Career Fair Spring 2015

SPRING CAREER FAIR 2015 hosted by

Join us at The Republic’s career fair at the Clarion Hotel on Wednesday, April 8th from Noon-5pm. This event is FREE to job seekers.

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The Republic Career Fair Partners with Clarion Hotel

Wednesday, April 8th Noon-5pm Job Fair is free to job seekers.

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SPRING CAREER FAIR 2015

LOOKING FOR A NEW CAREER?

Join us at the Spring Career Fair, hosted by The Republic Classifieds. Meet face-to-face with HR Representatives from local businesses and learn more about opportunities.

Wednesday, April 8th

The Clarion Hotel | Columbus | Noon-5PM This event is free to job seekers.

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Career Fair 2015 3

Contents

Being new can be an asset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Free agents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Keep it simple at interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Tips for women. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Abusive bosses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Identity theft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Don’t be a jerk at work page 10

How to answer interview questions page 14

Two weeks’ notice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Watch what you say. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Endangered jobs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Why you’re unemployed page 16

Finding a balanced life page 20

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Turn being new on the job into an asset

By Liz Reyer Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (TNS)

Q:

For one reason or another, I’ve started a couple of new jobs in the past few years and now am landing in one that I hope will work long term. The problem is I hate change, especially feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing. How can I make it through this transition?

BRONZE SPONSORS

A:

Make a mind shift to enjoying the freedom of being new.

The inner game

First, a question: When you hire someone new, what do you expect? You expect them to need time to learn about the company and their new role. You expect to provide training and direction while they ramp up. And you expect there to be a transitional period while they get fully up and running.

Why do you have different expectations for yourself?

Take some time to think about how it would feel to start fresh without the internal pressure. Take some deep breaths and let a sense of anticipation arise. Get curious. Envision your new role with positive questions: I wonder what I’ll learn? I wonder what I’ll like best?

Also prime yourself with recollections of past successes. Think about things you’ve learned to do — perhaps you’ve learned a language, a musical instrument, a sport or a woodworking skill. You’ve successfully started jobs in the past, too.

Then reflect on what you’re really afraid of. If it’s loss of control of the situation, consider that control is mainly an illusion anyway and that the best thing you can bring to your new role is authenticity.

6 Career Fair 2015

The outer game

As you move into your new role, create a plan to manage the learning curve and develop tactics to manage anxiety about the change.

For the learning curve, work closely with your new boss so that you understand the expectations for success in your new role and the structured training that will be provided. Establish some clear milestones with timing so that you can strive for specific accomplishments rather than a vague sense of doing well.

For example, instead of “understand corporate strategy,” consider a goal of “meet with top three brand managers for overview of their brand strategies.”

Leverage your newness. I’ve been in many meetings where the new person identifies the barrier to moving forward that other people didn’t notice — it’s just too familiar. You won’t have these fresh eyes for long, so take advantage of them.

Also focus on building a sense of community. While you can’t necessarily rush it, finding people you resonate with and creating connections with your teammates will help you feel more settled.

Reflect on what you’ve learned, perhaps setting a weekly time to take stock.

It will help you remember how much you’re actually taking in, even in a situation that feels very new and complex.

Don’t live and breathe your work.

Avoid the peril of obsessing over your job. It will help you stay balanced.

Get enough exercise and eat well. See friends and family and pursue your favorite hobby. Remember to just chill sometimes.

The last word

Turn your newness into an asset and set yourself up to succeed.

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In today’s workplace, athletes aren’t the only free agents

By Diane Stafford The Kansas City Star (TNS)

In the mid-1990s, management guru Tom Peters warned employees to develop “a brand called you” because you need a brand to carry you from job to job.

In 2002, another workplace thinker, Daniel Pink, cemented the trend with a big-picture name: “Free Agent Nation.”

They forecast today’s workplace reality. Temporary, freelance and contract work has encroached on the American career dream. We’ve been warned that the gold watch at retirement is all but dead. As the older baby boomers leave the workforce, the expectation of a lifetime job is departing with them.

Career counselors tell us to have a Plan B, to not expect that Plan A is for keeps. They say you are responsible for your career plan, that no employer has the duty or intent to pave your path.

They say full-time, long-term employment isn’t the wave of the future. For many, the temporary and contract wave already washed ashore.

A survey released March 5 by CareerBuilder found that jobs in temporary help services grew 57 percent from 2009 to 2014. Looking forward to 2019, CareerBuilder’s economic modeling suggested 13 percent growth.

Looking at related jobs data, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found a 51.8 percent increase in temporary help employment from 2009 to 2014.

However the precise calculation was made, it’s clear that you or someone in your family is increasingly likely to have temporary work experience, making it

all the more likely that your job changes often and that you don’t have traditional employee benefits.

That puts an even greater burden on you to communicate what you do well and to be able to see where your next opportunity might lie — before your current employment ends. And — very important — a succession of temp jobs or contract work (essentially selfemployment) inflates your burden to be in charge of your own savings and retirement preparation.

That’s not easy. And it’s really hard in lower-wage jobs. According to CareerBuilder’s new report, these occupations — which mostly pay less than $15 an hour — are expected to continue double-digit growth in temporary work: home health aides, child-care workers, cooks, substitute teachers, product demonstrators, retail salespeople, landscaping and groundskeeping workers, taxi drivers and chauffeurs, maids and housekeepers, pharmacy technicians and bakers.

Even at higher pay, temporary work is rife in these areas: computer systems analysts, accountants and auditors, management analysts, computer user support specialists, software developers and applications, customer service representatives, heavy- and tractor-trailer truck drivers, registered nurses, general maintenance and repair workers, machinists, construction laborers, secretaries and administrative assistants (except legal, medical and executive).

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Career Fair 2015 7

By Rex Huppke Chicago Tribune (TNS)

Just be yourself in job interviews

The workplace made its way onto Twitter the other day as users went creatively crazy with the hashtag #FiveWordsToRuinAJobInterview.

