Education & Careers » retail

Looking for Work? Look All Around You

Karen, online education — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:06:02 +0000

No matter what your situation is – looking for a job, hoping for a better career, going back to school to boost your income – there is information available to make it happen. You just need to be what I’ll call a Job Detective.

It takes some savvy, some smarts and some plain-old dumb luck to be a good detective. (You remember Scooby Doo, don’t you?) In just one day, I stumbled upon a multitude of job-related resources, and I’m hoping to parlay some of it into higher wages for me – and, hopefully through example, for you as well Dear Reader.

The day started with my local news station. There was a broadcast about the nation’s jobless rate. It talked about how the unemployment rates is steadily declining, but that it has to drop just a little bit more to get consumer confidence and the stock market to respond. Okay.

Then I picked up my neighborhood newspaper. Local newspapers have job ads, but more and more reporters are delving into stories about regional job growth. Nationally, papers and magazines are picking up more on what industries are all about job creation…and those are clues that the economy is in a turnaround. This day, The Detroit Free Press (my big local paper) announced a huge series of articles about how to find a job. The first article talked about what areas are growing – and for my region, the big growth areas are automotive, batteries and healthcare. Good to know.

In the afternoon, I ran into the area Tae Kwon Do academy, which was having an open house. The owner expanded to nearly double the size, and I wanted a look at the place. I’m hoping my 5-year-old son could take classes there. While on the scene, I started chatting up another parent, who told me his Web site was looking terrible and wondering if he should upgrade it.

Next, I was surfing the television for something – anything! – to watch. I was frustrated with my children for refusing for the 413,245 time to go to bed…so I needed some veg time to get back on track. I stumbled upon a television show on the ABC News channel. The host of “The Job Club” focused on how to build your small business and took viewer questions. Those questions ranged from how to publish a book (read: royalties!), how to find a seamstress to produce a pajama line (read: manufacturing bucks!). I was fascinated…and starting to see a pattern emerge.

Every place I looked or visited or watched had a job lead in it. The radio story tells me that retail is going to be hiring soon – consumer confiding rising means more people will be shopping. So I could apply for something at my local Target or similar store. The newspaper ad reminds me that automotive hiring is picking up, so maybe my family’s background in the auto industry could lead me to a company that needs some help; I could look on LinkedIn to find a connection. The new Academy? Well, with all that new space, it might need more staff or even a cleaning woman! (Look, if I’m looking for work, I’m not above doing what it takes to make ends meet.) Finally, that ABC News broadcast has me thinking – again – about writing my Great American Novel.

What is happening around you today? Do you see signs of improvement that you could capitalize on? Do you see people who need help making their business grow? Are you hearing advice that could change the course of your life? It just takes some open eyes to see the potential around you. Let me know what you find!

Returning the Memories of a Bad Movie

adam — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:28:23 +0000

When you are running a business, you want to be friendly and accommodating to your customers. However, sometimes that is in conflict with your return policy. Some business are friendly and helpful while their customers are shopping and during the actual purchase, but what happens when the customer wants to return the product simply because it wasn’t right for him or her? It costs the company money to return the product, and it decreases the net sales numbers. Some stores have intricate policies, and others have no policy at all and virtually take everything back. One company, Costco, has an extremely flexible return policy and many customers love it, but that has to cost them millions of dollars a year. It is hard to say what is right and what is wrong when it comes to return policies.

You know I really wish I could do this with movies that were terrible. I wish I could simply walk back up to the ticket office and return all the memories I have of attending that movie. The last movie I felt this way about was “Knowing” with Nicholas Cage. Look, I like Nicholas Cage, but that movie just wasn’t good at all. I would be completely fine to return any memory I have of that movie. Maybe one day they will have a return policy for bad movies.

Recession-Prone Careers Headed for Disaster

Marcus Varner — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:53:40 +0000

There comes a point in the movie Titanic when it finally dawns on the fated ship’s passengers that they’re going down. Of course, by that time, it’s too late for most of them. They scream, fight, fall from incredible heights (like that propeller guy… ouch!), and overturn lifeboats, only to suffer the same watery death in the North Atlantic. Like the Titanic of old, our economy is heading for an iceberg, if we have not already hit it and are taking on water.

Not all job sectors will sink to an icy doom. As has been reported and regurgitated across the internet, some job sectors are supposedly “recession-proof,” like health care and information technology. That’s great- the flood of people switching to careers in health care will probably neutralize any benefits that might have been had. Perhaps of more concern, however, should be those careers that are most likely to get hit hard by the recession. You know, give those folks time to get to the lifeboats.

This list is based on two simple economic assumptions. First, tighter regulation and control, particularly in lending institutions, will severely limit the number of loans made. Second, when jobs start disappearing, people stop spending on things they don’t really need. Even if they hold onto their job, they’re still spooked enough to hit the brakes on those shopping sprees. Based on these assumptions, the following job sectors are most likely to get hit hard by the recession. Consider yourself forewarned:

1. Mortgage Lending – I know, I know. No big light bulb on this one. These people have been getting sent to the slaughter in droves for months. With mortgage standards tightening up, the number of loans approved will drop, taking loan officer commissions with them. Needless to say, it is no longer the kind of business where you just have to get your license and some cute business cards and watch the money roll in.

2. Real Estate Sales – Your local realtor would tell you that now is a great time to buy a home. “It’s a buyer’s market,” they would say, and they would be right. But that’s good news only for first-time homebuyers. If you think about it, most people need to sell their existing home before they can get into another one. If it’s a buyer’s market, that means more houses are being sold than there are people to buy them. And that means most people won’t be able to get into their new home because they won’t be able to sell their existing home. Also, during a recession, consumers get very nervous about throwing their money around. That means they may forego buying that house until things get better. Add in tougher loan guidelines, and you’re looking at a rough ride for real estate agents.

3. Retail – Specifically, retail of luxury goods, things people don’t necessarily need. People will always need basic food and clothing. But when inflation goes up and people’s financial futures are in doubt, you can bet that the first things to get cut from the old budget will be plasma TVs, Coach handbags, luxury cars, and other nice-to-haves. This translates into instability for those who work in retail (unless they are selling necessary goods).

4. Leisure – Tourism and other leisure industries are likely to take a hit. When extra spending money dries up, so do family cruises, visits to the spa, and Disneyworld vacations. People will forego the body peel, the upper lip waxing, or jet skiing in Tahiti in favor of saving for a rainy day, which could come sooner than later. Ironically, many people may find themselves less stressed knowing they’ve got their backs covered than they would have after that Swedish deep-tissue massage.

5. Entertainment – Unfortunately, concert tickets, movie tickets, and music CDs are considered luxury items. And Hollywood has never been shy about downsizing its workforce in lean times. Rest assured it won’t be Tom Hanks or Angelina Jolie taking a pay cut. Movie extras, production assistants, and stagehands, beware! Your chances of really making it in the biz never were very good. So now is a great time to jump ship and find stable ground.

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