Tag Archives: Crossroads Consulting

FOLLOW UP OR STAY DOWN

Posted on April 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

BY: Adam Gavriel

So you’re one of the lucky ones who has been able to get an interview these days. You went into the office, had a sit down with the hiring manager and you feel like you did a good job. Congratulations…but you’re not done yet. Now what, the waiting game?

Of course not!

When it comes to seeking employment, there is no waiting.

You’re next step in the process isn’t to wait for a phone call or an e-mail, but to follow up and be proactive. Sending a follow up e-mail after an interview is a great way to continue to show the employer your interest in the position and your desire to obtain the job.

What you’ll want to do in a follow up e-mail is as follow:

Thank the interviewer, by name, for their time. It’s important to let the interviewer know, in a personable way, how grateful you were that the time was taken out of their day to meet you about the open position.

Reaffirm why you’re a good candidate for the position.  Quickly mention again the skills you currently possess and how they’ll be a positive factor towards the open position. Make sure the interviewer knows why you’re the best person for the job.

If you forgot to mention something important during the interview, do it now. You don’t want to look back on an interview and think that because you forgot to say one important thing, all is lost. Here is your second chance; we all know those don’t come around very often.

Mention something unique about the interview. This lets the interviewer know that you were really paying attention to not only your thoughts on what to say during you’re time talking, but that you were keenly listening to the interviewer when they were talking as well.

Of course, the best part of the follow up e-mail is how unique you can mold it to fit your experience with the interviewer. You want to make this follow up e-mail as personable as you can, while also maintaining a level of respect, integrity, and professionalism.

If you’re looking for more interviewing or resume tips, check out our recommended service. Having trouble getting to the interview stages? We can help you there as well. With over 50 job postings from around the nation (and a few international ones mixed in as well) we’re here to help you get the job you’re looking for.

Remember at Crossroads Consulting, “We’re putting the ‘Human’ back into ‘Human Resources!’”

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TIME FOR TOUGH LOVE

Posted on March 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

resumewritingtipsBY: Adam Gavriel

It’s time to set the record straight here, America.

A bit of tough love here, but it has to be said. You are NOT going to find work if you give up looking for work. A job is not going to fall straight on your doorstep if you’re patient enough; you have to be willing to go out and fight for it.

Some economists will have you believe that America’s economy is on the upswing when presented with a chart showing the unemployment rate decreasing steadily. What is not visible on that chart however is how many American’s have just plain exited the work force.

A report published earlier this month by Forbes.com reports:

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported unemployment fell to 7.7% from 7.9%, but the drop was at least partially attributable to a decline in labor force participation, Baker says. The employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) was unchanged at 58.6 percent, exactly the same as the rate in February of 2012 and just 0.4 percentage points above the low hit in the summer of 2011. This compares with an EPOP of 63.0 percent in 2007, pre-crisis.”

The only thing more discouraging about this statistic are the Americans who are looking for work, but essentially not even trying anymore.

Recently here at Crossroads Consulting a resume was submitted to us that really hit home in a very depressing way. To avoid any conflicts of interest, and to protect the identity of this applicant who we are trying to work with, we will just post a few snips from their resume so you can avoid these mistakes in the future.

In addition, please, if you are not comfortable with your resume contact us immediately. We have a highly recommended resume service that can help you most effectively optimize your resume for the eyes of employers.

The resume we received went as follows:

“Objective: To find a job in a sea of joblessness.”

The ‘Objective’ of your resume will be the first thing any recruiter or HR manager reads. This applicant did everyone in that business a favor. The average HR Manager spends six seconds looking at a resume. This applicant brought the average down to whatever time it takes to hit the delete key.

But it gets worse.

Instead of listing their internship experience under work history, the applicant listed it as a part of their education section. As was the case with all other job history written on the resume by the applicant, there was no description of what the duties of the jobs entailed.  Not to mention under job history, the applicant included “currently unemployed.”

This resume was just an absolute train wreck. What makes it TRULY sad was that it was avoidable. There are unlimited resources available with a simple Google search about putting together a strong resume. You do not have to have a listing of accomplishments a mile long to have a good resume to get yourself under serious consideration for a position.

As we look back and monitor the number of Americans who have just given up altogether, what about those still in the job market not really even trying anymore. We have hit a serious inflection point in America’s history at the moment, and we can go one of two ways. Everyone works together to get the economy going again, or we continue down a mediocre path where nothing happens.

