Are you happy with your career?  Are you working or have you been laid off?

I’m hearing from more and more people who are examining their career future.  I’ve heard from those that wonder if they should stay in their current position or current company.  I hear from those who have been part of a recent layoff and are now deciding whether to stick with their career choice or try something new.  I also hear from people who were ready to retire but are rethinking that decision and wondering how to proceed.  And of course, the recent college graduates who are finding it difficult to find work in the major they chose.  They too are examining career options for the future.

What is the right approach to identify the next step in your career path? The best way to see where you’re going is to look back where you’ve been.  I know I personally run at 100 m.p.h. most of the time and it is rare that I slow down and appreciate where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.

Think back to when you first chose your career.  How did you decide what you wanted to do with your life?  Many people chose something they could be passionate about.  Even though it’s just a job, a means to an end, it’s was much more meaningful if you chose a career you were excited about.  As you look to the future, you should examine the steps you walked and what you learned so that you can use that knowledge to guide you to a new career.

• Roles- What were the first roles you had in your career? Whether you were an intern, an apprentice, a generalist, a support staff, etc. the lessons learned during the early days of your career were very valuable.  It taught you how to interact with others.  It taught you about managing up.  About learning what the expectations were and how to exceed them.  It taught you about getting along with colleagues and how to fit in to the culture.  You were most likely a “do’er” during this time.  Absorbing everything new like a sponge.  As you explore career options, try to capture the enthusiasm of your youth when learning about the new career.  Be willing to be a “do’er” again.  Ask as many questions as you can.
• Key influencers- Who were the people you looked up to when you first chose your career path? Were they instructors?  Neighbors?  Maybe a family member.  Bottom line is you found people you respected and decided you wanted to emulate them.  What steps did they take to pursue that particular career?  What special skills or education were needed to get the job?  Look around.  Who can help and influence you in your new career?  Use social media to meet professionals in your new field or industry.  Reach out.  Be open.  Learn from the “experts”.
• Take aways- So what does this mean to you now? Is there a career you’ve always dreamed of having?  What are the steps you will need to take to embark on that career?  Is it an achievable goal?  Will you need more education?  A certification?  Will you need experience?

Deciding to journey down a new career path is a daunting decision; however, it can be even more rewarding than can be imagined. Have you ever taken a major turn in your career path?  What steps did you take that helped you select that career and get acclimated?  Share with us in the comments.

Today, I have a serious message for you.  Whether you work in human resources, management, or not, the message is the same.

Be careful out there

In a time of year that many relate to happy things, we need to keep in mind that so many people are not in that same mode.  With the most recent unemployment numbers out for November,  the picture is dire.  According to the Department of Labor, the number of job losers and people working temporary jobs increased by 390,000 to 9.5 million in November.  There are over 6.3 million people who have been jobless for over 27 weeks.  These people struggle with worry about how to keep a roof over their heads, the heat on, and food on the table.  Add to that the pressure I’m sure they feel about how to provide a little “extra” for a child or family member during the December holiday season.

While most people who have been laid off or terminated handle the situation, we’re hearing about  more people who snap.  Just this week, a man walked into a school board meeting in Florida and opened fire because his wife had just been laid off.  Watch the video for a look at how quickly this could happen in any of our lives.

*Warning, it’s graphic

Just remember, as simple as my message seems, the risk is very real.

Be alert

Watch for signs of people who are acting strange (whether at work, a store, or anywhere in public)

Be aware of your surroundings and always have a plan of how you can get out of a situation

Talk with your security team at work, with HR, or with EAP to ask for more information on how to protect yourself.

If you spend any time reading about employment and unemployment statistics online, your head will begin to spin.  There is so much data around who is out of work, who IS working, how many jobs they hold, how does this compare to last year and on and on.  I try to stay informed on the situation in two states: the state I work in (Missouri) and the state I live in (Illinois).

According to the most recent statistics from January 2010 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in Missouri, unemployment is at 9.5% (up 1.4% from last year) and Illinois is at 11.3% (up 3.2% from last year).  At the same time, I’m hearing that many people finding themselves out of work are not only trying to find one job, but two.

Reasons people are people working multiple jobs:

• They are recently out of work and finding they have to work multiple jobs to try to maintain their standard of living
• They still have one job but fear of losing it makes them proactively take a second or third job as “security”
• They can’t make ends meet on current salary so taking multiple jobs to achieve that
• They can’t find work in their field at their level, so taking multiple lower-paying jobs to remain in the field and continue to gain experience

So, how are things in your state?  What trends are you seeing and hearing related to unemployment and people trying to find multiple jobs?  What other trends are happening where you live? Check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics table on Over-the-Year Changes in Unemployment by State, then share with us in the comments.

Tonight I was reading and started thinking about the marginal efficiency of capital.

It’s probably obvious that I was not reading the latest copy of Vogue or one of the tabloids.  I actually came across the 1936 book ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money‘ by John Meynard Keynes.  In his time, his economic theories were quite controversial.  But, after the Great Depression, Keynesian economics began to gain favor and had prominence up into the 1970′s.  The book itself it quite fascinating to read if you’d like a look at marco-economics.  It puts forth the idea that unemployment rates can be lessened if you stimulate the economy with increased government spending.  With the Obama administration in place, it is again a source of guidance for digging out of our current economic situation.

As I was reading, I focused on one particular chapter regarding the marginal efficiency of capital.  To oversimplify this aspect of this particular theory, the marginal efficiency of capital is the relationship between the prospective yield of  a capital asset and the replacement cost.  So in terms of applying this to human resources, it is the relationship between the work you personally can perform and the benefit you provide compared to the cost of the employer to replace you.

I’m wondering how the current economy is affecting this relationship.  It could go a couple different ways:

• The cost to replace you could be less because with unemployment so high, there are more available candidates to fill your role.
• The cost to replace you could be more because even though there are an overabundance of candidates, employers are finding they are not candidates with the right skills.

So, what do you think?  Are you seeing that replacement cost for workers who leave has increased because there are few candidates with the right skills?  Or are you finding the opposite, that there are plenty of candidates who can fill the openings, so the replacement cost is relatively low because people are willing to work for less?  Let me know in the comments.

It seems like I’ve been hearing a lot about state fairs lately.  Puf over at Human Resources Pufnstuff has been writing about it over at his blog.  Just last week he wrote a great post about the Minnesota State Fair called ‘Friday Fun- Food on a Stick’.   I’ve also seen quite a few tweets about people attending their state fairs.  @HR_Minion (one of our favorite HR bloggers over at her site, The HR Minion) also went to the Minnesota fair and tweeted and shared twitpics during her visit.  So why all the fuss about state fairs lately?

State fairs are a fun and relativly low-cost trip people can take close to home.  It’s a way to see the best of what your state has to offer from food to crafts to livestock.  And of course, there are the rides.  Many of the state fairs are seeing an incrase in attendance and they attribute it to the fact that while the economy is down and people are not taking extravagant vacations, they are visiting locations within their states.  State fairs are seeing another benefit from the down economy- an overabundance of applicants for their temporary positions.  MSNBC posted an article called “State Fairs Hiring and Seeing Lots of Applicants ‘ that gives some good examples of people who have lost their high-paying jobs and are now scrambling to take jobs at their state fair. 

Are you seeing this in your area?  Does your city have skilled workers that are resorting to temporary positions in order to make ends meet?  Or, are you starting to see an uptick in the skilled workers who are getting back to work?

Throw me some comments so we can see where the jobs are and where we still need to pull together and help find people jobs.