The “Great Resignation”

By; Noreen Malone – New York Times (I read this yesterday and thought it a great take to share on employment in the post COVID world)

I used to think of my job as existing in its own little Busytown — as in the Richard Scarry books, where there’s a small, bright village of workers, each focused on a single job, whose paths all cross in the course of one busy, busy day. In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, I would see the same person at the Myrtle Avenue bus stop several days a week and imagine where he was going with his Dell laptop bag and black sneakers. I’d buy coffee from a rotating cast of the same baristas at the cafe on the third floor of my office building, where I worked as an editor at a magazine. I’d stop to chat with another editor, whose office was on the other side of the wall from mine; sometimes, she would motion for me to shut the door, and we would say what we really thought about some piece of minor professional gossip, important to at most about 3.5 people in the world. I would watch my boss walk toward a meeting with his boss and wonder whether their chat would wind up affecting my job.

We all mostly worked on computers, typing in documents and sending emails to the person on the other side of a cubicle wall, but there was a bustle to the whole endeavor. It was a little terrarium where we all spent 50 hours a week, and we filled it with office snacks and bathroom outfit compliments and after-work drinks. Even on a day when nothing much happened professionally, there was the feeling of having worked, of playing your part in an ecosystem.

Every job had its own Busytown. Although no one in the broader world wanted to talk about, say, cost-cutting strategies for a potential new client, you could find someone in your Busytown who was just as preoccupied about it as you were. In Scarry’s actual Busytown, meanwhile, the world is populated by people (OK, animals) who find it very easy to explain their jobs. They’re policemen and grocers and postmen and doctors and nurses. When the pandemic hit, the people with those Scarry-style jobs had to keep going to work. Their Busytowns rolled on. And actually, those jobs got harder.

Everyone else has lost all touch with theirs. They log on to Slack and Zoom, where their co-workers are two-dimensional or avatars, and every day is just like the last one. Depending on what’s happening with the virus, their children might be there again, just as in March 2020, demanding attention and sapping mental energy. The internet is definitely there, always, demanding attention and sapping mental energy. A job feels like just one more incursion, demanding attention and sapping mental energy.

And it didn’t help that, early in the pandemic, all jobs were pointedly rebranded: essential or nonessential. Neither label feels good. There is still plenty of purpose to be found in a job that isn’t in one of the helper professions, of course. But “nonessential” is a word that invites creeping nihilism. This thing we filled at least eight to 10 hours of the day with, five days a week, for years and decades, missed family dinners for … was it just busy work? Perhaps that’s what it was all along.

For the obviously essential workers — I.C.U. nurses, pulmonologists — the burden of being needed is a costly one. The word “burnout,” promiscuously applied these days, was in fact coined to diagnose exhaustion in medical workers (in a more quaint time, when we weren’t heading into the third year of a multiwave global pandemic). And meanwhile, a vast majority of people deemed essential have jobs like Amazon warehouse worker or cashier. To be told that society can’t function without you, and that you must risk your health to come in, while other people push around marketing reports from home — often for much more money — it becomes difficult not to wonder if “essential” is cynical, a polite way of classing humans as “expendable” or “nonexpendable.”

Teachers, who happen to be both highly unionized and college-educated, haven’t taken kindly to being on the expendable end of the equation, asked to work in person with tiny people who aren’t good at distancing and masking and have spent the past years cooped up. In early January, I read an article in The Times about the drama between the Chicago teachers’ union and the city over in-person instruction. When classes were abruptly canceled, a mother who worked as a bank teller had taken her child in for day care, provided by nonunionized school employees. (Day care workers: even further down the ugly new caste lines than teachers.) “I understand they want to be safe, but I have to work,” the bank teller said of her child’s teachers. “I don’t understand why they are so special.” This kind of comparison can curdle people’s relationships to one another — and to their own jobs.

Essential or nonessential, remote or in person, almost no one I know likes work very much at the moment. The primary emotion that a job elicits right now is the determination to endure: If we can just get through the next set of months, maybe things will get better.

The act of working has been stripped bare. You don’t have little outfits to put on, and lunches to go to, and coffee breaks to linger over and clients to schmooze. The office is where it shouldn’t be — at home, in our intimate spaces — and all that’s left now is the job itself, naked and alone. And a lot of people don’t like what they see.

THERE ARE TWO kinds of stories being told about work right now. One is a labor-market story, and because that’s a little dull and quite confusing, it’s mixed up with the second one, which is about the emotional relationship of American workers to their jobs and to their employers. The Great Resignation is the phrase that has been used, a little incorrectly, to describe each story.

It’s true that we’re in the midst of a “quitagion,” as this paper has jauntily termed it, citing the record number of people (4.5 million) who gave notice in November alone. An estimated 25 million people left their jobs in the second half of 2021; it’s all but certain that this is the highest U.S. quit rate since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking those numbers in 2000.

The labor market, as economists like to say, is tight: Employment statistics are strong and getting stronger. Despite inflation, real income is up across all income levels. It’s a remarkable turnaround, following the early pandemic’s horrific job losses, which disproportionately affected the lowest earners and those with little job security. Many of the recent quitters have been on the lower part of the income ladder. They’re getting or seeking better work, for more money, because they can. And that kind of labor market means at least some lower-income workers get to think about their jobs the way the white-collar class more traditionally has, as something that needs to work for them, rather than the other way around.

But those top-line numbers obscure a muddier truth. After the latest employment numbers were released in February (which seemed to show remarkable job growth and an unemployment rate of 4 percent), one B.L.S. economist took to his Substack to call it the “most complicated job report ever.” In addition to those workers trying to trade their way into objectively better jobs, millions of others have simply left the work force — because they’re sick, or taking care of children, or retiring, or just plain miserable.

The precise reasons are a little mysterious. The jobs recovery isn’t spread evenly across industries, nor is the quit rate. Staffing levels in the leisure and hospitality sectors are still 10 percent lower than they were prepandemic, and according to December’s job report, people who work in hotels and restaurants are the most likely to have quit. Eight percent of all jobs in health care are open right now. There are almost 400,000 fewer health care workers now than there were before the pandemic. As LinkedIn’s chief economist put it to CBS News, “It may not just be worth it for some folks.”

Even among the people who were technically employed, a sizable number were unable to work because of child care issues or sick leave. Add to that the fact that many people who would prefer full-time work with benefits are still working on employers’ terms, which means part-time, unstable employment, as The Times’s Noam Scheiber recently reported. And if you dig into the quit numbers for higher-wage workers, it’s still hardly about people going on “Eat, Pray, Love” journeys. The full picture just isn’t that rosy.

It’s also not entirely a fluke of this moment. For decades, job productivity has been increasing while real wages haven’t. People were already stretched thin. The writer Anne Helen Petersen, who has made a specialty of truffle-hunting for the millennial internet’s preoccupations, recently wrote a book about professional-class burnout based on a viral 2019 BuzzFeed article she wrote on the same subject. (Her lead personal example involved not getting around to having her knives sharpened.) I was in a particularly stressful moment of a management job at the time and would Google the symptoms of burnout late at night, on a private browser screen. But I was allergic to people talking ostentatiously about it, and I was embarrassed by the indulgence of the language, or, maybe, what I saw as the self-importance of it.

