What's New in Finding a Career, Landing a Job, and Starting a Business

I was on KGO Radio's Ronn Owens Program today. In preparing for the show, I made notes. Lest they go to waste, I've adapted them into this post.

Likely source of new jobs: Comprehensive immigration reform/mass legalization. It will create jobs preparing immigrants for the citizenship exam. Illegals are high users of the health care, legal and social service systems, so just these should burgeon: bureaucrats, translators, health care providers, lawyers, court clerks, bailiffs, etc. In the private sector, supermarket chains such as Mi Pueblo should burgeon and nightclubs, radio, and TV shows, etc. will be repurposed to accommodate the change in audience tastes. And this amnesty, if it's like the previous ones, will trigger new waves of immigrants, ensuring that the job market in these areas will be strong. Learn Spanish. 

Growing areas in tech. there's a decent chance that mobile and social media, currently hot, will soon peak. I'm more bullish on:

• computer security 
• digital forensics: prosecute hackers, spouses hiding money, employee theft.
• and especially Big Data: data warehousing, architecture, and mining. I'm bullish because the massive data is already close to enabling marketers to predict what you'll buy, when and why. In the health care space, the data will be used to identify more cost-effective diagnoses and treatments. Credit card companies will use Big Data to more accurately predict if a transaction is likely to be fraudulent. Stock pickers will use Big Data to develop more predictive models of what to buy and sell. 

Some careers that many people would find fun: pyrotechnician, store merchandiser, hairstylist, garden designer or coach, beer brewer, sports announcer. Alas, it's not easy to land a good job in most of these fields. 

What's new and working in landing a job?

·         Writing a business plan: what you could do in the first 90 days.

·         Including a portfolio of your work products with your applications

·         Cleaning up your Google results: If you've posted things you wouldn't want your employer to see, consider taking them down. 

·        A  great LinkedIn profile including an engaging headshot,

·         Twesume: A 140-character resume on Twitter. e.g., Tech PR pro, experience both in-house and agency: [link].

·         CareerSonar ranks all jobs available online by the strength of your connections on Facebook and LinkedIn. That makes it easy for you to know when to try to get a connection to try to help you.

Job-search Hail Marys

• The resume as an Amazon page, infographic, or Monopoly board.
• Walk in. If there's a security guard, arrive when lots of employees are and try to get one to say, "He's with me."
• Take control of part of the interview, for example, ask if you might go to the white board and explain.
• Ask probing questions: "Would you tell me something about working here that wouldn't appear in the employee handbook?" or "Why should and shouldn't I want to work for you?" 

Advice for people who get frustrated with coworkers. It's tough to change people so after a brief effort, minimize interaction with them, get them to leave, or you leave. 

Self-employment ideas  

• Match.com ad coach
• High-quality coin-operated laundry: with a kid center, coffeehouse/concerts/videos/internet access, big-screen TV. 
• Videoscribe/Whiteboard Animation (using Powtoon or Sparkol.)

Semi-retirement jobs. Interim executive, healthcare advocate, inn sitter, tour guide, advisor to returning college students, teach classes in adult school or as guest speaker in university classes.

Advice for new college grads that are stuck: Circle a date on your calendar a month or two out by which date you will have picked something. Most people who are happy with their careers wouldn't have known it going in. They end up loving their career only when they've become the go-to guy/gal. Then look for a launchpad job--an entry-level position that will put you at the elbow of people who can teach you and get you promoted.

This Week's Public Appearances

A reader asked me why I don't post most of my upcoming public appearances. I have no good answer.

I can't promise to keep posting them, but I have a particularly busy week coming up so I decided to post it all here:

Sunday 8:45 am: CBS/CW Ch. 44 News with Phil Matier in San Francisco

Sunday 11:00 an to noon  KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco. That's my weekly show, Work with Marty Nemko.

Tuesday:  CBS/Alice 97.1 FM in San Francisco. Airs Sunday July 28, time TBA.


Thursday, 11:00 AM to noon: KGO 810-AM in San Francisco. The Ronn Owens Program. It's among the most listened-to shows on the West Coast. I'm in my 25th year as a regular guest.


Sunday (July 29) 9:15 am, KRON 4 News, interviewed by Ysabel Duran and Marty Gonzales

On most such shows, I am most often asked:

• Why there's so little hiring in the U.S.
• Where I see the job growth in the coming decade
• Emerging careers
• What's working best for my clients in landing a job in this tough job market
• Lower-risk but potentially lucrative yet ethical businesses
• Advice for older job seekers

Also, while I'm updating you, I might mention that this week I was invited to I've been invited to resume writing for U.S. News. I'm considering it but haven't said yet yes . 

As of now, I have two live speaking engagements the following week, both at the Commonwealth Club, America's oldest and largest public affairs forum. Here are the links for information and registration:

Aug 1., 5:15  pm.  What Every Career-Minded Person Should Know for 2013 and beyond. 

Aug. 2: 6:00 pm. Ahead of the Pack Job Search Strategies 

Career, Workplace, and Economic Predictions and Trends for 2012 and Beyond

My latest TheAtlantic.com article (republished on yahoo.com) offers my career, workplace, and economic predictions and trends for 2012 and beyond. HERE is the link.

