General What's New Postings Moving to New Address

After taking some time off to reconfigure our postings, IMDiversity's editors and contributors/bloggers have determined to separate the general "What's New" postings that we had been posting in this space for posting on a stand-alone but related address:

http://imdiversity.blogspot.com

This current blog, http://diversitycareers.blogspot.com/, will continue to be updated with appropriate content related to career development, workplace issues, diversity- and employment-related topics, and announcements of opportunities and events of interest to a wide range of visitors coming from the Career Center channel of our main site IMDiversity.com, and from elsewhere.

However, those announcements that are primarily related to internal news and announcements of goings-on with the IMDiversity.com and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online network, as well as THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Magazine, will be posted on http://imdiversity.blogspot.com. These items will be primarily of interest to regular active-job-seeker visitors and clients of our organization, those making use of our jobs and resume tools, etc. on our main site, as well as those interested in corporate news and information about IMDiversity, Inc.

In fact, this is how we had planned to approach the integration of the blogs into our site activities from the beginning, believing that it was in the interests of our readers who were seeing different kinds of content. However, it took us a little while to (re)secure and configure the http://imdiversity.blogspot.com address.

We hope this change will be beneficial to our readers and site visitors moving forward.

-- The editors

Nearing Graduation and Still No Job. NOW what?

"School's out, you have that degree and you are ready to conquer the world. Only

one thing stands between you and your professional success: You don't have a

job. So now what? Should you begin a massive online resume campaign and then

wait for employers to call? Should you take any job you can get now and hop

around until you find one that fits? Should you enlist the help of a headhunter?

Should you ask everyone you know for a job?"

These are the timely questions explored in Pamela McBride's feature article, You're a Graduate and No Job - Now What?, from THE BLACK COLLEGIAN's Second Semester Super Issue, and they will likely resonate for a number of soon-to-be-grads who are struggling to fend off
senioritis, growing anxious about what lies ahead.

More so than in recent years past, many of our readers from the Class of 2008 who have not yet landed jobs after the campus recruiting are understandably uneasy about the mixed messages they've been receiving about their employment outlook. On one hand, official reports of a general economic slow-down are punctuated by news reports of a hiring drop across many sectors (not only clearly struggling ones like manufacturing and those directly affected by the housing bust) and rising unemployment in many states.



On the other hand, as Dr. Phil Gardner reports in his annual study of the Job Outlook for this
year's college graduates, there are bright spots on the horizon that should help motivated
new grads get a shot at launching rewarding careers. Shortages of skilled, educated workers in
areas such as IT, healthcare and secondary education have created a good range of opportunities for certificate- and degree-holders in these fields, according to numerous industry reports.

(However, taking advantage of the good, better-paying opportunities in these areas may mean
widening a search to jobs outside the most popular locations, looking at businesses in new
regions that could require relocation.)

In many other industries, however, the bright spot for new grads is the result demographic
trends: The retirement of workers from the "Baby Boom" generation that has been forecast for a number of years is now clearly upon us. As retirees leave the workforce, many employers are
retooling their approach to hiring to fill vacant positions with young candidates, sometimes
following a period of "probation" and additional training, or sometimes directly hiring out of their intern pool.



In fact, this year, THE BLACK COLLEGIAN's annual Top Employers survey showed that many national organizations and smaller employers had planned robust college hiring
activities for 2008. Among the Top 100 hiring employers ranked in our survey, some indicated in our follow-up survey that they were still accepting applications from students and new grads
even after their campus recruiting was over for the season.

As a result, we are holding a spring 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair, creating a space to connect jobseekers with those employers who specifically told us they are still actively considering entry-level applicants for open positions.

Hosted on our site at www.black-collegian.com, the Fair is co-presented by IMDiversity.com, and all entry-level/student jobseekers of all backgrounds are welcomed, as are employers who use both THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online and IMDiversity.com.

