Rejecting assumptions about holiday hiring will improve the odds for job seekers with the resolve to succeed. Image; CC I don't know, maybe/Flickr

Contrary to popular belief among most job seekers, a job search during the holidays is not a waste of time. In fact, with much business activity slowing down, the holidays could be the best time to intensify one’s job search. Those who are persistent through the holidays will find less competition and people with more time to consider their qualifications.

Holiday hiring assumptions are wrong

Based on the assumption that companies aren’t hiring, many job seekers mistakenly put off their job search during the holidays. People who buy into that could miss the golden opportunity they’ve been looking for. However, with a lot of people making that assumption, the odds improve for those with the discipline to keep going. According to careercast.com, successful job hunting during the holidays takes perseverance, the mental toughness to shake off holiday blues and the ability to quickly adapt to new situations.

Stoke your holiday spirit with action

Keep your holiday spirit up by taking action during the entire holiday season. Don’t let up on your daily search of the online job boards, classified ads and professional association. Take advantage of escalating holiday activity on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Send holiday cards to people you’ve recently interviewed with. Many companies interview in December for positions starting in the new year. Hiring managers are looking for people who can help them get the jump on next year’s goals.

Take advantage of holiday gatherings

Holiday gatherings are an excellent opportunity to get in front of people who can help you find openings and meet the right people. Bring a simple, elegant business card with a phone number and e-mail address. Job counselors also recommend rehearsing a 30 second introduction that summarizes your situation and your career objectives. Volunteering at a food bank or children’s center can also lead to introductions to people who can help. You can’t expect success every time, but helping others during the holidays will lift your spirits and could lead to a paycheck.

Sources

Sacramento Bee

Careercast

About.com

The eighth straight month of private sector job growth couldn't offset public sector layoffs, population growth and people re-entering the work force. Image: Thinkstock

The U.S. unemployment rate crept upward in August to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent in July. But even though the jobless rate rose, employers hired more workers than expected. The uptick in unemployment statistics is being credited to the end of temporary U.S. Census jobs, layoffs in state and local governments and an influx of people resuming their job searches. But private sector hiring increased for the eighth straight month. The Labor Department also revised figures for June and July that show more jobs were created and fewer were lost than originally estimated. The positive aspects of the latest jobs report are giving economists hope that the economy won’t relapse into a double-dip recession.

Unemployed workers overwhelm job creation

The U.S. unemployment rate rose for the first time in four months according to Friday’s August jobs report from the Labor Department. MSNBC reports that although private employers added 67,000 jobs, the U.S. unemployment rate is skewed by the loss of 114,000 census jobs and 10,000 job cuts in state and local governments. More than 500,000 people started trying to find jobs again to further push up the jobless rate–the first time the work force has grown since April. Revised job creation figures also improved the employment outlook. Private sector job growth for July was revised upward to 107,000 from 71,000. June job creation was revised upward to 61,000 from 31,000.

Huge crater in labor market hard to fill

The U.S. unemployment rate has been a persistent and vexing problem. However, CNNMoney reports that by historical standards, the labor market is recovering faster than it has during past recessions. But because so many jobs were lost, higher growth than normal is required replace them. In 2008-09, 8.4 million jobs were lost–about 7 percent of all jobs. Only 3.1 percent of all jobs were lost during the 2001 recession and the jobless recovery that followed. During the 1990-91 recession, only 1.9 percent of all jobs were lost. Sustained job growth returned six months after the current recession was declared over in June 2009. The turnaround took 12 months to begin after the 1990-91 recession. After the 2001 recession, job growth took 22 months to resume.

Economic expansion outpaced by population growth

Job creation has dropped steadily since employers were adding about 200,000 workers a month. CNNMoney said at that rate it would take more than three years to replace the jobs lost in 2008-09. The Christian Science Monitor reports that if the public and private sectors created 100,000 jobs per month, the unemployment rate will not go down. Population growth continuously adds to the labor force, and workers who had given up reconsider and re-enter the labor force. Hiring is slow at the current level of economic expansion because many companies have increased output by working employees harder. However, another Labor Department report showed productivity dropped in the second quarter. To sustain growth employers may have to start hiring.

