Networking in the New Year 2011
As many economists say that 2011 is expected to bring a thaw in hiring, even as the unemployment rate may temporarily rise as discouraged workers come back into the workplace, networking remains important asset in any job search.
Some job seekers are taking a cue from very visible twenty and early thirty somethings who are writing their own rules about employment. Dan Schwabel is one.
Dan has created a splash with his 2009 title Me 2.0 Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success and a new version published in October, 2010 called Me 2.0 Revised and Updated: 4 Steps to Rebuilding Your Future (Kaplan Publishing). He can be found on his website www.danschawbel.com and also blogs at www.personalbrandingblog.com where he’s entered personal branding predictions for 2011.
Late in 2010, I received an invitation to interview Dan through one of his sponsors, DeVry University. No limitations were placed on questions I asked and he wasn’t paid for his participation. The interview was brief and capped at seven minutes.
I asked Dan, who has been widely covered in the media, what is the most difficult part of keeping a brand fresh. He said to keep the information relevant, up-to-date and consistent. Consistency is important he says because you are making an implicit promise to your network.
And when I asked what it was necessary to do to avoid having a brand become overexposed he highlighted the importance of being focused and singled out Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as being particularly effective.
As social media continues to evolve, there will likely be new branding outlets that become popular. Still, the essential truth of networking is you get out of it what you put into it.
A New Era of Telecommuting
In November, President Barack Obama announced a two year pay freeze for federal workers, eliminating plans for a 1.4 percent across-the-board raise in 2011 for 2.1 million federal civilian employees, including those working at the Defense Department and no raises at all in 2012. (The pay freeze doesn’t affect those in uniform or civilian being promoted who would still get the higher pay that comes with a position.)
Then last Thursday he signed the Telework Enhancement Acot of 2010 H.R. 1722 that directs each federal agency to design policies to promote telecommuting. About 5% of federal workers telecommute. The goal is to increase that number. Read the rest of this entry »
Is There a Connection Between the New Unemployables and the New Retirement?
Recently Cali Yost, CEO of the consulting firm Flex + Strategy Group who blogs about work/life fit at FastCompany.com wrote about her experience in a New York City cab on the way to an appointment in this post. She then posed the question, “What can we do right now to help people over 55 years old find and keep jobs?” Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Bill Novelli, boomerang kids, Cali Yost, knowledge@wharton, older workers, Peter Cappelli, Ted C. Fishman, the new retirement, the new unemployables, work/life balance
Looking for Jobs in the Wrong Place?
For those who have been applying to small businesses, the traditional engines of job creation, a new finding from Gallup may have them reorganizing their job search.
Gallup found that for the second week in November larger companies are hiring more workers while the smallest businesses are shedding jobs. Over 40% of companies that have at least 1,000 employees said their company was hiring, while 22% reported layoffs.
At the other side of the workplace spectrum, nearly 10% of workers said their employer was ramping up and 16% said their employer was letting people go.
This was the first time that Gallup asked about company size and I’ve asked Gallup if their chief economist, Dennis Jacobe can explain why and what job seekers can expect heading into the New Year. As soon as I hear back from him, I’ll add an update.
Separately, the study also found that the federal government was hiring while state and local governments were letting employees go, the legacy of budget cutting in the aftermath of the recession.
Tags: hiring, job creation
A Writer, His Workplace and Corporate Patron
For those who us who may be preoccupied with work (and with 9.6% unemployment who isn’t) and seek a broader understanding of our relationship to it, a recent book by Alain de Botton provides illumination.
Mr. de Botton, came to prominence over a decade ago, when he wrote How Proust Can Change Your Life and more recently considered The Joys and Sorrows at Work which met with mixed reviews. Now he continues his journey into how we work with A Week at the Airport (Vintage International 2010). (I learned about the Airport book from Gretchen Rubin’s insightful blog The Happiness Project.)
What is amazing about the book is its origins. It was instigated by Colin Matthews, the CEO of BAA, a subsidiary of Ferrovial that runs airports in England, Scotland and Italy including two outside London–Heathrow and Sansted.
Mr. Matthews, gives Mr. de Botton license to live at Heathrow Airport for a week, He takes up residence at the adjacent Sofitel Hotel and sets out to explore Terminal 5.
His title is writer-in-residence, one cannot imagine he would be any more prolific at a writer’s colony like Yaddo or Breadloaf. Mr.de Botton plunks himself down in the terminal and begins his interviews with travelers, security personnel, baggage handlers and even a corporate executive who seems to have less flexibility than those on the clock.
