Personal branding, a buzzword used a lot in the current recessionary job market is simply identifying and communicating your value to people who can help your career. Essentially it is using social networking sites like Linkedin, twitter, and Facebook to promote your personal “brand” or identity to the people who can offer you a job, the hiring managers [...]
Just before I took my Christmas hiatus from being blogging about being unemployed I was encouraged by the unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate actually fell. It was only a couple of tenths but it was moving in the right direction. In fact the Labor Department reported that the economy added [...]
In my last post I related how I was going to do a couple of weeks work stringing wire in some new buildings – work I left over 20 years ago. Well, I did and I am back looking for a permanent job. I mentioned in that post that there were times in the last [...]
Those of us looking for work have seen incredibly fierce competition for the few jobs that are available. Recent government data confirms it. According to the Labor Department there are currently an average of 6.3 unemployed job seekers for each opening. That is the highest since the Labor Department began tracking the data in 2000. As a [...]
The latest unemployment figures are in from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It looks like that despite the recent positive news about the economy unemployment is still on the rise. I posted the statistics in the Labor Statistics page.
A couple of major highlights are:
Unemployment rate is 9.8% – up 0.1% from August.
The labor force is down [...]
As I wrote a couple of posts ago the national unemployment was 9.7% in August. While this number is disheartening, exactly how much so depends on where you live. I have friends all over the country. As I talk to them about the job situation I hear responses that range from “not too bad here” [...]
When you are unemployed as I am you spend a lot of time on the Internet. Much of it is spent looking for a job. Whether it is browsing company career sites, pouring over the latest Monster posts, or trying to network on Linkedin I spend a lot of time on the web looking for [...]
Does the headline for this post sound confusing? It should. According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Labor, the number of people filing new unemployment claims decreased by 12,000 to 545,000 seasonally adjusted (whatever that means.) In the same release, two paragraphs later, they say that the seasonally adjusted number for insured unemployed [...]
Maybe I should submit it to the Guinness Book of World Records. I just received what could be the world’s fastest rejection for a job application – 2 minutes and 38 seconds.
Here is the story. I was on Hotjobs and found a job I wanted to apply for. I went through the process of applying for [...]
In my previous post Psychological testing in hiring I related a conversation I had with a former colleague about being required to see a psychologist as part of his interview process. Well, the good news is that he got the job. As part of the psychologist’s service he was allowed a follow up visit for any questions [...]
