Career Links: The Post-Finance Job Market, Niche Job Sites, and the Secret of Entrepreneurship

By Zack on August 31, 2009

Ezra Klein Contemplates a Post-Finance Job Market: "If the financial sector is somehow shut down, or radically shrunk, they'll just go to the next most profitable industry. Doctors get paid a lot, but there are sharp constraints on supply, so you'd just have more competitive medical schools, as opposed to more doctors. We'll have a lot more lawyers. Many more management consultants. Potentially more engineers and researchers, though those gigs require specialized graduate education -- frequently in the hard sciences -- and I'd imagine there's not too much overlap between college kids interested in organic chemistry and college kids who end up in finance at 23."

Cheezhead Thinks Niche Job Sites Should Band Together: Diversity Groups have seen larger layoffs in the recession, and Rathin Sinha thinks niche sites could better serve these groups if they collaborated. "Essentially, the market needs a destination where these groups can come together. It needs a place where the right jobs for the right audiences can be searched. It needs a place where employers who want to reach all of these audiences can do so with a single click of the mouse."

Twenty Set Reveals the Secret of Young Entrepreneurs: It's Education. "When people ask me how to become an entrepreneur, I ask them, “What is something you can do this week to take the first step?” If you can’t answer that question with a tangible, actionable item, the answer for you is probably that you should get more education."

The Thin Pink Line Looks at Office Etiquette: Carol Frohlinger points to a study that shows 25% of employers have fired an employee for violating the company's email policy. She then gives some advice about how to avoid becoming one of those 25%.

Ben Casochna Makes Some Career Corollaries: Ben says the career advisers obsession with "passion" is similar to writing instructors fixation with "voice." "As with careers and passion, I don't disagree with the fundamental point here, but I do worry about the intensity with which this advice is dispensed to aspiring writers. How, exactly, are you supposed to improve the "voice" of your writing? How do you know whether the sound of the words on the page are most true to you? What is "aliveness" and can not writing have bounce in its step but still lack a singular voice that would be familiar if you heard it again?"

"Never Stop": Advice From Old People

By Zack on August 28, 2009

ThinkTalk traffics in advice. That's pretty much why we exist. To bring you advice from the successful to help your career. Seth Menachem's Life Advice From Old People has a similar theme. Seth travels around the country gathering advice from the people he meets. I think this is a pretty cool idea and suggest you take a look. Below is a clip from his interview with Farmer Tom Tom went back to his roots as a farmer after living another life for 50 years! Some great advice in this clip. (via Kottke)

On to the Links ...

Keppie Careers Looks At The Cost of Unemployment: Like you didn't have enough to worry about when searching for a job: "If you expect a $20,000 salary, your weekly salary is $384.61 and an 18 week job hunt will cost you $6,992.98." Time is money, folks.

ABC News Reports On The Reference Black Market: "Schmidt, 46, is the founder of CareerExcuse.com, a Web site that says it can fill in gaps on your resume by pledging to "act as your past employer" and provide job references, complete with working phone numbers and people on the other end of each line ready to answer questions posed by prospective employers." Dangerous stuff here. Perhaps it's unnecessary to ad, but, I disprove.

Career Alley Examines Company Career Sites: They can be an excellent source for job openings and an indication of corporate culture. Alley Osmar looks at some company career sites and highlights the positives.

College Humor Wants Credit For Their Internship: "Several unforeseeable contingencies have caused the permanent closure of the Jurassic Park facility and the bankruptcy of its holding company. AS sad as I am to leave, I learned a great deal in my time at Jurassic Park. I hope that, with the following summary of my internship experience, I can convince you that my unpaid work was worth the full three credits."

Want a Promotion? Executives Say You Should Have These Qualities

By Mindy on August 27, 2009

Do you dream of ruling the world from a corner office someday? If so, you should read this post at JobMob by job search coach Rita Ashely. In an attempt to provide better advice to her clients, Ashley interviews top executives about qualities they look for in "direct reports" that get promoted to executive status. As she says, she like to get her information "right from the horse's mouth."

When queried, executives said that the following qualities were essential for employees being considered for top-level positions:

• Volunteer for more responsibilities
• Do what you can to stay visible
• Learn all you can
• Cooperate with other departments
• Stay up to date on the market and your area of expertise

Ashley interviewed El, a senior director of technology. He looks for a variety of qualities in employees he promotes, including the ability to get things done without needing extra incentives"

He also places a high value on those direct reports who come to him with solutions rather than problems. In his eyes, anyone can whine or complain and point out problems, but only a true leader acknowledges and accepts challenges by proposing solutions for discussion. The proposal need not even be right; to EI it is the approach that defines the prospective executive from the manager.

