Seventy-one years ago, our country joined World War II after being attacked at Pearl Harbor. Because the worldwide jobs market continues to be assaulted, we may be dragged into another international calamity, global depression.
Beginning the week was a report from the Institute for Supply Management that the U.S. manufacturing sector fell back into contraction last month and employment weakened sharply. Ending the week was today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report that stated that even though: a) the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7% and b) 146,000 new jobs were created last month, there are still 22,700,000 Americans that are either unemployed, under-employed or just gave up looking and are not even counted by the BLS unemployment rate!
Our firm, in partnership with several leading experts, has decided to take action to address this crisis! We are developing a new, trademarked, low-cost alternative to outplacement, called World2Work™. Currently, only a few companies offer outplacement, to only a small sampling frame of displaced workers and with only very limited results. One of the major impediments is outplacement’s high cost (e.g. $10,000 or more per person). Instead, I stepped back in history to my social work days to borrow some ideas from the highly successful Alcoholics Anonymous http://www.aa.org program, which fosters self-help using both small groups and sponsors. Research shows that over a long period of time A.A. has succeeded in helping exponentially more people at a far lower cost than one-on-one therapies.
Adapting A.A. to job hunting, we will deliver: 1) small group training to 10-20 subjects at a time 2) 1/10th to 1/20th the cost of outplacement to mass layoff companies (so they are more willing to offer it to greater numbers) 3) a formula for selecting and employing “sponsors” (i.e. fellow attendees) to jointly apply the tenants of the program and 4) comprehensive job hunting instruction involving four modules that attendees will simultaneously revolve through during the one-day session including: a) core training (e.g. based upon both http://www.strategicsearch.com/real-benefit-exercise.php and http://www.strategicsearch.com/interview-preparation-tips/interview-preparation-tips.php ) b) speech and on-camera skills (Key: the most important part of landing a job is selling yourself in the interview and delivery is an integral part of that success) c) resume development advice and d) research guidance including optimal use of online resources and job boards plus future homework that will guide attendees towards mastering the four modules and landing their next job.
Though no one can master job-hunting during one session, our main goal is to provide the necessary tools and self-help framework (e.g. sponsor) to ensure continued future success. Furthermore, our research shows that many related experts currently exist across the country. Unfortunately, they lack standardization and interconnection. Our hope is, with the success of this program, we will attract many of these resources under one umbrella and standardize the delivery model to more quickly and efficiently address the needs of the growing masses of job seekers.