Here are a few examples: “It’s prosthetic. My nose.

See?” — @trumpetcake “Have you seen my ferret?” — @IGotsSmarts “I was never actually convicted.” — @andylassner This got me laughing. Then it got me thinking: Job interviews, critical though they may be, are probably the most over-thought moments in our careers.

We worry about them. We spend hours preparing for them. We read books offering tips on how to “ace the interview.”

We amplify the interview experience, creating a mythology around what is, in essence, a conversation. An important conversation, of course. But not a conversation with an alien life

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form. Not a meeting that will determine the fate of the planet. Just some people trying to get to know each other a little better.

When we were young, our parents taught us the basics. Listen politely.

Ask questions. Make eye contact.

Don’t ramble on too long.

If you remove the self-imposed gravitas from an interview, it’s really something you’ve been doing your whole life: talking to people.

I asked Liz Funke, hiring manager at Dynamic Web Solutions in Richmond, Va., what she looks for when she’s interviewing someone.

“Somebody that’s real,” she said.

“If you give me canned answers and I probe a little bit more and I get more canned answers, it’s not going to happen.”

If you gobble up every interview advice book on the market and try to run through every possible interview question in your mind, your so-called preparedness is likely going to mask what should you be your strongest selling point: you.

“If someone’s overprepared, you can just tell,” Funke said. “You want

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people to be authentic and honest, absolutely. I just need people to be open with me.”

Kathryn Schipper, a senior human resources consultant with King County Superior Court in Seattle, summed it up nicely: “Be yourself, but be yourself on a really good day.”

“Listen carefully to the interview questions,” she said. “You get people who come in and they have a set speech and you ask something and they spew a heavily rehearsed answer, and that’s apparent. You want someone who listens and thinks about the questions. Even if there’s a pause before they give the answer, that’s OK. It’s a test, but not really. It’s really more of a human interaction.”

And that’s what I think gets clouded over by all our worry and by the job-interview-prep industrial complex, which I’m sure makes millions selling people books that turn some people into less-appealing versions of themselves.

Lou Adler is CEO of The Adler Group and author of “The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired.” I realize I just mocked books that claim

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to help you get hired, but Adler has a sensible approach to this subject and has years of experience viewing the process from both sides.

“People tend to over-prepare the wrong things,” Adler said. “The real issue is they don’t know what’s going to be asked. So when you don’t know what’s going to be asked, you get nervous and then you overprepare and that almost amplifies the nervousness and it becomes an even more awkward situation.”

His suggestion is simple. You need to be ready to talk intelligently about some of your accomplishments, the things that demonstrate your value.

So identify several of your strengths and figure out specific examples of work you’ve done that highlights those strengths.

You don’t have to prepare a speech, just have the facts in your head so you can draw from that knowledge over the course of the interview. Adler said one tool for this kind of preparation is to set two minutes on a timer and talk extemporaneously about one of your accomplishments. Maybe think

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about ways to connect what you’ve done to issues facing the company interviewing you.

Adler said it’s a bit like doing improv. And it’s a way to get ready for a job interview that highlights who you are, not who an interviewprep guru says you should be.

Even if you’re not completely comfortable with your own personality, trying to fake your way through an interview isn’t going to end well.

Either the person interviewing you will sense your insincerity or you’ll wind up getting a job at a place that’s not a good fit.

“If you’re at your best and you are who you are and they don’t like you, it’s absolutely better for everyone,” Schipper said. “If you’re fake and you try to fake your way into a corporate culture, you can’t do it for the next 30 years. If you’re in it in the long haul, you have to work somewhere that’s going to want you as you are.”

I can give you plenty of #FiveWordsToRuinAJobInterview.

But I suggest you follow these five words instead: Don’t overcomplicate a job interview.

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Career Fair 2015 9

Avoid being a Kanye at work

By Rex Huppke Chicago Tribune (TNS)

There are so many important things we can learn from famous people. For example, the key to being called “brave” is allowing yourself to be photographed without makeup.

And better health is easily obtained by eating foods no one has ever heard of prepared by chefs no one can afford.

But along with all that sound, helpful advice, celebrities also have a knack for teaching us what not to do, particularly in the workplace.

Consider, if you can stand it, Kanye West. The rapper, fashion designer and narcissism-enthusiast was excoriated for comments he made after the Grammy Awards.

The musician Beck won Best Album of the Year for “Morning Phase,” beating out, among others, Beyonce. That apparently rankled

10 Career Fair 2015

West, who went on a post-awards rant and said: “If they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. … Beck needs to respect artistry, and he should have given his award to Beyonce.”

There is, of course, a huge difference between the world of famous musicians and the working world we inhabit. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say that my “Be a decent human being” mantra could easily be modified — maybe even made a bit more hip — by saying, “Don’t be a Kanye.”

DBAK, for short.

The rapper’s sore-loser approach and unwillingness to celebrate another artist’s achievement are off-putting to the extreme. Transfer this attitude to a regular work environment, and you have people who get bitter about a co-worker’s promotion or form cliques that let jealousy and envy

Kanye West takes the microphone from Taylor Swift as she accepts an award during the MTV Video Music Awards. | Associated Press divide a workplace.

That gets everyone nowhere. Few of us have the ego of your average Kanye, but his behavior is still an object lesson that humility is the better path. Don’t be a Kanye, people.

Another famous person unwittingly teaching us a workplace lesson is Vice President Joe Biden. During the swearing in of Ash Carter, the new secretary of defense, Biden was standing behind Carter’s wife when he put his hands on her shoulders and leaned in to whisper something in her ear.

This is not the first time the avuncular VP has been called out for invading a woman’s personal space, and it prompted a piece on The Washington Post’s website headlined: “Why Joe Biden should probably stop being so touchy-feely.”

