SEEN HEARD

$102.5B wages earned from more than 1.7M jobs supported by illinois waterways.

[Illinois Chamber of Commerce Foundation]

How To

Dust Off Your Job Search

Forbes offers job hunters these five tips before beginning their search for that much sought after dream job

1 Know where you are: List all the new titles, skills and goals reached over the last 12 months and add them to your social profiles and resume

2 Clear your resume cobwebs: At a certain point, that internship just doesn’t matter anymore and scrub out extraneous buzzwords while you ’ re at it

3. Use LinkedIn to the max: LinkedIn is great for networking, but offers a bunch of other tools like advanced searches to help you gain insight into how employers are looking for you

4 Polish your profiles: By simply updating your LinkedIn profile picture, for example, a notification is sent to everyone in your network That ’ s a lot of exposure!

5. Tap into your network: Send a status update or start a conversation on social media to get insights into who’s looking for candidates and what opportunities are out there

Corporate Exodus Costs Big

MarketWatch reports that the current federal tax rate on income earned by big, profitable domestic corporations is 35 percent Now compare that to Canada’s 15 percent, China’s 25 percent, Germany ’ s 15 percent, Ireland’s 12 5 percent, Japan’s 23 9 percent, Korea’s 22 percent, Switzerland’s 8 5 percent, Singapore’s 17 percent, Taiwan’s 17 percent, the UK’s 20 percent See the problem? Increasingly, U S companies are willing to move operations and jobs overseas to benefit from lower taxes And many are electing not to repatriate overseas earnings to avoid or defer U S taxes Alternatively, companies are taking advantage of various legal loopholes in the Internal Revenue Code to reduce their “effective tax rate ” What it all boils down to is this: The United States is missing out on a lot of revenue interviewees who lose interest if they don’t hear from you within two weeks. [accountemps]

Wealth Gap Widens

According to a report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), over the past 30 years the average wealth of white families grew 84 percent, or 1 2 times faster than for Latinos, and 3 times faster than for blacks This means that, by 2044, the wealth gap between white families and black families will double, and, according to the CFED, it will take black families around 228 years and Latino families 84 years to achieve the same average wealth that white families enjoy today With homeownership being the leading source of American wealth, the report found that only 41 percent of black households and 45 percent of Hispanic households own their homes, compared with 71 percent of white households On top of that, blacks and Latinos have built less wealth through homeownership than white homeowners Other factors exacerbating the wealth divide include greater rates of unemployment, lower returns on income earned, lower entrepreneurship rates and non- existent retirement savings

Get Credentialed!

Robert Half reports that 72 percent of companies cover some or all of the costs for staff to obtain professional certifications, and 76 percent help in maintaining credentials once earned However, that still leaves almost 30 percent of organizations that don’t offer financial support Robert Half offers these tips for getting your employer on board:

1 Make a business case Describe how the certification will allow you to make greater contributions to the company

2. Cite immediate benefits. Show examples of how the certification will help to improve productivity, bring in additional revenue or allow you to take on additional responsibilities

3 Prepare for the future Explain how your training will better position you for a leadership position down the road

4. Share the wealth. Offer to share the information you learn by mentoring colleagues

5 Divide the cost If your manager denies your request, don't give up Offering to cover part of the fees might be enough to change their mind