Retired Worker Blog

That degree in English Lit might be a lot more marketable than you think

Thu, 14 Jan 2010, 00:00:00 EST

Maybe I didn't 'waste' my university degree, after all.

Graduating from university in 1991 was tough: Interest rates were high, property values were low, and the recession just kept dragging on and on and on.

Graduating in 1991 with an English degree from a university primarily known for its business school was even worse, because not only were your parents questioning the value of a flaky English lit degree, most of your friends were, too. After all, most of them had only endured the 4-year BBA program because of the promise of a lucrative job at the end of it.

"It's not about learning and enjoying it, Sarah," they'd lecture. "University is about getting a piece of paper so you can get a job. Three years from now when I'm making $100k and you're still trying to find a job, you'll regret you wasted your degree on reading books. Everyone knows that English grads have no marketable skills and never make any money."

But then came the gaping maw of the internet...

...and its relentless demand for 'content'.

If there's one thing a BA in English teaches you, it's how to churn out 2500 words of clean copy a day on any subject, without wasting valuable time on actual 'research', because it's now 12 midnight, the library's closed, and you have to write a 10-page paper on "Dualism in The Faeirie Queen as it relates to the tree motif" by noon.

Turns out, this skill is very marketable, after all. And guess what? Good, consistently productive writers are harder to find than you think.

The moral of our story?

Twenty years ago, most of us didn't realize the internet was coming down the pike in such a big way, and how it would revolutionize the way we communicate. Ten years ago, most of us didn't realize that social media would revolutionize the way we gather and disseminate information.

So the next time someone tries to tell you you're making a "huge mistake" with your career, and that you'll regret it ten years from now, you may want to just smile politely - and totally ignore them.

Dear Sarah: What's the difference between a 'headhunter' and a 'recruiter'?

Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 00:00:00 EST

A BIT OF HOUSEKEEPING: A number of readers have asked if they can reprint/reproduce these "Dear Sarah" pieces for use with their own candidates. The answer: Yes, absolutely - as long as they are properly credited, with a link to this blog and my email address (sarah@head2head.ca). Dropping me a line to let me know you're using it would be great, too - I appreciate a good ego-stroke as much as the next person.

Note to recruiters (job-seekers, just scroll down to the next bolded heading!)

This week, Jeff Lipschultz and I were guests on Daisy Wright's Blog Talk Radio show.

At first I wondered how we'd fill in a whole hour, but I needn't have worried: As I said in the first "Dear Sarah" post, those of us who work in recruiting - and spend most of our time talking about, thinking about, and writing about recruiting - would do well to remember that for the average person, recruiting is something they only think about once every few years. Information that we think of as common knowledge - and therefore not worth even talking about - is definitely not common knowledge for the average person.

(Speaking with Jeff after the show, we agreed the lack of recruiting knowledge is particularly evident in Gen Ys, even among the best-and-brightest. Given that Jeff's in Dallas and I'm in Toronto, I wonder how many A-listers North American recruiters are missing out on, simply because these candidates don't know how to get our attention.)

If you're a job-seeker - or a recruiter/hiring manager who frequently interacts with candidates who are new to working with recruiters - you might want to send them a link to the podcast of the show.

HALF THE BATTLE IS LEARNING THE LINGO

The first question in the show was about the difference between a 'headhunter' and a 'recruiter' - and in fact it's a question I get probably once a week. Like any other profession, recruiting has its own lexicon that isn't necessarily well understood by the average job-seeker.

So below, you'll find explanations for some of the most common recruiting terms. It's definitely not exhaustive, but it's a good start. (Remember: Being familiar with the terminology tells recruiters that you've done your homework and 'get it'.)

What's the difference between a 'recruiter' and a 'headhunter'?

The short answer is: Nothing. The only reason anyone gets confused is that recruiters never use the word 'headhunter' to describe themselves, and among recruitment professionals it's considered a slightly derogatory term. (It's sort of how real estate peole always call themselves 'real estate salesperson' or 'realtor', but the rest of the world calls them 'real estate agents'.)

However, while all headhunters are recruiters, not all recruiters are headhunters. 'Headhunter' is a term used to refer to agency recruiters, who typically work on commission or retained search on behalf of a client, and are the ones most likely to call you up at your current job to 'headhunt' you for another position.

'Recruiter', on the other hand, is used to describe anyone who recruits candidates. This includes headhunters, but also includes corporate recruiters who work within organizations, are less likely to 'headhunt' candidates, and who are more involved in recruitment strategy.

When do I go from being a 'job-seeker' to a 'candidate'?

Recruiters use the term 'candidate' to refer to any person who may be a potential applicant, interviewee, or hire. Like 'headhunter', 'job-seeker' or 'job-hunter' aren't terms recruiters use very often. (Personally, I've always wondered why they don't use those terms, but so far no one's explained it to me.)

Here are some of the most common ways in which you'll see yourself described as a candidate:

Potential candidate:
This is any person who is part of the talent pool for a given role and/or meets the parameters (of skills/experience/geographical location/education, etc.) for that role, whether or not they are interested in or have applied to particular job.

For example, a job board may say it has "30,000 potential candidates" in accounting. What that means is there are 30,000 people registered in their database who have indicated 'accounting' as part of their skills/experience, and who may be interested in an accounting-related role.

Passive candidate:
'Passive candidates' are people who aren't actively looking for a new job, but who may be interested in making a move if the right opportunity came along.

Among recruiters looking to fill intermediate and senior roles, passive candidates are considered the most valuable, because they tend to be high-performing achievers who are too busy making a contribution to, and moving up within, their current organization to become sufficiently dissatisfied to embark on an active job search.

(When you hear recruiters talk about using social media for recruiting, it's usually about using social media to establish and maintain long-term relationships with passive candidates. A-list overachievers, especially at the Director-level and above, aren't likely to respond to some recruiter who calls them out of the blue to try to sell them on a new job; it may take months of 'wooing' the passive candidate to get them interested in considering a move.)

Pre-screened candidate:
The process of going from "5000 applications" to "a short-list of the top candidates" as the 'screening process'.

Depending on the role and number of applicants, there may be several stages to the screening process, including 'paper screen' (a review of all the resumes/applications, discarding any that are obviously unsuitable or incorrect); 'phone screen' (the recruiter makes a 5-minute phone call to the candidates who passed the paper screen, and again discards any who are obviously unsuitable); 'detailed phone screen' (a second phone call, longer and more detailed). At each screening stage, the candidate pool is whittled down.

A pre-screened candidate refers to an applicant who has passed one or more screening stages.

Submitted to client:
Once the screening process is complete, the recruiter will submit a shortlist of the top candidates to the client (i.e. the potential employer) so that they can select the ones they'd like to interview.

What that submission contains depends on the client: Some clients want to see a brief summary of 10+ different candidates; others want more detailed info on just the top 3 candidates. Depending on the relationship between the recruiter and his/her client, your name may be included with your profile, or it may be hidden.

This is why recruiters always ask you if you're working with another recruiter, and, if so, to whom that recruiter has already submitted your profile. Employers often engage more than one recruiting agency to fill a given role; when two or more recruiters submit the profile of the same candidate, it makes everyone - including you - look bad.

It can be even more sticky if the client ends up hiring you. Remember, recruiters get paid only when the employer makes a hire. If two or more recruiters submit you, either one of them goes unpaid, or they have to split the commission. Either way, the recruiters are going to be cheesed off, and won't be in a hurry to take your call the next time you're looking for a job.

Have a recruiting-related lexicon question?

Send it to sarah@head2head.ca.

You're helping the economy just by reading this!

Fri, 01 Jan 2010, 00:00:00 EST

So it's the last day of 2009 and, like most people, I'm spending the day reflecting on the year that's passed and the year to come.

I think 2009 was pretty much the 13th floor of our lives: Sure, we all know it's there, but the elevator buttons skip from 12 to 14, as though not labelling the 13th floor will somehow keep us safe from the bad luck it supposedly brings.

However, I have to say I was surprised by our collective resiliency this year. The media in the first few months of 2009 was a non-stop deluge of economic disaster stories.

But there's only so much of that doom and gloom a body can stand, and by August it felt like, as a society, we put our collective foot down and said, "Enough with this paralyzing economic stasis! Let's start moving forward again!"

In other words, barely a year after the Bear Stearns collapse that started it all, we were able to pick ourselves up, shake off the dust, and get back on the road, as it were. Maybe we're not yet running down the road, but we're definitely striding briskly, and possibly whistling.

But I found myself wondering..

The 2008/09 recession was more sudden, dramatic, and global than any other economic downturn since the Great Depression. So how come we seem to be recovering - in spirit, if not yet in actual dollars - so much faster?

(Remember the real estate tumble in the late 1980s? Not only did house prices take ages to recover, but everyone was just so depressed for so long. If I had a nickel for every time one of my friends, family or university profs told me that graduating in 1991 with a BA in English Lit basically qualified me for a life on the breadlines, I'd have been able to bail out Bear Stearns myself. Now that 'content is king', however, us English grads are looking remarkably prescientient.)

Social media: The #1 factor in the optimism that leads to economic recovery

Back in May, I wrote that social media was saving the economy, and I still think it's true.

Our connections to people far outside our previously circumscribed little worlds have given us all more of a sense of 'team spirit'. Personal economic disasters - losing a job, losing retirement investments, etc. - can be alienating and isolating. But these days, instead of holing up at home, quietly falling off the grid into an alcoholic slough of despond, we're taking to blogs, vlogs, status updates, discussion groups - and finding that not only are we not alone in our own circumstances, but there are plenty of people in far worse circumstances, so maybe we should stop moaning about how we can't afford that 52" flatscreen any more.

(All of this also puts me in mind of the whitepaper we published this year on grassroots corporate philanthropy and its effect on the bottom line, actually.)

Anyhow, I guess that's my Big Deep Thought for 2010: Spending so much time connecting with people via social media isn't 'wasting time' - it's these connections, which are driving the optimism that, ultimately, drives economies.

The view from here: Recruiting in Canada

Mon, 14 Dec 2009, 00:00:00 EST

This is an article I wrote for the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership's Dec/Jan edition. The CRL Journal is an industry magazine for recruiting professionals, not job seekers, but since recruiting salaries are a good indication of the health of the job market, you might find this info interesting.

THE VIEW FROM HERE:

RECRUITING IN CANADA

While the Canadian economy has suffered less than that of the US in the past 18 months (and the recession was declared 'officially' over by June), almost 85% of Canadian organizations report they froze or reduced hiring plans throughout most of late 2008 and the first 9 months of 2009.

The result, for corporate recruiting professionals, was that after more than 2 years of steady increases (5-20% in 2007; 5-15% in 2008), recruiting salaries remained largely unchanged in 2009.

Average salaries for corporate recruiting professionals working in industries hardest hit by the recession, such as manufacturing and consumer goods, have declined by 2-5%, while salaries for those working in more 'recession-proof' industries, such as energy and utilities and healthcare, have seen similarly modest increases of 2-6%.

