What’s the One Question You Ask When Being Offered the Job?

Asking THE question is like knowing the other players cards when playing poker. Easy to win.

Over the past several years, I’ve asked this question to job seekers, recruiters, employees, workforce professionals, friends, relatives, and strangers. And so rare is the correct answer – it’s amazing.

Typical answers include:

• When do I start?
• What’s my salary?
• Where do I sit?
• Who do I report to?
• What are the benefits?

These are traditional answers. Then there’s some more interesting answers:

• Six months from now how will you know that I’m successful in the role?
• Can I meet my team?
• Can you show me how my actions will directly tie to business success?
• When can I get reviewed for a raise?

All of these questions are good, but not GREAT. Here’s THE GREAT question to ask:

• Is that the best you can do?

In today’s market at most companies, employees can expect a 3% raise annually if they’re lucky. 5% if you’re a top performer. In order to really claw your way up to middle class or higher, you’ll need to salary jump when you get a new job.

Recruiters are not too far away from job seekers. Since few employers are hiring, their jobs are tenuous. Many are contracted “guns for hire” hoping to establish that they should be hired full time. They have incentive to close the deal and demonstrate that they can bring in quality candidates like you. By the time they offer you the job, they have committed that you are the one.

Hiring managers also want to close the deal and follow the same logic. When choosing a salary to offer there is almost always a range the hiring manager uses. If you’re a superstar (and you’ll know if you are) then this doesn’t apply. But for the rest of us, it does. The hiring manager won’t go to the extreme high range, as they want to be seen as a good corporate citizen. They’ll pick somewhere near the midpoint. That means when they offer you the job, there’s still upside.

So, you know as the candidate being offered the job that the salary is NOT the maximum they can offer, but what they think is fair. In essence, they have laid their cards on the table. If you’re playing poker and you can see everyone else’s cards, it’s easy to win. Same applies here.

Asking the question, “Is that the best you can do?” creates the opportunity for you to get more. It has to be done right and directly. If the response is, “Why?” Simply answer, “I was hoping for more.” No need to justify your response. Simple. Then sit quietly.

Even if the response is, “that’s the best we can do” you can still ask for more vacation or other benefits.

Last week, my sister-in-law used this tactic and was able to score an extra $6k. Others have shared how they got an extra 25 cents an hour (retail), $1,000, $3,500, and so far the greatest increase was for $10,000 more.

But NEVER has a job seeker come to me and told me the employer rescinded the offer. Remember, by the time they make you the offer, they’re committed. To back out would create much more work than throwing a bit more money after you.

If you are totally not comfortable asking the question, don’t. it’s okay if you choose not to. No one will judge you. But, knowing how the system works creates a great opportunity to do better.

I’m working on a project now with the Clinton Global Initiative where I’m trying to teach this and other skills to disengaged youth to get them an extra 50 cents per hour on average. If it works, I’ll be able to get an extra $75M in their pockets and help them get to at least a sustainable wage.

Try it. Share your stories on BetterJobsFaster.

Happy hunting!

Dan.

Dan DeMaioNewton’s Speech at Voices for National Service Dinner

Below is the speech I will be giving at the Voices for National Service Dinner on February 14, 2012.

“Today, in America, a child will be born who in 20 years will know that the road most travelled will not be the right one for her.  Let it not be a path less travelled, but a path well worn.  Let it not be the beat of a different drum, but the heartbeat of the American Dream.

Productivity is the highest ever in the history of the U.S. ExxonMobil recorded the greatest profits of any company on earth, ever. Apple had enough cash to single-handedly prevent the entire U.S. government from defaulting.  We are seeing employers who cannot find the talent they need while we have millions struggling to find work.

Today we have 12.8 million Americans unemployed, and teen employment is the lowest in 60 years.  The average time on unemployment is the greatest ever at 40.1 weeks.  That means, on average, it will take over 10 months for an average person – not an unskilled person – 10 months to find a job.  If you become unemployed today, odds are you would get your next job on December 14.  Spring, Summer, Fall, no work.  All that time looking and not finding.  Worrying and not working.  Losing money.  Losing health coverage.  Losing momentum. Losing hope.