That story read in part: “Biden is a creature of his time; that’s not so much an excuse as it is context. He is folksy and always (overly) familiar … But as a man who prides himself on his work on women’s issues, Biden might heed his own advice. He said that attitudes are changing about what ‘constitutes appropriate behavior.’

That should probably apply to Joe Biden’s interactions with women too.”

We all, regardless of gender, need to be respectful of other people’s boundaries. Sometimes you try to shake someone’s hand and the person says, “Forget that, I’m a hugger!” then gives you a big embrace. I’d like to say that’s fine, as it’s clearly wellintentioned, but the reality is that just because you’re a hugger doesn’t mean

I’m OK with being hugged.

Jacqueline Whitmore, author of “Business Class: Etiquette Essentials for Success at Work” and an etiquette expert I’ve interviewed in the past, sent out an email relating to Biden’s hugging/close-talking problem.

She advised workers to respect other people’s space; use a three-second rule if you do hug, just to make sure the hug is brief; and “when in doubt, leave it out.”

That last one is probably the best.

As Whitmore wrote, “You’ll never go wrong with the good old-fashioned handshake.”

Last on the list of misbehaving celebs is NBC News anchor Brian Williams, currently on a nonvoluntary hiatus for inflating stories of his personal experiences to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloonlike proportions. He appears to have lied about his experience aboard a military helicopter in Iraq, saying the chopper came under fire when it didn’t.

The workplace lesson here is quite simple: Don’t lie. Ever.

Don’t try to fib your way out of a problem, don’t amp up your resume to make your achievements sound more impressive and don’t try to wow your employees with tall tales of life in the corporate trenches.

If you lie, there is a good chance you will get caught. And once you get caught, you’re branded a liar, and that’s a hard reputation to shake.

Regardless of your skills, integrity remains your most valuable asset at work.

Five tips for women to get in ‘the pipeline’

By Diane Stafford The Kansas City Star (TNS)

Men dominate corporate hierarchy.

Here are a few reasons: Women have babies and stay home to raise children, taking career breaks at crucial get-ahead times. Women hold “pink-collar” jobs — child care and early education, geriatric care, and maid service. More women work in charities and other nonprofits. More women work part time. Women tend to start home-based businesses. Women aren’t in the “old boy” network. Women don’t sacrifice family time for after-work schmoozing.

Heard enough?

There are exceptions to all generalizations, but all have truth, as pointed out at a recent event supporting women’s appointment to corporate boards.

Around the country such advocacy efforts are working to develop a pipeline of qualified women for top jobs and to expose existing power structures to interested candidates.

It’s simply good business to create

management hierarchies and boards that reflect the consumer base. Unfortunately, those changes can seem excruciatingly slow. But, today, women outnumber men as college students and in many graduate schools. Women outnumber men in the workplace at large. Indeed, more women are in the executive pipeline.

Want to get in it? Here are things that women can do to get themselves in that pipeline: • First and foremost, do a stupendous job at whatever it is you do. Duh. • Get a mentor to guide your career and an advocate to bring up your name.

They’ll probably be men because that’s who still holds most of the power.

• Go to association meetings, golf tournaments and events attended by the executives you aspire to be. Make friends. They need to like you.

• Learn which headhunters deal in your industry or profession. Get your name in front of them.

• Join women’s advocacy groups in your area. They can help you.

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Stand up to abusive bosses.

You’ll be a better employee for it

By Rex Huppke Chicago Tribune (TNS) I think we can all agree that the best way to deal with abusive bosses and managers is to round them up and ship them to a small island in the Pacific Ocean, preferably one populated by an unusually large number of hungry tigers.

Sadly, that method is logistically and legally complicated, and I personally would feel bad for the tigers.

So we look to more sensible ways of handling superiors who make our lives miserable.

Standing up to a bully seems

the strongest approach, but it also sounds risky when the person you’re confronting controls your career.

Of course standing up to someone doesn’t mean shouting that person down, and a new study suggests the benefits of even subtly taking a stand against an abusive boss might well outweigh the risks.

Bennett Tepper at The Ohio State University and Marie Mitchell at the University of Georgia began examining what happens when subordinates responded to “downward hostility” from superiors with passive aggressive behavior. Some of the workers in the

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study reported that they would do things like ignoring their unpleasant supervisors, acting like they didn’t know about something they were supposed to know about or making “a half-hearted effort” at a task.

“We went in not really sure what we would find,” said Tepper, a management and human resources professor at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business. “My assumption was that these passive aggressive behaviors would be counterproductive. But we found that’s not the case. People who reciprocated the most were more committed to their jobs, more productive and less depressed.”

I’ll take an important pause here to clarify that the study in no way suggests that employees start being passive aggressive. Tepper and Mitchell agreed there are far better ways to handle a nasty boss — talking to the person directly, reporting the person to someone higher up or even finding another job. But the overarching point of the study was that workers who felt they were standing up or retaliating in some measure were less likely to feel like victims.

“Definitely the results of our study

imply that if a person is getting abused by their supervisor, a sustained display of hostility, that standing up for yourself and making yourself not feel like you’re being a victim is important and that makes them feel more committed and more satisfied,” said Mitchell, an associate professor of management at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. “They don’t feel the psychological distress of an individual who just takes it.”

Another part of the report looked at what kind of impact passive aggressive retaliation might have on a person’s career. Again, the results were surprisingly positive.

In the study, published in the journal Personnel Psychology, the researchers noted that “upward hostility was positively related to career satisfaction and career expectations” and that “subordinates fare better when they perform acts of upward hostility.”

Again, this is not a green light to start being a jerk right back to your jerky manager, but it is a strong endorsement for learning to show that you have a backbone.

“If you’re firm, you’re less likely

to see yourself as the victim,” Tepper said. “It sends a message to the hostile boss. We know from other research that abusive bosses are very strategic in who they go after. They pick and choose targets. Who do they settle on? It’s the ones who seem weak or vulnerable. If a person is engaging in some form of standing-up behavior, to the extent the boss notices what’s going on, there’s a message they’re getting that this might not be the right person to go after.”

