Hiring and starting salaries overall are both up for the Class of 2008, according to arecent survey. It's a candidate's market, experts say, but the prospects areless optimistic for students aiming for jobs in the financial sector. ByMarlene Prost

Despite a sagging economy, members of the Class of 2008 are being heavily recruited by U.S. companies getting ready to replace retiring baby boomers over the next 10years.

Job prospects for this ...<< MORE >>

I'm not suggesting that you need to put on the three piece suit men, or wear your control-top panty hose women, but don't be sitting there in your underwear and a t-shirt.  Wake up early, take a shower and dress decently.
 
2.  Talk beforehand

There's nothing worse than picking up the phone, saying hello, and sounding like Peter going through puberty on the Brady Bunch.  For those morning interviews, make sure you have spoken a few sentences out loud (to yourself, your roommate, or even your dog) before it's interview time.
 
3.  Go old school - talk on a land line

This may be tough for some of you, but you definitely want to get on a land line -  Preferably a corded land line (remember those?).  I've had people's cell phones go dead or suffer from such serious static that we had to cut the call short.  Not a good way to go.
 
4.  Be overly animated

This is the biggest mistake most people make.  As I mentioned above, phone interviews tend to be boring.  Why?  I don't see the twinkle in your eye, and I can't catch the smile or nod that you make.  You're a bit nervous to begin with, so you come off as monotone and personality-less.
 
Here's what you do. Get excited!  Stand up, talk with you hands and plaster a smile on your face.  If you can get one of those Janet Jackson headsets, even better.  Use both hands when you talk.  You may think you're going overboard, but when it comes through on the other end, it sounds so much more engaging and interesting. 
 
Phone interviews can work to your advantage - if you do them right!

Brad Karsh is President of JobBound a company dedicated to helping job seekers with resume writing, interviewing, career coaching and landing that dream job.  Brad has been featured on CNN, The Dr. Phil Show and CNBC and quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Fortune, The Chicago Tribune and many others.  Author of Confessions of a Recruiting Director: The Insider's Guide to Landing Your First Job (Prentice Hall Press), Brad is considered one of the nation's leading expert on the job search.

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HONOR ROLL ONLINE clients are looking to fill entry-level positions and internships
with students majoring in Chemical Engineering!

According to statistics from the US Department of Labor, in 2006, engineers held about 1.5 million jobs. Of that, about 30,000 were held by chemical engineers. Overall engineering employment is expected to grow by 11 percent over the 2006-16 decade, about as fast as the average for all occupations. Engineers have traditionally been concentrated in slower growing or declining manufacturing industries, in which they will continue to be needed to design, build, test, and improve manufactured products. However, increasing employment of engineers in faster growing service industries should generate most of the employment growth.

Overall job opportunities in engineering are expected to be good because the number of engineering graduates should be in rough balance with the number of job openings between 2006 and 2016. In addition to openings from job growth, many openings will be created by the need to replace current engineers who retire; transfer to management, sales, or other occupations; or leave engineering for other reasons.

Earnings for engineers vary significantly by specialty, industry, and education. Last year's data showed a range in pay for chemical engineers to run from $60,000 - $70,000.



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Confessions of a Recruiting Director:

The Insider's Guide
                  to Landing Your First Job

by  Brad Karsh, from Job Bound.



College students and recent graduates have countless questions when it comes to landing their first job or internship. How are just a few candidates chosen from a stack of hundreds of resumes? What exactly are Recruiting Directors looking to hear in an interview? What are the common mistakes that students make time and time again? Confessions of a Recruiting Director unveils the mysteries of the hiring process from an insider's point of view. Students get all sorts of advice about getting a job, but rarely, if ever, do they get the perspective of an actual Recruiting Director - literally the person responsible for screening and hiring hundreds of college graduates. This book reveals how the recruiting process works, and then delivers a specific, step-by-step approach to beating the odds.

As a former recruiter, Karsh has read more than 10,000 résumés, interviewed more than 1,000 people and hired hundreds of workers. Seeing people make the same mistakes over and over is a huge part of what inspired him to write the book. "Young workers in particular get so much advice -- from their parents, their teachers, their dentist -- but so much of it is off the mark," he said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Some of his "confessions"  include...

 - Most résumés are never read.
 - Most cover letters are never read, either.
 - Most people welcome "networking" calls.
 - There's a fine line between persistent and stalker.
 - You have no leverage.
 - Recruiting directors want you to succeed.



Brad Karsh, "The Man Who Read 10,000 Resumes," was the Vice President and Director of Talent Acquisition at Leo Burnett, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world. Now, as president of JobBound, Karsh is the leading authority on what it takes to land your first job after college. His insider advice has been featured on CNN Headline News and CNBC, as well as in Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Glamour, and the College Journal. 