Now, though, it’s as if our whole society is burned out. The pandemic may have alerted new swaths of people to their distaste for their jobs — or exhausted them past the point where there’s anything to enjoy about jobs they used to like.

Perhaps that’s why the press is filled with stories about widespread employee dissatisfaction; last month a Business Insider article declared that companies “are actively driving their white-collar workers away by presuming that employees are still thinking the way they did before the pandemic: that their jobs are the most important things in their lives,” and pointed to a Gallup poll that showed that last year only a third of American workers said they were engaged in their jobs.

At Amazon, in its managerial ranks, employee departures have reached what is being seen as a “crisis” level, according to Bloomberg’s Brad Stone. (A source told him that the turnover rate was as high as 50 percent in some groups, although Amazon disputes this.) One woman, leaving her job, posted in an internal listserv she started called Momazonian, which has more than 5,000 members. “While it has been an incredibly rewarding place to work, the pressure often feels relentless and at times, unnecessary,” she wrote, in a Jerry Maguire screed for the careful networker set; she also copied senior vice presidents and some board members.

It’s not an accident that it was the moms’ affinity group where she aired that feeling. A McKinsey study from last year showed that 42 percent of women feel burned out, compared with 32 percent in 2020. (For men, it jumped to 35 percent from 28 percent.) At the beginning of the pandemic, the working world lost more than 3.5 million mothers, according to the Census Bureau; and the National Women’s Law Center found that in early 2021, women’s labor-force participation was at a 33-year-low, returning us all the way back to the era when “Working Girl” was revolutionary. Many of those women haven’t come back.

So the numbers are bad enough. But then there’s the way the hard facts of the economy interact with our emotions. Consider this theory: that the current office ennui was simply the inevitable backlash to the punishing culture of the previous decade’s #ThankGodItsMonday culture. And furthermore, sometime around the rise of #MeToo (and after Donald Trump’s election), ambition began to seem like a mug’s game. The enormous personal costs of getting to the top became clear, and the potential warping effects of being in charge also did. It wasn’t just the bad sexually harassing bosses who were fired but the toxic ones, too, and soon enough we began to question the whole way power in the office worked. What started out as a hopeful moment turned depressing fast. Power structures were interrogated but rarely dismantled, a middle ground that left everyone feeling pretty bad about the ways of the world. It became harder to trust anyone who was your boss and harder to imagine wanting to become one. Covid was an accelerant, but the match was already lit.

Recently, I stumbled across the latest data on happiness from the General Social Survey, a gold-standard poll that has been tracking Americans’ attitudes since 1972. It’s shocking. Since the pandemic began, Americans’ happiness has cratered. The graph looks like the heart rate has plunged and they’re paging everyone on the floor to revive the patient. For the first time since the survey began, more people say they’re not too happy than say they’re very happy.

The plague, the death, the supply chain, long lines at the post office, the collapse of many aspects of civil society might all play a role in that statistic. But in his classic 1951 study of the office-working middle class, the sociologist C. Wright Mills observed that “while the modern white-collar worker has no articulate philosophy of work, his feelings about it and his experiences of it influence his satisfactions and frustrations, the whole tone of his life.” I remember a friend once saying that although her husband wasn’t depressed, he hated his job, and it was effectively like living with a depressed person.

After the latest job report, the economist and Times columnist Paul Krugman estimated that people’s confidence in the economy was about 12 points lower than it ought to have been, given that wages were up. As the pandemic drags on, either the numbers aren’t able to quantify how bad things have become or people seem to have persuaded themselves that things are worse than they actually are.

IT’S NOT IN just the data where the words “job satisfaction” seem to have become a paradox. It’s also present in the cultural mood about work. Not long ago, a young editor I follow on Instagram posted a response to a question someone posed to her: What’s your dream job? Her reply, a snappy internet-screwball comeback, was that she did not “dream of labor.” I suspect that she is ambitious. I know that she is excellent at understanding the zeitgeist.

It is in the air, this anti-ambition. These days, it’s easy to go viral by appealing to a generally presumed lethargy, especially if you can come up with the kind of languorous, wry aphorisms that have become this generation’s answer to the computer-smashing scene in “Office Space.” (The film was released in 1999, in the middle of another hot labor market, when the unemployment rate was the lowest it had been in 30 years.) “Sex is great, but have you ever quit a job that was ruining your mental health?” went one tweet, which has more than 300,000 likes. Or: “I hope this email doesn’t find you. I hope you’ve escaped, that you’re free.” (168,000 likes.) If the tight labor market is giving low-wage workers a taste of upward mobility, a lot of office workers (or “office,” these days) seem to be thinking about our jobs more like the way many working-class people have forever. As just a job, a paycheck to take care of the bills! Not the sum total of us, not an identity.

Even elite lawyers seem to be losing their taste for workplace gunning. Last year, Reuters reported an unusual wave of attrition at big firms in New York City — noting that many of the lawyers had decided to take a pay cut to work fewer hours or move to a cheaper area or work in tech. It’s happening in finance, too: At Citi, according to New York magazine, an analyst typed “I hate this job, I hate this bank, I want to jump out the window” in a chat, prompting human resources to check on his mental health. “This is a consensus opinion,” he explained to H.R. “This is how everyone feels.”

Things get weird when employers try to address this discontent. Amazon’s warehouse workers have, for the past year, been asked to participate in a wellness program aimed at reducing on-the-job injuries. The company recently came under fire for the reporting that some of its drivers are pushed so hard to perform that they’ve taken to urinating in bottles, and warehouse employees, for whom every move is tracked, live in fear of being fired for working too slowly. But now, for those warehouse workers, Amazon has introduced a program called AmaZen: “Employees can visit AmaZen stations and watch short videos featuring easy-to-follow well-being activities, including guided meditations [and] positive affirmations.” It’s self-care with a dystopian bent, in which the solution for blue-collar job burnout is … screen time.

The cultural mood toward the office even appears in the television shows that knowledge workers obsessed over. Consider “Mad Men,” a show set during the peaking economy of the late 1960s. It was a show that found work romantic. I don’t mean the office affairs. I mean that the characters were in love with their work (or angrily sometimes out of love, but that’s a passion of its own). More than that, their careers and the little dramas of their daily work — the presentations to clients, the office politics — gave their lives a sense of purpose. (At the show’s end, Don Draper went to a resort that looks an awful lot like Esalen to find out the meaning of life, and meditated his way into a transformative … Coke ad campaign.)

Peggy Olson, the striving adwoman on the make, has recently been taken up as the patron saint of quitters. An image of her shows up frequently illustrating articles about people leaving their jobs, sometimes in GIF form. In it, Olson is wearing sunglasses, carrying a box of office stuff. She has a cigarette dangling from her mouth, off to the side for maximum self-assurance. But she isn’t actually quitting in that scene. Instead, she’s walking into a new, better job at a different agency. The swagger she has comes from ambition, not from opting out.

