Young adults job fair tips

Through the course of the year, many employers and community partners provide direct "brutally honest" feedback about young adult job hunters. This form of tough love provides the young people with mission-critical feedback in a loving way. Today, we've completed a mock hiring event to help young people become more confident while at job fairs. The employers and community partners saw trends of issues and provided the following suggestions to increase their job search effectiveness.

• Don't carry many items with you into a job fair. If there's a coat check available, use it.
• Develop more confidence. Many young people spoke with their heads down and in low speaking voices. Most did not maintain eye contact during the conversation. It almost seemed as if a parent "pushed" them to speak with an unknown person.
• Quickly build rapport with the employer. The young adults' aim is to become personable, but remain professional through the 20-30 second conversation with the employer. People remember personalities as well as some qualifications.
• Prioritize companies that the young adult is interested in. They should warm up with companies they were least interested in. Once they've warmed up, go for the promising prospects.
• Young adults should do their homework before attending a job fair. Job seekers should know about the companies business before engaging them.
• hygiene...Hygiene...Could I say again HYGIENE!?! If a young adult smokes, use tooth paste, mouth wash and gum to clear the mouth of residual smoke smell.

Today's activities from concerned and invested professionals proved to increase the young peoples' confidence, as well as specific ways to increase their effectiveness. At the very least, many will succeed with that information. I wonder what would happen if more professionals will provide their "brutally honest" feedback in a loving way.



 

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Emmit Till and Derrion Albert: Strong images require strong action

After Emmit Till died, his mother made a conscious decision to have an open casket funeral. The graphic display of violence helped set off the civil rights movement. I hope that Derrion Albert's tragic death brings the same type of vigor and life to the community peace. Derrion's video showed dozens of young people in the midst of a brawl. Most had the same type of uniform, indicating they were from the same school. Most people scattered back and forth with 2 by 4's and threw fists. During the scatter, I saw a few people that tried to get through the crowd towards predetermined destinations. It seems that Derrion and his friend unsuccessfully attempted to go through the crowd. Unfortunately, they were caught in the physical crossfire.

To combat this issue, I believe the community should do the following:

• Professional and fraternal groups should adopt community service organzations that serve the young adult population. They can provide consisent, project-based, educational, economic as well as mentoring activities to them. I believe it would work particularly well if the professionals are of the same ethnic background of the focused community.
• Parents should simply know where their kids are ALL THE TIME.  Enough said on this item.
• I remember I bought a $500 car to avoid most of the neighborhood warfare. Being on the bus seemed to be the most dangerous place when rival groups engage. Innocent bystanders, like Derrion could have easily be mistaken for the opposite group.

As indicated earlier, I hope Derrion's video has the same impact as Emmit's open cast funeral. I pray it sparks a tsunami of community action in the most challenging neighborhoods. I believe that older professionals, particularly from the same neighborhood have the best chance of diverting these situations into productive ones. We need to actively and methodically address the issues before we lose another generation.


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Kids' job follow up tips

This afternoon, I picked up some items from Target. On the outside door, they had a HUGE red, poster-sized sign that said "Now Hiring". Some of my young people last year indicated that they've unsuccessfully applied for jobs at Target. I was curious, so I applied for a sales associate position. The questionnaire part of the application was about 90 minutes long. I completed it, but patience was required. Knowing some of my young adults, I doubt if they completed it. I interviewed the cashier after I grabbed my items. The young girl told me that she completed the online application AND visited Target about 6 times within 6 weeks in order to gain their attention.

I know the online and kiosk applications are effective ways to screen out applicants. Most retails use the practice now. It seems that old-school follow up (commonly called "the hustle") separates the workers and others.

Here are some ways to keep motivated during your job search that I've thought about on the fly:

1. Keep a journal of when you've applied to different places.

2. Follow up via phone with the manager 2 business days after you've turned in an application. Print your online application, attach it to a resume and submit it to the store manager within 5 business days.

3. List a script or talking points to stay focused during follow up calls.

4. Review and spell-check your tools often (resume, cover letter and follow up letters).

5. Continually follow up with your networks...inside tracks are better than the front door.

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Rebrand to stay employable

These are the times where one has to be confident about their strengths as well as known areas to develop. If one is confident about their ability to be a great worker, even at a young age they can progress in the work world. The economic landscape, as well as the labor market is changing almost on a daily basis. Rebranding yourself could make the difference in your employment. For instance, an investigator use many of the same skills as an insurance claims adjust, as well as a computer programmer. Those are different fields, but with some prep work, they share many transferable skills.
 
