“Unemployment discrimination” and the jobless
By: Elaine Quijano (CBS News)

Of the 14 million Americans currently unemployed, 6 million have been jobless for more than 6 months.

CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reports that many job seekers say being unemployed is being held against them.

Delores Barnes always goes job hunting armed with her dossier of documents, including her birth certificate.

Two years ago, she was laid off from her supervisor job with New York’s Children’s Services. Ever since, Barnes has been looking for work to support her and her nine-year-old daughter, Savianna “I can’t give up. I’m on a mission. I have a daughter, and she’s like, I have to be strong for her. I have to show her that you just don’t give up,” Barnes says.

Yet no amount of persistence can overcome the simple fact that some employers don’t want to hire the unemployed. In job posting after job posting, companies require that applicants “must be currently employed.”

“They have that perception that they are the dead weight, therefore they want the strong people who are currently employed,” says Robert Krzak, president of Gecko Hospitality.

Krzak says some companies won’t even consider unemployed job candidates.
“If there is a candidate out there who has been out there in the job market for six months or even a year or more than a year, a lot of companies are very suspect of that, because why aren’t they working?” Krzak says.

“It’s discriminatory and the fact that just because you don’t have a job you can’t compete for a job,” says Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. DeLauro is sponsoring a bill aimed at stopping the practice.

“These are competent people. They have lost their job through no fault of their own,

Why shouldn’t they have an opportunity?” DeLauro says.
Barnes says the practice doesn’t make sense, hiring people who have jobs when so many don’t.

Barnes is now training to be a computer technician, and says she’ll keep pounding the pavement, even though with some companies she can’t even get her foot in the door.

By Ruchira Agrawal

The times we live in today are very different from just 10 years ago. Job security and staying in the same career for your entire life are almost a thing of the past. Most people will change careers between 5-7 times in their lifetime according to recent studies.

Why would someone want to change or reinvent their career?
1.Losing enthusiasm for the work – After you spend a number of years working in one field, you begin to feel a loss of connection with your work. This sometimes happens with high-achievers
2.Need for personal fulfillment – Your work just doesn’t feed your soul; it doesn’t bring any fulfillment or satisfaction. You may be good at it but it doesn’t align with who you are. This mostly happens around mid-life for people.
3.Personal aspirations aren’t aligned with work anymore – People grow and change and so do their desires, goals and aspirations. Ten years ago, perhaps something else was important and now your needs have changed. Work can then starts to become a barrier rather than providing fulfillment.
4.Circumstances – Perhaps the industry you were involved is stagnating or even dying. Or you have crossed a certain age and jobs are tough to come by. Circumstances such as these may also put somebody in a position where they think about reinventing their career.

Reinventing your career is really about your personal journey of self-discovery. Whatever your reason for wanting to make a change, the desire to do it must come from within. The desire to take charge of your career and life should be there as well.

Here are 6 important steps to bear in mind that will give you a head start:

An open mind – An open mind–like a blank slate with no pre-conceived notion of what you can or cannot do–serves very well as you look for a career that’s new and different. Explore your options by reading about them and talking to people, try to just absorb everything instead of judging things right away. Don’t be afraid of the “New”. This will help you expand your mindset.

What will I be when I grow up – If you had a childhood dream, something that you always wanted to do and couldn’t, this is a time to connect with it.

Passion, abilities, needs and values – Often running our lives on auto-pilot, we forget what our interests are, and this is a great time to remember them. What really grabs your interest? The best way to reinvent your career is to first discover what you really want to do and then excel in it by becoming good at it. Pay attention to everyday things and events however miniscule they may seem–your answer may be hidden there. Do people come to you for advice automatically? Are you good at organizing things neatly and effectively and love working with people? There could be things you are already doing and enjoying, but you may not have paid attention.

Don’t forget to use your intuition – Your intuition is such a versatile tool and it can be easily used in both personal and professional situations. As you are trying to look for answers, let your instincts guide you.

Applying the same discipline as your corporate job – Once you’ve identified what you would like to do, start learning so you can move into it. Don’t be afraid to take courses or get help from experts in the industry. Speak to those who have already blazed the trail before you.

Fear is not your friend – Once you’ve identified your likely choices, then it’s time to take action. This can be frightening and often makes people freeze and stay in one place. You have to identify your fears – failure, the unknown, and so forth, and realize that they are not realistic. It’s true that there is no guarantee for the future but that shouldn’t stop you from taking forward steps.

