Career Poll: Most Prevalent Discrimination Type?

While I normally try to run a different “career poll” each and every month, it’s been a slightly longer window than that in this last go-round, due to the holidays and other factors.  This being said, however, I’m excited to finally have the chance to share the results of my latest poll with you — since this survey not only received a sizable response from among my clients and regular blog readers, but also stimulated quite a bit of discussion among the LinkedIn community, at large!

For those who missed it, the specific question I threw out there in my most recent poll was:

“What type of discrimination, if any, do you feel is most prevalent in today’s job market?”

The five response choices were:

1) Discrimination against older workers
2) Discrimination against younger workers
3) Discrimination against women
4) Discrimination based on race/ethnicity
5) Discrimination against the unemployed

A total of 498 people cast their vote on this particular topic, and while you’ll see a small graphic of the results below, you can click here to access the full set of results.

The Analysis?  Sadly, I think the first noteworthy thing the poll confirms is that discrimination seems to be alive and well in today’s job market.  While in truth, I didn’t give people the option NOT to vote for a certain type of discriminatory hiring practice, the overall tenor of the survey pretty clearly shows that most people don’t feel all is perfectly “fair and just” in today’s hiring world.

Just to give you a taste of what’s on peoples’ minds regarding this topic, here’s a quick sampling of some of the opinions that were expressed in the 54 additional “comments” submitted at the bottom of the poll page:

“All of the above. As a professional I’d say the situation is horrible and out of control to say the least.”

“If you are old, a minority and unemployed, you are in deep pucky!”

“Out of work and over 50? Don’t even bother looking. In ’99, when I was 53, my phone rang all the time. The phone still rings today, but it is in China.”

“I think discrimination against older workers is what I have noticed the most. I have a lawyer friend who specializes in age discrimination cases and he is swamped with work.”

“I think it’s different in different markets. In India there has been a lot of discrimination against women a few years back and it still exists for higher roles. There’s also discrimination here on the basis of age and race.”

“The unemployed people is always considered inferior than employed people.”

Then again, there were a few voices out there who pushed back:

“My father just got a job and he is 60 and I know people who are near 50 and still get hired based on the field of work they are in. My suggestion for everyone is to update his/her skills with the newest office skills like I explained to my dad.”

“Is it Ageism or Fuddy Duddyism? Sometimes I think when I hear my peer group make comments like ‘Twitter is stupid and is for kids’ it points out that maybe our skill sets need improvement.”

“Life belongs to the young, let them struggle and work their way up, just as we did. Be content, exercise, keep your mind open, eliminate stressful things. If you are old and looking for work, chances are you have been looking all your life and didn’t find it.”

“There are many more types of discrimination, but the point is that probably the only way to get around these factors is to have a skill in high demand where the employee has more of a bargaining position.”

And lastly, there were some comments that were a bit out in left field:

“There is a sixth discrimination, based on the last form of acceptable racism: degree racism.”

“The other day this 250 year old guy walks in and ask for a job. I hired him on the spot. We now transcribe ancient scrolls.”

“The category left out is discrimination in favor of machines over humanity.”

This is just a small sampling of the thoughts that people submitted, so if you’re even the slightest bit interested in this topic, I’d highly encourage you to visit the full poll, above, and scroll down to read through the long chain of interesting responses.

My own analysis?  I don’t think there’s all that much I can add to the string of discussions referenced above.  Or perhaps I COULD say a lot more, but I won’t, since this posting is already getting pretty long.  Overall, though, the general gist of what I’ve written about before on this subject is that yes, discrimination exists, but it’s not nearly as black-and-white as most people make it.  Sure, if you look hard enough, you’ll find cases of downright “evil” discrimination with NO basis in objective reality.  But then there’s the milder form, where companies may decide an executive with 30 years of experience wouldn’t be happy with an entry-to-mid-level assignment.  Or that a younger worker or new graduate would need too much hands-on training to make an immediate contribution.  This kind of bias is regrettable, but at least partially understandable, I think, compared to discrimination based on immutable factors like gender, race, or sexual orientation.

In truth, though, what this poll really got me wondering is one thing in particular.  It got me asking the question: “What’s the opposite of discrimination?  If most of us believe the companies today are selecting people unfairly, and injecting unfair bias into the process, what would the perfectly ‘fair’ way be to select employees?  What would that look like?”

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this.  Should companies make people go through a specific work simulation or performance test, then simply hire whomever does the best job?  Should they interview people in a double-blind fashion, where they aren’t given any cues as to a candidate’s age, sex, ethnicity, or other factors?  Should we repeal the minimum wage laws and allow companies to hire people willing to work 60 hours a week, for $3.00 an hour, since by the employer’s definition, such behavior might qualify as “the person able to do the best job?”

