Office Decor to Die for

Office feeling a bit drab lately?  Looking at these photos probably won't help. Check out a few of the coolest offices from around the globe.

Google Office, Zurich

 Pixar Office, Emeryville, CA

 LEGO Development Department, Billund, Denmark

Inventionland Offices, Pittsburgh, PA

October's Candidate of the Month

Candidate of the Month

Beau,Management Trainee

• EDUCATION: Bachelors Degree, University of Rhode Island
• WORK EXPERIENCE:
  ·  Product Development/Actuarial Assistant
  · May 2010 – September 2011
  ·  Legal Intake Technician
  · January 2011-May 2011
• OBJECTIVE: To obtain a management position in the the field of finance, marketing, or legal.

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City Personnel provides the highest caliber of staffing in the area.  Besides having talented sales and marketing candidates we also have provide candidates for all levels of legal staffing, accounting, human resources, medical, and other office positions.  For a more detailed look at Beau's background, or information on any of our other candidates, please contact City Personnel at 401.331.2311 or by email at resumes@citypersonnel.net.

To keep up with the latest candidates of the month and other happenings at City Personnel please follow our blog.

Laid Off? Make LinkedIn Work for You.

Laid off recently?  I'm sure you already know this, but you aren't alone. Not even close.  You are in the good company of roughly 10%-11% of the population.  Depressing, I know.  Well now that you are gainfully unemployed its time to get your but over to LinkedIn and get to work.  Here are some tips, courtesy of Forbes, for making your LinkedIn work for you and land you a new job.  

Professional Headline:

• This is key.  It's the line which goes under your name and is meant to give a generic example of what you do. I.E. CEO, CFO, Marketing Manager, etc. Do not limit yourself to what your last job description was, put what you would like to be and feel you are qualified, based on your experience, to be. 

Current Position:

•  You are currently out of work so make sure to move your last position into your work history an add an end date. In this economy there is no shame in being between jobs and this lets recruiters know you are definitely available to work.

Summary:

• In this section you need to describe just how fabulous you are in a few short paragraphs or less. This is definitely a less is more block. Put in here your key skills skills and a short list of workplace accomplishments.  Finish it all out with a sentence like "I am currently looking for an opportunity to expand on these skills."

Experience:

• Do not, I repeat, DO NOT lie in this section.  Make sure you accurately describe your past positions and length of time you were there. Also, request recommendations from co-workers and managers a like to a test to your skills.

Education:

• This block poses the unending question of "should I put my year of graduation or not?" There are pro's and con's to each.  Putting a year of graduation allows another point from which someone can connect to you from, but on the other hand it also denotes age which may hinder certain employers.  It is really a personally call, however once again the key to this is don't lie.  Employers will find out.

Picture:

• This aspect was not discussed in the Forbes article, however it is important.  Pick a professional looking photograph.  Preferably one where you are smiling.  Do not use photos of you and other people, or you in overly social environments, I.E. the bar.  Keep in mind this picture is representative of how you want an employer to see you. 

   

National Disability Employment Awareness Month

In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month we at City Personnel have taken the initiative to find some statistics on disability in the US just for you. I know, you've been wondering why has it taken us this long?  I mean we're already 11 days in!  Well I apologize for the delay, and fully blame it on Columbus and his holiday, but without further a due here are the stats:

• In the US 54 million people have a disability
• West Virginia has the highest percentage of people with a disability at 18.8% of the population
• Utah has the lowest percentage with only 8.9% of the population having a disability
• Hearing difficulty is experienced by 10.2 million people, of these 10.2 million, 5.8 million are 65 or older
• Visual problems account for 6.5 million people
• Roughly 13.5 million people struggle to concentrate or make decisions, of these 2.1 million are aged 5 to 17.
• Approximately $35.3 billion has been received by veterans for service connected disabilities for 2008
• Around 21% of the population over 16yrs old with a disability are below poverty level
• Nearly 72% of disabled people over the age of 16 are not in the workforce

The New Background Check, The Most Revealing Yet?

This is for you under 30 crowd.  Remember all those times your parents got on your back about minding your P's & Q's online?  You know what I'm talking about.  All those reminders that it probably is a bad idea to post all the various times you've woken up hung over, or those pictures of you acting like a fool in Vegas?  Well turns out they were right...again.  Trust me when I say I feel your pain. 

You all probably suspected that prospective employers may Facebook stalk you during the interview process, but I'm hear to assure that they do.   In a regularly cited survey released by Microsoft Research last year 70% of recruiters asked said that what came up when they googled you lost you a job. 

Reppler, a start-up tool for monitoring your social media usage, recently conducted another survey to see how 300 recruiters are using social media to screen candidates.  The results are astounding.  A whooping 91% of them are using social media tools to pre-screen candidates.   About half of this 91% screens before they even met you and the other half screens during the interview process.  69% of these recruiters said they had denied a candidate employment based on what they saw.  The biggest fault they identified,  lying about your qualifications for a position.

It isn't all bad though.  68% of recruiters also said that more than once a candidate's Facebook profile landed them the job over someone else. Why?  Because it showcased their honestly, relevant qualifications, creativity, and personality. 

All this in mind it shouldn't come as a shock that in June the Federal Trade Commission approved a company called Social Intelligence which runs background checks of web content.   The FTC determined that the company is in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act allowing them to operate.  Their service uses data mining to compile full records of what you have said and posted to Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/Craigslist/Blogs/etc.  If something job threatening shows up in your report it is saved on file for seven years.  This certainly makes posting things to the internet a bit more risky.  You do have to sign off on this the same way you would a criminal background check or credit report, but none the less think before you post.