Fighting Job Search Fatigue
Have you ever felt so drained by your career search that you felt you simply couldn’t go on? Do you find job hunting debilitating? Do you ever find yourself doing everything except what you should be doing to find a job? Are you in need of job search tips and job search solutions to help you persevere through your time of unemployment? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be experiencing job search fatigue. The economy may be starting to rebound, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to easily find a job. In fact, the unemployment rate over a 12-month period has only changed slightly. In Dallas County, the unemployment rate has fallen by just 0.8 percent in the last year, and currently sits around 8.2 percent. (Click here to view a map of Texas unemployment by county from the U.S. Department of Labor.)
Human Resource Buddies: Your Out Of Work Mentor
Searching for a job can be like learning to swim. Just like a child shouldn’t jump into a pool alone and hope they can learn to swim without any instruction or help from others, job seekers shouldn’t have to go it alone. When learning to swim, proper instruction from a coach can make the difference between drowning and learning to swim. When searching for a job, help from a coach or mentor could make the difference between landing that dream job or not. Job coach, job mentor, employment coach, human resource buddy, staffing specialist – no matter the title, the role in a job seeker’s life is the same (We’ll stick with human resource buddy for this article). A human resource buddy’s main purpose is to help a job seeker in his or her search and can be an invaluable staffing resource. Mentoring on everything from how to prepare
President Obama Message to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
In President Obama\’s Message to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the President discusses the importance of Hispanic business for renewing the American economy. He also recognizes Pinnacle CEO, Nina Vaca, before congratulating Anna Maria Chavez, CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA for her award. The new CEO of the Girl Scouts has a bold goal. She wants to close the leadership gap between men and women within one generation. To accomplish this goal, Girl Scouts is initiating a multi-year campaign called ToGetHerThere. Girl Scouts — the grande dame of girls’ organizations — marks its 100th anniversary on March 12. It is as vital and vibrant as the girls it serves. The Girl Scouts have declared 2012 the Year of the Girl: a celebration of girls, recognition of their leadership potential, and a commitment to creating a coalition of like-minded organizations and individuals in support of balanced leadership in the workplace and
Five ways to increase your visibility on the job search
When you’re looking for a new job, visibility is critical. It’s not enough to simply send out resumes and answer online advertisements. Rather, you must create a true presence, demonstrating your expertise and abilities. Most job seekers have increased their visibility by posting professional information in one or two places online. But let’s face it: you never know where a job lead will come from. Instead of taking the quick and easy path, invest a few hours in expanding your presence using the following three steps. Your job search just might take off faster than you imagined. 1. Tweak your content: -Review your resume and add keywords for your ideal job and industry. -Review your cover letter, again adding keywords where appropriate. -Create both written and oral “elevator speeches,” where you can explain your career goals and strengths in 50 words or less (written) and 60 seconds or less (oral).
How to Leverage Your Professional Network over Time
It’s easier than ever to send a resume and apply for a job. Thanks to the Internet, an ad for an open position might receive hundreds – or even thousands – of applications. As a result, it may be more important than ever to leverage a professional network during a job search. That’s right. Your network of friends, colleagues and family members are probably the best ticket to your next position. So how can you make the most of your network – and even expand it – to land your dream job? Follow these job search tips from Pinnacle. Start with your mindset. Remember, it takes time to develop and maintain relationships. This is a process that doesn’t just start – or stop – when you need a job. Make a lifelong investment in your network. Make a list. Reconsider who you consider to be in your network. Job leads
Preparing for the All-Day Job Interview
There are job interviews. And then there are marathon job interviews. It’s not uncommon for employers to have job candidates meet with several managers and executives over the course of a day. Especially in today’s workplace, most professionals must work across multiple departments, and many are responsible to more than one supervisor. As a result, everybody wants input as to who the new hire should be. But for the job candidate, the hours-long interview can seem like slow, sure torture. It’s difficult to stay on your toes for a half-day or, worse, an entire day of meetings. How can you survive and thrive in the marathon interview situation? Consider these interview tips: 1. Don’t underestimate the power of a good night’s sleep. A tired candidate might be able to fake some enthusiasm during a one-hour interview. But even the best actor will lose their shine after more time passes. Get a
The Life Of An Independent Contract Worker
In the past, the moniker of “independent contract worker” didn’t always have positive implications. On the corporate side, contract workers were too often considered disposable people who were to be used sparingly in the name of cutting costs. For workers, contract assignments tended to be temporary stops between so-called “real” jobs, and they sometimes lacked decent benefits. Now, both of these stereotypes are being turned on their heads: 1. A growing number of workers are craving independence rather than the status of a traditional, full-time employee. 2. An increasing number of employers are seeing contract professionals as valuable resources worth top-dollar pay, including benefits. Consider a recent survey by Intelligent Office. This study of more than 1,000 people found that more than half of respondents aspired to be entrepreneurs or independent workers. “We believe there is a paradigm shift happening in our culture as it relates to work style,” said
Knock the Most-Common Interview Questions Out of the Park
As the old saying goes, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince. The same goes for job interviews. Typically, a job candidate will go on several interviews before receiving an offer that they wish to accept. But each interview should not be an entirely new experience. Rather, it should be an opportunity to learn, improve your interviewing techniques, and then apply that new knowledge the next time around. How, exactly does this work? Easy. Start your own database of frequently asked interview questions. Almost every job interview includes certain questions, which are asked of every candidate. Then, in a particular field or for a specific job type, there is yet another set of questions you can expect. Strong candidates spend time anticipating interview questions ahead of time. So what happens when you are stumped by a particularly tough question? Or what if you think
Is crowdsourcing the next big staffing trend?
What is Labor 3.0? You’ve probably already heard of crowdsourcing. A great example of this is Wikipedia, where individuals all over the globe each write individual entries for an online encyclopedia. Together, their work makes up an extraordinarily large reference source. In a similar vein, some companies are turning to a distributed, virtual pool of labor. These workers can be available on-demand and typically perform very small bits of work. Together, however, they perform large tasks. Consider Amazon Mechanical Turk, a marketplace for scalable, on-demand staffing. This service deploys multiple workers at once to complete tasks over the Internet. Platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk are changing the labor market similar to the ways outsourcing disrupted traditional business and employment models, giving companies access to dramatically lower-cost labor but also making them a one-stop shop for high-quality project task returns in near real-time. Unlike outsourcing, crowdsourcing brings together people of
Colorado embraces federal efforts against “misclassification”
In a recent blog, we highlighted the new battle over independent contractor misclassification being waged in California. Now, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is furthering the federal battle against misclassification. Earlier this month, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division signed a memorandum of understanding with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment as part of its “Misclassification Initiative.” Colorado became the 11th state to join the initiative, which the DOL says will “protect the rights of employees and level the playing field for responsible employers by reducing the practice conducted by some businesses of misclassifying employees.” “This memorandum of understanding helps us send a message: We’re standing united to end the practice of misclassifying employees,” said Nancy J. Leppink, deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. “This is an important step toward making sure that the American dream is still available for