A RARE bright spot has appeared in a job landscape dominated by layoffs: the Foreign Service.
For the last several years, hiring in the United States Foreign Service was minimal because of a lack of Congressional funding. In addition, war has created an urgent need for diplomatic personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as officers have moved to these countries their previous jobs have remained unfilled.
So, in the last several months — with a new president on the horizon and new funding from Congress — both the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, or Usaid, are ramping back up.Matt Harding is a 32-year-old videogame designer who quit his job in 2003 to travel around Asia. Along the way, he recorded and posted a short video of himself doing an elbow-intensive jig in Hanoi. That clip got passed from one person to the next and eventually got the attention of Stride Gum, which decided to sponsor two more of his trips. In his latest video, Harding visits 42 countries over 14 months and invites the locals to join in the fun. That includes everyone from some Huli Wigmen in Papua New Guinea to a group of school kids in the Solomon Islands. The sheer silliness and joy of Harding's adventures will keep you smiling long after you've watched them — and give you a serious case of wanderlust.
It has just about as much to do with jobs and internships as "Hamster on a Piano," but sometimes, you just need to smile. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Stride Gum.
Right.. I know... We're still doing the work. That sucks, but hey, it's job security.
Here's another bold prediction. Some experts see the downfall of recruiting agencies, which you and I know as "headhunters". It seems this set of experts sees the rise of social networks, combines it with how the younger generations like to connect, and concludes that soon we won't need headhunters. The social networks of the younger generations will do the work, and the employee referral will rise as the preferred alternative to headhunters.
“Good morning,” chorused the three AU undergrads, as they settled into their chairs before the webcam in Hurst Hall’s Social Science Research Lab.
“Good evening,” responded their colleagues, situated in a similar classroom, half a world away.
Clearly, this wasn’t going to be your average student presentation.
For six weeks, student volunteers Kaia Range, Christal Louison, and Sara Passaro have worked with two students from the Modern College of Business and Science in Muscat, Oman, on a joint paper about the religious and cultural differences between the United States and the Middle Eastern nation. Once a week, with help from graduate student Katherine Davies and Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) staff, the students chatted via video conferencing about everything from clothing and food to education and entertainment.
The project is part of SIS professor Bram Groen’s cross-cultural communications class and during the Dec. 3 video conference, each group presented their findings.
“Now that technology has become so sophisticated, I want students to seize the opportunity to meet and share life experiences with people from all over the world,” said Groen.
“When they get out into the working world, the first thing they’re going to be asked to do is work on a virtual team,” he continued. “We’re preparing students for that.”
From insidehighered.com
At Brandeis University, faculty are considering whether to voluntarily forgo 1 percent of their salaries next year to prevent possible layoffs of support staff.
“It’s not painless for us, but it’s not a huge hit to take,” said William Flesch, the Faculty Senate chair and a professor of English literature.
Lawyers are still vetting the details of the proposal but, in short, interested faculty would contribute to the cause either by forgoing 1 percent of their paychecks, or via a charitable contribution to a reserved Brandeis fund. Faculty would volunteer individually and anonymously (“only the payroll office would know,” Flesch said), without any cuts to their listed base pay. And, to avert concerns about freeloading, contributions would kick in only if there is a critical mass of willing faculty — if those who volunteer collectively earn at least 30 percent of the total faculty salary pool within the College of Arts and Sciences.
Need to destress at work today? Gaiam Life has virtual meditation rooms with peaceful images and sounds that could help you on stressful days . . . or hours . . . or minutes. Try the forest room for birds softly singing or the water room for sounds of surf. There's even a link on how to meditate for beginners.
So you're thinking of applying for a position with the new Obama administration. You've answered the incredibly personal questionnaire and promised that there's nothing embarrassing in your online presence, or maybe you admitted there was, but promised that you could explain it.
Our fearless leader, Katherine Stahl, forwarded these online job search tips from powerful job search engine, Indeed.com. Friendly reminders include . . .We give our students similar advice, but this is nicely updated to include the online world.
Here's a story from The Daily Californian (UC Berkely's student publication) that's not such new news. Students are working more hours, on top of their full time loads, to help pay for college. High school seniors are looking more at application fees in deciding where to apply, not just the bottom line. But the one bright spot is that FAFSAs, based on the previous year's tax returns, can enable families not previously eligible for aid to have help for the next academic year.“I think they’re in trouble,” said Daniel M. Meyers, president and chief executive of the First Marblehead Corporation, a leader in the marketplace for private student loans, of the institutions he visited during a recent tour of college campuses.