All that time translates into over $208 billion of lost earnings at minimum wage, and over $23 billion in lost tax revenues on wages alone.

It took 100 million hours to create wikipedia, the encyclopedia of everything.  Americans watch over 200 billion hours of television each year.  We are squandering 287 billion hours each year in people stuck on the bench who want to be working.  With that, we could have 287 complete wikipedias.  Imagine what we might accomplish.

I come here with a simple message.  I believe we can do better.  Yes, we must do better.  But I know we can do better.

This dinner is for the voices for national service and I call upon you to have your voices heard from every mountaintop and every valley, from the sea coast of Maine, across the Great Plains, all the way to the warm sand beaches of Hawaii.  Let us mobilize our people to build a better America.  To turn our attention and energy to being productive and building a better tomorrow.

I am inspired working with you.  Working with entrepreneurs across America.   Micro-lending and micro-entrepreneurism hold great promise. A career in the 21st century will not be the same as in the 20th.  Workers need to be multidisciplinary, technology-enabled, always with an active Career Plan B, and be prepared for a 3-legged employment model – where employers have core workers, project/temporary workers, and consultants.  And workers need to be prepared to migrate among these three legs in their careers.

We need to significantly reduce and eliminate the gaps in productivity.  It is unacceptable to allow our people to lost wages, productivity, health coverage, courage – not to mention well-being, sense of identity, and esteem.  I believe we can do better.

I call on this great nation to create a national service program which allows anyone who wants to work the opportunity to work.  To provide a means to redirect lost productivity into a better America.  To provide a bridge for transitional workers to move from yesterday’s jobs to the jobs of tomorrow.  I believe we should have a cabinet level department of national service, and run the agency as a business – with a goal of creating incubators that fuel economic growth and revitalization.  I am inspired by America.  I am not an idealist.  I am a pragmatist.  And I believe this course is pragmatic.

Today in America, a child will be born who in 20 years will find herself on a road less travelled  Let us make that road a  better pathway to prosperity.  So that all may achieve their potential.

Last year, I began saying the job seeker’s prayer and I want to close by saying it together.  Repeat after me,

May all who seek a job find one.
May all who want a better job gain it.
May all beings achieve their potential.

Thank you.”

Let’s Show the World a Better Way to Getting a Job

Last week, as many of you may know, Monster announced layoffs of 400 workers around the world. Several of our most talented people were impacted, including leaders I’ve personally worked side-by-side with over the past 8 years.

I would like to help my friends and those affected get a great job faster. If we can get people a job just one day faster, it changes everything. I want to ask if you can help me show the world a better way. I know that the fastest path to landing a job is through relationships, and I’m offering my relationship capital to my colleagues to help them. I would like to ask you to offer your relationships to connect them to great jobs now.

If you need some world-class talent like my friends listed below, let me know. I will not rest until I am certain that these people – my friends, colleagues, and extended family – have arrived successfully at their next great place to work.

Some of my Monster colleagues affected include:

Jesse Harriott, Ph.D., SVP of Research who created the Monster Employment Index and championed next-generation workforce and labor intelligence.

Ellen Jullian – a top tier Research Analyst who also worked at IDC and is a master at competitive intelligence, research surveys, analysis and insights.

Dave Concordia – Director of Development and a Monster legend. Monster coined the phrase, “a Concordian effort,” to represent any superhuman above and beyond effort as a result of Dave’s leadership on USAJOBS and other major career sites. Dave can manage developers, clients, and program teams absolutely amazingly well.

Christal Dionne – the heart and soul of Monster Government Solutions’ Maynard Office. Christal handled the operations for Helmets to Hardhats, OhioMeansJobs, and coordinated and led Monster Job Seeker workshops. A skilled facilitator, and perhaps the person with the biggest heart, solid ethics, and tenacity to get the job done of anyone I’ve worked with.

Gerard Euell – Research Analyst, Graphic Designer, Web Developer, and Database genius. Gerard is one of my closest friends. We’ve worked together for nearly 20 years. Gerard is incredibly patient, always even tempered. I can’t think of a time he ever lost his patience. He also did customer support for USAJOBS recruiters and employers.

