…In fact, there are more Americans 65 and older in the job market today than at any time in history, 6.6 million, compared with 4.1 million in 2001.

Less well known, though, is that nearly half a million workers 65 and older want to work but cannot find a job — more than five times the level early this decade and this group’s highest unemployment level since the Great Depression.

(…)

The unemployment rate for older Americans is still much better than for others — 6.7 percent compared with 9.8 percent in the general population. But 6.7 percent is more than double the level of two years ago — and far higher than the minuscule 1.9 percent rate early this decade.

My main job search/interview tip from this article for retiree job seekers is as follows:

Older job seekers should try hard to maintain their professionalism. Even if the person interviewing you is young enough to be your grandson, you should still maintain the “yes sir/no sir” dynamic. You are the applicant and they are the decision maker. You might benefit by highlighting your years of experience and the vast knowledge you might bring to the position, but it’s wise not to come off as a know-it-all.

The job is not beneath you because of your age or experience. Neither is the person who might give you the job.

This makes tons of sense to me. For out-of-town interviewing, the money savings alone are astronomical. But also, think about how this is more convenient for interviewer and interviewee alike. Less pressure, less procedure… possibly a greater chance of getting down to brass tacks.

My tips for this sort of thing are pretty much along the lines of what the article suggests. You still want to dress up. You still want to be professional (send the crying babies and barking dogs far away). And try to take it just as seriously as a real interview. It might feel informal, but keep the proceedings as formal as you can to show you understand the situation.

But I’d also recommend YOU be the one to suggest this sort of interview. If you think they’re techy enough to go for it, it’s a win-win-win for you: You’re being proactive. You’re offering to save them money. You’re also showing that you’re tech savvy.

Are you the first person they’ve ever encountered who’s offered to do a virtual interview for them? That shows initiative.

Hopefully you can see several practical strategies on how to network by reading this blog. And keep in mind the old saw of job search: Networking is BY FAR the most effective way to find a new job.

For years we’ve told our clients, “Tell everyone you know… everyone… every friend you have, every person you meet on the street… about your job search.” We even sold networking cards for a while (little snippets of your resume on a business card).

So, let’s touch on something that should be obvious to anyone in the modern world: social networking sites like Facebook can help you with your job search. I actually hadn’t explored this too much in a hands on, practical level, but I decided to test out some strategies.

And, just by dipping my toe in the water, I’ve gotten some immediate results. I think I’ve hit on a really, REALLY basic strategy for using Facebook to help in your job search. It’s something anyone with a Facebook account can start doing immediately.

And it might seem obvious to the point of stupidity, but hear me out:

Basically, the strategy is really simple.

Diary your job search in your Facebook status update.

I just took three recent clients we were working with and had them each keep posting about their job search on their Facebook status updates.

Applied to 3 positions today? Ok, put that on your update.

Interview with a company today? Ok, put that on your update.

It seems really simple and maybe a little obvious, but it worked. And right away. 2 of the 3 clients have already found new positions and the 3rd got at least one good interview out of it.

The key seems to be to include details. Don’t just say, “Brian is looking for a job.” Say: “Brian is looking for an accounting job in the Toledo area.” Don’t just say you applied to 3 jobs today, say: “Brian just sent resumes to Proctor and Gamble, Dell and Monsanto.”

That’s the beauty of networking… you never know what little nugget of information will lead to a connection.

Specific case in point (names changed for privacy reasons): One of our clients started doing regular status updates on his job search. For 2 weeks he kept at it. At this point most of his friends probably got the message: OK. Dave is looking for a job. And yet, still nothing turned up… aside from some encouraging words and a tip here or there. But nothing solid.

But then one day last week he mentioned on his status update that he had applied to a local university. And he mentioned that university by name.

It turned out some Facebook Friend was married to a woman who worked at the university. It further turned out she could expedite his application by making a personal recommendation (and earn a referral bounty to boot). The client said to me in an email:

It’s not like everyone didn’t already know I was looking for a job. It’s just that Kevin didn’t think far ahead enough to help me out. His first thought was “Well, there’s no job I know of that I can turn him on to.” It didn’t occur to him I might apply for work at the U and so it didn’t occur to him to tell me his wife who I’ve never actually met worked at the U and might be able to get me an in. It was the status update that sort of put the lightbulb up over his head.

