ROCK N ROLL PALEONTOLOGIST

When my niece was four-years old, she said, “I want to be a Paleontologist when I grow up.”
Thirteen years later, she’s playing bass guitar, learning Japanese and will probably be pursuing an Art Major. It’s not surprising considering her family’s history of career changes. There’s no lineage of an occupation that’s lasted generations other than a ‘struggling artist’. Artists always find themselves at odds with money and work. Some wind up on a stagnated path of a job, mimicking their talent. Others may find themselves far from home base, eventually making a career change to get back on track.
If pursuing a career in the arts could only be as evident as studying Business or Communications. Artists wouldn’t have to hear the old clich√©, “you should have something to fall back on”, as if that would come to fruition. Not to prove them right, but why is it so hard to find a steady paying gig as an artist? Is it really egotistical or selfish for an artist to be non-conformist? I thought it was just the mindset of an artist? For example, if I were to have a bullet point list of how an artist could make money, the first thing an artist would do is, ignore it.
Eventually, after heartache, wisdom with age and debt to match, the artist will find an outlet to their talent. Maybe the well wishers are right. You should have something to fall back on. Among the re-directed artists, Art and Music Therapy offer importance and a respectable income. Both target different groups for therapy. Art Therapy is psychotherapeutic and psychological. Patients can range from children to adults dealing with trauma. Music therapy deals with motor skills and expressive therapy and is given for occupational or arthritic conditions. Certifications and degrees are required and varied. Detailed information can be found at the American Art Therapy Association and the American Music Therapy Association websites.
Now I’m sure there are artists who are saying, “I’m an artist because I want to avoid people, not help them”, to which I may suggest an alternative career in writing. I’ll admit, a high paying job as a writer usually requires a Bachelor’s degree in English. But there’s plenty of fun stuff that can be found in freelance work. Paying jobs can be found in Web site content writing or freelance articles submitted to magazines and newsletters in circulation in print or on the web. The important thing to remember is that all a good writer needs is material and practice. Life as an artist surely covers that.
Artists definitely have their work cut out for them. After all, who can forecast the dollar value of music, art or dance like they can for computers, communications or commodities? It’s all about demand. So, as long as there is a brain that needs help and others that feed on information, you can be assured you have something to fall back on.

Help Wanted

An article that appeared in the April 27, 2008 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Help Wanted: Soon-to-be college grads find economic climate makes job hunting tougher, by Ann Belser, talks about how the U. S. economic status has some graduating seniors nervous about their job prospects. Others are not so concerned because they’ve already secured jobs in their major.
Steven Ramirez of Carnegie-Mellon University is one of those who isn’t worried. He got a job with Procter and Gamble in their product development department. The 22-year-old mechanical engineering major has had his job waiting for him since November 2007.
Other students are not as lucky as Ramirez. They’re facing graduation – for University of Pittsburgh students, that’s May 3 – and they still haven’t found jobs. News of a recession has many feeling discouraged, but according to Besler, they shouldn’t. The National Association of Colleges and Employers(NACE) reports that employers expect to hire “eight percent more new college graduates from the Class of 2008 than they hired from the Class of 2007.” That’s an eight percent drop from what they were predicting last fall. So, the pickings are slimmer than anticipated but that doesn’t mean good jobs can’t be found. More importantly, recent college graduates will enter the job market earning hire average salaries than last year’s graduates, according to NACE.

• “Accounting graduates – $47,429 – no change from last year
• Business administration/management graduates – $44,195 – 0.3 percent increase
• Finance graduates – $48,616 – 1.5 percent increase
• Marketing graduates – $43,328 – 4.9 percent increase
• Computer Science graduates – $59,873 – 14.7 percent increase
• Liberal Arts graduates – $35,378 – 12.9 percent increase

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With such promising salaries available, it’s no wonder those graduating seniors without jobs already waiting are feeling a bit anxious. Brian Heddleston, employment services manager in the University of Pittsburgh’s Career Services Center, encourages students to “take advantage of career opportunities while they’re still in college.” Like so many others, Heddleston stresses the importance of internships. Considering the number of employers who hire from within through their internship programs, it behooves any student hoping to land a good job after graduation to do at least one internship if not more. Heddleston went on to say that belonging to clubs and organiziations helps and that maintaining good grades is essential. Finally, he advises students to attend Career Services events and network, network, network every chance they get. After all, “Seventy percent of a jobs are unadvertised,” Heddleston said.

Worst Interview Ever

We’ve received some rather interesting new additions to our Worst Interview Ever list. Here are the three most recent entries. The full list can be found here.