The biggest surprise? Recruiters working in the retail/leisure industry saw their average salaries increase by 5% - the top of the range, and equal to salary increases for healthcare recruiters. Canadian retailers had a better Q4 2008 than anticipated, so they maintained hiring levels well into 2009. But the economic uncertainty drove them to become increasingly strategic about their recruiting efforts, which meant they were prepared to pay a premium for recruiting professionals with specific retail experience.

For more on the Canadian recruiting industry - and how recruiting salaries have changed in the past year - read more in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, out now.

Dear Sarah: Can I work with more than one recruiter at a time?

Mon, 30 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST

In the last "Dear Sarah" post, we talked about what happens when more than one recruiter submits your profile to a client, and how it can make everyone look bad.

But does that mean you should never work with more than one recruiter?

Well...no. But.

Some recruiters will tell you that unless you (as a job-seeker) work exclusively with them, they won't represent you or present you to clients.

Here's why: Good recruiters will tell you when they're submitting your profile to a client; the best recruiters will ask your permission in advance. But the not-so-great recruiters just submit lots of candidates to lots of clients and hope that something sticks.

At the same time, many clients will engage several recruiting agencies to fill a given role, so they're getting candidates submitted to them from multiple sources.

That means that your profile could currently be in front of a whole bunch of clients, and the new recruiter doesn't want to look like an idiot by submitting a profile of a candidate that their client saw 2 weeks ago from some other recruiter.

Going to 8 zillion different recruiters increases the chance of your profile being submitted to a particular client, and after a while it's not just the recruiter who looks like an idiot: Once a client has been given your profile from 4+ different recruiters over a couple of months, they start to wonder just how desperate/unemployable you really are.

However, putting all your eggs in one basket with one recruiter isn't wise, either, especially if you don't know how successful/connected that recruiter is in your field.

Some guidelines for working with more than one recruiter:

Be honest and up-front. If you're already working with a couple of recruiters, let the new recruiter know. If you know you've been submitted to an opportunity, tell them about it.
Depending on your career stage and profession, you probably shouldn't work with more than 5 recruiters at a time. (If you're quite junior and trying to get a foot in the door, it's probably okay to talk to a whole bunch of recruiters; if you're more senior and working in a field where 'word gets around', you probably shouldn't work with more than 2 or 3 recruiters at a time.)
A recruiter who refuses to work with you because you've spoken to another recruiter either thinks you're not a particularly good candidate ("I can't trust this person to tell me about the other positions s/he has been submitted to") or doesn't do his/her homework ("I just submit all my candidates to all kinds of clients - I can't be bothered to call you to double-check to see if you've already been submitted").

Either way, s/he probably isn't the best recruiter for you, anyway, so don't feel too badly about walking away.

(NB: There are exceptions to this, especially in industries in which the talent pool is very small and where there may be only a handful of qualified candidates for a given role. In these situations it's appropriate to work with a single recruiter.)
Try to build long-term relationships with a couple of recruiters who specialize in recruiting people in your field. A recruiter who's known you for 5+ years is more likely to 'sell you' into a potential employer than someone you just met yesterday.

Again, if you're a junior just into your first or second job, it's worthwhile to make the rounds of lots of recruiters - it'll help you get a feel for what's out there, who has the best opportunities, and who might be a great long-term contact. As you become more senior, you'll be able to leverage these long-term relationships to make your job search much easier - and more painless.

Retired Worker on the radio: Tips for job-seekers on getting the most out of recruiters

Wed, 18 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST

The more you know about working with recruiters, the more successful your job search will be.

Today, Sarah Welstead, co-founder and Managing Partner of Retired Worker, was a panelist on Career Coach Daisy Wright's radio show for jobseekers.

We answered questions from real job-seekers about how to get the most out of working with recruiters.

Click here to listen to the show!

And don't forget to follow the host, Daisy Wright, and my co-panelist Jeff Lipschultz on Twitter:

Daisy Wright

Jeff Lipschultz

"Dear Sarah: Who pays recruiters and how do I get one?"

Sun, 15 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST

If you're new to the job market - and even if you're not - your biggest source of confusion about recruiters (aka 'headhunters') is probably a simple one: Who the heck pays them?

(Yes, if you're a recruiter here on ERE, you - presumably - know all about headhunters and how they get paid. But as I explained in the first "Dear Sarah" post, this series was created so that the next time you get a question from a non-recruiting friend or relation, you can just send them this link rather than having to spend too much time explaining.)

First, a word on lexicon: Though you and your friends may talk about 'headhunters' - i.e. the people who call you and try to sell you on a Fabulous New Job Opportunity - that's not a word used by headhunters themselves. It's sort of like how real estate salespeople never call themselves real estate 'agents', even though the rest of the world does.

There's a fair amount of recruiting-industry lexicon with which you may not be familiar, actually. The more you know about the lexicon, the more 'in the know' you'll seem to recruiters, so I've provided brief descriptions below.

Anyway, it's the client - i.e. the company who makes the hire - who pays the recruiter, not the job-seeker.

Here's how it (typically) works:

The client decides they need to fill a position (also called a 'role')
They send their requirements (also called a 'job requisition' or 'job req') to a recruiting agency. In most cases, the client will send their job reqs to more than one agency at a time
The job requisition will be assigned to one or more recruiters, who will then look through their database, make calls to their network of contacts, and/or search online to find potential candidates. It's at this stage that they might call or email you to see if you're (a) interested and/or (b) meet the skills/experience parameters of the position
If they think you're a good potential candidate, the recruiter may arrange to interview you
If the interview with the recruiter goes well, s/he will send your profile (which could include your resume, a summary of your strengths/weaknesses, and recommendations) to the client
The client is likely receiving profiles of potential candidates from several other recruiting agencies at the same time
The client reviews your information. If they think you might be a good fit, they tell the recruiter to schedule an interview with you
When the client makes a hire, they pay the recruiting agency a fee. This fee is typically 16-20% of the new hire's annual salary
The client pays the fee only to the recruiting agency who sent the successful candidate (i.e. the one who got hired). The other recruiting agencies receive nothing.

This is called contingency fee-based recruiting, because the fee is contingent upon a hire being made.

(There are other recruiting models, and fees can vary - such as much lower fees for junior/high volume roles and higher fees for very senior/executive roles - but this is the basic contingency model and the one you're most likely to encounter if you're working with a recruiting agency.)

Typically, recruiters are paid a base salary by the agency they work for, plus a commission based on the contingency fees they generate for the agency. So when you're hired through an agency, the recruiter you've been working with gets a piece of the 20% of your starting annual salary that the client pays to the agency.

I know it sounds like a lot of money - if your starting salary is, say, $60k, then the client pays $12,000 for the privilege of hiring you - but keep in mind that a typical agency recruiter will interview 25+ candidates per week, but only a handful of them will ultimately be hired.

So how do I connect with a recruiter?

Well, this is a big topic and one we'll revisit in future posts, but the first step is to do some research to find out which recruiting agencies specialize in your profession/field/industry. Though some larger recruiting agencies recruit for all positions, you'll do better if you hook up with a recruiting agency - or even a recruiter - which specializes in one or two fields/roles, such as IT positions, supply chain positions or clerical positions.

However, just Googling may not be enough here. For example, if you look at the website of Canadian recruiting company Mandrake Management Consultants, you wouldn't know that they've long had a specialty in recruiting for advertising/marketing jobs - but they do. So your best bet is to ask around: Ask friends and colleagues which recruiting agencies they've worked with recently, and which ones specialized in your field.

While you're at it, ask your friends/colleagues for the names (and contact info!) of the recruiter(s) they've worked with. There's nothing more pointless - and more guaranteed to generate rejection - than randomly calling recruitment agencies and asking to speak to 'anyone'. Recruiting agencies get hundreds, if not thousands, of unsolicited calls and emails every day - they're very good at screening. Getting the direct email/phone number of a specific person, and being able to reference someone they've successfully placed, will put you miles ahead.

BONUS TIP: When you're asking your friends and colleagues for referrals to recruiters, don't specify that you want the names of recruiters they liked; ask for the names of the recruiters who seemed to have jobs. Because you don't have to like the recruiter, as long as they can actually connect you to great opportunities.

"Dear Sarah: Recruiters are driving me nuts. What should I do?"

Sun, 08 Nov 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Because I've worked in the recruiting industry for a while now, but am not actually a recruiter myself, scarcely a week goes by that I don't get an email from someone - a friend-of-a-friend, a spouse-of-a-friend, a child-of-a-friend - telling me that they're having unsatisfactory interactions with recruiters, and asking what they should do about it.

The fundamental problem, of course - outside of the current economy, which is making job hunting tougher for everyone - is simply that most job-seekers don't really understand the recruiting process.

What's more, the job-hunting process is so personal, stressful and 'self-focused', it can be hard to stay objective. Even the most confident people can find themselves coming across as 'desperate' when talking to recruiters.

However, the more you know about how recruiting - especially recruiting agencies - works, the better you'll look to recruiters, and the better your chances that recruiters will respond to your applications, send you to interviews, and actively promote you to their clients.

Welcome to the 'Dear Sarah' series!

...in which we offer advice, tips and general how-to-ish-ness to job-seekers who want to have more satisfactory interactions with recruiters.

These are real questions that I've received from job-seekers in the past 6 months.

(Have a question about your recent experiences with recruiters? Send me an email at sarah@retiredworker.ca!)

FIRST QUESTION:
"Dear Sarah:

I have been dealing with a couple of recruiters recently and I wanted your opinion.

In one case, the interview went really well and I was told that I would hear back within 1 to 3 days. It was 4 weeks before I heard anything back and the recruiter said that they planned to make an offer, but were working out details. The last contact I had with him was in August and I interviewed in July. I've been calling once a month since then, but he's not taking my calls so I leave voicemails asking him to give me a call. Is it worth keeping up with that? Or is he not calling me back for a reason?"

When interviews go well (and it must have, if the recruiter started to talk about offers) but then you don't hear anything, one of two things has happened:

The employer changed their mind/plan/requirements and didn't hire anyone in the end
The job was filled by a candidate from another recruiting agency, and the recruiter doesn't want to tell you that

This one sounds like a classic case of #1. In this economy, employers are wary of making new hires so they take ages to make decisions - and sometimes that decision is that they don't need to fill a role after all.

It's entirely possible that the employer has kept the recruiter dangling since July, too.

Yes, the recruiter should have followed up with you, even to tell you he hadn't heard anything. (But you can take some comfort in the fact that in another couple of years, when the talent crisis really heats up, recruiters who don't build long-term relationships with candidates are going to find they don't have any candidates!)

In the meantime, don't waste any more time calling this recruiter. You can bet he'll find you pretty darn quick if/when the employer is ready to make an offer - and you can spend your time seeking out other opportunities.

Great networking lasts a lifetime. That's why Facebook is more important to your career than you think.

Fri, 25 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST

In a lot of ways, you've been social networking since you were a kid. Facebook helps you leverage those relationships.

