GSETA

Friday Link Round-Up

2012-02-10T03:29:00-08:00

Twitter for Job Seekers (Passive and Active Approach)

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Here's your collection of links for the week:

Why Green Is Your Color: A Woman's Guide to a Sustainable Career--from USDOL, a complete career guide encouraging women to pursue green jobs. It includes a poster and a postcard you can download and share.

9 Ways Board Members Can Raise Money without Fundraising--might be some ideas here for WIBs to pursue with their members.

Motivated Skills Test--This assessment helps job seekers identify key transferable skills and prioritize them into a matrix that describes how much they enjoy using them and how competent they are in using them.

Stand-up Meetings--More companies are having meetings standing up, based on a practice in the tech world where the day begins with staff answering three questions: What they have done since yesterday's meeting; what they are doing today; and any obstacles that stand in the way of getting work done.

New Year, New Job: 51 Job Search Tactics to Try--help job seekers shake things up a little.

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself--good advice for both staff and job seekers.

How to Live with Not Getting it All Done--some great time management advice.

Friday Link Round-Up

2012-02-03T03:59:00-08:00

Is Workforce Loyalty A Thing of The Past?

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Here's your first round-up of links for February 2012!

The New Rules of Business Schmooze--some good tips on networking.

5 Ways to Undermine Your LinkedIn Profile--mistakes job seekers should try to avoid.

What to do When An Employer is Unresponsive--how to handle things when an employer leaves a job seeker dangling.

HabitSpark 7-Day JumpStart--Many job seeking activities are about instilling the right habits. This 7-day course can be adapted to any situation where we want to form new habits.

Federal Agencies Using Social Media--list and links to government agencies using social media tools.

Does Your Resume Read Like a Career Obituary?--it probably does.

The View from the Cliff: Program Funding in a Precarious Financial World

2012-02-01T06:47:37-08:00

Bridgespan recently posted a report on the financial outlook for nonprofits that receive government funding and the outlook, to no one's surprise, is not good. Since One Stop Career Centers and Workforce Investment Boards operate largely on funds from federal, state and (sometimes) local government, this report may offer some lessons for workforce development too.

Fortunately, there are two articles that offer some ideas for addressing the issue of shrinking funding. The first, Five Ways to Navigate the Fiscal Crisis, suggests:

Getting to strategic clarity
Diversifying fundings streams
Improving productivity
Finding ways to better measure outcomes
Moving beyond "vendorism"

Ten Nonprofit Funding Models may offer some additional strategies for thinking through funding possibilities for WIBS and One Stops. While the "Public Provider" model is clearly the one currently in use by the workforce development system, it may be worth having conversations with Board members and community members about how the other models might be adapted or utilized for diversifying funding opportunities for local areas.

It's clear that as funding for programs shrinks we are going to need to have different conversations about alternative resources to serve our job seeker and employer customers. What conversations are you having locally and otherwise? How can we learn from each other?

Friday Link Round-Up

2012-01-27T04:35:27-08:00

It's a rainy Friday, the last in January 2012. The video above is an example of how one PA One Stop (CareerLink) is using YouTube to provide an orientation to its services. And here are the rest of your links for the week:

Social Media for One Stop Career Center Front-Line Staff--the newest Brief in a series on social media from the Heldrich Center at Rutgers University. There's also a 10-minute podcast to go with it.

What Can Workforce Development Boards Do for Me?--The Employer Services Director at a Wisconsin WIB is writing a series for a local newspaper to "demystify WIBs." Might be something for NJ WIBs to try.

Microenterprise for People with Disabilities--A microenterprise is a business that employs 5 or fewer people and requires $35,000 or less in start-up costs. This webinar explores why microenterprise is a trend that workforce professionals should leverage and the many different types of microenterprise available to people, with or without disabilities.

How the US Lost Out on iPhone Work--from the NY Times, this piece explores the challenges of creating and maintaining US middle class jobs in a global economy.

Thoughts on Workforce Development--from a CC administrator.

Beyond the Resume

2012-01-25T05:05:51-08:00

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, some companies are beginning to forego the traditional resume, particularly for positions that require higher skill levels and thinking:

Companies are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates' suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether.

A résumé doesn't provide much depth about a candidate, says Christina Cacioppo, an associate at Union Square Ventures who blogs about the hiring process on the company's website and was herself hired after she compiled a profile comprising her personal blog, Twitter feed, LinkedIn profile, and links to social-media sites Delicious and Dopplr, which showed places where she had traveled.

Some other application techniques recruiters are using include:

Requiring candidates to complete an online questionnaire that asks about things like "your ideal job" and "the best job you ever had."

Posting a series of challenges on the company website that job seekers must respond to. This gives the company insight into their thought processes.

Asking candidates to submit videos describing their love of the company's products.

Having candidates complete sample work products for evaluation.

While some companies are using these technique in conjunction with asking for a resume, a number are getting rid of the resume requirement altogether as they feel it doesn't give sufficient information about the candidate's skills and knowledge.

In some cases, this can work to the candidate's advantage. One gaming company put 30 people through a 6-week program that required them to demonstrate their programming chops. Six candidates were hired, several of whom would not have made it past a resume screen.

For One Stop Career Centers, it's important to know this information in advising job seekers. But it can also be helpful to advise local businesses of these new techniques, which many companies report nets them much higher quality applicants than more traditional strategies.

Friday Link Round-Up

2012-01-20T04:36:00-08:00

Keep Yourself Motivated

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Here's this week's link collection:

13 Ways the Recession Has Changed How Millenials View Work--Interesting observations. Could be worth discussing with staff.

Generation Jobless: For Those Under 24, a Portrait in Crisis-The Wall Street Journal examines the joblessness crisis among young people.

Telecommuting is Coming of Age--Looks at how more companies are using telecommuting.

"No" is the New "Yes"--From the Harvard Business Review, four practices to help you reprioritize your life.

How to Avoid Getting Fired for Facebook--Four tips to keep Facebook from being your professional downfall.

Four Easy Ways to Spot Awful Company Culture--Good advice for people to have prior to interviews.

The Rise of the New Groupthink--Evidence shows that time for individual reflection and creativity is at the heart of innovation.

Managing Your Career in 2012

2012-01-17T06:15:37-08:00

Penelope Trunk has an interesting article this week on Managing Your Career in 2012. She argues that you have about 15 years (until about age 35) to put together a plan and have a "young person job." After that, you need to be prepared to transition into something different.

She points to a few articles that show the changing landscape we're working in in terms of the kinds of work that are available to people. Sara Horowitz says that more work will be short-term and freelance. Anya Kemenetz says we'll be seeing more back-to-back career changes and more lateral skill-building.

What we know is that careers are more chaotic and difficult to predict, which makes "planning" harder to do. But there are strategies that people can use, including retro-fitting, blending and problem-solving their way to new work.

Teaching people the right career management skills is becoming more important than ever. And educating them about the changing job market is becoming more challenging.

Friday Link Round-Up

2012-01-13T04:20:00-08:00

2012: 12 Themes - What to expect in the year ahead

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Here's your round-up of links for the week. Enjoy!

Making it in America--a long, but fascinating read that gets at the heart of what's happening on the two ends of manufacturing with "skilled" and "unskilled" workers.

The Four-Year Career--"According to recent statistics, the median number of years a U.S. worker has been in his or her current job is just 4.4, down sharply since the 1970s. This decline in average job tenure is bigger than any economic cycle, bigger than any particular industry, bigger than differences in education levels, and bigger than differences in gender." So what does this mean for "career planning"?

6 Email Cover Letter Tips to Make a Good First Impression--Includes a link to a free cover letter template to make it more visually appealing.

How Leaders Kill Meaning at Work--from the McKinsey Quarterly. You have to sign up for a free account to access the full article, but there's lots of other great info there as well, so it's worth it.

Tips for Dealing with Employment Gaps--some decent advice here.

Plan Your Free Online Education for Spring 2012--a great list of FREE courses available through some of the best universities in the US.

Friday Link Round-Up

2012-01-13T04:20:00-08:00

2012: 12 Themes - What to expect in the year ahead

View more presentations from Ross Dawsn

Here's your round-up of links for the week. Enjoy!

Making it in America--a long, but fascinating read that gets at the heart of what's happening on the two ends of manufacturing with "skilled" and "unskilled" workers.

The Four-Year Career--"According to recent statistics, the median number of years a U.S. worker has been in his or her current job is just 4.4, down sharply since the 1970s. This decline in average job tenure is bigger than any economic cycle, bigger than any particular industry, bigger than differences in education levels, and bigger than differences in gender." So what does this mean for "career planning"?

6 Email Cover Letter Tips to Make a Good First Impression--Includes a link to a free cover letter template to make it more visually appealing.

How Leaders Kill Meaning at Work--from the McKinsey Quarterly. You have to sign up for a free account to access the full article, but there's lots of other great info there as well, so it's worth it.

Tips for Dealing with Employment Gaps--some decent advice here.

Plan Your Free Online Education for Spring 2012--a great list of FREE courses available through some of the best universities in the US.

Friday Link Round-Up

2012-01-06T04:22:00-08:00

Here's your first round-up of links for 2012!

Wisconsin Workforce Development Association Online Workshop Initiative--The WWDA is broadcasting workshops to several locations at once using video-conferencing. Could be a good way to leverage staff.

R.I.P Personal Branding--a good reminder on what REALLY goes into creating your "personal brand."

Meeting the Demand for Workers with Social Media Skills--how community colleges are responding to increased employer demand for people who can work in social media.

E-Learning Outlook for 2012--good discussion of trends in e-learning.

Men Grabbing Most of the New Jobs--Men are recovering more than 2/3 of private sector jobs, even in retailing, which has traditionally employed more women. Although the reasons why are unclear, researchers suspect it's largely men's willingness to accept work they wouldn't accept before.

What Job Seekers Need to Know in Today's Digital Job Market--On the importance of using and leveraging social media.

Six Email Mistakes You Should Never Make--although we all know that we do.