June Graduations and Employment

Posted by boblarson on

My informal survey of friends and families with college graduates this May-June is overly represented by  “I’m going to grad school in the fall”.

The question is do students need advanced degrees to secure jobs in their chosen fields? Will a masters increase odds of securing employment? Or are we delaying the realities of the new job market and setting up for future failure?

I think there are no simple answers.

The one constant that I have witnessed in my 30 plus years (Berman Larson Kane) of earning my living discovering talent for organization is that transferable, usable, value adding skills are always in demand.  Usable skills I am presently seeing in demand are data analysis, programming, new media (creative, technical. marketing), industry certifications, interdependence and independence.  Also a maturity factor has emerged favoring young adults who know what they don’t know and are willing to listen and learn from others experience.

Recent graduates, non-graduates and post graduates that can demonstrate success in these skills whether it be school projects, internship, part time work or just plain old experience will secure the new jobs.

So the only crumb of advice I offer to the new graduate students is if your goal is securing employment in your chosen field?  Make sure you are somehow, someway acquiring practical skills that employers are willing to hire and pay good wages.

Just a simply reminder education is usually the best path to learn new and exciting usable skills.  Good Luck Class of 2013 it is a new, exciting and complicated world.  Something’s remain the same J Looking for motivational quotes to keep going visit https://www.facebook.com/BermanLarsonKane .

Free Will Hiring Process Always Present

Posted by boblarson on

Here at Berman Larson Kane (https://www.jobsbl.com/)the issue of “free will” is always present, as this toaster purchase so profoundly illustrates.

Visualize going to an appliance store and purchasing a simple low-tech toaster. You review the models, colors, features, warranties, and prices and make your selection. Now imagine the toaster having the ability to “review” YOU. What color is your kitchen? How many slices of toast will I be making each day, week, and month? Do you have plans to upgrade your kitchen in the near future? If you remodel, what assurance do I have of fitting in with the new décor? How many vacations will your family take? (So I can plan my non-toasting rest.) How often do you replace or rotate your appliances? Will you be cleaning my crumb trap regularly? What are your expectations of my toasting speed?

Well, as you can see, if a toaster had a free will, this simple purchase would become a very complicated, free-wheeling exchange. Each party – the purchaser and the toaster – has a free will, each has its own agenda, and each is looking out for its own best interest. Any answer that is not satisfactory to either party will negate the exchange. The possibilities of this purchase taking place are diminished with each question.

Now, take this toaster’s free will a step further, and imagine the toaster having legs, giving it the ability to leave your kitchen for any reason. When it arrives at your counter it decides that your kitchen’s color doesn’t compliment its own, so after two days the toaster leaves and returns to the store and awaits another buyer. Or worse, after 88 days of adjusting to its workings, the toaster decides that your microwave is unfriendly and departs. Even more insulting, the toaster runs off to your neighbor’s falsely perceived clean white kitchen, believing you neighbor only makes toast on Sundays, and leaving you with UN-toasted bagels.

Well, I am sure by now you get the point. Replace the toaster with “job-seeker” and the purchaser with “employer” and you can envision the complications of the hiring process. Or you can replace toaster with “employer” and purchaser with “job-seeker”.

Employers and job seekers should never lose sight that this free-will exchange is a continuous challenge to both parties during and after the hiring process.

At the very least, it continues to make the staffing business so fascinating to me. Even after 33 years of attempting to facilitate these freewheeling exchanges here at Berman Larson Kane (https://www.jobsbl.com), I am always surprised by some new unique spin. Such is life as a recruiter.

Like us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/#!/BermanLarsonKane to receive our current job posting.

New Competitive Landscape Develops for Talent Acquistion

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We at Berman Larson Kane have witnessed a shift in the “IT Technology and Sales Staffing” that requires labor intensive steps to isolate the best talent. If this change has occurred in a few niches the majority of the market is not far behind. To recruit the best talent a recruiting plan that isolates the passive non-job-seeking candidate has always been the core of the BLK’s 33 years success. So to bring the best talent to your door we fish in three pools continuously.

Pool #1 – Qualified but Not Looking Talent – The majority of talent is not looking for a new job. Even if they are not 100% satisfied most employees are sitting at their desks doing a good job and bringing great value to their employers. Reaching out to this pool requires: organization, automation, tenacity, persistence and a very labor intense effort by our staff here at BLK. In organizing a work plan we at BLK need to discuss with the client: competitor sources, optional titles that this person might bear, email blast lists, lures to temp a passive candidate into speaking with the client, advantages to working for our client, career path, current and potential compensation and competitive advantages. All of these steps and many more require a very organized detailed plan and communication and sales skills by our recruiters.

Pool #2 – Qualified Actively Looking Talent – These are the millions of job seeking candidates that have their resumes displayed on the web. Whether displayed on the public, private, and niche or discussion boards. Sifting through this vast resource to isolate the “unique” requested talent is an art and a science and requires seeking, qualifying, and as the market becomes more competitive luring talent.

