Archive for September, 2009
 A national study finds bosses use threats and intimidation during the financial crisis. Employees complain of a “culture of fear” and eroding trust.
San Antonio, TX (PRWEB) September 28, 2009 — Employees report their bosses use threats and intimidation during the financial crisis, according to a national study of leadership funded by the University of Phoenix. “Questions get you written up and/or fired,” one worker said. The study’s results also showed employees increasing distrust what their bosses say.
Increased belligerent behavior and eroding employee trust are disturbing leadership trends in the financial crisis, according to the study’s researchers, Dr. Ruby Rouse and Dr. Richard Schuttler. Employees repeatedly described threatening communication: “Be thankful you have a job,” “You can be replaced,” “There are lots of qualified people on the street who would love your job.” Such statements remind workers their jobs are on the “chopping block.” According to Rouse, some supervisors seem to purposefully foster a “culture of fear” to maintain control during the financial crisis. “Several people believe employers are using the crisis as an excuse to ‘throw people under the bus,’” she said.
Despite significant economic changes, leaders reportedly have not changed the way they communicate with employees. Approximately 64% of working adults in the study reported supervisors use a ‘business as usual’ mentality during the crisis; 82% of working adults expressed frustration with supervisors’ lack of adaptation during the crisis. Senior leaders expressed significantly less concern about employee issues, such as layoffs and downsizing, than front line workers. Instead, senior management focused on market-related issues, such as declining sales.
“But it’s not all doom and gloom,” Schuttler said, 41% of participants described their leaders as effective. Working adults expressed a strong preference for leaders who are transparent, honest, and visible. The majority (55%) of participants who shared open-ended comments recommended increased supervisor openness; 33% wanted more honesty.
The study, which analyzed the perceptions of 1,150 working adults in the United States, compared the leadership and communication skills of supervisors in various industries. Rouse is an internationally published author whose research focuses on leadership, communication, marketing, and healthcare. Schuttler, owner of Organizational Troubleshooter, LLC, is an international public speaker, consultant, educator, and author with 20 years of management/leadership improvement expertise. Both researchers are faculty members at the University of Phoenix’s School of Advanced Studies. The study was funded by a research grant from the University of Phoenix.
The full report of the study’s findings can be downloaded at Leadership during the Financial Crisis Results
There have been a lot of talks about seasonal flu and now the H1N1 virus is causing panic. Knowing how to prevent the flu is important especially in today’s economy when most people cannot afford to stay home even for a few days without getting paid.
I’ve heard some people say: “I would love to be able to keep my daughter home from school when she is ill. I would love to be able to stay home myself, when I am sick. The problem is I get ZERO sick days per year.” Or “Employers are looking to get rid of people for ANY reason, up to and including sick leave absences. Unfortunately many families have to have TWO working parents and employers are incapable of realizing that people with sick kids usually have to stay home with them.”
There are a few recommendations on how to prevent getting the flu:
 1. WASHING YOUR HANDS with soap and water for at least 20 seconds can physically remove cold viruses after touching objects, surfaces or another person’s hands;
2. GARLIC is one of the best natural remedies for flu prevention. It kills viruses responsible for the flu and colds. Many studies show that, garlic can significantly boost the effects of the immune system when taken orally.
3. VITAMINS. Remember to eat fresh fruits and vegetables every day. For example, vitamin C can help you to stop the flu before it starts. Good sources for vitamin C are green peppers, citrus fruits and juices, strawberries, tomatoes, broccoli, turnip greens and other leafy greens, sweet and white potatoes.
4. To reduce a chance of infection, KEEP A DISTANCE between yourself and others during flu epidemic, especially during the first several days of their flu symptoms.
5. Doctors recommend to AVOID RUBBING or touching YOUR MOUTH, EYES and NOSE. Avoid directly facing an individual who is sneezing or coughing. If you sneeze into your hands, make sure you clean them EVERY time you sneeze or cough.
6. A ROOM VENTILATION significantly reduces the concentration of viruses and bacteria in the air. It is an easy and extremely effective natural way to prevent spreading viruses.