Vocational Training, Not Degrees, May Be a Surer Route to Well-Paying Employment

A large percentage of college students graduate with a social science or humanities major, assuaged by colleges' sales pitches for liberal arts majors. But a front-page piece in today's New York Times on where the jobs are may give you pause.

Many of the jobs promising good pay and solid job prospects even in bad times require no more than a vocational (not college prep) high school diploma plus on-the-job training. None of those listed require a graduate degree. Here are the key quotes from that article:

"Employers are begging for qualified applicants for certain occupations...Welder is one, employers report. Critical care nurse is another. Electrical lineman is yet another, particularly those skilled in stringing high-voltage wires across the landscape. Special education teachers are in demand. (This does require some modest graduate training). So are geotechnical engineers, trained in geology as well as engineering, a combination sought for oil field work. Respiratory therapists, who help the ill breathe, are not easily found, at least not by the Permanente Medical Group, which employs more than 30,000 health professionals. And with infrastructure spending now on the rise, (experienced) civil engineers are in demand to supervise the work."

"For these hard-to-fill jobs, there seems to be a common denominator. Employers are looking for people who have acquired an exacting skill, first through education — often just high school vocational training — and then by honing it on the job. (emphasis mine.) That trajectory, requiring years, is no longer so easy in America, said Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologist. The pressure to earn a bachelor’s degree draws young people away from occupational training, particularly occupations that do not require college, Mr. Sennett said."

"The Conference Board breaks the advertised (job) openings into 22 broad occupational categories and compares those with the number of unemployed whose last job, according to the bureau, was in each category. In only four of the categories — architecture and engineering, the physical sciences, computer and mathematical science (I assume a graduate degree is required for some of the physical and mathematical science job openings,) and health care — were the unemployed equal to or fewer than the listed job openings. There were, in sum, 1.09 million listed openings and only 582,700 unemployed people presumably available to fill them."

“'Until the downturn, it was easy for experienced registered nurses to find employment right in their communities, in whatever positions they wanted,' Ms. Peterson said. 'Now it is a little more difficult because the number of job openings has fallen and we have more retired nurses, in need of income, coming back.”That does not hold for nurses who have a decade of experience caring for critically ill people, particularly in hospital recovery rooms, said Dr. Robert Pearl, chief executive and chairman of the Permanente Medical Group, a big employer of medical professionals. “There are probably more nurses recently trained than there are jobs for them,' he said, 'but for those with the highest level of skill and experience, there are always openings.' And at $100,000 in pay."

Where the Jobs Will Be

Heretofore, businesses sold mainly to consumers (B to B) or to other businesses (B to C.)

Under the new Obama/liberal Congress/liberal media regime, the U.S. is fast moving toward becoming a much more centrally run economy. So the largest or certainly fastest growing segment will be B-to-G: business-to-government. The federal government will be issuing large numbers of requests for proposals from private businesses.

The implications:

1. If you run a business, consider becoming a federally certified contractor. To learn how, click this link and/or this link

Government-contracting opportunities will likely be best in federal, not state or local government because the federal government can print money and has more sources of tax and fee revenues that can be increased. That's why so many states and municipalities are now joining the bailout conga line at the federal government tax-dollar trough.

2. If possible, become a woman-owned or especially a minority-owned business. That will give you priority over white-male-run businesses. So, if you are a white man, consider getting a partner who's a woman or a minority, ideally both. Here's a link to the federal goodies set aside for women. Here's a link to federal goodies set aside for minorities.

3. If you're a job seeker, seek work at such contractors (find your local ones here by searching on your zip code) or for the federal government. The professional-level federal government job titles that are already hot and seem poised for the greatest growth: management analyst, program analyst, budget analyst, , IT management specialist, financial administrator, inspector, investigation and compliance officer.

One cautionary note: This article cites growth in government contracting but reports that profits in such businesses are often not as obscene as the public thinks.

Where the Jobs Are

My radio show today focused on where the jobs are. You can hear it on my site or download it as a podcast from the NPR site. (Note: it may be until Monday, 7/28 until it's available on my site.)

Here's a summary of what I said on the show. Job availability is best in:
1. Low-cost-of-living states, especially in the local and state government sectors.
2. IT management (systems analyst, project leads, network administrator.)
3. Engineering (especially green, software, medical devices and equipment)
4. Finance and accounting, both as individual contributors and in management.
5. Skilled trades, especially machinists
6. Anything green. See greencareerscentral.com.
7 Nursing and other allied health professions such as imaging techs.

Who's Hiring? No Surprise: the Government

I'm not sure it's good news for taxpayers--government isn't the most efficient spender of your money--but it is good news for job seekers: USA Today reports government statistics that while the private sector is cutting jobs, government is hiring so vigorously, you'd think the economy was booming.

Government is the last bastion of well-paying, fully benefited jobs, rarely requiring you to work more than 40 hours a week, in which it's almost impossible to get fired--except, perhaps, if you're a white male who tells a woman she looks attractive. ;-)