The post has more advice on how to approach your career like an executive- check it out. Also, for a cool story of a woman who's climbed the ladder, read this interview at The GlassHammer with Gayle Tait, a 32-year-old General Manager at L'Oreal.

Plenty to see and do with The Links today:

Careerealism Tweets About How to Handle Interviews Involving Business Scenarios: This job seeker is facing a different kind of interview- "I was sent a document detailing a business scenario that will be further discussed during the interview. The interview panel would like me to think about answers or recommendations for this scenario." Job experts offer their tips, like recording and reviewing your ideas for practice.

The New York Times Reports that Law Students Are Facing Tough Job Market: Even though it looks as though employers are getting more optimistic, law firms are still recovering from this past year. "For students now, the promise of the big law firm career — and its paychecks — is slipping through their fingers, forcing them to look at lesser firms in smaller markets as well as opportunities in government or with public interest groups, law school faculty and students say."

The Newser Finds that a 4-Day Workweek Has Plenty of Benefits (And a Three-Day Weekend, to Boot): Last year, the governor of Utah instituted a four-day workweek program for thousands of state employees. Now, after reviewing the program, it looks like having a three-day weekend could be good for you and your company. One perk: "82% of workers like the new schedule more than the five-day scheme and “show decreased health complaints, less stress, and fewer sick days.”"

BullsEyeResumes Lists 50 Tried-And-True Resume Writing Tips: If you've done your research, you've probably heard many of these "hot tips" before. But there are plenty of oldy-but-goodies, as well as some fresh material, to help your resume. "Get others to proof read your resume – be open to criticism."

Cube Rules Has Another Idea on How to Write Your Resume: In an increasingly competitive job market, it's essential that you "Show and Tell" your value on your resume. Don't just list your experience, prove that what you did made an impact. Cube Rules offers this three step formula: write an action verb; write a result; write a benefit to the business.

Risesmart Discusses the Right Way to Approach Social Networking in Your Job Hunt: This blogger cautions against using social media with an agenda in mind. In other words, don't just join Twitter or LinkedIn and immediately start hounding new contacts for a job. The post quotes several social media experts that all say the same thing- the key to online networking is to contribute- "on social networks, you reap what you sow."

Get Rich Slowly Gives Advice on Picking the Right Bank Account for College: J.D. Roth has some recommendations to help you pick out an account that will be good to you. He lists four different types of accounts and what you should use them for. What not to do: pick your bank based on who's giving out the best free goodies at orientation.

"La Defense" courtesy ricardo.martins via Flickr Creative Commons

Links: Scholarships, Mentors and Careers To Avoid

By Zack on August 26, 2009

College Finance 101 Alerts Us to Some Scholarships You Need: It's not too late to meet some of the fall deadlines for the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship and the Educationxpo Scholarship. So click on through or hit up College Finance 101 for more info.

Dan Erwin Doesn't Think Mentors Are Necessary: "With today's fast-changing technology, project and team-based environment, volatile marketplace and organizational changes such as outsourcing, downsizing, mergers, buy-outs and bankruptcy, it's absolutely impossible for a mentor to provide the help and support you need." I can see this being controversial.

JobMob Solves Some Typical Job Search Problems: Through the power of song! See there's this guy Henry, and he's got this bucket. Well somehow that bucket got a hole ... and Henry thinks Dear 'ol Liza can fix it. I swear, eventually this post answers some very real questions about finding a job ... it just takes a few minutes.

The Career Dr. Fields A Questions About Changing Careers For Teachers: A lot of teachers get tired of teaching pretty quickly. The job simply isn't cut out for everyone. And despite the fact that education is one of the few growth industries right now, if it ain't for you, it ain't for you. The Dr. seems pretty positive about the decision to head back to grad school. My sister is an ex-teacher and she decided grad school was the right choice. And She couldn't be happier. So if that's an option, it is worth considering it.

Cheezhead Details a Study of Career Paths to Pursue and Avoid: "The survey, conducted by about 150 human resources executives, found that new students should avoid career paths dealing with law, as only 1.4 percent of respondents chose that field as the most promising, followed by marketing or advertising and human resources, chosen by only 2 percent of respondents. Less than 5 percent chose public service."

The Creative Career Explores the Online Portfolio: This post is specific largely to the Public Relations field. "These days, the practice is becoming more common, and for students looking to stand out in a competitive job market, I would argue that an online portfolio is quickly becoming a requirement. This is particularly true for those looking for a digital position (and I might add, most PR positions have become at least somewhat digital)."