I’ve experienced this sort of thing before myself. Once, when we were having a technical server issue, I posted randomly on my Facebook status update: “Brian is confused by PCI compliance.” Turns out, one of my good friends from college (who I knew was in IT… vaguely) was someone who SPECIFICALLY did PCI compliance for a living. And so he helped me out. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask him for help. He hadn’t know I NEEDED help. But the randomness of the network made the connection anyway.

So, my advice is basically that: immediately start posting every boring detail of your job search. Do it every day.

Because the other key part of this strategy seems to be persistence. Drill it into people’s heads. You can’t know what little nugget of information might provide a lead, so you just gotta keep putting nuggets out there.

Won’t your friends get tired of hearing about you and your lonely job search?

Sure. But they’re probably already tired of hearing about how your daughter is sick again or about the coffee you spilled on yourself during the drive in to work today.

So, even if it seems a little obvious and simple (You mean social networking might lend itself to networking in general? Gee, Brian, you’re a genius!) if you haven’t started sharing your job search with your friends and family on Facebook, maybe you should start doing so.

Now.

And, as always, if you need the best resume writing help in the business, you know where to go.

If you have career or job search question you would like answered on this blog, click here to Ask Brian.

D. asks:

How long should one expect to wait to get approval on a vacation request? I have three weeks vacation and have only used two.

Vacation request? This time of year? I think you’re reading your calender upside down!

But, it seems my “how long to wait” answers are very popular. So…

Brian has an answer after the jump…

Brian Sayz:

…

Vacation request policy varies from employer to employer.  If your employee manual does not spell out a requested lead time for vacation requests or your employer does not have an employee manual, then it is time to ask either Human Resources or your boss.

I know some industries prohibit vacation during certain times of the year, so it is important to gain understanding if your employer has such restrictions. In addition, your employer might have already planned out the labor budget for the next few months and already has you booked for work.  Also, some places of employment have a vacation calender that allows for only a certain number of people to be gone on any given day. You need to make yourself aware of any of these vacation caveats.  Here is the method of how I would approach my boss or HR on inquiring about the proper lead time.

1. Have in mind particular dates that you want off.  It is inevitable that your boss/HR will ask when you think you want to take your vacation time.  Be prepared to have alternate dates in mind, too.  Being that it is almost October, it is pretty late in the year to give notice for a week of vacation.
2. Send an e-mail or phone ahead to ask if your boss/HR has a few minutes to discuss possible vacation time.  This way your boss/HR will not be grumpy when you spring a last minute week off on them.  If I recommend that if you have to be gone last minute for some reason, it isn’t a bad idea to preempt your request for a meeting with an apology. A meeting may also be required between you and your boss  strategize on how your work will get done or be covered while you are away.
3. Submit your Vacation Request per the outcome of your meeting.

Now you are versed in your company’s Vacation Request Policy.  Congrats and Bon Voyage!

Just Trying To Work asks:

I have a question about a touchy/socially taboo subject: nursing mothers in the workplace.  A woman that I work with who is still on maternity leave, comes into the office at least once a day for an hour or two.  She always brings her newborn baby with her, and at first it was a novelty to see such a little baby, that nobody complained.  She is one of those very pro-nursing women that insist upon physically breast feeding (not pumping and then giving the baby a bottle) at any time or location.  As a woman, myself, I think that nursing should be done in private because I know it makes people uncomfortable (that and I’m not about to whip out a boob in public). In addition, she changes the baby’s dirty diapers on her desk in the middle of the open office.  The smell alone is unbearable.  I should also mention that our office is mostly men and you can see them wince when she does these thing, but nobody has the guts to say anything to her face.  Everyone is complaining about it behind her back and it’s making for an unpleasant work environment.  Also, today was the last straw for me when I was on the phone with a client and I had a crying baby in the background.  What should/can I do?  Management is tucked away in their own little offices and are oblivious to the shenanigans going on.  I don’t want to seem like a complainer, but then everyone is complaining about this.

