GILBERT GAZETTE

http://resumepro

http://executiveresumewriter.com

Marty Weitzman
800.967.3846

A monthly publication of Gilbert Resumes, featuring career
articles, websites, and suggestions for today’s job seekers

Dear Friends:

The economy and the job market continue to be challenging, so you must continue to be proactive when seeking and new position. Don’t just post your résumé to a job board and expect everyone to be a path to your door. Finding a position is a full time job and if you are not currently employed, you should be spending 35-40 hours a week looking.

This month’s Gazette features timely articles on:

1. JOB FAIRS
2. RECRUITER CONFIDENCE TICKS HIGHER
3. ELDER LAW: EXPANDING LEGAL SPECIALTY
4. CAREER WOMEN SURVEY
5. YOUR INTERNET PROFILE

Are Job Fairs Worth Your Time?
Eve Tahmincioglu, MSNBC’s career columnist, has a decidedly downbeat story today about job fairs. She reports that many professional and technical attendees at these events find themselves waiting in long lines only to discover that few employers are really hiring.

Just the words “job fair” or “career fair” suggest an abundance of potential employers and potential jobs, and that idea seems to attract huge numbers of job seekers. One job fair at Rancho Cucamonga, California, earlier this month attracted four times the expected number of attendees, forcing police to turn away others who wanted to attend the event.

Tahmincioglu says that in today’s brutal job market few companies have jobs to offer, including the ones that set up at a job fair. She notes that many employers participate in job fairs today for promotional purposes or as a form of community outreach–not necessarily to fill job openings. Other employers use job fairs to get information on future job applicants, to have candidates in the pipeline when the economy improves and hiring starts.

None of that, of course, helps unemployed workers immediately needing a job. Tahmincioglu tells of job fair attendees who were surprised to discover the companies would not even take their resumes when offered. She found that many companies prefer receiving resumes online so that they can be managed electronically.

(Memo to employers at job fairs: If you don’t want to sort through a pile of paper, why not take electronic resumes at a job fair on flash-memory drives, or from laptops and smart-phones over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth?)

As Dave Jensen points out in his February Tooling Up column, in today’s tough job market, you have to do much more than attend job fairs. You need to combine job fairs with the other job-search tools: informational interviewing, networking, responding to employment ads, and headhunters. “You’ve got to have all the bases covered,” says Jensen.

Tahmincioglu quotes recruiter Jay Meschke who says you need to do your homework before going to a job fair: “Find out who’s attending the fair, whether those employers are really looking to fill positions, and what type of jobs they are looking to fill.” For scientists and engineers, there are some career fairs, such as the European Career Fair at MIT, that are regular annual events and include seminars and sessions with employers arranged in advance. These events will likely have better opportunities than the general job fairs hastily arranged in suburban hotel ballrooms.

And if you attend a career fair, know what to do before, during, and after the event. Even if you do not find employers hiring right away, you can still make good contacts in the companies and learn about their future plans. You may not get a job at the job fair, but it can still be worth your time.
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Recruiter Confidence Ticks Higher
Execunet

News about job loss and unemployment rates is inescapable these days, and for many, the headlines are demoralizing. But despite the contractions, hiring is occurring: 9 percent of the corporate human resource professionals we surveyed said their companies are leveraging the current economic climate by adding new executive-level jobs; and another 31 percent revealed that they are “trading up” with new hires for existing roles.

Executives have recognized senior-level hiring in their organizations too, with 31 percent indicating new positions or vacancies are available. Competition for these openings is tight, and to be considered a candidate, one has to stand out from the crowd and in front of the right people. Executive search consultants credit a combination of networking and professional development as the most effective methods for getting attention and as key factors to executive success. They suggest executives routinely build networks outside company with business/industry/trade contacts.

With a dim economic outlook spurring unprecedented policy initiatives in Washington, an increasing number of recruiters expect hiring at the executive-level will begin to rebound before the end of this year, as ExecuNet’s Recruiter Confidence Index (RCI) reached its highest levels of the first quarter in March.

According to March’s survey of 150 executive recruiters, 38 percent are confident or very confident the executive employment market will improve in the next six months — up from 28 percent in February.

“While the broad unemployment rate is expected to climb higher in the months ahead, recruiters haven’t given up hope that we’ll see an increase in executive-level job growth before the end of the year,” says Mark Anderson, president of ExecuNet. “Based on conversations search firms are having with clients, the healthcare, clean tech, and energy industries will help lead the employment market out of this recession.”

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Elder Law: A Growing Legal Specialty

There are many reasons people want to become lawyers. One of the most common reasons is a desire to help people. Elder law is a legal specialty that helps a rapidly growing segment of the population — the elderly.

Elder law is a pretty new field. It began only two decades ago. The American Bar Association recognized it as a distinct field in the early 1990s.

Although it’s a new field, it’s expanding quickly. There are now about 5,000 members of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) in the United States.

The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) predicts that demand for lawyers will grow at an average rate through 2014. However, the OOH predicts that elder law is one of the legal areas that will see the most growth.

Read the full article on my blog here: http://www.resumeproblog.com

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CareerWomen.com participating viewers say they aren’t inspired by the current job because of:

from Career News
– Lack of “fit” with company 72%

– Working Relationship with co-workers 66%

– Lack of Advancement Opportunities 47%

– No upward mobility 41%

– Working relationship with boss 41%

– Uninspiring field 17%

– Pessimistic/negative attitude 9%

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YOUR INTERNET PROFILE

Have you Googled yourself? What did you find?

Did you know a recent survey found that 86% of recruiters Google prospective candidates and 44% of those are rejected because of their online presence?

If your online profile is holding back your career, we can develop a remediation strategy that will mitigate the issue and remove this impediment to your success!

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Need assistance with your career endeavors?

Resume Writing, Job Search & Interview Coaching, Recruiter and VC Distribution,
Cover and Thank You Letters

Contact

Marty Weitzman
resumepro
Gilbert Resumes
800.967.3846

http://resumepro@gmail.com

http://Executiveresumewriter.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/resumepro

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