7. FLU SHOTS: We encourage you to do the research and make your own decision as there is controversial information about both new vaccine and the flu and what can be more dangerous out of the two.
We hope this will help you to stay healthy and, for some people, maybe even keep their jobs.
As some people hunted fruitlessly for work many months after layoff, they probably realize that those months might, themselves, be part of the problem. One clue was a conversation our client had with a recruiter. The first question was, ‘When did you get laid off?’. The second one was, ‘How come you haven’t found a job since then?’
About 15 million Americans are currently out of work and the number is not expected to decline very soon. As challenging as it is for anyone to find a job in this economy, it can be even harder for people staying jobless for a long time. Demoralization, lost skills, potential employers who prefer up-to-date experience are the factors that negatively impact their chances.
Some workers who have spent months out of job can just disconnect from the job market and decide to apply for Social Security benefits or union pensions they didn’t intend to take until much later. Some of them can try to get in on other government programs such as disability benefits.
If you’re currently unemployed, the likelihood is that you may not find a job for a significant period of time. Even when you find a job, you may spend years to get back to the same salary level. Therefore, it might be a good idea to get training now so that when the labor market comes back, you’ll be prepared.
 A recent study at the University of Missouri concluded that putting together a plan at the start of your job search, and having positive emotions while looking for a job, has a significant impact on success. The research involved 327 job seekers.
“We found it most interesting … thinking about a plan, acting on a plan and reflecting upon that a plan were important early in the job search while having positive emotions were important later in the job search,” said Daniel Turban, professor at the University of Missouri’s College of Business.
According to the research conscientiousness appears to be key to a successful job search process. “Perhaps, conscientious job seekers conducted better quality job searches by scrutinizing their fit with prospective employers more carefully or more effectively following up with employers,” Turban said.
The research has shown that job seekers should maintain positive emotions throughout the process to improve those chances of getting a job. Positive emotions may help job seekers behave more confidently and cope better with stress, “thereby responding more skillfully in interviews than job seekers with less positive emotions,” according to the report.
“Some of these recommendations seem like they are common sense, but they are just not that common. People don’t have strategies, they don’t assess their plans and they don’t think about their strategies and reflect on whether it’s working or how to make them work better. They just don’t do it,” Turban said.
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We all know that networking is an important part of your job search, but why go to cheesy after 5:00 cocktail events (mostly made up of insurance salesmen) when you can join a secret society? Despite conspiracy theories, in reality most secret societies were the “old-boy” way to make business deals, get away from their wives, drink, smoke cigars and look pompous in general. In fact, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (the Elk Lodge) fully admits that it started “as a private club to elude New York City laws governing the opening hours of public taverns”. Later on they decided, “Hey we have this big club, let’s set up a society around something super awesome, like a big animal with huge antlers!” and thus, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was born.
Most secret societies were white, male and invitation only. With the fall in popularity of secret societies to after hour cocktail parties, these societies are desperate for just anybody. All joking aside, it could actually be in your favor to join for networking reasons.
1. Ancient Order of the Rosicrucian’s
The AOR is the American offshoot of the Rosicrucian Order. The society’s founding, seventeenth century manifestos describe the journey of heroic, mystic pilgrim, Christian Rosenkreuz (some of the unenlightened dispute his existence), who supposedly studied in the Middle East and brought back to Germany a full can of pseudo-mystic whoopass, which he proceeded to open.
The modern AOR describes itself as “An Aquarian Age mystery school in the Western Tradition,” which translates into an organization that is one third hippy one-third druid, and one third Dungeons and Dragons. If you enjoy a good neopagan ritual aimed at community with the universal idea of love, the Rosicrucian’s might be right for you.
Download their member application at: http://www.rosicrucianis.org/html/en/index.html
2. Freemasons
The Freemasons are a completely transparent and benign fraternal organization committed to morality and belief in an unspecified supreme being, with no freaky, secretive methods of controlling world leaders or major financial markets. At leas this is what they would have you believe, thus lulling you, dear uninitiated, in a complacent sheep-state in which you will be unable to resist the inevitable Freemason uprising.
