1.18.2004
Are We Doing Well Or Not?
The hiring slump seems to be over. Well, that was brief. I have never seen a lull so short. So, what is up with that? Is it really over, or is this another weird hiccup in the market? Why do unemployment figures seem to be going down, spending going up, but new job creation is headed straight for the toilet? If there are no new jobs available, yet layoffs have more or less stopped, where do all these job ads come from? If there really weren't more jobs, wouldn't spending be down? Do not worry if you do not know any of the answers to these questions - neither does anyone in the present administration. In one sense, I am glad the signals are mixed. There had been a growing complacency on the administration's part; they had been too sure that their efforts were going to be successful. I almost got a sense that they had taken their eyes off the road, as it were. Now maybe they will understand that the job market has a greater complexity and depth than they had previously thought. It also means that they must try harder to create jobs, or pursue efforts that will lead to the creation of jobs. Therefore, either things must improve in that fashion, or the current administration will also join the ranks of the unemployed. However, if they think they can coast - their thinking is sorely mistaken.
IMPORTANT ALERT! from Working Families e-Activist Network
"Next Tuesday, Jan. 20, will be a critical day in the fight to stop President Bush's overtime pay take-away-and to prevent a pay cut for millions of America's workers. The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on unfinished business from last year including a massive federal spending bill. A group of pro-worker senators is pledging to block that legislation with a filibuster because it does not bar Bush's overtime pay take-away. Later that night, President Bush will deliver the annual State of the Union address. If he's honest about wanting to help our economy, he'll withdraw his overtime pay take-away.
Please act immediately. Time is crucial.
You can help keep the heat turned up on U.S. senators and President Bush by telling your friends, family and co-workers about Bush's outrageous overtime pay take-away and asking them to take action. Please take one minute right now to spread the word by clicking on the link below.
http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/voteforovertime/
One e-Activist, Connie from Ohio, wrote us a note describing her efforts to get the word out about Bush's overtime pay take-away. "I ask [people] what they think of the president trying to take away overtime pay. Amazingly they never heard about it before I told them. They only know now because I told them."
Millions of people STILL don't know. They will only know about President Bush's overtime pay take-away if you and others get the word out during the next week and over the coming months.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER TUESDAY?
That really depends on what the U.S. Senate does and what President Bush says in the State of the Union. No matter what happens, CHECK YOUR E-MAIL ON WED. JAN. 21, for an important message about the next phase of this campaign and what you can do. Unless Bush backs down or our Senate allies succeed and get the House to join them, we'll have just a couple of months to really escalate our efforts and get the word out. The Bush Labor Department intends to make the Bush overtime pay takeaway official in March.
OVERTIME PETITION UPDATE
Keep up the great work with the Petition to Save Overtime Pay. So far, more than 280,000 people have signed the online petition or a downloaded petition form. When we send your overtime update next Wednesday, we'll give you the latest news about the petition campaign and next steps. As a reminder, the deadline for submitting petitions has been extended. Sign the petition or download a print petition form on the Save Overtime Pay website at the link below.
http://www.saveovertimepay.org/
NEWS STORIES
Lately, many more media reports and editorials have been exposing what the Bush administration is planning to do to overtime pay and protections. Here are a few you will find interesting.
Finally, please remember to spread the word. We can stop Bush's overtime pay takeaway if millions of us join together and speak out for good jobs, the 40-hour workweek and workers' right to overtime pay for overtime work. We can block President Bush from taking away that right.
Thanks for all you do.
Onward,
Working Families e-Activist Network"
They get an F for Scummy Behavior, but an A for Creativity and Sneakiness
While You're Busy Working On the Summary of Qualifications Section...You should be getting close to done on this section. You have another week to polish it up and get it perfected. On the 18th, we will complete the resume overhaul process by finishing with the Expertise section. This should have your resume totally reworked by the end of January - just in time to start the process of posting to job boards against the spring hiring frenzy.
"Are You Low Maintenance? Many managers, especially sales managers, are managing large teams that are geographically and culturally diverse. They do not have the luxury of taking on someone who needs lots of hand holding or who creates many internal problems. Are you someone who needs a manager to resolve all your problems? On the other hand, are you someone to whom a manager can give a name and trust you to get the situation taken care of? When a manager is asking reality-based interview questions, you must avoid phrases like, "My manager took care of that," or "I washed my hands and dumped the whole thing in the VP's lap." These telegraph that you are going to add work for the manager, not decrease it. To be maximally effective in the interview, you must be ready with answers that make it clear - you are a manager's dream of low maintenance. Prepare and practice so your responses are crisp and illustrate your low maintenance strengths. A low maintenance person may be chosen over someone with better credentials, but who creates chaos in their wake."
