7.09.2005Unemployment rate near 4-year low; Rate dips to 5.0 percent, lowest since 9/11, but job growth again falls short of forecasts7.08.2005Jobless rate drops, but we're still not back on solid ground yet...Skilled Workers Hard to FindHow NOT to recruit senior personnelThis mirrors the experience that some Fairies have reported whilst being recruited by M$oft. This is a topic of some interest with recruiters these days. They are terribly sensitive to change, and they wouldn't be suggesting better behavior unless they had to. Make your job search easier - all in one job search toolsTry these out today. As soon as I get through all the links we need to add to the job search section, these are going to go in too. These ROCK. Candidate Uprising Waiting to Happen"Many employers are not paying attention. Their lack of sensitivity is about to cause some serious damage to their corporate recruiting. During the late 1990s, employers faced the two-headed dragon of a shortage of qualified workers and a seller's market in labor. With numerous jobs available, talented people could - and did - pick the opportunities they wanted with the companies that offered the best package. That package always included how employees were treated. Recruiters, gradually becoming more sensitive to employment market conditions, began courting desirable candidates. In fact, to assure their good reputation in this highly competitive environment, human resource professionals maintained a high level of communication with their applicants. Some of those workers would be hired; others would not be, but would tell other candidates of their experiences. As prospective employees shared their experiences - good and bad - with their fellow job seekers, employers became aware of the influence of word-of-mouth. If a company earned a bad reputation because of poor treatment of applicants, the top talent would not even bother to apply. Over the past four or five years, employers have tended to ignore the common-sense courtesies of interpersonal relations. This misbehavior has become prevalent with employees as well as with applicants. Conditions have changed, but employers have yet to make appropriate adjustments. The two-headed dragon is back. We face critical shortages of many skills, creating a scarcity in certain occupations that is already more critical that what was seen a decade ago. As we have shifted back to a seller's market, employee turnover has begun again. Executives continue to report that "finding and keeping valued workers" is one of the top three concerns that keeps them awake at night. Job seekers are talking about how they are being treated. Incredibly, few employers have the courtesy to respond to prospective employees - acknowledging their resumes, thanking them for taking their time for an interview, or letting them know if the job is no longer available. Discourteous employers will soon discover that their competitors are capturing the most desirable workers, just by showing some consideration. Manners make a difference in today's marketplace." - Roger Herman Articles like this are how we Fairies know the numbers we're seeing have any actual meaning. We watch recruiter behavior. They're the canaries in a coal mine. Right now they're busy and courteous - two things they didn't particularly used to be. Interesting, huh? Mountain Region Registers Sharpest June Increase in Online Job Availability"The Mountain region saw the greatest month-to-month percentage increase in online job availability during June, followed by the New England, West South Central and South Atlantic regions. Online job demand for workers increased in just four of the nine U.S. Census Bureau regions in June, although all regions remained at very high levels when compared year over year. Only twenty-two U.S. states registered increases in June, with Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Hawaii among those seeing the sharpest gains. Seventeen states saw declines during June, such as New York, Illinois, and the District; while 12 states remained essentially unchanged from May, including California, Florida and Virginia." - from monster.com press release Excellent news for those of us here in what was once the Ground Zero of layoffs. I knew it was going to take a while for tech to recover here, but once it does, perhaps it will be more solid and stable this time. I have to admit I guessed wrong about when the recovery would happen, but then again, 'most everyone else did too. The corporate scandals such as Enron and MCI/WorldCom had a far worse impact than 9/11 did, economically. But I think most of that is behind us now and we can move forward. And with the coming demographic crunch, plus the lack of interest in IT among college grads... well, the consensus amongst us Fairies is that salaries are about to get *real* good. Give it another 5 - 10 years, and we should be farting through silk. Really! 7.06.2005July 12th - RM3UG Meeting - Software Giveaway!Please attend the Rocky Mountain Macromedia User's Group meeting on July 12, 2005, if possible. If you're into web design and Flash, this is the group for you. http://www.rm3ug.com/ "At this month's meeting we will be giving away a version of either ColdFusion or Studio MX - winners choice!!!!! FREE SOFTWARE to the lucky winner! So that means you better show up if you want a chance. It has to be worth the parking and the hassle for free food, experts in the field presenting, and the chance for some of the best applications around to be yours! DATE/LOCATION July 12th, 2005. 7:00pm - 9:00pm / University of Denver - room to be announced TOPIC Using ASP.NET (C#) and XML to return Database queries to Flash for display SPEAKERS John Crosby - Kepher Rupp OVERVIEW This presentation will focus on one way of using C# ASP.NET to add server side functionality and database access to Flash applications. We will be discussing and showing you how to create a simple database query using .NET API calls with C# to access information from a database and make it accessible to a Flash application via XML and HTTP. We will then touch on XML parsing in Flash for displaying and using the xml once it is provided. This will likely be the start of a few presentations focusing around alternate data access methods for Flash as well as XML parsing and Flash!" 7.05.2005Risks of posting resumes onlineNow, here at Job Fairy, we're not going to tell you to not post your resume online, because we're all about that. And we're not going to tell you to even post confidentially, because you won't get as many calls as you would otherwise. But what we will tell you is that if you're going to disclose personal information, such as social security numbers, that you hand that information directly to your recruiter or HR person at the company when you interview face to face. In fact, one of the Fairies interviewed at a company recently and filled out the background check forms completely - except for SSN. She told them that if they were really interested in her, then they should contact her for the SSN if they were going to actually run a background check. That's a good way to gauge a company's level of interest in you too. If they never call for the SSN, you're not a contender and you just keep looking. If they do, then you know things might be happening, and that's leverage you can use during salary negotiations. I think one of the most important things you can take away from this article is the concept that if it's too good to be true, it probably is. People keep falling for these elaborate work at home schemes, the remailing crap - all that - and I guess it's because they want it so badly to be the answer to their prayers. Ask yourself - is this the kind of work I'd be doing if I were in an actual office with actual co-workers and with an actual boss? Archives05.29.2005 06.05.2005 06.12.2005 06.19.2005 06.26.2005 07.03.2005 07.10.2005 07.17.2005 07.24.2005 08.07.2005 08.21.2005 08.28.2005 09.11.2005 10.02.2005 10.23.2005 11.06.2005 11.13.2005 12.18.2005 01.15.2006 02.05.2006 07.09.2006 07.16.2006 07.30.2006 08.06.2006 11.26.2006 12.03.2006 03.25.2007
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