During one interview he meets Willie Walsh, the CEO of British Airways who is beset by threatened strikes, a balance sheet leaking red ink and the ire of Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer (He has fallen behind on a payment schedule for the 787 aircraft.)
What follows is an amusing portraity for any writer (myself included) who has attempted a CEO or celebrity interview and hoped for more than a tidbit to share with eager readers. “The promise of shared secrets is rarely fulfilled for it is almost never in the interests of a prominent figure to become intimate with members of the press. He has better people on whom to unburden himself. He does not need a new friend. He is not going to disclose plots of vengeance or his fears about his professional future.”
Alert to possibilities, Mr. de Botton floats the idea of becoming writer-in-flight, on a British Airways flight a concept that Mr. Walsh embraces slightly, before apologizing for taking so much of Mr. de Botton’s time and calling for a security guard to escort him from the corporate offices.
The relationship between Mr. Matthews, the BAA executive and Mr. Botton is a curious one, Chief executives have traditionally not been literary benefactors. Even after the publication of the book Mr. Botton puzzles over the motivation for it. In a reply to an e-mail inquiry he wrote, “… I’m stunned that Heathrow airport agreed to this book – indeed initiated it.” Previously, he said, “My experience of the corporate world for my previous book (The Pleasures and Sorrows…) was rather more negative. Again and again, I saw companies closing their doors to writers, assuming that they were either irrelevant or else out to destroy their reputations. The idea that a writer might simply want to observe and reflect in a complex way, both positive and sometimes negative, was alien to them.”
Mr. Matthews replied to a request about allowing a writer at Healthrow to chronicle activities there in human rather than strictly economic terms. He wrote in an e-mail,
“Alain de Botton’s book is not a traditional piece of corporate marketing. Opening Heathrow up to literary critique was an adventurous step and the result is a book that tempts people to think differently about Heathrow.
“We wanted a respected author and somebody who is passionate about travel to help us tell the many stories of passengers beginning or ending adventures at Heathrow, meeting or parting with people they love or just passing through on business.
“We can also tell a story of ongoing improvement in customer service at Heathrow. With freedom to roam the airport for a week and full editorial control of his book, Alain has created a credible story of how thousands of staff working across dozens of organisations are working hard to make every passenger’s journey better than the last one.”
With various models of new journalism being considered by pundits and journalists alike, Mr. Matthews observations offer an intriguing commentary about the role of the writer in our society. And as questions persist about why American corporations aren’t hiring, he offers an unconventional view about how to bring attention to a company’s products.
As the book concludes Mr. de Botton muses about all the other writer-in-residence positions he might take up in “institutions central to modern life—banks, nuclear power stations, governments, old people’s homes—and the kind of writing that could report on the world while still remaining irresponsible, subjective and a bit peculiar.”
Tags: Alain de Botton, Colin Matthews, corporate executives, corporations, Gretchen Rubin, hiring, interviewing, writer-in-residence
Has a Recommendation Cost You a Job or Promotion?
Even a favorable recommendation could impede a woman’s career according to on-going research at Rice University, that shows qualities described in recommendations for women differ sharply from those of men.
And those differences may be costing women jobs and promotions in academia and medicine according to the findings of psychologist Michelle Hebl, her colleague Randi Martin and graduate student Juan Madera, now an assistant professor at the University of Houston. Dr. Hebl says the ramifications extend beyond academia and medicine into the corporate culture. “Women, even if they are protected by law or the organization, experience discrimination in subtle ways,” she said.
The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, reviewed over 600 letters of recommendation for nearly 200 applicants for eight junior faculty positions at a United States University.
Female candidates were described in “communal” terms like sensitive, caring and nurturing. Their male counterparts were described in “agentic” terms that included decisive, independent and aggressive. “Having people describe you in communal terms is not a good thing,” said Dr. Hebl who says that words that are supposed to be positive are not the ones that come to mind when someone thinks of a leader.
Dr. Hebl doesn’t think using gender neutral terms in recommendations will make a difference. Instead, she suggests recommenders look at the requirements of the job itself rather than resorting to conventional stereotypes. The traits that are valued in the academic job are research ability, independence and autonomy, not words that may say a women is not serious about a job, for example role model.
If an employee asks for a recommendation, Dr. Hebl suggests eliminating qualifiers in your description. “Phrases like, ‘I think she might be good’ or ‘might be a leader’ are doubt raisers about ability.”
How Much Does College Major or School Size Influence Earnings?
There’s a Wall Street Journal chart circulating this week. Engineering and computer science pay more than English and Communications. There are no surprises there.
But as the college applications season shifts into higher gear, and the economy continues to quiver does size of school matter for long term earning potential? According to an analysis by Knowledge @ Wharton out today, the answer may be a qualified yes.
