Myth vs. Reality: Job Hunting During the Holidays

Myth vs. Reality: Job Hunting During the Holidays
While many job seekers think that searching for career opportunities during the holidays is a waste of time, the fact is that smart job hunters can take advantage by continuing their quest during one of the best job searching seasons of the year. Let’s look at a few myths and facts about a holiday job hunt:

Myth: Hiring Slows Way Down between mid November and the First of January

Reality: In our 24/7 world, companies continue to hire at a high level all year long.
In fact, December is a crucial time for organizations to bring new employees on board. Many departments have hiring budgets that have been approved for filling positions throughout the year, and some have not been completed. The managers know that if they don't fill the position by the end of the year they will lose that part of their hiring budget. Also, bosses who have just had their 2008 hiring budgets approved want to have qualified individuals selected and ready to start by the first of the year.

Myth: Recruiters and Hiring Managers Don’t Have Time to Interview
during the Holidays

Reality: While the number of days available for interviewing may be reduced by holidays and vacations, the interviewing process does not come to a screeching halt.
The need to quickly fill critical vacancies supersedes time off for recruiters and managers. Candidates and recruiters need to be flexible in scheduling interviews at any time, especially around the holidays. Recruiters and hiring authorities may be out of town or not available to interview for other reasons during part of the holiday season, but candidates should be available on short notice for interviews. When several company representatives are involved in the hiring process, a schedule of multiple interviews may need to be spread out instead of concentrated over a day or two.

Myth: With all the Distractions, the Holidays are a Poor Time to Continue a High
Level of Job Search Activity.

Reality: Smart job seekers increase their job search activity level during the holidays.
Since many job hunters go into hibernation during the holidays, others find that the competition for jobs is reduced and enjoy easier access to decision makers. Those hiring authorities who are in their offices are usually more available, are open to discussing career opportunities and supporting job hunters. By taking advantage of the “Holiday Spirit”, smart job seekers can gain ground on their competition and be considered for more positions.

The Bottom Line: Keep up the Job Search Momentum and Reap the Rewards

Job seekers can increase their visibility and keep a high level of activity going during the holidays by using many opportunities to network and stay in touch with referral sources and potential employers. By using holiday parties and receptions to meet new people, briefly explain their interest in looking for new career opportunities and asking for referrals and suggestions, job hunters can expand their network.
Another tip that I suggest to my career transition clients is that sending out holiday cards to recruiters, employer contacts, previous co-workers and other network contacts in addition to friends and relatives is an effective way of keeping one’s name in front of referral sources and potential employers. Job seekers need to take some time for themselves and their families during the holidays, but they also need to keep up the momentum of an effective job search.

Successful Job Searching in Prime Time!

Stop the excuses! Yeah, it’s hot and humid, everyone seems to be on vacation or getting the kids back to school. Not the time to be planning and starting a job search? WRONG!

When I started my career over 30 years ago, there were some definite cycles that defined the level of hiring during the calendar year. During the summer months, recruiting activity decreased as hiring managers and candidates took vacation. As Thanksgiving approached, hiring slowed way down until after the new year began.

Today, in our virtual, 24/7, go-go-go world of work, recruiting activity slows down slightly during the summer and the year-end holidays. The 3 months of September, October and November are Prime Recruiting Time as employers are back from vacation, the kids are back in school and everyone gets back to focusing on work.

Take advantage of this time to prepare for an effective transition with these 5 Action Steps:

1.) Assess Your Career

Is your current job meeting your expectations? Is it time to look at new opportunities
that are a better fit with your interests, values and priorities? Analyze your current
situation and determine if the job/function/company are meeting your needs. If not, what needs to change?

2.) Restate your Objectives and Goals

What are your short-term objectives and long-term career goals? These can change
as we think about new directions and priorities, so always be thinking about revising
your roadmap to success.

3.) Explore the Market for Your Talents and Interests

With your goals in mind, put on your detective’s cap and investigate the potential
opportunities out in the career marketplace. What trends are affecting your function
and/or industry? What companies are on top of their competitive game and could use your talents? ID the organizations you want to target. If you are interested in part-time or temporary assignments, the Fall is a great time to be looking as companies, especially retailers and the firms that provide them with products who are gearing up for the holiday season.

4.) Conduct a Personal Marketing Makeover

You have one chance to make a good first impression. Revise your resume to be an
effective sales tool to communicate your background and interests to prospective
employers. Brush up on your interviewing techniques and negotiating strategies.
Develop an extensive plan to ID jobs that interest you, and work hard to increase
your visibility in the job marketplace through networking (social networking on the
Internet as well as face to face) and following up with referrals.

5.) Implement a Strategy to Success

Take that plan and make it work for you by setting weekly goals for yourself in
utilizing all the avenues available for developing job leads including networking, searching job boards, contacting recruiters and introducing yourself directly to
decision-makers in companies that interest you. Build and maintain the momentum necessary to successfully reach your career goals!

Myths and Facts about Mature Workers: Part II

Why are some employers reluctant to hire older workers? A number of myths regarding mature workers prevail in the job marketplace. Here’s the second of two installments on these fallacies and the actual facts:


Myth #6: Mature Workers are Less Intelligent

Studies clearly indicate that perception, emotional stability, motivation and fund of knowledge are far more important to intellectual functioning than age. In fact, the ability to use an accumulated body of general information to make sound judgment and solve problems keeps rising with healthy people. (Harvard study.)

Myth #7: Older Workers have Poor Memories

Older people don’t have poorer memories, they just have more to remember than their juniors. Age related declines are slight – often limited to such minor items as phone numbers.