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We did a post a few weeks back about resume mistakes and to date, it has been our most read post and most commented on. It has had over 9,000 views!

So we thought we should do a follow-up. The resume is a very misunderstood document. Too often people assume that once they put together the "perfect" resume, then jobs will open for them. Not so. 


According to ENID NEWS,  some common misconceptions are...


- You can put together the perfect resume that describes you and your experience. False.

One resume that you  send for every job, no matter how "good," works even less than a pair of pants labeled "one size fits all." You need to tailor your resume for the specific organization and position.



- The way to land a job is to blanket the earth with your resume. Eventually, the resume will spark a job offer. False.

The keyword is "eventually." This is one of the least productive methods to find a job. Sure, if you send enough resumes and wait long enough, you may get a job offer this way. But few people want to take those kinds of chances and wait that long.



- Resumes need to stand out to be noticed. Use fancy fonts, boxes, unique spacing and layout. False again.

Many organizations are now scanning the resumes they receive and placing them in a computer databank. All the above elements would cause your resume to be illegible and you might as well have thrown your resume in a trash can.

In an article ran on Rogers Resumes, they say job seekers believe that employers read every word of the resume they toiled over. This is  quite wrong. At most, employers spend twenty seconds scanning a resume. Many job seekers waste valuable time and space on lengthy paragraphs in a resume, waxing on about every detail of their past jobs.

When facing a stack of hundreds of resumes, the weary employer does not want to strain their eyes on paragraphs of text. The winning resume is the one that grabs the employer's attention and is concise. They offer some various options and layout suggestions. 

ALEC.co.uk suggests these tips:

1. These days you can write your resume in the first person (i.e. I have) or the third person (i.e. he/she has). However, you do not need to use 'I', 'he' or 'she' in a resume because its use is implied.
2. Do mention things you are good at, but do not go over the top. You can oversell yourself.
3. Don't mention things that you are bad at or say negative things about yourself in your resume.
4. Make sure that the resume you write conjures up the right image of you and your skills, capabilities and achievements. If you do not match the picture you have painted with your resume at the interview, then your application will not be taken further.
5. Be careful when you use abbreviations - they can be misunderstood.
6. If you are not happy with your resume or you only seem to get rejection letters then consider using a professional resume writing service to write it for you. Yes, you will have to pay for it. But, it could save you a lot of time, lead to you getting less rejection letters and hopefully you should get an interview that much quicker.
   

Resume writing is a hot topic. And we will continue to compile and share information for those interested. 


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My internship experience this last summer was one of the most valuable experiences of my life and a great stepping-stone as I begin my career.  I was fortunate enough to work for one of the big four accounting firms.  The experience exposed me to practical issues in the accounting industry and allowed me to expand upon what I was learning in the classroom. I learned many valuable things through my internship from specific technical accounting to how to conduct myself in a professional environment. 

Here are eight ways that made my experience valuable for me and could be useful for you if you have an internship.

1) Practical application of real world issues:  My internship exposed me to the latest trends in the accounting industry.  It also helped me see what working in this industry would be like so I would realize if this was something I wanted to do after I graduated.

2) Importance of Asking Questions:  My internship exposed me to many things that I had never seen before.  This was great because it allowed me to continue learning, but also made me realize how important asking questions is.  I learned that you need to ask questions in order to make sure you what you are doing is correct so it does not need to be redone.  When you don’t ask questions you lose an opportunity to learn.

3) Importance of a Professional Attitude: My internship helped me realize how important being a professional is.  This includes what the appropriate attire is and how I conduct myself around other professionals especially clients.

4) Communication is key:  I found through my internship that there were several deadlines that needed to be met.  I always worked as hard as I could to meet these deadlines, but learned that staying in close communication with my superiors was important so there would be no surprises and they could get me help if it was needed. 

5) How to Manage Multiple Tasks:  During my internship, I was giving multiple tasks to do at a time.  From this I learned to prioritize my tasks so I could I focus on what was most important.

6) Networking Matters: My internship helped me form important relationships with those I worked with.  This helped because I could go to those individuals for recommendations in the future.  In my case, their recommendations helped me land a job with the company!

7) Patience:  At times the internship can be frustrating because you feel you do not know what you are doing.  I learned that if you keep a positive attitude, continue to work hard and ask a lot of questions things will work out in the end.

8) You Never Stop Learning!: Most importantly, my internship helped me realize that you never stop learning. I learned that you always need to take advantage of learning as much as you can.  If you  do this while you are young it will only help your future.