The Wall Street Journal Reports Professors are Learning and Teaching Lessons from the Recession: Lesson 1: Ethics. "It appears that the system rose to tolerate borderline or obviously unethical or illegal behavior. It's always in the panic that the world settles up with unethical behavior. If you look at the discoveries of Ponzi schemes, they coincide with economic troughs. These crises are illustrations of the fruits of unethical behavior. Students should pay close attention to them."

Job Search Engines: How Big is Too Big

By Zack on August 25, 2009

Over the weekend the news that Indeed.com recently became the most visited job search board grabbed my attention. I'm not sure if this a big news or no news, and more specifically, how it can help you with your job search. I mean, these numbers are staggering:

In July, Monster’s job search engine was up 33 percent in U.S. pageviews, CareerBuilders’ was up 56 percent, and Indeed’s was up 90 percent (comScore).

Not only is Indeed the fastest growing job search engine it is also now the largest in terms of pageviews. In July, it passed CareerBuilder, with 171 million pageviews in the U.S. versus 159 million for CareerBuilder. Yahoo’s HotJobs had 96 million (which Yahoo is reportedly abandoning), Monster had 73 million, and SimplyHired trailed far behind with 26 million.

So my question is, is a job search board where you are competing with 171 million other visitors (I realize this is pageviews, not visitors, but for the sake of my argument, role with me) going to be that helpful. Ostensibly, more page views could encourage more employers to post. But I also think it attracts more spammers. This was the problem with CareerBuilder and Monster, no?

Are these things just cyclical? A new job board starts out. Attracts some visitors, more job postings and eventually jumps the shark. Then someone else moves in. Or are the sites actually providing useful services to job seekers. Are the more niche focused sites, for instance Idealist.org more useful for a targeted job search? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.

In the meantime, let's hit you up with some career Links ...

TechCrunch Profiles the New Brazen Careerist: The popular career blogging site has relaunched as a social network. From founder Penelope Trunk: "Instead of just a traditional résumé, at the core of the new Brazen Careerist profile is an idea-based feed that showcases your knowledge, opinions and thoughts. In other words: Your potential. We all know there are pools of new talent coming into the market, but no career site showcases the most critical thing that talent should be sharing: Ideas." Smart.

Keppie Careers Explores Video Resumes: Miriam Salpeter thinks these can be a good thing. There are some concerns and she details them in the post. One thing that stands out, the video resume is a good supplement for a traditional resume, but it isn't going to stand out on it's own ... it's not a substitution.

In The Wall Street Journal Alexandra LEvit Gives Advice For Starting a Company While Working Full Time: "How does Mr. Hammerman manage it? He has started with a few ground rules. "I never schedule MeetMe calls or meetings during regular business hours, and doing all MeetMe work from my personal computer keeps me disciplined about the separation," he says. "I block out time at night for MeetMe, and if a thought comes up during the day, I'll make a note to address it later on.""

Career Links: Time Management, Happiness at Work and More

By Zack on August 24, 2009

College Finance 101 Wants to Teach You About Time Management Some good tips in here for getting your time management under control. This is a skill you will need to develop for the real world and College Finance has a nice little list. Tips include waking up early, choosing classes and (what I think may be most important) getting the most out of your weekends.

Chief Happiness Officer Has a Perfect Example of a Happy Employer Ladies and Gents, meet Southwest Airlines Rapping Flight Attendant. Umm ... Just watch the video.

Bullseye Resumes Helps You Stand Out Among a Competitive Job Market Just some more good tips on standing out. We've talked about this: the job market is competitive right now with a lot of people applying for very few jobs. You need to show (SHOW) how you stand out and why you are the best choice for a position.

Overcoming Bias Roundsup the Behavior of Different People Did you know: "Older and better educated folks spend more time eating. Middle aged folks don’t sleep as much as young or old folks. Most grooming is done in the morning." There's more...

HR Minion Starts a Discussion on Online Degrees Lot's of good questions to get the ball rolling: "But would a recruiter consider them to be just as good as a more traditional degree? What does that accreditation really mean? Couldn't you just as easily say that not all traditional schools are created equal as well? Does the convenience of an online degree come at a cost or is this an unfair stigma?" Heather Huhman Profiles a New Job Search Tool JobTitled is a free service that helps you decide what career to pursue. It essentially uses public resumes on the web to quantify analytics of a career path for a specific career. So you can search by a job title, a major a degree and more. Sounds pretty cool ... Gonna check this out and report back.

