CollegeRecruiter.com Blog

CNN reported today that only 35,000 jobs were lost in September 2005, far lower than most experts had predicted in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. With 300,000 jobs being lost in the Gulf States, that means that 335,000 new jobs were created in other states. That's an incredibly strong month in most areas of the country, but let us not forget the devastation in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Tonight, tens of thousands of people will be sleeping in crowded Red Cross shelters. As the flu season approaches, how many of those who are weakened by their ordeal will suffer even more as the person in the cot next to them sneezes, coughs, and otherwise sends germs from their "home" to yours, a distance of only a few inches?

According to a radio news report, Best Buy put out a "now hiring" banner outside of one of its stores in New Orleans to help them replace the employees that they had who are now either dead or living hundreds of miles away because their homes were destroyed. Best Buy is hiring 10 to 15 people per day and starting to feel some upward pressure on wages. This type of corporate rebuilding is going to be the key to the rebuilding of the Gulf States. While the Red Cross and other disaster relief organizations do tremendous good, they aren't going to turn the economy around. Employers will need to do that. Yet employers are not and should not be social welfare organizations. Best Buy isn't going to hire someone simply because that person really wants to work, promises to work hard, or loves Best Buy. They'll be hired because they've convinced Best Buy that they'll increase the store's revenues more than the store will pay them, decrease the store's expenses more than the store will pay them, or some combination of the two. If 10 to 15 people per day at just one store in a devastated city like New Orleans can manage to do that, then all job seekers should be able to do the same. Don't just tell employers that you want the job. Prove to them that they can't afford not to hire you.