That show was on the air from 2007 to 2015, at the peak of what sometimes gets called hustle culture (and Obama-era optimism). Back then — just before, during and after a psyche-shattering global recession — work had betrayed large swaths of the population, but many (at least those who were better off, for whom the economy recovered much more quickly) took that as inspiration to work harder, to short-circuit the problems of employment with entrepreneurship, or the dreams of it. Start a company! Build a brand! Become a girlboss! (A word that used to be a compliment, not an insult.)

Now, Sunday nights are for “Succession,” the beloved pitch-black workplace drama of the post-Trump nihilistic years. On that show, whose third season recently came to a close, work is a corrupting force. The Roy family is ruined not by their money but by their collective desire to run a conglomerate. Ambition perverts the love between parent and child, husband and wife, brother and sister. Even the from-nothing strivers on the show are ruined by their jobs. It’s a Greek tragedy filtered through the present moment, in which every bit of labor is said to happen under late capitalism, and all the jobs are burnout jobs.

When “Succession” was over, the office workers of America got up off the couch, and they turned off the TV. They dozed off thinking about the psychological abuse the Roys heap on one another and their Waystar Royco underlings, then sat on the same couch Monday morning.

IT’S IMPORTANT TO acknowledge that some people have reacted to this moment by becoming less cynical about the possibilities of work. The broader world is getting darker — climate change, crumbling democracy. It feels impossible to change it. But work? Work could change. An idealistic generation has set about demanding a utopian world, on a local scale, in their own little Busytowns. More diversity, more attention to structural racism, better hours, better boundaries, better leave policies, better bosses.

At some companies, it finally feels as if the old hierarchies are being upended, and the top-paid people are running a little scared of their underlings, rather than the other way around. (No one has much sympathy for managers, and it’s true, as Don Draper once told Peggy Olson, that’s what the money is for. But steering a company through the past few years has been its own particular challenge.)

Confronted with this world, many young people with professional options want to be in solidarity with their colleagues instead of climbing the ladder above them. The meaning that they once found in work is now found in trying to make the workplace itself better. At Authentic, a Democratic consulting firm, some members of the unionized staff are refusing to work a contract serving Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Unionized think-tankers at the Center for American Progress, which tends to serve as a pipeline to coveted roles in Democratic presidential administrations, threatened to strike in mid-February over their wages. Some congressional staff members have begun the process of forming a union.

I’m now on staff at a digital news site that is unionized; I marvel at the fact that I can have a job with a title like “editor at large” and all the benefits that come from union membership. At Google, home of plush offices and free meals, the company formally recognized a union in early 2021 composed of 400 of its highly paid engineers. The professional managerial classes — as Bernie Sanders supporters called that slice of the white-collar work force pejoratively — are in the middle of developing a class consciousness.

So some of the most prestigious offices are organizing, and the college-educated make up a larger slice of the union pie than ever, thanks largely to growth among teachers’ unions. But union membership, more broadly, is at an all-time low. Those warehouse employees at Amazon voted against unionization in Alabama last year. (A federal review board found that Amazon had improperly pressured staff members against forming a union, and ordered a revote, which will take place in five weeks.) Amazon workers might end up voting to join a union. Starbucks employees are starting the process, too. But somehow, workplace protections still seem in danger of becoming one more luxury item that accrues to the privileged.

Perhaps there’s no better example of this than what happened at Goldman Sachs last year. Junior bankers in San Francisco felt alienated over their long hours, what they considered low pay and lack of Seamless stipends while working from home. They made a formal presentation to their office’s top executives, relying on survey data they gathered that showed, for instance, that three-quarters of them felt they had been victims of workplace abuse. It was something a little like collective action by America’s future elite.

One lead organizer of that action was, as Bloomberg reported, the son of the vice chairman of TPG Capital, a private-equity firm. His father, a creature of a previous zeitgeist, got his start working for Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert, the famously competitive (and corrupt) investment bank.

The son’s hostile takeover worked. The Goldman analysts got their base pay raised by nearly 30 percent. New York magazine reported that while at least five of the 13 analysts from the protest cohort in San Francisco had already left Goldman (four of whom were women of color), the bank was having no trouble recruiting college students to join the next class of analysts.

The Goldman raise is a reminder of a cold, hard fact. One that is explained in the very first sentence of Richard Scarry’s “What Do People Do All Day?”: “We all live in Busytown and we are all workers. We work hard so that there will be enough food and houses and clothing for our families.” Work is mainly, really, about making money to live. And then trying to make some more. A boring, ancient story. The future of work might be more like its past than anyone admits.

© 2022 The New York Times Company

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the ‘New’ Work Week

The coronavirus pandemic has transformed the way the world works. Over the past two years, many Americans have reported working longer, taking fewer breaks, and signing on at all hours of the day and night. In fact, many Americans reported working as much as three additional hours each day, Bloomberg reported in 2020. Now all of that’s changing. 

Employees are quitting their jobs at record rates, with many citing burnout and not feeling valued. To attract and retain talent, more companies are adopting a four-day workweek. Panasonic announced a four-day workweek policy earlier this week, Nikkei reported. Earlier this month, San Francisco-based e-commerce startup Bolt adopted a four-day workweek after conducting a trial that execs said increased improved productivity and work-life balance. Other companies and nonprofits have also scrapped the five-day workweek in recent months. 

These changes fuel public discourse over whether the 40-hour workweek still makes sense for employees. Here’s a look back through the history of the 40-hour workweek and how we got to where we are today. 

The history of the 40-hour workweek 

August 20, 1866: A newly formed organization named the National Labor Union asked Congress to pass a law mandating the eight-hour workday. Though their efforts failed, they inspired Americans across the country to support labor reform over the next few decades.

May 1, 1867: The Illinois legislature passed a law mandating an eight-hour workday. Many employers refused to cooperate, and a massive strike erupted in Chicago. That day became known as “May Day.” 

Job Searching with a CORI Record/Criminal History

Recently, I was talking to an acquaintance about her job search and plans for the future. This individual has a checkered past and while the ‘history’ is not recent NOR was it involving any sort of violent behavior, there are many obstacles involved for individuals like her in getting hired with a CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) record. This got me to thinking it might be of value to talk a little bit about how to address it in one’s search for employment.

First of all, some ‘nuts and bolts’ to the topic! Several protections apply when individuals with CORI records seek employment and it’s helpful to know the ground you stand on.

