This week's supplement to the IMDiversity.com Career Center AP New Headlines again places focus on the jobs and the loss thereof in the nation's continuing economic meltdown.
AP Economics Writer CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER reports that the number of new claims for jobless benefits increased by more than expected in mid-October, "and companies from Goldman Sachs to Yahoo have announced thousands of layoffs in the past few days as the financial crisis, tighter credit, rising foreclosures and myriad other woes take their toll on the economy."
And, of course, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan predicted last week that there's plenty more pain to follow.
Nonetheless, it appears that many people are showing "a remarkable...optimism despite economists' widespread expectations that a serious recession is brewing," says a related report by ALAN FRAM. According to an AP-GFK Poll, "Most expect the economy to generally be better and the stock market to be rising three months from now," but "Majorities also doubt unemployment will fall or home values will rise by then, and people are split over whether their personal finances will improve."
It seems that while most people believe that economic conditions will improve, they are prepared to have to wait for at least a year before "more jobs and higher real estate values" will start improving their own financial conditions on Main Street.
There seems little doubt that this optimism has much to do with election-year fever. As followers of the "hope and change" candidate, supporters of Barack Obama seem to project a somewhat rosier future. Forty-four percent of those polled said they think the economy will improve if Democrat Obama is elected, while 34 percent said it would get better if Republican John McCain wins.
In a sidebar, the candidates' own statements on jobless claims both tend to lay blame squarely on the Bush administration, and a second sidebar comapres their healthcare plans at a glance.
In light of this continuing bad news, the AP has also been running a series of practical nuts-and-bolts focused on navigating unemployment and belt-tightening. An additional piece explains upcoming IRS changes in 2009 that may raise limits on contributions to 401(k) and SEP plans. Also useful are writer David Pitt's "Tips for benefits enrollment season".
Another casualty of the economic crisis, adds Business Writer Joyce Rosenberg, may well be your usual year-end bonus or holiday gifts.
Need help making sense of all the wildly yo-yo-ing jobless claims news coming from the DoL? (And who doesn't?) Meltdown 101: Jobless Claims and the Economy (also by Christopher Rugaber) provides a series of succinct Q&As on how to interpret reported data.
See all the readings in the current supplement.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Career Center Blog Back Online -- and Tackling Layoffs
After taking a break in the late summer to reorganize a number of sections throughout our site network, the editors are resuming work on the blog.
This fall we'll be posting news about a number of new features, both new articles of interest and news about expanded tools in our featured jobs and jobs quicksearch sections.
Meanwhile, though, we are running a series of occasional readings with a particularly timely focus, as the economy continues to sag and the monthly employment reports do not look too good.
Through our partnership with the WSJ Career Journal, we're running a follow-up to this spring's feature, What to Do After a Layoff -- detailing "how to make the most of a devastating situation".
The piece offered a lot of good advice for how to organize your affairs when the worst happened. But as conomic conditions have continued to worsen since then, the new piece focuses on better advice still for this climate: Don't wait.
Layoff Rumors? Get Ready To Get Busy
What to do when the rumors start flying
Focusing on how to proactively prepare for the worst, the article's suggestions go beyond the basic, obvious checkboxes -- updating your resume, etc. The moment you get a whiff that things may not be 100% stable at work, it suggests, you'd do well to carefully start gathering the materials you would need to be accessible outside of the office, preparing a workspace and business line in your home, and other actions enabling you to "hit the ground running". When/if disaster strikes, you'll need to be ready on day one to "meet your new boss" (you) and have the resources to statr your new full-time job (finding one).
-- Finally, starting this fall, we'll be supplementing such features with occasional special focus reportage in our Career Center AP News Headlines section. Readings will focus on the big employment picture and trends, at both national and lcoal levels, as well as the areas and industries where there are continuing worker shortages.
So stop back soon.
This fall we'll be posting news about a number of new features, both new articles of interest and news about expanded tools in our featured jobs and jobs quicksearch sections.
Meanwhile, though, we are running a series of occasional readings with a particularly timely focus, as the economy continues to sag and the monthly employment reports do not look too good.
Through our partnership with the WSJ Career Journal, we're running a follow-up to this spring's feature, What to Do After a Layoff -- detailing "how to make the most of a devastating situation".
The piece offered a lot of good advice for how to organize your affairs when the worst happened. But as conomic conditions have continued to worsen since then, the new piece focuses on better advice still for this climate: Don't wait.
Layoff Rumors? Get Ready To Get Busy
What to do when the rumors start flying
Focusing on how to proactively prepare for the worst, the article's suggestions go beyond the basic, obvious checkboxes -- updating your resume, etc. The moment you get a whiff that things may not be 100% stable at work, it suggests, you'd do well to carefully start gathering the materials you would need to be accessible outside of the office, preparing a workspace and business line in your home, and other actions enabling you to "hit the ground running". When/if disaster strikes, you'll need to be ready on day one to "meet your new boss" (you) and have the resources to statr your new full-time job (finding one).