Social media has gone mainstream, and the 30+ demographic has stopped dismissing it as 'some fad for the kids' and are ready to start using social media tools a little more enthusiastically. But given that the average 30- or 40-something is in their peak work/family years, the last thing they need is to get sucked into a social media vortex.

Just because it's 'fun' doesn't mean it's not 'productive'

One of the questions I'm often asked is: "Why should I bother with Facebook? What's the point of reconnecting with people I knew in high school and haven't spoken to for years? I mean, it's not like LinkedIn, which can help me with my professional career - right?"

Wrong.

Facebook can be a lot of fun: Anyone who's joined Facebook can recall those first couple of weeks, when you reconnect with your best friend from high school or that guy you had a crush on during frosh week; share photos from summer camp circa 1982; come across a discussion group for some indie band you thought no one else knew about; or even just catch up with former colleagues to see what they're doing now.

The trouble is, for all of Richard Branson's protestations to the contrary, we're taught to think that if something is 'fun', it can't possibly be 'productive', work-wise.

Think again.

Still a 'sphere of influence' - just a different sphere

The #1 piece of advice we give to candidates first entering the workforce is "Network, network, network!" We tell kids who've just graduated to tell everyone they know - friends, family, casual acquaintances they've met at the gym - that they're job-hunting, because we know that ultimately it's a numbers game: The more people who know you're in the market for a new job, the more likely they are to think of you when they hear about a job opportunity.

But that's good advice for all of us at any age or career stage.

Your school friends have grown up into successful people - who'll make great business contacts!

Remember, people tend to move in peer groups: That means that if you're ambitious and successful now, the kids you hung with in high school or university, and the friends you made in your first career jobs in your early 20s, have probably gone on to be successful and ambitious, too. In other words, they're worth knowing for professional reasons.

That's why Facebook can be just as powerful a tool as LinkedIn when it comes to networking - it's all about the way you use it.

Why you should be using Facebook

There are a whole lot of reasons why Facebook can be an excellent professional networking tool. Here are just some of them:

The 'fun' value will help you stay motivated

If I had a nickel for every time someone looked guilty and said to me "I know I should be updating my LinkedIn profile more often, but...", I would not need to write this blog, because I'd have been able to purchase a home on Mustique, where I would be right now, blissfully unconcerned with building my personal brand or improving my Google ranking.

About Facebook, on the other hand, people most often look guilty and say "I spent two hours on Facebook yesterday, just kicking around..."

If you're already on Facebook, it's way easy to use it for building your professional profile!
Facebook delivers better-quality relationships

Because Facebook facilitates conversations, it's easier to build deeper relationships with people than it is on 'business networking' sites like LinkedIn.

You may have a smaller network on Facebook - in fact, the BBC says that 150 is the ideal number of Facebook friends, though I think for recruiters the number is more like 200-250 - but because you're able to have more meaningful interactions, with more people, on a daily basis, those 200 contacts are likely to deliver more ROI in the long run than 1000+ LinkedIn connections.

Bonus tip: People are always more likely to trust someone they've known since Grade 8 than someone they've met at work, even if they haven't talked to them since high school. So rekindling an old relationship will always be easier than forging a new one.

At least 50% of your contacts aren't using LinkedIn
You know the kids who went to school with who have great careers - and therefore could be great professional contacts - but who have to keep a low profile or tend not to do a whole lot of networking? They're not on LinkedIn - they're on Facebook. If all you use is LinkedIn, you'll miss them.
Facebook is a better ice-breaker
Reach out to that guy from your Grade 10 class who you haven't seen in 15 years but is now the Senior VP of some Fortune 500 through LinkedIn, and he'll either not remember you or figure that you just want something.

Ping him through Facebook with a message like "Hey Bob, heard from Cindy you guys just had a baby - congratulations!", on the other hand, and you've just opened a non-sales-related dialogue - which is, as you know, a crucial building block of any great relationship.

Bonus tip: Facebook's model allows you to leverage your spouse's network, too, because you can see (even just from wall posts) what his/her network is up to.

Facebook helps you stay top-of-mind with the people who are most invested in you and your career

Friends and family are the ones most motivated to refer/recommend you. The News Feed - where your friends can see your status updates and other activities - ensures your friends are seeing your name regularly, which increases the chances they'll remember to recommend/refer you.

Well, this turned into a rather longer blog than I had expected - it's long even for me - but I found the more I thought about Facebook, the more I realized that it's been an excellent tool for me over the past couple of years.

Not only has it allowed me to reconnect and stay in more regular touch with friends, family and former co-workers, it's also had demonstrable ROI: It's helped me to build my personal brand; it's helped me to build the Head2Head and RetiredWorker brands; it's helped my friends and family understand more about what I do for a living (which has in turn helped them to recommend/refer me for business stuff); it's helped me learn a lot (from the links, notes and discussions of my friends); it's connected me with great candidates - and most importantly, I've had a lot of fun doing it.

Which begs the question: Can you afford not to be on Facebook?

Dear Candidates: This is why you didn't get the job

Mon, 21 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST

As you know, Mike Stearns, the MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com guy, sent me an email in response to my blog posts about him. He wasn't particularly happy about the posts, of course - he used words like "angry", "presumptuous", "outlandish and unfair" and capped it with the popular accusatory "people like you" statement.

48 hours later, the original MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com site turned into a blog, ostensibly so that Mike can capitalize on the traffic his site has generated to create a community of job-seekers. However, never one to run when he can walk, Mike hasn't yet actually populated the site with any content other than the introductory paragraph.

The whole thing got me thinking.

I initially followed Mike's story because I thought it was kind of interesting - sure, it was a gimmick, but in terms of personal branding, it was a good try. As time went on and Mike still didn't seem to have a job, I kind of felt sorry for him: It's gotta suck when you get all kinds of media attention but it doesn't actually deliver the results you want.

But I'm not feeling so sorry for him any more. And I'm thinking that fellow ERE member Matt Cheek had it right when he wrote "Some people find ways to stay unemployed...." in response to my post.

Do job-seekers like Mike really know how they're sabotaging themselves? Do they even realize they're doing it?

I suppose the real answers to these questions are more the purview of my sister, the therapist, than me. For those chronic job-seekers disinclined to months of therapy, however, I offer the following helpful insights:

WHY YOU'RE STILL UNEMPLOYED

You're a little delusional about the message you're sending
One of the most telling comments Mike made in his email to me was "You know nothing of how or why I came up with the idea and set up the site."

Um...what? Have you seen the homepage of your website? It says how and why you and your wife came up with the site. WHY: "This site was born out of frustration with the job market." HOW: "I decided to take matters into my own hands and help him stand out in a sea of unemployed."

This defensive disconnect is probably the #1 problem among chronically unsuccessful job-seekers, who seem to think that potential employers should be telepaths or transformational grammarians . You're right that recruiters and potential employers don't know you: At the initial contact stage, all they've got to go on are the messages you're sending them (resume, cover letter, website, whatever).

Which leads us to #2...

You're blaming the wrong people
If, say, Nike makes a tv commercial for running shoes that leaves me with the impression that their shoes are overpriced and unappealing, Nike doesn't blame me for not buying the shoes. They go back to the drawing board to try to come up with an ad that communicates their message (that their shoes are well-priced and appealing) more effectively.

If your resume - or website, for that matter - is giving your target audience (i.e. recruiters, employers) the wrong impression, stop blaming the target audience. Go change the message.

You're not being objective about yourself
Anyone who's ever said "But seriously, do I really look like that?" after seeing a particularly bad photo of themselves knows that achieving true objectivity about oneself is about as attainable as finding the magical ferry boat to Avalon.

But that's what friends are for: Get them to take a look at your resume, cover letter - even your interview outfit - and give you some honest feedback. Then, for good measure, ask someone who doesn't know you for their feedback, too. There's a reason that advertisers like Nike use focus groups to avoid issues like #2, above.

Sure, even constructive criticism can sting. But the soothing balm of employment is remarkably effective at taking away the pain.

BONUS TIP: If one person gives you 'negative' feedback that you don't agree with, you can probably ignore it as the ravings of a madman. If, on the other hand, 12 people say the same thing, you might want to at leastconsider revising your approach.

You're taking it too personally
One of the comments Mike made in his email was that I was being "outlandish and unfair" to "judge" him without "ever having met [me]."

Um...what? As a job-seeker, everything you put out there in the course of your job search - resume, email, voicemail, or, in Mike's case, a website - is an advertisement for you and your services. Employers and recruiters use these 'advertisements' to make judgements about who to contact for an interview. In fact, if they weren't using them to make judgements, there'd be no need for them - because everyone would get an interview.

BONUS TIP: You may be surprised to learn that recruiters and hiring managers are not, in fact, soulless evil automatons whose only goal is to make you feel like an unemployable halfwit. They're just busy.

Recruiters are better than dogs at reading non-verbal cues
Remember the candidate whose nail-biting made recruiters reluctant to present her to the client, even though she was smart, articulate, and well-qualified?

It's not just about the content of your resume or the actual words you say in an interview. Great recruiters have an almost uncanny ability to make accurate assessments based on little details that may not even occur to you: Phone the recruiter even though the job ad specifically says 'no phone calls'? You're demonstrating that you think rules don't apply to you or you can't follow directions. Screaming baby in the background while you're doing a pre-scheduled phone interview? You're demonstrating you're not all that interested in the job on offer - because if you were, you'd have found someone to look after the baby for an hour.

Here's another little thought to leave you with: Ever noticed that the people you'd most like to be friends with - i.e. the ones who aren't delusional, prone to blaming others, have a sense of humour about themselves, don't take everything so personally, and just have a good 'vibe' about them - are the ones least likely to be unemployed for any length of time?

Just saying.

Generational resentment in the workplace

Fri, 18 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST

During the last recession in the early-to-mid 1990s, there was a huge and very public outcry by the so-called "Generation X" against the Baby Boom. One memorable newspaper article of the time suggested that Boomers should be sent to voluntary service camps for a year to work on international development projects and ward off an impending mid-live crisis to give their youngest brothers and sisters, and their oldest children, a chance to earn a living.

Maclean's Magazine recently started a series of articles called "The New Middle Class Reality." In short, the article says middle class doesn't really exist any more and most workers between the ages of 18 and 40 are now members of the "working poor." We've heard it all before. There is some truth to it, but the sweeping generalizations are hard to take.

What's interesting, though, are the comments on the articles. The generational battle is heating up again. Here are a few samples:

"Baby Boomers who are just holding onto their jobs because they don't know what else to do."

"The MTV, video game generation who expects everthing handed to them on a platter."

For the past year, we've seen studies about how watching what you say and creating an atmosphere of respect can help the five-generation workforce work together.

I think recruiters had better keep their eye on this wave of resentment. We'll all need new strategies for cooperation soon.

7 Traits of Great Online Applicants

Fri, 04 Sep 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Job applicants love to complain about recruiters. They say that their online applications end up in a cyber black hole and are never read, responded to or recorded. While that might be true in some cases, there are candidates who always get a response and this is what they do to help us out as recruiters with limited time to fill specific positions with highly qualified candidates.