“I wish to say that I saw schools' being way more proactive and way more concerned about their current revenue picture,” Mr. Meyers said. “But I haven’t seen too much of it.”
From last week's poll:
Reuters reports that jobless claims are at a 16 year high, and the economy isn't expected to start recovering until later next year.
Our own Robert passed this information along. From The NonProfit Times:Almost one in five nonprofits that responded plan a hiring freeze while 13 percent plan a reduction in their marketing budget, 8 percent a reduction in staff, and 6.5 percent a reduction in programming. More than 21 percent
responded with “other” changes, which included among other things, a four-day work week, 5-percent cuts in all budget areas, not hiring a major gifts officer, a one-year wage freeze, reducing health insurance benefits, and postponing the announcement of or at least reviewing plans for a capital campaign.
When Robert Williamson finished his master’s in business administration in the early 1990s at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, he believed his shiny new credential came complete with the promise of a job for life.
“That’s not been the case,” said Williamson, who asked that his name be changed due to a continuing job search. “It’s been disappointing, and quite frankly I’m embarrassed, if not ashamed … that I’m out of work.”
Williamson, a management consultant who moved his family to the Washington area in 2002 from the San Francisco area, once had a minimum salary requirement of $200,000. He scaled it back when he entered government consulting and is about to lower it again, after being laid off from BearingPoint Inc.
Although job candidates have always dodged the inevitable salary question presented by hiring managers, their reasons for doing so are changing with the slowing economy. When employers were struggling to find talent, job candidates would typically avoid giving an opening number to negotiate a higher salary. But now that companies are slowing hiring — and in some cases laying off people — the pendulum has swung toward employers. Applicants who are willing to take a pay cut are afraid of getting screened out on salary alone. They are worried less about gaining salary increases — and more about just getting a salary.
In this Andie Coller piece in Politico, it's refreshing to see the blend of tongue-in-cheek bribery suggestions with good, basic, what makes sense to get hired advice. Jim Messina is the director of personnel for the Obama transition team and he says,“I believe that politics is truly a merit-based world,” he told High Country News magazine in August. “If you work hard and you’re honest — and you keep winning — you’ll get to rise. [In my early political jobs,] I was the kid who was the first in the office and the last to leave. And it’s still kind of true. ... I’ve been chief of staff to three famous members of Congress and I work for a fourth, and when [each] hired me, I don’t think any of them even asked me where I went to school — they just asked me what I had done, and I love that.”
Economic news is dismal these days, and college graduates' job prospects are no exception, according to a report scheduled to be released today by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University.
The university plans to make its report, "2008-2009 Recruiting Trends," available on the Collegiate Employment Research Institute's Web site.
Hiring for graduates at all degree levels will decrease by 8 percent over last year, says the annual report, which is based on employers' projections.
In this tight market, the best advice for students is to line up a job now—if not sooner, said Philip D. Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute. Many employers, contending with economic uncertainty, are looking to complete their hiring as soon as possible, he said.
Reuters reports that Philadelphia's Federal Reserve Bank's quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters "also predicted non-farm payrolls would shrink by an average 222,400 per month during the last quarter of the year, nearly five times the pace of monthly job losses forecast when the previous survey was taken in August."
Here's a little piece by Fred Whelan and Gladys Stone on what to do when your colleague becomes your supervisor. It's just 5 quick points, a no brainer for us, but it got me thinking: maybe WE should be doing more writing like this! We're getting lots of media requests, if you have an idea, maybe we could work with Media Relations and issue press releases . . . just a thought.Their new blog on The Huffington Post "is a new regular feature focusing on career issues."
Photo by Bart Everson
A cut of 53,000 was just announced in this AP story and is on the Citigroup website. Last month, they announced the elimination of 22,000 jobs, taking their workforce down 20% since 2007.
