Employment Blog

Why Do Interviewers Ask About My Weaknesses?

No interviewer expects “brutally honest answers like,’I’m below-average intelligence and difficult to work with,’” says a hiring expert quoted by the Washington Post.

So why do they ask? “The intent of this question is to throw you off course,” says EmploymentDigest.net. Many positions require workers to think on our feet, and interviewers want to know if we can do that.

There’s another, less confrontational reason, according to the Washington Post.

“…interviewers say that even skewed answers can help reveal whether applicants possess key qualities such as self-awareness, humility, sincerity, zest, and skill in managing shortcomings and mistakes.”

Of course, not every hiring manager wants to talk about candidates’ weaknesses. In November 2008, paylocity’s Tim Stall wrote in Net Developer’s Journal that,

“If the interview cannot determine your weaknesses from normal interview questions, are they really weaknesses? It is part of the recruiter’s job to determine your weaknesses, and by directly asking you, they’re essentially asking you to do their job for them.”

But since there’s no way of knowing beforehand whether our interviewer likes or loathes the question, it’s on job-seekers to be ready with an answer.

Tough Interview Question Results in Conflicting Advice

Writing from Dublin, Ireland in 2006, Fortify Services founder Rowan Manahan sums up how it can feel to be confronted with one of the toughest interview questions: “What is your greatest weakness?”:

“…it’s no wonder people dread job interviews. There you are in your best interview suit, with your shiniest shoes on, doing your best to sound credible, professional and enthusiastic and all the interviewer wants to do is lift up stones and see what crawls out.”

It’s hard enough that the “What is your (greatest) weakness?” question definitely puts you on the spot. Worse is that at least two prominent sources have offered somewhat conflicting advice on how to answer an interviewer who has lifted up that stone to see “what crawls out.”

Vault.com, for example, says in an undated article on the topic that, “Some HR managers suggested the old approach of naming a fault that’s not a fault.”:

“‘I am impatient, and I like to get things done and done quickly and get frustrated when politics and red tape slow down projects,’” was how a recruiting and staffing manager for a Florida-based trucking company answered.”

However, this February 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal wastes no time dispelling that advice:

“Worldwide Panel LLC, a small market-research firm, is getting flooded with résumés for four vacancies in sales and information technology.

However, officials expect to reject numerous applicants after asking them: ‘What is your greatest weakness?’ Candidates often respond ‘with something that is not a weakness,’ say[s] Christopher Morrow, senior vice president of the Calabasas, Calif., concern. ‘It is a deal breaker.’”

Three Tips for Answering, “What Is Your (Greatest) Weakness?”

What’s a job-seeker to do? The following three tips will help you not only answer this tough question, but also to take stock of the things you might want to work on in your next job:

1. Be Prepared Part 1: Take a good look at yourself. This is where the old axiom, “Know Thyself” comes in.
   

   “Look at those things you prevaricate on. Items you consistently shy away from doing,” says Manahan. “Those parts of your job that you just don’t enjoy, feel inadequate performing, or know in your heart of hearts that others do better. What about something that you would love to get training in to make that sense of inadequacy go away? Build a list of these Achilles’ heels.Think about things that used to be a problem for you in the past, but that you have gained a measure of confidence in now. Look at how you gained that confidence or redressed the problem. These insights will form the nucleus of your answer.”

2. Be Prepared Part 2: Research the company “Learn as much as you can about the employer you are interviewing with,” says EmploymentDigest. Tools like LinkedIn may well be able to connect you with information about the person with whom you’ll be interviewing, and you can use other online tools to pick up important tips about the company’s culture. At the very least, “If you know who you’re dealing with, you will be less likely to become uneasy during the interview process.” At best, this information can give you clues as to the best ways to frame your answer.
3. “How I overcame/addressed/am addressing this weakness”: tell your story. The Blawg has already covered the effectiveness of answering, “Tell me about yourself” with a story. A story answer that truthfully addresses not only one of your weaknesses — but how you’ve been addressing or have overcome it — is a perfect fit for this question as well. For example, if you had difficulty with a particular task in your last job but sought out training and/or worked at that task until you improved your performance, your interviewer will be impressed with your initiative — and it’s a decided bonus if that particular skill or knowledge is necessary for the job you’re interviewing for. One executive interviewed by the Washington Post said that she, “has impressed hiring managers by revealing that her inclination to quickly complete projects can cause errors, so she double-checks and proofreads all her work.”

Photo courtesy slushpup via flickr.

Why Do Interviewers Ask About My Weaknesses?

No interviewer expects “brutally honest answers like,’I’m below-average intelligence and difficult to work with,’” says a hiring expert quoted by the Washington Post.

So why do they ask? “The intent of this question is to throw you off course,” says EmploymentDigest.net. Many positions require workers to think on their feet, and interviewers want to know if they can do that.

There’s another, less confrontational reason, according to the Washington Post.

“…interviewers say that even skewed answers can help reveal whether applicants possess key qualities such as self-awareness, humility, sincerity, zest, and skill in managing shortcomings and mistakes.”

