The Business Journal mentions the newly released book Navigating Through Now What?  in the May 6, 2011 edition

Everything you need to know to launch a job search from A-Z.

Tuesday January 11, 2011 6:30-8pm

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church – Burnsville

Karen has been invited to speak to SamsNet today about launching an effective job search in 26-30 hours/week

Karen visits with Kim Insley to talk about the role pre-employment testing places in the hiring decision.

Karen is a guest on the live broadcast of the Peter McClellen show

Tues. Aug. 31 from 5-6

Broadcast Live on the The Patriot AM 1280

Tune in for the latest on jobs, the job market and the allure of self employment

Listen to podcast: Peter McClellen Show – Live from the Fair

This interactive workshop helps participants discern if self employment is the best career choice for them based on a facilitated self assessment process which helps them evaluate a number of factors including interests, skills, values, tolerance for risk, resources, and motivation. Traditional employment options as well as various entrepreneur options will be discussed. Participants will get to share ideas with like minded people and improve self-awareness to help you make an informed decision. At the end of the workshop, participants will come away with a clearer sense of direction, an action plan to move them closer to their identified objective and a list of resources to leverage in subsequent steps. As well as get encouragement and gain authentic, supportive and professional guidance.

cost $150

contact karen@cultivatingcareers.com for questions and to register

Good news – employers are adding more jobs. Bad news – expect more lay offs. Confusing news – unemployment numbers are flat. What does this all mean? No wonder job seekers heads are spinning. Here are some insights that should help make sense of it all.

Employers are adding jobs. This is encouraging news which indicates increased employer confidence. However hiring will continue to be slow as employers figure out what skills they need moving forward while keeping a close eye on market conditions . Any role which contributes to top line growth will likely come back first, others will have to continue to be patient and diligently work the process.

More lay offs coming. One would wonder who is left to lay off? Well as companies and organizations are looking towards recovery they realize they need a different skill set in place and if the current emloyee pool cannot transfer their skills into other roles, companies will have to let them go and hire someone else.

Unemployment numbers are flat. The calculation to count the number of people who are unemployed is complex and confusing. Often the number is driven by the number of people collecting unemployment benefits which isn’t necessarily accurately indicative of the number of people out of work because not all unemployed people collect or are eligible for benefits.

Don’t let the rise and fall of these number dampen your spirits. Stay focused on what you can control every day in your search efforts.

Is Self Employment Right for Me?

Join us for this interactive workshop that will help you discern if self employment is the right career choice for you.

What for more details…..

It is true that you want to take job search seriously, dedicating enough time and energy, having a good job search plan in place and working it every day. However too often job seekers get lulled into believing they are implementing a “full time” search when in fact their efforts don’t translate into results.

I do not believe that a job seeker needs to put in 40 hours a week to implement an effective search. As a matter of fact somewhere around the 32-34 hr point job search efforts loose their effectiveness dramatically. A good job search isn’t about the number of hours spent as much as it is getting the most results from the hours spent.

For example take 2 job seekers who are searching 25 hours per week and one job seeker spends their time surfing the web applying for jobs and the other spends their time networking for jobs. The second job seekers is likely to find their job sooner because the statistic still stands that over 80% of jobs are found through networking.

Every week job seekers should spend the majority of their time doing job search activites that reap the highest return on their investment of time. It is when job seekers get sucked into endless hours of scanning job sites, researching companies and organizing their search that they will seem to have put in many hours but show few results.

There is a formula for numbers of hours spent per job search activity that reaps the highest results. The good news is that an effective job search can be done in less than 40 hours per week, leaving time for taking care of yourself, your family or your to do list.

There is a fine line between promoting yourself, bragging and presenting yourself as something you are not. Self promotion is essential in job search. The days of “my work should speak for itself” are gone. The candidate to land the job is the one who can clearly articulate what they have done and more importantly what they can do moving forward. Desireable candidates can artfully connect the dots between what they can do and what the prospective emloyer needs. Too often the weight of the conversation gets out of balance when job seekers masters self promotion but neglects to link it to the perspective employers needs.

Growing up in our modest Midwest culture self promotion has been deemed as bragging and therefore bad manners. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is appreciating our skills, talents and gifts and not being ashamed to acknowledge them and share them. Remember employers are hiring because they have a need, a problem to be solved. Our ability to talk about our strengths is helping them potentially solve a problem.

Self promotion comes hand in hand with self confidence. When the job seeker is self assured and confident about their skills they inherently become more attractive to the employer. Learning how to present their capabilities requires a well crafted message and practice. The key is however is not just learning how to talk about yourself it is being able to connect the dots for the prospective employer as to why they should care.