1. They save us time. They write their applications to be scanned. Qualifications and experiences are listed up front using the language used in the original posting.

2. They solve our problems. Recruiters, like employers, aren't interested in what a job can do for you. We're interested in what you can do for the company. Good candidates know what the pitfalls are and have thought about how to bridge them.

4. They are excellent at doing researchers. They are up-to-date on major events, performance issues and current trends in their industry.

5. They know how to leverage social media. All of their contacts know they are looking for work, what they want to do and how they intend to get it.

6. They're passionate about their work. A dedication to their careers shines through difficulties. Further education, training and involvement in industry associations are listed on their CVs.

7.They give our clients a reason to feel inspired. Clients can tell when fresh blood is going to bring fresh thinking. When you're a special candidate, it shows in your CV in your cover letter and, most importantly, in how you STATE YOUR GOALS. Ambition, combined with practical steps toward achievement, are the most attractive qualities in any candidate anywhere.

If you're a job-seeker, recruiters are looking for you on LinkedIn. Here's how.

Fri, 14 Aug 2009, 00:00:00 EST

PART I OF A SERIES

A new airport is opening in Dubai, and they’re looking to hire an HR professional with travel and training experience. It’s your dream job and you’d be perfect for it – but when their recruiter starts scouring LinkedIn for candidates, will they find you?

Recruiters are increasingly leveraging LinkedIn to connect to both passive and active candidates (in fact, our recent survey indicated that 70% of recruiters consider LinkedIn their #1 social media tool for finding top talent). Understanding how they’re are using it is the key to ensuring they find you first.

Top 5 ways recruiters use LinkedIn to connect to A-list talent:

REVERSE REFERENCE
Recruiters us LinkedIn’s Reverse Reference function to find people who have worked at a particular organization and/or on a specific initiative within that organization, such as and SAP implementation or HR transformation.

REFERRALS
LinkedIn allows you to use your connections to access a vast network of people. Recruiters leverage this by using their connections – and their connections’ connections – to find people who have the skill set and experience they’re looking for.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Currently LinkedIn has 43 million people in its network and is growing at a rate of 1 new member a second. Given the size of the talent pool recruiters with often look at your recommendations to assess and select A-list players.

GROUPS
Recruiters search industry specific groups as well as alumni associations on LinkedIn as part of their targeted selection process.

INMAILS
Recruiters use LinkedIn inmail campaigns and their status bars to broadcast opportunities.

Next week. PART II: 5 ways to ensure that recruiters find – and get excited about – your LinkedIn profile!

Considering a 'gimmick' to attract potential employers? You might want to think again.

Fri, 31 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST

LATE FEBRUARY, 2009: Mike Stearns, a 30-ish San Franciscan with a decent resume and MBA from Georgetown, has been unemployed for months. His wife - sensing his desperation and knowing, probably, that this kind of situation can wreak havoc on a marriage, takes a bold step and launches MyHusbandNeedsAJob.com.

The site is exactly what it sounds like: A 6-page website which includes Mike's resume, photos of him standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge (holding a sign saying "I need a job!", no less), a YouTube video, and more personal information about Mike than you ever wanted to know.

MARCH, 2009: The gimmick is irresistible to the media, who are by this point sick of writing human interest stories about people losing their jobs, and are turning their attention to slightly more hopeful stories.

The site takes on a life of its own and soon Mike and his wife are on Oprah. The website traffic spikes so dramatically that they put Google AdWords on it and Mike tries to keep up the momentum by writing regular blogs about his job search.

MAY, 2009: Only one blog post, but it's all about how Mike's getting lots of interviews, so it's fairly positive.

JUNE, 2009: Still no job, and with blog entry titles like 'Another week down', it's clear that poor Mike is discouraged, depressed, and having to put up a valiant fight to avoid sounding desperate.

JULY, 2009: Still unemployed, still in the interview process (and still getting enthused about 'in-person' interviews, which tells me he hasn't had a heck of a lot of applications go beyond the phone-screen stage) - and total silence since July 7.

(I'm pretty sure that this means he's still unemployed, because otherwise he'd announce it on the site, if only to attract media attention, because that would generate increased site traffic and more AdWords revenue for poor Mike and his wife.)

The whole thing is kind of heartbreaking, actually: You can't help feeling sorry for Mike and his wife.

But here's the thing: Feeling sorry for someone and wanting to hire them are pretty much mutually exclusive. A tragic story might get you a pity date or even pity sex - but it's not going to get you a six-figure salary at a Big 5 consulting firm (typically the employers of choice for MBAs from US tier-1 schools).

And while the website was kind of a neat gimmick at first, now it just makes you think: "This guy got huge media coverage - I mean, he got on Oprah for godssake - and he still hasn't landed a job in the past 5 months? There must be something wrong with him."

I think I know what it is, too: I'm 99% convinced that Mike is one of those stereotypical MBA types who're great at putting together 100-page PowerPoint decks complete with interactive diagrams but don't have an entrepreneurial bone on their bodies and think that getting an MBA from a good school was all the initiative they ever needed to take.

(I'm assuming here that it was in fact Mike's wife who set up the site, and that it wasn't just a ruse.)

Why am I so sure Mike's just a plodder?

Because he's totally wasted this huge (HUGE!) opportunity.

Instead of squandering all the site traffic on faux-interview vaporware statements like "I think the culmination of my education and experience has put me in a great position to succeed immediately..." and poorly-written, virtually contentless blog entries like "Fun 4th Vacation on the cheap!", Mike could have used his 15 minutes of fame to establish a value proposition, a brand positioning - and probably even some consulting work!

As it is, he leaves you with the impression that he's just another clueless MBA who wouldn't know an ROI if it dropped on his head like a Hefty bag full of soup - and that of the two of them, it's his wife who's most likely to deliver value to your organization, because she's the one with ideas, initiative and moxy.

Um...tell us again why you just spent 700 words on this topic, Sarah...

Tragically, I have no idea. I guess it's because in any given week, I see/hear from so many people who are out of work and doing what they think are all the right things in order to get a job, but just don't seem to be able to get past the preliminary interview stage. And I know how upsetting, stressful and demoralizing the process can be.

But I also know that 99.99% of the time, gimmicks not only don't work, but also end up backfiring - leaving the job-seeker bewildered and bitter.

So I guess all I really wanted to say is this: "If you're a job seeker, your #1 priority should be to build and maintain a personal brand. Potential employers need to know exactly what value you bring to the table - and they don't have time to read 5 pages of copy on a website. What effect(s) will the 'gimmick' you're considering have on your personal brand in the short- and long-term? And remember that when it comes to getting a job, not all PR is good PR."

You'd be surprised what people notice in interviews...

Mon, 27 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Last week I happened to overhear a post-interview conversation among 3 recruiters (one senior, one very senior, and one intermediate).

The position for which they were interviewing was a fairly senior HR role. The client was looking for a fairly rare combination of specific education, skills and experience, so the likely source of a candidate who met all the requirements was an intermediate HR practioner who could 'rise up' to the role.

They'd finally found a candidate who they thought was a good fit: She had the education, the skills and experience; in person, she was smart, engaging, and gave a good interview.

So how come all 3 recruiters came out of their interviews with her feeling reluctant about sending her to the client as a part of the candidate shortlist?

Her fingernails were bitten down to the quick.

Not just short, once-in-a-while bitten nails, but the hacked-up stumps surrounded by picked and scabrous skin of the serious nail biter.

The candidate hadn't actually bitten her nails during the interview, but she hadn't been able to keep herself from absent-mindedly picking the skin around her nails.

Besides being a big heap of yuck for the people trapped in a small room with her for 75 minutes, it raised some serious questions: How would this candidate perform under stress? Was this an indication that she just couldn't handle it? Was it just a habit, indicative of nothing, really?

And the all-important: Would the client be grossed out by her hands?

In the end she was added as a distant #3 on a shortlist, of which the client picked candidate #2, so it never came to the crunch.

We've all got nervous habits - 'tells', as they say in poker. But if yours is fingernail-related, you might want to consider trading it in on something less evident, like, say, touching the burners on the stove 4 times before leaving the house.

Who needs a resume when you can just use...a diagram!

Wed, 15 Jul 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Not necessarily recommending this, but interesting nonetheless...

Designer and illustrator Michael Anderson has posted a resume that provides key information about his job experience, education, primary skill sets, and areas of productivity -- all in graphic form.

Yes, we've seen a few of these before, but this one actually stood out as being a great example of his design skills. And the best part? While it certainly can't (or at least doesn't) replace or recreate the detail level of a properly written resume, this "infographic" CV is not only visually appealing but also clearly conveys the intended information. (I laughed when I saw the 2 AM drop in productivity coupled with the sharp spike in humor. It sounded all too familiar!)

Sure, it's hard to upload into an ATS and can't replace a properly written resume, but a "visual CV" is still a fun attention-grabber. It's good to see he's followed it up with a Word resume and a portfolio blog on his website.

The #1 job-hunting tip? Approach it like you'd approach a potential date!

Sat, 20 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST

The other day, one of the people who follow Retired Worker on Twitter posted this message:

"Hey I'm 57 and have applied to a few jobs this year I am wondering whether this bit about wanting mature workers is fiction" [sic]

(sigh)

I say 'sigh' because - as I said in my response to this person's tweet - in the past 12 months, lots of people aged 17 to 67 have applied to way more than "a few" jobs without success. And while an overwhelming majority of Canadian organizations say they plan to maintain or increase hiring volume between now and the end of 2009, not everyone is feeling the effects yet.

In other words, job-hunting is tough for everyone these days, regardless of age.

However, what I really wanted to say to the person who posted the message was this:

"The reason you're having trouble getting a job is not your age, and probably not even the economy. Having read your tweet [Twitter message], without knowing anything else about you, I'd be willing to bet that the primary reason you're not getting interviews or even a response is your negativity."

There's no question that job-hunting is frustrating, stressful and downright demoralizing, even in a booming economy. And it's tough when you do all the right things - customizing your resume for a specific job, customizing your cover emails, researching the organization before you apply for a job, etc. - and get ignored or are made to feel like just a name in a database that no one cares about. So it's natural to start feeling a little desperate and panicky.

But here's the thing: When your 'first contact' with a potential employer or recruiter is along the lines of "I'm old, I haven't had to look for work in 15+ years, and I've been applying for jobs for months now and no one will even talk to me," the person on the receiving end of your resume/application/email thinks one or both of these two things:

"Hhmmm...I wonder why no one else wants that person. They probably aren't that great."
OR
"Geez! I can't put Debbie Downer here in front of my client/hiring manager - we need to hire someone who'll bring some positive energy into our workplace, not someone who complains all the time."

Either way, the next thought is, "I've got plenty of other applications - I'll just move on to the next one."

How to ensure they don't 'move on' to the next candidate?
Approach recruiters and potential employers the same way you'd approach a potential date! Because, after all, the job application process is really just a 'courtship' anyway.