• A candidate requested water during an interview. The interviewer discovered that he was out of cups and excused himself to get some more. While the interviewer was gone, the candidate showed that he was a self-starter by fishing through the interviewer’s garbage can and finding a cup on his own. The interviewer returned to find the candidate happily sipping out of a up with a giant lipstick smear across it.
• An HR manager informed a candidate that he had to take a drug test. She handed him a cup and pointed him toward the bathroom. The candidate returned a few minutes later with a cup full of poop. Flustered, the manager gave him another cup and instructed him to pee into it. The candidate indicated that he understood and went back to the bathroom. A few minutes later he returned and handed the manager a second cup of poop. Despite his efforts, he didn’t get the job.
• An HR manager interviewed the niece of a VP as a favor. She was instructed to “just interview her and see if we can stick her somewhere.” The candidate showed up dressed inappropriately and spent the entire interview cleaning out her purse, barely acknowledging the interviewer’s existence. When the interview finally concluded, the manager stood to shake the candidate’s hand. The candidate responded by shoving all the trash she had cleaned out of her purse into the manager’s open hand, asking, “Would you mind throwing this away for me?” Despite the HR manager’s less-than-glowing review, the candidate was awarded a position in Marketing.

Article by Mark Toth, Chief Legal Officer of Manpower’s North American operations, and courtesy of Manpower Employment Blawg. Mark also serve as Chief Compliance Officer and Vice President of Franchise Relations and serve on our Global Leadership Team, North American Lead Team, Executive Diversity Steering Committee and Sarbanes-Oxley Steering Committee.

Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference Spring 2008 – Free!

It’s been a year since Paul DeBettignies a/k/a the Minnesota Headhunter, Josh Kahn of Accenture at Best Buy, and I got together at Chipotle for some burritos and to plot strategy for how to increase the number of active recruiting bloggers in Minnesota. One thing led to another, which is often the case when you get three guys together over exceptionally good food, and the end result was the Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conferences.
Josh has been instrumental in getting the group access to the Best Buy world headquarters facilities. They have superb meeting rooms and the price is certainly right. Their in-house catering service also bends over backwards to make it as easy as possible to host an event in their building.
Joining the group later was Nicole St. Martin, who we affectionately refer to as Paul’s wingman. She’s the one who makes these volunteer-driven events happen so professionally that I have to believe that most attendees think that Tinkerbell must be involved as everything just magically works perfectly. She’s an incredible asset to the recruiting world generally and the human resource search engine optimization community
specifically.
But it is Paul DeBettignies who is the driving force. He is the visionary and the face of the organization. My involvement has been negligible after that initial burrito fest. His involvement has been almost like a full-time job. His energy, enthusiasm, sense of humor, and wisdom are infectious. People just love to be around him. He must do incredible work helping his employer clients find outstanding I.T. candidates.
If you’ve never attended a Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference, you have another chance. Here are the details:

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Cultural Issues In The Workplace

Three cultural issues that exist in the workplace can be music, religion, and ethics. Each of these issues can have a major effect on the workplace environment and the production of the workflow. Music may increase or slowdown the workflow of many companies. Most warehouse jobs allow employees to listen to music during work hours. Most people say that they work much better when they have music playing in the background while they do their work. If this is the case, then employees should be allowed to play their favorite types of music while they work so they are in a more relaxed working environment. This can often lead to horseplay and laziness.
I believe if the workplace environment is too relaxed, the employees tend to get too lazy. Some people look at the situation as a benefit in creating a more relaxed working environment, but others may take advantage of the situation causing the production of the workflow to suffer. The type of music playing in the background may cause a major conflict in the workplace environment as everybody has their own favorite genre of music that they enjoy listening to. If the Hispanic people turn up the radio and listen to Spanish music, then that may offend a person that only listens to Hip-Hop music. In a situation like this, the people would have to come to an agreement and select a mutual radio station everybody can agree on or lose the privilege of having music in the workplace.
Another issue that effects the workplace environment is religion. Some people practice their religion very heavily, while others don t practice it at all. People that are heavy into religion shouldn t be preaching their religion and their beliefs to everybody they come across, especially in the workplace. This is very offensive to people that don t practice religion or to people that practice another form of religion. When someone in the workplace preaches his her religion to you, it creates a very uncomfortable situation. It is often hard to be rude to the person because they are preaching the word of their God. When you try to be polite to the person, they may constantly talk to you about their religion day after day. I feel that religion shouldn t be expressed so freely in the workplace. It can create lots of tension to many people in the workplace.
Article by Nick Roy and courtesy of Workplace Management Strategies blog.