culpwrit

You read the online job posting, send your resume and later learn that the job was filled with an internal candidate.  Sound familiar?  More than half of open jobs are being filled with internal employees, according to a new study by CareerXroads, a New Jersey-based staffing-strategy consultancy. 

Fortunately, the study is bullish on 2010 hiring, with 48% of companies predicting an increase in hiring, and only 10.8% forecasting further reductions.  Although a slight majority of companies hired from internal staffs, the study suggests that this unusually high rate will return to normal ranges in 2010 which is good news for people looking for jobs. 

CareerXroads says the most efficient way to hire someone or find a job:  Referrals, referrals, referrals. Referrals make up 26.7% of all external hires. Corporate plans for 2010 indicate a strong interest in leveraging referrals.  Many companies and agencies pay employees bonuses for recommending prospective employees who are eventually hired. 

This study underscores previous posts here suggesting that job seekers should use online job boards and job postings from companies and agencies, but then tap their own networks to find ways to become recommended for open positions.  As Julie Bauke said in her guest post, “Networking.  You’ve Got to Do It.” 

    Sarah Van Nevel 

Throughout my time as a PR major at the University of Minnesota, I can assure you that I always had my eye on the prize—and I’m not talking about a diploma. As I began my final semesters as a full-time student, I began to think more and more about what came after graduation day. I wanted a job, but I had no idea how to start looking for one.

While I worked hard to maintain a solid GPA and gain experience through internships and PRSSA activities, I put even more effort into making meaningful connections with my teachers and PR professionals in the community. All throughout college I heard about the benefits of setting up informational interviews and attending networking events, but I had no idea where to start. It can be a very intimidating process, and unfortunately, there’s no guidebook for beginning conversations with a bunch of people who are experts in communications.

Below are a few tips I was given along the way that I found particularly useful:

Many of my friends are teaching one or two college courses, and a few have moved into full-time faculty positions.  One friend gave up his long and unsuccessful search for a PR position in order to return to college for a year to get a teaching certificate.  He’s now an elementary school teacher.   

In each instance, these friends have had a variety of reasons for their decisions.  Some simply are in the “give-back” mode of their careers.  Several haven’t had success in finding appropriate-level PR positions.  A couple have always wanted to be teachers but got onto other career paths due to opportunities that seemed more appealing (and profitable) at the time they were starting out. 

The Sunday New York Times today tells the career-switch story of Peter Wilson, a Boston-area PR manager who was laid off in 2006, and eventually decided to return to college to get his master’s degree in teaching.  Today, Peter is a middle school teacher.  His story provides important insights that will be helpful to anyone contemplating a career switch into teaching.   

As a parent who had the ability to help support sons in unpaid summer internships, I know the value of of such experiences, although I don’t like the concept.  Unpaid internships favor those who can afford to work for free, while eliminating talented individuals who need to earn money for college expenses and life. 

I feel most organizations, even nonprofits, should pay something in return for the work performed by summer interns.  However, I’m fighting a losing battle, and I realize unpaid internships can provide experience and networking contacts that will lead to future employment.  I’ve seen it happen with two sons whose unpaid internships led to full-time jobs in professions they love. 

Before agreeing to underwrite unpaid internships, I asked myself similar questions that appear in an entertaining father/son column by Steve and Isaac Yoder in the Wall Street Journal.  Isaac wants a Washington, D.C. summer internship just like my older son did, and his father is pondering nine important questions that you should be prepared to answer before seeking unpaid internship support from mom and dad.  

Unpaid internship support from parents must address Steve Yoder’s “thought loop” consisting of the following questions:

• Can we pay for it?
• Can we afford it?
• Did I get subsidies like this?
• Is this a worthwhile endeavor?
• Would it be equitable?
• Can Isaac afford to pay for this summer plan?
• Might Isaac actually benefit if I declined to pay?
• Where, exactly, should parental dole stop?
• Will I feel stingy if I say no?

Last year, this blog wrote about the disturbing trend of purchased internships.  That idea requires an even stronger business case or very rich parents. 

Anxious college juniors and seniors are launching searches for summer internships earlier than the traditional spring-break starting date.  This is good use of time only if you’re responding to specific job postings.  Otherwise, most agencies don’t seriously look at internship resumes until early April or later. 

Don’t panic if you’re not aggressively pursuing internship opportunities at this time.  Focus on classes and the extra-curricular activities that will separate your resume from others.  Most employers will begin to assess summer hiring needs after spring break. 

