When the newest unemployment report was released the national average had actually dropped by two-tenths of a percent. At least it’s progress, but recent college graduates were one group of people that was not excited. The unemployment rate amongst age 20-24 college graduates was up to 10.6%–the highest it has been since 1983.

As mentioned in the post So What if You Have a College Degree? some attention was paid to why new college graduates are having difficulty when it comes to the job search after they finish school. The deflated value of the college degree is the reason primarily discussed thus far, but there are other factors related to the economy and job industry at large.

One obvious factor is that there are many industries with fewer jobs, but with many of the jobs that are still available, hiring bonuses are disappearing, and it seems likely that entry level salaries will decrease. Graduates one year are competing against graduates from the previous year for the same jobs, and fewer of the more experienced graduates have not yet advanced in their own careers to open up more entry level positions.

With more graduates than ever unsuccessfully searching for work, there is one possibility of hope.  As many graduates will likely be willing to take lower pay as long as they can have some job security, corporate giants may pick up on this demographic’s employment plague and pick up as many workers as they can. It may be in a college graduate’s best interest to go ahead and look to large companies for employment before this happens, and get in while the higher pay is available for the entry level position.

With the improvement in technology in recent years, video interviews are becoming more commonplace amongst employers. Though this method may never replace a face-to-face interview, it will become something you may have to prepare yourself to do well.

Something to remember at all times is that a video interview is still an interview. It should not be taken any less seriously than an interview that is conducted in person. You are talking to a potential employer, so don’t think that just because you’re not in the room with him or her physically that you can slouch or get by with any less than you could in person. Prepare as if the interview will be in person, but do it on video.

The thing which you may want to keep in mind most during a video interview is that you may have to be a little more straightforward in presenting your own personal qualifications, aside from what is on your application. What employers see in individuals often determines who gets the job out of a crowd of people who are essentially equally qualified. These things are harder to relate in less personal communication methods, so keep in mind that the employer may not get ‘you’ as clearly in a video interview as in a face-to-face interview.

The key factor in all this is to be versatile. Perhaps the best recommendation is to work on your interviewing skills and be able to apply them effectively to any method of interview. This versatility may even show in the interviews and be viewed by the employer as a very useful character trait and set you off on a great first step toward a job, whether the interview is on video or face-to-face.

Today’s job market is nearly filled to the brim with college graduates, and this is a much different picture than the job market 35-40 years ago. In 1973 only about 47% of high school graduates were going on to college for higher education. In October 2008 about 70% of high school grads aspired to get a bachelor’s degree. This increase in degrees amongst the college graduate age workforce brought with it one primary downside. The college degree is not worth what it once was in a job search.

The higher education system in the US has a goal of pushing students along through school, and as a result employers see the value of a bachelor’s degree to be inflated. The degree is no longer the magic key to the door of employment. Because of how many people are getting degrees today, it should be viewed almost as a necessity, and gross work experience alongside it is becoming more of a deciding factor.

At the same time, the cost of average tuition has increased 6.5% just this fall, and more students are leaving college with more debt than ever before. Most unfortunately, fewer graduates are finding jobs after college, and the unemployment rate in this demographic is 10.6%, the highest it has ever been. And college students realize the plummeting value of the bachelor’s degree. In 1972, 38% of college students polled said that the bachelor’s degree was their highest education goal. Last year that number was down to 22%.

For now, the best thing to do in the job search process is to show you don’t need somebody to guide you through every single step of the position you’re applying for. The easiest way to find a job would be to direct your search toward growing industries. Once you’re up to applying, show that your degree wasn’t just a prefabricated printout for you because you went to college. You could amass any number of accomplishments while getting your degree to further qualify yourself for any position. With some kind of work experience, you’ve already put yourself far ahead of many out of the ranks of college degree holders.

Losing a job is always a hard experience. If you don’t see it coming it can be especially testing, and you risk running the entire gamut of negative emotions. It’s important to keep your emotions in check when losing a job because it can have an effect on how you kick off your search for a new job. Other factors become concerns, as well, so here’s an overview of how to manage under the circumstances of losing a job.

1. Emotional Factor – When you hear you are losing your job, the first thing that likely occurs is you start to feel, at the best, unfortunate. For many it is more probable that they feel sadness or even anger. The key step to take in keeping this from hurting your future employment prospects, don’t act out based on these emotions. When you leave your former workplace, give pleasant “goodbyes” and “thank yous” when you move on to other things. Leaving a good “last impression” is extremely important because you don’t want to lose references. As you move on to the job search, don’t let the shock of having lost the job throw you off your rhythm. Go about your search in a time frame as if it were a job in itself. This will help keep you organized.
2. Financial Factor - Make sure you have a budget between losing one job and beginning another. Know how you’re going to make your savings and other money you have last through the down time. If you lose the job, also ask the HR department if there is any kind of compensation you can get when you leave for days you could have taken off but didn’t. If your old boss wants you to sign any paperwork when you leave, and he or she probably will, be sure you know exactly what you’re signing. Don’t let them hit you with a fast one after you’re technically gone anyway.
3. Moving On – While you’re looking for a new job, take some time to reflect on your professional past. Think about why you may have lost your job. Could it have been because of your work? Or was it more likely the result of company wide losses and having to make cuts in certain departments? These are all important questions to think about in moving on to another career. Spend some time retooling and gathering your thoughts again. Practice your interviewing skills, update your application information.

