KGO's Ronn Owens Probes Marty Nemko...And You Can Call in For Free Career Advice

For the past 25 years, every three months, I do an hour guest spot on KGO Radio's iconic Ronn Owens Program. (He's pictured above.)

My next appearance is this Thursday, Feb. 2 from 10:00 am to 11 am, Pacific time.

The talk show industry's publication of record, Talkers, named Ronn Owens one of the 25 greatest talk show hosts of all time.

I'll be trying to answer Ronn's questions about under-the-radar careers, where the jobs are, and how to land them in this tough job market. Plus you can call in to the show and I'll try to help you with your career problem.

Throughout most of the West Coast, you can hear it on 810 on your AM dial, and of course, worldwide on the Internet at kgoam810.com. The show will be archived for a week on THIS page of KGO's website.

A Plan for the Long-Term Unemployed to Find Work

You're long-term unemployed and perhaps scared you'll never work again, at least not at the level you used to.

Here's a potent plan for moving forward and finding good work:

1. Do a personal audit. Sure, some people are long-term unemployed just because of bad luck, but the pool of people who are long-term unemployed, is, on average, not as bright, knowledgeable, hard-working, reliable, and enjoyable to work with as is the pool of employed people.

So imagine that all the people who know your work well were in a room. For each of the above attributes, what would be the average report card grade they'd give you. If you're not sure, ask people, perhaps anonymously, perhaps using www.checkster.com. In light of that feedback, do you need to make changes in yourself to avoid being quickly fired or laid off again? To become prouder of yourself?

2. Contact your existing network. They're the most likely to be willing to hire or give a good lead to a long-term unemployed person.

3. Cold-contact realistic employers. A brand-name company or a company in a popular field, for example, fashion, entertainment, or the environment, is too unlikely to have to hire a long-term unemployed person--they usually receive plenty applications from the currently well-employed. You may eventually get to work for a highly selective employer but, as a long-term unemployed person, you probably should, for now, focus on landing a job at a company with less stringent hiring requirements. Here's how:

• Make a list of 20-50 less-competitive employers: non-sexy industries, smaller companies, temp agencies, etc. Don't worry whether an employer lists an appropriate job opening. You're mainly trying to get a job/project created for you so you don't have to compete with hordes for an advertised job. HERE are some sources of employers.
  
• Find the name and contact info of people with the power to hire you: by Googling, databases like Jigsaw, the company operator, etc.
• Phone those employers, or even walk in. Leaving voice-mail is okay. Don't send your resume unless asked--The resume of a long-term-unemployed person highlights that ugly gap in your employment.

4. Consider starting your own very simple business. If I were long-term unemployed and broke, I might, for example, start a shoeshine stand on a busy downtown street. I'd have prominent signage with a catchy name like Shine On, Rise and Shine, Dianne FeinShine, or So Fine Shoe Shine. Once I learned the art and business of shoeshining, I'd set up a trusted friend with another shoeshine stand, asking for a small percentage of sales. I'd keep cloning that business until I was making enough money. Then I'd sell the business and use the proceeds to start another simple business, for example, a soup cart chain called Souper. As a long-term unemployed person, in the above situation, I'm likely to more quickly and probably enjoyably make a middle-class living or even get wealthy doing that than if I tried to convince an employer to pay me a middle-class salary.

5. Go back to school to prepare for a new career. A community college training program can give you a fresh start. Already have a degree? Remember that many people with bachelor's and even graduate degrees return to a community college for practical career training.

But most important, could your being long-term unemployed be a needed wake-up call? What should you do differently on your next job to avoid being dumped again?

My #1 Tax Reform Idea: Replace income taxes with a sales tax

My just-published Atlantic.com column answered the question, "What one change would you make to our tax system?" I'd replace income taxes with a sales tax.

A Report from a U.S. Auto Manufacturing Plant Floor

I just got home from a party at which I talked with a guy who worked on an assembly line at a U.S. car manufacturing plant.

This is as close a paraphrase of the essence of what he said as I can remember:

"Quality control is a joke...We smoked dope a lot... Our welds were okay--usually. (He laughed.) My cars didn't squeak--usually. (He laughed.)... And we'd put coke cans and dead rats into the axle to see if QC (quality control) would find it. They never did." (He laughed.)

An Alternative to Couples Counseling: "The Ten-Minute Miracle"

This deceptively simple strategy is from my new book, How to Do Life: What they didn't teach you in school.

Your relationship is doing poorly. Before heading to couples counseling, you might try what I call The Couple's Council.

It has helped a number of my clients, and frankly, my own marriage. One of my clients called it "The Ten-Minute Miracle."

Step 1: Perhaps over dinner, you propose one specific thing you'll do during the next 24 hours to improve the relationship; for example, your partner is tired of your procrastination, nagging, or being a pig. So you propose that you will not nag him about anything for a week. Your partner agrees that would at least modestly improve your relationship, or s/he asks you to propose something else. You keep proposing changes in your behavior until s/he okays one.