Unless, of course, you join them. Start as an Entered Apprentice and learn the secret handshake. No kidding- there really is a secret handshake.
Go to their website and click the giant JOIN NOW!! Button: http://freemasonry.org/
3. Opus Dei
Today, there are more than three thousand Opus Dei membership the United States, very few of whom are albino psychopaths. In fact, Opus Dei chapters have partnered successfully with many inner-city charity programs, promoting an agenda of education and spiritual guidance. As a “personal prelature” of the Catholic Church, the jurisdiction of Opus Dei’s bishop isn’t defined to a geo-graphic area; rather, his influence and authority extend to all prelature members, whoever they live or hide.
Note: Opus Dei has nothing to do with Dan Brown or The Da Vinci code, though needless to say, the bestselling book has been quite a recruiting tool.
Go to: http://www.opusdei.us/
4. Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem
You might have heard the SMOTJ called by another name: the Knights Templar. And how cool is this- you, too, can become a knight. Get the ball rolling by sending a resume and letter of introduction to membership@smotj.org.
The Knights Templar were officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the First Crusade, to protect European pilgrims in the Holy Land. Today, the Templar’s traditional weapon, the sword, has lost an s, becoming the word, and modern Knights Templar concern themselves more with antiquarian research and lobbying for the preservation of ancient sites in or near Jerusalem than with lopping off infidel heads.
5. Ordo Templi Orientis
When you picture a secret society, you likely picture something similar to the Ordo Templi Orientis, which includes complex initiation rites, occult rituals, and loose belief in a somewhat abstruse religious concept. In 1904, Aleister Crowley, known to followers as the Great Beast, codified the order’s beliefs in his Book of the Law, the guiding principle of which is “Do what thou wild shall be the whole of the law.”
To join, first practice freeing yourself from inhibition, then go to: http://oto-usa.org/
 In seven days the host city of the 2016 Olympic Games will be announced at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark. Chicago is competing alongside with Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro.
The Olympics and Paralympics of 2016 would present an extraordinary opportunity for Chicagoans to tackle the problems that have so long blocked the economic growth of Chicago’s south and west sides .
If Chicago wins the bid, it will open thousands of opportunities and new jobs in all industries, especially in the construction industry which suffered massive layoffs in 2009. Building the Olympic village, Olympic Stadium, Olympic Aquatic Center and many other planned venues, would create thousands of new jobs desperately needed by the city. The construction industry would not be the only industry benefiting from the Olympics, but also transportation, communications, utilities, hospitality, and local businesses would all enjoy numerous new jobs created by the Games.
At the end, the Olympic Games will occupy a host city only for 16 days. What’s left after the closing ceremony is what really matters.
Common Job Board Scams
In the past I worked in the marketing department of a major job board for several years. For the most part job boards care little about the actual user. Until recently, most were focused on one major goal: selling more job postings at the highest price point possible. However, in recent years, with the economy shifting into the employer’s favor most major job boards are trying to make up revenue by selling more products to desperate job seekers. Most of these upgrades and services are entirely useless and can even hurt your search efforts in some cases.
1. Resume “Upgrades” or paid search engine “Spotlight”
You know all those offers to upgrade your resume? Offers they’ll put you in the top search engine position to help you stand out to employers for only the low, low, price of $150.00? Yep, a heaping pile’o’scam. CareerBuilder even offers a service with different levels from “Copper” to “Titanium”. Not only is there not a difference between the levels, but it won’t make any difference in how many employers view your resume. In fact it can even hurt. When employers search the database, the resumes are returned much like job search results are returned. It first goes by keyword relevance, then how fresh or new the resume is. After 90 days or so, if you haven’t actively updated your resume, you’ll slowly slip into oblivion from the search results. When there’s an “upgraded” resume in the search results it displays it with a nice colored bordered box around it and a bolded title. The main problem: the employer doesn’t really care whether or not your Resume has a border around it, they just care if you fit what they’re looking for. In fact when I was doing training years ago for a client, one of the HR people asked me why there was a green border around one of the resumes, I said that person had paid for the “upgraded” resume service, the manager chuckled and said “wow, that person must be desperate.” Quite honestly, in this economy employer’s don’t need to search the database as much, they have people beating down the door to work at their company, so all you’re really doing is filling a profit gap for the job board.
