Career Consultants Help People Find and Change Jobs

As companies downsize, services consolidate and manufacturing firms reposition themselves to foreign soil, many Americans are being forced to change their careers. Even among those with a clear career path, many are seeking to transfer their skills into growth fields.

Because of these trends, the need for career consulting services has never been greater.

Professionals in the career consulting industry rely on counseling, research, and marketing techniques to assist their clients in developing career options and industry alternatives that match their goals and objectives.

If you decide to seek the assistance of a career consultant, you should compare and evaluate several firms. Check on their reputations, staff experience and credentials before choosing one. Carefully read the written contract, check with the Better Business Bureau, and verify the company's expertise in your area.

The credentials of the consultant staff is of special importance. You certainly wouldn't expect to take a commercial flight with a big airline company only to discover that your pilot has not yet received his FAA certifications. The same should be true in selecting a career consulting firm. Are their consultants credentialed by the Career Masters Institute (an external, independent organization that provides rigorous credentialing for only the best in the industry)? Are they certified by the Professional Resume Writing and Research Association?

You also need to understand that your own involvement is critical to the success of any job search program.

While each individual program can emphasize specific individual needs, the following eight areas are important to every effective job search:

1. FOCUS ON DIRECTION

What do you really want to do? Answering this question is a vital preliminary to establishing a career position. Education, experience, current market trends, desired geographic location, and your goals and desires are all critical to establishing a proper career focus. Career consultants combine testing, analysis of past industry experience and accomplishments, research data, knowledge of the current market, and in-depth, personal consultation to determine with the client what future career path will be best.

2. WRITTEN MATERIALS

How well do you present yourself in writing?

A career consultant skilled in marketing strategy coordinates with the client in writing creative marketing materials that project the client's current and future value to an employer. These materials can include resumes, executive portfolios, promotional literature, Web sites, and tailored marketing letters addressing specific opportunities in the market.

3. RESEARCH

Where do you locate the best company or industry to target your job search?

There is nothing mysterious about market research -- if you have the time and the knowledge to find the required information. Unfortunately, most career seekers have neither. There are thousands of databases and books each with their own selection criteria. To locate companies based on size, location, product/services, growth, sales volumes. And financial data involves cross-referencing, four to five different sources.

If the target is growth companies, information usually is not found in traditional sources, which requires that the research be expanded to include magazines, periodicals, business newsletters, and other sources.

Research can also ferret out unadvertised job opportunities.

4 INTERVIEWING

What do you do to best prepare for face-to-face interviewing?

Interviewing is selling and no professional would ever go on a sales call without detailed preparation. Yet career seekers do it constantly. They oversell their needs, undersell their value, fail to address corporate concerns and have very little idea how to create corporate positions.

Training the client to develop and control interviews, handle sensitive questions, and directly influence people is a major component of the service a professional career consultant provides.

4. NEGOTIATION

How do you position yourself to win the best possible compensation package?

A person's future within an organization is often determined by the way he or she initially handles salary negotiations. And yet, it is extremely difficult to negotiate effectively for yourself.

First, many people do not know what they can ask for or what is available in terms of benefits, options and long-term agreements. Second, there is the justifiable concern that if handled incorrectly, negotiations could result in loss of an offer. Career consultants advise you on negotiating a total compensation package.

6. ENTREPRENEURS

Should you consider self employment?

Statistics indicate Americans are venturing into owning their own businesses in record numbers. The rewards can be enticing but the pitfalls are deadly.

Some career consulting services can help a client assess a business venture, provide consultation on financial options and help the client to structure a business plan.

7. A PRESONAL MARKETING PLAN

What is your overall approach to marketing your career?

Similar to a business plan, a marketing plan addresses the entire process required to implement an effective professional job search. Consultants provide assignments, time parameters, goals, and scheduled meetings to give the client structure and confidence throughout the entire process. This plan becomes an essential guideline when entering the highly competitive job market at a critical and emotional time in the client's life.

8. EMOTIONAL SUPPORT

How do you deal with the pressure?

For many people seeking employment or a career, the job search is very stressful. First, there is fear of the unknown -- meeting strangers, initiating phone calls, explaining recent setbacks. The greatest fear of all is rejection by the interviewer. Add to this the fear of an unpredictable economy that directly affects spouses, children, current financial requirements, and the possibility of relocation. All of these factors can lead to a loss of self esteem. Once again, a skilled consultant will address these emotional concerns that, left unchecked, can have an extremely negative emotional impact on the entire process.

The result of using a professional career consultant throughout the job search process may be a shorter, less stressful job search, thousands of dollars in increased income, and much higher job security and satisfaction.

