed them yet? (note: I (jakegreene1) initially posted this as a question on Linkedin)

Is My Career Specialty Too Specific? I've been reading a lot that having a specialty or a niche is very important. The idea is to be an expert or the top candidate in your field so you become the 'go to' person. The last thing you should want is to be good at everything because then you aren't really good at any one thing. My first job after college was working for a Chairman/CEO. And then I got laid off in a merger. However, even after the first CEO I was pegged as 'the assistant to CEOs.' So be warned - often unfairly, the first job you take out of college becomes your specialty. After I was laid off I of course had to go look for another job. I was called in for an interview at an agency and it was the assistant that did all the vetting of the candidates. The executive basically yelled at me for showing up for the interview because he wasn't a CEO and he thought it was absurd that I would even show up for a non-CEO executive assistant position. It ...

Original Post: Jobsket hopes to mix up the job search market With today’s job market, even if there are countless job search alternatives to go around, there’s still opportunity to stand out. Jobsket , a small bostrapped startup operating and Spain and Ireland is jumping on the bandwagon in an attempt to solve a number of job search challenges with their platform. It’s difficult to find an online tool that equally takes into account both the candidate and the hiring parties.  Jobvite , for the companies. Risesmart , VisualCV , are both for the candidate. According to Jobsket, they’re setting out to address both sides of the coin. For now, it appears that they cater more to the candidate. With social media networking becoming a key factor in landing a new job, you need an effective way to distribute your CV. With Jobsket, candidates can upload their current text/word version or import their LinkedIn or Xing profile, while Jobsket takes care of processing it and make it social. Once proc...

Original Post: Layoff Survival Guide: Back to work! So, let’s say you’ve gotten a job offer. Congratulations! But now you may be wondering what to do about all those changes you had to deal with when you got laid off. What do you do about your health insurance coverage now? And how do you stop collecting unemployment? What are all the things you have to deal with when you’re starting a new job? A friend of mine asked me to write about this subject. Well, one friend complained that my Layoff Survival Guide was too depressing, so my other friend (who is still looking for a new job) suggested this would be a happy twist to the posts. So, with my first post, I talked about 401(k)s . At your new job, you’ll likely be given the option to enroll in their 401(k) program (or similar program for non-profits, government jobs, and the like). Sometimes you’ll have to wait to enroll, or wait for them to match or somehow contribute to your account. I recommend signing up for a 401(k). If t...

Original Post: Master the "Why Hire Me" Story to Land a Job [Interviews] So you've finally landed that job interview. Now it's time to seal the deal with a killer interview. How? For one, try mastering your 'Why hire me?' story. Photo by °Florian . We've previously highlighted the importance of crafting a successful elevator pitch , but if you're looking to sell yourself in a sit-down interview—which will presumably run longer than the standard 30-60 second elevator pitch—the Wall Street Journal says it's important to perfect your "Why hire me" story. The key is to create a story that comes across as natural, not canned, and that you can tailor to any job interview in question. A good why hire me story should avoid making too many assumptions about the job itself. This necessitates asking pointed questions both before, during, and after the interview process. The article also notes that a compelling 'about me' interview will ma...

Original PostL What Jobs Do You Refuse To Take? Earlier this week, I asked freelance writers on Twitter to tell me what jobs they turn down. Their responses provide a clear picture of the types of projects any smart freelance writer should avoid. Here are selection of those responses, in the words of the writers who shared them: Laura Spencer : Laura Lee Moss : Sharon Hurley Hall : Temerity Jane : What warning sign will lead you to turn down a freelance writing job? Share yours in the comments.

Original Post: Suddenly Unemployed: 4 Steps To Cutting The Leash + 7 Sins That Will Be Tempting You It was a Tuesday morning. I woke up checking my mobile for the latest roster… “Nopes, no messages received.” I thought to myself as I saw no new notifications on the screen of my handphone. Initially, I had informed the company that I was available on the 1st till 3rd, and I had just finished an exhausting round of roadshows through the past 2 weeks. So what was going on? Why didn’t I get this week’s roster? And it was then, with a tiny grin appearing on my face, that I’ve realized that… I was suddenly unemployed — on 1st September 2009. “What’s next?” I asked myself. To be totally honest with you, I had been looking forward to this — except that I wasn’t ready to push the red button for activation of “sudden unemployment”. Although… I had took a series of steps that lead up to this inevitable day. 4 steps prior to cutting the leash There’s a fine difference between being foolish and act...

You've been laid off or lost your job for any number of reasons and the job search is not going well. Now what do you do? The economy is down and the job pool has appeared to dry up. Most people feel helpless and out of control. These are just a couple of the first signs of the onset of job search depression. According to Webster's Dictionary, depression is "a psychoneurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies" ( www.merriam-webster.com ) To understand job search depression further, we must first consider the causes. There are approximately 15 known causes, the most significant include: insignificance from the lack of replies, strain of managing personal finances, and unemployment embarrassment. "It is the crises that follow job loss that are more dam...

