Entry Level Work

Quite often, a graduate of a local college or trade school will call me looking for their first job. Typically, I explain that most employers come to fee paid recruiters looking for people with some level of work history in their desired field of work. As a former Director of Career Services, I know that most institutions maintain records of employers who have hired their graduates in the past, usually for about five years or so. There is no reason why a past graduate should not approach the proper person at the school they graduate from and ask to see a copy of that list. Naturally, they can not guarantee that everyone on that list will be interested in hiring but they are places who are familiar with the background of typical graduates of that particular school. To me, that is eliminating the first part of the cold call because the candidate will likely not need to go into great detail talking about the program they were part of as the employer should have a general idea. From personal experience, only a small percentage of graduates actually take advantage of the resources their Career Services office has available to them!

Transportation Issues Preventing the Earning of Green

Everywhere I turn, I hear talk of 'greening' our society but really wonder if our government is serious about it. One place to start would be building a greater network of mass transit to get workers to job sites or providing subsidies to small and mid-sized companies so they could afford to operate shuttles to and from bus stops or train stations. Way too much of of the U.S. is not accessible to those without vehicles. The end results include clogged roadways, excessive fuel consumption, pollution, and gifted candidates turning down jobs that are not reachable to them.

We have all talked about this for a very long time but little movement has taken place. Somehow, the ball needs to get rolling big time to improve our environment, our employment picture, and to reduce our dependency on oil producing nations which do not necessarily represent the philosophies that our nation stands for. Usually, I do not like to get political in this blog but the 'greening' process will not get very far without some exceptionally dramatic changes and the government (federal, state, and local) needs to pave the way (perhaps using biodegradable materials!) to get us all on track!

Read the Details

Yesterday, I received a phone call from someone about a job I posted. He did not have any of the required skills or education and did not live local to the job as requested in the posting. First thing he said was he did not possess anything I asked for but none of it was really needed to perform the job. How many companies do you know that will hire an engineering manager whose only experience is in marketing with minimal technical knowledge? Please do not set yourself up to fail and also realize that trying to convince a recruiter to place you where you do not belong will likely knock you off their radar screen. As tough as the job market still is, a square peg still will not fit into a round whole!

Open Jobs?

Over the past few weeks, the number of I.T. jobs in the Sunday newspapers seems to have increased but something has me rather puzzled. Why would technology positions be listed that require resume submittals only by snail mail? Shout not there be an email address, web site link, or at least a fax number? Are the multitude of rather similar opportunities, with only mailing addresses listed and concentrated around 3 or 4 locales in Central NJ, for real or is something going on here?

Has anyone sent their resume to any of these ads? Have you received any sort of reply? Please enlighten me as I am more than a tiny bit curious!

Random Thoughts

As I sit here past midnight, unable to sleep, my thoughts turn to some of the random matter keeping my brain fired up way beyond bedtime. My first gem is who in the world would list as their resume objective : Emperor of the universe, master of cheese? Second, the Governor of NJ thinks it is a good idea to house fledgling charter schools (rent free I might add) inside already struggling public schools in the city of Newark. Third, how can the U.S. government not find a way to curb fuel costs before it contributes to a resurgence of the recession and causes more unemployment? Fourth, who among us hard working citizens will be willing to shell out huge dollars to support the greedy players and owners of the NFL in the future? As an aside, I feel terrible about all the staffers of the various teams who are being laid off. Fifth and finally (I think), I wonder how the AT+T purchase of T-Mobile could possibly be allowed considerring the ultimate impact on consumer costs and job losses that it will create.


Oops! One more thought to share: Imagine all the jobs that would open up in sales and marketing if cable television companies were allowed to compete within a territory rather than only fighting with satellite services!

.NET Developer Needed!

-Excellent opportunity for a Software Developer with 4-8 years of software development with at least 3-4 years of ASP.NET along with C#, VB Script, Java Script, XML, and XSL. AJAX, CSS, and web services exp. desired. Must have done desktop and web app. dev. using MS Visual Studio and/or SQL Management Studio. Outstanding communication skills and an understanding of business processes and product delivery needed.

-Full time, permanent, on-site, excellent benefits, pay range:$70-85K

-All candidates must be eligible to work full time in the U.S. immediately with no sponsorship requirements.

-Candidates must be within reasonable commute of NYC and willing to report to the office daily!

-Send resumes to Harold Levin at harold@smartstaff.jobs or call 908-508-0300, ext. 205.

You Are Who You Are!!