HR departments are busy

A recent poll by the Society for Human Resource Management suggests that the HR people who don’t respond to your resumés aren’t unsympathetic, they’re overwhelmed. In the past few years, HR departments have had plenty of layoffs and downsizings of their own. According to SHRM, since 2007 the average HR department has decreased from 13 to 9.2 employees. That means the average workload for the average HR worker has increased by 30 percent from the days when a written response to a solicited resumé was the norm.

HR workers know what it’s like

HR workers know firsthand what unemployed job-hunters are going through. In a separate survey, SHRM found that of the HR professionals who were out of work in 2009, 85 percent of job losses resulted from layoffs, 47 percent of workers looked for work for six to 12 months, and 27 percent had been looking for more than a year. Among the HR workers who found positions in 2009, 49 percent said they liked their new jobs less than their old ones.  Add pay cuts to the mix, and chances are good that HR personnel are better candidates for payday loans than ever before.

HR departments are ‘black holes’ for resumés

Given such a high level of job dissatisfaction, it’s safe to say that many HR personnel are overworked. With more than 14 million unemployed people looking for jobs, businesses are inundated with applications and resumés. Your submission – however carefully you crafted it and whether or not the company solicited it – is buried in a pile somewhere, and HR personnel are hard-pressed to give it individual consideration. The same thing can be said for interview follow-ups. Job candidates today get as far as the interview stage, feel that things went well, and then never hear from the company again. It’s discouraging — it may even border on inexcusable — but it’s not personal.

Bypass the HR department

When it comes to job-hunting with record-high unemployment rates looming in the distance, there’s nothing wrong with knocking on every door. So do a little research and try the back door. Check web sites or call the company to get names and contact information of the department head and hiring manager for the job you’re interested in. Then, whether or not you send your resumé to the HR department, send it directly to those people.

Your resumé is just a checklist for HR purposes

HR personnel sort through hundreds of applications and compare candidate qualifications to a checklist of job requirements. After about 10 seconds, if all the boxes on the list aren’t checked, your resumé disappears forever. Doubtless, department heads and hiring managers are busy people, too, but they aren’t looking at stacks of resumés every day, and they may see things in your application that an HR person does not. Many times, what company executives really hope to find cannot be expressed in a list of job requirements.

Get your resumé into the right hands

1. Be patient: Wait a few days after sending your resumé.
2. Be brave: Pick up the phone and call the people you sent your resumé to.
3. Be confident: Ask to schedule a meeting.

You need a job, right? Without one, you can’t even get low interest loans. Give your hard-earned qualifications and job experience the recognition they deserve by getting your resumé into the right hands.

It used to be that employers would hire new college graduates, giving them the chance to work while they learned necessary job skills, but not anymore. The recent loss of jobs across multiple economic sectors has led experienced workers to vie for positions they would not have considered in better times. As a result, employers now have a wide range of workers to choose from in filling entry-level positions.

Employers stand to gain from the experience of seasoned workers, which makes it difficult for new college graduates to compete. More and more, employers require that recent college graduates have some kind of work experience. Work experience as a job prerequisite for new college graduates may seem like a contradiction of terms, but in reality there are things students and new graduates can do to gain valuable gain work before searching for jobs.

College internships

The last couple of decades have seen a rise in the availability and types of internship assignments for college students, particularly for undergraduates.

In the past, work internships were geared to students seeking degrees in engineering, architecture and other specialized fields where newly-acquired technical knowledge could be applied in practical settings. At the graduate level, internships have always been required of medical students, but they were also common in teaching and social work. With the growth of the service economy in recent decades, internships have become increasingly common in computer information technology, media production, marketing, and finance.

Like so many things, internships have waned as a result of the recession, but they have not disappeared altogether.  Top-tier schools, at least, continue to be targeted by large companies offering internships for students in their first, second, and third years of college.

International internships

Recent exponential growth in international trade and investment has increased the demand for talented employees with international knowledge and multi-cultural experience. Many American students and young professionals travel overseas to participate in internships and similar opportunities that provide practical exposure to the business world outside the United States.Conversely, in the United States more internships and business externships have opened up for foreign students and professionals.

