Unemployment « 52LTD Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Unemployment’

It’s All About Who You Know

Friday, August 5th, 2011

I know you have heard it a million times: network, network, network! I also know that the thought of ‘networking’ makes most people’s skin crawl. You hear that word and picture attending an ‘industry event’ and schmoozing your way around a room with a name tag and fake smile pasted on, schlepping business cards and shaking hands… ICK. Well, I have good news for you, it does not have to be that way AT ALL.

It is no big secret the best way to land a sweet gig is through a personal connection or referral. That is why 52ltd works the way we do. We sit down and get to know every person we match with a job and do the same with clients before sending anyone over. If you are looking for your next opportunity, start chatting up friends and old co-workers, people you met at that bb-q last weekend, and your friend’s roommate that has a million friends. Invite them to get coffee or meet up for happy hour. Start a conversation on your way out to float the river, or while you are out on a hike. Ask them questions about what they do, talk about what you would love to do and what you are good at. Just plant the seed so they are aware you are available and looking. Be nice. Be positive. Don’t be a salesman. You are just being friendly and hanging out, getting on their radar.

The Harvard Business Review talks about how networking is the key to breaking in to the ‘hidden’ job market. It really is common sense, and more painless than you think!

Tags: creative jobs, economy, freelance work, new york jobs, portland jobs, Unemployment
Posted in How To's | No Comments »

Out of the woods… into the tall grass

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

The recession is over!! Right? Uh…well, I guess that kinda depends.

IF you’re a highly connected designer, with a killer book/site, AND you are well versed in something digital (e.g. Mobile Apps, web development, etc.) you are probably feeling a fair upswing. However, for the new grad, the newly relocated, or those otherwise without ALL three aforementioned qualities, you are probably still wildly wielding your machete to maintain a slight view out of the woods. Well folks, this isn’t a Get-The-Answers-to-Finding-Your-Perfect-Gig-Post. In fact if you see one of those…it’s probably loaded with a bunch of cockamamie information that doesn’t really apply to you 100%. You see, and this is going to be profound, you may consider employing some advance jaw support in case of abrupt droppage: everyone’s situation is different. Whoa… huh.

hang in there!

So, you ask, if I’m not offering the holy grail of Job-Acquiring-Advice, then what is the point?

Answer: The one thing all ye of the struggling design class do have in common, is that you do plan to eventually leave your filler job at “Cuppa Joe” or “Jiggles” (a specialty Jello mold shop, of course) to return to your design career. So… you need to stay sharp!

One good way to keep your skills honed and your portfolio from starving a slow death from lack of new content is to pick up pro bono work. Easier said than done, I’m aware. But, check with non-profits, small businesses, your brother’s snow cone stand. Check out organizations like Creative Cares . If that doesn’t work out, when you’re not making iced skinny caramel macchiatos, develop a personal project. Learn letterpress, make a series of t-shirts or create spec work. (You have to be careful not to misrepresent spec work in your book though!) To keep costs down, and to avoid a skipping-record-redundancy in your work, check out sites like Bittbox.com. Bittbox offers high quality “freebies” to any designer looking. Things like fonts, backgrounds, brushes, textures, vectors, etc. Pretty wicked cool if you ask me. Don’t forget to post all this work where the people that do the hiring will see it: LinkedIn. Yes, we all know about Behance, and Coroflot but many hiring managers do not. So, go ahead and create a profile and throw the link to your portfolio site up there. It can only help your chances!

Don’t get discouraged. Keep hacking away at the foliage standing between you and that design gig. It’ll give eventually. We don’t know when… could be 50 more lattes, could be 5,000… but it will. And when it does, you want to be ready!

Tags: design jobs, freelance work, Unemployment
Posted in Blog Thoughts | No Comments »

Is Any Job Better Than No Job?

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Employers shouldn’t be surprised that Americans won’t take their crummy low-wage jobs.

Posted originally on Newsweek.com.

This article doesn’t talk directly about the creative industry but it definitely relates. Often times in a poor economy, employers assume that the unemployed are happy to take ANY work regardless of how well it fits their experience level or expertise. Employers also assume that those who are out of work quit caring about what wage level they’re at. This is no different in the creative industry. Just because we’re on the tail end of a recession doesn’t mean employers can post a job for a designer or a PHP developer on Craigslist, plan to pay them 10 bucks an hour, and expect to receive loads of willing applicants ready to work their tails off for $40 an hour less than they’ve been making. High levels of unemployment also does not mean that just because a company needs a project manager, designer, programmer, and a receptionist, that someone who has a skill set to tackle ALL these things will magically materialize… if that person didn’t exist before the recession, that person doesn’t exist now.

