US News & World Report: Employment

When Mary Knebel, a 30-year-old in Washington, DC, was laid off from her corporate job last December, she wasn't sure whether she wanted to find a new one or follow her dream of launching her own website. To help figure it out, she hired Kimberly Wilson, a yoga teacher, author, and business woman who offers one-on-one mentoring sessions for $150 per hour. "[Wilson] was helpful in giving me the confidence to go forward and say, 'This is possible,'" says Knebel.

As retirement accounts continue to hemorrhage money, many baby boomers are coming to the realization that they'll need to continue working into their traditional retirement years. In fact, a whopping 70 percent of Americans ages 45 to 74 plan to work in retirement—both for enjoyment and because they need the income, according to a recent AARP survey.

I love to serve as a job reference for most former employees. But I've also occasionally been asked to be a reference for employees I can't honestly recommend. Here are some ways to handle reference requests when you can't recommend the candidate:

1. Whenever possible, warn the employee in advance that you won't be able to provide a positive reference. You may still receive calls from reference checkers who go outside the list of references provided by the candidate, but this should minimize it.

2. If you get a call anyway, you have the option of only confirming the person's title and dates of employment. However, be prepared for a savvy reference checker to ask if this is your policy across the board or just for this candidate.

No job search is perfect. If you're sending out résumés and making calls, you're sure to make mistakes. It's useful to keep in mind, however, that your peers are also making mistakes. The beauty of a job search is that you press forward on a hundred fronts, you knock on a hundred doors—and all you need is one success, one door to open. Minimize your mistakes, and you're likely to have a door open sooner.

Here are five possible fixes:

The unedited résumé: Since many of us don't have the money for a professional résumé writer, you've probably written it yourself. You may even have had someone look over it. But has it been copy-edited? Trust a reporter: Copy-editing changes everything. If you're not lucky enough to have a copy editor as a friend (or as a friend of a friend), then call up your local newspaper and get connected with a copy editor on staff. Offer the editor $20 to look over and edit your résumé in his or her free time. Virtually everyone's grammar, punctuation, and sentence construction would benefit from having the educated eye of a copy editor taking a look.

I had a misdemeanor DUI 10 years ago and have not had any tickets since then. I was recently laid off from my Hotel Security Director job after 10 years with the same company. I have an interview with another company for the same position and checked ye s to the question of have you ever been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony. Do you think this will limit my chances of getting the job?

I am pleased as punch that you checked yes on this question. Many people would have checked no, assuming it was so long ago that no one would find out about it. While that's possible, companies run background checks on people and it's unlikely. (And companies should run background checks. It's inexcusable not to.) Better to admit your faults up front. If you checked no and then they ran the background check, I can guarantee you wouldn't get the job.

More than 1 million people have been laid off this year. If you are one of them and you're looking for a new job, good luck—and remember these five important things:

1. Before you hit the job-hunting trail, find a way to come to terms with your emotions. People, including employers, are repelled by anger, bitterness, or self-pity. You may well feel it. Just don't display it.

2. In your cover letter or résumé, you don't need to point out that you were laid off. So many people are in your same boat that the fact that your last job ended three months ago is not going to harm your prospects at this point.

Many young workers and college students are positively mystified by this job market. What happened to the wide range of meaningful opportunities promised to those who labored for degrees, undergraduate and beyond? Work was supposed to be more than a paycheck. Now, if you're paying attention to the news at all, it seems lucky enough simply to get a paycheck.

It's easy to be discouraged—but it's also unwise. Here are five things you need to know about this market:

Media reports may not be relevant to you: The news about the job market has obviously not been good. If you're not reading about the spiraling unemployment rate, then you're probably reading about the layoffs at Bank of America, Dow Chemical, Citigroup, or AT&T. If you're unemployed, you probably feel suffocated by the market's darkening cloud. If you're employed, you're probably clinging to your job as if it's a lifesaver.

Things haven't been looking so good for the affluent, especially the most powerful and wealthy investors who've incurred massive losses caused by Bernard Madoff's giant Ponzi scheme. And don't forget the flood of reports that Wall Street banks and other firms are eliminating tens of thousands of jobs. Last week, I wrote about how dual-career, upper-class couples who've been affected by the economic downturn are increasingly tightening their budgets and cutting back on household operating costs, which may include the nanny. U.S. News asked Stephanie Felzenberg, editor of the Best Nanny Newsletter, to share her best advice for nannies who want to market themselves and stand out from the pack:

1. Standout Résumé. The résumé remains the most important way for nanny candidates to market themselves. To stand out among a pile of others, caregivers should include a photo of themselves on their résumé. Including a photo playing or posing with children will help parents take notice. The résumé should be printed on high-quality paper. Nanny candidates should spell check and proofread the résumé to make sure the grammar is perfect and the meaning is clear.

I'm continually surprised by the number of people who either don't submit a cover letter with their résumé at all or who submit a generic form letter. I generally assume these applicants are just résumé-bombing, applying to such a wide range of jobs that they can't possibly tailor their applications to each job. I don't want these applicants; not only are they ignoring instructions in their very first contact with me, but I want applicants who are interested in this job, not a job.

A cover letter is where you make a compelling case for yourself as a candidate, totally aside from what's in your résumé. The first thing you want to do is tailor it to the specific job you're applying for and, if possible, the specific company. Yes, it takes a lot longer than sending out the same form letter over and over, but a well-written cover letter that's obviously individualized to a specific opening is going to open doors when your résumé alone might not have. These account for such a tiny fraction of applications that you'll stand out and immediately go to the top of my pile. And I'll give you an extra look, even if your résumé isn't stellar.