Myth #8: Mature Workers are Less Adaptable-Don’t Learn as Well

People who stay engaged in life, continue to adapt and learn. California State University compared the grades of students age 18 to 25 and others aged 49 to 72. There were no significant differences in the grades. In fact, the only difference was that the older people completed the learning experience at a significantly higher rate.

Myth #9: Older Workers are More Expensive to Employ

The hardest myth to debunk. For example, health insurance costs less for a 55 year old employee than for a 35 year old with 2 dependents. And, it is time for employers to realize that the only way for compensation to go is not “up” but, in today’s economy, compensation needs to be market-driven at any age.

Myth #10: Older Workers are Technology Challenged

This is true from the standpoint that younger employees have grown up in a technology driven society, but studies show that the fastest growing group of Internet users are 55 years of age and up. All that’s needed is a little amount of focused education.

Its time for companies to dismiss these and other myths about employing older workers and take full advantage of an excellent resource for the skills and talents needed for organizations to succeed in the highly competitive marketplace.

Brad Taft
The Voice of the Mature Workforce
Co-Author, Boom or Bust!: New Career Strategies in a New America
www.AgelessInAmerica.com

Myths and Facts about Mature Workers

Why are some employers reluctant to hire older workers? A number of myths regarding mature workers prevail in the job marketplace. Here’s the first of two installments on these fallacies and the actual facts:

Myth #1: Mature Workers are Less Productive
According to the Department of Labor, employees in their late 50’s and 60’s are more conscientious and hard working than younger workers.

Myth #2: Older Workers are Sick More Often
According to the American Council of Life Insurance, workers 45 and older call in sick an average of 3.1 days per year compared to an average of 3.8 days for those 17-44.

Myth #3: Mature Workers are More Likely to Leave Employers
The opposite is true. In fact, according to the National Association of Working Women, women over 45 are 88% less likely to leave voluntarily than younger counterparts.

Myth #4: Older Workers are Less Competent
According to the Andrus Gerontology Center, the average age of candidates for top positions has increased steadily over the past 15 years.

Myth #5: Mature Workers are Less Capable of Making Decisions
Utter nonsense. Studies prove that older employees are actually more capable of evaluating decisions than younger employees. However, they usually take a little longer because experience has taught them the wisdom of caution.

What prejudices do you have regarding older workers? I’ll explore more myths in my next blog. For a free report on 10 Myths and 10 Facts About Mature Workers, go to www.AgelessInAmerica.com. Brad Taft

Has America run out of talent?

“America has run out of talent”, stated Annmarie Neal, VP of Talent at Cisco at the 2007 CEO Workforce Summit in Phoenix on April 10, 2007. Speaking on a panel of leaders from the high tech, healthcare, employment and retail industries, she lamented that Cisco has to once again outsource to India to find talented engineers, software developers and other IT professionals.

While her comments were made in the context of a discussion on workforce development issues that included demographic trends that foresee continued talent shortages in Phoenix and the country as a whole, I took strong exception to her exaggerated statement of doom and gloom. My hand shot up when the Q & A session started, and I took the opportunity to not ask a question but to express my concern that we have mismanaged the great resources of talent that we already have in the USA. This conference was all about how private enterprise, government, labor and educational institutions can work together to solve workforce problems. I made the point that we need to take the creativity that the USA is known for and turn it toward the training and development of our current workforce to meet the skills and knowledge needs of all industries.

Sure we’ll need to reach out globally to fill some of the gap, but let’s not give up on the multitude of Americans ready and willing to be retrained and revitalized to provide the productivity necessary for U.S. industries to compete. Americans young and old can learn cutting edge skills and develop the knowledge bases necessary to contribute to companies’ success. All that is needed are incentives to bring about the appropriate training and development programs, and this is where the partnership among companies, government, labor and educational institutions comes in to drive the process.

So let’s stop the doom and gloom talk and develop the strategic initiatives necessary to take on the talent challenge. We’re the country known for its innovation; it’s time to put our considerable energy and resourcefulness to work to solve our workforce challenges. Let’s partner effectively and invest in America’s future!

The Reality of Career Transition at 50+

Wake-up, job seekers 50+! Quit whining and take the advice of Carleen MacKay and Brad Taft, authors of Boom or Bust!:New Career Strategies in a New America (Cambridge Media, LLC; 2006):
It's a new day and a new game. After we overcome certain myths about economic recovery and those stories that set a false expectation about a return to the world of work as it was, those of us who will thrive in this forever changed, largely jobless world of the mature worker will:
Continue to develop and focus our expertise. This focused expertise will enable us to thrive in a largely de-jobbed U.S. world of work. Think of us as the Sages.
Start our own businesses now, on the perceived early edge of change and forget seeking employers as the panacea for our false source of security. Think of us as the Hardy Pioneers.
Follow the trends avidly - paying good attention to broad-based change and relating that change to our own work lives. Think of us as the Keen Observers.
Always have a Plan "B" - never resting on our laurels from the past. Plan "B" will include continued formal education and skills development over our lifetimes. The online classroom will prove to be the leap forward in providing skills/education to the older worker, and we will move quickly towards this form of formalized learning. Furthermore, we will be the generation that will change the way our colleges and universities teach and, ultimately, change the cost of advanced learning. Think of us as the Swift Learners.
Sustain our marriages or form alliances with other mature folks to share financial burdens and allow more freedom from the need to work in endless drudgery. Later stage marriages or alliances will allow us to remain independent and self-sustaining. Think of us as the Brave Hearts.
In summary, the people who will thrive are the Sages, Hardy Pioneers, Keen Observers, Swift Learners and the Brave Hearted. But, then, aren't these the same qualities you have noted in people who have triumphed throughout your lifetime? Dare we imply that we simply need to re-discover the best in ourselves? For more info, including 10 Myths & Facts about Mature Workers, go to AgelessInAmerica.com.