plus 2, Poor Credit Can Hurt Job-Hunters - The Ledger

Poor Credit Can Hurt Job-Hunters - The Ledger
How students can improve chances for finding a job in 2011 - Walletpop.com
How to Use Twitter to Land a Job - US News and World Report

Poor Credit Can Hurt Job-Hunters - The Ledger

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 02:22 AM PDT

Published: Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, October 15, 2010 at 5:28 p.m.

Watch TV for long and you'll see a commercial about the importance of monitoring your credit number.

Job hunters, pay attention. Nearly half of employers say they include consumer credit checks in some of their pre-employment investigations.

According to congressional testimony last month by the Society for Human Resource Management, credit checks are a useful tool to "assess the skills, abilities, work habits and integrity of potential hires."

That stance understandably grates on job hunters whose credit ratings have fallen not because they were perennial bad money managers, but because they didn't have paychecks for a long time.

According to the society, only 20 percent of employers conduct credit checks on all applicants, but those that use them believe they're worthwhile insights into candidates' qualifications.

A bill in the U.S. House would amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to ban the use of credit checks on prospective and current employees for employment purposes, with some notable exceptions.

The Equal Employment for All Act would prohibit such use of credit information except for jobs that require national security or Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. clearance, for state or local government agencies that require the use of consumer reports, or for supervisory or professional positions at financial institutions.

The Society for Human Resource Management said 57 percent of employers who do credit checks do them only after contingent offers, while 30 percent do them after job interviews.

Most employers said they would look at the past four to seven years of a credit history.

The Fair Credit act already requires employers to inform applicants if a credit-related issue caused them to be rejected from consideration.

Sixty-five percent of employers in a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management said they allow job candidates to explain their credit results before the hiring decision is made. About 22 percent said they allow explanations after the hiring decision is made.

FYI: Illinois, Oregon, Hawaii and Washington have passed laws to prevent employers from using credit checks as a filter in hiring decisions.

[ Diane Stafford is the workplace and careers columnist at The Kansas City Star. ]

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

How students can improve chances for finding a job in 2011 - Walletpop.com

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 06:27 AM PDT

a young man shake's a job interviewer's hand

Students graduating in 2011 should start updating their resumes and practicing for interviews, if a recent report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers is to be believed. The report states that the employment outlook for the class of 2011 is more positive than the outlook was for the class of 2010.

Mike Caldwell, the acting director of career development at Grinell College in Iowa, said employers are more optimistic about hiring employees this year than last.

"Last year employers were very uncertain about their hiring needs going into the upcoming year," Caldwell said.

He said that employers are looking to fill some positions quickly. "What we're seeing is employers are hiring and they're turning over positions quickly," he said.

Caldwell recommends that students should do a couple things to prepare themselves for finding a job after graduation. First, he said, students should set up RSS feeds or e-mail alerts on job posting websites. "That way they can get job postings sent directly to them," he said. Some colleges like Grinell have databases that their students can use to find job postings.

Caldwell also recommended that students use their winter and summer breaks to connect with alumni and professionals in their chosen industry.

"We find that most alumni, most professionals, are willing to talk to students who are trying to figure things out for themselves," he said.

Caldwell said the best way to do that is to let professionals and alumni know who you are and that you'd be very interested in speaking to them about their career path.

Once that's complete, he said students should specialize their resumes and cover letters for each employer. "Make sure when the employer reads the application it makes sense to the employer and they can say 'I can understand why this person is applying to my company or my organization,'" he said.

Once the resume is complete he said students should initiate contact with an employer and let them know that they are interested in a position. Caldwell said students should focus on one or two employers at first to develop a relationship with them rather than blanketing their resumes over dozens of employers

He also advises that students, when looking for letters of recommendation, should work with the writer of the letter in its creation. He said once the writer creates the basic letter the student can ask to specialize it based on the employer and industry he or she wants to work in.

Practicing interviewing skills is also important. When employers ask "What can you bring to this company," Caldwell said students should relate their past experiences to the job they are applying for and what those experiences enable them to bring to the company.

Finally, Caldwell said getting an early start on the process is important. "Definitely, starting early is one of the primary points I'm talking with students about right now," he said.

How to Use Twitter to Land a Job - US News and World Report

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:58 AM PDT

Are you using Twitter for your job search? If you have yet to see results, don't give up! Using the social-networking tool, you can find real jobs and connect with real people who are hiring.

One of Twitter's most useful aspects is the access it provides you. Recruiters, HR representatives, hiring managers, and executives all use Twitter on a daily basis. Unlike an online job posting where you can only apply via the information provided, Twitter allows you to interact with these people directly by sending them an @ reply or a direct message. Your resume is much more likely to be seen and seriously considered if you've interacted with a company representative rather than applying to a job post along with hundreds of other job seekers.

Tips to get noticed and hired on Twitter:

• Create a user-friendly profile. Use your real name and keep your Twitter ID professional. Use the biography to tell the world what you do. Your goal is to be found and followed by like-minded people. Make it easy for others to follow your updates or follow you back.

• Use the website field to link to your online resume. Consider using a service like VisualCV that allows you to post and share your resume online. If you don't have a digital version of your resume, use your LinkedIn profile as your website.

[ See 11 Insider Tips From the HR Department.]

• Keep your updates public. There's an option to have public or private updates on Twitter. If the purpose of your Twitter account is to meet people and potentially find your next job, keeping your updates private defeats the purpose. You need an open profile so other users can search for your tweets and easily find you. Recruiters use keywords and hashtag searches (which group tweets by topic) through the Twitter search function to find potential candidates for open positions.

• Find jobs using hastags. Use the integrated Twitter search feature or a third-party applications like TweetDeck to search for keywords or hastags. Hashtags are words with a # prefix. For example, the hashtag #job will yield you the results of every tweet that a user categorized with #job hashtag, but not a tweet that simply says "I'm on my way to my new job."

People use hashtags on Twitter to categorize the subject of the tweet and make it searchable. Research the hashtags people use to categorize job openings or job-search advice, like #jobs or #jobsearch, as well as hashtags for your specific industry, and set up an automatic search for all tweets with those hashtags. You can also use hashtags to join a conversation about certain subjects and interact with other people using that hashtag.

[See 7 Sites That Will Help You Get Hired.]

• Follow people who work in your industry or companies that interest you. Interacting and building relationships with people who are already working at those companies may help you uncover job openings that aren't posted on popular job boards.

• Use Twitter lists to find new people to follow. This will will help you discover relevant information about your search, as well as more contacts. You can make your own lists to filter information only from people on that list or follow other people's lists to see people and content you wouldn't see in your own stream.

• Be consistent. Posting regular updates takes time, but not so much that you can't easily post an update or two a day. Also find time to interact with the people you follow and scan your automatic searches.

[For more career advice, visit U.S. News Careers.]

• Promote others before promoting yourself. Blatant self-promotion and a Twitter stream full of self-concerned updates is a big turnoff. You want to share information about yourself and use it to help you, but you also need to help others to gain and maintain an active following. Share interesting information and links. Promote others through retweets, or tweeting what they've tweeted, to recognize their efforts, add value to your community and join conversations.

Lindsay Olson is a founding partner and recruiter with Paradigm Staffing, a national search firm that specializes in placing public relations and communications professionals. She blogs at LindsayOlson.com, where she discusses recruiting and job search issues.