Was thrilled to read this news item from a caring employer in the US. A good news story hopefully to counteract the doom and gloom that pervades the news. If only there were more of them! The news item extracts are below:

IDAHO FALLS - Eastern Idaho’s largest private employer made a big announcement Wednesday concerning its employees and the nations tough economic conditions.

“We’re promising our employees no layoffs. Not today, not tomorrow, not next month, not ever,” said Melaleuca President and CEO Frank L. VanderSloot.

VanderSloot knows economic times are tough but his employees don’t need to worry about their jobs.

“Part of our business model is enhance the lives of those we touch by taking care of people and helping them reach their goals and it’s our employees that we owe our biggest responsibility too,” said VanderSloot.

Wednesday afternoon VanderSloot spoke to his 2500 Eastern Idaho workers about the company’s economic conditions and even though things are generally good, Melaleuca is feeling the pinch too.

“Our bottom line is being strained,” said VanderSloot. “Even though we’re growing on the top line, expenses are hitting us like they’ve never hit us before.”

But that doesn’t stop the company from taking care of their employees as they gave out 1.7 million dollars in cash to long term workers as part of a new incentive program.

“We’ve given out, just in the last eight months, over eight million dollars in longevity bonuses,” said VanderSloot.

Employees receive 5000 dollars on their five year anniversary, 10,000 on their 10 year, 20,000 on their 20, and on up.

It’s a way to reward workers for their dedication and willingness to help a growing company…especially in tough economic times.

“We’ll be here a long time…we believe for generations…if we take care of our long term employees,” said VanderSloot.

 

Sorry guys but I have to get political. Go here for more info

Dear Minister,

As an Australian and an internet user, I have serious concerns about your mandatory Internet filtering initiative.

Given the importance your Government has attached to modernising Australia’s broadband network, pursuing a policy that can only slow down and increase the costs of home internet access seems misguided at best. Australian households are diverse, and most do not have young children, so mandating a one-size-fits-all clean feed approach will not serve the public well. I don’t think it is the Government’s role to decide what’s appropriate for me or my children, and neither do most Australians.

Given the amount of Internet content available, the Government will never be able to classify it all and filters will always result in an unacceptable level of over-blocking. I feel that the time and money could be spent in better ways both to protect children and improve Australia’s digital infrastructure. Australian parents need better education about the risks their children face online. Trying to rid the Internet of adult content is futile, and can only distract from that mission.

Sincerely,

Gayle Howard

Melbourne, Victoria

The term morality disengagement along with the term “tuning” refer to the act of telling of “porkies” (that’s “pork pies” meaning lies in rhyming slang for our Aussie readers). So just how many people are guilty of morality disengagement or tuning? Well according to Career Director International’s Mega Trends Report of 2008, research shows that more than 30% of resumes contain factual errors (www.nehra.com 2008). “Tuning” a resume, the lesser of the two evils, refers to the practice a turning a phrase, swapping a word or inserting a word that perhaps bloats or enriches an individual’s capabilities. Morality disengaging from personal responsibility is a much more serious matter of resume fraud where education and experience can be completely fictitious.

Types of careers making the news for resume fraud seem to be widespread with recent cases cited being every occupation under the sun from CEOs to Heads of Universities, athletic coaches, Olympic officials, and notably a celebrity chef who was found to have fabricated education, a Knighthood, and experiences cooking for royals, top ranking politicians, and more. 

Today, it is even easier to perpetuate resume fraud helped by diploma or degree mills often hard to detect due to the amount of legitimate universities offering online degree studies. Simply put degrees can be purchased on the internet, yet the consequences of exposure can be devastating as entire reputations can be discredited virtually overnight leaving future high ranking job prospects in significant peril.

With today’s Web 2.0 blogs and social media playing a huge role in information transfer it is bound to become increasingly easy for new appointees to be found out by someone, somewhere.

No one is immune from being discovered–whether it is a friend from the past on Twitter or a blog laughing about your education record, a scrupulous record search from the media or the policy of disclosure by employers. Despite 9% of people in a 2008 survey by iVillage.com saying they would lie again on their resumes, clearly the risks of exposure is far too great.

