January 30, 2007

Top 50 in-demand occupations
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:42 PM

You want a new job? Or you just want a job, period? Well, this isn't a bad place to start your research.

It's the US Department of Labor listing of the Top 50 Most In-demand Occupations in the country. This is based on 10-year growth projections by the government's labor economists, so plenty of opportunity down the road in all of these.

Topping the list?

1. Registered Nurses - there's a big nursing shortage, in case you haven't heard
2. Physicians and Surgeons - more healthcare needs as the population ages
3. Sales reps - of all kinds

And there are 47 more after these.

The DOL Career Voyages site has more than just a list. It carries occupational descriptions, state by state outlooks, video profiles (for most) to give you a glimpse of the the work environment and demands, projected percentage growth and raw number of jobs to be added, educational requirements, and more.

So what are you waiting for? Find your new job - and maybe career - right here, right now. Gentlemen (and women), start your engines.

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January 29, 2007

Try this job: NFL films composer
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:21 AM

Here's an audio version of our popular "Try this job" photo gallery series.

With Super Bowl Sunday coming up in less than a week, all eyes - and ears - are on football. So what better time to take an inside look and listen to the professional life of the composer and music director of NFL films, Tom Heddon:

Weekend Edition Saturday, January 27, 2007 · For nearly 50 years, NFL Films has shot pro football games, making highlights films and blooper reels and documenting gridiron moments great and small. Each movie has a soundtrack to set the mood.

Tom Heddon, one of two composers for NFL Films, tells Scott Simon about his craft.

Note that the running time for this segment from NPR's more leisurely-paced "Weekend Edition" is nearly 9 minutes, but the stirring John Williams-like martial music and Heddon's insights make it well worth the listen. And it will P-U-M-P Y-O-U U-P for the game.

Want to check out the "Try this job" photo galleries? Take your pick:
Try this job: professional athlete
Try this job: craft beer brewer
Try this job: radio dj
Try this job: museum curator
Try this job: charter fishing captain
Try this job: horse trainer
Try this job: events coordinator

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You're in the Army now
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:06 AM

OK, quick: what's the average age of a new Army recruit: 18 years old? 19? 20?

Well, here's the story of a buck private who's double the typical age, part of the Army's effort to expand its ranks over the next several years:

Morning Edition, January 29, 2007 · Military drills are usually not associated with people over 40. But the Pentagon wants to expand U.S. forces by 92,000 troops over the next five years. To meet that goal, recruiters are drawing on a bigger pool of applicants.
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At Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Ground, one new private recently sought to pass muster — at age 42.
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Tucked beneath the rows of black berets and army uniforms is PFC Russell Dilling. He's from Texas, twice divorced with four grown children. Bored with his job as a factory inspector, last year he got a chance to join the Army.

Talk about a mid-life career change.

To read the piece, see pictures of Private Dilling with his fellow recruits, or hear the piece as reported on NPR's "Morning Edition," start here.

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Tips for teleconferencing
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:14 AM

In my new role, I often have to sit in on excruciating conference calls. From WebWorkerDaily, here are 27 tips for successful teleconferencing.

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January 28, 2007

To flex or not to flex
Posted by Diane Danielson at 10:29 PM

This week's BostonWorks section of the Globe looks at flextime that didn't break the bank or end anyone's career.

For a long time, having a flexible work schedule hasn't been much of a career booster. You did it to grapple with life needs, and then contended with the raised eyebrows, wage penalties, and other downsides as best you could. Full time, full tilt was the norm.

But little by little, that bleak picture is changing. Flexibility is becoming more workable, and can even be part of a model of long-term career success. That's the clear take-home message from a Simmons College study of 400 professional women released this month that you can read at simmons.edu/som/docs/centers/insights_25.pdf .

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January 25, 2007

Boston rates highest in dream jobs
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:30 AM

Question: what do firefighters, police, teachers, and real estate agents have in common with people who work in Boston?

Answer: they are most likely to be working in their dream job, according to a report today from NPR's "Morning Edition":

Morning Edition, January 25, 2007 · A survey of 6,000 fulltime workers, taken by the online job site CareerBuilder.com and The Walt Disney Company, finds that four out of five people say they are not in their dream job. On the positive side, police and firefighters are most likely to say they've got the ideal job, followed by teachers and real estate professionals.