What employers cannot ask:

1) State law prohibits most employers from asking about an applicant’s criminal history on an initial job application. Some employers are permitted to ask about an applicant’s criminal history for jobs that involve working with young children or financial institutions

2) Employers cannot ask an applicant or employee to provide a copy of his or her own criminal offender record information (CORI) or arrest records

3) At any stage of the hiring process, state law prohibits most employers from asking about:

– Criminal cases that did not end in a conviction

– An arrest or detention (e.g. being held at a police station) that did not end in a conviction

– A first conviction for drunkenness, simple assault, speeding, minor traffic violations, affray, or disturbance of the peace

– Convictions for a misdemeanor where the date of the conviction or the release from incarceration was 5 or more years ago, provided there were no subsequent convictions in the last 5 years

– Juvenile records, except for juvenile cases that transferred from the juvenile court to an adult court and where the juvenile was tried as an adult

– Sealed criminal records that can be reported as “no record”

The only time when an employer may ask about criminal convictions is:

1) If the applicant is applying for a position for which certain convictions disqualify the applicant under state or federal law

2) If the employer is prohibited by state or federal law from employing individuals who have been convicted of certain criminal offenses

3) State agencies must wait until the final stage of the hiring process to ask questions about criminal records

What employers are permitted to ask:

After the initial job application, employers can ask an applicant about:

1) Felony convictions at any time

2) Misdemeanor convictions that were not first-time convictions for drunkenness, simple assault, speeding, a minor traffic violation, an affray, or disturbing the peace

3) Employers must obtain an applicant’s written permission before accessing his or her CORI records.

4) If an employer makes an adverse decision based on an applicant’s CORI (e.g. a decision not to hire the applicant), the employer is required to give the applicant notice and provide the applicant with a copy of his or her CORI.

5) If an employer obtains criminal history information through a “consumer report” prepared by a consumer reporting agency and takes any adverse action based on that information obtained, the applicant is entitled to notice and a copy of the report, as well as an opportunity to correct/explain any errors.

When Involving Sealed records:

A job applicant whose criminal records are sealed does not have to provide an employer with any information about the sealed case or charge(s) at any stage of the hiring process.

In response to any inquiries regarding a sealed criminal case or charge, a job applicant may answer that he or she has “No Record.”

Sealed criminal records cannot be used to disqualify an applicant for employment with the Commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof.

Individual review of criminal history information:

Employers that have a policy or practice of automatically rejecting any job applicant with a criminal record may be violating state and federal civil rights laws. Using criminal records in this way can have a disproportionate effect on protected groups, including racial minority groups.

In most cases, employers should conduct an individualized assessment before determining that a particular criminal record disqualifies an individual for a particular job. Considerations generally should include:

1) The facts or circumstances surrounding the offense or conduct

2) The number of offenses for which the individual was convicted

3) Age at the time of conviction, or release from prison

4) Evidence that the individual performed the same type of work, post-conviction, with the same or a different employer, with no known incidents of criminal conduct

5) The length and consistency of employment history before and after the offense or conduct

6) Rehabilitation efforts, such as education or training

7) Employment or character references and any other information regarding fitness for the particular position

So what does this mean for job applicants with past criminal convictions?

A company may have valid reasons for denying employment to an applicant based on his or her past criminal conviction, but if a company rejects a job candidate without considering these factors, it risks a discrimination claim.
Until a discrimination claim is filed, however, it remains only a risk. A job applicant must file an actual discrimination claim against the company to be entitled to relief or a remedy.

As job candidates with criminal backgrounds pursue employment, they should know their rights and discuss their convictions openly with employers when appropriate. Consider this:

• Several states have revised their laws on the expunging of criminal convictions. Depending upon the length of time that has passed since a conviction, individuals might be eligible to have their convictions set aside under state law.

• Some states and local governments have “ban-the-box” laws, which prohibit an employer from asking about convictions early in the application or interview process. If a state or locality has such a law and an employer asks about convictions, it is violating the law. If you are a job candidate in this situation, you should address it with the employer professionally. Use the opportunity to note that the conviction is not relevant to the position you’re applying for and you would be happy to discuss it at the appropriate time in the hiring process.

• The Fair Credit Reporting Act allows job candidates to request a copy of the results of a background check. They can ask for a copy to see what information the employer requested and how far back it looked. If the rejection was based on a conviction listed in the report, the employer must notify the job candidate. This, too, can open a dialogue.

• If employers say their policies do not allow for a job candidate with a criminal background to be considered for employment, they should explain how the candidate’s conviction is relevant, given EEOC guidance. While employers are not required to respond to a request for this information, this will at least give the job candidate a chance to explain the conviction and why it should not be considered in the hiring decision.

The tide has been turning to some degree, and many more employers, especially with a strong economy and labor is tough to find (particularly in the trucking industry), are realizing that some really good talent is being turned away and are committed to getting talent back to work by considering qualified individuals with criminal backgrounds.

But continued progress will take honest conversations. That means a job candidate may need to pre-emptively raise the issue of a conviction. One way to do this is to appeal to the company based on any public support it has expressed for candidates with criminal backgrounds. Applicants can include in a cover letter, for instance, that they are specifically interested in the company because of its public support and then take the opportunity to explain their situation and how their skills and experiences qualify them for the position.

It can be frustrating for those who have paid their debt to society to run into arbitrary roadblocks to employment. But educating themselves on the issues and discussing any hiring concerns openly and professionally with potential employers early in the process can help to reduce barriers to employment.

Job Searching is Difficult – Even in the ‘Best of Times.’

Job hunting is a difficult process! Not only is writing a strong AND tailored resume/CV and crafting a cover letter time-consuming, not to mention challenging, applying for jobs, receiving rejections and attending interviews is a stressful process.  All the time involved in researching positions, organizations and trying to establish how you might align to a particular position or organization can be a huge time consumption!

Even for the most confident person, the uncertainty, time constraints and financial pressure while searching for a new job can take its toll on their mental health. So how can you help manage anxiety and stress while applying for jobs?

Often we apply for jobs that we love the sound of, and we become very attached to the thought of them.  Insofar  as we even start to imagine details like what our commute would be like?  What it would be like working there?  What my colleagues will be like?  How will I set up my office and what will I hang where?   All things that make the possibility of rejection incredibly hard to let go of the idea when it’s a ‘no’ in our inbox.

Rejections are, understandably, taken personally, because, often in the absence of feedback (especially in these times where employer ‘ghosting’ seems to be the norm) we can assume we weren’t good enough and really get into our heads as to all the things that are ‘wrong’ or where qualifications don’t add up?  Facing these knock backs on a continued basis, can take its toll after a while, especially if we’re desperate to move on from our current role or position in life. With that said, here are just a few thoughts in managing your search but also recognizing the need for your own wellness in the process!

1) Manage your expectations

It’s important to manage your expectations from the outset and accept that it may take a while to find a new role. It can help to treat searching and applying for jobs like a part-time job or project and setting yourself some clear targets of how many applications you want to make by when, and allocate yourself specific times during your week when you can work on these. This can help job hunting feel more manageable and in our control.

Richard Alderson, founder of Careershifters, also advises to be selective. “While it’s tempting to send your resume and CV everywhere, you’re more likely to be unsuccessful – and feel a lot worse as a result,” he says.
“Instead, only apply to roles and companies you’re energized by. Be picky, even if your inner critic is telling you not to be. You’ll come across way more powerfully in your approach.”

2) Remember it’s not personal

When you get a rejection from a job you really want, it can be really difficult and demoralizing. But it’s important to remember that even the best applicants don’t get jobs – and you haven’t necessarily done anything wrong in the process. Remember that any “No” is not personal reflection on you – it can’t be, simply because they don’t know you well enough for it to be personal. If anything, try to see it more as a mis-match from the organization’s standpoint – your skills and experience weren’t aligned t their needs at the moment, that’s all.