Pool # 3 – Actively Selective Looking Talent – These are what we refer to as web surfers. They do not have their resumes displayed on the boards nor are they sending out mailings to announce their availability. This is a group of talent that checks the job boards and selective websites on a regular basis looking for the ideal position or career move. To get the attention of this group one needs an organized web campaign that includes: job boards, social media, niche sites, corporate sites and agency sites. Attractive image, reputation, tenure and ethics presented correctly yield the best responses from this group. However, to attract the correct “unique” talent” using this method always means sifting through the 1,000 of incorrect responses to isolate the few correct ones.

So as you look to fill your jobs or find the best talent, remember jobs and hiring are very serious undertakings and the step of isolating the best talent is a very labor-intensive undertaking. We here at Berman Larson Kane have been attempting to get it right for the past 33 years and continuously are modifying and improving our systems to attack the “Best Talent the Market Has to Offer”.

If you have a talent acquisition challenge it is my pleasure to listen and see if we can recommend a cost effective solution. Thank you for your continuous support. Stay well. Bob Larson, CPC

Job Creation Numbers Not Wonderful Unless You are in Technology

Posted by boblarson on

88,000 a good number for numerologists “infinity and beyond”; but not much for continuing our path towards
better job growth.  These disappointing numbers are a sad contrast to the optimistic  projections of 175-180,000 by analysis has a measured
element of concern.

Well to examine the numbers more closely the professional business sector had a net increase of 51,000 jobs in March, down for April but still a sold increase.  What surprised us here at Berman Larson Kane is that the computer systems design and related services added only 3,900 positions in March.  Our BLK universe is experiencing heated competition for talent in this technology space with many clients being challenged to staff IT niches. We had expected a much larger number here although technical consulting service jobs added 6,200.

Looking forward the unemployment rate in technology is at tor closely approaching full employment.  So the war for good talent will continue to become more competitive as we get deeper into 2013 and beyond.

We thank all of our clients for helping us to a near record staffing Q1 with the prospects for Q2 2013 being extremely positive in technology
and technology consulting.

Berman Larson Kane remains concerned for so many job-seeker who have either given their job search and continue to struggle looking for suitable work.   According today’s report over 800,000 are in the discourage employment category and this is such an unacceptable number.

We will continue here at BLK with our mission of offering
the “Best Staffing Options” to our clients and the job-seeker population.

 

BLK’s 33rd Anniversary “No April Fools Joke”

Posted by boblarson on

Our first year in business 1980 a major monthly expense “bicycle messenger services” . Yes, in 1980 fax machine were cost prohibitive, email was non-existent (unless you had a mainframe computer at your personal disposal) and always sitting at our receptionist desk was a ready “bike messenger” on call to deliver resumes between downtown and midtown Manhattan.”

 Today, 33 years later, the staffing business moves at the speed of light. Resumes reside in clouds for instant access. Subscribers and the recruiters reviewing resumes are scattered around the globe. Work chores migrate to the “perceived” most cost effective and efficient markets. And we at Berman Larson Kane (www.jobsbl.com) struggle to remain on the bleeding edge to best service our clients’ staffing challenges.

 Adapting to these changing challenges remain the core of our business keeping us focused on supplying the “Best Staffing Options” for job-seekers and job-creators. This core value continues unchanged as the foundation of our 33 years’ staffing mission?

 Looking on the horizon, the competition for the best talent will remain extremely competitive and probably heat-up over the next 3 years. Finding, isolating, compensating and recruiting this talent will continue to increase in complexity over widening global markets. In addition, retaining your current top talent will also become more competitive as information access via social media brings all into the public domains allowing for aggressive recruiting efforts by competitors.

As president of Berman Larson Kane, I am very energized by these challenges and changes. Promising that our organization will continue to learn and adapt to the most efficient operation model. Offering the best and most cost effective service is our mission. The only guarantee for the future is that “change is a constant” and today’s business practices will become tomorrow’s “bike messengers”.

 Thank you to all for your support and business. You “Love the Journey”.

IT Talent “Hotter than a Bikram Yoga Studio”

Posted by boblarson on

The IT technical area is becoming a heated  competitive landscape for the “best talent”.  We here at Berman Larson Kane  continue to assist our clients with attracting and closing this shrinking talent pool. Good developers are in short supply. And we believe that the compensation in this niche will begin to grow in the 15-25% percent range for the upper tier of talent over the next 6-12 months. 

Pockets of strength include e-commerce, software development, content management, data mining and predictive marketing.  Systems and Network support/integration  are finding a new higher demand.  As software sales staffing leads the herd in competition for best talent. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Berman-Larson-Kane/191074937686032

As we at Berman Larson Kane continue to assist our clients within this IT staffing niche as we have for the past 33 years.  It is beginning to feel like a return to the past with candidates generating multiple job offers, current employers offing lucrative counters  to keep talent and candidates asking for edgy perks. 

The winner’s in this are our clients that are adjusting quickly to this emerging competitive landscape and are keeping the interview cycle moving at the blistering pace. 

As for our future predictions, the immediate future will continue at this blistering HOT pace and somewhere in what we are calling the distant future this market will find a more reasonable demand for talent balance.