Losing your job gives you the opportunity to focus on you. Prepare to present yourself to a new employer. In a sense, it lets you start over and you can offer yourself to interviewers as a complete package of an employee. You aren’t just going to be another job applicant, a person filling a title. A job loss is painful, but the most obvious positive effect it has is that it kick starts your journey toward a new job, so set some challenges for yourself and move forward, but stay positive and don’t blow off steam on other people. It’s a lost job, not the end of the world.

As the global economy is shrinking, unemployment isn’t just an issue in the United States. Europe, too, is seeing unemployment rates that are genuinely horrifying. What’s most disconcerting about this is that, just as in the US, the unemployment rate is actually higher than the “official” statistic.

Until the end of the 1960′s, unemployment in Europe was very low. Following a world war, this was considered a “miracle of unemployment.” High unemployment was not viewed as a character trait of Europe. But at the beginning of the 1970′s the employment rate began steadily to decline, and the trend continued through the 1980′s. In the mid-1990′s, paralleling activity in the American job market, there was a small turnaround, but since then, the unemployment rate has been consistently on the rise.

Currently the unemployment rate around the European Union is about 11%, which is slightly higher than that in the US. The countries with the lowest unemployment rates are Germany (7.7%) and the Netherlands (3.3%). Amongst the nations using the euro, the highest unemployment rate is Spain’s mind-boggling 18.1%, having dropped seven percentage points since June 2008. This is primarily a result of the collapse of the construction sector in that country.

What’s most shocking is that these numbers don’t completely reflect all people who have lost their jobs, much like the US U-3 statistic which is the percentage of unemployed workers looking for work. Many state programs in the EU have been implemented to subsidize part-time work and training programs for employees to “keep” their jobs. This resulted in a lower fall in employment than expected, but in reality many jobs are being turned into something different to keep numbers up as much as possible and to underplay the risk of deflation in the European market.

The euro zone is reflecting a more severe crisis in some of the other 27 nations of the EU. Eastern Europe, the Baltic nations and Hungary in particular, has been very hard pressed in recent years. This downturn in the European Union will be very slow to recover in the current recession. It will be important to watch how the US job market, industries, and the economy at large will suffer or benefit as a result of the sharp increase in European unemployment.

With the economy in a rut currently, employers often are reluctant to add new employees to their payrolls. Many companies are in situations in which they have too much work for their workers, but not so much to warrant hiring new ones. In better economic times, companies may have hired temporary paid workers, but under the circumstances, companies are turning more to low-paid or unpaid interns to help carry the extra workload.

Interns are the one type of worker which employers will be looking for more of in a recession. The number of internships and what companies offer them is not a defined statistic, but positions are rarely with large public corporations. If you are interested in an internship, small businesses will more likely be looking for interns, as they view them as an effective means of growth and as a great asset in project work.

The importance of internships has changed in recent years, and because of this–and because of the increasing interest in hiring interns–competition is on the rise. An internship has become more than a bell or whistle on a résumé. Companies are more frequently looking for graduates who have had some real-world work experience before they decide to pay them. As a result, it is more likely that an internship will affect your outlooks for potential employment in the future.

Internships are also being explored by more people than just college students. As some industries are weakening–such as real estate–many who have become unemployed are seeking internships in pursuing new careers. If you are in such a position, you may actually have an advantage over college age interns when it comes to seeking future employment. Student interns also have studies to attend to while a non-student intern can more fully devote himself or herself to the work.

If you are between jobs, an internship may represent a considerable pay cut. Many internships are unpaid, and the ones that are paid are usually only slightly above minimum wage. However, an internship is the best way to learn the ropes of a new field of work and explore a fresh career. Through impressive work, enthusiasm, and your previous experience you can use an internship to show an employer that you are an invaluable resource capable of delivering for his or her company and take a strong step toward a new job.

With all the talk about seasonal jobs lately, it’s most helpful to find companies who are going to be hiring extra workers for the holidays. Not every single place is going to be looking for extra employees this time of the year, so we’ve looked into some that are.

If you’re looking to make a little extra cash, here are ten companies that will certainly be looking for a few more hands to work this holiday season.

