15 Career Advice Sites

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
-Donald Kendall

WiseBread.com (Living Large on a Small Budget) recommends these 15 Career Advice Sites:

Getting Started - learning the basics
1. Job Search at about.com
2. Managing Your Career at Businessweek
3. Brazen Careerist
   
   Salary Comparision Sites
4. Salary.com
5. Glassdoor
6. Payscale
7. Indeed
   
   Social Networking
8. Facebook
9. LinkedIn
10. Your College Alumni Network
    
    Career Advice
11. LifeHacker
12. The Blog of Tim Ferriss, Experiments in Lifestyle Design
13. NYT: The Corner Office
14. WorkAwesome
15. I will Teach You To Be Rich

Bottom Line

Don't sit around waiting for the old jobs to come back. With computers making it ever easier to do more with fewer people, many old jobs are gone for good. Check out the sites above and create your dream job.

When to take a pay cut

"No success in public life can compensate for failure in the home."
-Benjamin Disraeli

There's a interesting article at Penelope Trunk Blog about the times in your life when it's OK to take a pay cut.

1. For emotional Independence. Yes you could make more with a large firm but you want to be your own boss and run your own business.
2. When changing careers. You're doing something new for you, why should you still get the big bucks.
3. When you're over 40 years old. Salary peaks at age 40! (that's a rude shock to learn). There are exceptions - lawyers, surgeons(?), and those who succeed in climbing the corporate ladder.
4. If unemployed for six months.  You'll most like need to take a pay cut to get hired again.
5. If changing jobs to be close to family. Relationships trump money.
6. If you get a great boss.
7. If you can not cope with the stress of not working.
8. If you need better insurance.

Bottom Line

Penelope has an excellent conclusion,

You are not your salary. You are not worth less in the world because you are paid less in your job. Get your self-worth from a wide range of things and a pay cut won't matter to you. Focus on the components of a good job: learning, personal growth, friends at work, and a good family life. All those things are worth a lot more than a pay cut.

Jobless Recovery

“An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.”

While officially the Great Recession is over, we are still in a jobless recovery phase where companies are doing more with fewer employees. Here's a news article cited by Instapundit:

“A Massachusetts employment organization has canceled its annual job fair because not enough companies have come forward to offer jobs. Richard Shafer, chairman of the Taunton Employment Task Force, says 20 to 25 employers are needed for the fair scheduled for April 6, but just 10 tables had been reserved. One table was reserved by a nonprofit that offers human services to job seekers, and three by temporary employment agencies.”

Why are companies afraid to hire? For one, sales are down with so many unemployed. There's just fewer dollars out there. Second, it's expensive to hire someone, see my post The hidden costs of employment. With taxes, social security, and other federal fees, it costs a company $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket.

Third, some are afraid to hire the unemployed. The odds of hiring a "bad" employee is higher with the unemployed - who can tell if they were laid-off by dumb luck or for good cause. There are increasingly bold companies that say in their want ads that they will NOT hire anyone unemployed. Ouch!

Some effects on employment are counter-intuitive. In The World Is Flat Thomas Friedman argues that one reason for past economic success in America is that it's relatively easy to fire someone. In Europe it is practically impossible to fire someone for any reason, as a result many firms are very cautious in hiring. We're seeing some of that in America now with companies using more part-time or contractors instead of new hires.

Sometimes Federals laws damper hiring. In SuperFreakonomics the authors state that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 has discourage hiring of the disabled. Employers are afraid they will be subject to lawsuit if they fire someone who is disabled because of the law.

Another law that dampers hiring? The new Healthcare law which increases the cost that companies must pay to provide health insurance.

Bottom Line

How bad is unemployment? Unemployment Insurance is supposed to last for just 26 weeks. But given the state of the economy it's been extended and extended and extended to a present value of 99 weeks. And there are persons who have exceeded even that. One site claims a million people in the 99er club. People who have exhausted all four tiers of unemployment benefits, are no longer are eligible for any more money, and will no longer be considered unemployed in the official statistics.

Pink Slipped

“The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broad swords, or canals, or statues, or songs”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today I recommend a delightful blog at Forbes.com by a Journalist/editor who was recently "downsized" and joined the unemployed. It's called Pink Slipped.

