plus 3, Job seekers hit Career Expo - WRAL

Job seekers hit Career Expo - WRAL
Minnesota's online job search and career planning tools ... - Minnpost.com
Looking for a job? The UCSC Career Center is here to ... - UC Santa Cruz
Career Tool for Job Seekers and Employers Now Available ... - PRWeb

Posted: 21 Apr 2010 11:28 PM PDT

Raleigh, N.C. — The Capital Area JobLink Career Expo offered job seekers resources, assistance and a chance to meet with hiring managers from Triangle-area businesses on Tuesday.

Shelley Bower, who was laid off by Wake County about four months ago, was among the hundreds that crowded into the Raleigh Convention Center hoping to find a job through the expo.

"It's a tough world. It's a tough situation right now," she said. "There's a job around the corner. I just haven't been in the right place, haven't made the right connections."

Job seekers were able to get resume advice from professionals and, if they had the resume on a removable disk, were able use computers on site to fix any mistakes before meeting with potential employers.

WATCH VIDEO
Job seekers attend Career Expo in Raleigh

Earl Rezendes was laid off from his engineering firm job nine months ago. He describes searching for a job as "very nerve-wracking," adding that having too much work experience might be hurting him.

"With 30 years experience, with the market the way it is right now, I'm finding it very difficult for people to be willing to interview you for a lesser position," he said.

Fair organizers said they are planning a similar event this fall.

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Minnesota's online job search and career planning tools ... - Minnpost.com

Posted: 21 Apr 2010 11:56 PM PDT

Minnesota may be known for its lakes and loons, grumpy old men on ice, medical devices and mosquitoes, but it's also becoming nationally recognized for innovative online employment and career self-help tool

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) developed a one-stop website, Job Skills Transfer Assessment Tool (JobSTAT), that knits together a rich set of different databases — from skill-matching tools and salary information for particular jobs, to hot jobs in demand, green jobs and actual job openings posted by employers around the state.

Launched April 1, the site has attracted positive attention from several other states as well as the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).

DEED — which has managed DOL's national job search website, CareerOneStop, for more than a decade — was recently awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to enhance the national site, adding many of the same features as Minnesota's website, as well as additional features.

Minnesota's JobSTAT: Answers from different databases
As the economy lurched into the deepest recession in decades, Minnesota's jobless numbers swelled and the states' 49 workforce center offices were swamped with the newly unemployed. Steve Hine, director of research for labor market information at DEED, imagined that those newly unemployed were walking into those workforce centers with lots of questions:

What other jobs and careers am I qualified for with my experience and skills? What's the salary range for a particular job? Are jobs growing or declining for the new career I'm interested in? What education is required and where can I find courses that will help me quality for a new career? What jobs in my field are available near where I live?

Hine also knew his department was sitting on top of "different buckets of information" that could help a job seeker answer those questions. One site contained tools to match the skills learned on one job with the requirements in a different job. Another site contained national and regional salary information for various occupations. A third site listed "occupations in demand," and a separate site contained job openings posted by Minnesota employers.

As job hunting, career searches, resume posting and applications become almost exclusively web-based, even for entry level positions, online databases and tools can seem scattered, difficult to use and confusing, even for the computer savvy. Hine recognized that there was no easy way to sort through all the information and evaluate career options. But with pressing priorities elsewhere, the department "never had an opportunity to pull it all together in a way that made sense for the user," Hine said.

With the rapid rise in unemployment, he recognized a need to "break down the silos of information ... [and] put it together in a package" providing useful, timely and accurate information in an easily accessible way for Minnesota job seekers.

But it was the aggressive marketing pitch by an outside vendor trying to sell the state an online job-matching tool that finally motivated Hine to act. "The tool was limited," he said. Designed to quickly place people into jobs, it eliminated options where someone "might need to brush up on skills or take a course ... [and] led to downward mobility," Hine observed.

After the presentation, Hine was asked for his reaction, and he said his department could come up with a better alternative for less money.

"Darned if they didn't take me up on it!" he said.

With federal stimulus funding available, Hine was able to pull together a small team working in collaboration with the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) to develop the rich tool Hine had envisioned for job seekers. The part-time effort began last fall and cost about $25,000 in staff time, Hine estimates, compared with the annual $100,000 fee the private vendor had been asking for the more limited product.

Minnesota managing national job search site
With the recent multi-million dollar contract to enhance the Labor Department's Career OneStop site, DEED will add unique features and improve its ease of use and accessibility for a wide population of users, according to Mike Ellsworth, OneStop project manager at DEED.

