While writing is the most prolific medium I use to express my thoughts on the current job market, by far, it's always nice to mix things up a bit on occasion—and as a result, I was delighted to be invited as a guest on the "Working on Purpose" radio show several weeks back! This show, hosted weekly by Alise Cortez, is designed to provoke stimulating insights regarding the topic of employment and to "explore the [...]
While the job market is actually doing pretty decently these days, on a macro level, make no mistake about it -- there are still plenty of folks struggling to find gainful employment. In particular, there are certain types of candidates that generally have to fight through an extra degree of difficulty when it comes to landing interviews and job offers. Older workers and executives, for example, frequently experience longer-than-average transition times due to "overqualified" concerns [...]
In selecting the third company to profile in my "getting hired at..." series, the choice seemed obvious. While the headquarters office might have left our fair city a number of years back, Boeing is still a massive player in the local employment scene -- and while it may not quite have the sex appeal of the latest technology or wireless startup, it still is an organization that accounts for a huge number of high-paying jobs [...]
Okay, for the next installment in my "getting hired at..." series let's turn our sights to another local giant, Amazon.com, and discuss some of the factors involved in landing employment at that company and what the realities might be in terms of working there. From what I've witnessed, Amazon wrested away the "smart, innovative company people like to work for" title from Microsoft a number of years back -- fairly or unfairly -- and as [...]
One of the things I constantly stress to my job hunting clientele is the importance of looking beyond just the "household name" organizations in town and doing the research needed to uncover some great small-to-mid-size employers worth pursuing. There are nearly 140,000 companies in the Greater Seattle area alone, after all, many of which are fantastic places to work and don't tend to be nearly as competitive in terms of the screening, hiring, and interviewing [...]
Item #6: Encore.org & the SVP "Encore Careers" Program (http://encore.org) "Never before have so many people with so much knowledge, energy, and talent had so much time to do something that really lasts." This quote is the one that stuck with me most upon recently viewing a promotional video for Encore.org, a unique organization dedicated towards matching mature workers up with meaningful projects, initiatives, and non-profits that could benefit from their talents. While the Encore [...]
Back during the turn of the millennium craze, it seemed that every company around had an employee referral program and was offering big bucks to their staff members to refer potential candidates along for hire. In fact, I remember routinely meeting individuals who embraced this alternative revenue stream and were pocketing an extra $5-15K each year by putting their "amateur recruiter" hats on and steering tons of people to their company's HR department. Then everything [...]
As a society, we're unfortunately well-acquainted with many forms of discrimination that take place in the working world, including discrimination against job applicants due to age, race, gender, and sexual orientation. And while we still have a long way to go to eliminate these prejudices, we've at least legally prohibited them, at the very least. And yet, there's a relatively "new" type of discrimination that is perfectly legal and that may be having more of [...]
If you live in Seattle, and are somewhat introverted, I've got good news for you. For the next week or two, whenever you're out and about at various social events, you've got a built-in way to make small talk. All you need to do is say "How 'bout them Seahawks?" and chances are you'll get the conversation rolling in no time flat! Seriously, it's been great fun to wallow in all the Seahawks hype going [...]
I'll admit it. I'm a "text-only" guy through and through. I'm not sure if that's just how I process information, myself, or more a consequence of my lack of artistic talents, but most of the material I put out regarding job hunting is definitely composed in unbridled paragraph form. Luckily, though, there are quite a few other folks out there who are MUCH more adept at presenting information in an engaging visual way for those [...]