As for now continue to network with all http://www.linkedin.com/company/45958?trk=tyah

January Job Market 2013

Posted by boblarson on

Well we are three weeks into the New Year and the job market is demonstrating some new strengths.  New job orders are up about 20% compared to the first few weeks of 2012.  But I offer this with the disclaimer that this is too short a time period to confidently declare a new trend.

Real strength continues to emerge in I.T. technical staffing.  Competition for the top talent is developing into a war in a few technical pockets.  In the I.T. staffing sector we at Berman Larson Kane have been witness to a steady stream of counter-offers, salary increases and work from home perks.  Candidates in this segment are collecting multiple offers with a steady increasing volume of interviews.  This is good for job-seeker and us here at Berman Larson Kane (www.jobsbl.com).  We are very optimistic that this will only get better for the immediate future.

The Human Resource staffing specialty remains flat.  Selective openings  have been emerging but nothing that represents
a shortage of HR talent.  The one exception is a search we are doing in the energy segment for a compensation analyst but this challenge is more geographic  than shortage of skilled talent.

Although on a national scale contract and temporary staffing is increasing in the high single digits, we here at BLK have seen a flat to
small decrease in this segment with the exception being I.T.

The software sales space continues to be short on talent sales professionals and we predict this will continue well into the future.

Looking forward six months a large percentage of our clients both midsize and small are planning to add to staff during 2013.  So we are optimistic that unemployment will continue to decrease as job creation moves into higher positive numbers.

As always we thank our loyal clients for their support as we look to add to our own recruiting staff over the next few quarters.

2013 Job Creation Outlook “Happy New Year ?”

Posted by boblarson on

With the 2013 new year ahead and the world paralyzed by school shootings, financial cliffs, political party fighting, high unemployment and world financial & political turmoil;  what can we expect for the job creation prospects?

Well I believe congress will eventually reach some compromises, gun control laws will be debated, the European Union will save the euro and political hot spots will flare and cool. .  So I guess little will change in the near future.

As for job creation; I believe it will continue to slowly get better, new demand skills will emerge, the work force will continue to age creating room for new employees, high productivity will peak creating additional jobs and manufacturing will continue to grow.

So if you are unemployed or under-employed 2013 should be a better year for job prospects. Our small universe here and Berman Larson Kane (www.jobsbl.com) has witnessed a stronger 4th quarter, hiring authorities a predicting increase demand Q1 & Q2 and the technology technical and sales niche continues to grow.

We at Berman Larson Kane will continue to support those in transition with our free live webinar series. You can register for future events at https://jobsbl.com/jobs/coaching/webinars.php .

 We will continue to improve our talent discover process for our clients by adding new employees and recruiting tools.  And for our clients we thank you for your support and look forward to adding value by bring the best talent the market has to offer for each of your needs.

Stay well and Happy New Year

Thanksgiving Job Advice Needed

Posted by boblarson on

Over the past several years the personal painful histories that we have witnessed, due to no job or
meaningful work, continues to be heart wrenching for all of us in the employment profession.

During this week of thanks, I encourage each of you as professionals to lend a hand, take a phone
call, share a LinkedIn invitation, review a resume, coach an interview or pass
on some advice to a challenged “job-seeker. It is the giving help to a job-seeker that is the true spirit of this holiday.

As president of our organization I assure you that we will continue our free out-reach programs to
assist all “job-seekers” with their efforts to gain solid employment. Since beginning this program 40 months ago over 52,000 individuals have participated. My wish is by Thanksgiving 2013 our webinar attendance will decrease to zero.  And this service will no longer be needed because all those who want to work can find work.

We at Berman Larson Kane thank each of you for your business support during our thirty-two year history.  We continue to experience an increase in hiring activity; however we never loose sight of the 16-18 million good folks that continue to be affected by our historically high unemployment rate.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday. I assure you by sharing your employment expertise will make your holiday so much more rewarding.

Stay well….

Bob Larson, CPC
President Berman Larson Kane

The Perfect Match “1 for 2″ Hires

Posted by boblarson on

For the past several years many employer have staffed open positions with hybrids or candidates that have the skill set of two jobs. Sort
of a “1” hire  to met “2” open jobs philosophy.  We on the staffing side were more that happy to have the order to work and did everything in our power to discover the “1 for 2” talent.  And because of the large talented labor pool were often able to service  clients’ unique needs.

Well the professional business job market is moving rapidly towards normal and single skill shortages are surfacing especially in subsets of the
information technology market.  However the thinking of many employers continues in  “1 for 2” mindset.

We at Berman Larson Kane (www.jobsbl.com) are witnessing a surge in IT hiring especially in Texas and Massachusetts.  Clients that are not prepared to accelerate the hiring process are losing valuable  talent to competitors.  The competition in this
space across the entire country continues to heat-up and at some point in the near future might return to Y2K and Dotcom urgency levels.

So the bottom line if you are an employer your best hire might be a “1 for 1” with a good cultural and personality match with quick
learner potential.

As president of Berman Larson Kane I thank all of you for your business and support.  I assure you we will do everything in the discover process to isolate the best talent the market has to offer for your open requisitions. Reminder we service direct hire, temp to direct and contract staffing
for 32 years at competitive  market rates.