As a caveat, I personally believe that the US government should allow people to collect a paycheck in a job and augment that with partial unemployment payments to yield a higher, livable wage, to encourage people to get working again.  Most of the entrepreneurs in the job market have taken a couple of part-time or full time minimum wage jobs to yield the same results.  To my mind, I would rather see 2 people working, rather than one person trying to make ends meet by working a 16-hour day.

Further, it is not a good practice to have someone say “I make more on unemployment than I would if I worked,” and thereby cut out the incentive to find a job.  All this does is encourage long-term collection of unemployment benefits and fails to get money into people’s hands so that they can start spending again.  Remember Ted’s perspective on the consumer spending economy?

Let’s talk about how to position yourself to find a meaningful job, hopefully better than 2 part-time or full-time filler jobs.  Even if you are applying for an hourly position, you should put your resume together.  This is a handy document to reference if you are required to fill out an application, since all the information is right there on a sheet of paper.  Also, it makes a great impression on your potential employer when you bring along your resume.

So, to put your best foot forward, take some time to visit MS Office on the web and download a resume template that suits your style.  Accurately fill in the blanks with your education, background, prior work experience and job objectives.  DO NOT go over 2 pages in explaining what you have done on your resume.

Also, I recommend that you include only the last 10 years of experience and work information by employer.  If your experience is older than 10 years, you probably are not prepared to qualify for your old job today.  If you want to include this information, under your last employer bullet on the resume, put a general statement, such as this one for an engineer  “prior employment – experience in leading an engineering team in process improvement, experience managing rolling process team in a manufacturing environment, experience in retail sales.”

1. Proof read and spell check your resume.  Use clean paper and do not have any white-outs or erasures.  Do not prepare your resume as you eat your lunch and spill food on it.  All of these things get your resume pushed to the bottom of the circular file.
2. Your resume is your first impression to your future employer.  In the job objective section, tell why you think you would be a good prospect for the employer.  What are the contributions you will bring to the employer? A couple good sentences are all you need.  It’s not about you…it’s about them…
3. In searching for companies to submit your nice new resume to, identify key words that appear in their description of the job, particularly as it relates to qualifications.  Be sure to incorporate those key words within your resume, since most companies use key word searches to pick out resumes from the thousands they receive.
4. Search for jobs that you qualify for.  This doesn’t mean you have to get a job like the one you used to have at all.  It just means that you need to be able to qualify for the position, based on your past experiences and educational background.  If the job posting says 4-year degree required and you don’t have a 4-year degree, submitting your resume will most likely get you screened out immediately.  Apply for the jobs in which the background and requirements match your qualifications.  With all the new legislation surrounding the internet tracking of candidates, companies today shouldn’t be considering candidates who do not meet their posted job requirements.
5. Be open minded.  The world is changing and things aren’t like they used to be. Unless you are engaged in a job where there are plenty of openings, think outside the box by going to various job search sites and putting in critical skills you have and searching that way, rather than by job title.  Then read all about these available jobs and apply for those that interest you.
6. Attend training or skills improvement classes.  By showing that you are actively preparing for a new role, your employer will see that you have the initiative they just might value in a new employee.

Next time, let’s talk about the interview process.  I’ll share some good advice on how to present yourself to make a good, positive and memorable impression on your potential employer.

One problem she faced was having to manage a large number of hourly workers.  These people were handling a lot of transactions each day, were responsible for entering complex data accurately, and had to answer a lot of inquiries to move transactions through the process.  Unfortunately, they were also stressed out and had many items on their agendas, some typical to a traditional hourly workforce.  The vast majority of her team members were women who were single heads of households trying to make ends meet while juggling children, elderly parents or other problems that faced them.  For many, work provided the only stable environment in their lives.

She learned early on that the best thing she could do for the team was to establish a fair set of rules and guidelines for work and to ensure that these were followed consistently for everyone on the team.   Within her team, she had a number of supervisory staff, many of whom had worked their way up to their positions through their own hard work and through promotion.   In her mind, it wasn’t the hourly staff who caused the majority of the issues, but rather the way in which some of the supervisors handled the problems.

Favoritism, giving a break once and having the break expected every time, not having the courage to take action when a problem first began, and ignoring some issues all were actions that caused workers to become problems.  I certainly am not saying that the majority of issues arose from the supervisory staff, but had the supervisors followed the rules consistently and applied them fairly, many of the people who became problem employees would have been reformed or gone before becoming problem employees.

People become very resentful of problem employees, even though as a leader, you probably aren’t hearing much from anybody.  The impact of the problem employee is often far-reaching.  Other team members end up taking messages and answering phones, picking up the slack for their troubled worker partner, and generally feeling as if they are being used by the organization.  And the impacted team members are unlikely to speak up, since that might make them appear as if they are complaining.

Once the problem worker is gone, however, there is often a sigh of relief.  the hidden impact of problem workers can be significant.  Since it is a new year, it might be a good time to discuss how supervisors are handling people with problems.  Your remaining team members will be greatful.

Our French Canadians were quick to point out that the process has to be completed in French and that documentation needed to be placed in the personnel files in French.  Apparently psychological assessment has been used for quite some time in Canada and is not viewed as particularly earth shattering. Both of the individuals were government employees who resided in Quebec. 

Apparently, and this is certainly not documented from my own research, the problem in Canada is that while there is some rigor/regulation required during the hiring process, more significant issues are related to dismissal procedures, mostly related to the fact that a very liberal definition has been attached to stress leave.  Once an employee goes out on stress leave, the company is quite limited in its ability to dismiss the employee or to replace the position.

Our Spanish dinner partners discussed the issues around gathering personal information and avoiding the use of any tools that would disclose personal information about someone.   They were appalled that someone would suggest inserting a psychological profile within the selection process, since this seemed to violate personal space.

And our German dinner partners didn’t seem to be too concerned about hiring processes.  This could either have been because they didn’t know much about hiring people or because the system in Germany again is different from other locations.  They seemed to think that being able to gather personality traits and personal styles information would greatly enhance the ability to place the right person in the right job.  They were not, however, familiar with the use of testing in the selection process and wondered if we provided our tool in German.  We don’t as yet.

As the world gets smaller and we find ourselves in business interactions with companies in countries around the world, all of us will need to upgrade our knowledge in this area, particularly if we expect to remain competitive.  It never gets more simple, does it?