So many people try to change the way they look (hair, botox, nose jobs, dress code, etc.), the way they talk, and sometimes, their entire persona including their professional profile. I am here to tell you just present yourself as you are but in the best way possible. Highlight the great skills you possess, the jobs you have worked at and the education you have acquired. Any attempts to significantly alter anything will be apparent to recruiters and hiring managers so fast that they may not even call you to discuss your resume! If you are unsure how to present yourself, get several opinions from friends, family members, career coaches, colleagues, etc. then sit down and condense the information into the perfect picture of who you are!

ETC.

~ Why are governors across the U.S. beating up on education? Pennsylvania is actually thinking about reducing funding to it's 18 public universities by 50%. I believe it is time for the Supreme Court to get involved and do some investigative work.

~ Japan is certainly in a very difficult situation at the moment but they have some of the best engineers in the world living in their nation so I expect a thorough and efficient recovery.

~ On a related note, P.E.'s in our country should see an upturn in consulting work as every inch of our infrastructure will likely be closely inspected in the immediate future.

~ The economy is still a gigantic roller coaster and I think employment statistics will reflect this ride for at least a few more months.

~ Proprietary education is getting some negative treatment by the media once again. Please investigate your options with an open mind but do not believe every news article you read.

~ I am making alternate plans for Sunday afternoons this fall even if the NFL's players and owners reach an agreement as I am furious at their willingness to ignore our awful economy.

Job Site for South Jersey / Philly

Should you happen to be job hunting in places like Vineland, Somers Point, Elmer, Toms River or even Philadelphia, check out www.newjerseyhelpwanted.com. They have been advertising heavily to bring attention to themselves. From what I saw, they have activity, especially south of the line running from Asbury Park to Trenton, an area usually ignored by most major job search engines. I am always looking for new resources to share!

PLEASE!! WAKE UP!!

As the recession staggers along, candidates continue to amaze me at how unwilling they are to be flexible. Of late, I have been told that, even though out of work for two years, the option of a 3-6 month assignment will not be considered. Also, since this one candidate is the best in their profession, recruiters should be willing to drop everything and do a customized search! Finally, having never commuted more than 10 miles each way, a 15 mile commute is out of the question (imagine the response if I had suggested a 25 mile drive).

These are a few samples of why unemployment numbers are still too high. Yes, jobs are very, very hard to find but candidates absolutely need to realizes they have to meet the hiring company a bit more than half way right now. I dislike this reality as much as anyone (in fact, it gets under my skin daily) but I go back to a term I learned as a management trainee in the very demanding retail field over 30 years ago: WIT - Whatever It Takes! Hopefully, the day will return when the pool of available, high quality candidates is thin again and employers will hustle to hire the best regardless of price but that is not even close to reality in the relatively near future.

Business Coordinator Opportunity!

Things are a little busy this week and I need to find a Business Coordinator with strong SAP Documentation skills who has worked with customer service, purchase orders, procurement issues, reporting, etc. perferrably in an ISO 9000 environment. The job is located in Union County, NJ, is full-time with benefits and decent salary. Send your resume or referrals to harold@smartstaff.jobs and please refer to this blog posting!

Quality Technician Needed

An extremely good client of mine, located in Morris County, NJ, has a need for a full-time Quality Technician to join them on the first shift. Ideally, the candidate should have 2-3 years of in-process testing with knowledge of kinetics, densitometers, and all measurement tools. ISO amd GMP knowledge are pluses. Send resumes (mentioning this blog) to harold@smartstaff.jobs and I will get back to you quickly.

College Degrees

Many people ask me if a college degree will help them get hired faster and for better jobs. My stock answer is that it certainly will not hurt. There are many schools that will assess course work that you have taken in the past and your work history and tell you what is needed to pull it together into a degree. One such school that I know of is Thomas Edison State College (www.tesc.edu) in NJ but there are others. Just make sure the school is accredited before agreeing to work through them to obtain your degree.

Marching Right Along?????

February showed a little positive energy until the last week or so and splat, we are back into doldrums again. Could it simply be that our economy is still struggling to recover even though certain politicians and media types are calling this period post-recession? Perhaps the unrest in the oil producing countries which has created absurd fuel prices here is at fault (President Obama, time to start pumping some of our huge reserves into the system). Do you think the rather unorthodox governors in states like Wisconsin and NJ are actually stunting the economy? Maybe the impending lockout of players by NFL ownership is at fault. The whole Madoff mess obviously has not been forgotten either.

Whatever the cause is, I would really like to see some level of stability in our employment market and the economy overall. Feel free to share your thoughts at any time!