How not to get a date:
Walk up to a person and say, "I haven't had a date in 2 years and no one seems to want to talk to me. I don't suppose you'll be any different, but just in case, do you want to go to a movie with me on Saturday night?"

How to improve your chances of getting a date:
Walk up to a person and say, "Hi! I've noticed you from across the room and you look like an interesting person. My friend says you like sailing - so do I! Want to come sailing with me and some friends this weekend on my boat? I'd love to have a chance to get to know you better!"

No one wants to go out with a person whose opening gambit reveals they are unpopular, needy and don't have much to bring to the relationship.

But the person who (a) personalizes the approach; (b) demonstrates they have other friends and interests; and (c) brings tangible assets (like a sailboat) to the relationship immediately engages the potential date - who thinks, "Hhmmm...maybe I should get to know this person better."

Every notice that the people who are outgoing and positive tend to have more dates than other people, even if they aren't the smartest or best-looking? Everyone likes to be around positivity, whether it's on a sailboat or in a workplace.

Why bother with social networking? Because that's where the recruiters are

Sun, 07 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST

This week, Head2Head - a Toronto-based recruiting company whose recruiters were responsible for placing more than 13,000 people in 2008 - surveyed 200 Canadian recruiters and hiring managers about their use of social media (such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) for recruiting.

Canadians, while slower to catch on to online shopping circa 2000-2001, were faster to adopt high-speed internet, and we continue to have higher per-capita internet use rates (about 83% of Canadians vs 69% of Americans).

As a result, Canadians have been early adopters of social media tools: Toronto continues to be one of the most Facebooked cities in the world, and ranks #4 in the world for LinkedIn use.

Social media and Canadian recruiting

The upshot of this, of course, is that US statistics on the use of social media for recruiting aren't necessarily accurate for the Canadian market. For example, MySpace never really addressed the Canadian marketplace in terms of job postings, so it was never a popular recruiting/candidate relationship management tool for Canadian recruiters.

Here's what the participants in Head2Head's survey said:

69% of CDN recruiters use LinkedIn for recruiting
44% use Facebook
9% use Twitter
6% use blogs
3% use YouTube
3% use Craigslist
0% use Tumblr or MySpace
Only 20% say social media delivers a clear ROI
77% say it’s improved their ability to connect to passive candidates
44% say it’s improved their quality of hire
36% say it’s reduced their time to hire
66% say no one oversees their social media stuff – it’s all rogue

So there you go: Your Canadian-source primary data for the day. Feel free to Twitter, write a blog post - whatever!

The message for anyone returning to the job market now?

You can't afford to ignore social media channels, and you shouldn't dismiss them as being 'just for kids'.

NEW TO SOCIAL NETWORKING AND SOCIAL MEDIA?
Check out our Social Media 101 blog entry from a couple of months ago.

7 Great Ways to Ensure No Recruiter Ever Reads Your Resume

Wed, 03 Jun 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Well, everyone's saying that the job market is picking up - and we're certainly seeing that it is - but for whatever reason, in the past couple of weeks, I've seen a huge increase in the flow of what I refer to as Egregiously Bad Candidates.

The thing is, while I do often laugh and/or roll my eyes at some of these applications, I do feel kind of sorry for these poor people, because they seem determined to ensure that no recruiter gets past the subject line of their email, let alone ever takes them seriously as a candidate.

So to these job-seekers, I offer the following: The 7 things most guaranteed to ensure a recruiter never looks at your resume, let alone calls you. Please, read this before you send out your next job-hunting-related email:

Send a blind email to a recruiting company that doesn't recruit for your profession.
Today I got a really well-written - if really, really long - cover letter from a guy who really wants a position as a senior chef in a 5-star hotel, preferably in Halifax.

Well...we don't recruit for the hospitality industry (a quick check of our job board would tell you we specialize in recruiting recruiters, and HR, Supply Chain and IT professionals), and while we are located in Canada, we don't have offices in Halifax.

So I know this guy just Googled 'recruiting companies' and sent emails to every company that turned up. Whatever.
CC a whole lot of people without hiding their names or email addresses.
You know the people who do this - the CC field is jam-packed with like 50 names and email addresses - would be the first to complain if you revealed their email address to a zillion other people. Not sure how un-email-literate you have to be to fail to use the BCC field, but you're clearly too email-illiterate for our clients.

Send your resume to 'info' @therecruitingcompany.com instead of to a real person or the 'proper' job application address.
At our office, I'm the person who receives all the emails that go to info@head2head.ca - in other words, I'm the one who gets basically all the junk mail. If you're sending an email to 'info' at our address, I know you haven't taken two seconds to visit our website, which brings us to...
Don't visit our website before you send your resume.
I don't get this one. Every single 'job search tips'-type list always says "Visit the company website before you send your application! You will learn valuable information which will will tell the recruiter/potential employer you care enough to do your homework!".

Is it that some candidates still feel that it's nothing but a numbers game - that if they just blast every recruiting company with random emails, they'll eventually hit employment gold? Because nothing could be further from the truth.
Don't refer to what you do or what kind of job you're looking for in your cover email.
This week alone I've received 14 emails that consist of a resume attachment. No subject line, so 'Dear Ms Welstead', nothing to indicate what these emails are about. Guess what? If you're too busy to write one sentence about what kind of job you want, I'm too busy to open your attachment.
Include a sentence like "I've been looking for over 12 months but no one will hire me..." in your cover email.
Sure, I'm not going to delete your email quite as quickly as I do in #5, above, but here's what happens: I immediately think "What the heck is wrong with this person that no one wants to hire them?" - and then I delete the email, because I'm not putting Debbie Downer in front of our clients.
Attach your resume in WordPerfect.
I'm sure you can't believe this happens, but it does. More often than you think. Even if I can use my document converter to open your WordPerfect resume, all I'm thinking is: Are you making an anti-Microsoft statement, or are you telling me that your computer skills stopped circa that 486 you had in 1994? Either way, we've got a problem (not least because Microsoft is a client of ours - but then, you'd know that if you hadn't done #4, wouldn't you?).

Happy Mother's Day!

Sun, 10 May 2009, 00:00:00 EST

I've heard all the complaints about how Mother's Day is just another example of how a good idea got ruined by corporate greed and all, but - as with all holidays, whether religious or secular - what you get out of it is entirely dependent on what you put in.

I think the UK has the right idea: in Britain, they've got 'Mothering Sunday'. Because one day a year, it's good for us all to acknowledge the mothering we've received (from our biological mothers or other people) and given (to our children, friends, families and even pets).

Mother's Day 2009 here at Retired Worker
If you've been following Retired Worker for a while, you know that the inspiration for this site was my mother, Linda Welstead. (She's still involved with Retired Worker, but - 6 years after a conversation with her prompted us to create RW - she's now fully into the travel/volunteer phase of her life.)

So today I went to spend the day with her. Initially we did what many mothers and adult daughters do on a Sunday afternoon: dawdled our way along one of those boutique-riddled streets in a recently-became-fashionable-again neighbourhood.

But then she told me that her aunt - my grandmother's sister-in-law - was in the hospital and was quite ill. And we decided that visiting her was a better way to spend our Mother's Day this year.

As it turned out, we were right to go: When we got to the hospital, we found that she is failing rapidly, and is unlikely to see the rest of the week, let alone another Mother's Day.

Seeing Aunt G - who is 90 years old, on a respirator, has gone into renal failure, and who is in an almost-comatose state - prompted the inevitable discussion: "If you ever see me get to that state, tell the hospital to give me as much morphine as possible, so I can just 'slip away' - I don't want to be kept alive in this way."

(As more of us are living longer and are likely to take care of infirm parents at some point, it's important to have these conversations now, so there isn't any guesswork if and when the situation arises.)

However, there was one part of the discussion that I found quite positive: The conversation naturally turned to reminiscences of other family and friends we've lost in the past few years, and we found ourselves saying, more than once, "But s/he was so young! S/He was only 74..."

Huh?

Twenty years ago someone who died in their 50s prompted the "s/he's so young!" comment; 10 or 15 years ago, someone who died in their 60s. Once you were in your 70s, dying was more likely to elicit the "Well, s/he's had a good life..." kind of comment.

These days, dying in your 70s is considered 'dying young' - and I, for one, think that's kind of great.

Quebec addressing the needs of GLBT seniors!

Mon, 04 May 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Well, I think this is pretty good news: the Quebec government has designated funds to help gay, lesbian and transgendered seniors fight discrimination.

To be honest, it's a problem I hadn't really considered before: discrimination in retirement and nursing homes against GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered) residents.

Shockingly, when the government wanted to make the announcement, not a single retirement home they approached was willing to host the press conference. Which I guess just tells us all how important this initiative is.

Changing the world: Not just for idealistic 20-somethings any more

Tue, 28 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Retired Worker is now on Twitter.

Twitter's all about building an online community of people around your specific interests, whether personal, professional, or both. Once you're following a couple of hundred people - and they're following you - the constant exchange of information, links and ideas means that you can learn more in a week or two of active Twittering than you'd ever be able to learn if you were just surfing the web by yourself.

So, given all the reports showing that people aged 50-60 represent one of the fastest-growing demographics on social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), I thought that building the Retired Worker Twitter community would be easy and straightforward. After all, there are 10 million+ people aged 50+ in Canada alone. How hard could it be to gather a few together on Twitter?

How wrong I was. And here's why:

There's no paradigm for how to be '50+' - or even a 'boomer' - these days.

I know 55-year-olds with teenagers at home; I know 55-year-olds who are grandparents. There are 63-year-olds who still work full-time (and have no plans to stop); and 63-year-olds who have been retired and gardening for 5 years.

More and more, life after 50 can be anything you want it to be. Which, frankly, I think is excellent news - because I think it's a sign that Western society is starting to get over their long-held beliefs about the irrelevance of anyone over 45.

(Let's not forget: when Retired Worker first started in 2003, many HR/recruiting professionals classified anyone over 45 as an 'older worker'. Hard to believe now, isn't it?)

This week's great example of a 50+ person making a real difference is Dr. William Gahl.

Dr. Gahl is 58 years old, but as the Clinical Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, MD, he's leading a team of doctors and clinicians in researching the genetic causes of mysterious diseases. In the next 10 years, he and his team are likely to identify - and find a way to cure - some of the illnesses which have been baffling doctors for years.

Why do I particularly like Dr. Gahl's story?

Well, we've always looked to youth to challenge the status quo and drive the big societal changes - ah, the idealism of 20-somethings! - but sometimes, there's just no substitute for the wisdom of age, especially when it comes to diagnosing rare illnesses. Dr. Gahl is a great example of how being over 50 makes you even more relevant.

Re-entering the job market? Try a little 'organic surfing'!

Fri, 10 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Re-entering the job market after you've been out of it for a while can be kind of daunting, especially in this Age of the Social Media Revolution.