Of course, not every hiring manager wants to talk about candidates’ weaknesses. In November 2008, paylocity’s Tim Stall wrote in Net Developer’s Journal that,

“If the interview cannot determine your weaknesses from normal interview questions, are they really weaknesses? It is part of the recruiter’s job to determine your weaknesses, and by directly asking you, they’re essentially asking you to do their job for them.”

But since there’s no way of knowing beforehand whether our interviewer likes or loathes the question, job seekers must be ready with an answer.

Tough Interview Question Results in Conflicting Advice

Writing from Dublin, Ireland in 2006, Fortify Services founder Rowan Manahan sums up how it can feel to be confronted with one of the toughest interview questions: “What is your greatest weakness?”:

[I]t’s no wonder people dread job interviews. There you are in your best interview suit, with your shiniest shoes on, doing your best to sound credible, professional and enthusiastic and all the interviewer wants to do is lift up stones and see what crawls out.”

It’s hard enough that the “What is your (greatest) weakness?” question definitely puts you on the spot. Worse is that at least two prominent sources have offered somewhat conflicting advice on how to answer an interviewer who has lifted up that stone to see “what crawls out.”

Vault.com, for example, says in an undated article on the topic that, “Some HR managers suggested the old approach of naming a fault that’s not a fault”:

“I am impatient, and I like to get things done and done quickly and get frustrated when politics and red tape slow down projects,” was how a recruiting and staffing manager for a Florida-based trucking company answered.

(Or there’s always the classic line: “I’m a workaholic and perfectionist.”)

However, this February 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal wastes no time dispelling that advice:

Worldwide Panel LLC, a small market-research firm, is getting flooded with resumes for four vacancies in sales and information technology.

However, officials expect to reject numerous applicants after asking them: “What is your greatest weakness?” Candidates often respond “with something that is not a weakness,” say[s] Christopher Morrow, senior vice president of the Calabasas, Calif., concern. “It is a deal breaker.”

Three Tips for Answering, “What Is Your (Greatest) Weakness?”

What’s a job-seeker to do? The following three tips will help you not only answer this tough job interview question, but also to take stock of the things you might want to work on in your next job.

1. Be Prepared Part 1: Take a good look at yourself. This is where the old axiom, “Know Thyself” comes in.
   

   “Look at those things you prevaricate on. Items you consistently shy away from doing,” says Manahan. “Those parts of your job that you just don’t enjoy, feel inadequate performing, or know in your heart of hearts that others do better. What about something that you would love to get training in to make that sense of inadequacy go away? Build a list of these Achilles’ heels.Think about things that used to be a problem for you in the past, but that you have gained a measure of confidence in now. Look at how you gained that confidence or redressed the problem. These insights will form the nucleus of your answer.”

2. Be Prepared Part 2: Research the company “Learn as much as you can about the employer you are interviewing with,” says EmploymentDigest. Tools like LinkedIn may well be able to connect you with information about the person with whom you’ll be interviewing, and you can use other online tools to pick up important tips about the company’s culture. At the very least, “If you know who you’re dealing with, you will be less likely to become uneasy during the interview process.” At best, this information can give you clues as to the best ways to frame your answer.
3. “How I overcame/addressed/am addressing this weakness”: tell your story. The Blawg has already covered the effectiveness of answering, “Tell me about yourself” with a story. A story answer that truthfully addresses not only one of your weaknesses — but how you’ve been addressing or have overcome it — is a perfect fit for this question as well. For example, if you had difficulty with a particular task in your last job but sought out training and/or worked at that task until you improved your performance, your interviewer will be impressed with your initiative — and it’s a decided bonus if that particular skill or knowledge is necessary for the job you’re interviewing for. One executive interviewed by the Washington Post said that she, “has impressed hiring managers by revealing that her inclination to quickly complete projects can cause errors, so she double-checks and proofreads all her work.”

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So Many Resumes, So Little Time

In the late 1990’s, I helped my boss screen candidates for a new position. It was my job to review the resumes and separate them into two piles: “Interview” and “Send Immediate, Polite Rejection Letter.”

With only a few ads in the paper, we received roughly sixty resumes, about seven of which I placed in the “Interview” pile.

If I were performing the same task today, it’s likely I would have three hundred or more resumes to review, thanks to the prevalence of online job boards and the high volume of job seekers.

According to a Forbes article about how to find a job online in this crowded market:

At the Internet job board Jobfox.com, recruiters are getting between 300 and 500 applications on average for each position they advertise. That’s up five times in the last six months. It’s a similar scene at TheLadders.com, where the recruiters say they now receive twice as many applications for each open position as this time last year.

How to Get Your Resume to the Top of the Stack

After reading the Forbes article, I decided to see what other advice is available to help job hunters stand out when using online job boards.

Here are the top five tips to help your resume stand out

1. Apply early. Very early.Think about it. When I was reviewing resumes in the late 90’s, there was at least a three-day delay between placing our help-wanted ad and receiving the first responses. After that, responses came in at the rate of perhaps five or six a day for a week or two. After that period, we still received the occasional resume — but by then we’d already decided whom we wanted to hire.

