Archive for the ‘ajcjobs’ Category

At the recent Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association’s conference, my presentation topic — job search strategies — was by far the most low-tech offering for more than 1,000 Web developers, Twitter gurus and e-mail marketers attending.

Working Strategies by Amy Lindgren

I suspected that would be the case, and wore my typewriter brooch as a humorous touch. One woman saw it and exclaimed, “Oh, a typewriter. I learned to type on one of those. I’m a digital immigrant!”

Digital immigrant? I hadn’t been in the conference five minutes and I had learned a new term. That was a fitting harbinger for a day of contrasts between the old and the new, high-tech and low-tech.

Here are some of the other things I observed in my day at the conference.

● It was a high-tech crowd with low-tech gear. A few people were using laptops, but the majority were jotting notes on paper, just as we’ve done for a century.

● A tweeter in every session. As a presenter, I’m …

Continue reading Contrasting worlds 
of high-tech, low-tech »

Laura Raines, for the AJC

“Know Thyself.” was an inscription found at the site of the Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece. It’s still great advice for job seekers, said Paul D. Tieger, founder of My Personal Job Coach.com and author of the best-selling career guide “Do What You Are.” He believes that understanding your personality is critical to finding career satisfaction and success.

Robbie Brawner Ouzts, a senior career specialist at Georgia Tech, is a member of the national network of coaches contributing to My Personal Job Coach.com. Photo by Leita Cowart, for the AJC.

“In the past, people were advised to find jobs based on their values, interests and skills. All of those things are fluid and change over time,” Tieger said. “Your personality type is consistent. Behaviors may change, but your personality is inborn.”

Personality affects how people make decisions and live their lives. Tieger has used personality type as the basis for career and professional …

Continue reading Coaching helps job seekers look within »

Many Americans will soon run out of unemployment benefits. Perhaps the federal or state governments will make yet another extension, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Working Strategies by Amy Lindgren

I think that’s for the best. I should be hunching my shoulders to protect against an angry response when I write such things, but there it is: I’m not a fan of extensions to unemployment.

In my experience, projects take the amount of time we allot them. When someone no less influential than the government implies a proscribed length to that project by providing a standard 26 weeks of benefits, that timeline becomes the de facto standard for job search itself. I can’t begin to count the times over the years when I’ve heard newly laid-off workers proclaim, “I’ve got six months to find a job before my unemployment runs out.”

I should believe they’re thinking differently when the unemployment is set to last eight months or a year? No. If we’re able to scrape by, …

Continue reading Working Strategies: Unemployment checks can hamper motivation »

Well, I’m glad that’s all over. According to the federal government, we’re probably done with the recession and pointed toward blue skies again. Break out the bubbly!

What, no bubbly? The problem with this post-recession period, compared with others, is that consumers aren’t buying champagne, or much of anything for that matter.

Working Strategies by Amy Lindgren

Still, people will get jobs. They’re just not always the jobs people wanted.

Here is advice for three stages of your post-recession career:

1. Taking the first post-recession job. When it’s time to say yes to an employer’s offer, you may not have much leverage for negotiating. You both know there are other candidates who will take this position as offered, so how much can you really ask for?

Probably a little more than you think. While salary bumps may be off the table and 401k matches may never fatten your bank account again, extra vacation, tuition reimbursement and cross-training might still be …

Continue reading Working Strategies: Tips for handling your post-recession job hunt »

Laura Raines, For the AJC


When people hear the word “promotion,” their thoughts often run to “better title, more money, bigger office,” said Susan B. Wilson, performance and life coach and president of Executive Strategies in Stevensville, Mich.

Robin Kirby, principal of Loving Impact, and Richard Kirby, principal of Executive Impact, help clients with job transitions and other emotional issues related to careers. Photo by Leita Cowart, for the AJC.

“They get caught up in the emotion of ‘Wahoo, they want me,’” she said.

“Eventually it sinks in that this is a life-changing decision, particularly if there is a move involved — and change is stress.”

According to a 2009 British study, getting a promotion can be hazardous to your health.

Chris Boyce of the University of Warwick and fellow researchers analyzed data from the British Household Panel Survey from 1991 to 2005. They found that people who are promoted suffer an average of 10 percent more …

Continue reading Job promotion could be mixed blessing »

Laura Raines, for the AJC

With the unemployment rate rising, corporate hiring stalled and 12,000 soldiers returning from Iraq, “it’s ugly out there in the job market,” sums up Rick Bowman, founder of Imprint in Time, LLC, a hands-on marketing and advertising business in Jasper.