No easy answers, but hopefully someday a better mousetrap — or a surge of enlightenment — will arrive on the scene and transform the hiring market.  Until then, let’s keep talking!

As for the coming month?  You’ll find my latest LinkedIn poll question here, exploring the subject of hiring discrimination even more deeply and asking: “What aspect of job hunting do you generally find to be the most challenging?”

Craigslist Job Hunting: Two Key Workarounds!

As I’ve stressed to quite a few clients over the years, anybody looking for work today should consider Craigslist as one of the absolute top sources of published opportunities they check on a regular basis.

Surprised by this?  Do you associate Craigslist more with used cars or tracking down garage sales?  If so, let me point out the two key reasons why the site is such a unique and important job resource:

1) Almost every company uses it in their hiring efforts today, especially small-to-mid-sized companies, since the price of running a job listing on Craigslist ($25) is a tiny fraction of what it cost to run job leads on other sites like Monster.com, CareerBuilder, etc.

2) Additionally, and just as importantly, Craigslist (unlike other job sites) has never let its leads get picked up by aggregator sites such as Indeed.com or SimplyHired.com; so with Craigslist, you typically find a “pure” pool of listings you won’t see mentioned anywhere else

But here’s the rub.  The Craigslist search interface is remarkably crude and unsophisticated.  Not only can you not construct precise searches using the common “Boolean syntax” rules supported by most other sites, but Craigslist doesn’t even have an automatic “alert” feature you can program to send you new matching leads each day — unless you count RSS feeds, which are tricky to use if you’re not familiar with them.

Luckily, though, I’ve recently found workarounds to both of these issues.  So whether you’re an existing client of mine or merely a casual follower of my blog, I wanted to share these tips, since they’re likely to save you a bunch of time and aggravation in the job-finding process.

With regard to Craigslist not offering automatic “job alert” functionality, I’ve discovered that you can now use a free third-party site called List-Alert.com to set up daily alerts on Craiglist — to find job listings that fit you or to get notified about anything else on that site (camera equipment, used furniture, etc.) you might be seeking!  Visit the List-Alert page, and you’ll see a simple interface where you specify WHAT you want to find on Craiglist, the section of the site you want to search through (e.g. Jobs, For Sale, Housing, etc.), and the geographic location you’re targeting.  Enter these parameters, hit the “create alert” button, and you’re in business!  You’ll start getting any matching leads to your search sent to you automatically via e-mail each day.

As for HOW to search properly?  Again, Craigslist doesn’t allow you to chain keywords together in the same way as most other sites on the Internet.  For example, you can’t use the standard Boolean “OR” command to link keywords of interest together.  Without this functionality, you’re forced to run a whole bunch of separate searches for jobs in sales, business development, account management, marketing, and the like.  Recently, however, I finally wised up and did some research around this issue, which led me to discover that you can actually use a different character — the “vertical pipe” symbol “|” — to provide the “OR” functionality.  Hallelujah!

Given this “breakthrough” discovery (ha ha) I’d now advise many of you to set up an automated daily job alert on Craigslist that looks something more or less along these lines:

Search that finds anything related to sales:
sales | “business development” | account | territory

Search that finds anything related to software testing:
“software testing” | “software quality” | SDET

Search that finds project, program, or product management jobs:
(manager | management) AND (project | program | product)

Search that finds senior financial openings:
CFO | controller | (director | VP | vice | chief) AND (finance | financial | accounting)

Search that finds mid-to-senior-level marketing positions:
CMO | (marketing | advertising | brand | branding) AND (manager | director | VP | vice | chief)

Definitely note that when running these kinds of searches, though, you’ll usually want to check the option box (on either Craigslist or List-Alert) that limits your search to job titles only — so you’re not combing every word in the full body text.

So there you go.  Mystery solved.  For years, I’ve been wondering why Craigslist didn’t permit more advanced searching, but as usual, it turns out that the site just marches to the beat of a slightly different drummer!  Hope this tip helps you find some great employment listings for yourself, with a minimum of muss and fuss…

The New Rules of the Job Game

Okay, so we’ve all figured out that tube televisions are a thing of the past and that our kids (and grandkids) may somebody view items like printed books, CD-ROMS, and landline phones with wistful nostalgia — or possibly even just a blank stare.  Times change, and they change fast, as I talked about at length in my last article here.

So let’s build on that earlier discussion and talk about “what’s changed” in the job market, specifically, and how the average candidate can adapt to these realities.  What are the new rules of the game?  What are the keys to ensuring steady career success in the world today?  What are certain ahead-of-the-curve professionals doing that is leading to multiple job offers, at a time when many folks are still playing by the “old rules” and struggling to turn up even a single opportunity?