Dear Santa,

What's up with Wii? Why can't they just make more? Some kids at school were asking that question, and I thought you might know the answer.

Mom and Dad need a new car—right now the old one is just parked in the driveway and Mom has to take Dad to work. It is waaay out of the way. And all they talk about in the car is money. Please send them some more money so they will talk to me, too.

I had an internship for a large accounting firm. I applied for a regular position and did not even receive an interview for the one position availabl e. The start of the rejection E- mail seemed like a stock standard reply, but the second half spoke of specific things in my application, my strength as a candidate, and said that I should apply again for positions with the firm in the future.

Do you believe the Recruitment Partner was being genuine about me re-applying or just trying to apply salve to the wound? Logically, seeing as time is money, surely the Recruitment Partner would not waste time sending a quasi-personalized email, but still I do not really want to latch onto false hope. If I am not a suitable "fit" for the firm , then I understand — what can you do if the hole is round and you are a square peg? However , I do not really know what I should do in this scenario.

Shortly after today’s ugly employment report, Goldman Sachs has changed its economic forecast. It now expects a deeper recession and higher unemployment.

From a report by economists at Goldman Sachs:

BOTTOM LINE: We have marked down our near-term forecasts for real GDP – to annualized declines of 3½% and 2% in the fourth and first quarters, respectively – and we have added another 50 basis points of Fed easing by year-end. These changes reflect the accumulation of evidence that US domestic demand and production continue to fall sharply. As a result, we now expect the unemployment rate to reach 8½% by year-end 2009. We continue to assume enactment of a $200 billion (bn) package of fiscal stimulus early next year; although prospects of a larger package are rising, we prefer to wait until its timing and outlines become clearer before incorporating it into our outlook.

Here's a look at today's job-related data:

Initial jobless claims (the number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance the first time) last week were 479,000—the same as the week before, the Labor Department reported. Claims in the comparable period last year were 332,000.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, says: "There can be no question that the labor market is deteriorating; the only issue is the speed of the decline and the eventual peak in unemployment."

So, last month, the country lost 159,000—the biggest monthly loss since companies started shedding jobs in January. (You can check out the chart yourself here.) Shepherdson thinks we're headed for a monthly loss of 200,000 jobs. He also thinks we'll see the unemployment rate, now at 6.1 percent, top out at 8.5 percent, which is still considerably lower than the 10.8 percent rate seen in 1983.

Never mind the nation's unemployment—it's the U.S. underemployment rate that should be concerning us, reports Nooshin Mahalia, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute.

The underemployment rate includes the unemployed who are looking for work, along with part-timers who want to be full-timers and the unemployed who want to work but aren't active job seekers.

Mahalia reports the underemployment rate is now at a 14-year high of 11 percent. "The fact that one out of every nine U.S. workers is now either unemployed or underemployed is clear evidence of the need for a second stimulus package targeted at job creation," she writes in a Snapshot analysis at Epi.org.

With the country's unemployment rate at 6.1 percent and likely to tick higher, job creation is key to any economic package introduced by presidential candidates or congressional leaders. Here's a look at some aspects of recent proposals aimed at creating more American jobs:

Sen. Barack Obama: The Democratic candidate for president announced an economic plan Monday that would include a $3,000 tax credit for businesses for each full-time domestic job created between 2009 and 2010, USA Today reports. Obama's 10-year plan would include spending $150 billion on alternative energy projects that would introduce 5 million new jobs, as well as create jobs with infrastructure spending.

The depressed stock markets have dominated the news lately, as investors recalibrate their finances—and their lives. But it looks like there's more bad news on the way that could hit even closer to home.

The job market has gradually drifted out of the comfort zone this year, with the unemployment rate rising from 4.9 percent in January to 6.1 percent this fall. That's higher than what economists call the "sustainable" rate that's normal, more or less, as people move between jobs in a healthy economy. And suddenly it looks as though the job market will be the next pillar to quake as global economic tremors continue. Consider some of these recent projections—mostly downgrades—for the U.S. unemployment rate over the next year:

The September jobs report is out today and it's pretty ugly: The country lost 159,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate stayed at 6.1 percent.

I cover the report's basics here.

It's also worth noting that the generally bullish Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein of First Trust Portfolios expect more bad news in the jobs market and similar losses next month.

Just as more Americans will likely be looking for extra work to boost their incomes, fewer workers will be able to depend on seasonal jobs for extra income this year.

A survey of 1,000 hiring managers found that the average manager expects to hire 3.7 seasonal employees, a full third fewer than they hired last holiday season.

The SnagAJob.com survey found that more than half of managers won't be hiring any seasonal help—a figure that's increased 8 percent this year. Those managers still planning to hire seasonal help will be hiring about 9 employees each—20 percent fewer than last year.

Prepare to be disappointed: The Bailout of the Century will probably do little to make life better anytime soon for the taxpayers footing the mammoth bill.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 may help avert the unspecified economic disaster that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke keep hinting at. But for most of us, it's hard to fathom this freakish financial monster lurking in the darkness, unseen by anybody except Paulson and Bernanke. Instead, we cling to quaint notions, like the idea that for $700 billion in taxpayer commitments, we ought to get something tangible in return.

Some good news: After years of leaning, layoffs, downsizing, and right-sizing, many of the country's largest companies have cut enough.

Workforce Management reports:

Based on a survey of industry sector analysts at UBS, more than half of large companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index are not likely to reduce staff.

Companies in the energy, materials, nuclear utilities, engineering and construction sectors are even understaffed—and have aging workforces to boot. Thus, those businesses may need to hire people, UBS strategists including Thomas Doerflinger and David Bianco wrote Wednesday, September 24.