Change and reinvention should be an exciting prospect as you are looking towards your bright future.

By Dee Adams

If you’ve ever dreamed about starting your own business, you are not alone. There were almost 9 million self-employed workers in 2010, according to statistics compiled by Challenger, Gray, & Christmas. Each year, a percentage of the workforce trades in their 9-5 jobs for the entrepreneurial life, but some workers start a sideline business to supplement their salaries.

Business startup cuts across all socio-economic groups; from managers, executives, and professionals to blue collar workers. Success stories include:
•A Harvard graduate with a degree in mathematics and economics who left management consulting to pursue her passion for desserts. She started a bakery and Café, and began writing cookbooks.
•A Ph.D. in political science from University of Chicago who opened a motorcycle repair shop. He wrote a book about the value of working with one’s hands.
• A web designer and consultant fired from her job because of her personal blogging. She built a lucrative home-based empire with her mommy blog.
•A firefighter who invented better fire safety equipment for the consumer and industrial marketplace, and created a multimillion-dollar venture.

But, for many other would-be entrepreneurs finding the right startup is challenging.

Many issues may cloud the process, and certain questions asked and answered in the pre-planning stage can pinpoint conflicts and problems, and their solutions.

Here are several important questions:

Do you know how many aptitudes you possess?
Aptitudes are inborn natural talents and should not be confused with acquired skills. Each person has an average of six innate skills, some unused and some hidden.

While a percentage of the population may be able to determine their own aptitudes by self-assessment, most people are not aware of their full potential, according to writer Margaret Broadley. Over a 40 year period, Broadley documented the work of the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization specializing in the scientific research of human abilities.

What are your least favorite skills?
Create a checklist of work tasks that you dislike and have trouble executing.

What feels more comfortable, introverted or extroverted personality traits?
Make a checklist of your actual patterns of behavior in work and social interactions, not what you believe your traits are.

Note: Some people adapt their personalities in order to fit into social or working situations and may have an opposite personality from the traits that they often exhibit.

What is your motivation for choosing self-employment?
Using a single sentence, describe why you want to be your own boss.

What is your history with money?
Your money history includes your family’s relationship with financial issues, the messages you learned as a child, and your pattern of behavior and attitude toward money as an adult, which may be reflected in your current credit history.

Summarize your answer in two or three short sentences.

Socio-economic factors, like the state of the economy, the ability to borrow money, or to easily relocate have an impact on the number of people who pursue entrepreneurship each year, but many aspiring entrepreneurs ignore national economic trends in pursuit of their dreams. Those who succeed keep their risks low, and instinctively review their personal development homework beforehand.

What other issues are standing in your way?

Beef O’Brady’s, Buffalo Wild Wings expect to see sales return
July 25, 2011 | By Alan Snel

Restaurants that rely on NFL Sundays for an important chunk of their sales were celebrating Monday when news broke that the National Football League players will sign a labor settlement with team owners to end the 132-day owners lockout.
“It’s an absolute relief,” said Aaron Carricato, owner of two Beef O’ Brady’s units in Tampa. “The NFL season for us is by far our busiest season.”
Carricato said that if the lockout scrubbed the 2011 NFL season, his Sunday restaurant sales would plummet 40 percent. Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, a Tampa, Fla.-based family sports pub chain, has 217 sites in 23 states.
“Without football it would have made a humongous difference,” he said. “We love 25 weeks of football and crave it the other 27 weeks.”
For the owners of five Beef ‘O’ Brady’s restaurants in Florida’s Panhandle and Mississippi, the end of the lockout means they won’t have to continue a free beer promotion that was introduced in April when the labor stoppage was about 35 days old.
The five restaurants gave away free Bud Light to customers starting at 4 p.m. on each day of the lockout. Those five units added a minute every day for the free beer for each day that there was no labor agreement. For example, on Day 40 of the lockout, customers were given free beer for 40 minutes starting at 4 p.m.
Another chain that reached out to its customers during the lockout was Minneapolis-based Buffalo Wild Wings. The 740-plus-unit casual-dining chain introduced TV spots during the NCAA college basketball tournament games asking viewers to help “save our season” by visiting Buffalo Wild Wings’ Facebook page and adding their names to an online petition.
“The end of the NFL lockout is a huge help for us,” said Chris Kulig, general manager of a Buffalo Wild Wings store in a suburban community outside of Tampa. “That’s a primary source for income on the weekends.”
Kulig said his restaurant has an NFL promotion called, “Countdown to NFL Fridays,” when the restaurant gives away free T-shirts, toy footballs and gift certificates to drive traffic for NFL Sundays.
“It helps people get excited about the season. To know the NFL is coming back is great,” Kulig said. “Now that we have a season, people can get interested in NFL fantasy leagues.”
He noted that Sunday sales increase 10-15 percent during football season.
Previously, NRN reported that Stephen Anderson of Miller Tabak & Co. estimated that 10 percent of Buffalo Wild Wings’ sales are tied to NFL broadcasts, and David Tarantino of Robert W. Baird & Co. wrote that cancelled NFL games could erode the brand’s average weekly sales by as much as 15 percent during the season.
Buffalo Wild Wings plans to hold a conference call to discuss its second-quarter earnings report Tuesday
Brand columnist Denise Lee Yohn, who writes on the restaurant industry, compared the NFL to an “ecosystem” that gives economic life to communities:
“Professional sports are interwoven into everyday life, including restaurants,” Yohn said. “When a lockout happens, it shows how fragile the ecosystem is.”