When I asked a networking group to brainstorm a bit around this issue, here’s what they came up with:

#1. Always be networking; relationships are key
#2. Be more open and prepared to do contract work
#3. Maintain current profiles on multiple social media sites
#4. Keep your skills current via regular professional development
#5. Prepare financially for gaps/breaks to happen in your career
#6. Enjoy any time off you get when you get it; make the most of breaks
#7. Don’t hide or isolate yourself; stay plugged in
#8. Let go of shame around unemployment; that’s an outdated concept
#9. Be clear about what you do and what sets you apart
#10. Maintain a positive attitude at all times
#11. Be mindful of your online reputation; manage it proactively
#12. Reach out to companies even when a job isn’t available
#13. Manage your career; don’t expect it to “just happen”
#14. Build relationships with a handful of appropriate recruiters
#15. A one-size-fits-all resume doesn’t cut it anymore; customize it
#16. Focus on your bright future, not your past
#17. Don’t stop networking, even when you’re working
#18. Focus on the solutions/results you can provide to organizations
#19. Practice your interview skills; get better at selling yourself
#20. Stay current with trends in your industry
#21. Stay current with technology/software/tools in your field
#22. Stay current with terminology and new buzzwords
#23. Be more patient and persistent
#24. Don’t be blindly loyal to an organization; always have a plan B
#25. Enjoy the journey; try not to take things too seriously

Honestly, there’s not a single suggestion about that I’d argue with.  I think the group did a great job of pulling suggestions together given the relatively short timeline of the 15-minute “crowdsourcing” exercise we went through!  And if I had to pick out what I felt were the MOST critical and significant items to focus on, from the list above, I’d probably select #1, #4, #9, #10, #13, #16, and #18.  But heck, they’re all pretty good.  Again, it’s hard to argue with any of them.

As for my own top list of “new rules” suggestions regarding the job market, based on how I’ve seen things change out there over all the years?  The short list of pivotal suggestions I’d throw out there would probably be along these lines:

#1. Take ownership of your career; embody the word “professional” and accept full responsibility for maintaining the qualifications/marketability you need to earn a living

#2. Know your value proposition; be crystal-clear around the specific types of problems you’re able to solve for companies/consumers in today’s instant-gratification world

#3. Don’t just network in a casual sense; actively manage your social capital, following an ongoing communication plan/system for keeping people updated on your goals, interests, and expertise

#4. Don’t fall behind your peers; whatever it takes to stay at the forefront of your field in terms of skills, trends, and terminology

#5. Embrace job hunting as a critical “life skill” you need to master; it’s statistically likely you’ll go through this process multiple times in your career, so don’t treat “marketing yourself” as an afterthought, periodic activity, or necessary evil

I’m sure we could all quibble with some of these suggestions if we tried and I’m equally sure most other experts would have their own “top 5″ or “top 10″ list of what they’d tell their clients to do differently given the job market today!  But off the top of my head, in terms of helping people understand the new mindset and habits that lead to success out there, these are the things I’d put forward.

Let me know if you agree/disagree with any of these “rules” in any way or have further suggestions to add to the list!

Out With the Old, In With the New

While we’re nearing the middle of January, and I realize I can only beat the “shake up your routine in the new year” theme for so long, I did want to share a little more food for thought about “change” that I thought might be beneficial as we continue hurtling headlong into 2012.

For starters, if you haven’t seen this video previously, I’d highly recommend you click here to watch a short comedy clip from a few years back, featuring comedian Louis CK on the Conan O’Brien show.  In this  segment, Louis riffs around the observation that “everything’s amazing today, but nobody’s happy” and makes some hysterically insightful observations about how society tends to deal with change (and if you’re familiar with this comic’s usual work, which can get pretty raunchy, rest assured that this clip was on network television and is totally clean.)

Secondly, in a recent networking group I facilitated, I was trying to emphasize the concept of dealing with change and challenged the audience to come up with a list of things that we’ve all become used to, over the years, but that are now “going away” and becoming obsolete.

Here’s the list we came up with:

Rotary phones, landlines, newspapers, printed books, hand-cranked car windows, travel agents, encyclopedias, paper maps, television test patterns, contact lenses (due to lasik surgery), yellow pages, cursive writing, netbooks, CDs, and DVDs.

Then, of course, somebody mentioned “free crossings on the 520 bridge” which all of us here in Seattle can commiserate around.  And lastly, somebody (impressively up on their current events) pointed out that the Hostess company has just recently filed bankruptcy, so we might need to add “wonder bread” and “twinkies” to the endangered species list!

It was a fun exercise, at the very least, and really put into perspective the fact that we’ve all had to adapt to ongoing change — good or bad — throughout the entire arc of our lives.

When we shifted the conversation in a more serious direction, however, the next exercise dealt with a subject that’s more aligned with the mission of this blog.  I asked the audience to brainstorm things that had significantly changed about the job market in the last 10-15 years.  Or about careers, in general.  The list they came up with is a very important one, since I believe it underscores that there are “new rules of the game” today and that anybody who hasn’t had to look for work in a while is going to be a fish out of water, so to speak, if they think finding a job in 2011 is done the same way it used to be.

