A recent CareerBuilder survey of over 1,800 unemployed Americans found that an astonishing 89% of the respondents are ignoring the health of their careers. They seem blissfully unconcerned that today's job market is the worst in almost a century and is likely to stay that way for years to come.
What are they doing?
Most of these activities are clearly enjoyable. Who can complain about finally having a little time to relax, for example? For your career, however, these pursuits are enjoyable just like cream cheese and beefsteak. They're great going down, but then wreck havoc on your occupational health. In fact, there's a very real chance they will lead to career cardiac arrest or what most of us call terminal unemployment.
What's the alternative?
Until someone invents a statin for careers, the only way to prevent endangering clogs in your workplace advancement is to practice healthy career habits. That's the premise behind "career fitness." It's not some abstract concept for career self-management. It's a concrete set of activities--a regimen of daily, weekly and monthly "exercises"--that will improve the strength, endurance and reach of your career.
Here's a summary of the Career Fitness regimen:
I. Pump Up Your Cardiovascular System. The heart of your career is your occupational expertise. Re-imagine yourself as a work-in-progress so that you are always adding depth and tone to your knowledge and skill set.
II. Strengthen Your Circulatory System. The wider and deeper your network of contacts, the more visible you and your capabilities will be in the workplace. Make nurturing professional relationships a part of your business day.
III. Develop All of Your Muscle Groups. The greater your versatility in contributing your expertise at work, the broader the array of situations and assignments in which you can be employed. Develop ancillary skills that will give you more ways to apply your core expertise in the workplace.
IV. Increase Your Flexibility & Range of Motion. Moving from industry-to-industry, from one daily schedule to another or even from one location to another is never easy, but your willingness to adapt will help to keep your career moving forward.
V. Work With Winners. Working with successful organizations and coworkers enables you to grow on-the-job, develop useful connections that will last a career and establish yourself as a winner in the world of work.
VI. Stretch Your Soul. A healthy career not only serves you, it serves others, as well. A personal commitment to doing some of your best work as good works for your community, your country and/or your planet is the most invigorating form of work/life balance.
VII. Pace Yourself. A fulfilling and rewarding career depends upon your getting the rest and replenishment you need in order to do your best work every day you're on-the-job. Discipline yourself and your boss to set aside time to recharge your passion and capacity for work.
We all know two things about our physical well-being: we are personally responsible for our health, and we must work at staying healthy every single day. The same is true with our career. We are personally responsible for the health of our career, and we must work at it every single day ... and especially when we are in transition.
Peter Weddle is the author or editor of over two dozen books, including the just released Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System. You can read about how, when, where and how often to practice these healthy career exercises in his book Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System. For information about the book and to order it, please click over to the bookstore at Weddles.com or visit Amazon.com.
Courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates seeking entry-level jobs and other career opportunities, and posted on The Daily Recruiter.
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 3, 2009 at 5:39 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
One jobseeker asked: If flexibility, versatility and cross-training are all the rage these days, why do recruiters seem to hold so firmly to the belief that a candidate must "fit the profile" exactly?
The above question is valid, and it demonstrates why boilerplate qualities with no substance or tangible metrics attached are meaningless. In the above example, flexibility, versatility and cross-training are the boilerplate qualities. Many job descriptions ask for these. Therefore, these are not going to be the deciding factors; they're a given. Instead you need to find what makes that job unique, how that will be measured and appeal specifically to that. When you do that, you fit the profile, and that's what employers and recruiters want.
Continue reading "How To Show Employers That You Fit The Job"
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 3, 2009 at 2:56 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Training Doesn't Work
Supposedly, training is an excellent way to build skills and competencies as well as infuse new ideas or ways of thinking into a group. Yet productivity is down, people are complaining or filing grievances, absenteeism is up, errors are becoming all too common and the wrong people are leaving. (Yes, even in this economic climate, the best and brightest of our workforce are finding new jobs.)
The Problem
Most training fails to resolve the problem it is designated to address because it is based on the belief that if people are educated about a problem - i.e. spoken to enough! - the issue will go away. So, we pile people into a room somewhere, give them coffee and pastries - that is if there is any budget left this year! - and hire a trainer who shows an array of multi-colored PowerPoint slides and talks to them for a number of hours on a given skill-building topic.
We keep our fingers crossed that the coffee doesn't run out so the audience can stay awake through the presentation. When it is over we put a tick in the box for "problem solved" and move on to the next challenge.
Continue reading "Top 2 Reasons Training Doesn't Work and What You Can Do About It"
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 2, 2009 at 2:49 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 yesterday that white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut were the victims of discrimination when they were denied promotions because of their race. Ricci v. DeStefano, No. 07-1428 (June 29, 2009).
The Court's decision reversed a controversial court of appeals decision endorsed by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The ruling could change the way employers approach discrimination and could make it more difficult for plaintiffs to prevail without evidence of intentional discrimination.