3) Do other things

Particularly if you’re worried about money or if you are currently unemployed, applying for jobs can take over your time and leave you burned out. It’s important to look after yourself, to see friends or family and to take breaks from applications – you’ll come back to them with fresh focus and energy.

“Maintain a healthy balance between your job hunting and everything else you like to do in your spare time,” Stapleton says. “Make sure you’ve still got the opportunity to see your friends, do fun things, exercise, eat well. This can help you remain resilient and keep going when the going gets tough.” It will ALSO help you in that when you are called in for an interview, you will have had healthy distractions and you’ll go in fresher and with a better mind-set for the interview.

Also, if you have a good network, it’s important to get support from friends and family if you’re struggling, as they can help you with advice or take your mind off jobs when you need it. It can also help to meet up with others doing the same thing as you all may see in each other, things that perhaps are not recognized looking at yourself and this can be helpful in preparing to meet a prospective employer!

4) Get feedback

According to LinkedIn’s Talent Trends report, 94% of candidates want to receive feedback after an interview, but only 41% have received it and I believe this is a far inflated number! It can really help you to improve your chances of getting the next job you apply for, as well as boost your confidence if you find out what you did well AND maybe where things fell a little short. I definitely recommend trying (gently) to push for specific feedback from interviewers as much as possible. This can help you focus on tangible areas to improve on, answers to practice, etc, so that the next interview feels like an improvement, as opposed to just throwing darts in the dark

5) Speak to people

Networking! Fun? Not everyone enjoys networking, but it can help to get to know people in your chosen career path who may be able to give you advice, recommend you for jobs or even hire you. This might mean attending conferences or events, or simply connecting with people on LinkedIn or on social media groups. This may sound a bit counter-intuitive, but if you frame it as ‘less looking for jobs and more looking for people,’ this can help greatly in your pursuit. Having other people going along for the ride and being extra sets of eyes out there can be of incredible assistance in your search! Not only is it less soul-sucking, it’s also, in many circumstances, a lot more effective.

6) Anxious about it all?

If you are struggling with anxiety, low or even depressed mood, or any other mental health challenges that may be an obstacle in your pursuit, it’s even more important to speak to people and possibly your GP, all of whom can give provide you with welcome support along with giving you advice that might be helpful in making headway along the process. It’s important that the job search is not only seeking a means, but also a relationship that is, hopefully, a healthy environment for you to be walking into and one for your new employer to also be benefiting from!

10 Ways to Avoid the “Propaganda Bomb” Job Search

Sitting in a cafe the other evening I was ‘accidentally’ privy to an interesting careers conversation between two, soon-to-be, graduating seniors of UMass. Accidentally, in that I had no intention of listening to anyone else and was minding my own business with a good book, but they were talking in such a way that was essentially broadcasting their conversation to the fellow patrons.

May is looming and these sorts of conversations regarding job search and careers are not too out of place in a college town such as Amherst, MA., and these two are soon to be among the many of the graduating masses nationwide being released into the marketplace.

For context, this converation was right after the return from spring break, a couple weeks ago now, and they were talking about their respective job searches. Both mentioning about now that they are back from the spring break festivities, in the sun, in the south and/or the Islands, they are needing to get “serious about their job search.” All sort of standard fare for life in a college town, at least to this point.

But, then I heard something interesting. One saying to the other how he “had sent out a couple applications right before leaving on spring break and hadn’t yet heard back anything from either of his inquiries.” Ok, nothing terribly unusual so far. But, then, he said, “I’m going to start blasting out 10 applications a day, every day, until I get a job….!” That’s when my ears really picked up. 10 applications a day? Every day? Really???

I got to thinking, doing the quick maths in my head; 70 organizations/companies a week he was planning to approach. Now while this may be A tactic, it’s certainly NOT one I’d recommend and how can it possibly be effective? What this tends to do, this ‘propaganda bomb’ strategy, and I ‘get it,’ is simply make one feel as though they are accomplishing something in their job search/career aspirations. It is a way to be feeling ‘productive’ but, in reality, what it amounts to is job search confetti that is pretty ineffectual in getting noticed and certainly not the best use of one’s time. Frankly, it’s just white noise where there’s already an abundance of such!

Now, while it IS true, the old adage that ‘even a broken clock is right twice a day,’ luck is really not the way to go about conducting a job search. Filling people’s inboxes and application queues is not the way to stand out and be recognized.

This gentleman would be much benefitted in his search if he were to be taking the time and using to it to really research individual organizations/employers of interest. Then, after doing some homework on each, approaching them in a way that is meaningful, unique and as an interested individual that can speak to them in a thoughtful way; a way that establishes connection and expresses knowledge about who they are, what they do, and why.

Further, he would be much, MUCH better served to cut down his intentions to maybe ONE application a day. But one that is well researched and understood, thoughtful and really well composed, that speaks to a potential employer! Something that separates him from all the others who are competing for the very position(s) he is seeking.

So, some tips for the “Propaganda Bomb” job seeker to think about!

1) Research, research and then research some more!

2) Use LinkedIn to present professionally and to connect and network with people in areas of interest.

3) Understand to whom you’re writing and applying to and know what they do and what they stand for?

4) Differentiate them from others in the marketplace. What makes them unique?

5) Identify areas within their organization that you can be of help and how?

6) Speak to them as a potential match and not just an anonymous entity.

7) Be credible, professional and, most importantly, interesting in your approach.

8) Understand their marketplace and recognize how they are different, even to those organizations that are seemingly similar in nature.

9) Identify or solve a problem they don’t know they have. Imagine that!? If you can recognize something of challenge for them, that they do not see, how valuable is that!?
The more that you can ‘speak’ to a potential employer, the better the chances you are to have in getting recognized. Yes, this requires a little work in doing the research but it can be much more fruitful, not only in finding a job or launching a career, but finding the ‘right’ job or career in the first place!

10) Set up informational interviews to gather better information and to potentially get a foot-in-the-door yet with no obligation on either party!

If you take these 10 points into account, you’ll find that not only is your search more effective, but can be more fun and interesting as you’re, by doing so, taking control and being much more proactive in your quest!

Rising College Seniors; ‘To-Do’ Checklist Preparing for Graduation!

(by Samantha Gonnelli – C2C Career Advisor)

A Summer & Fall ‘To-Do’ List for College Juniors/Rising Seniors!

Calculate your credits.
If you have not already, ensure that you are on-track in terms of meeting your credit requirements, especially in terms of your major and any general education requirements. Check your school’s course catalog for assistance with this matter. If you are off-track, i.e. you will not be able to graduate on time due to lack of credits, consider taking a course during the summer to catch up. Bear in mind that summer courses are condensed and, therefore, will cover a significant amount of material in a short amount of time. The homework for such courses can be substantial and the weight of each assignment can be greater than in a typical, semester-long course. The payoff is that you may be able to graduate on time, with your class.