Here’s the list that we put together, as a group, about the new dynamics involved in finding and keeping employment:

•  Job hunting takes longer, on average, than it used to
•  Job tenures today tend to be shorter
•  There are less full-time roles and more contract and part-time work
•  The concept of “loyalty” has eroded on both sides
•  Resumes today often have to go through computer scanners
•  There is new terminology in use (talent acquisition vs. recruiting, etc.)
•  Outsourcing/globalization have increased compeition for jobs
•  One’s reputation and “skeletons” are more visible, due to social media
•  Researching companies is now easier than ever before
•  There are lots of “junk” applications out there clogging things up
•  Companies are more cautious and interviewing takes longer
•  Employers use assessment testing more to evaluate candidates
•  Deeper background checks are run on applicants
•  Phone interviews are used more in lieu of face-to-face conversations
•  Applicants receive less interview feedback, due to legal concerns
•  Panel and loop interviews are more common to save companies time
•  The experience is more depersonalized; courtesy is a thing of the past
•  Job descriptions have become a lot more rigid and specialized
•  There’s an increased requirement for formal training and education
•  Different marketing methods (social media) now exist to find leads
•  Published ads are now found entirely online
•  Companies now often pay incentives for internal employee referrals
•  Salaries, benefits, and compensation perks have declined

Not a very uplifting list, I realize, but that wasn’t the point.  The idea was to try and pin down “what is” versus “what was” or “how we wish things would be” in the job market, so that we can all understand, learn, and adapt to these new realities.  What other choice have we?

Additionally, I lobbied hard around the idea that MANY of the above observations may reflect cyclical changes in the job market, versus permanent ones.  For example, while there definitely might be some salary deflation going on these past few years, it wasn’t that long ago (can you say 1998, everybody?) when companies were paying obscene amounts of money for people with little to no on-the-job experience — aka the whole dot-com boom.  So let’s be careful about assuming all of these frustrating dynamics are going to be with us for the rest of our lives.  Many of them are likely just a short-term consequence of the financial fiasco of 2008 and the resulting recession.

At any rate, this is probably going to be “part one” of a two-series post.  I wanted to first share some of the raw data this group and I came up with regarding the concept of change in the job market — and soon, I’ll be posting another article talking about the solutions/advice we came up with for helping people ADAPT SUCCESSFULLY to these new realities!

Stay tuned — and as always, chime in with your thoughts, additions, and observations on the topic at hand!

LinkedIn Tip: “Settings” Best Practices

As with most things in life, the devil is in the details.

Case in point: while LinkedIn continues to be (in my opinion) one of the most legitimate and ethical Internet companies out there, one should definitely be mindful of privacy issues and such when using ANY social media site — including LinkedIn — and should think carefully about how to configure their settings on such systems to avoid surprises.

Beyond this sweeping generality, however, I’m also writing this post based on LinkedIn’s relatively new status as a public enterprise (they went through an IPO last year) and the likelihood that this new ownership structure will tempt them to play a little more fast and loose with their members’ data — in an attempt to please shareholders and boost profits.  For example, in articles such as the one you’ll find here, from PCworld.com, it was revealed last August that LinkedIn had started to use some of the photos and names of their users in advertisements, without their consent.  Or at least without their explicit consent.  What they did, as you’ll read about, is basically add an obscure feature to the LinkedIn Settings page that would allow people to OPT OUT of being included in such ads, but would allow permission, by default.

This was a baaaaad move on their part.  And they paid for it, PR-wise.

At any rate, for these reasons above, plus the fact that some people may simply want to tweak their account parameters to enjoy more “stealth” on the system, regardless, I thought I’d write up a quick post outlining the key privacy settings that you can adjust on the system.  As a first step, though, you’ll find to actually FIND the Settings menu.  Hint: If you log in to LinkedIn and put your cursor over your name, in the top right of the screen, you’ll see a drop-down box appear with the Settings menu listed.  Click on it and you should get this screen:

 

 

Once you find your way to this menu, you can browse around and consider tweaking dozens of different options that are available, most of which are fairy self-explanatory.  In terms of guarding one’s privacy, however, there are seven specific settings I usually recommend that people change from the default, under normal circumstances.  To find these specific setting pages, you’ll need to poke around a little bit in the main four “submenus” at the lower-left part of the screen — e.g. Profile; E-Mail Preferences; Groups, Companies, &Applications; and Account.