From a company’s standpoint, none of this is good. Abusive bosses inevitably cost the company money — through disgruntled workers not performing well or simply leaving — and any kind of employee-manager tension bleeds over to co-workers and harms workplace efficiency.

“These events don’t happen in a vacuum,” Mitchell said. “Other employees see them. When you engage in these tit-for-tat hostilities, they not only affect those two people, but they affect the wide work environment and potentially could multiply the costs to the company.”

So the No. 1 step, as far as I’m concerned, is for companies to make

sure they don’t have managers who are unkind knuckleheads. And part of accomplishing that is creating an environment in which workers aren’t afraid to point out that someone is being an unkind knucklehead.

Mitchell said open-door policies that allow people to feel they can speak without retribution and systems for reporting abusive behavior that make people feel safe are critical to creating a culture that tamps down problem supervisors.

From the employee standpoint, the best response depends on the individual. Some are comfortable standing up to authority figures, finding ways to calmly draw a line in the sand.

Others struggle with that kind of assertiveness, but that’s a skill that can be learned. If the study teaches us nothing else, it’s that finding a way to develop your self-confidence — whether it’s through counseling or sports or even martial arts — is a worthy endeavor.

Nobody deserves to get walked on at work. But until the abusive bosses of the world get shipped off to that island, we’re going to have to face up to them ourselves.

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Career Fair 2015 13

Top tips to answer job interview questions

By Diane Stafford The Kansas City Star (TNS)

Job hunters often seek the Holy Grail of interviewing tips, the no-fail list of ways to ace the interview. Such a list doesn’t exist.

There’s no one-size-fits-all resume, and there’s no single best-answer guide for answering common or tricky interview questions. But there’s a help list that comes close in “Get the Job You Want, Even When No One’s Hiring.”

The book by Ford R. Myers, a career coach, suggests answers to interview questions, and I’m happy to share them, paraphrasing and cutting to fit this space.

Why do you want to work here? Answer by including information about the company to show you’ve researched it. Don’t just talk about your own skills. Tell how you can fill their needs.

What kind of person would you hire for this job?

Summarize your “fit,” your qualifications for the job, without sounding too self-promotional.

What’s your dream job here? Describe general responsibilities you’d like to have, not by stating a specific job title.

What are your weaknesses? Don’t give them a negative. Say you can’t think of anything that would hurt your ability to do the job you’re seeking.

What do you expect from this job that you didn’t get in your former job? Another trap. Don’t say anything negative about former organizations or bosses. Just say you want broader responsibilities.

What do you see as your future here? Be general.

Talk about growing in the job, contributing more.

Don’t offer a timetable.

Are you considering other positions/opportunities/organizations at this time? Just say yes and leave it at that. If pressed, say you’re not at liberty to say, and you would give this organization the same consideration.

How does this opportunity compare with others you’re considering? Say it appears favorable, and you’d like to learn more.

What are your short-range and long-range goals?

Short range, say you want a position to apply your skills and experience to help the organization. Long range, say you’d like to assume more responsibility and make greater contributions to the employer.

Again, avoid stating any timetable.

So that’s a brief summary of Myers’ advice.

Understand that many human resource officers and hiring managers have asked those questions and heard those answers. Some have heard the same recited responses forever, and they know you’ve been career-coached to give them. That’s OK. It’s better to show you’ve practiced responses than to blurt out negative information.

Myers’ list didn’t include another common question: “How much did you make in your last job?”

Or “What do expect to make in this job?” Try not to state a specific number. It’s best to know in advance the pay range for the job you’re seeking and say you’re comfortable with the compensation offered for the position.

I’d add one more suggestion for acing interviews, a broad directive: Be likeable. People want to work with people they like.

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Identity thieves prey on job hunters

By Diane Stafford The Kansas City Star (TNS)

Among the lowest forms of life on the planet are scam artists who prey on job hunters.

Job hunters tell me they’re afraid to fill out required application forms that ask for their Social Security numbers.

They’ve read about identity theft and don’t want to surrender their numbers, no matter how much they want the job.

I’ve also heard from people who have received phone calls, supposedly from job recruiters, who raised their hopes, along with asking for their nine digits.

Some smelled trouble and hung up; one said she got suspicious too late and fears her number will be used fraudulently.

Security experts wish hiring protocols would work this way: Employers ask for a prospective employee’s Social Security number only after a conditional job offer is made, when it’s time to do a thorough background check.

Sadly, that isn’t happening, and no one is holding employers’ feet to the fire

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to change. That leaves the field ripe for scammers who figure that job hunters are so used to revealing their personal information that no red flags go up.

Many human resource consultants and employment law attorneys advise employers to ask for Social Security numbers only when they’re ready to investigate select, viable job candidates.

But that advice is sacrificed in favor of expediency. Hirers say it’s quicker and easier to get the information in initial applications.

No system is guaranteed safe, but job hunters generally can trust companyspecific online application forms. Look for the closed-lock security icon on the screen. Other pre-job offer requests for your personal info should be treated with care.

Phone call or email requests for your number should be declined. Say that you want the job but will share your number when you are a finalist for hire. Then share it directly with the employer in a mutually secure way

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Five reasons you’re still unemployed

By Tess Frame GOBankingRates.com (TNS)

If you’ve had trouble finding employment this year, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, you’ll be competing with many to finally get back into the workplace. Wanting a new job — even trying hard to secure one — just isn’t enough anymore. You need to set yourself apart from the pack of hungry applicants.

If you haven’t had any luck landing that dream job yet, there are likely some big reasons why.

Here’s what you can do to find employment in 2015.