Prepare for your job search.
Gaining experience in your field is important. If you have not already, I recommend utilizing your network to find an internship or job where you can develop and refine the skills that will help prepare you for your job of choice.  Below is a list of checklist items to address as a rising senior in preparation for graduation next May!

1)  Update your resume. Take the time to create multiple resumes, each geared toward a position/industry in which you are interested.  You may want to consider adding the following to your resume, if you haven’t already:
– Relevant Coursework
– Honors and Awards
– Leadership and Volunteer Experience
– Computer, Language, and Other Skills

Also, consider making a video resume.  Some organizations are beginning to require video resumes as part of their applications.

2)  Write a standard cover letter. You will have to customize it when you begin applying to jobs, but your standard cover letter can serve as a starting point. This will save time when you begin applying to jobs.

3)  Research companies, programs, and/or schools of interest.

4)  Clean up your social media and use it to your advantage. I recommend Googling yourself to see what comes up. Ensure your search produces results that are appropriate and further your professional image.

5)  Create or update your LinkedIn, complete all applicable fields, make connections, and post articles.

6)  Research organizations/companies you are interested in, follow them on LinkedIn, and connect with people who work at your companies of interest. A great way to do this is to see if you are already connected with someone that is connected with a person who works at one of your companies of interest. If you have such a connection, ask him or her if s/he will connect you with the person via LinkedIn. In this way, your connection serves as your reference. Messaging with your new connection can help you find out more about your company of interest, which can assist you with writing your cover letter and, later, acing your interview!

7)  Set up informational interviews with people who have, or had, your desired job.
I recommend beginning with reaching out to alumni who work, or have worked, in your industry of interest.  If you do not know how to access your school’s alumni database, contact your college’s Career Center.

8)  Join a professional organization. These organizations typically have reduced membership fees for students and are something you can include on your resume. Through joining one of these organizations, you can learn about industry-specific networking and professional development opportunities. Attending these, making contacts, and gaining new skills can give you an edge as a job candidate.

9)  Practice interviewing.
First, write down your answers to standard interview questions. Then, set up an appointment with a Career Advisor for a mock interview when you get back to school.

If your industry of interest typically requires you to complete a task during an interview, practice doing that task. You can find out more about interviews for your field by doing online research and through informational interviews.

10)  Make a list of people who you can ask to write a letter of recommendation for you for potential employers and/or graduate, law, or medical school applications. Contact those people and, if they say yes, invite them to connect on LinkedIn. They will be able to recommend you on that platform as well.

11)  Begin compiling a portfolio of your work, as you may need to bring examples of past work to an interview.

12)  Let people know you will be looking for a job soon so that they know to pass information along to you about open positions.

13) Volunteer!  Builds your resume, keeps you current and can hone and build your skills!
Volunteering allows you to help someone or a group of people in need and/or improve your community. It also enhances your resume and augments your network.

You can find volunteer opportunities by:
– Going online. There are various websites, which can connect with you with local volunteer opportunities.  Find an opportunity that is related to your field of interest and/or a passion of yours.

– Asking around.  The chances are that you know someone who volunteers locally and can connect you.

14) Read!
– Keep up with current events.
– Discover more about the industry you plan to go into.
– Pick up a book (or two) about what interests you.

15) If you are studying a foreign language, join a local Language group to continue practicing your skills.

16) If applicable;
– Research graduate, law, or medical schools and prepare your application materials.
– Study for and take the GRE, LSAT, GMAT and/or MCAT.
– Study for and take relevant teacher certification exams.
– Research gap year programs and/or fellowships and begin gathering your application materials.

* These opportunities listed above can add and give you the necessary experience you will need and allow you to connect with people in your field of interest all along.

Enjoy checking items off this list!

Starting a New Job; On the Right Foot!

(By Samantha Gonnelli – C2C Career Advisor)

You submitted your application, aced your interviews, said your “Thank You’s,” and were just offered the job! Congratulations! Effectively showcasing all that you have to offer via your resume and an interview is challenging, but you managed to impress your new employer and have just signed on with an organization. Now it is time to show your employer, as well as your new colleagues, that they made the right decision and that you do, indeed, have the skills necessary to do the job well. With that said, your “hard” skills, i.e. the specific, quantifiable skills you learned through your coursework, internships, etc., are only part of what you need to be successful at your new job. It is your “soft” skills that will prove just as important. Soft skills refer to the abilities we gain through social and emotional learning, e.g. self-regulation, organization, relationship building, communication, collaboration, conflict resolution, etc. These skills, according to last year’s NACE (National Association of Colleges & Employers) Job Outlook Survey, make up 17 of the 19 attributes that employers look for in applicants and, by extension, prospective employees. The attributes, in order of importance, are:

Notice, of the list, only two are ‘hard skills;’ computer and technological!

I first learned about the importance of honing your soft skills when I was studying Education in college, but I truly observed their importance as a counselor on the K-12 level. In this role, I have learned that soft skills can be taught, although there is not typically a specific focus on doing so in traditional school settings. Teachers often provide students with the opportunity to practice these skills, but they are rarely able to provide them with concrete feedback regarding their use. This is not the fault of teachers, but rather due to the lack of emphasis on social and emotional learning in modern curriculum. The results of the 2016 NACE Job Outlook Survey reveal that our heavy focus on hard skills, and our subsequent neglect of soft skills, is not in the best interest of students because employers clearly value soft skills. This is especially important to remember when beginning a new job. To start your job on the right foot, you must be able to demonstrate the following soft skills:

Dependability/Reliability
Initiative
Commitment
Communication
Teamwork
Leadership
Flexibility
Time Management and Organizational Skills

Demonstrating the aforementioned skills, most of which are listed in Hillary Obepeul’s article about soft skills for graduate students at the University of Cincinnati, will help you make a good impression at work instantly. At the top of the list is dependability. Punctuality and the ability to meet deadlines are critical. Arriving to work on time, staying on task during the workday, and submitting your work by the assigned deadline help you build trust with others, which is a key part of building relationships. When others recognize that you are someone they can trust to come prepared to work everyday, they will go to you for assistance, seek out your expertise, and, ultimately, help you to attain success in your position; however, more is required than just your reliability.

Your interest and passion for your work should be evident to your new colleagues, not just because of what you say, but what you do. You have to take the initiative to complete your work to the best of your ability every time and learn how to take constructive criticism, thereby allowing you to reflect on your current practice and improve for the future.

Employers also want to know that you have a strong commitment to their organization, which you can demonstrate by submitting excellent work, incorporating feedback into your practice, and, eventually, making contributions to the organization at large.

Effective communication is integral, especially when beginning a new job. It is important to interact with your colleagues, superiors, and, if applicable, clientele in a clear, professional, and polite manner, both verbally and in writing. Take the time to introduce yourself to your co-workers and focus on listening to what they have to say; after all, they know how the organization functions and can help guide you when you have questions. Being nice, in general, goes a long way and will not soon be forgotten. It will also assist you when you need to engage in teamwork and help you gain the respect of your co-workers when you are given the opportunity to exercise your leadership skills.