It pains us here at Crossroads Consulting that we even had to mention this kind of resume in a blog post. If you have been following along here at OutOfOurMind.net you know how many times we have posted resources about how to bring your resume to an optimal level. We want to make sure nobody is sending horrific resumes like this one to any recruiter or HR manager, not just us. It does not help and helping people is the central tenant of our mission statement. It is why we are in this business.

Our main goal here is to get Americans working again. Whether it is through a position that we place the person in or not, if our system helped your resume or interview preparation skills, then we have done our job.

Even if all this article did was get you thinking, that is something for us to be proud of.

Please visit our website and feel free to send your resume our way for critique and helpful tips. And while you’re there, feel free to take a look at our job openings from across the nation that we are looking to fill TODAY.

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Posted in Crossroads Consulting, LLC, Hiring Company News, Interviewing, Job Seeker News, Resume

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LET’S GET SOMETHING STRAIGHT – WE’RE HERE TO HELP

Posted on March 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

BY: Adam Gavriel

If you have been keeping up with the blog here at OutOfOurMind, you may realize that the name is fitting to the personality.  You especially understand this concept if you’ve taken a jump over to CrossroadsConsulting.com to check out our unique job postings.  On our website you won’t read the kind of coma-inducing  job postings you find virtually everywhere on the web when you’re looking for jobs. Crossroads Consulting differentiates itself from the competition in that our ads are, “Fresher-and-Bolder,” (to borrow the name of Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller‘s travelling comedy show).

Obviously there’s the elements there that you need to know when you read a job description, i.e., the qualifications and such, but there is also a boat load of humor and personality; something desperately missing from the employment market.  Continue reading →

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SLOW BUT STILL NOT GOOD

Posted on March 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

BY: Adam Gavriel

Slow and steady wins the race.

The American job market continues to slowly improve. As many economists suspected before the released numbers, there has been a gradual trend in the right direction for many Americans.

The report from Bloomberg.com today shows that the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits has dropped to its lowest levels in two months. In the week ended March 9th, jobless claims fell by 10,000 to 332,000. This was after many economists predicted jobless claims would rise to 350,000.

“The rate of job destruction is pretty low,” said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Florida, who projected the number of claims would drop to 338,000. “The labor market is in continued-recovery mode, though there is still a lot of ground to make up.”

As Scott Brown warns, the market is still highly at risk. With government slashing across the board coming soon, companies believe that they will have to be cutting their payroll expenses in the near future as the sequester takes effect.

“The sequester is another issue,” Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said before the report. “Beginning in April, we’ll start to get layoff notices, so we could see some upward bias on new filings because of the sequester, but lawmakers still have time to scale it back.

Although the numbers are trending in a positive direction, they are still moving too slow to help the American economy recover. Optimism is on the way with the way the economy is moving, but factors such as the sequester looming could set up the American economy to fail again. As was the case with the NHL Lockout this past summer, it is a “cautious optimism” that is beginning to sweep the nation. The numbers are progressing at a slow wait, but no one really knows what looms on the horizon. And without the ability to predict the future markets, companies and hiring managers are going to play things very close to the chest and protect their pockets.

All caused by the government’s inability to work across the aisle, and avoid The Sequester.

Well, as they say, slow and steady wins the race. You have to keep that pace though. The tortoise would have never won had he walked backwards for half of the race. Keep moving forward.

At Crossroads Consulting we are doing our part to help the tortoise to keep moving in the correct direction. Despite the government slashing coming across the board, Crossroads Consulting currently has over 50 open positions that we are looking to fill TODAY across the nation. If you’re one of those Americans that can’t seem to find the right opportunity, we implore you to check out our openings and send us your resume today. If you’re not comfortable with your resume, you can request our highly recommended resume service. We want to do our part from meeting you, to helping you, to get you in that job you’ve been eyeing.

At Crossroads Consulting, we are putting the ‘human’ back into ‘human resources’

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CHICAGO FOR EXAMPLE…

Posted on December 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

BY: Adam Gavriel

The struggles of today’s American economy are not just presenting themselves to the small-town America economy; No. The country’s biggest cities are also among those being affected.

At Chicagobusiness.com released an article showing the percentage gains and losses in the cities biggest sectors. As with most areas in the country, they have experienced gains in some categories with major losses coming elsewhere.

Chicago’s biggest growths occurred in the Mining and Logging sector, as well as the professional and business services. These are good sectors to grow in being mining and logging involving mass quantities of laborers, while professional and business services includes small-businesses (which we all know is the engine that drives the US economy).