She offers these tips on finding a new job:

1. Men help. Women don't.
Male friends provided job leads. Female friends provided emotional support.

2. Be flexible, or die.
She has offered a part-time job as a copywriter but had no idea what that meant. After looking it up she accepted despite having no experience at copywriting. It pays well.

3. Getting downsized is good for you.
It can lead to new opportunities like her new blog, Pink Slipped, and the copywriting gig.
Bottom Line

Let everyone know you are looking for work and be willing to try new things. The job I currently have I had rejected when I first saw it advertised. The job description did not fit my expectations in the early period of unemployment. Several months later a different recruiter got me an interview and a job offer. Only afterwards did I realize I had rejected the job before.

Overused Resume Words

"I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work.  Work organizes life.  It gives structure and discipline to life." ~Bill Clinton

If you are looking for a new job this new year, you might want to improve your resume by pulling out buzzwords that have lost their punch. The job hunting social network, LinkedIn.com, looked at the 85 million resumes of its members and discovered the top ten phrases that are the most used in America.

1. Extensive experience
2. Innovative
3. Motivated
4. Results-oriented
5. Dynamic
6. Proven track record
7. Team player
8. Fast-paced
9. Problem solver
10. Entrepreneurial

Bottom Line

If you use any of these phrases, find a substitute. Please send me suggestions. I use several of these cliches myself.

And check out LinkedIn.com. Most (all?) of my interviews came through applications via LinkedIn. I got nothing from resumes sent to companies online or in answer to want ads.

The Great Recession, 2008 - ???

"So, for example, the country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown - the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?"
George W. Bush

May we all be dealt a better hand in 2011. In 2010 we may have reached the bottom of the Great Recession but we are still in for a long recovery period.

click to enlarge

This graph from CalculatedRisk shows the percent of jobs lost in each recession since 1948, relative to the peak of the pre-recession job market. In terms of the percent of jobs lost, the current recession is by far the worst we’ve seen since World War II.

I have a friend who is an economics professor. He said the Gross National Product (GNP) is nearly back to a pre-recession level. This means most companies have succeeded in restoring revenue without hiring back employees fired or laid off. It's called a jobless recovery.

Bottom Line

From the graph above, it looks like only the 2001 recession has lasted as long as the current one, but the impact on employment was much less then. There are many articles online stating that current government policy during this recession, from health care, to tax law, to environment regulations have discouraged corporate growth and new hiring.

So what about the Trillion dollar stimulus package? Did it help create jobs? Counting back from November 2010 in the graph to January of 2009 when Obama began his office as President, the red line was just crossing 2% line. It fell an additional 4% over the past two years despite the Stimulus. The brief upwards dip in the graph last year came for hirings for the 2010 census. So there is no evidence that the Stimulus helped at all.

Good Jobs With Two-Year Degrees

“Some people think that doctors and nurses can put scrambled eggs back into the shell”-Dorothy Canfield Fisher


What's a decent hourly wage? I know consultants who get from $100 to $200 an hour, mechanics who bill for $80-$90 per hour. So when I first saw a list from Yahoo of jobs that pay $30 with just a two-year certificate I was not initially impressed. But being a mathematician I punched numbers into a calculator and found that if you work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks at $30/hour you can earn over $62,000.

Her are some of the jobs suggested by Yahoo...

*Loan officer ($30.39)


*Diagnostic medical sonography ($30.60) -- I was talking to a fellow church member on Sunday who just finished her two year training and is now a medical assistant at a Women's Health Care clinic. She does sonograms.

*Nursing ($31.99) -- The market for nurses is expected to grow by 22 percent in the next 8 years.

*Nuclear technician ($32.07) -- Work alongside Homer Simpson.

Bottom Line
 
Visit your local community college and see if they offer night classes for certification programs.

The hidden costs of employment

“The best minds in government? If any were, business would hire them away.” - Ronald Reagan

I highly recommend reading Why I'm Not Hiring by the president of a small company in NJ with 83 employees. In the article he breaks down the taxes and fees for his "median" employee, the one exactly in the middle of the payscale.