-- Finally, starting this fall, we'll be supplementing such features with occasional special focus reportage in our Career Center AP News Headlines section. Readings will focus on the big employment picture and trends, at both national and lcoal levels, as well as the areas and industries where there are continuing worker shortages.
So stop back soon.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Job Hunter Chronicles: Sys Admin Found Last 3 Jobs Online
From The Job Hunters Chronicles:
A new submission by Alex Alborzfard, a systems administrator, took up the question we posed at the launch of our new Chronicles section: "Does Anyone Really Find a Job Online?"
The answer in Alborzfard's case, at least, is: "Absolutely".
There's no going back for this IT professional, who says he has found his last three jobs using online job boards, search agents and networking tools, and that he will "Never Buy the Sunday Paper Again!"
But, he cautions, the time- and cost-saving convenience of online job sites does not mean that old rules don't apply: using online measures alone cannot replace good, old-fashioned networking. In addition to making use of online job search and automated-search technologies, he suggests that social networking sites such as LinkedIn are have also played an important role in his success finding employment online.
Read the full submission here.
A new submission by Alex Alborzfard, a systems administrator, took up the question we posed at the launch of our new Chronicles section: "Does Anyone Really Find a Job Online?"
The answer in Alborzfard's case, at least, is: "Absolutely".
There's no going back for this IT professional, who says he has found his last three jobs using online job boards, search agents and networking tools, and that he will "Never Buy the Sunday Paper Again!"
But, he cautions, the time- and cost-saving convenience of online job sites does not mean that old rules don't apply: using online measures alone cannot replace good, old-fashioned networking. In addition to making use of online job search and automated-search technologies, he suggests that social networking sites such as LinkedIn are have also played an important role in his success finding employment online.
Read the full submission here.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
New Feature: The Job Hunters Chronicles
New on the IMDiversity Career Center, we're pleased to kick off our new feature, The Job Hunters Chronicles, with three submissions.
Although the software engineer, a dot-com executive, and a journalist who works as a government liason for a non-profit service agency are all in very different occupations, they share a common theme in their job hunting stories.
K.D., a software engineer who wanted to relocate from San Francisco to Chicago, took a fairly traditional approach to posting his resume on an online job board, and was lucky to be contacted by a desirable employer. However, he recalls that that first contact was just a foot in the door. He had not anticipated the highly time-consuming electronic back-and-forth that ensued, including multiple interviews and a sample of original code programming solving a problem the company sent him.
David Fox, a dot-com executive, focuses on the importance of using online tools to thoroughly research a prospective employer. In his case, the time spent researching the products and even the flaws of his current employer's websites -- and then corresponding with a hiring manager about them at length and in detail -- paid off.
Shawn Chollete, who had worked as a journalist, similarly landed a good job at a NPO through a seemingly round-about fashion: through networking on sites like Facebook and MySpace, and ultimately cross-referencing these social resources with contacts in job postings he wanted to apply to.
If there's one common thread among our inaugural user contributors to The Job Hunters Chronicles, it seems to be that simply posting to job boards and applying to jobs is only the first step in a job search process. Following up by using the widest range of online tools to research, communicate with, and present themselves to their prospective employers is key to successfully concluding a job hunt online.
Amen.
Do you have a story to share with other jobseekers abot what worked or didn't work for you in online job searching? Please submit it to The Job Hunters Chronicles, or feel free to leave a coment posted here on this thread.
Although the software engineer, a dot-com executive, and a journalist who works as a government liason for a non-profit service agency are all in very different occupations, they share a common theme in their job hunting stories.
K.D., a software engineer who wanted to relocate from San Francisco to Chicago, took a fairly traditional approach to posting his resume on an online job board, and was lucky to be contacted by a desirable employer. However, he recalls that that first contact was just a foot in the door. He had not anticipated the highly time-consuming electronic back-and-forth that ensued, including multiple interviews and a sample of original code programming solving a problem the company sent him.
David Fox, a dot-com executive, focuses on the importance of using online tools to thoroughly research a prospective employer. In his case, the time spent researching the products and even the flaws of his current employer's websites -- and then corresponding with a hiring manager about them at length and in detail -- paid off.
Shawn Chollete, who had worked as a journalist, similarly landed a good job at a NPO through a seemingly round-about fashion: through networking on sites like Facebook and MySpace, and ultimately cross-referencing these social resources with contacts in job postings he wanted to apply to.