But in fact, the internet has so much information about job-hunting, resumes, cover letters, interview tips and every other aspect of job-searching, that it's easier than ever to find examples of great cover letters and resumes, and to find out what works best in your particular talent marketplace.

For example, Alison Doyle - a career expert with more than 2500 followers on Twitter wrote a great, detailed guide to resumes and cover letters. It's a step-by-step approach that's great if you haven't written a resume in a while. Click here to read it.

Another great site - it's one of those rare blogs which is entertaining to read but also has great ideas - is Spin Strategy. They posted a great article about why recruiters don't respond to applicants which I think is a must-read for anyone who is feeling discouraged because they've applied to a bunch of jobs but haven't had any kind of response yet.

Organic web surfing is a great way to find new info

These are just a couple of the resources out there - there are thousands, if not millions, more. You'll find a lot of them just by Googling, but sometimes the best way to find helpful tips and advice is by 'surfing around'.

Start with one site, article or blog that interests you or that you find particularly helpful. Most will link to other sites with more info - why not check out one of those links?

Finding sites in this 'organic' way has a number of benefits: first, you're visiting sites that other people (whose ideas you liked) recommended, so there's a better chance that you'll find the site/article relevant. Even more important, you're more likely to find info you'd never thought of before, and wouldn't even have known to Google about.

Above all, don't be shy about the internet! Study after study shows that - especially in Canada, where more people have access to broadband internet than almost anywhere else in the world - that the 50+ group is the fastest-growing demographic on the internet. So don't buy into the stereotype that you can't be just as internet-savvy as a 20-something job-seeker!

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER!

Thu, 09 Apr 2009, 00:00:00 EST

A report came out this week which revealed that, far from being a social media channel for teens and Gen Y, more than 10% of Twitter's super-fast growth in the past few months has been in the 50+ age group.

Even more interesting: The rate of growth among older users is almost identical to that of teens!

So come on over!

Just click Retired Worker on Twitter to follow our updates!

There'll be job-seeking tips, links to articles about work and life after retirement, info from recruiters - and some fun stuff, too (because you can't thinking about work all the time).

We look forward to seeing you!

Would you buy something from a company that called you 'elderly'? I didn't think so.

Sat, 28 Mar 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Because Retired Worker was really on the cusp of specialized websites for the 50+ demographic, I'm often asked for my opinion on stuff relating to this group. One of the organizations which has asked for my 'insight' in the past year or two has been a UK-based consulting company called whiteloop, because they were involved in setting up ePal, which is a site designed to - in the longer term - promote a sense of community among 50+ people in the EU.

This week, whiteloop (yes, they do seem to spell it without capitals) asked for my input about this site, the unbelievably-named Eldy. Eldy, according to the website - and I particularly love that their logo appears to be an elephant - is "The first software dedicated to the elderly..."

But these days, does anyone under the age of, say, 75 even think of themselves as 'elderly'?

Here's the thing: in 'demographic marketing-speak' (and I speak as someone who spent quite a number of years working in big ad agencies), people used to be segmented into all these age categories (18-24, 25-34, etc.) - but then the last one was always '50+' (that's why the term '50+' is used so often).

When I was 25 and first starting in advertising, I thought that it was dumb to lump everyone over 50 in one demographic; 15 years later, I think it's even MORE dumb. Today's 51-year-old has almost nothing in common with a 69-year-old; today's 51-year-old has almost nothing in common with a 79-year-old! And yet they still get lumped all together.

However, what we all know is that the 50+ group as a whole has 70% of the wealth. So you get these entrepreneurial/corporate types who think "Aha! We will invent something to sell to this group so we can tap into that wealth!"

And because they are still using outdated thinking (i.e. that anyone over 50 can safely be considered 'old', which means everyone over 50 has the same needs, market gaps, etc.), they come up with these egregiously bad names/approaches/marketing messages.

Eldy looks like the work of a guy who thought to himself: "It doesn't matter what kind of crap I put on this site, because people over 50 are all a bunch of computer idiots who will pay me money even though it's obvious I can't string a single English language sentence together. And I don't need to spend any money to make the site aesthetically pleasing, because people over 50 can't see anything without their bifocals anyway." (If he actually has 150,000 users as he claims, I will eat my hat.)

The whiteloop people asked me if this site was 'patronizing'; in my opinion, it's not so much about whether it's patronizing or offensive as much as it is about the branding/marketing message. People buy stuff from brands which reflect their self-image (well, their 'aspirational' self-image, anyway).

And I'm pretty sure that the average 55 or 65-year-old doesn't include 'elderly' in their self-image.

[end rant here]

Social Networking 101: Why it makes sense for you

Thu, 12 Mar 2009, 00:00:00 EST

If you've been paying attention to the business and high-tech news lately, you've probably seen a lot of references to 'social networking' (usually attached to a story like "Someone just paid eight zillion dollars for Acme, Inc., a popular social networking site...").

But what, exactly, is this thing called 'social networking'? And is it something you should care about?

Social networking - according to Wikipedia, which provides as good a description as any - is focused on "building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others."

Some useful metaphors for social networking are parties (where you walk into a roomful of people, including both friends you know and new people you can meet and talk to); a n office 'watercooler', where people congregate and share information and ideas; or even a tradeshow or conference, where lots of organizations have booths that you can browse to see what's new.

There are social networking sites which are primarily about connecting with friends, such as Facebook, social networking sites which are primarily about a particular interest, such as YouTube, where people share videos, and social networking sites which are geared more towards business networking, like LinkedIn.

"But," many 50+ people say to me, "aren't these sites just for kids? There's no point to me being on these sites, is there?"

My response? Social networking is definitely relevant for people 50+!

In fact, in many ways it's even more relevant for retirees - especially if they're looking for work - because it's a great way to build and maintain personal networks, even if you aren't going to work every day and interacting with co-workers.

The first rule when looking for a job is always: "Use your network." The more people who know you are looking for a job - heck, the more people who know you, period - the more likely it is that you'll hear about an opportunity.

Social networking allows you to stay top-of-mind with friends, family and colleagues. On Facebook, for example, when you update your profile or add some information, everyone in your network sees that on their 'Newsfeed'. That makes them more likely to remember, "Oh yes, Bob might be interested in that job I heard about this morning..."

More importantly, recruiters are increasingly using social networking sites to find candidates for jobs. LinkedIn, which allows you to post detailed resumes, work histories, and even recommendations from bosses, co-workers, and employees, is now one of the first places recruiters look at when searching for a candidate with specific skills and experience.

(Click HERE to check out my LinkedIn profile.)

Of course, for 50+ job-seekers, social networking has another great benefit: when potential employers (or even just members of your personal network) see that you're participating in social networking, it goes a long way to dispelling the myth that 'older workers don't know computers'. By putting a link to your LinkedIn profile on your resume, for example, you're sending a powerful message to a potential employer: "I'm not only familiar with computers and the internet, I am just as up-to-speed as younger candidates."

So, where do you start?

Well, if you're primarily interested in keeping up with friends and family, and want to get the hang of social networking, I recommend starting with Facebook. It's fairly easy to set up your profile, and if you spend an hour or two just fiddling around, you'll find you'll get the hang of it.

If your priority is building your professional network, and you are fairly good with the internet, then try LinkedIn. It's more time-consuming to set up your profile (in fact, most people do it in stages).

TIP: Have your resume handy when you start to create your profile, so you can just copy and paste the information.

NEXT TIME: Using social networking to connect with others - and build your job-hunting network!

Questions? Post them here and I'll answer them ASAP!

Want to become a Retired Worker celebrity?
Let us know!

Tue, 17 Feb 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Do you have a 'working after retirement' story to tell?

Reporters often ask us to put them in touch with people who are either looking for work or have gotten a job post-retirement.

If you'd like to become a media contact, let us know!

Just send your name, location (city and province) and contact information (email and phone number) to me at sarah@retiredworker.ca, and we'll put you on the list.

PLEASE NOTE:

We will never provide your information to anyone but a legitimate member of the media.
Media requests tend to be fairly unpredictable and specific to a geographical location. (If you're outside the GTA, we'd especially like to hear from you!)
Media requests tend to be somewhat last-minute - you'll hear nothing for a few weeks, then all of a sudden a reporter has a deadline and needs to speak with someone ASAP. So don't be surprised if you don't immediately hear from anyone.
Being on our media list doesn't obligate you to do anything - if a reporter calls, and it's not convenient to speak to them, that's fine

I don't care how you are - it's still fun to see your name in print or your face on tv!

A minute to learn, a lifetime to master: The Happiness Project

Sat, 14 Feb 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Let's face it: jobhunting mostly sucks. Sure, it's great to get out there and 'sell yourself', to think about the new vistas opening up before you, and to look forward to all the exciting things you're going to learn and do...

...if the actual finding and getting the job doesn't kill you first.

But today is Valentine's Day! Whether or not you have a 'sweetheart' this Valentine's, I think that it's a good time to stop thinking about work and salaries and jobs and interviews, and give a little thought to what actually makes us happy.

A good place to start? Try The Happiness Project.

Not long ago, Gretchen Rubin, a lawyer-turned-writer who lives in New York City, found that even though she had 'everything' (a degree from Yale, a clerkship with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a great husband, kids, etc.), she just didn't think she was actually happy - or at least not maximizing her potential happiness.

So she decided to spend 1 year trying out every "...principle, tip, theory and scientific study..." on 'happiness', to find out what works and what doesn't.

What's most interesting about what she's doing - is that she posts frequent blog entries about how it can be difficult to really get to the bottom of what makes a person happy, and how often we all get in our own way of being happy.

Was the Happiness Project conceived as nothing more than a gimmick designed to help sell more books and build Gretchen's personal brand? Sure (her bio doesn't skimp on the self-promotion)!

But all the same, whenever I find myself feeling a little discouraged - by the weather, the economy, or the office - I take a trip to the Happiness Project blog and I am reminded that we all need to get into the habit of being happy, and that there are plenty of small ways in which to increase our happiness quotient right this minute.

Surviving in a tough economy

Thu, 12 Feb 2009, 00:00:00 EST

University of Maryland Professor Emirita Nancy Schlossberg, author of Revitalizing Retirement: Reshaping Your Identity, Relationships and Purpose has sent around these tips for surviving job loss and other economic tragedies.

Surviving in Troubled Times
By Nancy K. Schlossberg

With car dealerships closing at breakneck speed, Sue, a top salesperson making over six figures, realized that her financial survival depended on facing reality and making plans. She wrote: “I am going to work for Publix Super Market. I have many years of management experience and plan on working to get back up to management level—even though I will start at the checkout counter.”

Larry, a roofer who owned his own company, also saw the handwriting on the wall. His clients were not paying their bills and he recognized that his work was drying up. He therefore searched and located a larger company that would survive in these economically troubled times—a company that repaired roofs at places like the Smithsonian and the White House.

These optimistic stories do not make up for the over 11.1 million unemployed who are on the brink of financial disaster. I continue to hear, “We cannot pay our mortgage and it looks like foreclosure is ahead of us;” “It’s like an out of body experience. I cannot believe it is happening to me;” “I just cancelled my surgery, since it was elective.”