Pro-Tip: All job boards work on keyword frequency. So if you want to make it to the top of the list on the search results, all you have to do is use a particular keyword more than anyone else. For example, if you want to make it to the top of the list for “project manager”, you just need to use the keyword “project manager” more than anyone else. One time I searched that term to see who was on the top of the list, the guy literally had “project manager” on his resume 400 times.
2. Resume writing services
Hey it can’t hurt to have someone take a look at my resume for free and tell me if anything is wrong with my resume, right? Wrong. First you’re resume will always have something wrong with it. You could be Donald Trump and have a resume hand crafted by J.R.R. Tolkien and their automated system will always kick back a response that says your resume needs to be rewritten. In fact, I remember a story of one woman who used our resume rewriting service, then submitted the rewritten resume to the resume checker, only for it to tell her that it needed to be rewritten :-).
The main problem is most of these job boards outsource their rewriting service to places like India, where they churn and burn rewritten resumes all day long. They may clean up the formatting and your grammar a bit, but it’s not worth the cost. You’re better off following free tips and templates online. Then have one of your unemployed English major friends look it over for grammar.
3. Resume Distribution
Hey they’ll distribute your resume to 1000 of qualified employers, think of all the interviews!! The only problem is these are going to places like hr@bigcompany.com or info@megarecruiters.com , generic e-mails which will likely go ignored, or if someone does look at, will likely be deleted. Employers aren’t eagerly waiting around for the next e-mail “blast” to come through. Recruiting firms and large employers get massive amounts of resumes sent to them each week. It’s just not humanly possible to look at each one, let alone ones come from some sort of blast service. Most have spam filters or you will go into their generic database, never to see the light of day by anyone.
This is what you’re paying for. Colored borders no employer cares about. Resumes being rewritten by people whom only care about getting to the next one. Your resume is being sent to addresses that aren’t valid and aren’t qualified. It’s being sent to, and received by, people who didn’t ask for it, don’t look at it, and don’t care. If it still sounds too good to be true, remember what your mom told you when you were a kid: if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
Recent news tell us that the overall economic situation is getting better. But let’s look at the unemployment numbers. State and regional unemployment rates changed a little in August. Sixteen states registered lower unemployment rate in August, 27 states and the District of Columbia reported rate increases and seven states had no change.
Over the past twelve months, jobless rates increased in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.
The national unemployment rate has reached 9.7 percent which is up 0.3 percentage points from July 2009 and up 3.5 points from August 2008.
The highest regional unemployment rate (10.6) in West Region, up 4.1 percentage points from August 2008. The lowest rate is 9.0 in Northeast. South and Midwest Regions reported 9.2 and 10 percentage point accordingly.
As we can see all four regions experienced significant unemployment rate increases from August 2008.
Per Dailymail, senior economists warned that Britain is facing a national disaster as almost fifth of those aged between 16 and 24 are unable to find a job (a total of 947 thousand young people). This has helped drive Britain’s overall jobless total up to 2.47 million, which is the highest in 14 years. The unemployment rate has jumped to 7.9 percent from 5.6 percent a year ago.
Are you an early adopter?
Learn what Social Networking is and see how knowledge sharing can benefit you, as well as, your company:
Finding a Job and Accomplishing More with WEB 2.0 Social Software Tools
Do you know what information can be shared and what tools you can use for that?
See some examples of how social networking can help you find a job and succeed throughout your career:
WEB 2.0 Social Software Tools: Different Ways to Share
Twitter is very popular and fastest growing Social Networking tool.
Read an article about How to Find a Job on Twitter – 10 Job 2.0 Networking Tips
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