She makes $59,000 a year but before that money hits her bank, it is reduced by
-$2,376 for medical and dental insurance,
-   $126 for state unemployment insurance,
-   $149 for disability insurance and
-   $856 for Medicare.
-$1,893 in NJ income taxes. The federal government gets
-$3,661 for Social Security and 
-$6,250 for income tax withholding.
That's roughly $15,000 or 26% of her pay going to the government. [The math has been corrected. The article mistakenly says $13,000] Her take home pay is $44,000.

There are additional costs paid by the employer that don't appear in the paycheck:
-$9,561 for employee/spouse medical and dental,
-   $153 for life and other insurance,
-     $56 for federal unemployment coverage,
-   $149 for disability insurance,
-   $300 for workers' comp and
-   $505 for state unemployment insurance.
-   $856 for Medicare (employer's share) and
-$3,661 for Social Security (employer's share).

"When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. ... Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally's job each year."

Bottom Line

"Because my company has been conscripted by the government and forced to serve as a tax collector [and insurance provider], we have lost control of a big chunk of our cost structure. Tax increases, whether cloaked as changes in unemployment or disability insurance, Medicare increases or in any other form can dramatically alter our financial situation."

The article goes on to explain that this year his insurance company is charging %28 more for a new plan with less coverage. That's the biggest increase ever and the NJ company will need to increase sales or increase prices to cover the cost. But neither option is likely during a recession.

"Only governments can raise prices repeatedly and pretend there will be no consequences."

So the only option for paying higher taxes and higher insurance rates is cost cutting where possible and cost control with a hiring freeze.

"I Need a Freaking Job".org

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members."-Groucho Marx

The following comes from INAFJ.org and is, I think, well written and insightful.

As families suffer, our political leadership seems content with their dysfunctional posturing. Together we can set the record straight, or at least just make fun of it.

• Stupid is believing the problems we have can be solved by the same people that created them.


• Crazy is saying you're going to create jobs by spending unimaginable amounts of money that you borrow from the very same people (China) that you gave all the jobs to.


• Sick is the billions of tax payer dollars spent on bailing out the financial institutions, while their own immeasurable greed was responsible for the collapse of America's future.


• Tired is listening to career politicians saying one thing while doing another, most having never created a job or felt the burden of meeting a payroll.


• Inexcusable is the rape of the US Treasury in plain sight and in broad daylight.


• Apparent is the government's responsibility to stop digging a hole that the American people have no chance of getting out of, as they have proven time and time again that they are the worst managers of everything.


• Unbelievable are the economic policies that have forced 65% of the manufacturing jobs in America to low wage countries over the last decade.


• Betrayal is the feeling you live with while watching elected officials seek all the glory and take none of the blame.


• Insane is the unemployment rate amongst the youth in America, hovering currently at around 27%


• Unforgivable is burdening America's youth with the enormous and continuously growing national debt.


• Cynical is what you become after witnessing the destruction of American exceptionalism and realizing that you are a casualty of a handful of greedy animals feeding on the soul of a great nation.


• Obvious is the government's need to get out of the way so that inventive young entrepreneurial Americans have the opportunity to stimulate an economy that produces jobs.


• Catastrophic is being a recent college graduate with diminished opportunities and the real obligation to repay educational debt.


• Unacceptable is being a voiceless bystander to the greatest injustice in American history.


• Simple is remembering that honest American people are the ones that made this country great.


• Certain is knowing that together we can reclaim America and the promise for the opportunity to prosper.

Bottom Line

"Here's the thing. Nothing matters if people aren't working. We need to make some noise. The government is absolutely broken. If we work together maybe we can get these posers out of the way. Sign the petition. Buy a t-shirt. Upload a video. Be a friend. Start a movement." - INAFJ.org

Background Check

"We're getting an increasing amount of questions about background checks, almost as many as identity fraud. There are too many problems with inaccurate information being recorded."-Tena Friery, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

In today's economy employers can afford to be choosy and selective in whom they hire. To that end more are now running background checks on the best candidates. What will they find out about you? The Consumerist put together the list below of agencies you can contact to check your record. Most offer one free report a year and provide a means to request corrections if you see any errors.