Whether you are a millionaire (probably losing at least 30 to 40 percent of your assets), or a construction worker unable to find work, you are facing the same common enemy. You cannot fix the economic crisis but you can survive. The following tips for those at both ends of the financial spectrum can help your psychological survival.

Tip 1.Take “For Now Jobs” Today; Dream About Tomorrow’s Career. This is the time to think about short-term goals like eating and survival and long-term goals like positioning yourself for a productive future. Jan Alston, Career Advisor at the Women’s Resource Center of Sarasota County, advises clients to take “For Now Jobs” in order to survive these bad times at the same time planning for a future dream job. This might be the time to return to school and get training for the future.

Tip 2. Maintain A Strong Psychological Portfolio. McCain and Palin used Joe, the ersatz plumber, to illustrate what ordinary people need. I know Jim, an actual policeman, whose life after retirement provides clues to what leads to happiness. Deflated when he retired from his demanding but rewarding career, he told me, “I turned in my gun and badge and that was that.” In other words, his Psychological Portfolio - his Identity, Relationships with colleagues, and Purpose - were diminished. To replace these, he moved into hotel management and once again regained his Identity and Purpose as he formed new Relationships.

Tip 3. Change Your Perspective From Money to Mattering. The economic downturn provides the opportunity to rethink how much money you need to live and be happy. Assuming you are not at the poverty level, the biggest challenge is realizing that money isn't necessarily the answer to happiness. In fact, it is about everyone’s need to feel appreciated, noticed, depended upon - that you count in others’ lives. If you are fired and cannot reach the unemployment office to register for benefits, if you do not qualify for benefits because of some technicality, you will feel you do not matter to the larger community. If this happens to you, it is critical that you call attention through letters to the editor, calls to talk radio, blogs pointing out the many ways the larger community has undercut you and others. But when you are shown appreciation, respond to that too.

Women to outnumber men in the workplace?

Sat, 07 Feb 2009, 00:00:00 EST

According to an article in today's Toronto Star, women will soon outnumber men in the workforce due to massive economic changes.

Have a look at the following quotes taken directly from the piece by Raveena Aulahk:

- More than 129,000 jobs were lost in January across the country and the unemployment rate shot up to 7.2 per cent from 6.6 per cent the previous month, Statistics Canada reported yesterday.

- Men lost nearly two-thirds of these jobs and most were full-time positions.

- StatsCan figures show a steep drop in Ontario's manufacturing sector, which employs mostly males, and growth in the health care and social assistance sectors, areas dominated by females.

This isn't the first time women's participation in the workforce has surpassed that of men. Statistically, the last time the balance tilted toward women was during the Second World War.

The pattern of former stay-at-home mothers returning to the workforce when their husbands are laid off has been well-documented. Used to living on a single income, these new salaries, combined with unemployment insurance payments, should preserve the standard of living of these families...at least that has always been the case historically speaking. In this era of part-time, contract employment, that security may have been lost.

How do you think these families will fair as mothers hold onto their jobs and dads stay at home?

That reminds me, I did promise you a poll and this seems like the perfect topic:

The best job-search tips!

Mon, 02 Feb 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Job Mob recently asked for our best job search tips of 2008. While most of our complaints about job seekers have fallen under the heading of "what not to do" I think we can reverse engineer some tips from the heartbreak.

1. Build your brand, know your message.

2. Know what you want and express it. Remember the guy who offered a $1000 reward to the person who could find him the perfect job? Too bad he didn't mention what he does or what kind of job he was looking for.

3. Make sure you're actually qualified and communicate your qualifications properly. If you haven't been getting any calls for interviews for jobs you are qualified to do, then you aren't expressing your qualifications clearly enough. The easiest way to do this is ensure that the language used in the job post is used in your cover letter and C/V.

4. Follow the directions. If a web site says that the recruiter only wants to be contacted via their on-line application tool, respect their processes. Don't make a bizarre phone call that will only cause confusion and make you look bad.

5. Don't underestimate the power of excellent social skills. Always searching for new opportunities. Start when you are in school and make as many friends as possible from as broad a spectrum of interests, generations, ethnicities, etc.

If you're older and you've missed out on the social opportunities of school, get involved in your community through volunteering, evening classes or interest-based groups. While you're there, ensure that you're listening skills and manners are in perfect working order. For example, for every five minutes you spend in conversation with someone, you should learn three things about them.

And, this shouldn't have to be said, but try to self-edit inappropriate comments. No one wants to work with ageist, sexist or racist job searchers.

Project ePAL

Fri, 23 Jan 2009, 00:00:00 EST

I was recently asked to participate in an interesting initiative in Europe called ePAL (Extending Professional Active Life).

ePAL's objective is "...to consider and define new ways of promoting a balanced active life for retiring and retired professionals in Europe."

The EU, of course, are somewhat ahead of Canada in terms of planning for an aging workforce - for years they've known that if they don't address the issue of a mass exodus of boomers from the workforce, they're going to face serious labour shortages.

That knowledge has, in turn, seemed to drive more awareness of the particular issues facing today's retiring or retired person, especially the fact that there really is no 'normal' any more, when it comes to what retirement looks like.

It's an interesting initiative, and of course I'm always interested in what organizations in other countries are doing vis a vis retirement and older workers. For an in-depth look at some of the initiatives around the world, check out their newsletter, which includes detailed information about initiatives in Spain, England, the Netherlands, and other EU countries.

Recession-proofing your resume

Thu, 22 Jan 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Head2Head, a recruiting company headquartered in Toronto, recently released a list of 6 tips to help ensure your resume goes to the top of the pile - even in a tough economy.

It's a great list, and I encourage you to read it, but I would have added a 7th tip: make sure your resume includes some kind of 'objective' statement at the beginning, clearly stating the kind of job you're looking for.

(What's an 'objective statement'? It's a brief statement - no more than 2-3 sentences - at the top of your resume, which functions as a sort of summary and introduction, and helps the reader understand what kind of position you're looking for. A typical objective statement might be:

With more than 20 years' experience in supply chain and logistics management, I'm a results-oriented, bottom-line thinker who thrives in fast-paced environments. I'd like to use these skills in a contract logistics position.

Those of us who entered the job market prior to the early 1990s may find the notion of an 'objective statement' kind of cheesy, and not in keeping with the strict resume-writing rules we may have grown up with.

But times have changed: these days, people often have more than one career over their lifetime, and they may have a seemingly odd mix of education, skills and experience. An objective statement helps to demonstrate how all these disparate elements might work together.

For older workers, who may be looking for a part-time or career job that has little or nothing to do with their pre-retirement 'career job', and objective statement can be a good way to tell potential employers how your skills and experience are a good fit with the position for which you're applying:

Now that I've retired from 30+ years as a senior HR professional, I'd like to put my people skills to work in a customer-facing role.

Of course, as always with resumes, less is more - an objective statement should allow employers to view the rest of the resume in the right context, not an epic saga of your career. And try to use clear, straightforward language - recruiters say there's nothing worse than an objective statement (such as "I'm searching for a dynamic role in a progressive organization...") which leaves them more confused than when they started!

More proof that 'seniors' can take care of themselves!

Mon, 19 Jan 2009, 00:00:00 EST

If you're reading this blog, you probably don't need me to tell you that 'senior citizens' aren't gray-haired grannies in rocking chairs any more.

But as far as I'm concerned, nothing underscores that message more than this great story about a 70-year-old woman who defends her home against a would-be burglar.

Not only that, but at the time the burglar tried to break into her home, she was splitting wood for her fire!

These are the kinds of stories I love to read - more proof that being '50+' sure looks a lot different than it used to.

Today's FAQ:

Thu, 15 Jan 2009, 00:00:00 EST

Now that Retired Worker is 5 years old - and was really the first Canadian organization to recognize the crucial role 50+ workers were going to play in the workforce in the next 10 years - I often get called by the media as an 'expert commentator'.

Of course, media people are always looking for short, sharp soundbites - but the truth is that there really aren't many pithy answers when it comes to the subject of 'working after retirement'.

It's a whole new paradigm, because at no other point in history have we seen such a disparity between the number of workers retiring out of the workforce and the number of younger workers entering it.

So if you're a recently retired (or semi-retired, or thinking about retiring, or recently unretired), you should be proud of yourself: You're part of a whole pioneering wave!

My recent answer to the question: "How has working after retirement changed since 2003?"
I thought you might be interested in this...

I think my mother was really part of the first wave of people who found themselves retired but bored stiff - we all think that Freedom 55 is the holy grail and that the goal is to retire as early as possible, but the truth is that today's average 60-year-old is way too hale and hearty to join the mahjong crowd in a condo in Florida, and there's only so much gardening a person can do.

Now, society is more comfortable with the idea that retiring from your 'career job' doesn't mean you can never work again or that there is something unseemly in working after retirement.

And of course employers are much more willing to consider older workers - when we did the first Retired Worker survey in 2004, 60% of older job seekers said they'd experienced age discrimination in their job searching; by last year that was down to 35%.

The talent crisis had a lot to do with that, too: Statistics Canada has long predicted that by 2011, there will be 350,000 more jobs in Canada than there are people to fill them - the birth rate is simply not keeping up with the baby boomer exodus. So in the past 2 years we've seen employers forced to get over their age discrimination, because if they don't consider older workers, there simply aren't enough younger ones to hire.

Now, the economic situation of the past few months is also having an effect: more older workers are considering work; more are interested in full-time as opposed to part-time or contract - but interestingly, employers aren't going back to their old habits now that the labour market is a little less tight: they are still as interested, if not more so, in hiring older workers as they were 6 months ago.

It's interesting: 5 or 6 years ago, the term '50+' brought up stereotypes of a gray-haired granny in a rocking chair; now we all picture a vibrant person in Gap khakis and having the time of their life. That's largely driven by the media and especially advertisers - who know that 68% of the wealth in this country is held by the 50+ crowd, so it's in their best interests to create aspirational advertising...I mean, we've all seen a million commercials featuring attractive 50-somethings dancing around and improving their sex life!

Why didn't we ask about volunteer work?

Sun, 07 Dec 2008, 00:00:00 EST

Today I received this email from one of our registered job-seekers who participated in our survey of older workers:

"Your questionnaire has a flaw. You leave no room to indicate that one is doing volunteer work. It is as if it doesn't count unless one is paid."

It's a valid point and I'm sure other people are wondering: Why didn'twe include 'volunteer work' as an option?

Well, because when we asked the question in the past, it tended to skew our results, largely because people often do volunteer work outside of their regular full- or part-time job. Plus, job hunting in the volunteer sector is very different from job hunting for paid work. So in a survey primarily concerned with learning more about the job market facing older workers, it wasn't appropriate.

However, the other reason - which is just as important, if not more so - is that it wasn't very long ago that society in general figured that someone aged 50+ was probably a candidate only for volunteer work. That if you were 62 and looking to 'keep busy', your only option was volunteer work because no one would actually pay money for your time!