Vijay Kaki – an A-level developer who worked on some of Monster’s largest engagements including USAJOBS, OhioMeansJobs, Helmets to Hardhats, and a score of others. Dedicated, highly skilled, and a really good friend.

I’ll post updates on their progress as it happens. Together, we can do better. It is time to show the world a better way than the past. If not us, who? If not now, when?

Exploring Ben & Jerry’s Online Recruitment Experience

I visited Ben & Jerry’s career site today.  I agree that Ben & Jerry’s not only has THE best ice cream on the planet, but also practices what it preaches, supporting the Occupy movement but also implementing social capitalism to help the environment, get people jobs, and do good while doing well.

In 2000, Ben & Jerry’s sold (out?) to Unilever for $326 million.  The brand continues to this day to live its mission of doing well while doing good, and have a progressive company attitude.  So you’d think they’d have a recruitment brand experience that matches their values.  Well, think again.

Here’s a screenshot of their Jobs page:

 

Great colors, style, theme, and invitation.  When you Click here to get started, it all changes.

You’re brought to the Unilever main job search page that looks exactly like this:

What happened to the brand?  How can you find jobs at Ben & Jerry’s?  Searching on keywords as simple as Vermont (Ben & Jerry’s headquarters is located in Vermont) brings you no results, even though when you browse all jobs you see that there are in fact jobs in Vermont.

Even worse, the jobs themselves don’t indicate which Unilever business they’re with.  Here’s a shot of the Associate Brand Building Manager position:

There is no branding.  The fact that this job is with Ben & Jerry’s is obscured by significant text.  And how easy is it to see how GREAT a job this is?  Not.  It should be.

Their application process requires agreeing to the terms and conditions before applying, which will throw some people off.  Their application process does have the ability to upload a resume that is supposed to be parsed into their forms to apply.  I found this to be nearly useless.  While it did correctly parse my name, it didn’t accurately parse the address or any of the additional information from the Phantom’s chronological resume.  

In short, Unilever makes it really hard for Ben & Jerry’s to connect with the talent it really wants and continue the brand identity, brand promise and values that make Ben & Jerry’s a great company.  I long for the days when Ben & Jerry’s maintained their own hiring site and listed their own job postings. I’m sure the recruitment team at Ben & Jerry’s privately feels the same way.

Are you listening Ben?  Jerry?  We can do better.  I would love to work with you to help make that happen.

The 6 Faces of Recruitment on Twitter

Moises Lopez of Accenture

My friend Moises Lopez of Accenture (@Moiseslopez) is a top tier recruiter. His wisdom and insights have been invaluable to me into how an organization can efficiently and effectively secure talent using traditional, online, and social networking methods in a time when 14 million are unemployed and millions more are actively looking for work and better work.

A while ago, Moises and I were talking about social networking and recruitment. He explained how he amassed over 16,000 followers on Twitter. Today, he has over 17,000 followers. This is extremely helpful in getting the word out when Accenture needs talent. It also demonstrates the adage, the big get bigger. It’s easier to grow a large following when you’re big than it is when you are small.

I could repeat the wisdom of Moises and his insights, and have in several keynotes including my recent one with the Canadian HR Reporter, Navigating the Deep, Dark, and Dangerous Waters of Social Network Recruitment (http://www.carswell.com/description.asp?docid=8388). It is definitely helpful to collect and repeat the insights of others. But, I often feel that direct experience provides deeper wisdom and insight.

So I began building a Twitter following for BetterJobsFaster (@BetterJobsFaster) and my own work (@DeMaioNewton). In a little over a month I achieved 300 followers; in 2 months 600, and in 3 months 1,300. I have a long ways to catch Moises at 17,000, and an even further way to catch someone like Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki) at 437,000 followers, but my experience has been helpful.

There are 6 faces of recruitment on Twitter. They are:

1. The Job

These tweets are simply pushing out the jobs into the Twitter-verse for job seekers to be aware. They typically appear like this:

Example of a job posting to Twitter

There are job boards, job aggregators, and social network companies that will tweet jobs in this fashion. Personally, I find these jobs annoying as they’re just mini-classifieds.  How much time do you spend reading the “national” classified ads.  Not much.