Your asking rate is too high

Everyone wants the better end of the bargain. Employers want the person with the widest range of skills who will accept the lowest paycheck, and employees want the highest paycheck they can get up front. Finding a fair middle ground might feel like you’re getting less than what you deserve. Perhaps that’s why 39 percent of women and 54 percent of men ask for a higher salary when starting a new job, according to a recent Glamour magazine poll.

The skills you can offer to businesses are, no doubt, valuable. Just maybe not as valuable as you think.

Overvaluing your services could be a fast way to take yourself out of the pool of applicants too early or lose you the job after your interviews.

How to adjust: Do some research.

Compare rates to others in your field

16 Career Fair 2015

on sites like Glassdoor.com. Do they have extra qualifications and certifications? Do they work in a city with a similar economy? Have they established a name in their field? Have they occupied that position for several years? Consider these factors when deciding your asking rate. If you’re changing careers, you might be looking at an entry-level wage. If you’ve got good experience under your belt, make sure your resume reflects that before asking for a salary that does.

If you feel the going rate is too low for someone of your position and you’re willing to go jobless to prove that point, then by all means, counter the offer. But if you are truly motivated to find a job, you might want to accept the offer you do receive and work toward a raise.

Your resume is too broad

So you worked at a deli in high school, did telemarketing in college and had a brief stint at your brotherin-law’s marketing firm. And maybe there are some gaps between jobs.

This resume simply isn’t appealing. While you likely learned useful skills at each position, your resume doesn’t tell a story. It doesn’t reflect that you’ve been working consistently toward finding a job like the one you’re currently applying to. Your resume is a lot like a first date: It has to make a great first impression, and it has to make your date (the future employer) think you’ve got lots of qualities in common.

How to adjust: Your resume should be aimed toward whatever field you’re applying for. If you’re applying for a management position, your resume should focus on the management skills you developed in each position.

Instead of working at a deli, cold calling and marketing, you “supervised eight employees as shift manager in the food industry,” “developed sales and interaction skills,” and worked as the “project manager for large marketing campaigns.” Leave out any previous jobs that are totally irrelevant.

The caveat here, of course, is that you don’t want to make anything up or unfairly embellish your experiences. That will only backfire on you in the interview stage. But you should use actual work experiences to show how you’re qualified for the job you’re applying for.

Your social media presence sends the wrong message

Nothing is as off-putting to a future employer as a juicy Google

search. If an employer decides to check out your online presence and comes across pictures of hard partying, constant job changing, a bad attitude — really, anything that seems unprofessional — you’ll be nixed as a candidate.

“Why can’t my personal and professional lives stay separate?” you’re wondering. Well, because your behavior in your personal life often carries over into your professional life. If you stay out late drinking every night and your interviewer sees this on your Facebook page, he’ll assume you’ll be coming into the office late, hungover and grumpy. If you constantly complained about your last job on Twitter, an interviewer can only assume you’ll bring that negative attitude into a new workplace.

How to adjust: Nip the problem in the bud and stop the behavior that makes potential employers not trust you. If that impedes on your lifestyle too much, stop documenting the behavior and posting it online.

Perform a search on your online self.

Purge any pictures that aren’t wholesome. Delete offensive posts. Tell your friends that you’re trying to get a job and ask them not to tag pictures of you unless they’d be proud to show them to an employer. And, of course, keep the privacy policies on all your social media airtight.

You’re perpetually late to interviews

Unprofessional behavior outside of the office is one thing, but in the office, particularly in an interview for a job you’re trying to land, it’ll cost you big points. Showing up late to interviews gives the impression that you don’t have your priorities in order. If you really do have a legiti-

mate reason for being tardy, explain as sincerely and briefly as possible; drawn out and sob-story excuses only waste more time.

“I’m very sorry for being late. I unexpectedly had to pick my daughter up from school,” or “I’m very sorry for being late. My car broke down.” Again, lying here can only hurt you in the long run.

If you’re making up an excuse, it’s usually obvious. The interviewer will be more understanding of the honest reason than if you try to cover it up.

You can always earn back lost points by impressing him with professional behavior later in the interview.

How to adjust: Set alarms, make arrangements for your kids, make sure your spouse knows how important the interview is and plan for traffic, even if you know the route well. If you’re a few minutes late, apologize and explain, then move forward. If you’ll be more than 15 minutes late (it better be a good reason), call and

ask the interviewer if he’d be willing to reschedule. It’s more professional than making him sit and wait.

Your job is no longer relevant

Like travel agents and beeper salesmen, your services might have become outdated or, frankly, no longer needed. If you’re seeing fewer opportunities for someone in your field, maybe it’s time to consider that you are in the wrong profession.

How to adjust: Take relevant skills from your old career and direct them toward the new one, the same way you would for a too-broad resume.

If you’re an expert in a technology that is no longer on the cutting edge, say that you’re great with computers, well-versed in the old technology, a quick learner and willing to be trained on new systems.

But it can be more complicated than simply adjusting your resume.

You’ll have to adjust or augment your skill set and get caught up on new technologies. Consider taking night classes and certification courses to acquire necessary skills. Let your interviewer know that you’re working hard to keep up with the industry.

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Taking a look at 2 weeks’ notice

By Rex Huppke Chicago Tribune (TNS)

If I ever decide to move to a different job — perhaps to pursue my dream of becoming a member of the rap collective Wu-Tang Clan — I have a detailed exit strategy prepared.

I will surreptitiously carve a large hole in the office ceiling, dress up in a neon green leotard, start playing Wu-Tang Clan’s “Triumph” at full volume on a portable stereo, strap on a jet pack and blast off through the roof.

The one flaw in this plan — aside from the inevitable litigation that would follow — is it doesn’t allow me to give my current employer the requisite two weeks’ notice. That begs the question: Is two weeks’ notice still a necessary courtesy when leaving a job?

A reader recently asked about this, noting that many companies have hiring processes that last far longer than two weeks, so it’s not like they’ll find a replacement in that time. And

some want to hire people who can start immediately, making it hard for a candidate to give a soon-to-be-former employer any notice at all.

