According to today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, though the unemployment rate dropped another .3% to 6.7%, much of this drop was due to job seekers leaving the workforce (and thus not being counted by BLS)! Furthermore, only 74,000 new jobs were created last month (a drop of 156,000 from the previous month). However, with 1,309,000 new jobs created over the last 8 months, competition is increasing for existing jobs. This means that it is time to reformulate your resume!
Sectors that added jobs were:
1. Retail Trade rising by 55,000 new jobs in December. This brought the total to 121,000 jobs added in the last 3 months. Furthermore, the field averaged 32,000 new hires per month for all of 2013!
2. Wholesale Trade employment continuing to grow and adding 15,000 last month and averaging 8,000 per month for 2013.
3. Professional and Business Services added 19,000 last month and 75,000 over the last 3 months.
4. Manufacturing added 9,000 new workers and 55,000 over the last three months. However, the rate of increase is declining with only 77,000 added for 2013 versus 154,000 in 2012!
On the negative side:
1. Health Care, which has been a constant for growth over the last decade, actually decreased by 6,000 jobs. Furthermore, the employment has been trending down over the past 12 months averaging only 17,000 jobs created per month in 2013 versus 27,000 per month in 2012!
2. Construction lost 16,000 in December. However, did average adding 10,000 per month for 2013!
3. Information (e.g. motion pictures and sound recording) employment lost 12,000 in December.
Therefore, it is time to engineer a new resume. To that end, one mantra I recommend is: numbers, numbers, numbers. This means to include as many quantitative accomplishments as possible. Instead of saying, “I was part of a team to implement a new MRP system” one should quantify that. For example, “as a result of my 34 man-hours managing a team of 7 IT professionals, software engineers and design engineers which resulted in our new MRP system being engineered 30% ahead of schedule and saving our company $4.5 million.”
One should also include such quantitative accomplishments as patents, awards and any ways you have made or saved money for your employer. This will be a lot easier to quantify if you are an engineer, scientist or technical professional, but everyone can accomplish this task with some planning and calculations. Remember as a rule of thumb for every dollar you are paid in your job, your company will earn $3 or more for your efforts. To that end, an employer needs to feel that you will be generating profit from your work. That is why you should include as many “numbers” in your resume as possible.