Here’s the rundown:

1. “Turn On/Off Your Activity Broadcasts” Setting: I recommend you turn this “off” to avoid automatically notifying all of your LinkedIn contacts each time you do little things on the system such as updating your profile, making a new connection, following a company, and the like.  Or at least keep this setting turned off until you’ve got your profile finalized, so that people don’t get bugged each time you second-guess yourself and change a few words on your Summary and such…

2. “Who Can See Your Activity Feed” Setting:  Not a big deal, but again, unless you want people tracking your every move on LinkedIn, I’d recommend you change this setting to “Only You” to keep more control over the information people can see about you.

3. “Select What Others See When You’ve Viewed Your Profile” Setting: I may never convince people of this, but I think it’s utterly worthless to worry about “who’s checked you out” on LinkedIn if they’ve reviewed your profile but not actually made contact.  If they want to talk to you, they’ll reach out.  If not, it’s not worth worrying about, or creepier, still, if you follow up with them to ask their motives.  Plus, for you to see the names of the people who have checked you out, you have to allow others to see YOUR name, when you check THEM out.  It’s a two-way street.  Long story short, I keep this option set to “You will be totally anonymous” so that I can browse other peoples’ profiles in confidence, knowing my identity won’t be revealed.

4. “Select Who Can See Your Connections” Setting: If you’re open to letting people know exactly who else you know on LinkedIn, you can keep this setting tuned to the default “Your Connections” option.  Since I really don’t dig the idea of people casually browsing through my connections, though, hunting for targets of opportunity, I instead run with the “Only You” option — thereby requiring people to actually KNOW (and search for) the type of contact they’re looking for (e.g. somebody at Amazon.com) versus just flipping through my contacts, at random.

5. “LinkedIn Communications” Settings: I’d turn off all three of these settings on the “E-Mail Preferences” menu because, call me crazy, I usually don’t like to receive unsolicited advertisements from LinkedIn — or any other company, for that matter!

6. “Turn On/Off Data Sharing with 3^rd Party Applications” Setting: This one might be okay to leave active if you’re a “mobile device” user and need LinkedIn to be able to communicate and share data with a bunch of other third-party applications out there.  Otherwise, if you don’t use LinkedIn-related “apps” on your iPhone/Droid, it’s probably safest to disable this setting.

7. “Manage Social Advertising” &“Manage Partner Advertising” Settings:  Ah, now these are the main culprits to watch out for, since they’re the ones that got LinkedIn in trouble a while back!  By default, LinkedIn assumes you’d like nothing better than to have your name/photo used in advertisements without your express knowledge or consent.  And, on a milder note, the second option assumes that you would like to receive customized advertisements based on your demographic profile.  In my case, the answer to both question is “Ummm, no.  But thanks!”

Again, let me emphasize these are simply my own (subjective) recommendations and best practices for the average user.  There are definitely cases where some of you will want to leave certain settings activated — especially if you practice a much more “open” philosophy than I do about connecting with people, how much information you’re willing to share with strangers, and the like.  If that’s your style, though, I suspect you already have a pretty good handle on social media sites and how to optimize these kinds of settings to fit your needs.

So use the above seven recommendations as a rough guideline, but feel free to veto some of them if they don’t apply to your current career situation or networking philosophy!  Best of luck…

Job Hunters: Don’t Be An Easy Mark!

A client of mine told me an interesting story the other day.  He said that he’d had a good meeting with an executive recruiter here in town, about a senior engineering position that was available, but ultimately the position turned out not to be the right fit for a variety of reasons.

On the way out the door, though, the recruiter called my client back into his office and shared one final remark:

“Oh yes, John, one more thing before you go.  Unfortunately, some unscrupulous person — I’m assuming one of my competitors — hacked into my database the other day and apparently made off with a bunch of my job orders and candidate resumes.  So if you end up getting any calls from other recruiters about jobs in the near future, and you have no idea how they got your name, would you please let me know and tell me which companies and opportunities they’re calling you about?“

Sounds like a reasonable request, doesn’t it?  And just out of curiosity, how do you think you would have responded in a case like this, if you’d just spent an hour having a pleasant chat with a recruiter who seemed to be genuinely interested in finding an assignment for you?

In my client’s case, he said he took the statement at face value and told the recruiter “Sure, happy to help.  I’ll let you know if anybody calls…“

He got played.

Unfortunately, while the vast majority of employers, recruiters, and career service practitioners are upstanding citizens — and work with people in honest and ethical ways — there are definitely some bad apples out there to watch out for.  The ingredients are all there for an easy con job, after all, when you combine an industry most people know barely anything about (the career service world) with the emotional stress and desperation often associated with searching for work.

In this case, for example, it’s pretty much a certainty (at least in my mind) that the recruiter in question hadn’t actually had his system hacked, but instead was using a devious method to troll for new business.  He was trying to trick my client into tipping him off to any other relevant hiring needs companies may be facing out there, that other recruiters were working on, so that he could then swoop in to present some candidates and snag the commission, himself.  The whole “computer theft” story was a ruse.  In fairness, I wouldn’t be able to testify to this under oath, but having seen other staffing firms engage in similar practices, experience tells me this is a FAR more likely scenario than somebody having their system hacked by a competitor — given the criminal liability that would ensue.