Two weeks’ notice is a longstanding workplace rule, a benchmark

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18 Career Fair 2015

that theoretically allows you to leave a company on good terms. But like many tried-and-true rules, it’s worth re-examining, particularly in an age when millennials are altering the way many workplaces function.

“There are so many textbook rules out there and people tend to get kind of scared of going against them,” said Jenny Foss, a job search strategist and founder of the career blog JobJenny.com. “I think that many people get so tied up to the exact rule on how I have to do that or manage that or approach that, it can feel very constricting.”

She said there are a slew of variables involved in leaving a job. If you work with access to proprietary information, your employer might boot you the minute you say you’re quitting. If you hate your current job and an offer comes along that requires you to jump fast, why hold back just to be courteous? And if you’re in the middle of a big project, you might want to give more than two weeks’ notice so you don’t leave your boss, or your co-workers, in the lurch.

“I really believe one should use their best instincts in terms of determining what’s appropriate given the variables at hand,” Foss said. “You don’t need to live or die by the two weeks, but just use your best judgment and gracefully use a strategy that gets you where you need to be.”

Dan Schawbel, author of “Promote Yourself: The New Rules for Career Success,” pointed out that a worker

might start at one company, move on to a few others and then wind up back where he or she started. So a departure should always lay the groundwork for a possible return.

If you get a new job, Schawbel suggests giving your boss as much notice as possible, and even offering to help find a replacement. You can suggest candidates whom you know personally or though networks like LinkedIn. “You’re leaving, but you’re already making it easier for your manager to transition, which looks really good,” he said. “It’s a good way of building goodwill because eventually you might be back in that company again.”

Lindsey Pollak, author of “Becoming the Boss: New Rules for the Next Generation of Leaders,” said she believes the open and honest approach Schawbel is advocating fits well with the way younger workers approach their careers.

“I think it’s the convergence of three millennial trends, one of which is transparency,” she said.

“I want to be honest with you because I want you to be honest with me. And they also want authenticity.

When you ask me where I’m going to be in five years, I don’t want to tell you that I want to be here when I know I’ll want to be somewhere else. The third trend is flexibility.

Millennials don’t want rules like that. If I want to give you a year’s notice, that should be fine. If I want to give you a month’s notice, that should be fine.”

Pollak said many workers today “seem to be questioning and rethinking all the traditional rules.”

So we’re in a state of flux, and it will likely take some time for all this new thinking — which will become more prevalent as the millennials move into leadership positions — to sort itself out.

“There has to be something between two weeks’ notice and anything you want,” Pollak said. “And I don’t think we’ve found that middle ground yet.”

For now, giving at least two weeks’ notice remains a good idea. But keep in mind that it’s an arbitrary time frame, one that can be stretched in whichever direction seems appropriate to your situation.

Don’t turn off job interviewers before turning them on to your candidacy

By Diane Stafford The Kansas City Star (TNS)

After a presentation on job hunting skills, an audience member stopped me to ask how he could get beyond the interview stage. He’d had no luck, and it took only 30 seconds to guess why.

Before he’d told me what kind of job he wanted — or anything else about his work history — he made a politically divisive comment.

It doesn’t matter exactly what he said. What mattered was that it was irrelevant to his job search.

And because he had no idea what I thought about his comment, he had no idea whether he’d just elicited a knee-jerk reaction.

Whether you’re doing an initial screening interview on the telephone or an in-person interview inside an organization, you need to be prepared to paint yourself in a relevant, nondivisive way. That’s especially true when you hear the open-ended question “Tell me about yourself.”

You must be ready with a few well-practiced sentences that focus on your work history, your skills, your interests and your enthusiasm to share your strengths in the particular job at hand.

Don’t waste a precious moment telling about your children, your health, your interest in a paycheck or your political leanings.

If — and only if — it’s relevant, you may include references to your hobbies, volunteer activities or association memberships. You don’t want to give the interviewers any information that might prejudice them against you.

You should be ready to briefly summarize the educational degrees, if relevant, or work experience that prepared you to seek this position.

Explain your special expertise that makes you perfect for the opening.

Unless you’re speaking to a hiring manager who is a specialist in your field, don’t use abbreviations or jargon that may not translate to the interviewer.

Don’t be afraid of bragging.

Mention professional honors, fasttrack promotions or big-dollar

sales or savings that you made for a previous employer.

Even if you can’t put a dollar sign on your accomplishments, include a sentence about the value you brought to your previous organization. You can mention “soft skills” like customer service, teamwork, a strong work ethic and energy.

Remember, too, that an interview isn’t all about you. It’s about whether the interviewer sees you as a good fit for the organization. Be ready to show knowledge about the company or the job opening and tell how you can meet its needs.

Finally, when you have the floor because of an opening like “Tell me about yourself,” “Why should we hire you?” or “Why do you want this job?” express enthusiasm for the organization. And thank the interviewer for the opportunity.

Often, job hunters share anger, deep frustration, political rants or personal information about their health or family situations. It is essential to be able to share all these emotions and situations with friends, loved ones and career counselors. But don’t ever think that an official job interview is the time to share that kind of information about yourself.

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Career Fair 2015 19

More balanced life can help you work better

By Rex Huppke Chicago Tribune (TNS) Most of us consider ourselves excellent multitaskers. And then we occasionally find ourselves Xeroxing a sandwich while eating the report we meant to copy.

Rarely are we as good as we think at juggling work, home, friends, volunteer work, our Star Wars fan fiction blog, the oil painting class we signed up for and our daily 5 a.m. CrossFit class.

But what if we were more honest with ourselves? What if we admitted that doing everything on the fly — effectively jumping into a pool without ever checking how deep it is — is not the best approach?

I recently came across an idea that gets to the heart of this, one formulated and tested over many years by Stew Friedman, a management professor and director of the Work/Life Integration Project at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

His approach is simple at its heart: Take a breath, reflect on how you spend your time, then look at how that time aligns with the importance of the things you’re doing. It’s an idea that makes you say, “Well that’s obvious. Why didn’t I think of that?”

