Wednesday, March 26, 2008

How much does the jobless rate affect your job search?

The Cincinnati Business Courier recently reported that the Ohio jobless (Why they don't just say unemployment?) rate fell in February. When I first started this blog back in 2002, I often wondered about the unemployment rate.

It's really a bit of an inaccurate number, when you consider that it's the number of people filing for unemployment each week. It doesn't count those who are still unemployed yet have either stopped meeting the reporting requirements or have had their unemployment benefits expire.

The rate describes a macroeconomic condition; i.e., a condition of unemployment as a whole. More importantly, I also found, at least for me, that I began using the unemployment rate as an excuse for not keeping up with my job search as intensely as I could have been.

So the jobless rate is falling or rising... whatever.


The statewide/national jobless rate shouldn't affect your own job search and career management. Stay focused on your own job search. Companies still have positions to be filled. Your industry (also known as "vertical" by some) may have high demand for labor. Don't use the rate as an excuse.

Am I off base here? Does any of this make sense? What do you think?

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Check out my other blogs:
Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
QuotesBlog
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Monday, March 10, 2008

Using Top Business Lists for market research and lead generation?


When I was looking for my first job out of college, and in many of my subsequent job searches, I've often looked at the top business lists for the area where I was looking.

The print editions of the Cincinnati Business Courier and Dayton Business Journal, for example, contain top 25 lists of various companies and individuals in various categories. It looks like these lists can be ordered online, too: here's the link for Cincinnati Business Lists. From this link you can search other markets and categories, too.

As a job seeker, I've personally preferred to spend some time at my public library, searching their archived lists, instead of spending money on these lists.

Have you found these lists to be helpful?

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Check out my other blogs:
Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr
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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Any success in getting jobs through Craigslist?


Have any of you reading this blog had any experience using Craigslist to get a job? I know that the posts show an email address with which you can reply, but it's a Craigslist email address. Usually company names are omitted in these postings.

I did see that you can subscribe to an RSS feed of search results in Google Reader or some other feed reader, which is pretty cool.

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I encourage you to check out my other blogs:
Daniel Johnson, Jr.
Journey Inside My Mind Blog
Journey Inside My Mind Podcast
QuotesBlog
Twitter.com/danieljohnsonjr

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