Here’s a better example from Moises:

 Three things to notice that are different:

1. It has Moises face, whereas the first has the faceless logo for CJ Jobs.
2. It doesn’t include the Twitter garbage text of #’s and @’s.  Notice the punctuation on the first:  #, (, ), -,  and …  Ntoice that Moises used only a . and shortlink.
3. It has a call to action, “Visit our career page now.”  It doesn’t say, “apply now.”  This is a smart move as most people you wouldn’t want to apply.  You should want people to explore a little more than 140 characters before applying.

Here’s another very good example:

Michael J Fox is Hiring

Notice how this says the job, location, invites the candidate to read more, and apply.  All in 140 characters.  Read More and Apply offer 2 calls to action for the candidate.  Great work @achgcs.

2. The Hook

These tweets are designed to get you to click the link.  Unlike the job, these are more compelling and invite you to learn more.  Here’s two examples:

Great Place to Work Needs Insomniacs

NASA Needs Astronauts

3. Insights to Applicants

These tweets are designed to help job seekers to successfully navigate the application process, help the applicant learn more about the organization, and for the employer to increase qualified applicants. They are interesting and quirky and compel you to click the link.  Here’s 3 examples:

Do Something Job Openings

Wear jeans to the interview

What do I look for in applicants

4. Job Seeker Help

These tweets provide information, guidance, or support for job seekers.  Monster, newspapers, and other career companies will often use helpful support and guidance to help job seekers be better and will connect them to relevant jobs when and after they view the content.  Here’s 3 examples:

3 reasons job seekers stay positive during recession

Low stress careers from Monster Works

Job Seeker Prayer from @demaionewton

5. Status Updates

Recruiters will update the status of their jobs.  This is usually done by small businesses and individuals.  But it can also be done by large organizations.  Check out the ones from @scene_queen_ca and @UPSjobs:

Scene Queen position filled

UPS Hired 13,000 last week and They’re Hiring More!

6. Brand Building and Reinforcement

Companies will use Twitter to share some of the great things they are doing, build their brands and reinforce them.  The best companies will blend in their recruitment tweets with their brand and mission tweets.  Here’s 3 examples:

Great place to work is hiring

2011 Green Supply Chain Winner

Brownies for jobs @GreystoneBakeries

Ben & Jerry’s & Greystone Bakeries Visit

I hope that sharing with you the 6 Faces of Recruitment on Twitter provides some meaningful insights to employers in their recruitment efforts and for job seekers trying to find meaningful work, connect to companies that are a great place to work, and that will help them achieve their career potential.

Do You Know the Four Capitals Every Job Seeker Needs to Succeed in This Economy?

The people who are getting jobs are the ones who have the best capital. When you invest your money we’ve all be taught to look at the “return on investment.” How much are you going to make from the money that you’re investing.

The same holds true for job seekers – both the unemployed and employed. If you’re looking for a career or a better career, paying attention to the four capitals can help you have a successful and prosperous career.

The four capitals are:

1. Skills Capital – This includes both education, experience, and skills.  Without these you simply aren’t qualified for the work you’re pursuing.  You’d be foolish to allow a doctor to operate on you without having the right skills, education, and experience, and you should expect the same wisdom from an employer looking to hire.  In this modern economy, it’s essential to develop multidisciplinary skills so that you have the capacity to transform as the markets change and never be caught with limited career options.  Dice looked at technical skills in demand for 2012, but I’m surprised there’s no national, region-based skills in demand analytics tool out there.  (Gives me something to work on).
2. Financial Capital – Nothing grants freedom of choice like money.  Preservation and return on financial investment is critical and goes without saying.  What doesn’t go without saying is that whenever you get offered a new job, always ask the question, “Is that the best you can do?”  In my work with job seekers, we’ve seen it result in candidates making up to $10,000 more as a result of one question.  That’s a great ROI for time invested.
3. Relationship Capital – We are in the relationship age and relationship capital has been translated into financial capital.  That’s why LinkedIn’s valuation is now estimated at over $4B.  As a career maverick, it’s important that you cultivate and grow your relationship capital effectively.  When you invest your time in relationships, all of them matter, but some can matter more.  Does it make more sense to invest your time in a job seeker networking group or a trade association networking group?  In most cases the trade association gives a better ROI for relationship capital because you’ll be with others in the same industry you’re pursuing, some who may be interested in hiring you.  That gives you a better chance to advance through that investment of your time.  BUT, if you don’t have the right job seeker skills it could result in a loss of relationship capital – so a job seeker network group might make sense before the trade association group.
4. Service Capital – I recently joined Mack McCarter for a tour of Community Renewal International, an amazing organization that is actively building community one neighbor at a time. Community Renewal has demonstrated impressive results in rebuilding communities in crime and drug-infested communities and returning them to real communities.  As a result of their exciting work, I’m looking at ways to incorporate them into more of my work to help across the board in career-related work.  It’s important that we all help others, and by including Service Capital in your consideration as you think about your career opportunities, you gain the opportunity to both differentiate yourself from all other candidates, do meaningful work, and make a contribution to making the world a better place.  Even in a small way, it matters significantly.  Service capital directly contributes to relationship capital with a large return on investment as well as to skills capital.