New York Times Article here:

Interesting article in the New York Times today how Web 2.0 has made it into the realm of announcing staff cutbacks. In the past, press releases announced job layoffs, but now, the company blog is seen as a way to release information without disgruntled or redundant workers getting in the way with their own spin in personal blogs and Twitter and other social media. The article references a former HR executive as saying:

“Today, whatever you say inside of a company will end up on a blog,” said Rusty Rueff, a former human resources executive at Electronic Arts and PepsiCo. “So you have a choice as a company — you can either be proactive and take the offensive and say, ‘Here’s what’s going on,’ or you can let someone else write the story for you.”

Clearly companies are deciding to counteract the negative publicity that can be caused by staff using blogs and Twitter by taking an early stand to set the record straight.

Today’s Financial Review today indicates that a recorded 22.8% drop in IT job ads in the last 12 months, seems to give credence that the global financial meltdown has and will continue to significantly and negatively impact staff recruitment in IT as employers look to tighten belts and cut costs through greater permanent staff utilisation and fewer contractors. Despite the gloomy forecasts however, many employers remain somewhat optimistic for the future. In particular, the managing director of the technology division of Ambition, Andy Cross, indicates that good people will still be able to find jobs.

According to the executive general manager for Victorian offices of Hudson, Cyrus D’Cruz, indicates system architects and developers will remain in high demand throughout the year ahead. Full Article here

In the past couple of months, I’ve had several senior executive clients who have been offered and have rejected, outplacement services from their former employers. Heading the list of criticisms seems to be that these services are far from individually tailored with all participants given the same job search and positioning information.

Clearly this cookie-cutter, one-strategy-for-all approach cannot be successful. One service for instance, spoke to a senior executive about methods for applying for jobs and being up against hundreds of similarly qualified candidates. HUNDREDS of people qualified for the Top 3% of salary earners in the nation? Really? This isn’t advice for the senior executive; it’s advice for the masses.

Senior executives know that it is rare for a $350K+ role to be advertised. As a general rule, multinationals and large corporates tend not to throw $500K compensation packages into the classifieds and hope they get a bite. These roles are normally evolutionary stemming from a restructuring exercise or where the incumbent is about to “move on” in some way. Executive headhunters who have significant, long-term relationships with companies “hear on the grapevine” of a potential job and start headhunting names and profiles, in many cases on a global scale. Candidates can be sourced and positioned without anyone being “in the know” until a media release is made. Consequently for an outplacement firm to advise senior executives on “how to look up the classified ads” or “how to deal with generic recruiting firms” is a waste of time for the senior executive who while redundant has not yet lost all his or her marbles!

Take too, the over analysis of resumes. Of course resumes are important. And if you have sought the services of an experienced executive writer, and have a branded, accomplishment-focused resume that provides a definitive value-proposition to represent you, along with a branded blog or web resume portfolio, then you have the tools you need to move forward. Therefore, for an outplacement firm to suggest to an executive that his resume could be improved (as one executive we heard from just recently) through the inclusion of his “middle name” and to increase the font size one point is just spurious. The answer to getting a job in the top 3% of the salary earners it appears, is simply a matter of a 12-pitch font and the inclusion of a middle name! Woo hoo, big salary here I come!

Then there is the case of the senior executive with more than thirty years of experience, considered a guru in hiring new talent, adapting to the changing workplace blueprint, and a sought-after guest speaker at multinational conferences, who was asked to complete a series of “fill in the gaps” sentences such as “I am a (fill in the blank) leader with (fill in the blank) talents. If this senior executive, an expert too in MBTI didn’t have personal awareness already I’d pack my bags and “shut up shop” tomorrow!

The whole concept of networking within the outplacement “alumni” appears on analysis to be somewhat pointless. Does a senior executive really want to “network” by commiserating around the water cooler with people in the same boat? OR should they be out networking instead with executive recruiters, people who are in the current workforce, people they know in senior positions who are about to restructure and be determining new positions? What can people without a job undergoing the same outplacement services do to position the redundant senior executive for the next big gig? Does the senior executive really want to be “filling in the blanks” in a Dilbert-like cubicle, adding their middle name to their resume and re-formatting their biography? Really? Would she be proud to say that that she belongs to the XYZ Outplacement Firm Alumni? It’s not something that would be on my resume!