When starting a new job, it helps to illustrate your flexibility and show that you can gracefully adjust to a variety of situations. You may not be assigned to the exact role you were initially promised or given the same responsibilities that were discussed during your interview, as the needs of your organization may change. If the role changes drastically, I would advise addressing this sooner rather than later so that you can determine if the job is still a good fit for you; ultimately, however, it is important to remember that everyone needs to start somewhere and, often, there is a room to grow. Do not forget, changes can be made!

Showing that you are able to prioritize effectively and meet deadlines is also key to your success in a new position. This takes excellent time management and organizational skills. Maintain a calendar and create an organizational system that works for you. My best tip here is to take paper and a writing utensil with you to all meetings, both impromptu and formal. This will help you keep track of what needs to get done as well as make note of your contacts. If you are prone to procrastination and/or struggle with organization, I recommend asking someone you respect, who has mastered these skills, for advice and then making a genuine effort to improve in whichever area you find challenging. This will help you gain a strong reputation at work, complete tasks more efficiently, and ensure that you always meet your deadlines.

In short, focus on fine-tuning your soft skills and make use of them when beginning a new job; they will, unmistakably, help you thrive in the workplace.

While you are Job Searching…

(By Samantha Gonnelli – C2C Career Advisor)

Searching for a new job is challenging for multiple reasons. Many job seekers become frustrated when they submit application after application without even receiving an email from employers, acknowledging that their application materials were received. As a result of this cycle, it is difficult for job seekers to obtain feedback on their application materials, making it difficult to know what to change or improve on a resume or a cover letter. Applying to jobs for months at a time can thus become draining and feel like a solitary, lonely mission, especially if you are not working, or are underemployed, while you are job searching. I have experienced this firsthand as a job seeker and secondhand, as a Career Coach for long-term unemployed job seekers. In this article, I will discuss what you can do to fill the time, as well as the gaps, in your resume while you are navigating the job search.

Throughout your job search, I suggest that you:

Continue to develop and refine your application materials – Ensure that you have multiple resumes. (For more information on how and why it is helpful to create multiple resumes, see my earlier article from March of 2017). Polish and personalize your cover letters and update your LinkedIn page. Create profiles on the websites of the companies and organization in which you are interested, thereby making it easier for you to apply to these places once they post a job in your field. Seek out feedback on your resumes and cover letters from a Career Advisor, an industry professional, etc.  It may also be useful for you to compile a portfolio to bring to interviews. Portfolios are hard data; they are a great way to help both you and your potential employer visualize and better understand your past accomplishments.

Build your brand and market yourself – With so many candidates applying for every posted position, it is important that you find a way to stand out. One of the ways you can do this is to figure out what your “brand” is and communicate that to others via the “Summary” at the top of your LinkedIn page or while networking with others, either online or in-person. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines a brand as “a particular identity or image regarded as an asset.” It can be challenging to create a single statement, or even a brief paragraph, that adequately conveys your skills, expertise, and future career goals; however, doing so will not only convey what you offer to a potential employer – it will also assist you with communicating what you bring to the table to others when you are networking or interviewing.

Network – Networking is critical, even when you are not actively seeking a job. It is the best and most efficient way to find out when new positions become available and is your best shot in terms of getting your foot in the door. A good word from one of your contacts can ensure that your resume is, at least, reviewed, but hopefully, it will also lead to an interview!  To network, you can take a few different approaches. You can start by reaching out to your family and friends. I also suggest taking advantage of your alumni network, speaking with former colleagues, and staying active on LinkedIn. It’s also helpful to check out local MeetUps and ToastMasters International chapters. Conduct informational interviews when you obtain a contact and remember to keep in touch with him or her. Finally, and most importantly, let others know that you are actively looking for a new job so that when they hear about a position you might be interested in, they will pass it along, and perhaps, even refer you.

Attend Job Fairs and Hiring Events – These events can be daunting, but they do offer a chance for you to speak with the individuals reviewing your application materials. They also provide you with the opportunity to interview on the spot and ask questions about both the position and the employer. Finally, these events also serve as another venue for networking and may steer you in the direction of another job lead.  Additionally, the following activities will help you find a job and build your resume at the same time; plus, engaging in these activities will also make you a better candidate:

Volunteer – Helping others is both fulfilling and educational. Try to volunteer in support of a cause that you are passionate about and in a role where you may be able to exercise some of the skills you might utilize on a daily basis when you achieve your dream job. Volunteering also allows you to meet others with whom you may be able to network and can introduce you to other job options.

Blog – Blog about the industry in which you are trying to obtain a career. If you are seeking a career in finance, create a blog that covers finance-related news. If you are interested in obtain a job in fashion, start a blog about current trends in men’s and/or women’s clothing. Writing will help you stay up-to-date with your industry of interest and demonstrate your passion for it to potential employers. You can also include a link to your blog on your resume or LinkedIn page!

Seek and accept contract work – For most of us, the goal is to find full-time work in our area of interest; however, taking a part-time or a temporary position can help you gain experience so that you can eventually land your dream job. Taking a part-time or a temporary position may also set you up for a full-time position at the company; however, even if it does not, it will still help you build your resume.

Happy job searching!

Group Interviewing

(By Samantha Gonnelli – C2C Career Advisor)

With the number of students graduating from college rising and every job becoming more and more competitive, the practice of group interviewing has increased. It saves time and typically gives candidates the opportunity to play the role for which they are interviewing. Group interviewing is exactly what it sounds like – the practice of interviewing several candidates at a time for a single position or, sometimes, multiple positions. There are both advantages and disadvantages of interviewing candidates in a group, and the interview can look different depending on the industry. Some common group interview formats include:

The “Panel-Style” Group Interview – The interviewer poses a question and all of the candidates answer, one at a time. Additionally, the interviewer may pose a question and any of the candidates may answer, and not all will have a chance to speak.
Team-Building Exercise – Candidates participate in a team-building exercise while the interviewer observes (and, sometimes, facilitates).
Mock Team Meeting – Candidates assume the role for which they are applying and participate in a mock meeting with other candidates and/or current employees. Typically, the participants will be given a task or a problem to solve as the basis for the meeting.
Group, plus Individual, Interview – One of the above formats, preceded or followed by an individual interview.

As I mentioned previously, there are both advantages and disadvantages with group interviewing; in fact, each advantage is typically coupled with a disadvantage. I’ll explore some below:

More People, Less Focus on You – Because there are multiple candidates in the room, you may feel less nervous and even gain more time to formulate a response to the interviewer’s question. This can also be a disadvantage because:
You might feel more pressure to provide responses that are as “impressive” as those of your peers, i.e. you’ll compare yourself to others.

You might overthink your answers.  It may be more difficult to find an appropriate time to contribute to the conversation, depending on the interview format.

To combat this, as for any interview, research the organization thoroughly, have answers prepared for standard interview questions as well as any other question you think may come up, and think about the future of the organization for which you’re interviewing. Anticipate their challenges, their areas of growth, their needs, etc.