The Fair begins March 15, and will be updated on an ongoing basis in the run-up
right until graduation at the end of April / beginning of May. Students who still need a
post-graduation job (or, in some cases, a summer appointment or internship) are encouraged to
make repeat visits to the Fair, as it is updated during this period, and review and apply to
open positions right away. Time is of the essence, in most cases, which is why we have
decided to circumvent our normal, paid job listings and publish the employer-provided,
direct-access links to the relevant open positions where students and grads still have a shot.

We extended our congratulations on making it through the school year, and our best wishes in
your search. We also encourage you to let us know if you land a position for an upcoming special feature we will be publishing.

March 15 - April 25, 2008 @ THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online GO

Don't Put Your Job Hunt On Hold for the Holidays

While some of the editors are getting ready to take a few days off (alas, not all of us will be off this next week), we leave some good advice from the career experts at the WSJ/Career Journal:

Don't Put Your Job Hunt On Hold for the Holidays

It's a myth that hiring slows down between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, says popular Journal columnist PERRI CAPELL. Sometimes, in fact, it's the very opposite, as "managers try to fill jobs before their budgets expire."

"Not only don't things slow down in December," says Tim Jones, vice president of human resources for Ixia, a communications technology test systems maker. "but there's a sense of urgency to fill jobs in many cases."

In fact, from the perspective of IMDiversity's editors, December has been an active month for the posting of jobs on our job banks. The activity seems to have been at least partially boosted by the fact of imminent or slightly extended deadlines for internships, coops and other entry-level or educational opportunities for the late spring and summer (yes, already), where a high volume of applications must be in early enough in the new year so that decisions can be made for a summer start.

For others, the holidays can be an ideal time to "line up one's ducks," fine-tune your resume, take the time to do the kind of employer research we all know we should be doing thoroughly, but don't always have time and focus to do as well as we should.

So, while we wish everyone a happy holiday season, we also urge those who are in an active job search to not let too much momentum go to waste over the next couple of weeks, but keep up the efforts to make 2008 a very happy new year indeed.

Good luck!

New edition of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN on campus

The staff at IMDiversity is pleased to announce that the First Semester Super Issue of THE BLACK COLLEGIAN has made its way to college campuses. Available at colleges nationwide, primarily through career services offices, as well as through direct personal subscriptions, the new Career Planning and Job Search Issue features:

• The annual TOP 100 Diversity Employers List
• Careers Focus on Engineering, Science and Technology, including an interview with NASA astronaut Joan Higginbotham
• A new special report on the progress at New Orleans' HBCUs two years after Hurricane Katrina, in collaboration with Black College Wire
• Kanye West feature profile
• Campus to Careers section

The magazine is free for students through the campus career center. Stop in and get your copy for these features and many more today, or stop in at the THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online later this month for some previews and extended features.

From the Author: Secrets of the Hidden Job Markets

Following up on a comment left on our September blog post about the new book, Secrets of the Hidden Job Markets, we responded to the author, Janet White, to invite her to share in a little more detail the idea behind her "contrarian" job-hunting approach, which calls on jobseekers to"Change Your Thinking to Get the Job of Your Dreams."

More specifically, we were interested in how White's "non-traditional" approach could serve the interests of underrepresented minority and women jobseekers in particular. Thanks to Ms. White for taking the time to share her response:

IMDiversity: Why and how is the non-traditional approach outlined in the book relevant specifically to the interests of underrepresented minority and women jobseekers?

Author Janet White responds: The point of my book is that you have within yourself the most powerful job-finding tool that exists – your mind. Your thoughts are so powerful that they can help you get, or hinder you from getting that dream job – regardless of your gender, skin color, age, country of origin, disability or whatever.

This is because of the Universal Law of Attraction, which states that you attract to yourself anything you focus on, feel strongly about or believe to be true. Just as soil turns seeds into plants, so the LOA turns your “seeds” of thoughts, feelings and beliefs into “demonstrations” that will reflect those thoughts, feelings and beliefs right back at you, whether you really want them or not.