To hear the piece, go to this page on NPR and click on the "Listen" button. Segment running time is less than a minute.

To find your dream job in Boston, start here.

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January 22, 2007

Ready for anything
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:39 PM

A career as a tradesman - carpenter, plumber, electrician - or as a white collar professional - business executive, lawyer, doctor. These are generally considered to be two quite different paths. Choose one or the other, and your educational course will determine which way you go - and ultimately, what you will be.

Now, however, as yesterday's Boston Globe reports, this is not exactly the case:

More vocational schools across Massachusetts are preparing their students for colleges, some as elite as MIT, shedding a long-held reputation for steering students only toward blue-collar professions.

Read the entire piece - food for thought, moms, dads - and students.

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Best companies to work for - in audio
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:43 PM

Following up on my previous posts on Fortune magazine's 100 Best Companies to Work For, in words and in pictures, here is an audio segment on the same story from Tom Ashbrook and NPR's "On Point" radio program:

Fortune Magazine is out with its annual list of the 100 best American companies to work for. If you don't work for them, read it and weep.
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Guests:
· Lee Clifford, assistant managing editor at Fortune, spearheaded "The 100 Best Companies to Work For"
· Edward Lawler, Director, Center for Effective Organizations and professor of business at University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. He's co-author of "The New American Workplace"
· Sue Shellenbarger, writes the "Work & Family" column for the Wall Street Journal

To listen to the show, visit the "On Point" page on WBUR and select the media player you want to use at the top of the page. Segment running time is 48:21. If you've got the time, it's well worth it.

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January 18, 2007

BostonWorks content now searchable
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 4:10 PM

A couple of weeks ago our parent site, Boston.com, launched a new search tool on the site. It searches all the content on Boston.com, including BostonWorks. It also searches a range of other local websites, if you so choose, in addition to the Globe.

Ths is the first time BostonWorks users, who have been searching for jobs in our database from Day 1, have been able to throw a search term - say, "resumes" or "interviewing" - against the site content to find what they are looking for. A couple of tips as you start playing with this new tool:

>> Access - you can get there either via the Boston.com home page, right at the top, or go directly to the Search page itself.

>> Filters - once you input your terms and get the search results, you will see a number of filters in the column on the left-hand side of the page. To view purely jobs-related results for your search term(s), click either on "Jobs" under "By Subject," on "Job Information" under "By Type," or on "BostonWorks" under "By Globe Section."

>> Globe Content Only - for content only from the Boston Globe, remember to click the "Boston Globe" tab just above the search box.

>> Sort - you can also sort your search results by "Date" - most recent articles first - or "Best Match," which is the default order of the returned results (ie, the way they automatically appear first).

>> Beta - this is the software term for "we haven't really finished building it yet so please let us know what you think." That means we are interested in your feedback - how can we make it better? What works? What doesn't? Let us know your thoughts via the Feedback link on Boston.com.

I hope you find it a worthwhile experience and that it unlocks the archival power of all the great career, employment, and workplace-related content on BostonWorks. That's the idea, anyway. If it doesn't, this is your chance to help us make it so.

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January 17, 2007

Best Boston companies to work for - in pictures
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:21 PM

Following on my earlier post about the Fortune magazine list of 100 Best Companies to Work for, here's a handy Boston.com photo gallery of the Boston companies - some of which are local offices of firms headquartered elsewhere - on the list:

Fortune’s top-ranked workplaces for 2007 didn’t leave the greater Boston area overlooked. For reasons ranging from flex time to company-paid international travel, thirteen local employers made this year's list.

To flip through the gallery, start here.

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January 13, 2007

BlackBerry's in the Bedroom
Posted by Diane Danielson at 11:11 PM

Forbes takes a look at how BlackBerry's may be ruining our sex lives.

Married couples are not the only ones being affected by the home invasion of wireless technology. Ask any upwardly mobile single and they’ll tell you that they’re often too busy getting ahead in the boardroom to get busy in the bedroom. “Unfortunately, technology is the modern-day equivalent to the spinster chaperone,” says Lisa Daily, author of Stop Getting Dumped! All You Need to Know to Make Men Fall Madly in Love with You and Marry “The One” in 3 Years Or Less.