"Pesty or Persistent? Following Up On Your ResumeYou have e-mailed your resume; what is the next step? In several cases, the next step can be sending a hard copy of your resume to the decision-maker. In one recent case, a job seeker had e-mailed her resume to the human resources director via their online application. She then sent a hard copy. She was contacted because of the hard copy. Apparently, there was a glitch in the system and the director never saw the candidate's online resume. Spam filters have also been an issue when sending e-mail resumes. They have captured and deleted your important material, without you or the decision-maker knowing. Do not let this happen to you. Double your chances of landing an interview by taking the extra five minutes to mail a hard copy to the decision-maker."
<Note from JobFairy.com: I do not think this happens very often - at least not often enough that you should worry about it. I have seen that if they want you, they move heaven and earth to find you. If they do not, they do not even call. Do not waste your time wondering if your resume got through or not. The ones who want you and are meant to get through to you will be able and willing to do so. Focus your energy and efforts on applying to positions and generating leads. Done properly, this should be sufficient.>
Hottest Skills in 2004 (from brainbench.com)
- .NET Framework
- Active Server Pages
- ActiveX
- Adabas Administration
- ADO.NET
- Apache Administration
- Ariba
- ASP.NET
- Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
- BEA WebLogic
- C
- C#
- C++
- CGI Scripting
- Check Point FireWall
- Cisco Network Design
- Cisco Network Support
- Citrix
- ColdFusion
- COM/DCOM (Visual Basic)
- CORBA
- DB2 Administration
- Delphi
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- Dreamweaver MX
- DHTML
- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
- Informix
- Java - EJB
- Java 2 - GUI
- Java 2 - Non-GUI
- Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
- Java 2 Platform Micro Edition (J2ME)
- Java Server Pages
- LAN/WAN
- Linux (Red Hat)
- Linux (SuSE)
- Linux Programming
- Macromedia Director 8
- Macromedia FreeHand 9
- MS Exchange Server
- MS SQL Server 2000
- MS Windows Server 2003 Administration
- MySQL
- Network Security
- OO Design Patterns
- Oracle Administration
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- Oracle Designer 6i
- Oracle Developer 2000
- Oracle Financials Rel 11
- Oracle Forms 6.0
- Oracle PL/SQL
- PeopleSoft
- Perl
- PHP 4
- Python 1.5
- SAP
- SAS 6.0 (Base)
- SOAP
- SQL
- Unix Administration (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris)
- Unix Korn Shell Scripting
- Visual Basic.NET
- Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
- VPN
- Web Services Application Engineering
- WebSphere
- WinRunner
- Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
- XML
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Not that there are any guarantees in life, but if you learn at least one of these skills every quarter, your income is sure to go up. If you learn one of these every two months, there's 10 - 20K in it for you - or more. JobFairy.com recommends taking no less than one professional training on any of these subjects per quarter. It really pays off!
Yeah, But...
"ComputerJobs.com Introduces New Pre-Qualification Feature
ComputerJobs.com, an Atlanta-based IT employment site, has introduced a new client feature that will further reduce the number of unqualified candidates responding to job ads on the ComputerJobs.com Web site. The new "Candidate Qualifying Questions" feature allows employers to ask up to five career-related questions to candidates before that person is allowed to apply for a particular job. And while each new job ad is automatically assigned up to five default questions created by the employer, the default questions can easily be replaced on each job ad to better qualify candidates for certain jobs. "With the pool of job seekers in the high-tech industry larger than ever before, we understand the frustrations employers face having to sift through unqualified candidates for a particular job," said Jack Williams, COO of ComputerJobs.com. "The new Candidate Qualifying Questions feature is one of several steps we've taken to pre-screen and pre-qualify IT candidates, saving both the employer and the job seeker valuable time. We want to help match employers and IT job seekers faster." "
<Note from JobFairy.com: HOW WILL RECRUITERS KNOW WHAT QUESTIONS TO ASK? They can already barely match resumes to position ads. *Very* few have enough of a technical background to discern that, for instance, a position that requires a CNE (Certified Novell Engineer) could also be filled by a CNI (Certified Novell Instructor) - and that those who have attained the higher certification level will put *that* on their resumes, not the lesser or previous level of certification. If details like this elude them, I shudder to think of the "technical" questions they will put in front of candidates. Will they ask for expertise in Christal Reports? By the way, this technology isn't new, or even new to them. Qwest (previously US WEST) did this for years through their hire.com-based system. It's a big yawn. Since the recruiters' technical knowledge was so limited and initiative so lacking, after a short time, very few questions were "new" when people applied for jobs there. So it was a simple matter to make a text file with the most common answers, open that up side by side with the questionnaire, and copy/paste until finished. Ah, the joy of design patterns...>
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