Posts Tagged ‘jobs’

Calling All “Big Fish”

Employers Added Most Jobs in 3 Years in March

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 2, 2010

Filed at 9:21 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s economy posted its largest job gain in three years in March, while the unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent for the third straight month.

The increase in payrolls is the latest sign that the economic recovery is gaining momentum and healing in the job market is beginning. Still, the healing is likely to be slow, and most economists don’t expect new hiring to be fast enough this year to rapidly reduce the unemployment rate.

The Labor Department said employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the most since the recession began but below analysts’ expectations of 190,000. The total includes 48,000 temporary workers hired for the U.S. Census, also fewer than many economists forecast.

Private employers added 123,000 jobs, the most since May 2007.

”It’s just the beginning of a rise in private hiring that will help sustain the recovery,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group. ”They’re not big numbers, but they’re welcome numbers.”

Still, there are 15 million Americans out of work, roughly double the total before the recession began in December 2007. More Americans entered the work force last month, which prevented the increase in jobs from reducing the unemployment rate.

Manufacturers added 17,000 jobs, the third straight month of gains. Temporary help services added 40,000, while health care added 37,000. Leisure and hospitality added 22,000.

Even the beleaguered construction industry added 15,000 positions, though that likely reflects a rebound from February, when major snowstorms may have kept many construction workers off payrolls.

The average work week increased to 34 hours from 33.9, a positive sign. Most employers are likely to work current employees longer before they hire new workers.

The department also revised January’s job total to show a gain of 14,000, up from a previously reported loss of 26,000. February’s job numbers were also revised higher by 22,000 to show a loss of 14,000. The economy has now added jobs in three months since the recession began.

Still, more Americans said they were working part-time even though they preferred full-time work. When they and discouraged workers who have given up searching for jobs are included, the ”underemployment” rate ticked up to 16.9 percent from 16.8 percent.

And average hourly earnings fell by two cents to $22.47. That shows that high unemployment is enabling companies to hold down wages. Average weekly earnings rose by about $3 to $629.37, partly reflecting the longer work week.

Friday’s jobs report follows positive data earlier this week that showed consumers are increasing their spending and manufacturing activity is growing at its fastest pace in more than five years. Economists are increasingly confident that the nation will avoid a ”double-dip” recession, in which growth slows after a short burst at the end of last year.

The economy is likely to expand at a roughly 3 percent pace in the current January-to-March quarter, analysts predict. That’s roughly half the 5.6 percent pace seen in the final quarter of last year.

Normally, growth in the 3 percent range would be considered respectable. But the nation is emerging from the worst recession since the 1930s. Growth needs to be in the 5 percent range or higher to quickly drive down the unemployment rate. Both the Federal Reserve and Obama administration expect joblessness will remain above 9 percent through the end of this year.

References: A Critical Interview Prep Exercise

By Kathy Keshemberg, NCRW, CCMC

Quite often I’m asked “do I provide references with my resume” – the answer is a resounding “NO”! You want to make your own first impression.

What you do want to do, however, is have a list of 3-5 references prepared to provide at the interview. Here are a few tips to help you develop an effective list and also prepare your references to maximize the information that is shared about you.

Who belongs on your list?

You want to carefully choose individuals who can speak to your professional capabilities, expertise, credibility, and accomplishments. They need to possess first-hand knowledge of your work performance. Obvious candidates will be your direct/indirect supervisors, colleagues, peers, or subordinates (current and past employers). Also consider clients, vendors, professors, and professionals from industry/volunteer associations. Take care not to include anyone who could compete for the same position, and of course, friends, relatives, or outside-work acquaintances aren’t appropriate.

What information should be included?

Make contacting your references easy for the potential employer by providing as much information as possible – email address, office, cell, and/or home phone numbers, and mailing address. Confirm with each reference the contact information that is acceptable to provide. Also include on the reference page how you know that person, i.e., direct supervisor at XYZ Company. Format the page similarly to your resume with your contact information at the top. Bring several copies of this list, as well as your resume, printed on quality stationery to the interview.

What can you do in advance to prepare your references?

