Keeping Up with the Changing World of Work

New opportunities continue to appear.  How is your work changing? Let me know if you see trends in your work.

10 Careers That Didn’t Exist 10 Years Ago

BY RACHEL ZUPEK

Every so often, you meet someone with a job title that makes you go, “Huh?” Either it’s too technical to understand, too hard to describe or in some cases, people just may not have heard of it. But, why would someone not have heard about a job’s existence?

Simple: All the changes that have come about in the past 10 years, from environmental policy to emerging technologies to the recession, have contributed to the creation of careers that never could have existed before.

Dom Sagolla, co-creator of Twitter, for example, recently made the switch from working in research and development at Adobe to creating iPhone applications with his company, DollarApp. Sagolla is also authoring a book, “140 Characters,” which demonstrates the effect of hypertext on literature by redefining the concept of “the book” using Twitter and iPhone to start, he says. Could he have done this 10 years ago? Doubtful.

“I’ve noticed that the best-of-breed iPhone apps incorporate Twitter and social networks, and the best Twitter apps seem to be on iPhone,” Sagolla says. “That is no coincidence: The two came to prominence at roughly the same time. I’ve worked hard to position myself at intersection of those two industries, which form a vortex of attention and zeal that is unmatched.”

Here is a little information about 10 careers that didn’t exist a decade ago:

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Change: Coming Soon to a New Job for You

I hope you’ll be as intrigued as I am by this article. The changes we’ll see in work in the next decade will be exciting and expanding. Here’s a taste.

Matching Life Experience With New Careers

By ELIZABETH POPE

HEALTH navigator? Conflict coach? Pollution mitigation outreach worker? These emerging jobs aren’t household terms yet, but they are a natural fit for older people looking for new career opportunities, said Phyllis Segal, vice president at Civic Ventures, a nonprofit research group based in San Francisco.

“Many of today’s new encore careers build on multiple work and life experiences, so they are a good match for older adults who’ve spent decades in the workplace,” Ms. Segal said. To help older workers upgrade skills for such jobs, she added, community colleges, online degree programs and intensive workshops are expanding training and fast-track certification programs.

Jobs in health care, education, government and nonprofit organizations are likely to grow in coming years because of an aging population, pending retirements and demographic changes, said Barry Bluestone, a labor economist at Northeastern University.

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Keeping in touch with those working friends pays off…

Internal Hires, Referrals Were Most Hired in 2009

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

Last year, employers filled more than half of job openings with existing employees, a new study to be released Friday shows.

Internal transfers and promotions accounted for an average of 51% of all full-time positions filled in 2009, down from 39% in 2008 and 34% in 2007, reports CareerXroads, a staffing-strategy consulting firm in Kendall Park, N.J. Survey respondents included 41 companies that employ a combined 1.8 million U.S. workers. Last year these firms collectively filled 176,420 positions.

For the 49% of jobs that were filled with external recruits, referrals accounted for the most hires — 27% — and about the same number as in 2008. On average, these yielded one hire for every 15 referrals received. Meanwhile, company Web sites and job boards accounted for 22% and 13% of external hires, respectively.

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They’re Never Really Right Anyway…

Since forecasters are rarely right anyway, but it’s clear that life will never be quite the same again, we all need to be figuring out what’s NEXT, right? Time to take a fresh look at what works and what you want to do that works for you. Necessity is, of course, the mother of all invention. Economic Report Sings Blues on Jobs By JONATHAN WEISMAN And GREG HITT WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama’s first official economic report to Congress predicts lackluster employment growth this year and next, even after including the impact of a jobs bill whose prospects appeared uncertain in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) rejected a bipartisan jobs bill Thursday from the Senate Finance Committee in favor of a much slimmer proposal. Mr. Reid is looking at a $15 billion measure, the biggest piece of it focused on tax breaks for small businesses that hire new… Read More