It quotes a study by Till Marco Von Wachter, a Columbia University economics professor who studied Canadian college graduates who entered the job market in the two decades from 1976-1995. His research showed those who graduated during a recession had a substantial initial loss of earnings, around 10% from an average downturn. The loss persisted for some years, with the effect fading out after a decade.
Perhaps most surprising was that the earning pattern differed not only by major but by type of school the graduate attended. “We ranked people based on their expected labor market success,” von Wachter said. “Those who graduated from better, bigger schools and those who had more math-intensive majors, such as engineering or hard sciences, did the best. They took a small hit but recovered after a few years. The people who majored in social sciences were in the middle [of the spectrum]. But those who graduated from smaller schools and who majored in humanities did not fare as well. They lost access to a career trajectory and it never came back. There seems to be a group who are permanently stuck at lower level, lower paying jobs. If they don’t get access to good jobs in a critical time period, say ages 20 to 30, it appears that, on average, they never do.”
Tags: college graduates, college major, communications, computer science, earnings potential, engineering, English, recession
Why Do Companies Require Credit Checks for Job Applicants?
If you are job hunting, do you need to have more than your job history, resume and references in order? Do you also need to make sure your mortgage or rent payments are up to date?
The EEOC http://www.eeoc.gov/ held a public Commission today to hear testimony about the growing use of credit histories as selection criteria in employment.
“High unemployment has forced an increasing number of people to enter or re-enter the job market,” said EEOC Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien. “As a result, an ever increasing number of job applicants and workers are being exposed to employment screening tools, such as credit checks, that could unfairly exclude them from job opportunities.” opportunity.”
The Commission heard from a diverse set of experts. Chi Chi Wu of the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) noted the use of credit histories “create[s] a fundamental ‘Catch-22’ for job applicants,” especially during a period of high unemployment and high foreclosures, both of which have a negative impact on credit.” She observed, “You can’t re-establish your credit if you can’t get a job, and you can’t get a job if you’ve got bad credit.”
Sarah Crawford of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law cited studies that show credit history is a poor predictor of job performance. She also pointed out many credit reports are riddled with errors or incomplete information, making whatever predictive value they might have even less reliable.
Michael Eastman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Christine V. Walters of the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) and Pamela Quigley Devata of the law firm Seyfarth Shaw, LLP—told the Commission that law permits the use of credit history and it is predictive in certain situations. .
However, Dr. Michael Aamodt, an industrial psychologist, said that although there is considerable research that supports using credit scores in making consumer decisions, there is little research exploring the implications of using credit checks for employment screening. Since this has the potential for being discriminatory, he said it would be wise to use an applicant’s credit history only within a thorough background check.
Does Your Boss Have Your Back?
As the world was transfixed by the rescue of the Chilean miners today, one person was still conspicuously out of sight. The shift foreman, 54 year old Luis Urzua whose leadership was credited with helping the men endure the isolation for 17 days after the collapse when the world didn’t know if they were alive or not, is expected to the be last miner to reach the surface.
Read the rest of this entry »
Few Women in Management, but Companies Fail to Identify Future Leaders
The General Accounting Office released a long overdue report on Tuesday with the ponderous title Women in Management—Female Managers’ Representation, Characteristics and Pay. And now The New York Times is reporting the news with the headline Still Few Women in Management, Report Says .
True, as of 2007 (before the Great Recession started) the latest year for which data on managers was available, women accounted for about 40 percent of managers in the United States work force. In 2000, women held 39 percent of management positions.
Still the data also pointed to some bright spots. Women were more than proportionately represented in management positions in construction and public administration, and there was no statistically significant difference between women’s representation in management and non-management positions for the transportation and utilities sectors.
All in all the results were unsurprising. Managers of either sex are more likely to be childless–sixty-three percent of female managers and fifty-five percent of male managers had no kids. Is this a reason family friendly policies still have a hard time gaining traction? And woman who are managers are more likely to be single than their male counterparts.
While life is about choices, female managers earned 81 cents for every dollar a male manager earned up 2 cents from 2000. Checking the inflation calculator, that dollar in 2000, was worth $1.19 in 2007, so women are still losing ground not gaining it.
If companies are still not promoting women to management, it may be because for some it’s not even on the radar. According to recent poll by Right Management (a division of Manpower) nearly one-third of North American companies have failed to identify future leaders within their organization. A further 30% reported identifying potential leaders for only some key roles. So many organizations, it turns out, have made practically no provision for future leadership,” said Deborah Schroeder-Saulnier, Right Management Senior Vice President for Global Solutions.