The problem is that most people focus on what they don’t want and then they complain when it shows up. When you change your thinking, everything changes – what you do, what you say, how you act, and most importantly, you change the way other people respond to you.

For example, if you believe you’re being discriminated against because you’re a minority woman, you will find yourself in situations in which female diversity candidates receive a cool reception.

But when you believe you are welcomed by businesses because of your unique talents, experience and expertise, and your ability to help them accomplish their goals, then that will be your experience and your diversity status will be irrelevant.

Secrets of the Hidden Job Market: Change Your Thinking to Get the Job of Your Dream was written specifically to get you to realize what you believe to be true about yourself and the process of job hunting, and to help you have the experiences you want.

About Secrets of the Hidden Job Market: Change Your Thinking to Get the Job of Your Dreams: http://www.jobmarketsecrets.com/.

What do you think about this topic? Leave us a comment on this post.

Surveyed HR and Training Executives Unsure How to Apply Diversity

Surveyed HR and Training Executives Unsure How to Apply Diversity, reported by Kim R Wells, on his blog, Professional Edge:

According to a recent article by Kathy Gurchiek in Society of Human Resource Management's HR News, putting diversity into practice has been a challenge for many firms. For many of you young professionals looking to access and advance in today's top corporations this may be of interest to you.

According to the article, organizations are increasingly committed to diversity in their workforce, but one-fourth of more than 2,000 senior HR and training executives polled are unsure how to apply it and leverage its benefits; a conclusion based on findings by the Boston-based Novations Group, a global consulting organization that commissioned the Internet survey of 2,046 workers conducted in February 2007.

Kim Wells is a regular columnist and blogger for IMDiversity and THE BLACK COLLEGIAN, as well as a business consultant and Career Services Director at Howard University.

Book: Secrets of the Hidden Job Market

Getting That Dream Job Is Almost As Easy As Changing Your Mind, New Book Says

This forwarded by the Author:

"If you’re job hunting and tired of not getting hired, chances are it’s your
thinking that’s the problem, according to Janet White, author of Secrets of the
Hidden Job Market: Change Your Thinking to Get the Job of Your Dreams. "A primer on using the Law of Attraction, Secrets explains how job seekers’ negative thoughts unintentionally attract the things they don’t want – like a difficult, frustrating job search and its related problems – and how they can intentionally use positive thoughts to attract what they really want – like the job of their dreams."

The book's main argument is that the “Traditional System” of job hunting -- help wanted ads, job fairs, etc. -- can in some cases actually work against jobseekers, making their job searches unnecessarily difficult, complicated and frustrating. White argues instead for following a “Contrarian System,” combining "common sense, sound business judgment and an understanding of basic human psychology".

We're still reviewing the book, and would like to ask the author for more input about her approach. We'll post any follow up here and on the Career Center.

Obviously, we're a little biased: In our company's 35-plus years of publishing and recruitment experience, we have observed that technology or communications systems by themseleves are neither going to win nor lose a job for a jobseeker. These are vehicles for learning about opportunities, and connecting jobseekers to employers who may have a need to hire them and be enticed (or "attracted" in White's view) to contact them. Only the jobseeker can win or lose the battle to convert those opportunities into fulfilling employment.

At the same time, we see first-hand every day illustrations of Secrets' premise that "a job seeker’s feelings, beliefs and assumptions determine how easy or difficult it will be for them to land their dream job, even before they take the first step."

What jobs people look for, what methods they use to look for them, how they prepare to apply for them and then follow up on opportunities to zero in, and how they otherwise approach the whole elaborate dance of the application process likely has a great deal to with their psychological state, determination, clarity of purpose, confidence, diligence and creativity. For those who have been beaten down by a long string of unsatisfactory job searches and application dead-ends, Secrets of the Hidden Job Market may offer some tips to help clarify your goals, and the inspiration to re-start and turbo charge your pursuit of not just a job, but your "Dream Job".

As always, we welcome those who've read and used the book's techniques to let us know what you think.