As you plan your career and career advancement consider your four capitals and make sure that you’re gaining value from the four of them.  Focusing on less than all four creates liabilities and risks for your career.  If you can build all four, you are increasing your career opportunities and the chances you will achieve your career aspirations.

In my work with employers, the job seekers who are getting hired are the ones who have strength and can demonstrate success and progress in these four services.  Often, the ones who are falling short, are ones that have weaknesses on at least one of the four.  Keep this in mind as the US continues to evolve from an employer-based marketplace to a project-based marketplace.

I’d look forward to hearing your stories about how you build your four capitals and how it has helped, or hurt, your career progress.

The Future of Apprenticeships

This week I had the great pleasure to meet Sue Murkin and Michael Manning-Prior of Business & Education London South (BELS), an organization driving innovation in workforce development in the United Kingdom. Earlier in the week, Sue attended a Monster presentation on apprenticeships, and was struck by one comment made by the presenter: “Most apprenticeships are not apprenticeships. They are cheap labor.”

At the heart of it, an apprenticeship involves the cultivation and development of mastery in a skilled area. An experienced worker needs to teach a lesser skilled worker in their craft. It may involve a multitude of training approaches including classroom, hands-on, experiential, and demonstrations.

However, working with many employers what often happens is that an apprenticeship is really just an opportunity to bring on a gofer – someone to do all the little tasks that need to be done but aren’t – or to secure cheap labor. As a result the “apprentice” is left with few skills other than a real talent for handling menial tasks. Hardly a prized commodity in today’s labor market.

The most effective apprenticeship programs I’ve seen are offered by unions. Though hard to get into sometimes, these programs really do an excellent job of truly training individuals to be skilled individuals in the trades. Helmets to Hardhats is an excellent program that actively helps transitioning military achieve successful careers in construction. Their model helps bridge military skills to trade skills and is an effective model for career migration and progression to success.

What inspired me about the discussion with Sue and Michael were three things:

1.   “Starting with the End in Mind” and seeing the students as having acquired meaningful results both for themselves with the acquisition of skills, as well as with the product of their labors.
2. Recognition that delivering career workshops and role playing produced average performance, but didn’t prepare youth for careers, nor help them stand out and advance in their careers.
3.  The realization that by focusing on real challenges – giving youth meaningful work, with people that they can truly learn from and trust – drives high performance.

Our hope is to create a program that will engage youth in work that matters, have it be youth-centric, and produce individuals who are motivated, passionate, skilled, and can stand out.

I couldn’t imagine a better outcome.

Keeping Afflictive Emotions at Bay Using the Nose-Butt Technique

I have a friend named Pete, and Pete has some challenges. He’s been out of work for over 2 years. Previously, he was a successful accountant for a manufacturing company. He has a bachelor’s degree, and has good skills. He was laid off during the economic turmoil. Pete also faces some challenges having been diagnosed with functioning Asperger’s. As a result, he doesn’t really like to be touched and tends to avoid looking people in the eye.

