Career Marketplace Blog

In this article from The New York Times, Catherine Rampell writes, With Positions to Fill, Employers Wait for Perfection.

Read an excerpt of Rampell’s article below. Read Full Article

American employers have a variety of job vacancies, piles of cash and countless well-qualified candidates. But despite a slowly improving economy, many companies remain reluctant to actually hire, stringing job applicants along for weeks or months before they make a decision.

If they ever do.

The number of job openings has increased to levels not seen since the height of the financial crisis, but vacancies are staying unfilled much longer than they used to — an average of 23 business days today compared to a low of 15 in mid-2009, according to a new measure of Labor Department data by the economists Steven J. Davis, Jason Faberman and John Haltiwanger.

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In this article from LiveCareer, find out How to Evaluate Good and Bad Career Advice

Read an excerpt from this article below.

We’ve discussed before how using your dating skills can help you find a job. But career advice is like romantic advice in some other ways as well. We often need it, sometimes we ask for it and everyone seems to love giving it whether they’ve been asked or not. Without it, we would face an uncharted world alone and we’d be constantly reinventing wheels and working to solve problems that we could easily overcome if we just tuned into the wisdom and life experience of those around us.

But sometimes advice can lead us astray, and sometimes it’s delivered by people who don’t have our best interests in mind. Here at LiveCareer, we’ve seen and heard plenty of both good and bad advice. Here’s what we’ve learned.

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In this article from LiveCareer, learn How to Ask for a Raise.

Tips from this article include:

• Do your research
• Time your message appropriately
• Have a plan in the event of a no answer 

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In this article for The Wall Street Journal’s, Financing Your Future, Andrea Coombes  reports Where the Jobs Are for Older Workers.

Read an excerpt from Coombes’ article below. Read Full Article

Growing numbers of older adults are finding a nice surprise in the workplace: a “Welcome” sign.

The number of workers age 55 and up grew by 3.5 million from September 2009 to September 2012. That represents the lion’s share of the gain of 4.2 million for all workers 16 and older, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Two factors help explain the trend.

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In this article for Simply Hired’s, Simply Blog, Annie Favreau  lists, The 5 Worst Career Change Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.

Read an excerpt from Favreau’s article below. Read Full Article

Are you ready to take your career in a new direction? Maybe you’re unsatisfied in your current role. Maybe you’ve been off of the job market for a while. Maybe you’re simply ready to find a job that’s a better fit for who you are.

Whatever your reasons, changing careers can be incredibly rewarding. But big transitions aren’t always easy. Before striking out on a new path, you’ve got to learn how to avoid these five common career change mistakes, so you can make a successful switch.

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In this article for LifeHacker, Amy Gallo explains, Should You Accept the Job Offer or Walk Away?

Read an excerpt from Gallo’s article below. Read Full Article

The hiring manager calls with great news: the job is yours. Phew, the hard part is over, right? Maybe not. Determining whether to take a job offer can—and should—be a difficult decision. In a bad economy or if you’re eager to get out of your current job, it can be tempting to accept any offer. But before you take on a job, you need to evaluate the situation carefully.

What the Experts Say

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New Grads: How Career Exploration Helps Your Job Hunt

By: Annie Favreau, Inside Jobs

College graduation season is in full swing. All over the country, droves of 20-somethings are starting their very first job hunt. For many career newbies, this can be an overwhelming process. With thousands of career choices and plenty of stiff competition, knowing where to begin can be a challenge.

Establishing a clear career goal is essential. If you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re looking for, your job search will be aimless. And that’s where a career exploration site can come in handy. By tapping into the resources on these sites—like job profiles, salary statistics, work environment—you can discover in-depth information and career direction. Here’s how:

Explore All Your Options
Even if you don’t know what kind of career you want, you probably know some of your skills and values. Are you good with people? Detail oriented? Happiest working outdoors? Career explorations sites often let you sort jobs by personality traits, skills, or work environment. By casting a net based on your own strengths, you can examine career choices that are both familiar and unusual—you might even find some that you’ve never even heard about.

The more options you know about, the better chance you have of discovering a career that’s a good match. In the big picture, finding a career path that fits who you are will be much better than pouncing on the first offer that comes your way.

Get the 411 on a Specific Position
When you’ve identified a job you’re interested in, it’s time to do some research. Start with the career profile to kick off a thorough investigation of the job’s general industry. Why? Having a good understanding of the ins and outs of the field will help you during your interview process. Plus, if you plan on scheduling informational interviews, this general knowledge will help you find and choose experts who can best answer your questions.

Map Out Your Next Step
Once you find a career you want, you might discover additional training—like an internship, certificate, or apprenticeship—is required. Or maybe you just need to start getting your name out there and apply for positions. Either way, career exploration sites can show you the best way to break into an industry and get the job you want.

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Annie Favreau works for Inside Jobs, a site that helps people discover a career they’ll love and build strong, successful futures. Join the career conversation on Twitter at @InsideJobs.

In this article for CNN Money, Parija Kavilanz reports employers are Desperately Seeking Americans for Factory Jobs.

Read an excerpt of Kavilanz’s article below. Read Full Article

U.S. factories are creating many new jobs. But owners are hard pressed to find skilled American workers to fill them.

There is a “critical shortage of machinists,” a common and crucial position in factories, said Rob Akers, vice president at the National Tooling and Machining Association. “Enrollment in this field in technical schools has been down for a long time.”

The problem comes at a terrible time. Domestic contract manufacturers — known as “job shops” — are seeing a boom in business.

In the case of Win-Tech, a Kennesaw, Ga., manufacturer, orders are coming in fast and furious from its customers in the defense and aerospace industries.

But the company’s owner Dennis Winslow is more concerned than elated.

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WSJ article Seeking Information, Not Employment, Elizabeth Garone answer’s a readers question about how to set up an informational interview.

Below is an excerpt of Garone’s article. Read Full Article

Q: I’m thinking about a career change and would love to go on a few informational interviews to learn more about the fields I am considering. But I rarely hear anyone talk about informational interviews anymore. Are people still giving them or are they too worried about their own jobs to take the time? How would I go about setting one up? Who should I target? Are certain questions off limits?

Los Angeles, CA

A: Informational interviews are still a big part of the job market landscape, but nobody likes to talk about them. That’s because the people giving the interviews fear being inundated with requests and the people looking to land said interviews probably want to keep anyone they find to themselves.

Still, you should do all you can to snag one … or 10. In this tight job market, an informational interview can give you the edge you need to get hired by establishing a good connection at a prospective firm.

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In this article for U.S. News and World Report, Miriam Salpeter explains The Best Way to Take Control of Your Job Hunt.

Below is an excerpt of Salpeter article. Read Full Article

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little more control over your job search? It’s frustrating applying over and over again for jobs and never hearing back.

When you apply online, the odds are against you unless your qualifications exactly match what the employer wants. (In other words, unless you are applying for the job you already have.) It’s not impossible to land an opportunity via an online application; many people do find jobs that way, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re not likely to get hired from a resume drop.

What should you do instead? Stop looking for a job. Start looking for a company.

You may be surprised, but it may be the best career move you never considered. Instead of spending all of your time searching for appropriate job descriptions and targeting your resume to apply for them, you should consider shifting some of your efforts to identifying organizations whose goals are in line with your interests and whose problems you know you can solve.

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