On another related front, I had yet another job hunter of my acquaintance report recently that he had responded to an advertisement on Craigslist and received the message below, in return:

“I would like to congratulate you in making it to the next step of our hiring process. As part of our company’s policy, and to insure our company against liabilities and potential issues, the next step of the hiring process includes getting your credit report checked. Please be aware, that a poor credit history in no way disqualifies you from the position, but will allow us to gain a better feel for you.  In lieu of this, we have arranged a FREE service to make the process easier.  Click here to receive your report. Once you have completed this process, please email me confirmation ASAP, so we can move forward. Please, DO NOT include any sensitive information in any emails. Please perform this step quickly, as we would like to fill the position very soon. Upon receipt of your report #, myself or Mr. Dawson, our HR manager, will get back to you to set up a meeting.“

Essentially, it appears as if this company is trying to get people to send them their whole credit history, unsuspectingly, by cloaking it in the guise of a legitimate job application.  To my knowledge, though, no legitimate company asks the CANDIDATE to go access their own credit history and send it along.  It’s the company’s responsibility to facilitate the credit check and there are several legal steps that have to be followed, along the way.  Other tip-offs are the weird language about needing a credit history not because it relates to the job in any way, but simply to get a “better feel” for the applicant.  Come again?  Say what?  What is the world does that mean?  Then from there, they throw in some helpful-sounding language like “we have arranged a free service”  and “please do not include any sensitive information” (other than the credit report, of course) designed to throw wary applicants oft the scent.

If I wasn’t morally disgusted by this scam, I might actually admire its cleverness or the slick copywriting involved.

Ultimately, though, even if you’re a generally cautious person, it’s easy to get duped by these kinds of rackets when you’re dealing with an area of the business world — the employment landscape — that is subject to very little government regulation and where you have precious little first-hand experience, if you’re lucky.

So as we head into 2012, I just wanted to share a word of caution on this issue, yet again, as I have occasionally over the years in articles such as the ones you’ll find here, here, here, and here, if interested.

The bottom line?  ALWAYS trust your instincts.  If a job lead or career service acts in suspicious ways, or your gut tells you something fishy might be going on, make sure to do further due diligence before providing any further information to the parties in question.  Secondly, keep in mind that you’re probably not the first person to get targeted by these kinds of scams, at least the more common ones.  So consider conducting a quick search on Google, using the company’s name and the keywords “scam” or “review” afterwards, to see if this turns up any helpful insights or warnings from other job hunters!

Any other scams, rackets, or questionable services you’ve run into out there that we can warn people against?

Resolve to Absolve Yourself: 2012 Update

Happy new year, all, and while I took a bit of a blogging hiatus through late December, I’m looking forward to getting back on the horse and bringing you plenty of new articles as 2012 gets underway!

As always, I’ve got plenty of ideas and article concepts on the back burner, just itching to be published, based on what I’ve been seeing out there in the marketplace and from the job hunting experiences reported to me by my clients on an ongoing basis.  And again, whether in my own blog or via the new series of columns I’ll be authoring for the Seattle Times NWjobs section, my goal (not that I always achieve it) is to focus on fresh topics and subtle nuances of the job market that haven’t been written about and recycled countless times by other authors out in the career ecosystem.  In fact, the mantra I try to follow when I write is “If I’m boring myself, I’m probably boring my readers.”  Here’s hoping that will continue to be a fairly reliable guide to my efforts, going forward…

In a stunning move of hypocrisy, however, I’m actually NOT going to kick off the new year with a totally original post.  Instead, I want to repost a slightly edited version of an article I wrote two years ago, discussing the phenomenon of “unemployment guilt” and the degree to which I feel such guilt hampers the ability of many out-of-work professionals to continue leading happy, productive lives.  While it’s too soon to tell how exactly the job market is going to play out in the year to come, it’s probably a safe bet to say that plenty of Americans will continue to be searching for work longer than they’d like.  And that during this search, they are going to have to contend with all kinds of innately human emotions such as guilt, fear, and self-doubt until they land their next opportunity.

In fact, if my sources are to be believed, there’s a pretty good chance that many professionals in transition will continue to have inner conversations with themselves along the lines of:

1) “If I’m not job hunting each and every minute of the day, I must be cheating the process or not trying hard enough.”

2) “If I take a trip, go see a movie, or do something even the slightest bit enjoyable for myself, I don’t deserve it and am just being selfish.”

3) “If I spend a few extra bucks here and there, or treat myself to a few affordable luxuries, it’s tantamount to financial suicide.”

4) “If I wasn’t able to buy a wagonload of lavish Christmas presents for my kids this year, I’m a failure as a parent.”