No, recession doesn’t create a new breed of super employee who just loves to work for the sake of being employed. No, recession doesn’t create a candidate that will do the same job they just got laid off from for 80% less. Recession creates a group of people who still have the same bills, the same amount of mouths to feed, the same hours in the day, the same experience level, and the same abilities as they did pre-recession. It does however create SOME flexibility within the working class as long as this flexibility isn’t taken advantage of.

Tags: creative jobs, economy, Unemployment
Posted in Blog Thoughts | 3 Comments »

We Won’t Do it, And Here’s Why

Monday, June 21st, 2010

More on the “Unemployed Need Not Apply” Mess.

By Sara Davey-Schmidt, senior account manager 52 PDX

In an employment economy where there is a disproportionate amount of talent to opportunities available, a trend of vetting candidates by reasons-not-to-hire, rather than reasons-to-hire, starts to become the method for qualifying the shit-tons of resumes that come pouring in at every mention of possible work. It’s a tempting approach! That behemoth pile dwindles a lot faster when you can disqualify resumes as soon as you see an end-date on their last position.

Even though the status of “unemployed” doesn’t fall under any law enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the same logic for anti-discrimination should apply. To avoid any perception of discrimination, effective Senior Recruiters tend to develop a habit of thinking less about what they shouldn’t be asking and more about discovering the relevant qualifications of each candidate. Thus assessing the candidate’s cultural fit and career motivations. This is the most cogent practice for avoiding dangerous discrimination territory, as well as the most effective practice for revealing the most qualified candidate–how convenient!

How relevant is it that a candidate is unemployed? In the fast-paced world of technology, it might matter. In the ever changing world of compliance, it might matter. For the creative class however, where you can keep skills sharp through trade and pro-bono or pro-rata work, the quality of your work matters. Your attitude matters. Your motivations matter. Your professional goals matter.

Apart from “Unemployed Need Not Apply” being a lousy hiring practice, the greatest damage it really does is to the employment brand. There is a seismic shift in attitudes about and patterns of work in the economy from the early 1950s era of William Whyte’s The Organization Man to today’s worker. It’s acceptable and common to see people shifting employers every 3-7 years, and then there’s the rise of the free agents. In fact, as Daniel Pink reveals in Free Agent Nation, over 25 million Americans are now self-employed, and fewer than one in ten works for a Fortune 500 company.

(more…)

Tags: economy, Employment Brand, Jobs, Resumes, Unemployment
Posted in Blog Thoughts, Business Listings, Industry News | No Comments »

Not on Our Watch.

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

By Patricia Beasock, Senior Recruiter 52 PDX

Ugh. Let’s face it. At one time or another, we have ALL been unemployed. For the general population, if you have had the misfortune of adopting this status, even momentarily, it is normally NOT a result of your own boneheaded action.

As a recruiter, the gal constantly pounding the proverbial pavement to find the best talent around, the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up recently while reading an article on CNN.com that stated: “Unemployed candidates will not be considered”.

According to Lisa Chenofsky Singer, a HR consultant from Millburn, NJ, specializing in media and publishing jobs, “most executive recruiters won’t consider a candidate unless they have a job, even if they don’t like to admit to it.”

Really? Um…. We’re calling bullshit.

Let’s look at the facts: The Unemployment rate in Oregon is 10.4%. That is 3^rd highest in the nation and that sucks. If executive recruiters aren’t looking at that 10.4% at all, then they are doing a disservice for both of their clientele: their paying client, and their talent who are ready and willing to hit the ground running.

The Client: A large part of the qualified class could be unemployed… if you ignore them, you ignore a potential fit.

The Talent: Unemployment doesn’t designate a lack of qualifications. In this economic climate, most of the unemployed class were laid off due to recession… through no fault or error of their own.

A good recruiter, a status I would proudly pin on my own girl scout scarf, is going to vet talent based on an in person meeting, evaluate them as an individual, ask the right questions to get to the answers necessary, all this in order to present that talent to a prospective client. THEN (and only then), it should be decided whether or not a talent is a viable fit for the position that is open.

To assume that “you must have been laid off for performance issues” is indeed one of those myths that we should add to Snopes.com.

I agree with Judy Conti: “Making that kind of automatic cut is senseless; you could be missing out on the best person of all,” she said. “There are millions of people who are unemployed through no fault of their own. If an employer feels that the best qualified are the ones already working, they have no appreciation of the crisis we’re in right now.”

Here at 52 LTD, each talent is looked at as an individual. No matter what you do, 52 wants to learn more about you. Not by having you fill out a standard online form, but by actually getting to know you better.