   Today, hiring managers and recruiters can receive dozens or even hundreds of resumes by email or online within minutes of posting an open position. And just as I had other job responsibilities in addition to screening resumes, hiring managers and recruiters have other tasks as well.

   This means that the first thing you need to do to get your resume noticed is to apply early — run your job search terms every morning and apply right away — so your resume will be on top of that decision-maker’s online pile!

2. Customize your resume and cover letter for each job.Many companies now process resumes electronically, scanning all the resumes they’ve received into a database and running key word searches for the particular skills, knowledge, and experience they desire.

   If you want to get past this computer screening and have an actual human being read your resume, you need to make your best effort to include the keywords the employer will be searching for.

   In a Newsweek interview about online job search tips, job search expert Pat Kendall advises: “What I recommend is that a person find two or three of the best postings that match their ideal job. They should then pull the keywords used in those postings and weave them into their own resume.”

   Remember, though, that the important point is to weave the keywords into your resume. A resume full of great keywords awkwardly dropped into poorly written and disorganized content may get pulled up in an employer’s search, but risks being discarded by the first person who reads it.

3. Limit the positions you apply for.This advice may sound counterintuitive in today’s economy. However, a person giving your resume a whole 15 seconds of their time (down from roughly 30 seconds when I was hand opening snail-mailed resumes) cares only about whether your specific skills and experience matches the job for which you’re applying.

   By focusing your efforts on the smaller number of positions for which you are best suited, rather than taking a shotgun approach, you will avoid much wasted time.

   Of course, you may want to change industries or job titles, or perhaps you’ve concluded this is a necessity in the current job market. If so, it’s particularly important to tailor your resume and cover letter to highlight your transferable skills and to use keywords specific to the job and industry you’re pursuing.

4. Formatting countsYou must take the time to insure that the resume you send will look as perfect in the hiring manager’s hands — or on their computer monitor — as in your hands and on your monitor.

   For an in-depth explanation of the do’s and don’ts of formatting your resume for print, online job sites, and email, see this article on The Riley Guide.

5. Follow instructions, and follow up.If the job posting requires that you send your resume in the body of an email and not as an attachment, do so. Likewise, be sure to follow all of the directions in the job posting. Failure to do so may mean your resume won’t even be seen — and even if it is, will most likely be rejected out of hand.

   Also, remember that job boards don’t hire people. People hire people. If the job posting says “No phone calls” (or even if it doesn’t), you can still do a bit of private sleuthing via LinkedIn, the company Web site, and even your friends and family to get direct contact information for either the hiring manager or someone in the company who is close to that person. Online and offline, networking is still the best way to stand out in today’s overcrowded job-seeking crowd.

The Bottom Line: It’s Not the Decision-Maker’s Job to Search You Out. It’s Your Job to Appeal to the Decision-Maker

When I was opening and scanning snail-mailed resumes, I had one objective: get the process over with as quickly as possible while still finding the best person for the job my company was offering. Even with my other responsibilities, though, I did take the time to open each and every resume-containing envelope that came my way. After all, I’d collected them from the mail, so I had at least a mild interest in seeing whether the resume inside qualified for the “Interview” or “Immediate Polite Rejection Letter” pile on my desk.

Today’s recruiters, hiring managers, and their staff have as little vested interest in any particular resume as they do in any of the hundreds of pieces of electronic communication they see every day. With today’s technology and today’s recession, the people who handle resumes are more overwhelmed than ever. If you want to be one of the people who gets called for an interview, it’s your job to make the hiring staff’s job easy.

Following the above tips will save you time and make the lives of recruiters and hiring managers easier — which will help you get the job.

This guest post is by Katharine Hansen, PhD, author of the newly-released book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career

What’s the most effective way to respond to the most frequently asked job-interview question of all, the “tell me about yourself” question?

Consider telling a story.

Behavioral Interview Questions

Many career experts advise candidates to respond to behavioral-interview questions with stories. This very popular type of interview question is based on the premise that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. A typical behavioral question is “Tell me about a time when you [used a certain skill or dealt with a specific problem].”

“Your examples are best told through a story format,” writes Carole Martin in Boost Your Interview IQ “The more interesting and relevant the story is, the more the interviewer will want to hear further examples.”

Non-Behavioral Interview Questions Like “Tell Me About Yourself”

Many experts and job-seekers, though, don’t realize that the same storytelling approach works well for interview questions that are not behavior-based -– questions like “Tell me about yourself.”

A perfectly valid choice, as many experts advise, is to respond to “tell me about yourself” with an answer specifically tailored to the requirements of the targeted job. But another excellent choice is to draw your interviewer in and create a connection with him or her by responding in a story format.

Why Does Storytelling Work in a Job Interview?

Storytelling works because stories:

• Establish your identity and reveal your personality; they satisfy the basic human need to be known.
• Help you know yourself and build confidence.
• Make you memorable.
• Establish trust.
• Establish an emotional connection between storyteller and listener and inspire the listener’s investment in the storyteller’s success.
• Help you stand out.
• Illustrate skills, accomplishments, values, characteristics, qualifications, expertise, strengths, and more with vivid pictures.
• Explain key life/career decisions, choices, and changes.
• Help you portray you as a strong communicator.