Step 2: You reverse roles. In other words, this step is completed when you agree that something your partner proposes to do would at least modestly improve your relationship.

Step 3: During the next 24 hours, when each of you sees your partner doing the desired behavior, for example, getting something done when s/he'd otherwise likely procrastinate, the person gets a thumbs-up. Each screw-up gets a thumbs-down but no lecture, no recriminations.

Step 4: 24 hours later, each of your rates him/herself on how well s/he did in improving on the agreed-on behavior., Then, you decide whether, in the next 24 hours, you want to just work on the same behavior or add another one.

Repeat the process until enough improvements have been made, or you decide you should see that couples counselor after all.

THE Key to Losing Weight....Really

THE key to losing weight is STAYING conscious from the moment you're thinking about eating until the moment you've moved on to other tasks. During that time, KEEP thinking about how NOT eating is your reward: you'll look better, be healthier, have more energy, etc.

Your motivator can even be something one wouldn't expect. For example, a time-conscious person might eat out less by reminding himself, "It will take less time for me to grab something at home."

Remember too that it takes 20 minutes for your brain to recognize you're no longer hungry. So eat little and move on to some other task, rather than eating until you no longer feel hungry, let alone feel full.

I suggest you tape a sign "STAY Conscious!" on your refrigerator and another one on your dashboard, to remind you when you're out. Read it aloud often to lock the concept into the forefront of your mind.

And if, despite staying conscious, you choose to eat something calorific, it's probably okay. You've made a conscious choice that, at that moment, the pleasure was worth the calories.

I'd love to know if this little post ends up helping you.

Why the Career Advice: "Write a book" is Usually Bad Advice

Yesterday, I received one of the countless publicist pitches I get touting a career "expert" who has just written a book. Most of those authors fit into one of two categories: "I have a cool career and I can help you get one too," or "I'm America's Best Career Coach and I can help you land a dream job."

Candidly, I feel sorry both for the authors and consumers of such books. I've written elsewhere, for example, here, about why "find your dream" career advice is largely snake oil. So I'll just touch on that here. Here's just one reason: The author tells what worked for him in landing a job and asserts it will work for the reader. The problem with that is that what works in landing a job for a person with the ability and perseverance to write a published book is unlikely to work for more typical job seekers.

For example, many articles and books have been published on how to land a job at Google. A Google search on the term "Land a Job at Google" yields 89,000 links. One of those links takes us to the book, Get a Job at Google: Craft a great resume, network effectively, and ace the interviews. Fact is, as the Wall Street Journal reports, Google receives 2,000,000 resumes a year and hires only 7,000 people. That's 3 out of 1,000, a far lower ratio than admission to Harvard. And many of those Google jobs aren't great---for example, screening those 2,000,000 resumes!

And most of the non-temp, interesting Google jobs go to people currently employed by a prestigious firm doing work similar to that in Google's want ad, with a strong recommendation from their boss, a degree with high grades from a designer-label college, who has been personally referred to Google's hiring manager. Like I said, "how to land your dream job" advice is pretty snakey oil.

Now, here's why I feel sorry for the authors of such books.

Many of these authors have the fantasy of becoming a regular on CNN or some such, or at least getting $5K-a-pop keynote addresses, $200-an-hour consulting gigs, and/or using the book to establish enough credibility to land a job they otherwise couldn't. With those fantasies as fuel, those wannabes spend a year or two writing a book, a fortune on their wardrobe, upping speaking skills, a publicist, etc., plus many additional hours or money creating and adding SEO-optimized, traffic-building, relationship-building content to their website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, plus in-person networking with people who can help flog their book.

Alas, unless an author is already a household name, he or she is most likely to end up deriving less net income per hour for all those efforts than if flipping burgers at McDonald's. It usually takes a year or three to realize they've been wasting their time and money. By then, they're in the unenviable position of having to convince an employer to hire them over job applicants with a more germane and recent work history. Or they have to somehow convince their parents or spouse to be their permanent cash cow.

I wish more publicists, book packagers, etc., and indeed screenwriting, acting, and voiceover, and art coaches, who make their living selling the dream to wannabes were honest with prospective clients about the likelihood of non-celebrities generating a sustained middle-class income from their creative output, and honest enough to ask such questions as, "Do you really believe your expertise is great enough to tout yourself to the world as being able to help the sorts of people who buy career-help books to land great work in this lousy job market more than the zillions of other books, coaches, workshops, TV shows, articles, podcasts, blogs, columns, etc., that do the same, often for free?"

Short of that revolution, I believe that especially today, with so much free content on the Net and the ease of self-publishing, the old advice to "write a book to become successful" is invalid if not an outright scam. And more broadly, so is the industry catering to artistic wannabes.