Unfortunately, Chicago received nearly no growth in the education and health services (0.1% growth) as well as a huge loss in retail trade (-4.3%). The loss in retail trade is even more discouraging figuring in holiday hiring in the retail markets.

Here is the full chart of losses and gains in Chicago.

chicago

While the countries unemployment rate continues to remain steadily less than 8% Illinois has fallen on harder times than the rest of the nation experiencing an unemployment rate of 8.8%

The country will need it’s major cities, like Chicago, to begin to experience growth in order to change the fate of the rest of the country. We need everyone working together in order to make this recession disappear once and for all.

At Crossroads Consulting, LLC. we are trying to do our part. With job openings across the nation being updated on a daily basis, and a resume service to make sure you’re in the best position with potential employers, it is OUR mission to help get the Unemployment rate to a more respectable figure; and get Americans working AGAIN.

Please don’t give up on your search, and please let us know if there is anything we can do to help your search for a career run a little more smoothly. Remember, we’re here to put the ‘human’ back into ‘human resources.’

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Posted in Crossroads Consulting, LLC, Hiring Company News, Interviewing, Job Seeker News, Resume

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EUROPE ATTITUDES

Posted on November 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

BY: Adam Gavriel

Crossroads Consulting is always trying to keep you up to date on what is going on in the world of employment. Here we literally are looking at how citizens around the world think of the job market.

It’s a fair question…as dismal as the jobs report has recently been in the United States, this recession has grown to affect the entire world. A post released on Monday the 26th of November from Gallup.com reports that the job outlook across the European Union has been steadily decreasing this year. While the American unemployment rate continues to hover around the 8% mark, over in Europe, the EU has seen a steady deterioration.

Gallup asked the question: “Thinking about the job situation in the city or area where you live today, would you say that it is now a good time or a bad time to find a job?”

The results were astounding.

Germany came back with the best ratio with 46% of respondents believing it was in fact a good time to find a job. Of the other countries surveyed, 32% in Sweden believe it’s a good time, in Finland that number is 24%, Poland found 18% subscribing to the positive outlook, while France was at just 16%, the UK at a dismal 9%.

Greece is, unexpectedly, in a class by itself. The chickens have certainly come home to roost ion the overly entitled and now bankrupt society that Greece is. Just 1%, that’s right, just 1% of their residents got the warm and fuzzies about their nation being a good environment for job hunting.

The unemployment rate in Greece was 25.1% in August and reports say that it has increased slightly in September from its already record high number. In most countries in the EU, the unemployment rates have not improved since 2011.

In terms of how outlook has changed among job seekers, Finland takes the “title.” It was reported in 2011 that 36% of Fins believed it was a good time to be looking for a job; whereas as mentioned above, that number has dropped 12 percentage points down to 24%.

Despite Germany’s staggering 46% believing times still looked rosy ahead, but that number is also down 2% from the 2011 survey. Job outlook has only increased in seven countries of the EU, those being Latvia (+8), Malta (+6), Lithuania (+6), Estonia (+5), Poland (+4), Bulgaria (+2), and Romania (+2). There was no change in four countries, and the rest of the surveyed, sixteen countries, reported a more bleak outlook on the jobs situation.

Gallup also took a look at those who currently hold full-time positions for an employer and compared it to the 2011 numbers. Fortunately, these numbers have remained relatively stable, but they are still quite discouraging. Sweden is now the only country who reported full-time employment of over 50% There were significant increases in full-time employment in France (+12%) and Luxembourg (+13%) from 2011 to 2012. However there were also so disappointing drops in Slovakia (-7%), and Denmark, Cyprus, Austria, and Spain who all experienced drops of 4%

There is no denying that we have reached a discouraging time across the globe in the economy. The recession that has hit the United States has certainly been felt across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Some may even believe that it’s better to focus on American’s problems before reaching our hand overseas to help, however as we’ve noted it’s going to take a full team effort to get the global economy working again. Think about it this way, the more people working in the EU, allows more imports into that country. And of course, the more they’re importing, the more they’re going to need the countries that they import from to continue to manufacture. It’s going to take a worldwide effort.

At Crossroads Consulting we are looking to reach our hand out and help pick those up who need the assistance. We are asking you to check our nationwide job openings and send us your resume right away! If you’re not confident in your resume, our resume evaluation and editing service can help. It’s thorough and VERY affordable. We’d love to take a look at it for you to make sure it best shows your qualifications to employers.