Wolfram Alpha, Computational Knowledge and Science 101

By Zack on August 21, 2009

I was pretty excited when Wolfram Alpha launched. I'm a dork for knowledge and was psyched for a smart search engine that could return data, rather than links to data. Unfortunately I was pretty disappointed with some early queries I ran and lost interest pretty quickly. I thought the wording it took to return results was a bit finicky and never used it how I thought I would.

That being said, I think it could be a pretty good resource for college students. ReadWriteWeb seems to agree. It appears the programmers have worked out a number of kinks and bugs and the engine is constantly improving (plus it just signed a deal with Bing, which could be pretty big news). According to RWW the engine should be popular with college students (specifically Chemistry) and should be ready to go by the start of the semester.

If you are unfamiliar with Wolfram, here's some background and how it may help you with your studies.

Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Get it? Well, if not, maybe this isn't for you. Here are some Links to get you through the weekend ...

College Recruiter Has Advice On How NOT To Write a Cover Letter: Don't be boring: "What a snoozer! Everyone uses that line, let's see... being like everyone else isn't going to get you very far in your job search now is it? No it's not. So what you need to be is different, but more than different, unique and valuable. Let's take a look at some more creative and attention grabbing opening lines"

MonsterBlog Has More Advice On Setting Yourself Apart: "The other key action item to set yourself apart from the swells of job seekers is to send out thank-you notes promptly, not just after interviews but also to folks who have extended themselves to you. These thank-you notes must be handwritten -- gasp, not an email! Slowly writing with good penmanship is a good idea to clearly spell out your appreciation."

Ramit Sethi Gets Kinky: With the "Craiglist Penis Effect." I don't know what you're thinking this is, but you're probably wrong. "The Craigslist Penis Effect describes situations where everyone else is so horrible that, by being even half-decent, you can dominate everyone else and win." I ... It's ... uh ... just read it.

ThinkTalk Interviews the Woman Behind Coco Before Chanel

By Eve on August 20, 2009

ThinkTalk Networks is excited to welcome Anne Fontaine - director, screenwriter and former actress – to our studios this fall. Anne will sit down with the ThinkTalk staff to talk about her experiences in the film industry, her new movie Coco Before Chanel, and of course to answer any questions you might have for her.

Anne began her career as a dancer and actress in Paris, making her transition to directing as an assistant in 1986’s stage version of Journey to the End of the Night. Her first solo project as director came in 1993 with Love Affairs Usually End Badly, which won her the Jean Vigo Prize.

Throughout her career Anne has worked in many aspects of the filmmaking process and has been nominated in film festivals around the world. Anyone looking to enter the film industry could gain valuable advice from this well-rounded professional.

Anne, who is considered an important figure in French cinema, has always been fascinated with an important figure in French fashion, Coco Chanel.

It was not so much the fashion as much the characteristics of this exceptional woman that interested me,” says Fontaine. “I had been particularly touched by the fact that she was a self-made person. This girl, coming from the heart of the French countryside, poor, uneducated, but endowed with an exceptional personality, was destined to be ahead of her time.”

Anne’s new film, Coco Before Chanel, documents the time before Chanel became a worldwide phenomenon. It tells the story of Coco, a young woman in France following her dreams and passions. Check out the trailer below and don’t miss out on getting the advice you really want from Anne Fontaine, ask your questions by September 14th!

Get Thee To a Government Job

By Zack on August 20, 2009

I've talked before about the benefits of government jobs. But just in case you needed some reinforcement of that idea, here's a story from the New York Times: since the start of the recession, the U.S. government has added 110,000 new jobs. And, for the record, the private sector has lost 6.9 million. So, if you weren't paying attention, the government in one of the very few growth sectors in the job market right now. But why?

The report offered several possible explanations for the disparity between the private and public sectors. It noted that there can be a short lag between an economic downturn and the time it hits states in the form of lower tax collections, and an even longer delay before the problems hit local governments in the form of reduced state aid and lower property tax collections.

It pointed to the slow pace of decision-making in many states, and the power yielded by politically influential unions. But it also noted that the demand for many government services rises in a recession, and said that billions of dollars of federal stimulus money sent to states helped them avert layoffs.

Ahh, see. That last little bit is the key there. It's the stimulus, stupid. Say what you want about a move towards socialism, and the government putting its greedy little hands all over your medicare, but that's what the stimulus plan was. It's the government expanding because other industries can't. It's subsidized growth and it is trying to create jobs.

Now, I'm no economist. Hell, I can't even pay my taxes properly (of course, some economists seem to have trouble with that, too). So I don't know if this is a pace that will keep up. But right now, from the looks of things, it appears that the government is a pretty good place to run to for that first job out of college.

On to the Links ...

