Check-out this list of Delaware Valley employers recognized by the Philadelphia Business Journal for promoting healthy lifestyles. For those seeking traditional employment, this seems like a useful criteria! Of course, I’m offering this as information without specifically endorsing the validity of this list, assembled by a 3rd-party source through a survey: Caveat emptor!

I love the good common sense offered by my colleague, Billie Sucher.  Not only does she offer good home-spun remedies and recipes, she is a capable and energetic career professional.  Check-out her latest, written from her “sick-bed”  and posted on Career Hub.

This time, I’m touting this approach via a well-respected recruiter,  Nick Corcodilos, (author of the Ask the Headhunter books, blogs, articles, etc.)   To view the post in-context, look for “Get HIred: No resume, no interview, no joke:

Cut out the middlemen
Your challenge is to avoid the process that takes your keywords but ignores your ability to learn and to stretch. The alternative is simple: Cut out the middlemen — HR and the recruiters and the headhunters — and go directly to good managers you’d like to work for. Find out what work they need done, and show how you will do it. Show how you will boost their business and they will hire you.

Read that again: Go to good managers you’d like to work for. That means making choices before you approach anyone about a job. It means avoiding the cattle calls. It means avoiding waiting in line. It means avoiding asking for jobs from people you don’t know who don’t know you.

If you understand this, you have an advantage: Everyone else is diddling the job databases, while you’re out talking to a handful of managers you really want to work for who really want and need to hire you. No resume, no interview, no joke.

Here’s what to do next
Pick three companies or managers you really, really want to work for because they are the shining lights in their industry. Then come to The Blog and describe (briefly) three problems or challenges each company really needs someone to tackle. (You don’t have to name the companies.) And I’ll show you what to do next to get in the door. No resume, no interview, no joke.

Making the connection to one more story of successful job transition through S-W-O-T  Analysis (see previous my posts on this topic).  This time, the author is a former academic who frames her recommendation in the jargon of racket sports, (see The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Sweet Spot of Nonacademic Job Search.

Regardless of the way it is framed,  preparation for job change or career transition must begin with an analysis of what you offer in relation to the needs of the targeted employer or industry.  Once you have identified and clarified your own personal and professional strengths, you must focus on understanding the challenges in the space you are trying to enter, e.g., where is the “sweet spot” of opportunity for you to SNAG that job you’ve targeted through S-W-O-T analysis.  It is so intuitively simple, yet it takes concentrated effort and sometimes some guidance.  Try it…

Read the testimonial I received this morning – no more explanation needed.

Check-out this reference to Stanford’s experiment with 3 engineering/hi-tech classes being offered via YouTube

More than 160,000 initially enrolled; 35k demonstrated their engagement in the class by submitting homework during the first 3 weeks of the class. We need to know more about the demographics of this group and how this current cohort has been been recruited. (So far, we know that most have full-time jobs; <1% are from China, as the government blocks YouTube).

The emergence of high-quality online education presents huge challenges to “the Academy” as developed from ancient Greece. Yes, online education is still emerging from a birth process that was tarnished by all sorts of unscrupulous organizations and offers. However, with Stanford’s forray into this field, as well as MIT’s Open Courseware, it may be time to consider the long-term implications of online learning for the huge range of educational stakeholders: students, faculty, institutions, communities, and of course, the global economy.

What does this mean for college access? Could the enthusiastic response to these classes lead to the vocationalization of higher education? Does online education offer an accessible and affordable portal to income equality that sociologists and educators have been seeking on-campus?  (Here’s a link targeted to prospective online students)

If online education were embraced by those who are customarily shut-out of quality brick and mortor educational environments, tremendous cultural consequences would follow… How would our upwardly mobile dorm and cocktail-party behaviors be transmitted? Who would  bring the beer!

Carry the possibilities further, from a safety and personal security perspective… Given the revelations from Penn State Univeristy this week, perhaps online access would offer  the upwardly mobile and powerless in our society a path toward income equality without becoming subject to the will and neglect of the powerful, who control the Academy …?

IMO, online education is a sleeping sociological giant….

I’m still working through my response to A Whole New Mind… and Drive… Now I’m challenging myself (and you) to apply the “new Operating System” to the field of talent acquisition, career transition,  and student success.  Pink claims that Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose are the basic elements of our new “Conceptual Age.” He indisputably demonstrates that these elements have displaced the traditional concept of rewards and punishment as motivation for solving all but the most routine problems.  I want to dig deeper; I want to think and discuss how these three elements can be applied to the dilemma facing individuals who wish to navigate the world of  employment, higher education, and entrepreneurship.  From where I sit and work, I see a disconnect between our 21st-C. workforce, which is creating the Conceptual Age, and the processes that govern recruitment, transition, and access to education.  I think the latter are stuck in the Industrial or the Information Age. How can we integrate the gatekeeping process with the Conceptual Age?

While I want to be an advocate for Pink’s “Operating System 3.0,” it has been my experience that few of those charged with admissions or recruitment actually seek-out those who admit to a preference for autonomy vs. teamwork; those who prize mastery over multiple task management; those who are purpose-driven vs. driven toward tangible outcomes. Is there a disconnect  between what science knows about human behavior and the talent acquisition process that is embraced by colleges, universities, and 21st-C. employers?  Do “fancy pants” consulting firms talk the talk of innovation while actually promoting more of the same management systems, supported by traditional incentives?