LTC Donald B. Skipper, USA (Ret.) has been associated with the military to civilian transition process as a senior consultant for 22 years and is currently the CEO of Career Beginnings, Inc. He is a Credentialed Career Master, Certified Employment Interview Consultant, and Certified Electronic Career Coach. Don is an active member of the Professional Resume Writing and Research Association, the Association of Job Search Trainers, and the Career Master's Institute. You may visit with him at [http://www.nofeartransitions.us]

The Himachal Jaggery industry provide employment to people from UP

Production of cane sugar in the Himachal Pradesh Sirmour District is providing employment to hundreds of workers from the neighbouring State of Uttar Pradesh.

Workers said that they don't have much employment in Uttar Pradesh.

"In our State, we do not get daily employment. So, we have to come to Himachal and must spend five months working here. We are not able to find work in our State, "said Mohan, a worker.

Another worker added that for five months, they migrate to Himachal Pradesh, to employment in jaggery units for their livelihood.

"Our work continues for five months and cane sugar is sold to nearby villages and left over cane sugar is delivered to local ration shops and also sold to the locals for use in households," said Setpal, another worker.

Thanks to the less availability of sugar cane for sugar cane, units have also influenced the production of cane sugar outages in Uttar Pradesh.

Sugar cane farming is done in 6500 hectares of land, mainly in Kangra and Una districts Sirmour. On an average, almost 50,000 tonnes of sugar cane produced in the State. (ANI)

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How People Really Explore New Careers: What Does A Real Career Search Look Like?

The traditional model of career choice suggests a linear pattern. Get to know yourself. Learn your kills and talents. Explore careers that seem to best utilize your talents and skills. Today, both research and experience suggest that real career change doesn't happen this way.

What's real? Serendipity and zig-zag patterns

Contemporary researchers find that nearly every career path involves an element of serendipity. John Krumboltz of Stanford University published several articles on this topic in respected journals.

Herminia Ibarra's research at Harvard Business School demonstrated that career change tends to follow a zig-zag pattern rather than a straight line, with two steps forward and one step back. She found limited value in extended introspection and self-analysis. See her book Working Identity.

What about testing?

Career coaches and counselors are divided on the subject of tests. Some insist that all their clients undergo a battery of tests. Others dismiss tests entirely. One career counselor says, "I can learn more about a person from astrology than from any personality tests." One coach asks clients to define themselves as "earth, wind, fire or water."

Before you pay for testing, I encourage you to ask what you hope to gain from the time and money you invest. Be aware of the limits on what tests can do for you. After all, if you could just take a battery of tests to forecast your future, we wouldn't hear from so many job-frustrated people!

So why don't tests have all the answers?

A job is much more than a series of skills. Every career or profession includes an ambience - style, working conditions, flexibility of time. Often it's not the work itself that drives people out of the field. It's the "other stuff."

Take teaching, for example. You love kids and want to work with them and you don't mind earning less than your corporate counterparts. Your workday ends at three and you get summers off. You get a decent pension and great benefits.

However, that's not the whole story.

Your day begins as early as 6:30 AM.

You give up a lot of personal freedom. There's no phone on your desk to make a call home -- and certainly no privacy to talk. A quick trip to the bathroom? Someone has to cover the class. The students go home at three - but you have papers to grade, meetings to attend, and perhaps a rehearsal to direct. Your school district rewards test results, not creative learning.

Another example. Now let's say you like to earn money and solve math problems. Are you ready for a CFO job? Each company has its own culture, of course, but in general the business world values image and style. You have to be comfortable moving through a hierarchy and giving the appearance of respecting authority.

Bottom line: Your aptitudes and values may drive you to teaching, but you will soon be searching for a new career if you are a night person who also values workplace autonomy.

If you have been working a long time, tests often show you are perfect for the job you hold now. After all these years, you've probably internalized values and attitudes of your profession -- and you obviously have enough aptitude to remain employed! Clients frequently come to me after paying hundreds, even thousands of dollars for midlife, mid-career testing. "A waste," they say ruefully.

On the other hand, your college-age children may benefit from testing, especially if they are thoroughly confused about their first career moves. College testing centers often employ high quality professionals because they train counseling students there.

Tests may not help you balance tradeoffs. Your aptitude and values may point you to a nature-loving outdoor career, but you realize there are few jobs available and those won't pay enough to live on. You have to be creative if you're going to make this combination work. The question, "How can I enjoy my love of nature and still earn a good living?" might best be discussed in a series of one-to-one conversations with someone who understands the career jungle.

On the other hand, strong motivation can compensate for low aptitude. In her book Crossing Avalon, Jean Shinoda Bolen writes of her determination to become a doctor, following a strong religious experience just before she entered college.

Bolen easily aced her liberal arts courses but struggled with sciences. At one point she received a midterm "D" grade in a zoology course. Yet she was accepted to a fine medical school and became a respected psychiatrist, Jungian therapist and best-selling author.

In a corporate setting, what appears to be test effectiveness may be self-fulfilling prophecy. MegaBig Corp administers aptitude tests to all applicants for sales positions. Only those who achieve a score of 80 out of 100 are hired. Those who earn 95 or higher are identified as high-potential superstars and sent off to special training. Managers, of course, see scores of their new hires, and they report a strong correlation between sales success and scores.