5) “Given the amount of time I’ve been looking, and my inability to find a job quickly, there must be something wrong with me.”

This is just the tip of the iceberg, I’m sure.  Given the opportunity, I have a hunch many of you out there could contribute some additional self-talk themes to the above list.  My basic point, however, is that you can’t allow this type of self-criticism, blame, and guilt to paralyze your daily existence during a period of transition.  You’ve got to fight it.

If you allow this kind of mindset to set in, where you constantly feel your job circumstances are entirely your fault and you’re walking around with the weight of the world on your shoulders, 24 hours a day, it benefits nobody.  You lose, your family loses, and in a larger sense, everybody in your extended community loses.  Sure, you don’t have a job.  And no question about it, there are certain things in life that come with a price tag attached.  But never forget that there are still millions of ways you could devote your time, each day, toward pursuing goals that will enrich both you and those around you.  You may be between assignments at the moment, but you’re not suddenly a second-class citizen, unless you allow yourself to feel like one.  You’re fully entitled to enjoy yourself, accomplish great things, and live a terrific life along the way, even if you’re not currently drawing a paycheck.

So whatever pressure you’ve put on yourself as a result of your employment status, resolve to let go of some it as we head into the new year.  Lighten the load.  Ease the burden.  Muzzle those inner demons.  And recognize that there isn’t a single job hunter in the country right now who is utterly to blame, themselves, for the inability to find work.  The unemployment problems plaguing us are systemic ones, and societal ones, and every one of us is partially to blame for this reality based on the shopping/voting/house-buying habits we’ve indulged in for the past few decades.  And if the people around you, including your spouse, choose to belittle you because you don’t currently have a job title under your belt, it’s time to have a serious conversation with them about the subject.  Or distance yourself from them.  Amazingly, there are still millions of unsympathetic people out there who seem to still “not get” the fact that they could just as easily be in this situation as you, had the winds of change blown a little differently…

Is this a free pass to avoid running a highly focused, methodical job search?  Of course not.  Any serious job hunter still needs to have a solid game plan in place and do their damnedest, each day, to follow it.  But make sure to cut yourself a little bit of slack along the way, as well.  Control what you can and let go of the rest, as the old saying goes.  You’ll be a much happier person as a result, and ultimately, a much more effective job seeker as the people around you marvel about your upbeat attitude — and the constant array of cool things you’re engaged in while they’re slogging away in a cubicle each day.

Best wishes to all of you out there, as we head into 2012, and here’s to a fresh year full of positive career developments!

LinkedIn Tip: Job Change Notifier

As many of you have discovered, one of the biggest benefits to social media is the opportunity such technology gives us to build relationships with — and strengthen our ties with — hundreds of different individuals in our network.

In days past, we might only get the chance to catch up and hear the “latest and greatest” from people a few times a year.  Thanks to social networking sites, however, we’re able to keep in touch much more closely.  We can conveniently keep tabs on what the people we care about are up throughout the year — and immediately chime in with some words of congratulations and support, for example, when somebody publishes a new book.  Or hosts a great event.  Or receives a nice testimonial.  Or gets a new job.

On this latter note, I was excited to discover a new third-party tool for LinkedIn the other day called Job Change Notifier that I think is a wonderful little piece of technology.  The title pretty much says it all, but here’s a quick description of the service from their website that provides a little further detail/context:

“Job Change Notifier is a free service that sends you an email alert whenever one of your LinkedIn connections changes jobs. Connect your LinkedIn account, choose which connections you want to track, and we’ll automatically notify you when any of them gets a new job, leaves their current one, or gets promoted.  Job Change Notifier is a weekend project created by Roger Lee (@roger_lee), an entrepreneur whose day job is the co-founder of PaperG, a local advertising company.“

Having installed it myself about a week ago, I’ve already enjoyed some of the updates it has provided, alerting me to some acquaintances, former co-workers, and firm alumni who I hadn’t otherwise realized had earned a promotion or landed a new assignment!  So I highly recommend this tool to all my readers out there as yet another great way to boost your networking and relationship management efforts.

Bravo, Mr. Lee, for creating a very handy new application!

Should We All “Buy American” for Christmas?

As a follow up to my previous post, which discussed some of the innovative initiatives starting to bubble up regarding the economy and how to boost job growth, somebody forwarded along a thought-provoking passage that they’d seen circulating out on the Internet.

This “New Christmas Tradition” letter, which I’ve re-posted below, appears to have gone viral by this point and as a result I was unable to find out who originally wrote it to give proper attribution.  I also don’t necessarily agree with each and every point the author makes.  But all in all, I thought it was a thoughtful reminder about the importance of understanding our own personal values/priorities, as well as the impact that takes place based on the gift-giving we do each year.

So for what it’s worth, here’s the article.  See what you think…

Christmas 2011: Birth of a New Tradition

As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods — merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor. This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands. Yes there is!