I have been working on some great searches the past few weeks, and have come across an interesting pattern.

The companies I work with do not want resumes from candidates that are on career boards and job sites. That is such a different expectation from what most of you understand. They want to see and hear about great industry leaders that are not on these job sites. They want to have me present fresh and intriguing candidates.  Candidates they and their competitors have not seen.

Every employer has access to these sites. It has been heard that some employers are regularly viewing these sites not so much for new talent, but to see who on their current team may be “out looking for a job”.  Be very careful!

Another interesting phenomenon as of late is that if candidates are on an employer’s site posting for jobs, and they want to delete that online profile, they cannot in some cases. So, once you apply, you are in their tracking system indefinitely. What does that matter you say, well just this week I had some great candidates I wanted to take before a client for some great positions, but because they had already applied into the company’s database, they could not be presented. Could they still be reviewed by that client and hired, sure. But, your resume is in a huge and burgeoning system with thousands of other candidates. You are just a name and number. It will be very hard for you to get noticed, it at all.

However, if you use our services [never a fee to you], you will have a Gecko professional be your advocate in front of these companies. We take your resume right to the decision maker. These decision makers are taking our candidates and our word that these candidates are high quality industry leaders. We at Gecko have done our homework, and present you in a great light. We get through all the “noise” and to the top.

Give it a try, take you resume offline, stop applying to every little opening you see, and send us your resume today. You will not regret it.

Kevin Kalstad — Gecko Hospitality

With the New Year upon us, we find that more and more people are making their resolution to find that job they have always dreamed of. Because you are not alone in your quest for that perfect job, and the job market still in a recovery mode, there are two areas that become increasingly more important to make sure your resume stands out above all the rest.

First, which I will discuss in this article, is to ensure you have a well manicured resume. And second, is how to ensure you get the resume into the right hands.

There are many help books that claim to be the expert on how to create a winning resume; I find some of them to be complex. I recently read a book by Evelyn Salvador, author of ‘Step-by-Step Resumes,’ there are many simple, yet effective, tricks that can significantly strengthen your resume’s readability, call to action, marketability and overall appearance.

In her book, Salvador recommends you take the following steps to improve a resume before using it to apply for jobs:

1. Remove personal pronouns.
The subject (I, me or my) is understood in your resume and you should leave it out of each sentence. If your resume contains any of these words, delete them and restructure your sentences if necessary.
2. Check for action verbs.
Be sure each bullet in your “professional experience” section starts with an action verb or adverb preceding the action verb.
3. Delete redundant or superfluous words.
Review each sentence or bullet and delete any words that your sentence reads fine without, such as “the” and “that,” as well as unnecessary “fluff” words. Edit down to the most concise sentence possible without omitting any important content, such as achievements.
4. Include personal attributes.
Double-check that your primary attributes are included in your “professional summary” section and that you didn’t leave out any important ones.
5. Ensure that all pertinent, targeted qualifications are included.
Compare your resume to the description of the job you’re targeting. Is there any information you didn’t already mention that would address a function or need listed in the description? If so, revise your resume to include that information.
6. Prioritize your bullets.
Review your responsibilities and achievements in each position and move the more important, targeted ones closer to the top under each position.
7. Remove irrelevant information.
Check to ensure that anything irrelevant or not directly related to your targeted goal is minimized, put toward the end or omitted altogether so that your resume includes more relevant information.
8. Subdivide and categorize bullets.
If you have many responsibility and achievement bullets under each position (say, more than 10), you can divide them into two categories (“responsibilities” and “achievements”) and subtitle them as such under each position for easier reading.
9. Check for quantifying information.
When reviewing your sentences, ask yourself, “Did I include how many, how much, how often, how big, how fast, how well and so on?” If not, go edit your sentences to include more specific, concrete information.
10. Verify that “CAR” and benefit info is included.
Do your achievements include the Challenge you faced, the Action you took and the Result? Be sure you show how well you performed these functions and always include the benefit(s) to the company.
11. Vary bullet line length.
Try for a good mix of line lengths. Bullets are effective when they are a combination of one, two and three typed lines. Because it is important to show not only what you did, but also how well you did it and what the benefits were to the company, information should be concise without sacrificing content or meaning. In this way, you will have an action-packed, achievement-oriented resume that is tightly and concisely written.
12. Check grammar, punctuation and spelling.
Spell-check your document in your word-processing program. Proofread several times. Be consistent in your use of capitalization and hyphenation. Be sure you have used correct grammar and punctuation. If this is not one of your fortes (and it isn’t for many people), give your completed resume to someone you trust to proofread it for you.
Add more descriptive adjectives or adverbs where applicable. Check to see whether you can infuse any additional descriptors that show how well you performed your job functions.

 Here are some very basic tips for the entry level manager. Those who have designated their career will have this down pat!

 1. When writing a resume start with your name at the top!

Sounds silly but it is true. Dont put your name at the bottom, side or in a header. Putting your name in a header could be to your detriment. Often resumes are catalogued into an Applicant Tracking System in most corporations. If you put your name anywhere else it will get missed. The header is identified as a picture and overlooked by the system. The ATS system is designed to read the resume and it pulls the first few words as the name. I remember searching for the name and deciding to just delete the resume. Often people will put their name in a cover letter and then no contact information on their resume. Many times these mistakes can be avoided if you just have a friend or family member proof read your resume.

 2. Those of you who leave your address out of your resume run the risk of not being contacted.

If you leave your address off of your resume to try to widen your reach it may not work to your favor. Companies want to know where you are located. You are trying to target the job that is listed. Instead try to target the company. List your address with a sentence under your location. Open to relocation your value will increase! If you have more than one address and list multiple addresses I would suggest indicating which the primary address is. Leaving it to the guessing game of the person reading your resume could leave your new career in the dust. Also, adding an address that is only the city and state is okay but not much help. Some cities are very big and a commute is near impossible. Add your zip code so that the hiring authority can get an idea of the drive that you would have to make. Most companies care enough that they do not want you driving over an hour to work.

 It may work to your advantage in your cover letter to state how far you are from the location. If you are close to several locations that a company owns that also increases your value. Many times a person is selected because of their flexibility.

3. Use a proper e-mail address.

 I could write a book on the e-mail addresses. What does your say? Exclude e-mail addresses that are descriptions of your favorite activity. Do you use a family e-mail address? Do you use your friends e-mail? Does your e-mail address tell a story? Does it tell too much? Many web sites are available where you can set up a professional e-mail address to use for employment searches. The Best addresses are professional. Also, remember that a company may contact you years later to see if you are still looking. They will use your phone number and e-mail address to contact you. So, keep a consistent contact method for the best results with a resume! Next blog..the voice mail message! That is your first verbal connection. What does yours say?

 Joan Koelbel, CPC

Gecko Hospitality

NC / VA and DC offices

By Alison Doyle, About.com

A couple of messages in my In Box reminded me of what job seekers can do that won’t help their job search. The first one was from someone who told me that she can’t find any jobs to apply for because she doesn’t want to work for a recruiter and every company hires only through recruiters.

I told her that wasn’t the case and suggested she use LinkUp to search for jobs direct from company sites, create a LinkedIn profile and start networking, and use the job search engines to search for listings in her career field and location. She emailed back and said the first three jobs she found using a job search engine had recruiters as contacts. So she stopped looking.