Internship hiring generally is tied to client work demands, which often aren’t determined until the last minute.  The number of interns varies from year to year at most agencies depending on workloads.  PR agencies appear to be weathering the recession better than other marketing organizations, which is good news for aspiring summer interns. 

Recent college grads and seniors need to be vigilant about checking online job postings since a majority of internships are no longer confined to summer months.  Full-time, entry-level jobs with agencies come mostly via the internship route.   

Focus on paid internships, but realize that unpaid internships can offer important door-opening opportunities.  I’m not a fan of unpaid internships unless you’re gaining essential training that will benefit your future job search.  The Wall Street Journal’s Jonnelle Marte recently wrote an interesting column about internships, covering legal requirements of employers and other valuable insights. 

Q.  I was relieved to read the Wall Street Journal column about office romances.  “Relieved” because an agency co-worker and I have been secretly dating for nearly a year.  My parents advised us to hide the fact we’re dating since someone in my dad’s office was fired for dating a co-worker.  I’m thinking that we’re being overly sensitive?  -MK

A.  Knowing what I do about agency grapevines, I’m sure your office already knows about your relationship.  I don’t see a problem as long as you don’t date a subordinate or your boss.  That would make for a difficult situation for you and your co-workers.  Ideally, dating colleagues should work on separate project teams, but that’s not always possible in smaller offices.  Unless your agency has a policy prohibiting dating co-workers, there’s no reason to observe “don’t ask, don’t tell.” 

   Clarkson Hine 

I was fortunate to begin my career in Washington, DC.  It’s an exciting city that brings together people from all across America and the world.  And it’s a place where one can earn a lot of responsibility (if not much money) at a young age. 

At Cornell University, I had majored in History and minored in Government, and also served as Sports Director of WVBR-FM.  My interest in politics, combined with a summer internship at the Defense Department between my junior and senior years, gave me an incurable case of “Potomac Fever.”  After graduating, I pounded the pavement in Washington and landed my first job – an entry level position at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign committee for Senate Republicans.  Within three months I was given oversight for an office of seven people who handled written correspondence and phone calls (alas, this was before e-mail) from members of the Republican Presidential Task Force (a distinction earned by donating $10 per month). 

After the 1986 election cycle, I moved to the Senate Republican Conference, where I was able to combine my passion for politics with my radio background to lead and build the service Republican Senators use to communicate with their home state radio stations.  In three years at the Conference, I worked closely with most Senate Republican offices and regularly hosted cable television call-in programs for several Senators.  In 1990, I was fortunate to begin a seven-year career with Senator Bob Dole, serving first as the Senate Republican Leader’s Deputy Press Secretary, then Press Secretary for his final three years in the Senate, Deputy Communications Director for his 1996 presidential campaign, and as the Senator’s post-election communications advisor. 

I found the skills necessary for success in political communications translate well to the private sector.  After a year at a Washington public relations/public affairs firm, I was recruited to my first corporate job at Fortune Brands, a diversified consumer brands company that puts  my entire toolkit to work – and remains a fulfilling place to be after more than ten years.   

Here’s my career snapshot:

·     National Republican Senatorial Committee (1+ years)

Ø     staff assistant

·     Senate Republican Conference (3 years)

Ø     radio services manager

·     Senator Bob Dole (7 years)

Ø     deputy press secretary, Office of the Senate Republican Leader

Ø     press secretary, Office of the Senate Majority Leader

Ø     deputy communications director, Dole for President

Ø     communications director, Office of Bob Dole

·     Susan Davis International (1+ years)

Ø     senior vice president for public affairs

·     Fortune Brands (11 years and counting)

Ø     director of communications

Ø     vice president, corporate communications

Ø     vice president, corporate communications & public affairs

After being critical of the bold, four-color resume of a senior I met during a visit to the University of Kansas, I recently received a toned down resume from him–but it still looked like an Oscar-nominated movie ad in the New York Post.  The resume was cluttered with too many type faces and sizes, and featured a 2″ x 3″ photo. 

My advice:  Stick with traditional resumes.  Don’t be misguided into thinking that sizzle replaces the “steak” of education and experience.  The folks at Microsoft offer excellent free resume templates for basic resumes, job-specific resumes and situation-resumes. 

If your creative flair requires more than a one-page standard resume, then develop a quality online portfolio.  But do not substitute the online portfolio for a resume, which some job seekers have attempted to do.  Include the link in your cover letter and resume.  Regular Culpwrit reader Jamie Kim has designed a low-key, yet clever and elegant online portfolio.  Provide a link to your online portfolio in Comments below. 