UPS
Positions hiring: Tractor trailer drivers; package delivery drivers; driver helpers

RadioShack
Positions hiring: Retail sales associates

Macy’s
Positions hiring: Part time help in gift wrapping; sales associates

hhgregg
Positions hiring: Appliance and electronics sales

AT&T
Positions hiring: Retail sales associates; store managers; sales support

H&R Block Tax Services
Positions hiring: Office mangers; client service professionals

Blockbuster
Positions hiring: Retail sales associates; store managers

Hickory Farms
Positions hiring: Sales associates

Toys”R”Us
Positions hiring: Management positions; sales associates; cashiers; shelf stockers; customer service roles; back-of-house stock opportunities

Olan Mills Studio
Positions hiring: Photographers; portrait sales; customer service

Just because it’s the Thanksgiving season doesn’t mean you should sit at the table simply waiting for the bird. Sure, many hiring managers and HR staff will be taking a few days off at this time of year, but that doesn’t mean you should let up on your job search.

Perhaps the best advantage to looking for long-term full-time employment at this time is that you likely won’t be competing with quite so many applicants as at other times of the year. Take the opportunity to run some job searching reconnaisance while others are still at home recovering from having gorged themselves. While you may not be able to get in contact with many employers, you can do a lot of homework for the jobs you may interview for while you have some time to relax.

If a full-time position seems unlikely, never be afraid to look for seasonal work. It’s a good way to stay in the market until you can find a more permanent position, and if you play your cards right, there is always potential to turn the seasonal position into a long-term one. Those jobs aren’t just for teenagers and seniors. Considering that those demographics are less likely to seek further employment anyway, you have an excellent opportunity to stand out in the eyes of your employer.

This Thanksgiving, don’t just stuff yourself to the point of napping. Use this time away from stress to gather your job searching senses and recharge for when those staffers are back from their holiday. The fact that you haven’t been slacking will show, and you can go through the holiday season feeling secure about your career.

What is traditionally regarded as the ‘unemployment rate’ is the labor department’s U-3 statistic. This statistic is the percentage of people who are jobless but are actively seeking work, and as of March, it is 10.2%. Another statistic, which has only been official since 1994, is the U-6. The U-6 also includes people who are either underemployed or who are not actively seeking new employment. It is currently 17.5%, the highest it has ever been since having been made an official statistic or otherwise.

The reason many of these unemployed Americans are not seeking jobs is discouragement. The most recent growth of employment and the economy in general was tied to the real estate industry. As this industry has bottomed out in the past few years, many jobs that are directly related to or auxiliary to this industry are not as prevalent as they were in years past.

Another reason workers feel less incentive to look for jobs again is that government jobless benefits are more extensive than ever. Workers who become unemployed stay unemployed longer than what has been historically typical. Though this contributes, you should be asking yourself where these jobs are going to come from.  In the past decade 40 percent of new jobs, as aforementioned, were in real estate and are now gone.

Many workers will likely have to become acquainted with new career fields, and this presents a huge challenge to those workers, as well as putting some strain on job markets that still have work to offer. The hiring process will become more competitive. While this may create more activity in the current ranks of the unemployed, it may serve to further strain the economy, as the U-6 number is very slow to recover.

This holiday season, many temporary employees will be hired to accommodate the influx of business that occurs between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. At the end of the holidays, most of these employees will end these jobs and try to move on to something else. There are some steps that can be taken to turn a temporary part-time job into a permanent full-time position:

1. Treat the job as though it is already a permanent position. Don’t slouch just because you might not have this job after the holiday season. Show up on time, work diligently, and be devoted to what you’re doing.
2. Exceed Expectation. Employers expect a quantity over quality workforce at this time of the year. If you show a degree of quality that other employees may not, you could be offered to stay on board for a longer period of time. Temporary posts can always lead to permanent jobs if they’re handled as if they matter–to the company and to yourself.
3. Don’t pass the opportunity to do temp work. When one is used to working long-term positions, sometimes it seems like a step down to take a temporary job. However, if you show that you are willing to work in a temporary position even if there is a possibility you may not be asked to stay on for a longer time, the opportunity is always there. Your work may be remembered later, as temp work is usually the first step toward a full-time position. Make sure that staffers know you are invaluable to their workforce.
4. Look for temp work with a company you are familiar with and with which you would enjoy working. Any employee is going to work more effectively and more efficiently when working with products that they have always valued and with people they respect. During the application process, you also have the opportunity to show some of your product knowledge. This also alleviates some of the stress of undesirable shifts by allowing you to be in a work environment in which you are comfortable.

At this time every year, thousands of people take jobs that they either never have again or only return to the following year. There’s no better time of the year to impress staffers, so take a temporary job and set yourself up for a long-term career opportunity.