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January 12, 2007

Diversity name of the game in Patrick administration
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:14 PM

It's a diverse team, all right: young, old, male, female, white, people of color - in other words, the 21st century workforce, on display in the top level appointments in the brand new Deval Patrick administration:

Patrick, the first African-American chief executive in Massachusetts history, promised to assemble a diverse team with fresh ideas to change the culture on Beacon Hill. Here is a look at who he has enlisted to help in the two months since his election.

The wizards of Boston.com have kindly formatted the names, faces, and mini-bios into an easy-to-view slide show. Start here.

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January 11, 2007

Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:33 PM

Just what you've been waiting for: a list of the top one hundred best places to work in the United States.

Fortune magazine has just published its annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. The good news is you don't have to be a geek to work at one of them.

While Internet search leader Google tops the list on their first time out and biotech firm Genentech comes in at number 2, numbers 3, 4, and 5 are all in retail: two supermarket chains (Wegmans and Whole Foods) and home/office goods supplier The Container Store.

Plus there are 95 more after that to pick through and learn about.

So take a look at the list, the articles, the maps, the videos, and other supporting material - Fortune gives it A-1 treatment online - then zap that resume off, ace the interviews, and pack your bags for whichever corporate paradise awaits you.

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Defining a new purpose in life - at 89
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:21 PM

Here's an uplifting, hopeful, and funny segment from NPR's Morning Edition, describing how one woman's medical woes at the age of nearly 89 provided her with a "late life mini-career":

Morning Edition, January 11, 2007 · After commentator Steven Wartman's father died, his mother started seeing doctor after doctor. While she did have ailments, they didn't warrant the number of hospital visits she was making. Wartman concluded that she didn't need medical attention. She needed a new purpose in life.

Visit the NPR story page and click on the "Listen" button to hear the segment. (Listening time: just over 3 minutes.)

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January 10, 2007

The (New and Improved!) Big Help
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 4:56 PM

Since last Wednesday, January 3, we've been celebrating The Big Help here at BostonWorks. And this time around, it's been extra special as we've featured two major innovations.

First, the newly redesigned BostonWorks section in the Boston Sunday Globe was published for the first time, on January 7, in a handy pull-out tabloid format. There was no shortage of help wanted ads and the same great Globe coverage in the (fat!) 80-page section.

Second, we ventured into TV-land for the first time with a "Globe at Home" segment on NECN's New England Midday news show. The six-minute segment features Winter Wyman's Dave Sanford, author of the article "New Year’s resolution: Give your career a kick-start in 2007", which we published as a BostonWorks web exclusive as part of The Big Help. Appearing along with Sanford, in a purely supporting role, of course, is yours truly. Check out the compelling but, alas, non-Emmy winning action here.

While you're at it, don't forget to check out the live chat transcripts, fabulous photo galleries, and more, all available via The Big Help hub page.

The downside? Now you have absolutely no excuse if you don't get off your #$*@! and get your career in gear in 2007.

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January 9, 2007

From the Global Village Department
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:49 AM

It's always amazing to me how far and wide the Job Blog's readership extends. I was contacted recently by a reader in Australia, a resume writer and career coach who had picked up on my video resumes post, who thought our readers might have fun taking a look at a slide show quiz on her website that asks readers to guess the occupations of certain representative animals. The show is set to a catchy reggae beat.

Check it out here - worth a look and may put a smile on your face.

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January 3, 2007

Gender gap stalled at top, closing at the bottom
Posted by Diane Danielson at 9:11 AM

I missed this one during the holiday, but the NYTimes wrote about the gender gap stalling for college-educated women.  Overall there is good news that the gap has closed from the 77 cents we were used to hearing to 80 cents. 

Largely without notice, however, one big group of women has stopped making progress: those with a four-year college degree. The gap between their pay and the pay of male college graduates has actually widened slightly since the mid-’90s.

Note that the article has been criticized as the author (a male - David Leonhardt) was accused of burying the good stuff at the end and focusing on the college-educated women gap; as well as writing in a manner that suggested there might still be discrimination against women.  Egad!  Imagine that.  I guess everyone has their own interpretation, because I thought he was quite fair in suggesting that women did often make choices that require them to limit their income.

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