If there's one common thread among our inaugural user contributors to The Job Hunters Chronicles, it seems to be that simply posting to job boards and applying to jobs is only the first step in a job search process. Following up by using the widest range of online tools to research, communicate with, and present themselves to their prospective employers is key to successfully concluding a job hunt online.
Amen.
Do you have a story to share with other jobseekers abot what worked or didn't work for you in online job searching? Please submit it to The Job Hunters Chronicles, or feel free to leave a coment posted here on this thread.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Job Hunters Chronicles: Does Anyone Really Find a Job Online?
This was a question that we overheard recently, and that became the topic of an extended discussion on Facebook. The frustration in it was clear as a bell, and it ultimately led the editors at IMDiversity to decide we wanted to explore the topic more deeply.
From the inside perspective of folks who work with web technology and in the areas of student and professional recruitment (online and offline), we can say with some authority and certainty that the answer is, "Yes, some people do find and get jobs using online tools..."
But from the same perspective, we also have to add, "...but it's not always as quick and straightforward as it seems."
Remember those Super Bowl commercials a number of years back where an office worker just posted a resume on an online job board just sat back and waited for the job offers to flood in along with piles of gifts and bouquets of flowers? Well, we've been in the business for some time, and while we've certainly seen jobseekers get connected with hiring employers and ultimately close on good employment opportunities through using online tools, we've never seen one get a floral bouquet with it...not one!
Just "going fishing" by taking a 10 minutes to drop a resume on a job board may be an adequate job hunt strategy for a very elite job seeker with stellar credentials, mounds of experience, an eloquent writing style that allows his or her winning personality to radiate off the virtual page, and the ideal skillset and references, background and presentation style to make a perfect organizational fit that is recognized by a highly active, dedicated and keen-eyed recruiter just itching to make this one hire out of several ASAP.
But you and me ain't that very elite person. Folks like us have to, as the old adage goes, "treat finding a job as if it was our job." We know that getting a good job can take some thought, resourcefulness and sometimes a little luck.
We also know that no matter how clever the technology that stands between us and the job of our dreams, that doesn't mean that more traditional strategies, preparation, negotiation and yes, offline action, can be tossed out the window. We've seen that even the most advanced resume database tool cannot save the applicant with the sloppy and unproofread resume, or lackluster or cocky or careless cover letter. We've seen some great jobseekers and great jobs pass each other by like ships in the night just because of slightly mistyped or outdated contact information on one side or another or both.
All we have to do is look at the spam in our email in-boxes to be reminded that sometimes, the powerful automating and communications technologies that are created to make our lives easier can tend, as they evolve and spread, to become so complex that we have to stop and periodically reassess how we can make the best use of them.
The editors will address this issue in a number of ways on our site this year, and we want to invite you to share stories about your online job search experiences for an upcoming new feature, The Job Hunters Chronicles.
We are seeking submissions from you -- the jobseeker, our readers or other site visitors -- in short-article format sharing your insights about how you used the Internet in a job search, and your frank experiences of what "worked" or "definitely did not work" for you in locating, applying to, or negotiating for job opportunities using online methods and tools. What tips or strategies or pitfalls to avoid?
If you have a good story to share with other jobseekers, please send them in to The Job Hunters Chronicles.
From the inside perspective of folks who work with web technology and in the areas of student and professional recruitment (online and offline), we can say with some authority and certainty that the answer is, "Yes, some people do find and get jobs using online tools..."
But from the same perspective, we also have to add, "...but it's not always as quick and straightforward as it seems."
Remember those Super Bowl commercials a number of years back where an office worker just posted a resume on an online job board just sat back and waited for the job offers to flood in along with piles of gifts and bouquets of flowers? Well, we've been in the business for some time, and while we've certainly seen jobseekers get connected with hiring employers and ultimately close on good employment opportunities through using online tools, we've never seen one get a floral bouquet with it...not one!
Just "going fishing" by taking a 10 minutes to drop a resume on a job board may be an adequate job hunt strategy for a very elite job seeker with stellar credentials, mounds of experience, an eloquent writing style that allows his or her winning personality to radiate off the virtual page, and the ideal skillset and references, background and presentation style to make a perfect organizational fit that is recognized by a highly active, dedicated and keen-eyed recruiter just itching to make this one hire out of several ASAP.
But you and me ain't that very elite person. Folks like us have to, as the old adage goes, "treat finding a job as if it was our job." We know that getting a good job can take some thought, resourcefulness and sometimes a little luck.
We also know that no matter how clever the technology that stands between us and the job of our dreams, that doesn't mean that more traditional strategies, preparation, negotiation and yes, offline action, can be tossed out the window. We've seen that even the most advanced resume database tool cannot save the applicant with the sloppy and unproofread resume, or lackluster or cocky or careless cover letter. We've seen some great jobseekers and great jobs pass each other by like ships in the night just because of slightly mistyped or outdated contact information on one side or another or both.
