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Tinker, Tailor, Spearman, Spy?

Posted on February 16th, 2012

All occupations during the Medieval era.  From something known as the Crystal Obelisk Project, an in-progress list of occupations from yore. Apparently trying to answer the question “If you passed someone on the street during Medieval times, what would their occupation be?” The list is nicely organized and interesting to peruse. Their are fun words like “eggler” and “cordwainer”.  Not surprisingly the list of crafts and service occupations is quite long with specific jobs for just about everything. The list of scholarly occupations is likewise unsurprisingly short. I regret that we don’t currently have much call for an occupation formally titled “fool.” Expect, perhaps, for THIS GUY.  I’m just glad I never had to be a pissprophet, potboy or dung carter.

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Gainful Employment Rules and Financial Aid

Posted on January 10th, 2012

The US Dept of Education has finalized their “gainful employment” rule for institutions providing training and education.  The rule is set to go  into effect July 1, 2012.  In brief, the rule is designed to prevent educational institutions from setting students up with enormous debt loads and little opportunity to pay them back.  The rule does this by monitoring the payback rate of students from individual institutions.  The idea is to prevent “diploma mills” from encouraging students to enter programs, pay for them with government sponsored financial aid, and then providing either inferior education or misleading information about employment opportunities post-graduation.  Institutions that fail the test limits will lose access to government sponsored financial aid. Given the reliance of some for-profit education institutions, it will be very interesting to watch the effect that it has on the business of secondary education.  There have been numerous, highly visible articles recently on student debt, so it’s unlikely to be come an unpopular bill.

A fuller explanation can be found in this Wall Street Journal article here.

Filed under: Careers, Demographics | No Comments »

Shaping Tomorrow’s Workforce

Posted on November 2nd, 2011

Whether we like it or not, current economic conditions are shaping the way that workers of the future will think about their careers, relate to their employers and commit to work itself. It’s clear that our views of work, career and employment are strongly affected by what we see through our parents as we grow up. The struggles that every generation of workers endure, the decisions they make and the excesses they exhibit all make an impression on their children. If your parents grew up during the depression, you were more likely to lock down one job and hold on to it no matter what. Even if you didn’t like what you did you didn’t complain or put your livelihood at risk (the Silent Generation.) If you watched your parents follow the rules and wait for their turn to advance, you were more likely to rebel and push for your own advancement and benefit (Boomers.) And…. If you watched your parents over-commit to their careers and personal benefit, you were more likely to find something that let you get along with less personal investment so you could pursue personal interests (Gen X.)

I know this is over-simplified and does not describe everyone, but there is a clear pattern. Each generation of workers tries to:

  • Fix some behavior/value/view that they saw as a mistake of their parents
  • Lessen some excess or over-focus
  • Add something that they felt the previous generation missed or ignored.

So what does this mean for the future? An entire generation is watching their parents deal with rates of unemployment that are consistently higher than the past. Those just entering the workforce anticipated a high rate of retirement for older workers, and consequently more opportunity for their own chance to take on high levels of responsibility.  Unfortunately, as people are now working longer out of need, these opportunities lessen.

A recent article in the Economist described this in some detail, primarily in countries with situations more dire than the US. The article examines the effect of high youth unemployment in areas such as:

  • Welfare cost of sustained unemployment
  • Crime
  • Likelihood of future employment
  • “Wage scars”
  • Social/family/living arrangements

Rather than go into it here, the full article is worth the read. What to do? Keep encouraging your kids to work, or volunteer if work is not available. Keep making the link between education and future quality of life. Find ways to help youth find the value of their own efforts through small businesses (remember lawn cutting?) or updating by teaching them how to apply their technical knowledge to help others. Never fall back on “why…. When I was your age.” Persistence trumps talent much of the time, so encourage and provide opportunities for them to get results through their efforts.  Despite any struggles of our own, teaching that there is inherent value and satisfaction in work is important both for our youth and for their future employers.

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The Ebb and Flow of Technology in Hiring

Posted on July 20th, 2011

“Reach Out and Touch Someone”. Are you old enough to remember the Ma Bell tagline that helped make phone service part of everyday life? Most of us aren’t, the line itself seems to hang on. In researching this piece, I found that the tagline itself is credited to the communications guru Marshall McLuhan.

As the internet became part of how we do things, job posting boards became a primary tool of corporate recruiting. Lots of breadth (maybe not so much depth sometimes) and a way to be visibility for your jobs. A recent article in the WSJ pointed out the decline use of job boards by recruiters. Apparently for all of their reach, they end up not being all that efficient. Having to screen so many unqualified applicants doesn’t improve how quickly good, solid candidates get hired. In addition, theirs an inviting element to more personal approaches as well as the opportunity to get to candidates early. Once someone has posted their resume online, you are already in strong competition for them with everyone else.

By getting to them earlier and more personally, you have the chance to engage them in a more thoughtful look at your business.
So perhaps that phone call still works after all.

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“Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe on skilled labor

Posted on May 12th, 2011

An eloquent description of the need for more focus on supporting skilled labor training and apprenticeships by Mike Rowe (link below). In a talk before the U.S. Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, he lays out a personal description of where we are with the skills gap in skilled trades. We have high unemployment, but a shortage of 450,000 skilled trade workers. Most skilled tradesmen currently are over 50 years of age. My favorite line, “In a few years an hour of plumber’s time will cost more than that of a psychiatrist.” Nicely put.

Link to video

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Yeah, But What’s the Job Really Like?

Posted on April 29th, 2011

We read job descriptions all the time here at Rogala & Orr. Any time we assess a candidate we like to know what our client thinks the job will be. It’s good practice. At the same time, many job descriptions are dry, bullet-pointed lists that don’t sound like much fun. The job ad post for a reporter role at the Sarasota Herald Tribune (link below) is classic. I wish I could write like this.

Link to Ad Post.

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