So we may not have any hot leads for Cabinet-level positions for currently enrolled students, but Lorelei Kelly suggests, "Bloggers: Get Thee to Congressional Staffs!" in a nice piece in Huffington Post. She writes:You twenty-somethings who are reading this, if you can't take your day job after being part of such a political earthquake like last week's election, go find your local Member of Congress and apply for a job. Take the district job over one on Capitol Hill. Even though DC is as giddy as that prisoner in Plato's Allegory of the Cave--you know, where he is chained immobile to a wall for years--and then gets taken out to see the sun--the states are still where the most important action is going to be found because influential citizen input is a missing link for many issues on Capitol Hill. Then, when you write your letter to the Chief of Staff or mobilize your contacts, bill yourself as a "New Media" or "Citizen Participation" Specialist. The great thing about
being part of a new movement is that you get to make up your own job title. You will know more about how this election was electronically organized than anyone working in the office (but don't brag about it). In fact, apply for the job advertised, and sell your qualities for fulling those requirements, but come with a creative plan about how you are going to keep the citizens of the district involved and inspired. There are many resources available today that make national priorities relative to local concerns. Here are three that I use: the state report cards of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the bioterrorism defense report card from Trust for America's Health, or GreenReportCard. In fact, if you need a place to start, just google your issue together with "report card" and you'll get some good stuff. Don't forget the insanely useful Sunlight Foundation.
If President-elect Barack Obama makes good on his campaign promises, the federal government may be headed for a major shakeup, including the reassignment of many middle-managers, a sharp reduction in the number of outside contracts, and new performance standards for workers.His "Blueprint for Change" describes proposals which may or may not be embraced and have implications for possible jobs.
The president of the University of Missouri system is donating $1-million to help finance a project to link students, professors, and administrators at the university’s four campuses by creating virtual conference rooms, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The president, Gary Forsee, and his wife donated half of the $2-million needed to install the new high-definition Cisco TelePresence system, which officials expect will save time and money by reducing the number of trips taken between campuses. Mr. Forsee, a former chief executive of Sprint Nextel, became the system’s president last February. —David DeBolt
The candidates have chartered new territory with outreach via new media, something our SOC and SPA students should be especially interested in knowing! Here's the latest: Obama ads on X-Box!
Here's a summary of a nice piece I saw in The Huffington Post from Live Science by Trey Granger of Earth 911. This can get us closer to our goal of a green office!
Not that ANY of us would be thinking of other careers, especially after three grueling weeks of intense appointments, the Job Fair, CAS reception, and Federal Career Week right on top of each other, and the economic situation. But maybe our MBA students would be interested in a Yahoo article discussing Laurence Shatkin's 150 Best Low-Stress Jobs. How about mathematician? Archivist? Forester? Travel agent? His instrument helps clients find non-Type A jobs that actually have growth potential. (I'm not sure if chocolate tester was on the list.) However, a review noted that most were low paying, blue collar jobs where there could be the stress of low pay, and that it seemed to be a rehash of his 200 Best Jobs for Introverts. "Cappy" questioned the validity of that work, as well, when suggested occupations included team-based jobs like fashion designer and lawyer.
As we see the economy crumble and a $700 billion package is negotiated, we know that what has been will never be again. What does that mean for our current MBA students? The Washington Post writes, "Financial World's New Job Market Sinks Big Plans," on D1 of the paper today. Even though financial services has lost 200,000 jobs this year, they still seek new blood.This week Salisbury University unveiled its Center for Integrated Media — a project, six years in the making, that aims to give students from every department on campus an opportunity to mesh audio and video with their daily homework assignments.
Located within the 165,000 square-foot Teacher Education and Technology Center, the facility boasts a 3,000 square-foot, high-definition video-recording studio, 15 video-editing suites, five audio-editing suites, and digital camcorders available for rent at no cost. For 16 hours a day, the facility is open to all students and faculty — mediocre garage bands included, as Jerome Waldron, chief information officer for University Technology Services, points out.
A great piece (and this photo) from Career Builder on the CNN web site, they say:
It isn't career related, but this is CC-related! Welcome, Heather and Chris' son, JT!
Canada is putting its money where its interns are. The Charlatan reports that "Accellerate Ontario is a graduate research internship program that is designed to build strong connections between industry and research." These unpaid internships offer transportation and research costs at $15,000 each for the four month graduate research internships.
Your applicant wasn't really a member of the Kennedy clan or a professional basketball player, and those vaguely familiar work samples he submitted . . . were YOURS! Yes, although only 5% of applicants admit to embellishing their credentials, MarketWatch reported that 50% of the hiring managers in a CareerBuilder.com survey have come across lies, untruths, misstatements, and whoppers. (So, that 5% must really be getting around!) Common lies were:Click here to see the best whoppers.
Photo from AP Photo by Chitose Suzuki of Marilee Jones, former MIT Admissions Dean who resigned after admitting to fabrications on her resume
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