I understand that some people, particularly young adults have no idea about their professional strengths. I personally recommend www.beehive.org as a place to secure relatively quick employment guidance. It will put you through a 15 minute questionnaire. Once done, it will provide you with career options that require minimal preparation to substantial prepatory work. It's not a magic wand, but it will get your thoughts going. They will also link you to several sources to get more specific information about those indicated careers.

I hear the economy is coming around. Unfortunately, that's not the time to slow down your self-improvment. It's actually time to increase your diligence to do better.

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The job hustle goes mental

Short term strategies and long term strategies are continuously morphing. As I prepare people for careers, I suggest that they secure first jobs in places where they are generally interested in. That way, they will set themselves up to do better than most. If employees show a genuine concern about the work product, managers notice them. In turn, if managers develop clear career paths for entry level staff, they can develop good win/win situations. For example, Chipotle, is now promoting many of their internal staff to become managers, which saves them tons of money.

Long term career strategies changed somewhat as well. A Chicagoland cabbie indicated a very prolific, but true statement about the workplace. People have to either specialize in a difficult subject or drive people towards a product made by those type of people. In essence, young adults should focus on engineering, computer science or health care to secure a career within the next few years. Law, marketing and human resources are the last majors people should pursue now.

I know globally, math and sciences are challenges for people (me included). Through this time, we HAVE to augment our skill set to include those subjects. Youtube has multiple tutorials about the subjects. Community colleges have remedial as well as supplemental classes to prepare students for those fields.

Like the president said at this morning's school meeting, "You can't drop out of school and drop into a good job."



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An hour a paycheck---Lifetime of Knowledge

We are in a time where everyone needs to increase their skills. Young people, particularly those that didn't pursue college have a prime opportunity to learn a li'l bit of everything. Technology like YouTube and Answers.com are great places where thousands of tutorials for many subjects exist. In fact, I'm interested in learning more about Photoshop, Algebra (rematch from high school) and possibly new careers. Life is going by at such a quick pace that many people are going to be left behind. Years ago, the term "digital divide" indicated there were measurable distances between socioeconomic classes in regards to technology. Currently, it seems that the "measurable distances" has turned to be computer chasms. Many of the young adults I assist do not know how to attach a resume to an email. Also, many have no idea how to "cc" anyone on an email. Fortunately, most of our young people that seek jobs are THIRSTY for information. So it seems that many of my young people can get back on track if they have more exposure to the professional norms.

Volunteerism is the key. I believe that an hour a payperiod (two weeks) could benefit people to pursue information needed to pursue interested careers.

How can we make professionals volunteer more with organziations that help young people succeed?



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Motorola: Corporate and community partnerships

I spent all day with two young men that has potential to do well for their lives. They were both 19 years old, low income and African-American. During our hour-and-a-half transit time, I asked them an onslaught of questions about careers and their individual desire to succeed. Both indicated that their families instilled high expectations in them earlier in life. Others in the same neighborhood didn't have the same type of upbringing. One young man said, "Some guys get caught up in the hip hop culture. They think they don't need a job because they can easily get money hustling drugs. I decided in my junior year in high school that I didn't want to be shot on a corner".

They reminded me of me when I was their age.

We went to the Motorola campus in Schaumburg, Illinois. The young men took a great tour of their old products, their new products as well as met the Sr. V.P. of Marketing, several Project Managers and other Engineers. The most valuable part of the trip was at the very end. During lunch, the two young men spent a great length of time with two African-American men that were engineers. They both were in their late twenties-early thirties. They spoke about career goals and the importance of Math. Additionally, the engineers actually connected to the young men. Their body language indicated that they built a quick rapport with each other. It was funny how the engineer began their conversation about X-Box, Playstation 3 to build the technology related conversation. It worked.

Young, experienced professionals with interested young adults...a good mix.

I've also come to realize that math and problem solving are the two things that stop many people from being involved in the engineering field. A current intern said it well, "You can't build anything from a bad math foundation". Unfortunately, many young people in low income areas don't have the best math foundation. I believe these type of partnerships could result in some practical and realistic answers to this problem.

Motorola...Thank you for your education, innovation and conversation.


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