But that’s the problem. We’re often so busy that we don’t think about anything. We just charge ahead and trust that our super-human abilities — the ones we don’t actually have — will help us muddle through.

“The essence is taking a step back to look, doing a diagnosis, looking at who’s important, what’s important and what you can do that’s under your control to produce better outcomes,” Friedman said. “The big, big idea is being more conscious, more deliberate about the choices you make with respect to where you put your attention, your energy and your effort.”

What I like about Friedman’s concept, aside from its common-sense simplicity, is that he has researched it extensively and found that people who move some of their focus away from work and put it on other parts of life actually tend to become more productive workers.

He breaks life up into four domains: work, family, community and self. Then he asks people to decide what level of importance they would assign to each domain, four percentages that will add up to 100 percent.

The next step is to look at how much you actu20 Career Fair 2015

ally focus on those four domains, again assigning a percentage to each one.

Now you juxtapose the two sets of information and see which areas are out of whack. Maybe you think you should spend 10 percent of your time focusing on yourself, doing anything from exercise to reading to taking a class. But when you look at where your time is actually going, you see you’re devoting almost no focus to that domain.

Or maybe work is eating up 70 percent of your focus, cutting sharply into the amount of time you

believe you should be devoting to your family.

The disparities between where you want your attention to go and where it’s actually going should prompt you to make changes. Friedman recommends making those changes in small increments, seeing if they’re helpful and then continuing to tweak your focus and schedule until things fall better into line.

For example, if you feel you’re carrying too much work around with you during off hours — checking email on your phone or taking calls when

you’re with your family — try to create periods of times where you cut yourself off electronically.

Don’t do an outright ban on looking at your phone outside the office, but try setting aside a couple of hours a week at first.

See what impact that has and then modify that idea until you feel a better balance has been reached.

“You can define those four domains any way you want,” Friedman said. “If you’re a student, it’s not work or career, it’s your homework or school.

You can define it any way you need to. Community could be friends, neighbors, social groups, religious groups. “‘Self ’ captures you alone, what’s inside of you, what matters most to you. This all helps people to see that there are these different parts of your life and those other parts are important to you and they interact.”

Research published in Friedman’s book, “Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life,” showed that when people went through this self-evaluation and took steps to line up their focus more with the areas of life important to them, their performance in all areas increased.

That included work.

We spend a lot of time worrying about the things we don’t seem to have time to focus on. You might be distracted at work because you feel guilty about not spending more time with your kids. Or

you might skip the gym because you feel you’ve got to get ahead on some work.

We lose track of the way different parts of our lives interrelate and how each brings value and feeds off the other. Given the limited time we have, it seems sensible to pay attention to where our time is going and how it might be better arranged.

“This is about claiming control, claiming a direction,” Friedman said.

“That seems to be the major problem of our time is that people feel a sense that the world is spinning around them and they’re very reactive.”

On the Harvard Business Review’s website, Friedman has an online assessment you can take — we’ve linked to it at chicagotribune.com/assessment. Give it a try.

It’s straightforward and it makes sense. And it’s a lot better than standing over the Xerox machine munching on the report you meant to copy.

CurreNtly reCruitiNg

Assembly, Machine Operators, Warehouse, Quality inspection, and Clerical

Wednesday April 8th from Noon - 5 p.m. Clarion Hotel, Columbus

Career Fair 2015 21

10jobs

Top

endangered

face threat from technology, report says

By Masako Melissa Hirsch and Alexis Espinosa n The Dallas Morning News (TNS) Technology killed the switchboard operator, the lamp lighter and the ice cutter.

And it’s a threat for workers in a variety of other fields, from flight attendants to drill press operators to lumberjacks.

“When economies change, it kills opportunities,” said Mike Davis, an economist at Southern Methodist University. “But it also brings opportunities. If you know how to run the technology, you’re a very important person.”

The job-search website CareerCast published a report on what it says are the Top 10 endangered jobs.

The report, based primarily on U.S. Department of Labor data, lists 10 jobs that could face the largest decline in workforce by 2022. Still, some of those workers say they’ve seen employment rise recently, with technology helping add to the workforce.

For example, online shopping makes more work for postal employees. “There actually is a little bit of a silver lining on the horizon,” said Jim Sauber, chief of staff for the National Association of Letter Carriers.

A job on the decline might still have new opportunities, said Michael Wolf, an economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics who helped compile the original labor list. “These occupations are declining, so there might be fewer opportunities in the future, but it doesn’t mean there will be no opportunities,” he said.

Here’s a sample of workers in three of those occupations:

Farmers

Baugh Farms has always been in the family.

22 Career Fair 2015

children. And they enjoy it, she said.

“You really have to love to do this, because it’s a lot of hard work.”

Flight attendants

Don and Marla Baugh have taken over some of the same land in Canton, Texas, that Don’s father farmed for 53 years. They even use some of the same old tractors. “It’s just kind of in my blood,” Don said.

Yet a lot has changed. Among the challenges, he said, it’s hard to find reliable help, and the cost of everything from the fertilizer to the equipment has gone up. They usually just break even.

“Profit margins are so thin. It takes a lot of acres to be a decent farmer, and there is only so much land available, only so much left,” said Blake Bennett, a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist.

The Baughs work every day about 10 to 12 hours. Their son, Charley, 29, helps when he’s not at his regu-

lar job at a bank.

Every Saturday, the Baughs — along with Charley, Charley’s fiancée and Don’s daughter — go to five Dallas-area farmers markets, often selling to shoppers who have become regulars. Nearly 600 people have “liked” their Facebook page. They count several restaurants as customers.

For many years, farming was a side business while Don worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Marla was a teacher. They farmed to send Charley to college, Marla said. The work became full time after they both retired.