Employment History Reports
The Work Number
ChoicePoint (866) 312-8075
Acxiom
Abso

Tenant History Reports
ChoicePoint (877) 448-5732
First Advantage SafeRent (888) 333-2413
Tenant Data Services
RentBureauUD Registry (818) 785-3905

Auto & Home Insurance Claim Reports
ChoicePoint
Insurance Services Office (ISO) (800) 627-3487

Credit Bureaus Reports
Equifax
Experian
Transunion
Innovis
Payment Reporting Builds Credit (PRBC)

Full File Disclosure/Personal Information Reports
ChoicePoint
LexisNexis

Check Writing History Reports
ChexSystems (800) 428-9623
TeleCheck (800) 835-3243.
Shared Check Authorization Network (800) 262-7771

Health History Reports
Medical Information
Bureau (MIB) (866) 692-6901

Prescription Drug Purchase History Reports
Ingenix MedPoint
Milliman IntelliScript

Social Security Statement
Social Security Administration

Purchase Returns History Reports
Retail Equation

Gaming Patron's Credit History and Transaction Data
Central Credit

Other Reports
TeleTrack

Utilities & Telecommunications Reports
National Consumer Telecom and Utilities Exchange, Inc (NCTUE)
Call 1-888-201-5643 for reports

Odd Jobs for Extra Money

“Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort.”- Helen Gurley Brown

When I was unemployed one question that came up was, How can I earn some money if I don't find a full time job? My preference is to tutor math and science but that that is a crowded and competitive field now-a-days. Not so easy to build up a client base. I also looked at Kumon and similar tutoring business but they take some serious money and training to get started and again will fail unless you can attract customers.
So what else can one do? Fortunately http://www.couponsherpa.com/ has some ideas at Quick Cash: 24 Ways to Make Money While Unemployed.

1. Human Guinea Pig - earn money as a lab test subject


2. Clean Houses


3. Give Blood


4. Walk Dogs (our friend makes a living doing this)


5. Plant Sit


6. Babysit


7. House Sit


8. Flip Web Sites


9. Sell Your Hair


10. Deliver Phone Books


11. Become a Census Worker


12. Sell Your (human) Eggs


13. Rent-a-Truck (help move rubish and items)


14. Do Odd Jobs


15. Add ads to your web site or blog


16. Human Billboard (or Billboard your car)


17. Rent out a Room


18. Paper Route


19. Teach English to Adults


20. Sell Your Stuff (eBay?)


21. Recycle Bottles, etc


22. Paint Street Numbers


23. Recycle Scrap Metal


24. Free-lance Work

Bottom Line

Check out the full article at Quick Cash: 24 Ways to Make Money While Unemployed for more information on each topic include an estimate at how much you can earn. This is not big money but every little bit can help.

Recession and Unemployment

“A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.”~Thomas Carlyle

Officially the US Recession is over. A recession is defined as negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and since the US economy managed to show a positive return for the third quarter of 2009, voila, the recession is over. But as Paul Harvey used to say, now you'll hear "the Rest of the Story”.

1. The 3rd quarter may be an artificial blip resulting from the stimulus money and Clunkers for Cash.

2. It is entirely possible for the recession to resume. The Great Depression followed a recession and “recovery”.

3. We could be in for a “jobless” recovery. Companies return to profitability with fewer workers and no plans to rehire.

4. Even if companies do rehire, there is a lag period. You don’t hire during a sales slump. Only when the economy really picks up and people start spending again, will there be a new for companies to grow their work force.

Bottom Line

If you’re one of the 10+% Americans looking for work, http://www.bargaineering.com/ is publishing Bargaineering Career Week 2009 with lots of job-hunting advice.

Here is their list of the top job search sites:

SimplyHired – great for local job listings

Yahoo! HotJobs - one of the most popular employment websites. It will tell you how many people have looked at your resume.

Monster.com – one of the largest sites with 5000 new jobs posted daily

CareerBuilder.com – claims to have over 1 million jobs listed

http://www.craigslist.org/ - great for part time work and consulting