Tips for parents helping recent graduates to find alternatives in their job search in tough economy:
1. Suggest that your kids read blogs. The best way to get the attention of a manager is not to send a resume but to comment on that manager's blog. Most fortune 500 companies have thousands of managers who blog. Microsoft has more than 5,000 bloggers. Most CEOs of small companies blog. Send them to http://alltop.com to find blogs in areas that interest them.
2. Suggest they write a blog. The best way is to get a prospective employer's attention is to write a blog, because a blog is about one's interests and professional aspirations, and when employers search a name blogs will come up first. They can start a blog by going to wordpress.com.
3. Suggest that they consider going to Asia to work. Just because they are not sure what they want to do doesn't mean they should do nothing. Teaching in Asia is an excellent way to gain great experience and learn new skills without having to commit to a desk job, that you know before starting is not right for you. a good place to investigate teaching possibilities in Asia is to go to aclipse.net.
4. Parents should take their e-mail contact list and dump it into to linkedin, this creates a contact list that their kids can leverage. Linkedin is a great career tool to keep track of one's network. When just out of college, your kids probably don't have much of a network, but you and your friends do.Get started at www.linkedin.com.
5. Suggest a resume coach. If they had an SAT coach, a sports coach, why wouldn't you have a coach to get a job. Young workers face a radically different work place then their parents did. Hire someone who understands the workplace of the new millennium do give your child the most current advice.
6. Encourage them to change jobs if they hate it. There is no need to spend two years in a job you hate. most people in their twenties change jobs every 18 months. and are not penalized. People who job hop have stronger careers over time.
June's Labor Department report was not encouraging for the new batch of college graduates. The jobless rate for workers aged 20-24 rose to 10.4% from 8.9% in April. And, for high school students looking for summer jobs, the statistics were even gloomier, with teenage unemployment rising to 18.7% from 15.4% in April.
Penelope's website: www.penelopetrunk.com
Penelope's blog: www.brazencareerist.com.
About Penelope Trunk, The Brazen Careerist
Founder of The BrazenCareerist.com, a site that employs 100 young professional bloggers. She writes the widely read blog www.penelopetrunk.com and is a career columnist for the Boston Globe and former columnist for Yahoo! Finance. She's also a regular contributor to CNN and Fox and author of "The Brazen Careerist."