The fact that many of these internships do not offer a salary  has not deterred students from seeking them out. Indeed, according to the Institute of International Education, between 2000 and 2008 the number of overseas internships created annually nearly doubled, from 6,940 to 13,658.  Not surprisingly, rising unemployment rates in 2009 were accompanied by further increases in the number of overseas internships.

Effects of the New International Economy

The new global economy requires that many workers and managers be knowledgeable about other countries and cultures. In a recent Chicago Tribune article, Victor C. Johnson, senior public policy advisor for NAFSA: Association of International Educators, said that an internship or related experience abroad will soon be a prerequisite for a good job. Calling this “the next digital divide,” he added,“the kids who graduate from school who have international experience are going to have a leg up in gaining successful lives…We just hear CEO after CEO saying that the work force of the future, really the work force of the present, has to be a cross-culturally competent work force. Work forces are cross-cultural; businesses are global,” he said. In the same article, Craig Brown, executive vice president of The Association for International Practical Training, a nonprofit internship-placement agency, explained, “It used to be that speaking English meant you could work anywhere in the world, but it’s not the case anymore. Companies are selecting candidates who are multilingual.”

Good reasons to learn a second (or third) language

More and more American students are competing for jobs with foreign students who, in addition to their native language, have learned English and perhaps a third language, as part of their educational curriculum.  That increasing competition is one more good reason for American students to start taking better advantage of the many foreign language courses offered by American universities, many of which are being expanded under new policy directives and financial support from the federal government.

Photo from Picasa

The Numbers Paint a Grim Picture

We are all aware that money is tight for a lot of people these days, but somehow when the actual statistics come out it can still be quite shocking. A recent Associated Press article (See: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-millionplus-collect-apf-2239818806.html?x=0) is reporting that more than 20 million Americans received unemployment payments over the course of 2009. The unemployment rate for the year reached a whopping 10 percent. It is easy to see why sales of many products are way down when one in every 10 people is out of a job.

It has been a Drawn Out Struggle for Some

While there are not as many workers being laid off or let go as there were in recent months, many employers are still reluctant to re-hire until they see a dramatic upturn in the economy. Some of the people who have lost their jobs have been fortunate enough to find work elsewhere, even if their new jobs are not optimal. While lifestyle adjustments are often required, those who have had to take on casual jobs to remain employed should count themselves lucky to have found some work. Among those without a job, 5.8 million have been unemployed for over six months. This circumstance can take a toll not only on the pocketbook, but also on a person’s pride.

The Vicious Cycle

With so many people out of work or working low paying jobs, there is little money being spent. Businesses that rely on sales of some sort are still struggling to bring in customers. They cannot take on extra employees because they are not making enough money to keep them, or at the very least, they are wary of what the economy has in store for us in the upcoming months and years. Also, government stimulus programs are beginning to wane, meaning there is even less money for businesses to work with. So with consumers unable to spend and companies powerless to hire, the economic crisis seems to be here for the long haul.

Just how Long will the Crisis Last?

The unemployment rate is showing signs of declining, but not at a speed that most of us would like to see. Experts are estimating that within a year’s time the rate will be above 9 percent, slightly down from the current 10 percent. With such a scarce job market the government has been forced to extend the term of unemployment benefits beyond the usual 26 weeks several times in 2009 and will likely have to continue to do so, otherwise millions of people will be left with even less to spend.

Job Competition is Fierce

If you are one of the many Americans who is unemployed and looking for work the odds are definitely not great. It is estimated that for every open job there are six unemployed candidates. Of course, there are also many other people to consider. This number does not include the many employed people who are searching for full time or higher paying opportunities.

Try to Remain Positive

It can be tough to stay optimistic is such trying times. Taking a casual job can be humbling, but you can take pride in the fact that you have beaten the odds. Also, try thinking outside the box. If you have skills that would allow you to take on freelance work, this can be a great time to use them. Companies are far more likely to take on freelancers than regular employees right now. The internet has opened up a wide range of online opportunities too.