As part of my research for the book, Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, I conducted focus groups in which participants evaluated a set of story-based interview responses compared with responses that did not contain stories. Participants commented:

• The story responses presented more information.
• The story responses incorporated the job-seeker’s personal style into handling business.
• Job-seekers who gave the story responses communicated/sold themselves in a very positive light.
• The storytelling respondents were more memorable, since “I would have had more time to get to know them through their answers and the time I spent with them.”
• The story responses were quite the opposite of those without stories in that the storytelling job-seekers expressed themselves in a “colorful” manner, incorporating into the stories terms that employers like to hear during an interview -– such as “reliable,” “trustworthy,” “loyal,” “team player,” and “creative.”
• The storytelling responses allowed the interviewer to see how the job-seekers took on a task and handled it.
• The non-story responses, although concise, did not impress upon the interviewer how the job-seekers could benefit the organization, nor did they provide a sense of the candidate’s personal style and ways of handling day-to-day situations.

The one caution these participants had about the story-based responses was to make them as concise as possible and not too wordy. Participants wanted details –- but not too many.

My focus groups were’t alone in liking responses in the form of stories. Career authors Shelly Goldman and Wendy Enelow suggest that “Tell me about yourself” is a great interview question because it “gives the candidate total control of the interview process” and is “a wonderful vehicle to build rapport.”

Sample “Tell Me about Yourself” Answers

These sample “Tell me about yourself” responses show how incorporating story elements can build rapport:

A story that moves effortlessly from a confession of personal challenges to a declaration of personal characteristics that helped in overcoming them and are characteristics any employer loves to see:

I was born and raised in India by a very loving and caring family. I moved to the United States five years ago and started high school a month later. Everything was new to me; the whole experience was shocking because of the cultural difference. The school, students, and the language were unfamiliar to me, and there were times when I really felt down and discouraged. In the first semester I had a tough time coming to terms with the whole new experience in school.

But I did not give up; I asked for help when I needed it and worked hard. My experience has taught me to be resourceful and persistent.

Here’s another example, in which the interviewee discloses his small-town roots in a way that evokes empathy and paints a picture, making him seem much more modest when he closes with a distinct note of pride in his athletic and academic achievements.

Much of who I am today was shaped by the fact that I come from a very big family in a small town. The number of Ellises in my town is more than 80, so I grew up constantly being compared to those who came before me. When I started playing football in high school, I heard constantly how good my cousins Brad and Lance were at football, and that helped me try just a little harder. In the classroom, it was my cousin Angie who set the standard for me to follow.

Even within the last few years, as I have begun planting the seeds of a future public-service career, most introductions are quickly followed by “Are you one of THE Ellises?” Growing up in the shadow of my family wasn’t bad, though. I had constant support in everything I ever tried, and because I am one of “THE Ellises,” some doors have opened up for me that may not have opened otherwise. And because I constantly had to try to match the achievements of my forerunners, I worked hard and gained many rewards for my efforts.

My family was on hand when I won a prestigious award for outstanding high-school athlete for my achievements in football, track and field, weightlifting, and wrestling. When the door to my chosen college slammed in my face following the first of several knee surgeries, and my hometown university offered me a full academic scholarship, I jumped at the chance to shine in my own back yard. When I become the first Ellis to ever earn a college degree, I think you could hear the noise from miles away.

Next time you’re wondering how to answer the interview question “Tell me about yourself,” try a story.

This article is adapted from a chapter of Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling to Get Jobs and Propel Your Career, one of seven books authored/co-authored by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.

Hansen is creative director and associate publisher of Quintessential Careers, as well as an educator who provides content for Quintessential Careers, edits QuintZine, an electronic newsletter for jobseekers, and blogs about storytelling in the job search at A Storied Career.

This guest post via Recruiting Blogswap is from JobGoRound.com, providing career advice on resume writing, job searching, interviewing, and more.

There are certain rules for scheduling job interviews that should be followed for the best results.

Best Days of the Week for Scheduling a Job Interview

You should always schedule your job interviews between Tuesday and Thursday.

If you schedule an interview on Friday, you’ll get someone at the end of the work week when all that is on their mind is the upcoming weekend.

If you schedule an interview on Monday, you’ll get someone at the beginning of the work week, who perhaps will not be happy that their weekend just flew by so fast.

In either case you will not get the full and positive attention you want from your prospective employer.

Best Times of Day for Scheduling a Job Interview

As far as time of day goes, you should always schedule your job interviews for one of two time spans.

The first time span is between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Assuming the business with which you are interviewing operates 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., arriving any earlier than 10 a.m. may get you an interviewer who has not had their morning coffee kick in and may be just a bit cranky.

Always give your prospective boss or other interviewer a little time to settle into the work day.

If you schedule your interview after 11 a.m., you risk a hungry interviewer who will rush you out the door as the noon lunch hour looms. You want to make sure that you have at least a half-hour to plead your case as to why they should hire you.

