Humans Are Underrated – Geoff Colvin’s new book

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I read an article this morning on Fortune magazine’s website entitled, “Humans Are Underrated”.  The article is adapted from Geoff Colvin’s upcoming book by the same title.

The article discusses Geoff’s premise that technology continues to grow at an incredible pace.  Computers are able to perform increasingly complicated tasks that no one ever anticipated them having the ability to perform.  Computers are beating Grandmasters in Chess.  Computers are starting to drive cars. It seems everywhere we turn – computers are replacing human.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Kumar’s Edit http://ow.ly/Q4ztT
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Kumar’s Edit http://ow.ly/Q4ztT

But there is definitely hope…

According to Geoff – humans should stop trying to beat the machines at the tasks that machines are designed to do. Instead humans should focus on developing the skills and abilities that are distinctly human.

He goes into more detail in the article regarding what are the specific skills and abilities that we need to develop to not only survive but to thrive in the future.

It is an incredible read….

I am waiting to get a copy of the book – and I will blog about it in more detail at a later date.

But if you have time – wander over to Fortune’s website and read the article.

You’ll be glad you did….

People Without Facebook Accounts Are ‘Suspicious’

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I had written an earlier post about How To Clean Up Your Social Media During The Job Search.

And this is still a good idea…

But while cleaning up those ‘crazy party photos’, some job seekers may be tempted to take their clean-up to the next level and simply delete their Facebook account and shut down their entire social media presence.

That however, may not be such a good idea….

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Marco Paköeningrat http://ow.ly/MZBVs
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Marco Paköeningrat http://ow.ly/MZBVs

According to author Kashmir Hill in her Forbes magazine article entitled, Beware, Tech Abandoners. People Without Facebook Accounts Are ‘Suspicious’.

In the article, Kashmir writes:

Anecdotally, I’ve heard both job seekers and employers wonder aloud about what it means if a job candidate doesn’t have a Facebook account. Does it mean they deactivated it because it was full of red flags? Are they hiding something?

While she admits that people may be avoiding social media for any number of valid reasons (e.g. the person finds social media too addictive and prefers to avoid it), she goes on to write:

But it does seem that increasingly, it’s expected that everyone is on Facebook in some capacity, and that a negative assumption is starting to arise about those who reject the Big Blue Giant’s siren call. Continuing to navigate life without having this digital form of identification may be like trying to get into a bar without a driver’s license.

So job seekers not only should not shut down their Social Media presence – they should continue to maintain their various Social Media accounts.

And in fact – in this day and age – not having a Social Media presence may actually hinder you during your job search.

 

Peter Drucker on the Importance of Focus

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Peter Drucker was a legendary Management Consultant who passed away at the age of 95 in 2005.
He was the author of classics such as “The Practice of Management”, “The Effective Executive” & “Drucker on Management”.
Forbes magazine deemed him “the founder of modern management”.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Isaac Mao http://ow.ly/IaclN
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Isaac Mao http://ow.ly/IaclN

One of my favorite quotes of his appears in his autobiography, Adventures of a Bystander.

Drucker wrote:

“Bucky Fuller and Marshall McLuhan exemplify to me the importance of being single-minded.  The single-minded ones, the monomaniacs, are the only true achievers.  The rest, the ones like me, may have more fun; but they fritter themselves away.  The Fullers and the McLuhans carry out a ‘mission’, the rest of us have ‘interests’.  Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.”

We are all too often guilty of loading too much on our plates.  We waste time on Facebook or Twitter.  We binge-watch episodes of House of Cards.  Or we spread ourselves too thin when we decide that we are going  to start a garden, and train for a marathon and learn Spanish – all within the next 6 months.

Bottom line – Drucker’s advice is prudent.

If we really want to accomplish something that is important to us, whether it is building our careers or raising a family, we would be better served if – instead of ‘frittering’ ourselves away – we focused our time & energies on that one “mission”.

When we are focused & diligent – only then we can succeed…..

 

 

Warren Buffett’s Career Advice

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Warren Buffett is a legendary investor without peer – but the Oracle of Omaha can offer some sage career advice as well.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by Aaron Friedman http://ow.ly/HDTa1
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by Aaron Friedman http://ow.ly/HDTa1

According to a post on the Lifehacker site:

“Fortune magazine drops in on a Q&A Warren Buffett offered to 150 business students, and the advice dispensed by the Oracle of Omaha on investing and money in general is elegantly simple. 

When one student asked Buffett how to best spend his free time to further his investing knowledge, Buffett avoided generalized advice and told him to stick to what he knows. Fortune paraphrases:

For most people, the bulk of their income is going to come from earning power in their chosen profession. Therefore, from the standpoint of building wealth, free time is better spent sharpening one’s professional skills rather than studying investing.“

Warren’s advice is prudent.

But how many of us actually do this?  How many of us actually spend our free time doing things that will enable us to get better at our jobs and make us more marketable?

As a Recruiter, I often hear people lament about how their careers are stagnant, or that they are not earning what they think they are worth.  But when I ask them what are they doing to invest in themselves and get better at their jobs, often there is no response.

Maybe – if we are really serious about developing our careers – we should follow Warren’s advice and spend more time developing our professional skills and less time following other pursuits.

Maybe we should all start investing in ourselves.

 

2014 – America’s best year of job growth since 1999

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2014 ended up being America’s best year for job growth since 1999 according to a post by Matt Egan and Heather Long on the CNN website.

According to the post:

“More than 2.95 million jobs were created last year, according to the latest figures from the Department of Labor.

It’s encouraging news as the U.S. tries to put the Great Recession and sluggish recovery solidly behind it. Many economists expect 2015 to be equally as strong, if not better, for job seekers….’American businesses are on a hiring binge,’ said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. ‘It clearly suggests the economy is on a much stronger growth track than the first four years of the recovery.'”

But the news wasn’t all good.

The article continues:

“While job growth continues to pick up steam, wages have not. The government said average hourly earnings fell slightly in December from the previous month.”

Nevertheless, while wage growth has been negligible, the overall jobs situation is still much stronger than it has been in years.

And that is good news for all of us….

7 Signs You Should Leave Your Job

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As we enter a New Year, now is a good time to review your current job situation.

Time Magazine’s website has a great article on this very topic entitled: 7 Signs You Should Leave Your Job (Sooner Rather Than Later).

The article’s author – Camillo Cho – lists the following signs:

  1. You’re Living the Status Quo
  2. You Don’t Get Feedback
  3. You’re Not Learning
  4. There’s a Constant Exodus
  5. There’s Regular Re-structuring
  6. Headhunters Want You
  7. It Feels Like Time to Go

You can read more detailed explanations regarding the 7 signs in  the complete article on Time’s website here.

If none of the above listed signs apply to you, then you should definitely stay where you are.

But if you find yourself nodding in agreement as you read down the list, it may be time to polish up the old resume…

Jobs Outlook for 2015

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According to economists, the job market will continue to strengthen in 2015.

Paul Davidson, in an article in USA Today wrote:

A strengthening labor market will not let up this year, economists say, with job growth approaching or exceeding the estimated 15-year high reached in 2014.

Later in the article, Davidson writes:

This year, many economists expect low gasoline prices and rising household wealth to drive consumer spending, offsetting weakness overseas and helping the economy to grow at least 3%, vs. an estimated 2.4% in 2014.

That, along with more bullish employers, should power average monthly job gains to 250,000 to 300,000, says Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for The Economic Outlook Group.

This is definitely the type of news we all enjoy hearing….

The Resume Black Hole – Part 2

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I posted about the Resume Black Hole a few weeks ago – but I found another article that I had saved on this topic – so I thought I would revisit it.

Candidates always tell me that they often feel when they apply on-line that their submissions get lost in the Resume Black Hole.

Well – this article from the Wall Street Journal by Lauren Webber will do little to alleviate their fears.

The article is from 2012 – but based on comments I have received from candidates recently – the figures quoted in the article appear to still be pretty accurate.
You can read the article here.

Lauren writes:

Résumé overload isn’t just a big-company problem. Job seekers often are surprised when they don’t hear back from small businesses. These businesses rarely hire enough people to make an applicant-tracking system cost-effective, but even a one-time posting on a well-trafficked job board like Monster.com can garner hundreds of responses.
 
Only 19% of hiring managers at small companies look at a majority of the résumés they receive, and 47% say they review just a few, according to a recent survey by Information Strategies Inc., publisher of Your HR Digest, an online newsletter.

These are pretty daunting statistics for job seekers….

Bottom line – Networking – whether using your own contacts or the contacts of a 3rd Party (e.g. a Recruiter) remains by far the most effective way to get an interview.

Monkeys Reading Resumes

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A couple of years ago, I read a very interesting post over on the Executive Career Coaching blog.  The post is still online.  You can read it here.

In the post, Carl Schumacher writes that you should write your resume as if a monkey was going to read it.

Carl writes,

“If you were driving down the street and you saw a Billboard but you couldn’t make out what it said because the worlds were too small and the message was hidden in a thousand words, you would probably not understand it or crash your car trying to figure it out.
But on the other hand, if it said “EAT AT JOE’S” there would be no mistaking the message.

So is my message when referring to your resume. If you were trying to show something to a monkey you wouldn’t do it quietly or subtlety. You would be obvious about what you were doing. You’d talk simple to a monkey — Monkey want a Banana? Monkey want a toy? — straight forward and obvious.”

Carl makes an excellent point.

Too often I have had tremendously qualified candidates write resumes that are vague or do not spell out in detail what their accomplishments are. The candidates try to be subtle in their approach. When I ask them to provide more detail or be more direct in their resume, the candidates will literally reply….”Well, the Hiring Manager will know what I mean.” or ” Any one who is in the industry will know that I have that type of instrumentation experience. I don’t have to spell it out on the resume.”

But that type of thinking is just plain wrong.

When you are writing a resume, you do have to be specific.
You do have to provide details.
You have to be simple and direct.

Or, as Carl Schumacher so aptly puts it….you gotta assume the person reading your resume is a monkey!!

Where The Jobs Are

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Interesting post on Lifehacker regarding the Best Cities, States and Countries for New Jobs in the Next Quarter according to the Consulting Firm ManpowerGroup.
You can see the article here.

According to the post – the top cities and metro areas (also listed are the percentage of employers that are hiring in that area) include:

Cape Coral, Florida: 32%
McAllen, Texas: 29%
Deltona, Florida: 26%
Grand Rapids, Michigan: 26%
Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 24%
Oxnard, California: 24%

Lifehacker also provides a link where you can read the full report.

So if you’re looking for employment – and are willing to relocate – the above areas might be good places to begin your search.