Tips for Success:

Use your active listening skills during the interview. Sometimes, it can be hard to speak up, but you need to find a way in. Be patient, but assertive. Also, remember it’s okay to disagree, but do so respectfully and offer solutions.
It’s important to showcase your ability to work in a team. You may find yourself in the role of leader within the group, depending on the format, but you do not want to come off as monopolizing the group. Interact enthusiastically and professionally with the other candidates and ensure the task gets done.

Be confident in what you bring to the table. No candidate is the same and it’s not worthwhile to get bogged down in comparing yourself to others. Before the interview, reflect on your unique skill set and experience. Also, think about a time you worked on a team and it went well. Bring that knowledge and experience to the interview and, remember, you have already impressed the interviewer; s/he wouldn’t have asked you to come in if they did not think you were a good fit for the position!

Bring multiple copies of your resume and check the dress code. The latter is especially important if you end up having to participate in a team-building exercise, as you may need to move around a bit during the activity.
Have a brief introduction prepared; you’ll need to do one.

Some Examples of Group Interviewing:

“Panel-Style” Interview.  At an interview for a nonprofit job, I was assigned to a small group of other candidates, also interviewing for the same position. One interviewer stayed with our group, asked the candidates to introduce themselves, and then posed a series of questions, allowing each candidate to answer before moving on. It is important to note that this was only one part of the interviewing process for this organization. On the other hand, for a fellowship I interviewed for during college, about 10-12 candidates were seated around a table with a single interviewer, who asked the group questions at large. Not everyone was given the opportunity to answer each question and, at times, it was difficult to insert myself into the conversation. In situations like these, it is important to be assertive, but not rude. If you and another candidate begin speaking at the same time, you might suggest, “Why don’t you finish your thought and then I’ll share mine?” Start after the other candidate stops and, if another candidate attempts to interject, remind him or her that it is your turn to speak.

Team-Building Exercise.  I was asked to engage in a team-building activity for an interview for a pre-college program. In the job, I ended up having to work very closely with my co-workers in addition to carrying out my individual job as a Teaching Assistant. I had to run 1-2 activities daily with my co-workers, supervise a floor with a co-worker, lead field trips with my co-workers, and meet nightly with my co-workers to debrief each day. Collaboration with my co-workers was, needless to say, critical; therefore, it was important for the interviewers to find a staff with strong chemistry. They succeeded, as this was one of the best, most effective teams with which I have ever worked. This is a textbook example of how group interviewing can be beneficial to and appropriate for an organization.

Mock Team Meeting.  I was asked to participate in a team meeting at an interview for a School Counseling position. Other candidates for my position participated in the meeting as well as candidates for various teaching positions. We were given a rubric for grading the students based on character. The traits were in alignment with the school’s mission. It was our task to decide how we would integrate the rubric into the curriculum and make it part of the school’s culture. How would we convey the expectations to students and then evaluate them on it? This exercise was meant to see how the candidates would address a real problem facing the school and how they would interact with colleagues in their desired roles. It provided the candidates with a taste of what they could expect from weekly team meetings, and it provided the interviewers with a taste of how you would fit in with their current team. It should be noted that I also interviewed individually with a faculty member, a counselor, and two administrators and then wrote a brief essay before participating in the exercise detailed above. I also interviewed with a group of position as part of the hiring process for this institution. I was interviewed from almost every angle for this job!

Resume Differentiation

(by Samantha Gonnelli, C2C Career Advisor)

The Importance of Having More Than Just One Resume

It’s hard enough to perfect just one resume; it’s difficult to think about creating and customizing another one. While this may seem like a daunting task, it doesn’t have to be, and doing so will help your resume stand out to employers across industries. It’s very likely that you’re applying to more than just one kind of position, especially if you are just graduating from college or graduate school; therefore, it will be helpful for you to have multiple resumes on hand so that you can apply to various jobs with ease.

To begin, I suggest compiling a master list of all of your previous experience, from which you can pull and then create as many resumes as necessary. For instance, if you are interested in obtaining a job as an Administrative Assistant, you may want to create a few different resumes, depending on the industries to which you are applying. You might create one for each type of organization at which you would like to work. In this instance, you might like to work at either a large corporation, a small business, or, perhaps, an educational institution. For the school jobs, your resume might emphasize your ability to interact well with people, your organizational skills, and your understanding of the legal parameters when it comes to releasing information, etc. For the traditional office jobs, you might emphasize your previous experience with answering phones, scheduling meetings, making travel arrangements, reporting expenses, and maintaining files. As another example, if you are seeking a job as a Social Worker, you might take a different approach and create just two resumes, one focusing on your experience working with children and adolescents and one focusing on your experience working with adults. This will come in handy if you are open to working with either population and are applying to jobs where you would work specifically with one of these populations.

My tips in general for differentiating your resumes are:

Organize your resumes by theme.
If you are applying to teaching and coaching jobs, you might organize your resume by “Teaching Experience” for the teaching jobs and “Leadership Experience” for the coaching jobs. Remember, each category of your resume should run chronologically.

Emphasize your educational background, certifications, publications, honors, and professional development differently, according to job.
Put what’s relevant to the particular job at the forefront.

Read job descriptions carefully and make amendments as necessary.
If most of the job descriptions for the job you are applying for mention the importance of working with different populations, make sure that you are specific with the kinds of populations you have worked with to show that you meet that requirement. Describe the size of the group you serve, their ages, gender, etc.

In general, with your resumes:

Be specific.
Use numbers wherever possible. How many people do you manage? How big are the audiences to which you present? How many customers do you serve each day? Numbers speak volumes and will give potential employers a better idea about the scope of your work. How large a team do you lead? Are you skilled with working with small groups/teams, big groups/teams, or both? Do you have strong customer service skills? Again, the data will help potential employers answer that question and want to learn more about you.

Know your audience.
Are you applying for a job at a design agency? How about an investment banking firm? Your resume should look different, aesthetically and otherwise, depending on the industry to which you are applying. You wouldn’t use the same resume for the two industries mentioned above. These industries value different knowledge, skills, and experience. One is more creative, while the other is more data-driven. If you sought the job in design, your design skills would be important to highlight right away and you may even look for an opportunity to show off some of those skills via your resume. On the other hand, for the banking job, you would likely opt for a brief, more traditional resume format that showcases your education, previous internships, and project experience more than anything. These resumes will help you get noticed in the industry in which you desire to work.

In summary:
Narrow down your job search and decide to which jobs you are going to apply.
Research your desired jobs. For instance, if you are interested in teaching, but would like to expand your job search to more than just traditional teaching positions, so that they include tutoring positions, coaching positions, position in nonprofits geared at assisting youth, etc., make a different resume for each after doing your homework on what each of these jobs necessitate. The resumes will be similar, of course, but you may organize your experience differently, emphasize certain aspects of your experience, etc. on each resume.
Get feedback on your resume from people in the industry, if possible. Turn to your alumni network, your contacts, etc. and ask how your resume reads for someone in the field. This will help you refine and make smart additions to your resume, which is always a work in progress. This important document is worth the time if it helps land you a job that’s right for you.

Happy applying!