Chris Spooner of Spoon Graphics provides an excellent review of 10 sites, including my favorite–Carbonmade, which help guide you through the process of building an online portfolio. 

  Dr. Anne E. Beall   

Because I write and give seminars about nonverbal communication, people often ask me what’s important when it comes to body language in an interview. 

Is there a specific sign that you have made a good impression?  Unfortunately, body language is not that simple.  One needs to look at many areas of the interviewer’s nonverbal communication.  I use a system called PERCEIVE™, which summarizes all the major areas of nonverbal behavior.  In this guest post I’d like to discuss one area of PERCEIVE™, which is the eyes. 

When you’re interviewing, you can determine how interested the interviewer is in what you’re saying and how much this person likes you from their eye behavior.   Obviously having the interviewer’s interest and liking are both crucial to getting a job.  Below is an excerpt from my recent book ‘Reading the Hidden Communications Around You.’ 

The Eyes Reveal Liking and Interest
 
Generally, we look longer and more frequently at people and things that have our attention. That point seems almost intuitively obvious given that we rely on our sight probably more than any other sense when we are gathering information about the world. We reveal if we are engaged with a presentation by how much we view its content. We reveal how interested we are in another person’s conversation by how much we look at him while he is talking. In one study researchers found that people tend to gaze more at someone who is giving them positive feedback but that they reduce their gaze when they are receiving negative feedback.  The eyes reveal how much we want to take in around us.

What’s amazing about eye behavior is that we secretly reveal whom we like and dislike just by the amount that we look at them. Aside from the intentional stare that is associated with anger and a desire for a confrontation, we generally look most at those whom we like and find rewarding. In one study, men looked more at other men with whom they had just conversed and who had nodded at them during a presentation.  It’s unlikely that these men had formed strong feelings of liking but that they had mildly positive feelings about the other person, and their eye behavior showed it. People avoid looking at someone who has just made negative comments about their performance and who is presumably mildly disliked.  Mothers of children who have temperament problems actually look less at their problematic children.

Gazing also reveals prejudices. In a study of racial prejudice, researchers had people interview with Caucasian or African American interviewers. The interviewees who felt the greatest racial prejudice toward African Americans actually gazed less at the African American interviewer. Of course, they didn’t know they were looking less at the interviewer or that their attitudes about an entire race were being betrayed by their eyes. As people increase their liking for one another, they increase the amount of mutual gazing that they do. (Mutual gaze is when two people are looking into each other’s eyes). The most obvious example of this occurs along the continuum of relationships. We don’t look for long periods at strangers, but we clearly engage in mutual gaze with our good friends. Romantic relationships have the highest amount
of mutual gaze.

If you want to learn more about reading body language, Anne Beall’s book is:  Reading the Hidden Communications Around You: A Guide to Reading Body Language in the Workplace.

Over the weekend, I heard from two friends–one who has decided to start his own PR consulting business, and another who wants to abandon his 3-year-old freelance practice and return to a full-time agency job. 

I wish the call order had been turned around since I perhaps was overly encouraging to the first caller.  Meanwhile, the freelancer provided some sound grounding as to the ups and downs of being on your own.  “The peaks and valleys of being overly busy or bored is driving me crazy,” said the freelance escapee.  “I might work five days and nights straight on a project, then not have another assignment for a week or two.”  He also said he missed the socialization that an agency environment provided.  “It’s a lonely, digital world,” he said.  “I sometimes don’t see anyone for days on end.”

I encouraged the recently jobless first caller by citing a Challenger, Gray & Christmas report that 8.6% of unemployed executives last year decided to start their own businesses.  That’s a 3.5% jump since 2008, and the outlook is even stronger for 2010. 

After the second call, I looped back to the would-be entrepreneur with some additional thoughts about his possible venture.  I suggested that he thoroughly research the niche PR consulting he wants to pursue.  The Small Business Administration provides an excellent tutorial for individuals who want to start their own businesses.  Another government-hosted website provides 10 Steps to Starting a Business with links to a variety of start-up resources. 

Since my friend appears to be passionate about his probable venture, I called his attention to entrepreneur-focused website StartupNation, which features an excellent post about the importance of passion in creating business success.

Starting a new PR consulting business is not easy, however.  According to the Small Business Administration, nearly 50% of new businesses fail within five years.  Besides studying all the pros of starting a new business, it’s also necessary to consider the cons, including the Seven Pitfalls of Business Failure.