Monday, March 15, 2010

job search notes: Dr Seuss goes fishing

one fish
two fish
red fish
blue fish

....

This one has
a little star

This one has a little car.
Say! What a lot 
of fish there are.
Such is the familiar opening for Dr Seuss' book written in 1960. How does that help those on the job search?

One of the demographic factors of this recession is how the downturn has affected folks of all ages (although there are age groups where they have been affected more so than any other).

From the US Dept of Labor JOLT Summary
Net Change in Employment

Over the 12 months ending in January, hires totaled 48.4 million and separations totaled 52.4 million, yielding a net employment loss of 4.0 million.
What is JOLT? The Job Opening and Labor Turnover report. There is good new in the report:
There were 2.7 million job openings on the last business day of January 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The job openings rate rose over the month to 2.1 percent, the highest the rate has been since February 2009.
What does this mean for those looking for a job?

There are really a whole lot of fish in the sea. The competition is tough but not impossible.

Dr Seuss closed "one fish two fish red fish blue fish" with:
Today is gone. Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.
Every day,
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.

Be confident! Be yourself!

Network and have some fun meeting folks along the way.

Help them in whatever way you can.

One of them will help you.

One of them will be the fish you need to land your dream position.

Good luck! I hope this has been helpful for you.


Other entries in this Dr Seuss Series for job searchers can be found here

Dr Seuss published over 60 children's books during his lifetime. My family library has a dozen or so. Ten Dr Seuss books are what I am using as a jump off point for this series. Some are better suited for this than others. If you have a similar library and find one that I haven't covered, feel free to cover it yourself, or let me know and I can post it here for you.