If you really wanted to test the tests, you'd administer tests to all applicants, hire a sample regardless of scores, and refuse to disclose test scores to supervising managers and trainers. Few companies would be willing to do this.

However, in one study, researchers told high school teachers, "Here is a list of IQ scores for your class." In reality, the "scores" were locker numbers! Those with higher locker numbers mysteriously out-performed those with lower numbers.

The teachers tried to be fair, but anyone who has taped a classroom knows teachers can give subtle cues of approval, disapproval and support. Managers can do the same.

You probably can't refuse to take a corporate test, but you may be in a position to ask some tough questions.

Before you spend money on tests, ask these three questions.

(1) Do you need to take tests to obtain this information? If you've been a successful accountant for ten years, you probably have a knack for numbers and details. However, testing may enhance your confidence if you feel shaky.

Elaine, a top executive in a Fortune 100 company, had been promoted to vice president in a male-dominated specialty. However, Elaine was getting nervous. There were only three or four departments like hers in the entire country and, if her job ended, so would her career.

Elaine visited a career counselor who began with a battery of tests.

"The tests show I'm very organized and I'm a good manager," she reported happily.

Elaine dealt with thousands of pieces of paper each week and had been a highly-paid manager for over ten years. Her friends were not at all surprised by Elaine's test scores. However, Elaine had received little praise or validation from her own management. She wanted those test scores to bolster her confidence as she began her midlife career exploration.

(2) Who will be administering these tests? University counselors work with bewildered undergraduates seeking their first jobs. Outplacement counselors work with experienced corporate executives, many of whom want a job just like the one they left. Find a service where you resemble the other clients.

Tests must be interpreted to be useful. If your counselor starts to gush about your intelligence or creativity, you may indeed be the next Einstein or Michelangelo -- or you may be in the wrong testing center. If your counselor hopes to sell you on follow-up sessions, she'll be highly motivated to come up with a story that leaves you feeling confident and appreciated.

Often test results are written so ambiguously that they could apply to almost anyone -- a frequent critique of both astrology and Myers-Briggs. Overly specific recommendations can be equally useless. What will you do if the tests suggest you should become a police officer or a funeral director?

Have some fun. Pick any of the sixteen Myers-Briggs profiles. Ask a few friends to take a test. Pretend to score the test and then hand your friends the profile you chose at random. Nearly every time, your friends will say, "That's me!"

However, be careful. Studies also show that people have trouble shaking their beliefs in bogus feedback, even when they're told it's bogus.

(3) Who designed these tests?

Some assessments are carefully designed while others have no more value than a light-hearted quiz from a popular magazine.

If you are asked to complete an assessment or test, don't be shy about asking questions. If you want to push some buttons, ask about reliability and validity. Ask whether the test was "normed" on a population that shares your demographic characteristics.

"Self-validation" is a bogus concept. As we have seen, there are many reasons you might say, "That's me! How accurate!"

One skeptic has put together or a solid critique of a popular test, the Myers-Briggs scale.

Bottom Line: Alas, there is no magic genie who can direct you to a new career. Tests may feel more scientific -- but recent career research suggests that career-changers to listen for messages from serendipity and their own intuition. In particular, when learning to navigate a new career world, you need to develop creative strategies that allow you to plan realistically while remaining open to surprises that, ultimately, change your life

I offer one-to-one consultations on career strategy.

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals strategize the First Inning of their Second Career. Learn Why Most Career Change Fails (and how to write your own success story).

Your 21-Day Extreme Career Makeover can start immediately! [http://www.cathygoodwin.com/21days.html]

"Why most career change fails (and how to write your own success story"

Great Careers Ezine

206-819-0989

cathy@cathygoodwin.com

Goodwill places record number of people in jobs in 2011

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Goodwill places record number of people in jobs in 2011  
Tuesday 27 December, 2011 source: Business first

Follow this company posted a record-setting 2,584 people in jobs in 2011, a 36 percent increase from the previous year.
The project number placement is the highest that Goodwill has achieved in its history, which dates from 1923, according to a press release.
The creation, training and placement agency for Kentuckians with disabilities or o ...
UK foreign policy in 2012 is likely to see an extension of that of the past decade, the most capastrophic since the 1930s. Britian's eyeing Burma, Somalia, Syria and Iran.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

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Software AG to hire over 100 people in 2012

Tuesday 6th December, 2011

Software AG to hire over 100 people in 2012   
     Monday 5th December, 2011  Source: Times of India

NEW DELHI: Enterprise software firm Software AG, which expects India to play a major role in the growth of its business in the Asia Pacific region, will add over 100 people to its headcount here to tap the local talent pool.
The company has over 400 people in the country across research and development, consulting and sales functions.
"In 2012, the...
Libya has been liberated largely because of countries like Canada. Hoorah for Canada and its Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose policies have painted him firmly in the image of former United States President George W.Bush.

Breaking News
Tuesday 6th December, 2011

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