Thanks for any insights you may have!

Brian Sayz:

…

The debate of to breast feed or not to breast feed, is not as explosive as whether or not is is socially acceptable to nurse in public or private. 

There are laws to protect nursing mothers in the work place, so it is a subject that should be dealt with delicately and on a managerial level. 

In many states, you’ll find the verbiage that goes something like this, “Private place for nursing mothers. An employer shall make reasonable efforts to provide a room or other location, in close proximity to the work area, other than a toilet stall, where an employee described in Section xx can express her milk in privacy.” 

Therefore, you need to have a discussion with either your boss (if you are close and feel comfortable with disclosing such feelings) or Human Resources. 

Of course, there is a “whole babies in the work place” movement (http://www.babiesatwork.org/), so be prepared to hear that in the fine print of your employee manual is a clause allowing such behavior. 

Even if you hear that your co-worker having her baby at work is okay, changing the diaper in the middle of the office is not okay.

I would approach this subject from the angle that, the baby while cute and you understand the benefits of breast feeding, it is a distraction from from your work. 

You have heard others talk about the distraction and feeling uncomfortable as well, and if at a minimum, can you be relocated to a desk in a different part of the office so that you can concentrate.

Companies do not like distracted workers.  Distracted Workers = Low Productivity = Bad for Business!

Good luck!

If you have career or job search question you would like answered on this blog, click here to Ask Brian.

M asks:

I am hoping you can help me or offer some expert advice.
I am a young professional [mid-twenties] but I am very successful in my career. Throughout my college experience I held multiple internships and this helped secure a great job directly out of college. Since then I have been promoted and have moved to a few different companies all working my way up the corporate latter. Needless to say my work ethic is very strong and I take pride in this. At all my previous jobs I have been complimented on this work ethic and have never done anything to jeopardize my position.

So here comes the problem- my current boss. I have worked with many types of people before [man, women, old, young etc] but I have never worked with somebody similar to my current boss. She is extremely disorganized to the point where she loses everything [her desk area is called the “pit”]. She is very unresponsive and does not answer emails from me or anybody else which just delays deadlines. In my current position I can only bring projects so far until she has to sign off on them. Due to her lack of time management skills she misses every single deadline and thus creates HUGE problems for everybody in my department, especially me. I am the only person who directly reports to her and thus her lack of deadlines just results in me trying to cover up her problem or working extremely late almost every night to do so.

I remind her of every deadline weeks, days, hours before it is due via email, phone and in person and she just chooses to ignore this. Every day I print out everything she needs to review and put it in a designated folder on her desk that she never looks at. It is not only frustrating but I am concerned that she is hindering my chances or ever getting promoted within this company. Because I work directly underneath her on the same team, her mistakes often are seen as the “teams” mistake, thus lumping me in with her.

She is the first person to admit that she has a problem and that she misses deadlines and it is a joke to her.

I am truly at a loss of what to do but I know I cannot stay within this company under these circumstances must longer. I am working extremely long hours [which I don’t mind if we are busy] but solely because she cannot mange her time. I am not sure if I should address this issue with her or her higher ups? I am at a loss and hoping you can help!

Brian Sayz:

Do not question your organizational tactics.  I think that you’ve put your best foot forward on this one.  It’s that your boss is hopeless.  By constantly reminding her and setting up an organizational strategy to get the work done that you need to function, you have been proactive in working with her.  Who knows how she got the job, but at this time that’s besides the point.  It would not be unreasonable at this time to consult with your Human Resources person.

Approach HR from the standpoint that this is a concern that you have about yourself and is there anything else you can do to get your superior to be more timely about deadlines.  Express that you have set up a system to aid your boss in accomplishing the work and send her regular reminders of tasks that the team needs finished to be successful.  This is NOT to be a complaining session about your boss, but a discussion on what the team can do to be more successful and you are concerned because the strategies you have implemented seem not to be working.  “So what else do you suggest I do?” 