The Ruling
The Court found that New Haven unlawfully threw out a promotion test when the city found that only two Hispanics and no African-Americans who passed were eligible for promotion. The city admitted that it did so out of fear of a "disparate impact" lawsuit from minority employees.
Twenty white firefighters sued, claiming that the decision was discriminatory. The Court agreed.
In the Court's majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy emphasized the clear aim of Title VII: "No individual should face workplace discrimination based on race." He added: "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions." The Court concluded that ruling otherwise would "encourage race-based action at the slightest hint of disparate impact."
Justice Kennedy stated that an employer needs a "strong basis in evidence" to believe it will face liability in a disparate impact suit. The Court found that the city lacked such evidence because the facts showed that:
Dissent and Concurrence
In her dissent, Justice Ginsburg predicted that the ruling "will not have staying power." She said that "Firefighting is a profession in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow" and asserted that the written portion of the test wasn't likely to predict which firefighters were more deserving of promotion.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Scalia seemed to predict that the ruling could be the beginning of the end for disparate impact cases, stating: "the war between disparate impact and equal protection will be waged sooner rather than later."
What Does This Mean for Employers?
Confusion, most likely. The Court didn't exactly give employers a bright-line standard. The old test was a "good-faith basis" for throwing out a test. The new one is a "strong basis of evidence." The most likely result? More litigation and more so-called "reverse discrimination" claims.
The Court's ruling will make it tougher for employers to change a selection process once it's in place. As such, employers have even more incentive to make the process -- and any tests in particular -- as valid, job-related and fair as possible up front.
Some employers will scrap tests altogether. Others will turn to outside experts to validate and/or conduct assessments to reduce potential liability.
What Does This Mean for Sotomayor?
With Sotomayor's confirmation hearings now less than two weeks away, conservative opponents are likely to point to the Supreme Court's reversal as additional evidence of politics-based judicial activism on her part. Sotomayor's backers will likely continue to assert that her position on the suit illustrates her judifical restraint and refusal to ignore precedent.
Stay tuned for more.
Article by Mark Toth, Chief Legal Officer of Manpower's North American operations, and courtesy of Manpower Employment Blawg. Mark also serve as Chief Compliance Officer and Vice President of Franchise Relations and serve on our Global Leadership Team, North American Lead Team, Executive Diversity Steering Committee and Sarbanes-Oxley Steering Committee.
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 2, 2009 at 1:32 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
How do you effectively communicate the message that your organization is current to the college students and recent grads you are hoping to recruit? The answer is simple: Offer them the option to text their interest in your opportunities to a cell phone text messaging short code! Is there anything today's students and recent grads do more than text? The answer, quite simply, is no. So, why not talk their language?
What exactly is a keyword and a short code? Do you remember how American Idol asked viewers to text the word VOTE to a four digit number? The word VOTE was their keyword and the four digit number was their short code.
Employers can use keyword advertising in pretty much the same way. You can provide a short keyword (very often only a couple of letters, like your company's initials) for them to text to a short code. A short keyword makes it less likely they will spell something wrong when texting their interest. For example, if your organization's name is Zigmore Pharmaceutical Testing, have them text " ZPT " as that will be a whole lot easier than having them text "Zigmore" or "Pharmaceutical" to your short code. Don't have your own short code? No problem. That's where we come in as we can and do work with you so that you can use our short code in your ad campaigns, whether they're TV, radio, newspaper, billboards, on-line, or any other kind of advertising.
Continue reading "Use Keywords to Speak The Language of Your Gen Y Candidates"
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 2, 2009 at 7:48 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
Hi All!
What a busy week! I had no time to blog! And what a weird week! Pop culture sure had a does of sadness with the passing of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. I grew up with all 3 of them so now I can relate to how my older cousins and family members felt when John Lennon and Elvis died. Geez...my best to all their other fans and their families!
Okay...on a lighter note...back to some business news I wanted to share. The Leadership Coaching section of my website is now live! Woohoo! Aside from my seminars, keynotes, and workshops around Generation Relations, I also offer one-on-one Leadership Coaching for Gen Y and Gen X employees.
Continue reading "Leadership Coaching for Gen Y and Gen X Employees "
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 1, 2009 at 4:52 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
A sustained upturn in staffing industry employment would signal the end of the current recession and suggest that overall nonfarm employment would begin to grow about three months later, according to new research released recently by the American Staffing Association. Staffing industry employment has long been considered a popular indicator of current economic conditions and a precursor of overall employment trends. Recent research confirms this conventional wisdom, but adds important nuance.
Key Findings
Continue reading "When Will Overall Job Growth Begin? Watch Staffing for Early Signs"
Posted by Candice Arnold on June 26, 2009 at 6:37 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