There are several things you can do to ensure that your references do a good job of positively representing you. First, let them know the type of position that you will be applying for and your skills, accomplishments, education, and qualifications relevant to that position. Next, ask each reference to speak to a specific strength. For example, you might ask one reference to discuss your leadership abilities, another could talk about your problem solving skills, and the third your integrity and work ethic. Finally, be sure your reference is aware of another reference they can provide the interviewer. Quite often, knowing that you are providing people who will have good things to say, a hiring manager might ask the reference for the name of someone else who can speak about your work performance. Strategizing another name in advance will ensure the hiring manager speaks with people who will make a positive impact.

What will your past employers say?

If there is any doubt surrounding what your previous employer(s) will say, give their human resources department a call – posing as a potential employer – to confirm what they will say. Or there are professional firms that will conduct reference checks for you to determine what will be said. Being aware of this information will give you the opportunity to determine the “spin” you want to put on the information when you are in an interview situation. If there is doubt about how to handle “sticky” information, hire an interview coach for an objective opinion and assistance in figuring out how to neutralize the situation.

Finally, after you’ve landed your new job, let each reference know the outcome of your search and thank them for the contribution they made to your success

For more than two decades, Kathy Keshemberg, NCRW, CCMC and her team at A Career Advantage have been providing professionals with world-class resume consultation and writing, career coaching and personal branding services.
Learn more…

Michael Carrillo Talks!

I was recently interviewed by an independent journalist working on a story about leadership in the recruitment industry. Personally, I have always enjoyed the interview process because it helps me solidify my thoughts and reconsider strategy set months before. Below you will find an excerpt from that interview.

- Michael Carrillo
The past two years have seen some pretty troubling economic news— and the disappearance of several “niche” job sites, yet CPGjobs appears to be going strong. What is the key to your continued success?

Well, you’ve said something very interesting here in terms of classifying CPGjobs as a niche job site. Although it is true that we specifically do serve professionals working in CPG, we really don’t consider ourselves to be a member of the “niche job site” category. This is true for two reasons.

Number one is that the consumer packaged goods industry incorporates many, many different industries like packaging, procurement, distribution and logistics, engineering, and many more…as well as the traditional marketing and brand management functions people tend to associated with consumer goods manufacturing. So to classify us as a “niche” job site I think is really limiting and we don’t see ourselves in this way.

Number two, we really don’t consider ourselves simply a “job site” or job board, but rather, a Consumer Packaged Goods Talent Network. What this means is that our business model incorporates the best use of job site technology in conjunction with the values of traditional recruiting. Simply put, we are a company of real people staying in touch with each other, understanding the needs of our customers on both the client and candidate side, and enabling conversation between all three legs of this stool.

In my mind, “niche job sites” are automated job boards with no connection to their candidates or to their clients. CPGjobs always has and always will maintain the human touch in our business interactions. In the office we lovingly refer to this as “going beyond the board.”

CPGjobs serves all areas of the industry, but your client roster does include some of the largest, most successful multinational companies in the consumer packaged goods industry. What are you hearing about how these latter clients’ needs are changing (or staying the same)?

Employers are looking for supplier-partners that understand their business and the various functional areas within their business. They need recruitment partners that are in touch with the candidates they serve. This has always been true, but with the massive cuts in most HR departments, it becomes even more critical. These organizations also need a partner that can perform multiple tasks on their behalf because they simply no longer have the resources to do many things internally.

At CPGjobs we extend our clients’ reach into the CPG industry. We help them with employment branding for their company as a whole, in addition to helping them fill open positions.

Just one example of this would be the way we leverage our position in the CPG Community on LinkedIn through our large professional group, CPGpeople. There, we use the power of this huge professional network to brand our clients’ organizations and employment brands, and reach into a robust community of passive and active candidates to recruit on behalf of those clients.

With so many highly-skilled CPG professionals now looking for work, how does CPGjobs help clients “sort through the noise?”

Well, first of course, is the fact that we live and breathe CPG. Clients that work with us are looking for skill sets specific to our industry, and we are very clear with our registered candidates that they must have CPG experience to be considered for positions listed on our site. This is part of our initial screening process and results in a candidate set that looks very different from the applicants our clients might receive from listing a position on Career Builder, for instance.

We also provide clients with a number of valuable tools that they can use in their hiring process. These tools include passive submissions to job postings, unlimited permission-based data mining of candidates through our People Search product, and outbound communications to candidates though our Network Access package of services.