How a Black Mark Can Derail a Job Search

This is a disturbing bit of information. I know this has been a very stressful time of looking for positions, and this article can make it more stressful. I suggest 1) take this with a grain of salt as not everyone has been vetted by recruiters, and 2) do your own background check just as you might check your credit history. Read on…. By JOANN S. LUBLIN You messed up a job search, making a faux pas during an interview or handling a turndown badly. But you probably don’t realize that your mistake, exacerbated by the tight job market, could harm your long-term prospects. At a networking event last August in Bellevue, Wash., a recruiter pointed to a software developer across the room. He’s qualified, but “very bad in his presentation skills,” he told career coach Paul Anderson and a human-resources official for a big technology concern. “What’s that guy’s… Read More

Lifting the Curtain on the Hiring Process

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN Ever wonder what exactly goes on behind the scenes when you apply for a job? While the recruiting process varies by industry, company and even department, the end result is the same: One person out of many receives an offer. Indeed, last month there were 6.4 unemployed persons for every job opening, according to the Labor Department. For those who aren’t hired, understanding what happened to their candidacy along the way can be a mystery. Not every firm notifies applicants that they have been rejected, and few say why. But knowing what goes on in the hiring process may give prospects the inside track for a job. Many employers start filling vacancies below the executive level by using a team of recruiters or human-resources personnel to weed out applications that fail to meet a job’s basic qualifications. “They should only be removing candidates… Read More

Key to securing jobs in growing fields

Landing a Job of the Future Takes a Two-Track Mind Career Experts Say Positions in Growing Fields Will Require an In-Demand Degree Coupled With Skills in Emerging Trends By DIANA MIDDLETON If you’re gearing up for a job search now as an undergraduate or returning student, there are several bright spots where new jobs and promising career paths are expected to emerge in the next few years. Technology, health care and education will continue to be hot job sectors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ outlook for job growth between 2008 and 2018. But those and other fields will yield new opportunities, and even some tried-and-true fields will bring some new jobs that will combine a variety of skill sets. The degrees employers say they’ll most look for include finance, engineering and computer science, says Andrea Koncz, employment-information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. But to… Read More

An Email Exchange about Leadership

Last night I received this email. You’ll see my response below. I’d welcome comments. I suppose that what I’m about to ask you for is not your main area of expertise, but I’m going to ask anyway (as a starting point, if nothing else). Lately, I have been through much searching for answers regarding my life and work. Ultimately, I have come to the conclusion that the best first step for me to take would be finding the right company to work for. Toward that goal, I wonder if you can direct me to resources, ways, places or people who know more about companies’ cultures than just what they tell prospective investors? As a pointer, let me say that I currently work for a company whose ownership and management is arrogant, greedy, selfish, malicious, culturally limited, closed-minded, and would rather employ and promote their cronies who do barely-passable work than… Read More

Brave or Brazen? Bold Tactics Don't Always Get the Job

By DANA MATTIOLI Originally posted in Wall Street Journal Online, 8/31/09 Recruiters say more job seekers are taking unusual steps to be noticed—almost always without success. Instead, the recruiters say candidates often hurt their chances by appearing brazen, overly persistent or rude. In April, a job candidate scheduled an hourlong interview for himself by sending a meeting-request invite via Microsoft Outlook to New York executive recruiter Kim Bishop, who ignored the request. Ms. Bishop canceled the meeting and won’t speak with the job hunter. “I just thought it was inappropriate and too aggressive,” she says. “It would be like walking into someone’s office without an invite.” In order to stand apart from the competition, Jim Winninger has sent packages to hiring managers with an embroidered shirt and a catchy gift tag. Recruiters at Philips Electronics NV say a growing number of job candidates with scheduled phone interviews are… Read More

Need to Find a Job? Stop Looking So Hard

Many of our clients have heard us say this to them, but this article says it so well that I wanted to share it with you. This article is from Harvard Business Publishing by Peter Bregman Published: February 6, 2009 Do you know anyone who tried for years to have a baby but couldn’t? Then, after giving up, maybe after adopting, suddenly, surprisingly, got pregnant? Or someone who was dying to be in a relationship? Dated all the time, but never met the right person. Then, after accepting he would be alone, started focusing on other things and, lo and behold, met someone and got married? How about someone who lost her job? Maybe she spent the next year working on her resumé, perusing job sites, devoting all her energy to getting work. All to no avail. Then, after deciding to stop looking so hard, out of the… Read More