Posted on July 23rd, 2009 in Productivity By Sara Image from http://www.rightattitudes.com/ We all get a little crazy on the job every now and then.  From moms at home to on-call response teams, there are ways to limit the craziness and typical work day sress.  Once you trade the temporary high of battle scars and constant adrenaline, you may find that you actually enjoy your job more than you realized. Know what you're capable of.  If you're confident in your ability to do your job, even emergency meetings can't stress you out. Don't repeat any gossip you hear.  If you can detach yourself from the gossip chain, you cut the majority of the drama out of your work days. Create an enjoyable lunchtime ritual.  Listen to music, read a book, picnic on the grass, or just enjoy your leftovers.  Let your mind calm down and mark the day's halfway point. Keep contact information easily accessible.  Any phone numbers that could be urgent should be kept close at han...

Original Post How To Kickstart Your Job Search Sometimes the key to success is getting a good start. This a guest post by Joey Trebif. “You’re never beaten until you admit it.” - George S. Patton Take the job search plunge now You are on the ledge, inching forward one tiny step at a time. It took a lot of courage to get up here, now you just need to step off. You know that once you step off there is no turning back, but you hesitate yet again. It’s a beautiful day, sunny and no clouds in the sky, a great day to be out here. You finally find the courage to move to the end and you step off. You drop quickly and look up at the brilliant blue sky before you hit. Your journey ends and you plunge into the water, the pool water is not as cold as you thought and, now that you think about it, the diving board is not really that high. If you haven’t… If you are serious about your job search you need to take the plunge! Leaning towards the edge you may get a little wet but the fastest way to get...

July 10, 2009 by Yofred Moik Managing  your online reputation is becoming increasingly more important these days.  The relevance of the traditional paper résumé is fading and prospective employees are more than ever graded by their online reputation. You might also know someone who was fired or was never really considered to be a good job candidate because of his or her online persona.  So what do you have to do in order to maintain a healthy online reputation that impresses potential employers and not cause their repudiation?  How can you successfully manage an impressionable online reputation from both professional and user-generated content without curbing your web presence? 1. Take advantage of online reputation management services (ORM). Use Google alerts. This is one of the easiest tools for tracking a particular topic, enabling anyone to stay up to date with a particular word or phrase.  You may want to know when your search phrase is activated in Google's search i...

from getpickd by Adam image from Bart Clays Welcome to the getpickd blog ! We'll be launching our new online resume service on June 23 at getpickd .com , but in the meantime, be sure to follow our blog for updates, resume ideas, and interview tips. You can also follow us on Twitter @ getpickd . For quite some time, my colleagues, friends and family have been asking me to review their resumes. After years of hiring numerous young professionals for a non-profit in Washington DC, I' ve reviewed countless resumes. I can say, without hesitation, most resumes are simply not up to par. Beyond being fraught with grammatical errors, most resumes do a poor job emphasizing the uniqueness of the candidate. In addition, they visually fail to stand out from the crowd. Here are a few specific reasons why the average resume fails: The average resume contains spelling, grammatical, and formatting errors. This one seems obvious, but honestly, over 90% of resumes ha...

From Anatomy Of A Winning ‘Elevator Pitch’ I was once told that if I can’t explain my company and what it does in a sentence or two at most, then I have no idea what the company does. Ever since then I have tried to fit most of my ideas and soon to be start-up into a sentence and that task is not so easy. Maybe it’s not so easy because I always feel the need to explain in complete detail, thinking that will help the other party understand better and want to work with me. But really, most people that matter and could help grow your business rarely have the time to listen to your “detailed explanation”. They will rather hear a succinct description A.K.A. elevator pitch . The term ‘elevator pitch’ has been coined with respect to the expected duration of the presentation. An elevator ride is usually short (bar power failures) and lasts about 60 seconds averagely. So the challenge here is can you win over a potential investor in 60 seconds? Many entrepreneurs and investors actually believe ...

Low-Tech Ways To Twitter From A Cell Phone : " Twitter – the most popular micro-blogging platform available today. I’m a proud member of Twitter and I tweet on an almost hourly basis. My twitter profile contains tweets of all variants such as “at home, chilling”, “doing some work in the office” and “in town having lunch…”. In fact, it was this last tweet which I made yesterday that inspired me to write this article. You see, I didn’t tweet from a PC, nor am I the owner of a high-tech iPhone. I am what you could call a “low-tech tweeter”. I own a Samsung Tocco Lite mobile phone which cost me just under 130 Euros – pretty average if I do say so myself. When you dismiss the touch screen, all the other features are basic and it’s a little slow with carrying out tasks. There is no Wi-Fi and no 3G. Yet, I still tweet while on the move with photos, links and status updates. I would like to demonstrate a few low-tech ways to Twitter from a cell phone. Firstly, let me say that to tweet f...