Despite the fact that I had explained that a recruiter can help your job search and that there were 1019 (no exaggeration) other jobs that met her search criteria, she quit. Unfortunately, that’s not going to work in this job market. You need to spread a wide net and apply for as many jobs as you can find that are a fit.

In the second case, the person send me a lovely personalized email messages, along with a resume, reminding me that I had referred him for an interview for his last position. I hadn’t. I don’t know the person or the company and I don’t run an executive search firm.

The scenarios aren’t the same, but in both cases the job seekers were spinning their wheels and what they were, or weren’t, doing wasn’t going to help the job search.

What’s important when you’re job searching is to focus your job search, network with “real” contacts who can help, and to spend your time where it’s going to get your results. Take a look at these 10 steps to find a new job to make sure you’re using your job search time as efficiently as possible and focusing your efforts on helping you find a job, not hindering your chances.

The economic downturn has certainly wrecked havoc on the U.S. economy and no industry has felt the wrath more than Hospitality Industry. However, as the economy struggles to make improvements, there are evident signs that the worst may be over for the millions of employees that call the hospitality industry home in areas such as Restaurant Jobs. Within the last six months there has been a resurgence of restaurant and hospitality companies struggling to replenish the management professionals that make up the heartbeat of their operations. Shockingly are the reasons why managers are leaving their present organizations for greener pastures.

Gecko Hospitality, a national recruiting firm specializing in the placement of management professionals, surveyed over 425 hospitality managers who recently had left their current employer and asked them, why?

Money, which is thought to be the primary reason why anyone would leave their present job, is surprisingly NOT in the top five. However, many managers will tell you that they have accepted salary concessions, longer hours and in many cases lost vacations to help stay off the recession. “If my company isn’t growing, I’m not growing” said one General Manager of a McDonald’s franchisee located in Atlanta, Georgia. “I want to get to the next level in my career and I can’t achieve that if my employer can’t secure the financing to grow”.

“Managers within the Hospitality Industry’s ranks have sacrificed a great deal in order to prove their loyalty to their present employer but – where does it end,” commented Robert Krzak, President of Gecko Hospitality. “Companies that have the dollars to expand are the same companies candidates want to talk with first.  If after the first few interviews the candidate suspects the company (presently interviewing) is not in growth mode, they will pull themselves out of contention. The risks are too high to leave their present employer for a ‘what if ‘or ‘maybe’ and add more unnecessary real estate to their resume,” exclaimed Krzak.

When it comes to money and of the managers surveyed, 22% were offered an increase in salary with their new organization.

As our earlier survey statistics demonstrate, money was not a motivating factor but was still offered, possibly, as an incentive to ensure there would be little chance of losing their prospect to a counter offer. Smart Move! Surprisingly, 18% of the managers surveyed had reluctantly taken a decrease in salary due in part that they were unemployed at the time the interview process had begun. While the experience and salary ranges varied, a majority of the managers having to accept a decrease in salary were senior level General Manager and Multi-Unit operators.

While money may not be the deciding factor in luring a candidate from one company to another, it’s clear that managers within the Hospitality Industry are hungry for opportunity and growth. The scares, left by the recession, in which hospitality managers had to endure are beginning to heal and heal quickly. Organizations need to understand that it will soon become a “candidates market” and the goal of Keeping Good People will come at a price.

When it comes to money and of the Hospitality managers surveyed, 22% were offered an increase in salary with their new organization. As our earlier survey statistics demonstrate, money was not a motivating factor but was still offered, possibly, as an incentive to ensure there would be little chance of losing their prospect to a counter offer. Smart Move! Surprisingly, 18% of the managers surveyed had reluctantly taken a decrease in salary due in part that they were unemployed at the time the interview process had begun. While the experience and salary ranges varied, a majority of the managers having to accept a decrease in salary were senior level General Manager and Multi-Unit operators. While money may not be the deciding factor in luring a candidate from one company to another, it’s clear that Hospitality managers are hungry for opportunity and growth. The scares, left by the recession, in which hospitality managers had to endure are beginning to heal and heal quickly. Organizations need to understand that it will soon become a “candidates market” and the goal of Keeping Good People will come at a price.

To listen to the interview via podcast, please click on player below: