Time is money -- whether you've got a job or not. While it may be tempting to chase down every possibility when you're searching for work, don't. Many can lead you down a blind alley -- where you may lose the contents of your wallet.
A focused search using tried and true methods, especially networking, will lead to your next job, not tactics that smack of desperation.
Avoid these five job-hunting "don'ts" that will yield the poorest of results, according to leading workplace advisor Liz Ryan.
1. Spray and pray.
Don't blindly send your resume unsolicited, electronically or otherwise, to any company without first making verbal contact. Says Ryan, founder of AskLizRyan.com, "Tossing out un-customized cover letters and undifferentiated resumes in huge volumes and crossing your fingers is a job-search non-starter. That doesn't work, and it hasn't worked in 10 years, or more." Establish a connection before sending a customized cover letter and, adds Ryan, "You can even customize your resume if a job opening calls for it."
2. Stand in line for a job fair.
Admits Ryan, "Sad to say, but most job fairs are a waste of time. Avoid the huge cattle call-type job fairs where zillions of employers have booths, yet no one is taking resumes." There are some job fairs that have value. Ryan, a former human resources executive, points to company-specific open hours and college placement job fairs. Tap your network to learn if anyone can recommend worthwhile fairs. "Ask around before you head off to a job fair or risk having your time wasted and your ego dashed."
3. Earn certifications nobody wants.
It's common to feel less-than-confident in your skills if you're having a hard time finding work, but don't rush out to spend money on any additional training unless you're certain it will yield improved results. Ryan reveals, "Before you sign up for a certification training program, check the job boards to make sure that employers are asking for it. There's no sense investing time and money in a certification no one wants."
If you're getting the hard-sell from an educational institution, Ryan says, "Ask the people at the school that's doing the certifying, 'Which local employers have hired your graduates in the past year?' If they can't tell you, run away."
4. Pay a headhunter.
Don't dole out money to any kind of recruiter or sign a contract agreeing to do so. "Real headhunters, also known as search consultants or third-party recruiters, won't take your money. They get paid by employers to fill open jobs." She warns, "If a recruiter calls or emails you to say s/he's got jobs open, and then invites you to his or her office for a counseling session and presents you with a range of career-coaching services, bolt for the exit. Real search professionals won't take a dime from their candidates."
5. Sign up with a resume fax-blast service.
This old-school -- and desperate -- tactic is a total turn-off to potential employers and smacks of spam. Ryan says, "Services that send out hundreds or thousands of your resumes might have been worthwhile 20 years ago. Today, they're worse than pointless, because it irks employers to get unsolicited resumes. Forget the fax-blast services and do your own careful research to reach decision-makers with messages they actually want to hear."
by Caroline M.L. Potter, Yahoo! HotJobs
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
A point of view at least worth pondering ...
A point of view at least worth pondering. The author is Peter Schiff. He's always been a bit of a doom-sayer, but his first book Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, predated the market collapse by about a year. Hopefully, here, he's more wrong than right.
Have you heard the great news? The recession is over! It’s true; I saw it on TV. Why fret about growing unemployment lines when banks are paying big-time bonuses again?
Proof of the turn was apparently revealed by the 2nd quarter GDP figures that showed that the economy declined by only 1%. After four consecutive quarters of negative GDP, the green shoots now assure that growth will resume over the summer. But before we pop the corks, it may be worthwhile to ask, “what really has changed, and what is responsible for our new lease on life?”
In truth, because of the continued profligacy of the government and Federal Reserve, the imbalances that caused the current recession have actually worsened. We are now in an even deeper hole than when the crisis began. Rather than wrapping up a recession, we are actually sinking into a depression. If things look better now, it’s just because we are in the eye of the storm.
We must remember that recessions inevitably follow periods of artificial growth. During these booms, malinvestments are made which ultimately must be liquidated during the ensuing busts. In short, mistakes made during booms are corrected during busts – and in the recent boom we made some real whoppers. We borrowed and spent too much money, bought goods we couldn’t afford, built houses we couldn’t carry, and developed a service sector economy completely dependent on consumer credit and rising asset prices. All the while, we allowed our industrial base to crumble and our infrastructure to decay.
In order to lay the foundation for real and lasting recovery, market forces must be allowed to repair the damage. However, current policy is counterproductive to this end. Trillions in stimulus dollars have kept the party going, but now what? How does deficit spending by the government address the problems that brought about the crash? It doesn’t; it just delays and worsens the hangover.
By interfering with the unpleasant forces of the recession, we simply trade short-term gain for long-term pain. By propping up inefficient companies that should fail, we deprive more effective companies of the capital they need to grow. By holding up over-valued asset prices, we prevent the prudent or less well-off from snatching them up and, in doing so, creating a new price equilibrium based upon reality. By maintaining artificially low interest rates, we discourage the very savings that are so critical to capital formation and future economic growth. In addition, the false economic signals the Fed sends the market prevent a more efficient re-allocation of resources from taking place and leads to even more bad economic decision being made. By running such huge deficits, we further crowd-out private enterprise by making it harder for businesses to invest or hire.
The recently passed “cash for clunkers” program (currently on-hold, as it ran out of funding in one week) is a perfect example of how government policy can make the economy worse. By incentivizing Americans to destroy fully paid-for cars so they can go deeper into debt buying brand new ones, the government weakens an already crippled economy. The last thing we want to do is subsidize Americans to go deeper into debt by buying more stuff. Don’t they realize that is precisely the behavior that got us into this mess?
Think about it this way. If your friend were in trouble because he had too much debt, would you encourage him to take on even more? Wouldn’t a real sign of progress be a reduction of debt, even if he had to cut back on his everyday expenses? What is true for an individual is also true for a collection of individuals, even if they call themselves a “government.” If, as a country, we are even deeper into debt now than we were before, we are worse off. Period. The fact that the additional debt enabled better short-term GDP numbers is a long-term negative.
Since we have learned nothing from past mistakes, we are condemned to repeat them. As if we have not already suffered enough as a consequence of the Bush/Greenspan stimulus, Obama/Bernanke are giving ever-larger doses, which will prove lethal to any recovery . The recession is over; long live the depression!
Have you heard the great news? The recession is over! It’s true; I saw it on TV. Why fret about growing unemployment lines when banks are paying big-time bonuses again?
Proof of the turn was apparently revealed by the 2nd quarter GDP figures that showed that the economy declined by only 1%. After four consecutive quarters of negative GDP, the green shoots now assure that growth will resume over the summer. But before we pop the corks, it may be worthwhile to ask, “what really has changed, and what is responsible for our new lease on life?”
In truth, because of the continued profligacy of the government and Federal Reserve, the imbalances that caused the current recession have actually worsened. We are now in an even deeper hole than when the crisis began. Rather than wrapping up a recession, we are actually sinking into a depression. If things look better now, it’s just because we are in the eye of the storm.
We must remember that recessions inevitably follow periods of artificial growth. During these booms, malinvestments are made which ultimately must be liquidated during the ensuing busts. In short, mistakes made during booms are corrected during busts – and in the recent boom we made some real whoppers. We borrowed and spent too much money, bought goods we couldn’t afford, built houses we couldn’t carry, and developed a service sector economy completely dependent on consumer credit and rising asset prices. All the while, we allowed our industrial base to crumble and our infrastructure to decay.
In order to lay the foundation for real and lasting recovery, market forces must be allowed to repair the damage. However, current policy is counterproductive to this end. Trillions in stimulus dollars have kept the party going, but now what? How does deficit spending by the government address the problems that brought about the crash? It doesn’t; it just delays and worsens the hangover.
By interfering with the unpleasant forces of the recession, we simply trade short-term gain for long-term pain. By propping up inefficient companies that should fail, we deprive more effective companies of the capital they need to grow. By holding up over-valued asset prices, we prevent the prudent or less well-off from snatching them up and, in doing so, creating a new price equilibrium based upon reality. By maintaining artificially low interest rates, we discourage the very savings that are so critical to capital formation and future economic growth. In addition, the false economic signals the Fed sends the market prevent a more efficient re-allocation of resources from taking place and leads to even more bad economic decision being made. By running such huge deficits, we further crowd-out private enterprise by making it harder for businesses to invest or hire.
The recently passed “cash for clunkers” program (currently on-hold, as it ran out of funding in one week) is a perfect example of how government policy can make the economy worse. By incentivizing Americans to destroy fully paid-for cars so they can go deeper into debt buying brand new ones, the government weakens an already crippled economy. The last thing we want to do is subsidize Americans to go deeper into debt by buying more stuff. Don’t they realize that is precisely the behavior that got us into this mess?
Think about it this way. If your friend were in trouble because he had too much debt, would you encourage him to take on even more? Wouldn’t a real sign of progress be a reduction of debt, even if he had to cut back on his everyday expenses? What is true for an individual is also true for a collection of individuals, even if they call themselves a “government.” If, as a country, we are even deeper into debt now than we were before, we are worse off. Period. The fact that the additional debt enabled better short-term GDP numbers is a long-term negative.
Since we have learned nothing from past mistakes, we are condemned to repeat them. As if we have not already suffered enough as a consequence of the Bush/Greenspan stimulus, Obama/Bernanke are giving ever-larger doses, which will prove lethal to any recovery . The recession is over; long live the depression!
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