Are You Job-Ready? – Part 3
November 29, 2016 You must get along with people Some professions are typically characterized as a “people business.” Certainly anyone who sells for a living falls into that category. Public relations, politics and other fields also require advanced social skills on the part of their
Are You Job-Ready? – Part 2
November 15, 2016 Great work requires focus and concentration Are you really ready to hold down a responsible job? You need more than technical ability. The ultimate sign of readiness is productivity coupled with excellence. Can you produce value commensurate with the pay you receive?
Are You Job-Ready? – Part 1
Time is of the essence. Your success in a trade career depends on several elements. One is mechanical aptitude, coupled with relevant technical education and/or experience. You must be trained or trainable, and able to do the work. In the next several articles I will
BREAKING NEWS – Help Wanted Everywhere!
October 20, 2016 The trade shortage is a global problem It’s not just here in the U.S. Employers around the world are finding it hard to recruit enough skilled trade workers – harder than any other field. The latest Talent Shortage Survey by ManpowerGroup that
THE IMPORTANCE OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
September 29, 2016 By Rebecca Woodul ITT Tech’s nationwide closure forces us to ask, where is the next generation of skilled tradesmen and women going to come from? Are there enough tools out there able to bring young men and women into the fields starving for
Lessons From The ITT Fiasco
September 27, 2016 Squeeze lemons before buying them If you pay attention to the news, you probably have heard about the closure earlier this month of ITT Technical Institute, a for-profit college chain with more than 130 campuses in 38 states and some 40,000 students
You Need Relevant Skills
September 13, 2016 A big bank funds a program to do that The media keeps reporting that the U.S. unemployment rate keeps dropping. The latest official data shows that it has dropped below 5% of the eligible workforce, a level that historically has come close
Seeing Is Believing
Open your doors to interested people Virtually every trade contractor I know tells me that finding qualified help is one of their biggest problems, especially technicians who are either experienced or trainable. They put help-wanted ads in all the right places, attend career day events,
Good Jobs Are Hard To Find
The trades offer plenty of them. Here’s a recent story that grabbed my attention. It describes a scene in Queens, New York, where hundreds of people camped out overnight to receive applications to join the Plumbers Local 1 apprenticeship program. The union made it known