I’m sure, in fact I’m certain that for some people outplacement services are a revelation. There really are people out there who have been shielded from what has happened for decades, and yes, there are many who are walking around in circles, not knowing how to put a resume together, not understanding the power of networking, and yes having to compete with hundreds of people when new jobs are advertised. For those people this generic form of 1-2-3 programs may be quite a life-changing event. But when people like Telstra chief Sol Trujillo, ANZ’s CEO John McFarlane, NAB’s Cameron Clyne and more come to looking for their next big gig, I doubt any of them will be hanging out around the water cooler at an outplacement service talking about comma placement on resumes, commiserating their back luck, and filling in the blanks. Do you?

Individual tailoring of programs seems to be the key. Finding ways to work one-on-one with real, authentic services to meet the knowledge, understanding and role level of each professional seems to be the type of service crying out to filled.

Today’s news brings us the story of 13 Virgin employees from Britain sacked due to inappropriate discussion about their employer and the customers they serve. Article here 

Treated right, there is nothing more beneficial to your career than effective networking. It opens doors, bypasses HR departments and gets you recommendations that you never can get from hitting the newspaper classifieds or going to the job boards and applying for a job “cold”. 

Social networking sites can also be the worst thing that can happen to your career if you abuse the privilege. Remember the Internet rule: there is nothing private on the internet! Keep saying it until you believe it! Ask yourself before your fingers hit the keyboard–would the managing director want to see this?

Article here in The Age

Australians ‘working longest hours’

October 29, 2008 - 10:11AM

Australians work some of the longest working hours in the developed world, a study has found.

About one in five Australians, or two million people, work more than 50 hours a week, the University of Sydney study shows.

The study tracked 8000 workers over five years, through to the first half of the year.

Full-time employees work an average of 44 hours per week and about one in three people want to work less.

Despite the long hours, about 85% of workers have debts to pay, the report said.

Employment standards have also deteriorated, and many workers are worried about job insecurity and work-life balance.

One in three workers hold a job that does not give them the full protection of Australian labour law, the report said.

Head of the study Dr Brigid van Wanrooy said full-time and casual employees are under pressure in the workplace.

“It is not a simple case of casual employment is `bad’ and permanent employment is `good’,” Dr van Wanrooy said in a statement.

“Casual employees face job insecurity but many permanent employees work very long hours.

“All workers face trade-offs between control over working hours, security of employment and quality of work.”

I’m thrilled to announce that three nominations for a Toast of the Resume Industry award (TORI) announced earlier in the year, resulted in a second place for Best Career Re-entry Resume and a third place in the Best Technical Resume category. This now means that I have won TORI awards for eight consecutive years–the first and only resume writer to have achieved this honour. President of Career Directors International Laura DeCarlo, sponsoring the awards indicated that in many cases only one point separated the nominations so it was a tight race indeed–and through this competition to excel, our clients come out the clear winners. Congratulations all winners and nominees!

Press Release: LOCAL BUSINESS OWNER RECOGNISED WITH INAUGURAL LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Gayle Howard, Founder and Managing Director of Top Margin Career Marketing Group of Services, was recognised for her contributions to the careers industry with a Master Career Professional Lifetime Achievement Award from Career Directors International (CDI). Recognition of this calibre denotes Mrs Howard’s commitment to furthering her craft and making a difference to job seekers which was measured across numerous criteria of quality and industry longevity.

Contributing to this award were Mrs Howard’s eighteen-plus years of industry experience, commitment to growth and education with continued membership with CDI, completion of a minimum of 45 hours of industry training within the past four years, endorsement as a CDI Master Career Director (which requires extensive industry and community outreach and development of strategic and cutting-edge industry programs and services) as well as experience in a leadership, committee, or mentorship role through CDI.

The Master Career Professional Lifetime Achievement award is issued once per year at CDI’s annual conference to those individuals meeting the rigorous criteria that are required of this prestigious award. In its inaugural year, the award has only been conveyed to four members who include Gayle Howard. 

Top Margin Career Marketing Group of Services offers expert resume writing and career coaching services to C-level executive clientele in the global marketplace. Their expertise is in empowering clients who wish to transition either within their existing career fields or to another industry. Mrs Howard is a recognised author, blogger, and columnist with more than eighteen and a half years of assisting clients to meet their career goals. She has been published in 22 resume writing and cover letter compilation books. In addition, she has received 13 global first prize awards for resume writing. To learn more about the Top Margin Career Marketing Group of Services visit the website www.topmargin.com