The second time span is between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Again, assuming the company’s work hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., you can bet lunch is from noon to 1 p.m. Get there any earlier than 2 p.m. and you risk interviewing with a full-bellied boss who hasn’t yet settled back into the work day after lunch. Give your prospective employer just a bit of time to get back into the work groove after lunch is over.

You also should avoid interviewing past 4 p.m. if the work day ends at 5 p.m.

Nothing will get you through an interview faster than scheduling it at the end of the work day. No one likes to stay at work late if they don’t have to, and an interview scheduled later than 4 p.m. puts you at risk of being hurried through the interview.

Again, you want to make sure you have at least a half-hour of undivided attention to get the most out of your interview.

The Best Day and Time for Scheduling a Job Interview Is When It Best Suits the Employer

The only other rule for interviewing is that if the company gives you a day and time, then that is the perfect time for your interview.

Avoid changing an interview that has been set for you by a prospective employer. If they want to meet with you at 4:49 p.m. on Friday, then that’s when you go.

But since many companies will leave it up to you as to when you want to interview, following the above interview scheduling tricks will be to your advantage.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.
-Groucho Marx

Need Internet Access For Your Job Search? Need Help Learing How To Do an Online Job Search? Visit Your Public Library!

As we discussed in Part I of this series on how searching for a job has changed in the Internet age, the Web has become the place to begin the hunt for your next job.

However, if you’ve been laid off for a while — or are having a hard time finding that first job — you may be unable to afford the computer and/or Internet service provider fees that would allow you to conduct your online job search from home. You may also be concerned that you lack the computer skills to succeed in online job searching.

Fortunately, job-seekers have an easily accessible place to go for free Internet access — and you don’t even have to buy a cup of coffee.

That place is your local public library.

Oh — and don’t worry if you don’t have a computer or don’t know how to use one. Libraries let patrons use their computers for free, and will even teach people how to use them.

According to this recent article in the Huffington Post, “Three-fourths of all libraries offer information technology training to their patrons, including how to conduct online job searches and how to use standard office software applications.”

Photo courtesy webchicken via flickr

Variety of Job Search Services to Match Job Seekers’ Needs

In addition to providing Internet access and instruction in online job search, many libraries also offer services ranging from career counseling to resume-writing help. For example:

• The New York Public Library offered a career preparedness fair in January that drew 700 people.
• The Detroit Public Library has a Career Center that does everything from helping patrons prepare for pre-employment testing to presenting monthly workshops on how to conduct an online job search.
• In Lexington, KY, the library offers free resume and job application assistance on a walk-in basis.
• The Newport Beach, CA Public Library offers “…information on careers, exam prep books, newspapers and magazines, business reference databases, free WiFi, laptop computers for use in the library, and the expertise of reference librarians to assist in finding pertinent information.

“We’ve been in the job-search business for decades,” Paul LeClerc, the president of the New York Public Library, told the New York Times, while noting that President Obama has said that a librarian helped him find his first job as a community organizer. “This is a continuation,” said LeClerc.

Royal Oak, Michigan Library Director Metta Lansdale told me that her library began offering special programs for job seekers in January of this year.

“We began by offering a computer workshop to show people what we considered good job hunting websites and to give them pointers about the online environment, especially as it is related to job hunting,” Ms. Lansdale told me in a recent online interview. The librarians found that some of the workshop participants needed job-search help going beyond computer-related pointers. To accommodate this need, the library invited an area agency to give a general program on job hunting, not even using computer applications.

Adding that the job search resources and programs being offered by libraries are the “…kind of response to human needs,” that libraries have always fulfilled, Ms. Lansdale tole me that libraries “…definitely…have a role to play” in helping job seekers find jobs.

“Libraries are the ‘people’s university’, the great equalizer…” she said.

From Retail Jobs to Jobless Benefits

The library may well be the only place for some job seekers, as well as many people who are applying for unemployment benefits.

According to the American Library Association:

Libraries are helping level the playing field for job seekers as well. Less than 44 percent of the top 100 U.S. retailers accept in-store paper applications. Libraries continue to report that many patrons are turning to library computers to prepare resumes and cover letters, find work, apply for jobs online and open e-mail accounts.”

In addition, the Huffington Post article says:

The state of California actually requires applicants to apply online for unemployment benefits — but not everyone is computer-literate or savvy. Without free access to library computers and the Internet, how are these jobless folks expected to get back on their feet?

In the Face of Greater Need for Library Services — Budget Cuts

Despite the growing need for our public libraries’ job search and other services, their budgets are being cut as municipalities tighten their fiscal belts. Several sources I consulted for this article mentioned a dramatic increase in library use — from a 28% increase at the Howard County Library in Columbia, MD to a 60% increase in 2008 at her library cited by Royal Oak, Michigan’s Ms. Lansdale.

However, “I’m developing a budget with a 3% drop in revenue expected this year and another 12% drop expected next year, due to dropping property tax revenues,” Ms. Lansdale said. Other libraries are in similar predicaments.

In any event, our research and interviews indicate that many public libraries — and librarians — have a commitment to public service that includes helping job seekers, using online methods and otherwise. They also have knowledge of resources you may be unaware of. So whatever your level of comfort with computers, you may be well served by paying your local library a visit as you gear up your job search.