“If we didn’t have retirement, we wouldn’t make it as farmers,” Marla said.

They want to keep up their two farms so they can leave them to their

Margo Valencia walked through the aisles of the airplane, performing her job as a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines, just as she had since 2008. Then she spied a man flipping through a photo album of himself with famous singers. The man, who was autistic, told her he loved to sing. Valencia smiled and handed him the plane’s intercom.

“Have you ever sung on a plane before?” she asked him.

“No,” he replied.

“Would you like to?”

The man took the intercom and a song filled the cabin.

“He had the most beautiful voice I have ever heard. I was teary-eyed,” Valencia recalled. “I asked his family later, and it turned out he sang for an autistic foundation. Famous people would make appearances, and that’s how he got to perform with all of them.”

Valencia thanked him for the song and pointed to a picture of him and Janet Jackson.

“She’s beautiful.”

The man responded, “Yeah, but not as beautiful as you.”

“He touched my heart,” Valencia said. “It’s moments like that that really make this job great.”

If she couldn’t be a flight attendant anymore, she doesn’t know what she would do.

“I would feel like a bird with clipped wings,” Valencia said. “This job has given me such a personal satisfaction. It has taught me how to

be patient, how to be open and how to enjoy life.”

CareerCast blames the decline in flight attendants on airline mergers and fewer flights. However, Anthony DeMaio with the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, believes the industry has stabilized.

“After years of operating on the margins, airlines in the United States are turning profits, reinvesting in their product and re-establishing themselves in the international aviation industry,” DeMaio said. “Airlines are hiring flight attendants again. … It’s an exciting time to be in the industry and working as a flight attendant in particular.”

his truck to pick up more mail. His daily route takes about seven hours.

The residents are like an extended family, he said.

He recalled the time he brought a gift on Christmas Eve to a child who had been eagerly waiting for days. Other times, he’s had families waiting to see if they would be evicted, and a letter he delivered changed everything.

“This route enables me to keep life in perspective,” he said. “I can see how blessed I am.”

At a glance: endangered jobs

Postal carriers

Jonathan O’Hara, a mailman for the U.S. Postal Service, zipped down a residential street in North Dallas. At each home, he quickly sifted through his stack of envelopes and dropped several in the mailbox.

O’Hara has the routine down. He wears a rubber thimble to flip through the mail. He carries spray to fend off vicious dogs. He drinks plenty of water to beat the heat.

After 18 years as a letter carrier, he remains passionate about his job. “I enjoy connecting with my people,” he said.

The number of letter carriers has dropped across the country from a high in 1989 of 240,000 to around 190,000 in recent years, said Sauber, with the letter carriers association.

“The Internet is a double-edged

sword for us,” he said.

The increasing use of the Web to communicate has contributed to the drop, though online shopping is creating a demand. The number of carriers has gone up to about 200,000 this year, Sauber said.

In less than 30 minutes, O’Hara made his way through the dozens of homes on the long block and back to

CareerCast, a jobs website, examined statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to compile this list of jobs that are expected to decline in number: —Mail carrier —Farmer —Meter reader —Newspaper reporter —Travel agent —Lumberjack —Flight attendant —Drill-press operator —Printing worker —Tax examiner and collector

Full-and Part-time Positions.

SIHO Insurance Services is a regional health insurance carrier providing services covering several states in the central Midwest. SIHO is seeking talented prospects to fill our job openings in a variety of positions and departments.

Come speak with us at the job fair on April 8th at the Clarion Hotel, and discuss your opportunities.

IS IT TIME TO CLEAN OUT THE CLUTTER? Items you don’t want may be exactly what someone else is looking for. SELL THEM FOR FREE* in The Republic’s classifieds.

Visit

> > TheRepublic.com/classifieds to get started * Item must be valued at $1,000 or less. Ads will appear in the Stuff/Merchandise section of Classifieds. Ad must list one price for either one item or a variety of items sold as package.

EXCLUDES: Real Estate, Pets, Auto, Garage Sale & Business ads. Maximum: 1 free ad per week, per individual.

Some of the many jobs within SIHO include: Intern Management Trainee COBRA/Eligibility Specialist TPA Reinsurance Operations Coordinator Claims Processors Member Services Representative Employer Services Coordinator IT Helpdesk Technician IT Systems Developer IT Security Analyst Medical Assistant Provider Contracting Associate

Suggested requirements for most positions include: • Possess a passion for customer service.

• Excellent communication skills (oral and written).

• General knowledge and understanding of health insurance • Post-secondary education or two years of experience in a related field Call (812) 378-7000 with questions or email hr@siho.org Apply online at siho.hirecentric.com

Career Fair 2015 23

Great Career Opportunity

MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR LIFE & IN THE LIVES OF OTHERS! Are you interested in a challenging yet fulfilling career? Do you feel good when you see others advance and reach their personal goals? Then perhaps DSI is the employer for you! We have degreed and non-degreed Positions available.

The exciting thing about working at DSI is that there are many types of jobs that are needed to support those we serve. Regardless of the job task or position, every employee is part of a unique and cohesive effort that has been praised and emulated by successful businesses and other organizations throughout the field.

BENEFITS: Besides the opportunity to work in a professional yet comfortable setting, DSI offers many excellent benefits: Flexible Work Schedule Paid Training Travel Reimbursement Paid Leave Time (increases with seniority) Paid Holiday Time Health Insurance for Employees working 30 hrs or more 125K Flex Plan Short Term Disability Employer Paid Life Insurance Direct Deposit

To apply for open positions:

Please visit our booth at The Republic Career Fair on Wednesday, April 8th at the Clarion Hotel from Noon-5pm. We look forward to meeting you!

We will have HR Professionals on staff at the fair to speak with job seekers one-on-one.

If you are unable to attend the event, please apply in person at:

2920 Tenth Street, Columbus, IN 47201 or apply online at: www.dsiservices.org EOE