When his money became tight and he started to worry, he took a job as a cashier at WalMart. He was humiliated and embarrassed when he saw his former co-workers, clients, and customers at WalMart seeing how far Pete felt he’d fallen. Pete was really stressed about money, life, and his hardships when we first met.

Pete and I have been working on getting him a job, and I was excited to learn a few weeks ago that he has an interview with a fantastic organization that needs accounting help for low-income housing work.

Pete came to a recent workshop I did and we talked for a bit about preparing for the interview. I wanted to be sure he was spot-on for the interview and that he would ace it.

I asked him a few questions and found his mouth was like a firehose, too much talk, not precise. Pete was nervous, and his emotions quickly overtook his intelligence. So I recommended that Pete shut his mouth, not talk until he’d carefully thought about his words. Having gone through a decade of hearing and speech as a child, I’d learned this technique so I could communicate and be occasionally articulate.

To help Pete make eye contact and remember to think then speak, I suggested he focus on the tip of my nose, and at the interview he focus on the tip of the interviewer’s nose. When he focuses on the tip of the nose of the person across from him, it’s very close to eye contact, and I couldn’t tell he was actually looking at my nose.

I recommended that by having that laser-like focus, he could remember to cut through any emotions that might be distracting him from the interview and focus solely on articulately and succinctly answering the interviewer’s question.

It worked surprisingly well. As we continued the interview, I noticed Pete was slouching, so I gave him the trick of pressing his tailbone into the far back of the seat.

Since Pete had the skills, experience, and was a well- qualified candidate, his greatest issues were keeping his emotions at bay, and making a good impression.

I told him the story about how the mind is like an elephant walking through a market, it’s curious, will explore everything, and often get into trouble. Yet, if you place a stick in it’s trunk to hold, the elephant will pass through without any disturbance.

Pete and I came to call this the Nose-Butt technique. Focus on the tip of the interviewer’s nose, and that your butt is against the back of the chair. By giving concrete, body-focused attention points, I hoped it might help Pete to remain centered and balanced during the interview.

I got a call from Pete today (along with a voicemail and email). He’s a finalist for the position. It’s down to two candidates.

I’m thrilled that it went well. I’m even more thrilled that Pete considers me a friend, and I hope that he gets the job.

What secret treasures will you leave for others to find?

Over the years I’ve heard stories of advanced Buddhist monks leaving important treasures to be re-discovered at the right time, when they are needed most.

Sometimes the stories involve the monk recovering the treasures in a future lifetime to share with the world. Always trying to help people advance and become better than they think they can be.

While you may or may not believe in reincarnation, there is a certain connection to humanity with the idea of leaving something for someone else to discover, and an even greater connection if you feel that it may be helpful to them.

Over the years, I’ve added hundreds of sayings on images posted to the Internet. A few weeks ago at the Long Creek Youth Development Center, Bill Bradbury used some of these in expressing his hope for the incarcerated youth to have hope, to aim higher, to have confidence, not let the world beat them. Not on this day. Not yet. Not ever.

And, with that he also included humor. A boy hanging horizontally on a clothesline was the image I remember most.

Today I was out gardening and trying to overtake the overgrown weeds and passing cone flowers that have overtaken me and my garden. On the side of our house where the blackberry bushes are trying to show me just how strong they are, not only with thorns, but by the virtue of spreading wherever they choose, I came to an old worn shelf that we’d put there a few years ago.

The shelf was littered with seashells that ran onto the ground and mingled with the stray crabgrass staking its new turf and planter’s lettuce, a weed that tastes good, but loves to spread and spread.

I took and rearranged the seashells to look nice. I spelled the word LOVE twice. As, that is what I like to think of our home as being built on.

In doing so, I thought about the idea of leaving secret treasures for others to find. I thought of who in my family, who in other families might find it, notice it, and think about it.

Perhaps no one will. Perhaps someone will. Maybe someone will rearrange the shells to leave a message for others.

What are the messages you would want to leave that would be worthwhile?

