CareerFood

Colleges are Destroying the American Workforce!

Well that's not exactly what they said... I was paraphrasing.

However, the people over at the Herman Group who put out the weekly Herman Trend Alert seem to think our skilled trades are suffering from "an over-emphasis on high school graduates going to university".

1st Reaction
WHOAA! What are you saying here? We shouldn't encourage everyone to go to College and continue their education? That's just wrong! That flies in the face of everything I hold near and dear! It's exactly this kind of attitude that is reason why the good ole U.S of A. is getting its tale kicked in math and science! Deep Breath. Serenity Now.

2nd Reaction
HMMMM?

3rd Reaction
You know what, this actually makes pretty good sense. What's wrong with encouraging young men and women who show interest or aptitude in these areas to go to a trade/professional school or enter an apprenticeship program. Do you know what a Construction Superintendent makes? Or a Master Electrician? Sounds like a pretty good living to me.

Two things to make this work:

1. Buy in from the High School educators and administrators, including more emphasis on career counseling and aptitude/interest profiling &:
2. Increased awareness to capture those college dropouts, the ones who go to community college or a university and decide it's not for them.

Bottom line...skilled trade doesn't mean ditch-digging.

Aristotle Said it Best

I was speaking with a candidate (and friend) yesterday and discussing the lack of results in their job search. I'm not getting any call backs, I'm not getting any second interviews, If i could just get someone to look at my resume, etc. etc. etc.

Listening to my friend expound on the reasons why she was not getting better results, I remembered a great quote from Aristotle...

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit."

ME: "What are you doing to change?"
HER: "Excuse me?"
ME: "You heard me...What are you doing to change? You're not getting results, you're job search is going nowhere, so what are you doing about it?"How are you changing your resume to get better results? What are you doing to get better at interviewing? What new and exciting ways are you using to get in front of hiring managers?

The same thing = The same results

What are you going to do to achieve excellence??

Color Coded Candidates

I can see the possibilities now...(thanks to Scott)

Save time and money with our new Color Coded Candidates system. No more wasting precious time calling candidates who are never going to give you the time of day. With our revolutionary new system we virtually do the recruiting for you!

red bracelet...not interested
blue bracelet...I'll hear what you have to say
green bracelet...ready, willing & able

Resumes that POP

Still playing catch-up but came across this great post on resume writing by Janelle Godfrey.

My only comment is I think 40 seconds is being a little generous...you're lucky if you get 20!

Don't be a Big Stinking Goober!

I've been on vacation for a while and just getting back into the swing of things. While trying to catch up on my reading, Dan over at Fracat almost made me fall out of my chair laughing with this one.

Thanks to the HR Guy for starting it off.