Dora Gardo bought the franchise Imprint in Time in Jasper, Ga. The company specializes in computer signage, printing, trophy making, reprographics, etc. Photo by Leita Cowart, for the AJC.

After retiring from corporate life, he and his wife, Brenda, founded the company in 2005. It provides signage, imprinted garments, graphic services, engraving, blueprints and more. “It totally surprised us, how well the business did. Pickens County only has about 30,000 residents,” Bowman said.

“Providing everything under one roof turned out to be a very strong business model; when one part of the business slows down, another picks up. If we could be successful here, we figured someone could really …

Continue reading Franchises make sense in this economy »

I recently enjoyed a few minutes with a local newscast discussing a topic that has been confounding job seekers for years: body language in the interview.

To prepare, I hit the Web and found 52,900,000 entries on the subject. That’s 52 million. Let’s just say I was scanning rather than reading by the end of my research.

Working Strategies by Amy Lindgren

So what did I learn? That a lot of the opinions on this subject sound like hooey to me. Here are a few:

● Using your left hand to touch your face means you’re lying.
● Touching your face at all means you’re lying.
● Crossing your leg by putting an ankle over the other knee means you’re stubborn.
● Rubbing your neck means you’re bored.
● Wherever your knees or shoes point is where your interest lies — so shoes aimed at the door indicate you wish you could leave.

Was it Freud who said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”? He meant that not everything is fraught with meaning, and I’d say that …

Continue reading Good body language sends the right message »

By Laura Raines, for the AJC

Soraya Rouchdi wasn’t about to let a recession stall her 3-year-old dream to open a preschool that focuses on multilingual learning this year. She launched the Little Da Vinci International School in August with 28 students, seven above her projected target.

Little Da Vinci Internatonal School founder and president Soraya Rouchdi (right) sits with pre-schooler Rafael Bashi who is French Canadian, in one of the classrooms at the school in Buckhead. Photo by Leita Cowart, for the AJC.

“Some people thought I was crazy, but if we cross our hands and don’t do anything, we are miserable. We know there are risks, but we thought the timing was right,” Rouchdi said.

She’s an entrepreneur who has done her homework, knows her market, and has taken full advantage of Atlanta’s friendly small-business climate.

“Atlanta is a good location for this school because of its growing international population,” she said. “I’ve also seen that people …

Continue reading Atlanta is friendly to entrepreneurs »

This column idea comes from a workshop participant (thanks, Mike!) who asked for the most common networking mistakes made by job seekers. Here is my list of common mistakes and their remedies.

Working Strategies by Amy Lindgren

Mistake 1: Not having a strategy in mind before beginning. If you got up one day and started calling people, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re running without a strategy. The problem? You’ll soon run out of contacts and things to say — then what?

Mistake 2: Confusing the tool for the strategy. LinkedIn and Twitter are not strategies; rather, they are two of the many tools you can use to conduct your networking.

Mistake 3: Relying too much on an inner circle of friends and family. They tend to know the same people you do. You need to push yourself to reach beyond this tight circle.

Mistake 4: Treating all contacts equally. If your approach to each person is the same, you have not stopped to identify the various needs you have in your …

Continue reading Working Strategies: Networking potholes you should sidestep »

Don’t look now, but here comes Labor Day. If you’re not off doing something fun, you’re probably racing around getting the kids ready for school, or scanning the ads for new jobs. Sadly, for the unemployed, Labor Day doesn’t mean a break from working, but more of the same in terms of job search efforts.

If you already have a job, you might be feeling that combination of relief and despair that employed people experience during a recession. Relief that you have an income, of course, but also despair that you’ll be stuck with this job forever. High unemployment rates have a way of keeping people from voluntarily leaving jobs, even if they can afford to skip a few paychecks.

Working Strategies by Amy Lindgren

The result? Even people who like their jobs can feel trapped, while those who dislike their jobs are positively miserable.

Here are some tips for “making do with the job you have,” gleaned from my own experience and from my job search clients over the years. …

Continue reading 16 tips for surviving in job you’re stuck with »