The Wall Street Journal Reports On Some Changes In The MBA Program: Specifically, learning business and financial lessons from that whole recession mess we just went through. "Among the class lessons: Question assumptions behind financial models. Probe for better information about complex products. Don't let greed motivate decisions. Better understand the role of regulatory agencies and governments." Hey, it only took 'em two semesters to catch up. Of course, they probably should have been teaching this stuff TO BEGIN WITH.

Julie Minevich Discusses the Dangers of Storing Your Contacts in Social Media: "But let’s say that Google decided one day without warning to stop supporting [Google Contacts]? I would be left with no numbers or emails addresses for any of my closest contacts. And, at least with Google Contacts, I am able to export all the data I’ve inputed [sic] into the system and take it to another provider or save it on my comptuer [sic] (or another location) for safekeeping." She's right. And Facebook and other sites don't even allow exporting contacts. Worrisome, indeed.

Fistful of Talent Discusses Management: What to do when your employees leave: "As managers we're given a lot of training on the fundamentals of how to manage our employees. We're taught how to do performance reviews, how to give constructive feedback, how to engage people, how to help set their objectives and goals. What we're not trained to do is not do these things."

An Entrepreneurial State of Mind

By Zack on August 19, 2009

If there is a theme that is common among ThinkTalk guests it is attitude and mindset. To be a successful individual you have to have a certain frame of mind; to overcome challenges; to make yourself standout in a competitive industry; to create and innovate.

Monica O'Brien of Twenty Set captures this entrepreneurial mindset in a recent post. To succeed as an entrepreneur and start your own company, you need to posses certain qualities.

Overcoming adversity, handling risk, and in general being a grown up and making your dreams come true (even when everyone thinks your dreams are crap and you should just get a “real” job). It doesn’t matter if you are in the idea stage, the execution stage, or the growth stage. If you are working on entrepreneurship goals, you can be an entrepreneur. You are an entrepreneur. You don’t have to make it before you start. You don’t have to run the marathon before you’ve run a mile.

Speaking of the idea stage of entrepreneurship, Ryan Healy at Employee Evolution thinks that it isn't about one big idea, you need to have a lot of little ideas to succeed. Ryan uses a number of real world examples, Facebook, Twitter, YCombinator and his own startup, Brazen Careerist.

Over the past two years since starting Brazen Careerist I’ve realized this first hand. When Penelope and I first discussed starting a company, we had no idea what we were going to do. We knew the market we wanted go into, and we knew that we wanted to help people with their careers, but that’s about it. No crazy ideas to change the world. Just a desire to do something great

Since then, we’ve all had a lot of good ideas and a lot of bad ideas, and the whole team has worked their tails off to make this whole thing come to life. And finally after a couple of years, we have a pretty good idea of what our business is. All it took was not being able to pay rent occasionally, showering and living at the office some days, working when we were supposed to be sleeping, and cheering our one-man development team as he coded until 6 am.

There is a common theme in both of these posts. Entrepreneurship is about long term thinking. You may have an initial great idea. Well that's a great start. But it's not the end of the line. A successful entrepreneur will keep thinking, keep developing ideas and be prepared to adapt and change.

On to the Links ...

Keppie Careers Discusses Interview Answer Length: Well, usually the problem is rambling on and on. But too short can be a problem, too. But here's a good tip: "Have you ever listened to a professional storyteller? Usually, the story itself will be longer than the typical “listening span” we naturally have. However, the forward motion of the story, the storyteller’s investment in the tale and the intriguing details all combine to propel listeners forward. They stay with the story for a pretty simple reason – they want to KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!"

Cheezhead Wants To Know If You Are Being Productive: The gist: Essentially, the recession and fear of losing their jobs is making workers unproductive. There's also a rather large section about how depression decreases work productivity. I've been having a lot of convos about depression lately, so rather than expound here, jump over the Cheezhead and read on.

TechRepublic's 10 Things Has Some Great Ideas: Executive and leadership coach John McKee shares 10 great ideas from 5 bosses he has had in his 30 year career. Among them, "nuke the blackberry when at home."

CareerHub Wants To Know Why She Should Hire You: It's a competitive market. Why should someone hire you? "[A]n okay, lukewarm, mediocre response, it simply isn't helpful, valuable, and in no way, does it make you rock, shine, stand out, or memorable. If you are an Idol fan, you know that Simon doesn't hesitate to tell Idol wanna-a-be's that they are "memorable" or "forgettable." And if you're a job contestant in today's highly competitive market, employers don't have the time to figure you out, distill your assets, and / or your value on their time, their dime. You either make yourself memorable from the get-go, or you don't."

"Brain" courtesy dierk schaefer via Flickr Creative Commons