As you know, the Retired Worker mandate has always been to demonstrate that older workers have enormous value in the workplace, and that that value can be measured in dollars and cents. So we didn't want to cloud the issue by including volunteer work in our research.

Don't get me wrong - volunteer work has enormous value. It's just that when you're trying to dispel old stereotypes (like that older workers only do volunteer work), it's important not to cloud the issue.

Last chance for Retired Worker Job Seeker Survey

Sat, 06 Dec 2008, 00:00:00 EST

The 5th Annual Retired Worker Survey is on now but will finish end-of-day Monday December 8th, 2008. If you haven't taken the survey yet please take a few minutes to complete the survey

http://www.retiredworker.ca/survey/survey.php

Retired Worker Job Seeker Survey Running Now

Thu, 27 Nov 2008, 00:00:00 EST

The 5th Annual Retired Worker Survey is running now through Monday December 8th, 2008.

If you're looking for work, please take a few minutes to complete the survey. We appreciate your responses and use the information gathered both to determine areas of focus for the coming year and to drum up interest and support for issues and challenges facing older workers in Canada.

The direct link to the survey is http://www.retiredworker.ca/survey/survey.php

New Job Searching Features

Wed, 26 Nov 2008, 00:00:00 EST

We have added and improved our Job Listings Pages with new advanced searching features to let job seekers find the perfect fit for them more effectively.

The base search is less complicated then before and searches for jobs based on location only. The advanced searching options include occupation, industry, employment types and full text keywords searches of all our active listings.

RSS Job Feed

Tue, 25 Nov 2008, 00:00:00 EST

Retired Worker now has an RSS based job feed available here. The job listings page also has links to the feed at the bottom of each page.

RSS feeds let you monitor specified content for updates and changes. So you can subscribe to the Retired Worker job feed and see the latest jobs just by viewing the feed.

For more information on RSS see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

Who says 'capitalism' and 'community' can't go hand in hand?

Fri, 24 Oct 2008, 00:00:00 EST

One of the great consequences of the internet age - in which we are all nodes on a vast, worldwide network, and can communicate with virtually anyone, anywhere, any time - is that we're all becoming more community-minded.

With so many communication channels available to us - tv, internet, satellite radio, wireless telephony, etc. - we've become more aware of disadvantaged people, both in our community and around the world.

Study after study shows that Gen Y (today's 20-somethings) in North America, having grown up in this hyper-connected world and typically passionate about causes even in their early teens, rank 'community involvement' high on their list of criteria when deciding which companies to work for.

What's really great is that their passion for giving back is having a real, positive impact in the corporate world.

Today I was shown an RFP (Request for Proposal) from a VERY large Canadian company, and one of the requirements was that the vendor (the company bidding for the contract) must have a community-oriented program in place, whether that was a corporate charity program, providing employees with a day off per month to do volunteer work, etc.

I often hear people complaining about how Gen Y's have a bad work ethic, a sense of entitlement, etc. But it's their awareness of, and commitment to, helping others that is driving businesses to make community giving a priority. So perhaps they aren't quite as bad as us 'older workers' sometimes think...

Slightly depressing news? Report on Business article

Wed, 22 Oct 2008, 00:00:00 EST

A couple of days ago I said I'd been getting calls from the media, looking for comments on how the slumping economy is affecting retirees.

We haven't seen a huge increase in the number of desperate 50+ people worried about their portfolios, but apparently the Globe & Mail found a few.

Check out the story here.

Harvest Experience

Mon, 20 Oct 2008, 00:00:00 EST

Our fall promotion, "Harvest Experience" is running now through the 21st of November. For more information see the harvest experience page.

Have your plans changed because of the economy?

Fri, 17 Oct 2008, 00:00:00 EST

In the past 24 hours I've received a whole lot of phone calls from the media - national as well as local - all looking for 'retired workers' whose retirement plans have changed dramatically in the past few weeks, as everyone gets worried about the economy.

The truth is that, while everyone confesses to being 'worried', I haven't heard from anyone who has delayed retirement or decided to 'unretire' in the weeks following the Merrill Lynch collapse.

But maybe I haven't been talking to the right people.

Have your plans changed in the past few weeks?

1st Annual Retired Worker Employer Survey

Thu, 18 Sep 2008, 00:00:00 EST

The 1st Annual Retired Worker Employer survey is running now. See it at http://retiredworker.ca/survey/survey.php

Canadian employment market reasonably healthy

Mon, 15 Sep 2008, 00:00:00 EST

Manpower Canada released the results of their quarterly employment survey this week, and the news for Canada isn't all that bad.

In a survey of 1700 employers across Canada, most say they expect a "positive hiring climate" between now and December. 20% predict they'll increase their payrolls in the next 3 months, while just 7% predict a decline.

The employment rate is expected to stay at 6.2% in 2009, which is only a slight increase from the current 6.1%.

(It's worth noting that economists say that an unemployment rate of 5% is ideal: a healthy economy has to have at least a few people who are 'between jobs' - when the employment rate dips below 5%, businesses suffer because they can't find enough people to fill vacancies.)

Not all the experts agree that the outlook is positive: job creation numbers are dwindling, and that can be a sign of recession.

Of course, whenever a for-profit organization releases the results of a survey, those results should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Manpower Canada is in the staffing business, so the last thing they're going to do is release a bunch of results saying that the job market is going to crash and burn in the next 3 months.

However, the survey does say that 70% of employers don't expect their staffing levels to change in the near future, which is at least a little better news than we're hearing from the US lately.

Read the report here.

Forget "40 under 40" - welcome to the Top 80 Over 80!

Sat, 13 Sep 2008, 00:00:00 EST

We've all read features like "The Top 40 Under 40", celebrating movers and shakers in the business world. The Top 30 Under 30, 20 Under 20 - most of these rankings are designed to highlight people who have achieved great things at a young age.

But this month, online newsmagazine Slate.com is offering a new twist: The Top 80 Over 80.

And it's about time.

Here are the top 5 (Slate is based in the US, so there aren't many Canadians on the list, but it's still worth a look):

John Paul Stevens, age 88
You probably haven't heard of him, but as an Associate Supreme Court justice since 1975, Stevens authored the most-cited opinion in American law, and has had a huge influence over US law for more than 30 years.
Kirk Kerkorian, age 91
The 41st-richest person in the world. At age 83, bought Steve Wynn's Mirage Resorts for $6.4 billion, and gave $200 million to the people of Armenia.
T. Boone Pickens, age 80
With a fortune of $4 billion, Pickens is still trying to change the world by investing $58 million in developing alternative energy sources.
Si Newhouse, Jr., age 80
Chairman of the company which owns magazine empire Conde Nast.
Sumner Redstone, age 85
Media and entertainment mogul, who is supposedly 'retired' but still keeps making billion-dollar deals (like his purchase of DreamWorks studios for $1.5 billion in 2006).

What I like best about the list Slate has put together - click here to see the rest of the list - is that they avoided choosing cute-and-cuddly senior citizen do-gooder types - their top 80 over 80 are highly successful (and probably not all that 'nice') businesspeople who continue to make significant contributions to the economic landscape.

What do you think? Do you know an 80+ Canadian who should be included in a list of Top 80 Over 80?

Recruiters are a lot like real estate salespeople...

Sat, 06 Sep 2008, 00:00:00 EST

This week, Jacob Share of Job Mob posted An Open Letter to the Recruiters of the World from Job Seekers Everywhere . While the 'letter' itself was not exactly earth-shattering, what was interesting was the sheer volume of vitriol that turned up in the comments people made about the 'Open Letter'.

No one likes recruiters, apparently.

People tend to think of recruiters in the same way they think of real estate salespeople: Both recruiters and real estate salespeople are associated with serious, life-changing decisions, which means that emotions are always involved - and given that both are primarily compensated by commission, they tend to be seen as untrustworthy hucksters who have their fees, not your best interests, at heart.

So I decided to talk to some recruiters, to see what they thought about this 'Open Letter.'

Their response?

That true recruiting professionals - the ones who think of recruiting as a long-term career - are committed to building long-term relationships with candidates. But it's hard to build a relationship (or even want to build a relationship) with job-seekers who send out generic emails to 82 million recruiters, bombard them with phone calls and mass emails.

So if you've been sending out hundreds of generic resumes by email, addressing them to 'To Whom it May Concern' or to a mass mailbox like info@recruitingcompany.ca without having a whole lot of responses, it might be time to narrow your focus a little.

Focus on building relationships: You'll have better success in the long run if you spend your time building personal relationships with 5-10 recruiters who specialize in your field.

Um...is it really different in Quebec?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008, 00:00:00 EST

Here's a newsflash item I lifted from the Radio Canada International site on August 15th. You've probably heard it all before:

* MONTREAL: LABOUR CRISIS LOOMS IN QUEBEC

Quebec has been warned that a labour crisis is impending in coming decades. A study by the Desjardins Group investment and banking firm says that even a high birth rate and more immigration won't compensate for the droves of workers who will soon be retiring. The researchers predict that one-quarter of the population will be aged 65 or older by 2021.

The study notes that Quebec trails Ontario and other provinces in the ability to attract and to retain newcomers. Desjardins recommends several remedies, such as making the work force more accessible to "atypical" workers, such as women with young children whom the government could accommodate by providing daycare centres open in the evening or during weekends. The study says the government could ease labour laws to create more flexibility for employers, as well as to enact measures to delay retirements. Employers across the country continue to complain about labour shortages.

The Bank of Canada says that 40 per cent of Canadian companies think that the shortages are affecting their ability to meet demand for their products.

What's interesting to me is that the example of the "atypical worker" is someone who is actually a typical worker. Most Canadian women with children over the age of 1 year are actually in tha labour force full time. Even though this story was filed under "immigration" it doesn't mention creating programs to help qualified immigrants find employment in their respective fields or to re-train them for the Canadian industry.

But even more important - at least for us here at Retired Worker - is that instead of looking for flexibility or accomodation for older workers (such as job-sharing, which is a great way to go on a sort of 'part-time' retirement), everyone seems to jump to the most complex solution, which is to suddenly build more day-care centres.

I don't know...everyone keeps talking about the mass exodus of workers, but hardly anyone looks at the obvious solution: why aren't we doing more to KEEP these workers?

Hey Ladies! A new site for baby-boomer women

Fri, 15 Aug 2008, 00:00:00 EST

Until recently, most of the websites supposedly designed for 'Baby Boomers' were kind of awful: usually cheesy-looking, home-grown affairs, they were long on enthusiasm but short on content.

However, like everything else about the 50+ demo, we're seeing some welcome change!

This week I came across a new site: National Organization of Baby Boomer Women which promises to be a little more interesting than some of the sites we've seen in the past.

Sure, it's got a little too much advertising right in the middle of the homepage, and possibly a little too much self-congratulation, but the woman who founded it is another great example of how the 50+ demographic doesn't look like senior citizens, doesn't act like senior citizens, and are increasingly demonstrating that they have a whole lot to offer.

Definitely worth a visit.