Four Key Changes in the American Workforce and Your Key Moves

If nothing else is clear by now, this much is true, the workplace of the 21st century will not reflect the workplace of the 20th century, and the worker of the 21st century will be different than the worker of the 20th century.  Here’s some key thoughts:

• U.S. Business has traded labor capital for financial capital.  Productivity in the U.S. has been at an all time highfor the past several years now and has been growing increasingly until June 2011, where it dropped.  This means businesses are getting more production out of their workers than ever in the history of the U.S, including pre-labor unions.  As a result, businesses are not hiring and are not likely to hire in the near future.  When they do, they will be hiring differently.

Key Move: If you’re unemployed and looking for work, start a business and sell your services to your former employer, their competitors, and their suppliers/vendors.  With companies having so much cash, they will be buying companies rather than hiring workers and you may find this an effective path to the nouveau riche.

• The Trickle Down of the U.S. Downgrading is starting a new round of worries for workers.  Yesterday Moody’s sent warnings to some of Massachusetts’ most prestigious towns, including Acton, Bedford, Belmont, Brookline, Concord, Dover, Hingham, Lexington, Newton, Wayland, Wellesley and Weston.  What do these towns all have in common?  They’re all “rich” communities.  Why is Moody’s sending warnings to these towns?  Because Massachusetts economy has a heavy base in Defense and R&D.  Funding for these businesses comes through government grants and contracts.  With the U.S. economy downgrade, it’s likely that the U.S. will draw down spending, which will impact businesses and communities reliant on government funding. The “wealthy” people who live in these towns are at risk, and if the business does dry up, it’s unlikely that the local economies will be able to reabsorb their talent in the short term.

Key Move:  If you work for a government contractor or are reliant on grant funding you should be looking to diversify your business and expand into new markets.  If you are a worker in one of these industries now is a great time to update your resume, expand your network of connections, and cultivate your Career Plan B.  Do NOT put your head down and think loyalty to your employer will save your job.  History shows it will not.  You need to look up and out.

• Most Workers hate their current employers.  In a survey released this week from the Corporate Executive Board, nearly 75% of workers who left their jobs said they absolutely would not recommend their ex-employer to other job seekers. Only 3 years ago,  that number was 42%. With productivity at an all time high, employers trading labor for profit, union bashing, the increased role of corporate-interests in Washington, and fears of more layoffs and failures, it’s not surprising to see workers having job anxiety, but why the extreme?  It may be best to examine the behaviors of the businesses and their treatment of workers.  Robert Levering’s company, the Great Place to Work Institute, has spent decades trying to help companies be a great place to work.  And there ARE companies that achieve fierce loyalty.  As business continues to trade labor for profit, they are also losing their connections to workers and creating conditions whereby workers will have a mission to beat their former employers.

Key Move: If you’re a great place to work, or even have the desire to be one, now is your opportunity to take advantage and raid the talent.  If you’re a worker at a lousy company, identify GREAT employers for your needs.  The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America is a great starting place, as is Jobitorial or GlassDoor to find honest insights into a company’s culture and workplace.

• The U.S. Education System Isn’t Producing the Skills We Need for a New Economy.  While the U.S. has talked a lot about Green Jobs, and the education system has developed a talent pipeline in this area, the conditions are not right for green jobs.  The education system will build supply chains for whatever they can get money from students for.  As a result, Crime Scene Investigator programs are hot right now due to the TV show CSI.  But CSI jobs are rare, low paying, and don’t have career advancement opportunities.  An analogy I heard yesterday is that the U.S. is pulling the fire alarm, while China, on the other hand, has been fighting the fire.  As a result China is poised to be a great leader in a green economy.  A college education is a signaling tool for employers that a worker can conform to authority, maintain a commitment, and has the ability to learn and acquire at least education-related skills.  In the late 20th century,  a college degree became the key signal.  However, with education costs skyrocketing and out of reach for many, the rise of questionable online diploma mills, and the rise of social networking there is a shift beginning where employers are using new signals to identify talent.  That said, an education is still the primary signal an employer will use to keep or trash your resume.

Key Move:  Build your relationship capital, contribute meaningfully to groups in your industry, and be helpful to others who reach out and ask for your help.

The bottom line is that you need to start thinking different and preparing for a new world order. We are at the cusp of a paradigm shift in the U.S. workplace.  By identifying and adapting to the new rules of the new economy you will be in a great position to have a successful and meaningful career at a great place to work.