Find Your Public Library

To find the local library nearest you, visit the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

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A concession by a major health insurance trade group seems to be good news on the road to implementing badly-needed healthcare reforms and controlling health insurance costs. And that’s good news for employers.

Health Insurance Cost for Individuals and Health-Based Premium Discrimination

Major health insurance industry spokespersons have finally expressed a willingness to stop pricing individual health insurance based on health history and condition (i.e., discriminating against those with the greatest need for insurance) “if Congress adopted a comprehensive plan that provided coverage to all Americans.”

This position reportedly surprised lawmakers, and it could make it easier to pass some version of healthcare reform legislation “because it narrows the issues on which insurers are ready to fight the Democrats.”

Insurers said they were still staunchly opposed to creation of a new government-run health insurance plan, which, under many Democratic proposals, would compete directly with private insurers.

In effect, insurers said they were willing to discard an element of their longstanding business model, under which insurance policies are priced, in part, on the basis of a person’s medical condition or history.

In the past, insurers have warned that if they could not consider a person’s health in setting premiums, the rates charged to young, healthy people would soar, making coverage unaffordable.

But Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a major trade group, told lawmakers on Tuesday [March 24, 2009] that insurers were exploring ideas to prevent such increases by spreading the risks and costs across a larger population of both healthy and unhealthy people.

Context of this Health Insurance Cost Development

Premium regulation in the individual insurance market is a matter of state law, so it varies considerably. Generally, there is considerable room for pricing discrimination based on health history.

According the the Times: “Premiums for a person with a history of serious illness are often 50 percent higher than premiums for younger, healthier people — if the sick people can get coverage at all … .”

Shortly after President Obama was elected on a platform including major healthcare reform, the insurance industry signaled willingness to give up the right to deny coverage entirely based on health history, if all Americans were required to have coverage. But this stated concession did not extend to premium discrimination.

The new position was stated in a letter to Congress from America’s Health Insurance Plans:

[I]f Congress enacted an enforceable requirement for everyone to carry health insurance, “we could guarantee issue of coverage with no pre-existing condition exclusions and phase out the practice of varying premiums based on health status in the individual market.”

However, the letter also said insurers wanted to retain the right to charge different premiums based on age, place of residence, and family size.

Note that America’s Health Insurance Plans was formed through the merger of the Health Insurance Association of America (HIAA) and the American Association of Health Plans (AAHP). HIAA ran the heavily criticized “Harry and Louise” advertisements that helped kill President Clinton’s health care reform efforts in the early 1990s.

So Is This a Step in the Right Direction for Healthcare Reform — Towards Increased Individual Health Insurance Affordability and Availability?

One thing’s for sure: It’s truly a sign of the times that the health insurance industry is finally putting this sacred cow on the chopping block. Apparently, carving up and cherry-picking the insured population, instead of spreading risk broadly, has long been a key to profitability in the industry.

Individualized health-based underwriting of individual health insurance policies has also had a number of effects that were helpful not only to insurers, but also to corporate America — as long as employers saw employee health benefits as a desirable perk to attract good employees, rather than the costly, undesirable millstone around their neck that it has become over the last 10-20 years.

These beneficial effects for larger employers of premium discrimination — and outright policy denial in some cases — in the individual health insurance market included:

• Attracting some employees who otherwise might prefer self-employment or small-business employment, but whose health histories made obtaining individual or small-group coverage problematic, costly, or even impossible.
• Deterring employees from departing to start small entreprenurial ventures, because obtaining post-departure health insurance could present challenges (though less so since COBRA).
• Providing health insurance cost advantages to the largest employers, which are able to buy in volume and spread risk across a large population.

These benefits of employer-provided health insurance now pale in comparison to its escalating cost. Significant elements of corporate America are ready to get out of the healthcare business entirely.

That’s not as troubling to the health insurers as these other developments, which are challenging their very raison d’etre:

• “Socialized medicine” and single-payer healthcare reform models look good to a near-majority (49%) of Americans, according to a recent poll.
• The growing support for cutting the insurance companies out of the loop entirely by single-payer health care reform includes some physicians. Physicians for a National Health Program is a non-profit organization of 16,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance.
• The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services now has a healthcare reform website, HealthReform.gov, supporting “Health Care for All Americans” as government policy, summarizing 3,276 group reports from local meetings about how to reform healthcare in America that were organized by the Presidential Transition Team, and soliciting citizen questions and ideas.
• Over one-quarter (27%) of the local meeting groups discussed the merits of a single-payer system, and a majority of them supported this idea, finding it a necessary step for healthcare reform.
• One of President Obama’s health reform care proposals is “offering a federal, Medicare-like insurance plan to anyone, at any age,” against which private health insurance could compete.
• The “liberal media” are not allowing themselves to be scared off by the label “socialized medicine.” For example, the Washington Post published this a year ago: “If socialized medicine means doing what our public-insurance programs and other nations’ health systems do to control costs, expand coverage and improve the quality of care, it’s high time for a little socialization.“

What the Health Insurers Fear, and How They Must Remake Themselves to Survive

Of course, the insurers fear single-payer, because in its pure form it wipes out their entire industry.

