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Pop singer Katy Perry sure knows how to get a job.  She told MTV News that “The ‘American Idol’ experience was awesome. If I was offered that job as a permanent host, I would ditch my career and take on that career.”

She then added, intelligently, “It’s kind of like judging a talent show.”

Really, Katy Perry?  American Idol is kind of like a talent show?  Way to show those producers that you understand their product and would be totally capable if they wanted to offer you a full time gig.

So kids, let’s all learn from Katy Perry- the best way to get a job is to throw yourself at employers and dazzle them by thoughtfully describing their product as kind of like itself.  Also, wearing glasses makes you look smart.

(picture credit: mirror.co.uk)

From our partner site, The Resume Wonders Blog, here’s a fantastic argument for nicety in the workplace.  Whether you’ve got a job or not, it more often than not pays to be nice in your professional life…

Being Nice Does Matter in Finding Your Dream Job

This week was the kick off of the 9th season of American Idol.  Every year I say I am not going to watch it, but somehow the show finds its way on to the screen of my television. I tell myself, just the first night… to get a feel for what this season may hold.

I admit that I watched the whole show and towards the end, when there were only a few contestants left, a man entered the room for his very long awaited audition …

Americans who are lucky enough to be employed during this recession are reporting the lowest job satisfaction rates in years, according to MSNBC.com.  The whopper is that 64% of workers under age 25 report being dissatisfied with their jobs. Only 45% of all Americans report being satisfied with their jobs.  And apparently this dissatisfaction has been increasing for over two decades.

TWO DECADES!  So this can’t be linked to a particular generation’s workplace views, or an economic downturn, or any specific reason.  It’s got to be something to do with the way we work in America.  Let’s take a look at the reasons these workers site for being dissatisfied.

Why are works so unhappy?

- Don’t think the job is interesting

- Income hasn’t kept up with inflation (“Board officials and outside economists suggested that weak wage …

A Careerist is someone who cares equally about their life-long professional lives AND what they might be doing at this exact moment.  The present isn’t just a means to an end.  To a careerist, the means IS the end.  Always on the lookout for a good opportunity, and never one to second-guess a career move they’ve made, these folks want to get the most from their jobs and their lives.  Our generation (Millennials/Gen Y) is quickly becoming a careerist generation, perhaps the more so than any other generation in history.

Therefore, I declare these truths to be self-evident to Careerists in 2010:

1. Company loyalty is dead. They’re not loyal to you, you’re not loyal to them.  You’re loyal to the work you do and the passion you have.  Those should be your first concern.

2. Challenging …

MSNBC.com has compiled a list of the 9 occupations that saw the highest numbers of job loss in 2009.  And the winners are….

Architects
Carpenters
Production supervisors and assembly workers
Pilots
Computer software engineers
Mechanical engineers
Construction workers
Tellers
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks

So, where are jobs for 2010 grads?  Here are the hot spots, from Forbes.com

Government at all levels
Health care
Energy
Business consulting and accounting
Education

An important point to to remember when you’re trying to get a job: Every industry needs pretty much every type of worker.  The health care industry needs human resources and graphic design just like they need nurses and biologists (maybe not as much, but they are still needed).  Just because you don’t see your very specific interest listed here, don’t think that there aren’t any jobs for you out there.

Take me for example.  In my …

jobology Christmas Spectacular!
I think it’s safe to call this a tradition, considering I did the same thing last year, and I’ve been very excited for this day to come again.  Without further ado, I present to you, a jobology Christmas Spectacular!  Crazy holiday decorations found in typically boring, blah-colored, cubicle-lined office buildings:

A Christmas tree on an office chair.  Not a bad start… (from FinkAngel.blogspot)

A Charlie Brown Christmas (fantastically decorated by the folks at The Angry Dome).  Check out their site for a full account of their phenomenal Christmas decor.

Winter Wonderland indoors.  Is inhaling that stuff all day healthy? (from Santo’s Web Page)

It’s like …

(pic from genystartup.com, a resource for new entrepreneurs building startups)
Brazen Careerist is a fantastic blog/website dedicated to generation Y in the workplace (That’s you.  Unless you are the other 75% of my readership who are supportive family members). Brazen and PayScale have teamed up to create a list of the 50 best companies to work for if you are a gen Y professional.

In keeping with their theme and awesome work, this list of Top 50 Gen Y Companies is choc full of companies who work the way this generation wants to work.  This ain’t your mama’s top 50 companies.  The assumptions they made when creating this list are perfectly aligned with how this generation wants to work.  Some of those assumptions include:

salary negotiations are a thing of the past …

(image from mangomediacaribbean.com)
Jobology has spent more than a couple blog posts talking about the impact that Facebook, MySpace, and the like can have on your job search and career.

Get a job through FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter
7 ways to grow your professional internet image
Twitter and your job search: Pros and cons
Robots are reading your resume
Careful, your Facebook is showing.  Employers research job applicants online.

Facebook Indexing Rumor:

The latest rumor to spread is that Facebook is automatically allowing search engines to access your information, public or private, to be included in their search results.  Not true, says Snopes.com, a wonderful website dedicated to debunking internet rumors.

However, there is a feature in Facebook that allows your public information to be easily found by …

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its November 2009 jobs report and the news is good!  Ok, maybe not good, but certainly less bad!

Unemployment by the numbers:

The total number of jobs lost in November was only 11,000, which is signifantly smaller than the hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost in the months prior.
The unemployment rate actually DROPPED from 10.2% to 10%.  Not a huge drop, of course, but at least it’s going in the right direction.
There are still more unemployed men than women (10.5% of men are unemployed, only 7.9% of women)
Unfortunately, the number of long-term unemployed people (those unemployed for 27 weeks or more) rose by 293,000, so people are still staying unemployed for much longer than average.

Where are jobs holding steady? Wholesale and retail trade, transportation, financial activities, and leisure and hospitality.

Where are jobs being …

It’s unethical.  It’s illegal.  And it’s still happening.  The New York Times reports that “applicants with black-sounding names received 50 percent fewer callbacks than those with white-sounding names,” according to a study published by the American Economic Review.

Minority job seekers are forced to go to extreme lengths to make themselves appear white on their applications- getting rid of ethnicity-based club memberships listed on their resumes (“African-American Business Club”), changing how their names are written (from Barry Jabbar Sykes to Barry J. Sykes), and adjusting their speaking voices when talking to potential employers on the phone.

More shocking info from the NY Times article:

- “There is also the matter of how many jobs, especially higher-level ones, are never even posted and depend on word-of-mouth and informal networks, in many cases leaving blacks at …

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