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#YourCareer : The Great Resignation. Survey: 55% of Americans Indicated they were Likely to Look for a New Job in the Next 12 Months. Great REad!

You have probably heard the term – “The Great Resignation” (credited to Texas A&M University professor Anthony Klotz). Awareness of this phenomenon didn’t start during the COVID pandemic in 2020, but the virus did have a part in exacerbating the voluntary unemployment numbers. About 22 million jobs were lost in March of 2020 during the lockdown. 

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS) noted unemployment rates have stabilized to about the same as before the COVID quarantine, while the number of job openings is parallel at about 10.4 million in August of 2021.  The (volunteer; non-farm) resignation rates had a low in 2009 at 1.2%, but over the last 8-11 years have reached a rate of 3% (as of September 2021), according to the USBLS.  That is 4.4 million workers voluntarily leaving their jobs – the highest since the USBLS has been keeping records of ‘quit’ rates.  Almost 24 million workers have voluntarily left their employers since April 2020.

Is this a sign of a failing economy – or – a sign that workers are searching for a higher quality workplace environment, better pay, and/or growing workers’ ‘power to choose’ their employer of choice?  What has changed outside the COVID pandemic effects, especially since vaccinations have been available to the general public over the last nine months?  Was the trend already there and hidden by the ‘stay at home and prevent the spread’ government advisory?

A survey conducted by Bankrate (July 2021) found 55% of Americans indicated they were likely to look for a new job in the next 12 months.  A January 2021 Microsoft international survey found more than 40% of workers are likely to job shop in the next year, and a May 2021 survey by Prudential concluded 48% were seriously considering what type of job they wanted.

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What Skill Sets Do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

Did you know?  First Sun Consulting, LLc (FSC) is celebrating over 30 years in the delivery of corporate & individual outplacement services & programs to over 1200 of our corporate clients in the U.S., Canada, UK, & Mexico!  

We here at FSC want to thank each of corporate partners in the opportunity in serving & moving each of their transitioning employee(s) rapidly toward employment !

 

Article continued …

Did the COVID quarantine exacerbate the joblessness? Or did the pandemic force workers to reconsider their careers, employers, and the work environment? Did work at home employees during the quarantine decide they preferred to telecommute? Were essential workers ‘overworked’ with staff shortages?

These elements and questions are one of the foundation elements of why the ‘quit rate’ is increasing.  Worker burnout prompted people to seek a better work-life balance in positions.  Employers who demanded employees come ‘back to work’ after the telecommute situation proved effective found workers are searching for new telecommute-based jobs.  Fear of the virus for those who refused or could not take the vaccine prompted workers to seek more ‘work-at-home’  jobs.  The pandemic and resulting quarantine prompted workers to rethink priorities, including personal and work-life balances.  Employers who mistreated the workers or failed to enable a comfortable,  rewarding environment, matching ethical values, or better compensation, benefits, or promotional opportunities were the first to see employees quit.

Employers are rethinking what they need to offer to new hires in working conditions, compensation, flexible scheduling, or telecommute opportunities. The service industry was the hardest hit, with 5.3-5.5% resignations in June 2021. Meanwhile, the United States Postal Service is attempting to fill 40,000 temp worker positions for the upcoming holidays (Nov.-Dec. 2021).  The federal mandate for COVID vaccines for health care and government (as well as government contractor) workers by the current administration will add to the unemployment rates and create even more job openings.  State mandates for teachers and state workers will force those with acquired immunity to the disease and anti-vaxxers to be laid off, with massive worker shortages resulting in the medical and academic fields.

 The COVID quarantine taught people, globally, what they could live with and without.  The pandemic has caused folks to rethink their priorities.  The massive number of newly created or current job openings is making workers seriously consider looking for new jobs with opportunities that match their work-life balance, commute needs, and promotional goals – as well as vaccine requirements.  The COVID-related labor market will continue to drive people to quit their current jobs to explore better opportunities for years to come.

 

FSC Career Blog AuthorDawn Boyer, Ph.D., owner of D. Boyer Consulting – provides resume writing, editing, publishing, and print-on-demand consulting. Reach her at: Dawn.Boyer@me.com or visit her website at www.dboyerconsulting.com.

Bio: Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D., has been an entrepreneur and business owner for 20+ years, with a successful business and consulting firm (CEO) in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Richmond, Colonial Beach, and Gloucester, VA.  Her background experience is 24+ years in the Human Resources field, of which 12+ years are within the Federal & Defense Contracting industry. She is the author of 903+ books on business, human resources research, career search practice, women and gender study, genealogy and family lineages, quotes for motivation and self-improvement, and Adult Coloring Books.  Her books can be found on Amazon.com under her author’s page for Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D.

