The 50+ Re-employment Group of Jewish Family Services in Dallas, Texas met on Monday, 18 February 2013. Mitch Jacobs led this session that was attended by 21 people. If you only apply for jobs on the World Wide Web, you have a 3 percent to 6 percent chance of landing. Job seekers should research people by whom you expect to be interviewed on Google and LinkedIn. Other useful websites include: http://www.onetonline.org/ and http://careeronestop.com/. Each job seeker gave their 30-second introduction and the group critiqued each introduction. 

50+ Re-employment Group met on Monday, 11 February 2013 at Jewish Family Services in Dallas, Texas. Allison Harding led this session that was attended by 21 people. Allison is the Director of Career Employment Services at Jewish Family Services - Dallas.

Every person in the workforce or looking for employment should have a LinkedIn profile that is 100 percent complete. Unemployed persons network through their LinkedIn contacts to find people in their target companies.

Resume on Monster, Career Finder, Indeed, and similar websites needs to be generic. This resume needs to be updated weekly to keep it near the top of the list that recruiters see; otherwise, it moves further down the list each week. Recruiters look at resumes near the top of the list only. When a recruiter responds to a resume on one of these websites, continue to use that resume instead of providing a customized resume.

There are two categories of recruiter: executive/independent and corporate/in-house. The executive/independent is NOT interested in a job seeker unless they see potential to place them in a job. The only get paid when they match an applicant to an employer. Corporate/in-house recruiters are typically 21 to 28 years old who are looking at 200 to 1000 resumes each business day.

Do NOT pay for job search tools. There are plenty of FREE tools for job searches.

Jobs from $35,000 to $70,000 are GONE! They are on the road or highway to NOWHERE. These jobs have been replaced by entry level jobs at $25,000 plus bonuses. Get off of the NOWHERE highway, and get out of your box. Go to professional society meetings and volunteer. Every place where you interact with people provides opportunities to meet somebody who will provide information that leads to a job. You never know when or where you will meet the person.

Likewise, stay in contact with former colleagues. People who you have worked with know what you can do and enjoy doing; therefore, they can recognize job opportunities that might be a good fit for you and provide you information that might lead to your next job.

There is an average of 1000 applicants for each job description. Each resume gets seven seconds of the recruiter’s attention. Buzz words need to be near the top of resume. If the recruiter sees something related to the job they are trying to fill, they will read more of that resume.

Use STAR stories in interviews to distinguish yourself from other applicants. STAR is a mnemonic for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. Thus, a STAR story describes a situation, the task or action performed to produce the result.  Hiring managers are more likely to remember the candidate who told a STAR story than candidates who do not tell STAR stories. 

50+ Re-employment Group met on Monday, 04 February 2013 at Jewish Family Services in Dallas, Texas. Tennessee Nielson led this session that was attended by 22 people.

Recession: Worst on Baby Boomers
Solution: Network like you are young – Network with people 10, 15, or 20 years younger

• Management and admin positions are gone. People do NOT want IT staff on their payroll. IT has moved to the cloud. 
• Although you are working direct – think like an independent contractor. 
• Customize resume for each job description – even customize resume for each person it goes to. 
• It is better to be recognized as a consultant rather than a contractor. 
• The current preference is to call companies global rather than international. 
• Use C-level rather than executive level. 
  

The 50+ Re-employment Group met at Jewish Family Services on Monday, 28 January 2013 and 21 people were present. There was an article in the Dallas Morning News on Sunday 27 January 2013 about jobs that pay between $38,000 and $68,000 going away. Robots are doing many jobs and other jobs are being outsourced.

We need words that make a powerful statement about ourselves to use in 30-second introduction. These need to be descriptive and specific; avoid generic words that describe a large group of people. Have words for conversation that identify what makes us unique. Find ways to be different for all the other applicants applying for the job that you are targeting.

This 50+ Re-employment Group (formerly called 50+ Networking Group) meets on most Monday afternoons at Jewish Family Services of Greater Dallas, 5402 Arapaho Road - Dallas, Texas 75248. Official information for this group and other networking groups hosted by Jewish Family Services of Greater Dallas is available at http://www.jfsdallas.org/ and http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/JFS-CareerNet/.  

Jewish Family Services – 50+ Networking Group met on Monday, 30 April 2012. Allison Harding led this meeting. At age 5, we dream that we can do anything; at age 15 mysteries go away and we begin to focus on possible occupations usually following suggestions of a mentor, and at age 25 we are in a profession that we selected. Too often our job search plan is fixed on what we have always done – positions that do not exist in the current economy. Therefore, Plan B is required to help us land our next employment. Consider other things we would like to do; these need to be unrelated to our former career.

This 50+ Networking Group meets on most Monday afternoons at Jewish Family Services of Greater Dallas, 5402 Arapaho Road - Dallas, Texas 75248. Official information for this group and other networking groups hosted by Jewish Family Services of Greater Dallas is available at http://www.jfsdallas.org/.