Remember, we want to be there from point A to placing you in your new office. Crossroads Consulting is here to put the ‘human’ back into ‘human resources’

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SPRING CLEANING

Posted on March 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

BY: Adam Gavriel

When it’s March 21stin Buffalo and outside there are people tanning, in shorts or t-shirts, throwing a football around, you know something has to be wrong. That’s one of the signs of Armageddon in Revelations isn’t it?

One of the warmest winters in recent history has come to a close and the start of spring is just around the corner. Finally, here at the University at Buffalo it looks like a college with people outside congregating and doing the things you see on every college flyer, handbook and website instead of avoiding snow covered roads and running for cover in the comfort of nearby buildings.

What usually happens though at this time of year is that many American’s will engage in the yearly tradition of spring cleaning when early April rolls around. Like a New Year’s Resolution, spring cleaning can come in many different forms. Of course there’s the obvious straightening up your home, changing the air fresheners to that sort of resemblance of the smell of flowers or as in-between-the-lines as it gets of cleaning up everything.

Continue reading →

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A MAJOR DECISION

Posted on February 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

BY: ADAM GAVRIEL

Don’t be fooled by anyone who tells you otherwise, but what you major is in college has an effect on your chances of employment. A study conducted by utSanDiego.com found that art, humanities, or social science majors could all expect an unemployment rate of greater than 8.5% after graduation.

A promising number occurred in the measure of graduates with Education or Health Care majors showing that the unemployment rate was less than 5.5% The educational system is where a lot of money and investment should be put, and the low unemployment rate for those graduating with those degrees shows that jobs are being created in an industry so important to the countries future.

Continue reading →

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WHERE TO LOOK FOR JOBS…BESIDES US OF COURSE

Posted on January 30, 2012 | 1 Comment

BY: Adam Gavriel

A few months back on the blog, we reported that the Midwestern United States seemed to be experiencing the job recession better than other parts of the country. Now however since the unemployment rate has dipped below 9% at a trend that continues to fall, other parts of the nation have caught up to their Midwestern brethren. On the other hand, some states continue to falter way above the 8.5% reported in December.

Continue reading →

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THE CHALLENGE

Posted on January 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

BY: Adam Gavriel

Nearly a month into the New Year many have already abandoned their New Year’s Resolutions.With the New York Giants continuing to roll into the Super Bowl mine is still alive and well, watching one of my favorite sports teams win a championship.

If your New Year’s Resolution was like the one discussed here just before the end of 2011, with a  focus on getting a job, we hope you’re closing in on your goal. For some, this same New Year’s resolution may be frustrating you as your goals have not been met. For some, you may not have even gotten your foot in the door.

So we’re offering you “The Challenge” this year to rise up and find that employment by any means necessary…and we want to help.

There are employers out there looking to fill vacancies. We speak with them all the time and hope for more new clients to work with.

Conversely, if you’re a prospective employee, look at all the angles. Don’t just look at big corporations, but look at small businesses and even Not-For-Profit organizations too. A job is a job. It’s better than the alternative. Remember that small businesses account for some of the nation’s most abundant employment opportunities and should not be ignored by anyone looking for work.

We understand this sounds insensitive to some of you and maybe a bit naïve to others, but we believe finding these opportunities may be hard, (remember that anything worth having isn’t something found on any street corner). When you do find an opportunity it can be frustrating if you feel that you haven’t been considered for the best of your abilities.

No employer wants to see that after you got laid off, or quit your previous job that you didn’t do anything. Constant work will always out-weigh the other option. Though, try not to jump from career to career as employers might be hesitant to give you a full chance if they see that your job loyalty has faltered in the past.

Spend your time building a new skill to add to your employment. Want to continue building up your work experience? Look for possible volunteering venues. Anything is better than an empty slot in your resume where employers would feel the need to ask you, “Well sir/ma’am, tell me, ‘What did you do from 2008-2009?’” When you don’t have an answer, it’ll create an awkward situation for you as well and an easier decision for the interviewer.

At Crossroads Consulting we challenge you to take a look at our job openings and utilize our incredibly affordable resume and interview service. For the small amount you’re investing in yourself, getting that job that you so desperately want would make it worth it.

We want to be with you every step of the way in your route back to the employment spectrum.

Keep working your connections; keep your eyes and ears open for opportunity. It’s just around the corner.

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