FSC Career Blog – November 17, 2021

#BestofFSCBlog : How Often Should I Be Posting (job boards) Resumes for My Job Search?

When searching for a new career position, the job seeker has two optionsas an active search or passive candidate.  A passive candidate will update their resume, ensure their LinkedIn profile is robust and complete, and post their resume online to the big resume databases (e.g., Monster, Indeed), but then sit back and wait for folks to find them.

 An active candidate will update their resume constantly (especially if still employed) and consistently post to open positions. They will also upload resumes into company resume databases, regardless of whether the business has an open requisition that matches their skills.  The purpose of loading resumes into company databases is to help recruiters ‘harvest’ skills of qualified candidates from their ‘resume farm’ when that new job requisition is posted.

An active job seeker should be seriously networking with friends, peers, co-workers, clients, and industry group members. Statistics seem to support networking will result in hires for about 65% of the time.  It’s also productive to be a part of a trade group or industry organization. For instance, MeetUp.com has trade groups from computer geeks and coding programmers to quilters and writers and website designers and marketers.  Members in these network groups join to learn something new or interact with like-minded folks. Recruiters may pop in to scope potentially qualified candidates for future positions.   The human resources organization, SHRM, has job opening posted on their website, as well as monthly meetings for continuing education credits, where sometimes as many as a few hundred HR-related members will show up, including recruiters.

Sales reps should track top clients’ point of contact – not just to respond to work-related communications, but to develop friendships beyond work. If the job seeker is an amazing salesperson or customer service rep, that customer will remember you and maybe a great source for industry job openings – as well as being able to provide work referrals.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

Continue of the article:

One overlooked source is state employment agencies. The Virginia Employment Commission is an example.  Job seekers can visit the website, create a profile, upload a resume, and post to positions online or wait until an employer reaches out.  Some companies post open jobs to this resource to save recruiting costs (its free to Virginia-based companies).  Other companies use this option to ensure Affirmative Action Plan goals by postings jobs to reach the minority, disabled, and veteran job seekers.

There is nothing wrong with driving around a geographic area and looking at businesses located within the desired commute.  Alternatively, use Google maps to search.  For instance, a Computer Scientist with a desired commute of no more than an hour from Gloucester uses the search term ‘Software Development.’ They may find a few software or IT companies in Gloucester, as well as a dozen potential employers in Richmond, Williamsburg, and Newport News.

So, the answer to the question,how often should I be posting my resume into databases?” is varied.  If you are unemployed, and a serious job seeker, then your full-time job is ‘looking for work.’ You should be posting resumes to job announcements and uploading the resume into company resume databases (ATS) for between 10-20 resume uploads and applications daily.  Your goal is to get your resume into as many company databases as physically possible to increase the potential for ‘being seen’ by recruiters.

If you are a passive job seeker, then post your resume to the big databases once and ensure your LinkedIn Profile is ‘open for inquiries from recruiters.’ Both active and passive job seekers should revisit resume databases every 30 days to update (just add a line or space) by reloading the ‘updated’ resume to ‘trick’ the system into thinking it’s an entirely new resume.  (Most job board or resumes systems push resumes down in the results queue as they age.)

How long should a job seeker expect to search for a position?  If you have a well-written resume and are posting to the perfectly matched job descriptions and getting phone calls from employers for interviews (and you interview well), there is a loose standard for time expectations.

Before the 2009 market crash, during the economic boom, the expectations were an average of one month of job searching for every $10K in salary expectations over $40K annually. The present economic environment is similar, so if the job seeker is looking for a minimum of $60K annually, then about two months would be the average search.  To reduce that time factor, it’s vital to post hard, post fast, and apply for the maximum daily time allowance daily.  It usually takes about a week for valid job inquiries to come back from most recruiters who are actively searching for keywords and phrases in the resume.

 

FSC Guest Author: Dawn Boyer, Ph.D., owner of D. Boyer Consulting – provides resume writing, and editing/publishing/print-on-demand consulting in the Hampton Roads and Richmond metropolitan areas. Reach her at: Dawn.Boyer@me.com or visit her website at www.dboyerconsulting.com.

 

FSC LinkedIn Network |  February 19, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

Number of words, including title and POC info:  ~829

 

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Bio: Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D., has been an entrepreneur and business owner 20+ years, with her own consulting firm (CEO) in Hampton Roads and Richmond, VA.  Her background experience is 24+ years in the Human Resources field, of which 12+ years are within the Federal & Defense Contracting industry.   She is the author of 822+ books on the topics of business, human resources research, career search practice, women and gender study, genealogy and family lineages, quotes for motivation and self-improvement, and Adult Coloring Books.  Her books can be found on Amazon.com under Dawn D. Boyer, Ph.D.