I’ve been busy preparing for a speech I’m giving with David Perry on Feb. 27 in Toronto to the ExecuNet networking group, which has kept me away from blogging. But I’m really looking forward to visiting a city warmer than Minneapolis. Also the beer.

As a stopgap until my desk clears enough to write more, here’s a link to 5 job-hunting tips from U.S. News & World Report.

 Best bit:

Offer to help others. Stay in regular contact with your network so you’re not asking for a favor once every couple of years, Simpson says. “Periodically pass along a tip or an article,” she says. “Think of it as putting money in the bank.”

If you must contact someone out of the blue, offer something in return, such as an invitation to a lecture or a link to a website that might be of interest, Feldman says. “Chances are, if you had a warm relationship, people are happy to rekindle it,” she says. “If you never had one at all, they might be startled, but they’ll also likely be flattered.”

Related networking tip (from me). One great, simple, FREE way to reconnect with past colleagues and managers is to write them a Recommendation on LinkedIn.com. They will be notified by email automatically, they will instantly think kindly of you, and they will be very motivated to assist you in your job search. Which is nice.

Here’s good employment news from the Chicago Tribune for anyone born after 1960:

In its annual survey, the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University found that while employers are cautious, they plan to make 7 percent more positions available than last year for graduates with a bachelor’s degree.

One reason has nothing to do with the economy, but with Baby Boomers.

“Some companies have 60 percent of their workforce getting ready to retire,” especially in industries such as transportation, education and accounting, said Philip Gardner, director of the institute.

What does this mean for you?

(more…)

Here are two mini-case studies that show you can get hired from people you interviewed with in your past job searches.

Diane Stafford, who writes an excellent job-search column for the Kansas City Star, offers this example of a woman you can learn from:

She was hired through contact with a person who previously had interviewed with her for a job at her previous company.

Here’s the extraordinary part: She had rejected that applicant. Yet she’d established a good enough rapport with the rejected applicant that they continued to talk periodically, sharing resources and ideas, since they both worked in the same field.

I hear many sorry tales from job applicants about how they were treated rudely or cavalierly on job interviews. (To be fair, I also hear from interviewers who are appalled at the lack of preparation and courtesy from some job hunters.)

If my correspondent had been dismissive or unpleasant to the applicant she didn’t hire, she might still be in a long-term job search. 

Catch that? This successful job seeker turned down a woman for a job, kept in touch with her, and was recently hired from a contact she made with that applicant she had not hired. I thought I’d heard them all, but I’ve never heard that version of networking.

Simple Lesson: If you interview candidates but turn them down for a job, do it nicely. They may end up getting YOU hired someday.

Now, here’s another success story, excerpted from my latest job-search column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Lynda H., from Apple Valley, Minn., interviewed with a Fortune 500 company in Minneapolis last year. They offered her a job, but rescinded when the departing employee, whose position Lynda was to fill, decided not to quit after all.

What would you have done?

Here’s what Lynda did.

“I included people from past job searches in my current search, including one company I interviewed with a year ago. Getting back in touch with them was as simple as picking up the phone and calling the executive I had talked to last year. It turned out that he had assumed more responsibilities, and the position they were hiring for now reported to him. Because I had developed a rapport with him last year, it was easy to get my resume to the top of the pile, schedule the interview and land the job!”

Simple Lesson: Write down the names of every company you interviewed with in your last job search. Then, make a plan to contact each this week to tell them about your current search, and why you’re a more valuable potential employee than the last time you spoke.

These networking tips are based on what you’ll find in my free Simple Job Search Manifesto.

Turn on any TV set, open any newspaper, look at any news web site and the one word you’re most likely to see these days is RECESSION.

Now.

Technically, the last U.S. recession, defined as “a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters,” lasted less than one year, from 2000 to 2001.

Yet, that hasn’t stopped the mainstream media from predicting a recession pretty much every year since.

You know the old saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day? Well, I get the distinct feeling that the most of the news outlets are broken clocks when it comes to telling us that it’s time to PANIC about housing prices, FEAR unemployment and generally WORRY about all things economic.

(more…)

The average job search takes 17.5 weeks — about 4.5 months — according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But does 1/2 the length of a pregnancy seem like too long to transform your life? Because that’s what your next job will do — transform your life. Whether it’s for better or worse, for more salary or less, is up to you. Why not invest a few days this week in some DEEP thinking about your job search, so that 1) you’ll transform your life for the better and 2) not need to spend 4.5 months looking for that job!

As outlined in my free Simple Job Search Manifesto, here are two questions you need to answer before you start an effective job search:

(more…)