#SmealWeeklyRecap - Career Week!
Thank you to my network for keeping me updated on the business world and other relevant topics. Below are some of the articles collected from my network and our interns' research. The interns also help organize the information. All articles can be viewed at this link. Career topics posted this week were career change, the job market, future of the workforce and attitude. What is wonderful about connecting online is that I get to hear from alumni like, Leanne Poeth, the Director of Alumni Relations at Maastricht University, who was there to cheer on the Smeal International Case Competition Team! Thank you to Leann for the team picture and for being Penn State proud! Of course, our team won the SPIRIT award at the competition, WE ARE......
Attitude: Popular alumna presenter, Cindy Cornell, has done several webinars related to attitude. In my post, I shared Personal Values: Be Happy by Living Authentically in Business and Life. She also presented Believe it! Your Mindset Matters: Make it Work for You. In our webinar on career transitions with Brie Reynolds this week, she reminded us to "acknowledge our situation and our feelings" before we start a job search. This will allow you to start your search without so many strong emotions that could derail you from securing a position without you even realizing it.
Future of the Workforce: This is always an interesting topic! I think that Andy Sieg's article from DigitalTonto says it best, "The Future will Always Surprise Us." The article links to another one posted last year, "The truth is that the next big thing always starts out looking like nothing at all.....Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Charlie Bennett and countless others never had any idea what the practical consequences of their discoveries would be, because none of their ideas had any relevance to work being done at the time." Another topic of note is that Finland has decided against universal basic income. Articles suggest that their two year study did not give the experiment enough time. The US is up next in a trial including two states and 1,000 people that will last 3-5 years, as reported by the BBC.
Job Market: Bloomberg recently reported that the unemployment rate is down to 3.9%, the lowest it has been since December 2000. CNBC reported that retail leads the way in job cuts with the next closest sectors being in health and consumer. In the tech industry, there have been fewer cuts due to disruptive trends in blockchain, artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Tech companies investing in these new trends are creating more jobs. CNBC also reported that for the new graduates coming into the work force, the situation is a real life "glass half empty, half full." They are heading into a job market with the lowest employment in a long time and getting paid more money; however, employers are making less offers to recent graduates.
Career Change: If you are in a career change, you are not alone. As I mentioned above, on Wednesday, 108 alumni, MBA students and some friends attended a Smeal Webinar (with 350 watching our live streaming on Smeal's Facebook page) to hear Brie Reynolds talk about resources and action items for those in any type of a career transition. On, LinkedIn, alumni shared some really inspirational articles on people over 50 securing tech jobs. Jennifer Nicholas, our new assistant director in Smeal Alumni Career Services, shared an informative article from Quartz at Work about what resumes will need to be in the future - develop those soft skills everyone. One interesting fact is that Leonardo da Vinci was credited with writing the first resume!
Remember to sign up for news about our free Smeal Webinars, everyone is welcome so share the registration links with your online network, company and co-workers!
All Smeal Webinars are on Wednesday at Noon ET - Spring/Fall 2018
A Global Market Outlook: Trends and Events for Investors - Presenter: Jeffrey Kleintop ('95 MBA) Senior Vice President and Chief Global Investment Strategist at Charles Schwab - May 16
Attracting and Retaining Customers – What’s Your Growth Plan? - Presenter:Tammy Beil ('99 MBA) President and Chief Growth Officer at TABeil - June 6
It’s a Candidate’s Job Market: How to Succeed in It - Presenter Carly Glova ('08 Finance) Founder and President of Building Careers, LLC - September 12
Below are a few of the articles of interest. Please share your articles and business news!
Attitude
- Can This Four-Minute Brain Hack Turn You Into An Optimist?
- Why You Might Feel Empty After Reaching A Huge Goal (And How To Move On)
- Losing Motivation? Research Says You're Probably Engaging the Wrong System
- Negative Thinking Got You Down? Here’s How to Shift Your Thoughts
- Be The Change - Inspirational Video
Future of the Workforce
- Finland Ditches Basic Income; US Is Up Next
- Money problems: why Finland has given up on the basic income dream
- Why The Future Will Always Surprise Us
- There will be plenty of jobs in the future: You just won’t be able to do them
Job Market
- Unemployment Rate Hits 3.9%, a Rare Low, as Job Market Becomes More Competitive
- New grad job outlook: Higher salaries, fewer offers
- There are places where automation may kill not just jobs — but entire economic classes
- Facing Historic Labor Shortages, Companies Snap Up Teenagers
Career Change
- The resume of the future will tell employers who you are, and not just what you’ve done
- Behind the Scenes: Uncovering the Myths and Mysteries of Recruiting
- Google Automatically Rejects Most Resumes for Common Mistakes You've Probably Made Too
- Want to get a tech company job after 50? Here's what I learned working at Google and at Twitter
- The Best Careers are Non-Linear
- How a 50-year old Mom got hired by Microsoft