All we have to do is look at the spam in our email in-boxes to be reminded that sometimes, the powerful automating and communications technologies that are created to make our lives easier can tend, as they evolve and spread, to become so complex that we have to stop and periodically reassess how we can make the best use of them.
The editors will address this issue in a number of ways on our site this year, and we want to invite you to share stories about your online job search experiences for an upcoming new feature, The Job Hunters Chronicles.
We are seeking submissions from you -- the jobseeker, our readers or other site visitors -- in short-article format sharing your insights about how you used the Internet in a job search, and your frank experiences of what "worked" or "definitely did not work" for you in locating, applying to, or negotiating for job opportunities using online methods and tools. What tips or strategies or pitfalls to avoid?
If you have a good story to share with other jobseekers, please send them in to The Job Hunters Chronicles.
New Grad Job Features Winding Down this Week
As we move toward the conclusion of this year's Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair ending this coming weekend at THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online, co-presented by IMDiversity, we are pleased to announce the addition of new opportunities links and recruiter's messages by additional participants including...
Additionally and simultaneously, a number of fresh featured Internships/Fellowships and Entry-Level/New College Hire/Trainee Jobs have been posted the job channels at IMDiversity.
These free seasonal features are intended to connect diverse students and new college graduates to employers who are currently publishing opportunities available to students or to entry-level candidates just before graduation. In years, the editors jokingly referred to them as "the procrastinator's special," as in, where were you when the career center was holding all those campus job fairs last semester?
Of course, by this time, the opportunities we were featuring with early summer start dates are few on our jobs databases; over the past couple weeks, they've been replaced by many more that are already being filled for next fall and winter.
But these features this year also dispel the myth "employers have filled their college hiring needs" this close to graduation. We've heard from college recruitment professionals at a diverse range of companies and organizations -- from multinationals to non-profits to government agencies -- who told us the campus recruiting season definitely left them with remaining openings. Others had extended application deadlines for some frankly amazing opportunities, as well as well-paid fellowships, leadership projects, and internships offering substantive work experiences coming up quickly for the summer.
This year's virtual career fair was one of the liveliest and most well-trafficked we've hosted in some time, and also had some of the most robust participation by the companies. We definitely appreciated the time jobseekers took to fill out our Career Fair survey to tell us about which sites they visited and which had scheduled interviews with them. We also appreciated the input of employers who often provided very detailed, helpful advice about applying to the specific opportunities they were hiring for.
We feel that the active participation of both helped make the 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair a real success, and are considering making such a feature a regular event on our sites for the future. Meanwhile, we'll continue to welcome feedback, suggestions or success stories from all who participated, and hope others still seeking a job will visit the fair in its final weekend.
- Citizen Schools National Teaching Fellowships
- Civilian Opportunities with the Department of Navy - Naval Inventory Control Point
- New opportunities added by IBM
Additionally and simultaneously, a number of fresh featured Internships/Fellowships and Entry-Level/New College Hire/Trainee Jobs have been posted the job channels at IMDiversity.
These free seasonal features are intended to connect diverse students and new college graduates to employers who are currently publishing opportunities available to students or to entry-level candidates just before graduation. In years, the editors jokingly referred to them as "the procrastinator's special," as in, where were you when the career center was holding all those campus job fairs last semester?
Of course, by this time, the opportunities we were featuring with early summer start dates are few on our jobs databases; over the past couple weeks, they've been replaced by many more that are already being filled for next fall and winter.
But these features this year also dispel the myth "employers have filled their college hiring needs" this close to graduation. We've heard from college recruitment professionals at a diverse range of companies and organizations -- from multinationals to non-profits to government agencies -- who told us the campus recruiting season definitely left them with remaining openings. Others had extended application deadlines for some frankly amazing opportunities, as well as well-paid fellowships, leadership projects, and internships offering substantive work experiences coming up quickly for the summer.
This year's virtual career fair was one of the liveliest and most well-trafficked we've hosted in some time, and also had some of the most robust participation by the companies. We definitely appreciated the time jobseekers took to fill out our Career Fair survey to tell us about which sites they visited and which had scheduled interviews with them. We also appreciated the input of employers who often provided very detailed, helpful advice about applying to the specific opportunities they were hiring for.
We feel that the active participation of both helped make the 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair a real success, and are considering making such a feature a regular event on our sites for the future. Meanwhile, we'll continue to welcome feedback, suggestions or success stories from all who participated, and hope others still seeking a job will visit the fair in its final weekend.
Friday, May 2, 2008
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
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
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