And the insurers fear a competing government plan because they know they won’t be competitive. That’s not because of government subsidies, but because private health insurance administration is more bloated, inefficient, and strewn with excess paperwork and administrative costs than the worst caricature of a government bureaucracy — and because there’s big chunks of shareholder profit and executive overcompensation in the private plans.

And the insurers fear this scenario: If everyone has the opportunity to buy individual health insurance on the same terms, without regard to health status, as the insurers now propose, many employers may well decide they’d just as soon offload their entire health insurance cost on employees (they’ve been doing this incrementally for years), using some or all of the savings to fatten paychecks. The employees would use that money to buy individual coverage. From that point forward, employers’ labor cost increases would be in wages and salaries, where they would not be subject to increases always vastly outpacing inflation.

What benefit would there then be to keeping the private health insurance industry afloat, instead of going to a strictly single-payer system?

The insurance companies thus have to prove that they can serve as something more than costly middlemen that push a ton of paper, interfere in doctor-patient relationships, and make high profits from the provision of medical care, which increasing numbers of Americans view as a public good — as most of the rest of the world does.

An impossible mission for the insurers? Maybe not. The tried and true appeal to market capitalism — though wearing thin in these days of capitalist-excess-gone-bust — could provide a rationale. Yes, market competition, but not competition to see who can best avoid providing coverage to sick people. Instead, it should be competition to improve policyholder health through lifestyle changes, medical compliance, preventive medicine, and the like.

Having multiple competing players could encourage innovation in this direction. The profit motive may even play a useful role in this regard. What the heck, this is still America!

Finally, I used strong language in referring to price “discrimination.” I think that’s exactly what it is when someone can’t help it that they have a health problem, but is denied coverage or has their premium jacked up because of it. I do not consider it discrimination to use financial incentives to encourage wellness, making healthcare more expensive for those, such as smokers, whose health problems are of their own making.

Resources

• Workforce Management: Business Group Seeks an End to Employer-Based Health Coverage
• Commonwealth Fund: The Path to a High Performance U.S. Health System — A 2020 Vision and the Policies to Pave the Way
• NYTimes.com: Insurers Ease Stance on Pre-Existing Conditions -
• NYTimes.com: A Health Plan for All and the Concerns It Raises
• NYTimes Economix Blog: Defining “Health Care Reform” (Princeton University economics professor Uwe E. Reinhardt)
• Washington Post: Socialized Medicine: Let’s Try a Dose. We’re Bound to Feel Better.
• American Health Care Reform.org
• HealthReform.gov

Today’s guest post on tips for teen job seekers is courtesy of TeenJobSection.

Whether you’re a teen job seeker preparing for your first job or a teen job seeker looking to change jobs or find a seasonal job, there are some common mistakes you should try your best to avoid.

Often teen job seekers decide to apply for a job for the wrong reasons. As a result, they end up frustrated or in a position they’re unhappy with. Staying away from these common mistakes will increase your chances of finding a teen job that’s enjoyable and fits you properly.

Do Your Research

It’s really important to investigate your options before applying for teen jobs. Oftentimes, teen job seekers are so excited about the possibility of getting hired that they don’t think about the responsibilities and duties associated with a position.

Make sure you do some research on the job description of the position you’re considering. You should attempt to find out what kind of work you’ll be performing, whether the position fits your schedule, and whether or not you have the required skills and/or experience.

Jumping into a job headfirst will likely leave you confused, surprised, and/or miserable.

Don’t Be Dishonest

Lying on your resume or in an interview will make the process of finding a job even more difficult. Make sure that all of your facts are accurate and that you represent yourself honestly.

If you get caught being untruthful, it can directly impact your future and make it next to impossible to get hired.

And even if you don’t get caught, you’ll be adding unnecessary pressure to yourself. You could get in way over your head if you make it sound like you know how to do something that you don’t.

Remember to let the employer see you for who you really are. Your mind will be at ease, and you’ll be much more likely to get the job that’s right for you.

Have a Good Reason for your Job-Hunting Choices

It’s really important for teens to pick jobs that are suited to their own needs and standards as opposed to someone else’s.

Teens frequently apply for a position because it offers them more money or is where their friends are working.

Neither of these reasons are good motivations for seeking a particular job. While it’s nice to make some extra cash and fun to work with your friends, it’s much better to have a job that suits your personality and allows you to achieve your goals.

There’s No Such Thing as a Perfect Job

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there isn’t a job in the world that’s perfect.

There are, however, jobs that are close-to-perfect for you. Sure, you’ll have good days and bad days at the “office,” but it’s important to recognize whether the good days make the bad days worth it.

If you do your best to find a job that fits your qualifications and suits your interests, it’s probable that you will be happy working in that position.

Especially as a teen, you’ll have to put up with a certain amount of “busywork,” “dirty work,” and maybe even some seemingly stupid tasks.

But if that work is preparing you for good things later on in life, it can build your character and teach you some valuable skills in patience, communication, and problem solving.