Being able to fish in the right pond, so to speak is a huge percentage of the value we bring to clients. Our “pond” is the CPG industry and our “fish” are CPG experienced professionals. Our industry specificity is a huge factor in helping clients cut through the noise.

Social networking has not lost any of its buzz in recruiting. Are clients really utilizing social networks to their fullest? How is CPGjobs helping clients operate in this social space?

Unfortunately, the news from the real world is that clients are really not yet using social networking to its fullest…for a variety of reasons.

First, of course is the fact that using existing tools can be extremely time consuming— and time is something in very short supply in most HR departments right now. Further, the fact of the matter is that most clients’ ATS systems have really not kept up with this particular recruiting trend and modifying such legacy systems to incorporate web 2.0 kinds of functionality is VERY time consuming and expensive. Many of our clients have incorporated blogging, tagging and sharing as part of their marketing strategy and in some cases even on their careers pages – but integration with candidate applications systems has tended to lag behind.

And finally, true metrics for the whole social networking piece are pretty underdeveloped and most client recruitment metrics are still based on more traditional passive hiring methods.

At CPGjobs we have developed a holistic approach to help our clients with social networking through our Network Access package of services. This includes but is not limited to LinkedIn and our CPGpeople group and sub-groups, @cpgjobs on Twitter, our job board CPGjoblist, personal outbound email communication, candidate job alerts and newsletters. We even still use the phone!

CPGjobs has always been actively involved in workplace diversity and inclusion. Recently, you assumed a position on the Board of the California Diversity Council (CADC). Can you explain why CPGjobs has been so active on diversity issues and how has this interest in diversity effected the business?

As a minority and women owned firm, CPGjobs has always been dedicated to workplace diversity. We want to walk the talk on diversity/full inclusion as we grow the business. You are never to small or too big for this. Three years ago we had the opportunity to seed a new organization for California— the California Diversity Council. As founding members, both Penny Sallberg and I felt that through this opportunity we could help shape a new and important organization from the ground up.

One unique aspect of the CADC is that we are seeking involvement and representation from both academia AND business and industry sectors. Our intention is that the fusion of emergent research in the area of diversity and real world business and community experience will offer a powerful engine for creating a “next level” conversation in California around these important topic areas for the good of all Californians.

Being active at this level continues to guide CPGjobs with diversity best practices.

What do you think will be the top 3 trends in the (employment) industry over the next several years?

Well first I really do think that we will see a trend towards less automation and more personal interaction. We already see this trend happening with the clients that we serve. What we hear from them is that they use us not simply because of our job board or position in online social communities, but because we have constant personal interaction with our candidate network. In other words, I think that the media we use to do the job of recruitment will actually become less important than the message.

Second, the quality of candidate pipelines will become more important (as opposed to the historically arduous task of sifting through lots of submissions for each job). For example, CPGjobs has one of the largest CPG specific candidate pipelines across multiple job categories; and we are growing at over 1,000 new registrants a week. These are people that we can reach out to on behalf of our clients. It is a very skill-set specific, active candidate network that will continue to develop over time.

And finally, social networking will continue to mature as a candidate access tool. We are seeing this increased interest now. Our clients are using us more and more to reach out to our networks on LinkedIn, Twitter and others in increasing numbers.

What kinds of changes do you anticipate clients will see at CPGjobs over the next 3 quarters?

You will continue to see a growing CPG Talent Network that is real, fluid and evolving. Clients will consider this to be their network, which they will be able to access themselves and through us. If I could wave a magic wand, its effect would be to help clients see that the activity of recruiting, and the efficacy of CPGjobs in particular, is not just about the jobs, but about developing an effective CPG professional pipeline.

Anything Else?

Social Networking is not new to CPGjobs. For over 10 years our company has maintained a steadfast posture working one-on-one with our talent community. It has never been about “only the job” but about the community.

One of our goals continues to be reaching out to our network and being available for them to reach back to us. “Social Networking” is really just a fancy label for staying in touch.

Michael Carillo, President and Founder, CPGjobs

CPGjobs Continues to Grow

600,000 page views, 57,000+ candidates

Read more...