It’s time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper?  Everyone — yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local American hair salon or barber?

Gym membership? It’s appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement.

Who wouldn’t appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plonking down the Benjamines on a Chinese made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants — all offering gift certificates. And, if your intended isn’t the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint. Remember, folks this isn’t about big National chains — this is about supporting your home town Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.

How many people couldn’t use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at your hometown theatre.

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that China can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about caring about US, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams. And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn’t imagine. THIS is the new American Christmas tradition.

Job Growth in America: Innovative Initiatives

Mark my words — things are going to get interesting in 2012!

With the presidential election looming, and the economy still on shaky ground, it seems a foregone conclusion that our country is going to go through a vigorous national debate (to put it politely) on the subject of job creation and around which entities, organizations, and/or individuals are ultimately responsible for it.

On one hand, you’ll obviously have a camp demanding increased government stimulus and intervention, claiming that the shortage of jobs is largely the fault of big business and their perceived adoption of greedy/selfish/short-sighted policies around issues such as outsourcing and automation.  And yet, for every one of these people, you’ll find somebody else arguing that government needs to get off the backs of business and become more friendly to corporate America, since ultimately it’s entrepreneurs, not public officials, who create sustainable jobs.

Without question, I’m sure we could spin up a lively discussion on this blog about these issues, the facts involved, and what side of the political aisle is the virtuous one.  Let’s not go there, though, if we can help it.  Instead, I wanted to set the stage, above, in order to talk about a number of emerging attempts I’ve witnessed lately where some non-traditional pockets of society seem to be stepping up and seeking to combat the unemployment problem in innovative new ways.

For starters, I was rather surprised to walk into Starbucks the other day, order my mocha, and discover that they were selling these special “Indivisible Wristbands” at the front counter where people could donate and show support for job growth in America.  Kind of wild.  Apparently, this is the latest installment of the whole “philanthropic bracelet” craze that Lance Armstrong kicked off, a few years back, with his LiveStrong campaign.  At any rate, you can read more about this new Starbucks initiative at the link here, if interested.  Here’s the rough concept:

“Starbucks is teaming up with Opportunity Finance Network® (OFN) which is a group of community lending institutions set up to provide financing to community businesses that need our help. In donating to OFN, 100% of your donation will help create and sustain jobs in underserved communities. To launch this project, the Starbucks Foundation is donating the first $5,000,000. As a thank you for your donation, you’ll get a wristband to wear proudly as a symbol of your support.  (Editor’s Note: jumping ahead…) We hope that you’ll join in and donate to the Create Jobs for USA fund. By wearing this wristband, you’ll share that as Americans we are indivisible and together we can help create and sustain jobs here in the U.S.A. One hundred percent of the materials are from right here in the U.S.A. The red, white and blue cord is manufactured in Rhode Island, and the brass crimps come from Florida. The zinc alloy bead is made in a woman-owned manufacturing plant in Los Angeles where the wristband is also being assembled.“

At any rate, I was intrigued by the whole notion and have secretly always wanted to participate in the bracelet-wearing fad,  so I ponied up the $5 and walked away with a swanky red-white-and-blue band proudly wrapped around my wrist.  At the end of the day, I figured I was unlikely to come across a cause I’d ever support as much as job growth…

So that little Starbucks moment was an interesting development.

Then, on a totally separate note, I was watching TV last night and became aware of yet another new initiative where people (in this case corporate executives) were stepping up and trying to tackle the job growth problem on a national level — in this case, through a new coalition called the Job Creators Alliance.  This group, which you can read more about here, is comprised of numerous retired CEOs and states its mission as follows: “Our goal is to defend and preserve the system of free enterprise in the United States for future generations so entrepreneurship can flourish, resulting in job creation.“

In the interview I watched, where top executives from companies such as Best Buy and Staples were featured, their premise was that real jobs can only be created by the private sector — and that government has made the landscape way too challenging for businesses to borrow money, expand, and compete.  They claimed that their own companies, which have created hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs over the past several decades, would never have a chance of surviving through infancy in today’s highly-regulated environment.  And in response to concerns about outsourcing and immigration, they shared some “facts” (which I certainly don’t claim to have verified) such as that roughly a quarter of U.S. companies have been founded by immigrants — at least in recent years — and that the companies who outsource the most actually are the SAME ones creating the most jobs in America, itself.

Overall, if you look into the above group, I’m sure you’ll form your own conclusions based on your own political leanings and life experience.  From my vantage point, however, the individuals involved in this coalition seemed sincere.  Right or wrong, they seemed to have America’s best interests at heart and to be acting out of patriotic duty to help find a solution to our society’s unemployment problem.  This bodes well.  I love the new voices and salute the growing groundswell of focus, attention, and fresh thinking being placed on the job-creation issue.