For more teen job tips, check out TeenJobSection.com

For summer jobs, check out SummerJobSection.com

Job and Career Books for Teens

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From Job Boards to Recruiters’ Sites, the Internet is the Place to Go For Job Opportunities

Anyone who has been searching for a job recently (in other words, a lot of us) are well aware that job searches don’t mean getting our fingers dirty with newspaper print anymore. No — today we hie ourselves to the Internet, which has become an international marketplace for jobs as well as for information, goods and services.

But what does this trend mean in terms of the job search process? How does the Internet help (or hinder) people in their job search, and how does it help (or hinder) employers looking to fill jobs?

Much that has been written on this subject is from the viewpoint of the person engaged in a job search. Other material is directed mainly to employers and recruiters looking for qualified employees. This series will attempt to take a holistic approach to the process instead, looking at it from both perspectives, and pointing out the pros and cons of various developments, Internet job search tools, and web sites for those on both the recruiting/hiring and job search sides of the process.

The Classifieds Have Gone Electric!

In the past ten years it has become impossible to avoid the Internet during a job search.

In 1999, it was reported that less than one-third of Fortune 500 companies were engaged in any form of online recruitment, including the posting of open positions on the firms’ own corporate websites. By 2003, that figure had jumped to 94%; today, it registers at 100%. Employers from professional firms to retailers like Whole Foods have turned to the Internet to wade through the resumes and qualifications of prospective employees.

In addition, job seekers are also focusing extensively — and in many cases, exclusively — on online sources while conducting job searches. In 2003, it was reported that 45% of job seekers confirmed having consulted the Internet as part of their job search. By 2006, a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management put the number of job seekers who used online resources in their job searches at a staggering 96%.

For professionals on both sides of the hiring equation, the notion of conducting a job search or candidate hunt offline is virtually inconceivable.

What Internet Tools Are Available for Your Online Job Search?

Job hunting resources on the Internet include:

• Corporate web sites
  From General Motors to Whole Foods, you can visit corporate sites to search jobs, post your resume, apply for specific jobs, and frequently also subscribe for job alerts when positions that fit your skills and experience are open.
• Federal, state, and municipal job postings
  The federal government has a site that functions in the same way as many corporate sites. You can also find jobs in specific branches of the U.S. Government, from the House and Senate to the White House. Individual states and many municipalities are also making good use of job boards and online application forms.
• Job boards and aggregators
  From Monster.com and Craigslist.org to the niche boards, there are over 40,000 job boards online that allow job seekers to look for jobs using search criteria ranging from position to location. In addition, job aggregators bring together jobs from many job boards, both general and frequently niche boards, into one searchable list. Many job aggregator sites also allow seekers to post resumes and/or set up “search agents” to alert them when jobs become available.
• Online versions of local and national newspapers
  The old-time classifieds without the dirty fingers.
• Social networking sites
  LinkedIn is the largest and best-known professional networking site, with more than 36 million members in over 200 countries. In addition, employers and job seekers alike are increasingly using sites like MySpace and Facebook to list jobs and to interact with each other. For more on using LinkedIn specifically, see this article by author and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki.
• Blogs and personal websites
  Free hosting services like Wordpress.com and Blogger.com allow online job-seekers to build blogs and professional Web sites complete with resumes, work samples, references, photos and even videos “The Internet lets you flaunt things you can’t put on a resume,” says Cynthia Shapiro, author of “What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here.” “If you don’t have that kind of presence on the Web, you are losing a critical opportunity to put yourself at the top of the list.”

Evaluating Job Boards

Even though you may be conducting your online job search while you’re unemployed, you still have only so many hours in a day. With more than 40,000 job boards and other job sites out there, how do you know where to get the best return on investment for your time?

This is a very important question, because Internet job search can become a time-consuming black hole, and much job search time should be devoted to other activities such as networking, informational interviews, researching businesses of interest, making personal contacts, etc.

Perhaps the best first stop you can make is WEDDLE’s, which has been in the business of evaluating job-related Web sites since 1996.

WEDDLE’s Users’ Choice Awards lets job seekers rank job sites using criteria including:

• How long the site has been in operation
• How many jobs are posted on the site
• The salary ranges of those jobs
• Whether the site has a resume database
• Whether the resume database has a confidentiality feature
• Whether the site offers a free job agent

You can find WEDDLE’s 2009 Users’ Choice Awards here.

Another useful resource is The 20 Best Job Search Web Sites from PC Magazine

Upcoming Topics in the Online Job Search and Recruitment Series

Now that we’ve covered some of the basics, look for the following topics in upcoming installments of the Online Job Search and Recruitment series, which we’ll attempt to run biweekly:

• The Online Recruitment Industry — Booming on a Computer Near You
• The Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Job Searches and Recruiting
• The Impact and Implications of Online Recruitment
• What to Include in Your Professional Web Site — And the Importance of Managing Your Online Image
• How to Be a Good “Passive” Job Candidate
• Researching Potential Employers and Employees on the Internet
• Stealth Job Hunting: Confidential Job Search Tips
• Making the Best Use of Your Company’s Online Recruitment Pages
• … and more …

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