I hope all of  your internship experiences can be as valuable or even more so than mine was.  Do not be afraid to take the opportunity because it is an experience you will never forget.

By John Burke, a senior at Santa Clara University - accounting major.  

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YOUNG MONEY is a great site and source of information for college students and college graduates. They published a recent article about the dangers of online social networking.

Did you realize your MySpace or Facebook page could hurt your chances of getting a certain job? Sure can! In this new Millenium, we live in age of TOTAL TRANSPARENCY. Everything you put out onto the Internet is visible to potential employers.

Consider this, in October 2006 CareerBuilder.com surveyed more than 1,150 hiring managers about their hiring practices; 12 percent said they check out potential candidates' profiles on social networking sites as part of their screening process. Even scarier, at least 63 percent admitted to not hiring a job applicant based on what they found.

Yikes! Could your "innocent" picture of last year's over-the-top Halloween costume keep you from getting to the first rung of the corporate ladder, let alone the corner office? It could. Companies large and small are increasingly concerned about the image that they have with consumers and being seen as places where people will want to do business.

The "Vegas Rule" of "what happens here, stays here," no longer applies. What's said on MySpace and You Tube is echoing all over the world and could affect you (and possibly your parents) in the workplace. 

The article also gives some useful tips on how to keep photos and information from coming back to haunt you. - Have you Googled your name lately?

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A new study shows that two-thirds of job seekers will evaluate a job based on the interviewers they encounter.

What techniques can hiring managers use to make the best impression on choosy applicants?

By Michael Felton-O'Brien




Two of every three job seekers report that the interviewers they encounter during such meetings influence their decision to accept a position, according to a study by Bridgeville, Pa.-based HR consulting firm Development Dimensions International (DDI) and Monster Worldwide of Maynard, Mass.

DDI's chief scientist Ann Howard says the survey shows applicants are looking for respect, information and job focus when interviewing.   -  "It's fine if hiring managers ask questions about how an applicant coached a direct report in the past if that's what's required in the position," she says. "It's not fine for managers to ask irrelevant questions like 'If you were a fruit, what kind would you be?' or personal questions like 'Is that your natural hair color?'"

The Selection Forecast 2006-2007 surveyed 628 staffing directors, 1,250 hiring managers and 3,725 job seekers. It revealed that, despite an acknowledged shortage of talent, many companies are becoming their own worst obstacles when interviewing qualified candidates.

Seven in 10 (70 percent) job seekers said "acting like [the interviewer] had no time to talk to me" was a common behavior of hiring managers and staffing directors.

Other common annoyances noted by job seekers were: "withholding information about position" (57 percent); "turning interview into a cross-examination" (51 percent); and "showing up late" (48 percent).
Scott Erker, DDI's senior vice president of selection solutions, says that while "interviewers sit inches from the candidate ... there's a wide gap between what they think candidates are looking for and what would actually motivate interviewees to become employees."

One hiring expert, however, believes there is more common ground between the two parties than they may think.

"The interviewer has to evaluate the competency and fit issues with the candidate, but likewise, the candidate is doing the same thing with the company," says Brian Drum, CEO of executive search firm Drum Associates, based in New York.

Drum stresses the importance of always putting a company's best foot -- or face -- forward. "The interviewer is the face of the company, so they also represent the job, the culture, the organization, all of it," he says.
Chemistry between applicant and interviewer is often the missing ingredient of a good interview, according to Drum.

"That chemistry is the key," he says. "People don't get jobs just because they're competent. They get the jobs because of the chemistry created in the interview."

And that chemistry can either be created or destroyed at the beginning of an interview.
"There's a certain presence that's created by the interviewer, which includes their dress and how they walk out and greet the person," he says. A good interviewer, according to Drum, is one who finds an ice breaker that allows both people to chat before starting the interview in earnest. That conversion is lacking in most interviews, he says.

Drum also thinks a quick turnaround time on feedback after an interview will add to an applicant's positive view of the company as a whole.
"Get back to them quickly with what your feedback is, whether it's positive or negative. And either way, it's got to be gentle," he says.

Sometimes, it's not very gentle when the shoe is on the other foot, however, as some angry applicants are using the Web to offer their own feedback as well.
"I've recently met with a candidate who had such a bad experience with the hiring manager at a company that not only was he not interested in the job, but he was seriously considering creating a blog chastising the company as a whole," says New York-based Stephen Viscusi, a best-selling author, columnist and host of a workplace-related radio talk show.

Viscusi says his advice to employers on ways to keep their companies Internet-free from angry blog postings is simple: "I tell employers they need to observe the same rules that apply to candidates: Be on time for the person you're interviewing, don't over-cologne/perfume yourself, and at all times remember you're representing your company, not just yourself."

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