Search Results - opportunities

Comment on: Blog Post 'How Much Weight Should a Job Candidate's Education Hold?': ? Jordan WeissmannApr 23 2012, 3:06 PM ET A college diploma isn't worth what it used to be. To get hired, grads today need hard skills. More than half of America's recent college graduates are either unemployed or working in a job that doesn't require a bachelor's degree, the Associated Press reported this weekend. The story would seem to be more evidence that, regardless of your education, the wake of the Great Recession has been a terrible time to be young and hunting for work. But are we really becoming another Greece or Spain, a wasteland of opportunity for anybody under the age of 25? Not quite. What the new statistics really tell us about is the changing nature, and value, of higher education. First, here's the nut of the AP's findings, which it derived with the help of researchers from Northeastern University, Drexel University, and the Economic Policy Institute, based on data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the U.S. Department of Labor: About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor's degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields. Out of the 1.5 million who languished in the job market, about half were underemployed, an increase from the previous year. These numbers are hard to fathom, and the more you compare them to other measures of unemployment, the more bizarre they seem. Unfortunately, I don't have all of the data the AP was working with. But their analysis implies that about a quarter of the post-collegiate population is outright unemployed. By comparison, in December 2011, only a fifth of 16 to 19-year-old Americans couldn't get work. Meanwhile, according to the OECD, just 18.4 percent of all Americans under the age of 25 were unemployed in 2010. By those measures, college grads are actually faring worse in the job market than the overall youth population. They're also suffering terribly compared to the older college-educated populace, which has an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent. It's hard to imagine why any of this might be, other than that some recent grads may simply not be willing to take the low level jobs available to them. On the other hand, many obviously are. As the AP notes, recent graduates are now more likely to work as "waiters, waitresses, bartenders and food-service helpers than as engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians combined." This is a problem for any number of reasons, but here are two big ones: First, a degree is more expensive than ever, and students are piling on debt to finance their educations. It's much harder to pay back loans while working for tips at Buffalo Wild Wings than when you have a decent office job. Second, when college graduates take a low-paid, low-skill job, they're probably displacing a less educated worker, For every underemployed college degree holder, there's a decent chance someone with just a high school diploma is out of work entirely. So is a college education simply less valuable than in the past? In some respects, yes. According to the Census, the number of Americans under the age of 25 with at least a bachelor's degree has grown 38 percent since 2000. Not nearly enough jobs have been created to accommodate them, which has resulted in falling wages for young college graduates in the past decade, as well as the employment problems we're now seeing. That said, not all degrees are created equal. The AP reports that students who graduated out of the sciences or other technical fields, such as accounting, were much less likely to be jobless or underemployed than humanities and arts graduates. You know that old saw about how college is just about getting a fancy piece of paper? Not true. For an education to be worth anything these days, it needs to impart skills. When there were fewer graduates, a generic college degree used to be a valuable credential. Now that the market is flooded, diplomas count less, and specific skills count more. This means that, in many instances, associates and technical degrees may be more financially valuable than a liberal arts degree. After all, some of the fastest growing job categories are expected to be in so-called "middle-skill" positions such as nursing, which do not require a full, four-year education. It's one more sign that, for people seeking to fix America's employment picture, "college for all" is the wrong mantra. We need to be talking about "skills for all" instead. …; Added by Keith D. Halperin at 1:27pm on November 4, 2013