"There has been a sea change," Ellsworth said, contrasting the current web-based job-hunting environment with the past. With most job postings online and many companies no longer accepting paper resumes or applications, the web is where employers and prospective employees come together. "Unfortunately, not everybody is as web-equipped as they might be to use on line job searches," he observed.

While the state's 49 workforce centers all have computers for job seekers to use, the demand has forced some centers to limit access to no more than 30 minutes, Ellsworth said. In addition, some applicants need training in order to be able to use a computer at all. As a result, the online tools developed need to be accessible to "the lowest common denominator," with minimal computer skills and content written to a sixth-grade reading level, he said.

Ellsworth also plans extensive usability testing, both for the Minnesota JobSTAT site and the new national site.

He describes a laid-off auto worker who may be thinking, "I lost my job. It's not coming back. What can I do?" The site, Ellsworth said, will help workers explore new career options where skills from one job might transfer to a different field.

Ellsworth said the tool is designed not just for job seekers and job counselors:

• Businesses will be able to use the tool to evaluate skill requirements of a current and future workforce.

• An economic development agency faced with an employer leaving town can use the tool to identify other potential industries that might make use of a trained workforce.

• And community organizations can use the tool to plan skills development and encourage upward mobility for their clients.

The site will pull information from employer-posted job openings in 48 state job banks into one comprehensive job bank. In addition, Ellsworth's team is creating a unique database of certification programs available and will integrate national, regional and metropolitan area salary information drawn from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Another unique feature Ellsworth hopes to add is a user account capability, so job-seekers can save and print out the results of their own research.

One feature in the state JobSTAT database that Ellsworth hopes to replicate is a listing of "green industry" jobs, although he acknowledges the difficulty in defining what constitutes a green job. He expects the DOL to announce the first phase by Labor Day with enhancements rolling out through next spring.

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Looking for a job? The UCSC Career Center is here to ... - UC Santa Cruz

Posted: 16 Apr 2010 09:08 AM PDT

Administrative Message

April 16, 2010

To: UCSC Students

From: Barbara Silverthorne, Career Center Acting Director

Re: Looking for a job? The UCSC Career Center is here to help!

Are you feeling stressed about finding a job? The Career Center is here to help. We provide you with solid leads on employers seeking to hire UCSC students. Right now, we have over 400 jobs/internship listings in SlugQuest including part-time, full-time and internships.

Did you know that 80% of all jobs are attained through networking? Learn how to develop and expand your "Real World Networking" abilities. Tap into the hidden job market through Informational Interviewing.

An effective job search follows three steps: http://careers.ucsc.edu/student/search_strategies.html". Visit the Career Center on-line or in person for Job Search Strategies and Job Search Resources. Take action now!

Increase your chance of securing the job you want by:

1) Using the Career Center to assist you with your applications, cover letters, resumes and interview skills.
2) Participating in on-campus recruiting events such as: All Majors Job and Internship Fair April 27th ?11am-3pm?College 9/10 Multi-Purpose Room
View the job fair preparation video

3) Networking using Informational Interviewing techniques.

Visit the Career Center on the Third Floor of the Bay Tree Building or careers.ucsc.edu

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Career Tool for Job Seekers and Employers Now Available ... - PRWeb

Posted: 20 Apr 2010 04:45 AM PDT

A newly available mobile tool is connecting would-be workers with career choices that match their interests and personalities. Self-Directed Search® Mobile (SDS Mobile) helps job seekers pinpoint fulfilling careers.

Lutz, Fla. (PRWEB) April 20, 2010 -- A newly available mobile tool is connecting would-be workers with career choices that match their interests and personalities. The SDS Mobile takes the original SDS career assessment tool and makes it accessible via any internet-enabled smart phone.

The SDS Mobile is a simulated career counseling experience that enables individuals to choose careers and fields of study that best match their self-reported skills, interests and values. The assessment includes questions about aspirations, activities, competencies, occupations and other self-estimates. The new tool is designed for:

The original SDS was featured in a four-part series on Good Morning America in 2008, when the program's anchors completed the test and worked a day in one of the professions the tool identified for them.

The cost to complete the SDS Mobile is $4.95, which includes a detailed report of results. The test takes 20-30 minutes to complete. The original SDS has been used by 30-million people and is available in 25 languages. Its results have been supported by more than 500 research studies.

About PAR, Inc.
Founded in 1978, PAR is a leading publisher of assessment instruments, software, and other related materials. Over the past three decades, PAR has earned a reputation for providing customers with innovative assessment solutions and unparalleled customer service.

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