I have found that most HR departments are loaded with people that are trained to deal with concerns of this nature and are usually warm and receptive to your comments.  After all, it’s their job to ensure quality in the work place and to provide sound advice on such situations, as to what would be an appropriate course of action, without retaliation.  I see going to talk to HR a little like walking into the confessional at church.  You will not be judged in the HR office, but you will be judged by your boss.

But in this particular case, I think I’ve stumbled across something that is such a bad idea, I feel compelled to talk about it.

The site is called CareerExcuse.com (or, probably better named, Careercheat.com… both urls return the same site). What they will do, if you can believe it or not, is sell you fake career references.

How do they do this? For a (seemingly inexpensive) monthly fee they claim they will go to the trouble of setting up a fake company, fake letterhead, fake 800 number… the whole ball of wax. Then when your prospective employer calls to get references, they will of course give you glowing reviews, based on your desired background/expertise level.

Is it legal to do this?I would guess in a strict, grey-area kind of way, it’s probably not illegal. But I guarantee when your employer finds out you lied, they will fire you and they will have cause to do so. And then you’ll have created a definitively bad employer reference for yourself going forward.

The website jumps through hoops to try to convince you that this is on the up and up and a good idea. Believe me, it is not. They have a lengthy but not very legal sounding disclaimer in their terms of service… but you can’t even read to the end of it. The text cuts off before it reaches the end.

And heck, the website looks like it was designed in 1995. If you can’t tell from the weird, shoddy scam-like feeling the website gives you, let me reassure you again: this is a bad idea. Stay away.

It’s not an insignificant issue.

First of all, you want your resume to be legible. And you want your resume to be legible (easily readable) not just for human eyes, but also for computer eyes… in case your resume might be scanned into a database. You want your resume to be legible if faxed, scanned, transmitted, emailed as a photo attachment, etc.

But secondly, and just as important, the font you chose can communicate a lot about your professionalism and intentions. If you’re an accountant, you want to stick with normal, conventional “professional” fonts. But if you’re a graphic designer, you want to and probably need to be a little more adventurous in your font choice.

So what are the fonts I would recommend using for most professions in most cases?

Your choices are basically between traditional serif fonts (Times New Roman) and sans serif fonts (Arial, Helvetica, etc). Here are the fonts I’d feel most comfortable using:

Times New Roman-

I’d say this is the safest bet for most people. It’s the most common professional font for a reason. It’s highly legible and professional looking. The downside: you risk looking just like everyone else.

Century Old Style-

A good font to use for very traditional or “stuffy” jobs.

Veranda-

Arial-

Veranda and Arial are both excellent Helvetica substitutes. Highly legible and familiar to most people.

Tahoma-

Another common and legible choice.

Courier New-

An excellent and very common font, but I find that it looks too much like an old type writer font (which it’s intended to do) and… this is just a personal preference… I feel like that makes a resume look a bit dated.

Here’s a list of fonts I found on a resume template website. This is a good list that I’d stick to pretty much exclusively.

In the end, resume font choice can be a personal decision. Go with what looks best and makes you feel the most confident and professional. But don’t go too far afield. Unusual or showy fonts can make your resume stand out in a bad way.

Sorry I’ve been away so long. Business has been busy. Let’s not get into it.

But I’m ready to get back in the regular posting saddle. Over the past 2 years, I’ve written 500-odd posts sharing various bits of job search and career advice. But, looking back over the archive, it occurs to me that I haven’t written very much on my area of expertise, which is resume writing.

Part of the reason for this, of course, is that I believe that a professional resume service is something everyone should consider, no matter what your writing skill level might be.

But there is plenty of resume help I can give to help guide you in the right direction even if you don’t take my advice and work with a professional.

So, for the next several posts, I’ll dig into my bag of tricks and post a few resume tips that you might find helpful.

Consider this post an index post for the topics I’ll be posting below over the next few weeks:

Resume Help

According to this article the conclusion a lot of people are coming to is an emphatic YES!

Add tattoo removal as another growth industry in this crappy job market.