Can you chime-in with some thoughts about how Operating System 3.0 can become an engine of a more mindful transition process?  I’ll be coming back to this from time to time; your comments and ideas are what will make this discussion “pop.”

Let’s pick-up on the conversation about resumes…  Do they work?  If so, is there a particular style that is likely to be more effective?  What is a mindful approach to the question of resumes?

• We can all agree that resumes don’t get jobs: candidates who conduct marketing campaigns do…
• If career professionals agree with the latter “true-ism,” why do many dump on efforts to organize information into functional categories or “buckets?”
• If resumes don’t work, why would anyone advocate for the most tired format of all, the reverse chronological resume?
• Recruiters and hiring managers may be accustomed to viewing information in the reverse chronological format , but I submit that they do not learn more about the features and benefits of candidates through this “war-horse” approach.

In this blogger’s opinion, it is mindful to organize one’s thinking about success stories into “buckets,” or functional categories.

• Successful candidates are able to present their features and benefits in relation to the needs of a prospective employer or business opportunity.  The clearer, the more concise, and the more compelling, the more likely to be effective….
• Presenting the information in reverse chronological sequence does not necessarily make the presentation more effective – it only makes it more compliant with expectations.

Please join in this discussion, prompted by the following post and associated comments…

> http://joanrunnheimolson.blogspot.com/2011/09/resume-tips-from-americas-top-recruiter.html

Discouraging news about employment and the US job market affects job seekers and career changers.  It discourages the very behavior that we so desperately need to encourage: risk-taking, innovation, creativity, entrepreneurism, etc.

For many,  the  economic news causes people to stay in dead-end jobs, to invest too heavily in education/training, to give-up the job search altogether. Yet to others, the economic news offers opportunities (even with job growth at zero, more than 4 million job seekers are hired every month).

After a long hiatus, this post marks my return to this blog to comment on all matters related to jobs and careers.  My hope is that I will be able to offer something new to the discussion, whether in the form of  a new tactic, a new perspective, or a new challenge for readers.

In some way, I hope to contribute to our economy by stemming the negative behavior of would-be career changers and job seekers.   To that end, I will provide a Mindful Approach Program® – a MAP – that I believe can lead thoughtful people toward personal satisfaction and career acceleration.

You can expect that upcoming posts will be focused on “mindfulness,” which we’ll define in future posts. My current thinking has been influenced by so many incredible people, and by the work of Prof. Ellen J. Langer, who offers the following inspiration for the desks of thinking/working people:

“Mindlessness is the application of yesterday’s business solutions to today’s problems.” IMO, your can include traditional resumes, job postings, and “passive job search” to the heap of yesterday’s solutions; more to come…

Acting in tandem to the above, Langer and her team suggested:

“Mindfulness is attunement to today’s demands to avoid tomorrow’s difficulties.” IMO, such attunement requires a host of “right-brained” skills and abilities, including reframing, renaming, and redefining.

More on this in the weeks to come.  You can look toward the publication of my CAN_MAP®, a compilation of my CAN-tested tools and tactics to help you move toward a mindfulness as it relates to your work.  Thank you for reading and commenting…

Periodically, I like to remind my readers and prospective clients to look for networking and new business opportunities in the most obvious place: your daily newspaper.  It is still black and white (whether online or in-print), and it contains many gems if “red” (sic: read) all over!

Let’s take a look at the Monday edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, with its daily focus on different business themes (Monday = “Small Business”).  Since there is no business news over the preceding weekend, the editors publish the weekly “Business Calendar” and “People in the News” in the Monday edition. (BTW: It seems the calendar may not be accessible online anymore, so you’ll have to decide if there is sufficient ROI to warrant .75cent investment in the good-ol’ fashioned newspaper.)  My ROI analysis:

Business Calendar for week beginning Jan. 31st:

• Tues, 02/01/11:  Network Through the Stacks – Horsham Chamber of Commerce – 215-360-2968 – FREE
• Wed, 02/02/11:  Game Changing Software & Internet Solutions w/software investor & blogger, Charlie Federman – 215-790-3722  -FEE
• Thurs, 02/02/11:  Orientation & Business Assessment Workshop – Women’s Business Dev’t Center – 215-790-9232  -FREE

Week beginning Feb. 7th:

• Tues, 02/08/11:  Speaker @ Sales & Marketing Executives of Phila – FEE
• Wed, 02/09/11:  Networking & membership event – Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) – FEE
• Wed., 02/09/11:  Professional Women’s Roundtable Reception – FEE
• Thurs, 02/10/11:   JumpStart: Before You Start, Women’s Business Development Center – FEE
• Thurs, 02/10/11:   Super Bowl Smackdown, Phila Chapter American Marketing Association – FEE

In the “People in the News” section, find names of people you know (or want to know) at companies that are alive and well: they are hiring and promoting people.

And of course, you can indulge in some of your own out-of-the-box thinking by reading about what others are doing, e.g.

• Rajant Corp of Malvern, a maker of wireless communication networks whose products are now successfully exported to Australia, Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere, improving our balance of trade and local economy;
• A cabinetmaker and fine woodworker “went with the flow” of a career change (suggested by his Dad); his elevator remodeling business is projected to generate $50 million in annual sales, with a new factory on the drawing board for western USA.