Comment on: Blog Post 'They're Just Not That Into You: 8 Signs A Candidate Isn't Interested': they have been at their company when we can get that and similar (e.g. ...at what company did that person work before their current company?) information prior to calling. The executives respect that and even talk right past the 'how did you know that?' since they seem to expect we know this stuff prior to calling. I've never been asked (by an executive type) how I came to know something about someone I was calling. And of course, nowadays, they probably automatically [often correctly] assume I got my background information from LI and in fact, I often say something like, "...from your LI Profile I see that...." so there is no question or thought that I am trying to act like a genie or trying unnecessarily to impress that person. I personally tend to believe that saying '...I see from your LI profile...' is appreciated vs. acting like a mysterious guru. I use the same steps with everyone/all industries although with some specialties I may not show I have this information, choosing instead to ask. I don't want a young female [Gen X/Y/Z {!}] asking me in fright how I came to know she used to work at 'Bishop Medical Center'... Okay, time to answer your question: It's simple...once I have a name, I ask "..oh, by the way..." questions until I feel I have gotten as much as I can without the person with whom I'm speaking doing that "...who did you say you are?..." number. And, simply again, if I don't have enough information from that call I call back later and speak with a peer or another admin support person, going through my "...oh by the way..." questions until I have enough to know I am on the right track in wanting to call on that person. Asked artfully: How long have they worked there? What company did that person come from? How long ago? Type of personality? How many subordinates/staff members? What areas they are in charge of? (if relevant) ....and any other questions that will narrow this person down for me. I can avoid wasting my time and that of the uncalled candidate this way. I can avoid asking the 'duh' (obvious, common, every day) questions. I can be reasonably sure the target is 'qualified' this way. (Oh, I forget- yes, looking at LI in advance can give me some of my answers...I list them here out of habit.) So, to bottom line this, Ken, I do what I was taught to do- ask the target's peers and/or support admin my questions so I can know in advance that the target is 'qualified' and likely or not likely to be interested in my call. Often, my homework goes up in smoke when in the first few minutes that person tells me his wife is graduating from nursing school and to 'call back' in sixty days...but better to know everything possible than to come off like a beginner in my first call. If anyone is unfamiliar with the process of asking qualifying questions prior to speaking with a target, they ought to consider getting with Maureen Sharib who spends her time sourcing, using mostly the same techniques I do....she has her style and I have mine....and she is definitely an expert in this regard.... To reply to your "candidate's perspective' question...the best way I think I am answering this is to say a version of what I said, above- to appear to be as seamless as possible in my conversation so everything I know about that person is integrated into my recruit call so it does not sound as though I am filling out a form, beginner-style. (This is why most people who ask for references fail to uncover vital information- because they 'conduct' their reference checking 'survey' style vs. speaking in a conversational tone with the reference. The reference person is 'on guard' the entire length of the reference checking because it is obvious the caller has a pen and check list they are working from; no one wants their comments on paper so naturally they are on guard when they get reference calls.) Also, please forgive me for inserting this but it is a critical advantage for me so I'm going to mention this- I have what I call 'off the chart' intuitive skills and on occasion will suggest when talking about this I have a few 'psychic tricks up my sleeve'. I can often tell from a glance at someone more about that person then their own neighbors know about them. This enable me to 'get' who someone is in seconds flat during a recruit call. I can quickly determine their character type and yes, sorry, Nick (?), their 'core values' as well. I mention this since as we all know, 'being [technically] qualified' is not the only factor in being able to successfully assess if someone will fit into a client's opportunity/company/company culture. This was a little wordy, Ken, my apologies....I'm guilty of liking the sound of my own voice, after all. The simple answer is to artfully ask qualifying questions of those people who work around the target. Thanks as always, Paul …; Added by PAUL FOREL at 7:56pm on May 6, 2014

Blog Post: TECH TIPS FOR VIDEO JOB INTERVIEW

Using video as a recruiting tool is a relatively new…

Added by Recruiter Raya at 1:34pm on April 23, 2015

Page: Cool Tools and Recruiting Techniques: Topic: Cool Tools and Sourcing Tips with Craig Fisher Webinar Presenter: We'll discuss AND SHOW you how to quickly identify your; Added by Ryan Leary at 2:39pm on October 24, 2013

Blog Post: Side hustles – on the rise: Having one or more jobs these days is becoming more and more popular, with a whopping…; Added by Jake Holyoak at 6:38am on June 1, 2019

Blog Post: Interesting Approaches to Performance Appraisals: Employee performance appraisals are very integral to organizations to increase employee productivity and business results. Although, …; Added by Dhanya Raghavan at 2:33am on August 19, 2019

Blog Post: Recruitment SEO: Tips for optimizing your career site: SEO is a topic that has become extremely popular over the last few years in the recruiting space. The idea of optimizing your job advertisements so that qualified job seekers can…; Added by Chris Brablc at 11:18am on October 19, 2010

Blog Post: 3 Ways to Lose Your Top Expat Candidate and Flatline Your Recruitment Results

A Recruiter’s Tale of Expat…

Added by Nicole Antonio-Gadsdon at 12:44pm on September 14, 2015

Blog Post: Will cleaning and hospitality jobs soar post-Brexit?: For several, if not every business sector across the Britain, Brexit is an uncertain prospect. From concerns about trade restrictions to worries about sourcing raw materials needed for business,…; Added by Caitlin Purvis at 4:01am on February 14, 2020

Blog Post: How to Determine if a Candidate is a Cultural Fit: Disregarding the importance of cultural fit is one of the biggest mistakes a hiring…; Added by Steven Duque at 9:40am on October 25, 2016