Finding a Job in a Down Market
What You Will Learn
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I made a video recently called “Job Search Secrets for a Recession”, which discussed the best way to locate a position during a recession. In my experience, the best way to find a job is and always has been to approach the widest variety of employers possible.
There is another aspect to finding a job in a down economy, however, which is even more important – your own psyche. The psychological aspect of finding a job is what slows most people down in their search. People get depressed and stop taking action. This is not the right way to find a job. Finding a job requires a specific state of mind.
When you get hired, someone is spending money to give you a job. People need to be inspired to spend money. The person who gets hired is the one who is able to inspire the employer (whether it is for a government job, sales job, education job or otherwise). In order to be an effective job seeker, you need to put yourself in the right state of mind to get hired. This means constantly thinking of all that is possible, and specifically what you yourself can achieve.
You must bring a lot of enthusiasm to your work, and you should picture and present yourself as being successful.
One of the best books I’ve read on this subject is Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. This book makes very clear the true power our mind has over the circumstances of our lives. You need to think and aim high in order to rise above and overcome the obstacles in front of you.
If you are employed and are dissatisfied with your current job, giving in to negativity is the worst thing you can do. When employers are faced with a bad job market, the first thing they do is differentiate the people who like being on the job from those who do not.
Employers tend to keep the people who have good attitudes and get rid of the people with bad ones. My career advice is that a positive attitude can be your best asset. In order to find that positivity, each day you should ask yourself what you are grateful for and concentrate on the answer.
The Heller Ehrman Dissolution
What You Will Learn
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The dissolution of Heller Ehrman is an event that makes me quite sad. The September 2008 article in the Wall Street Journal stated one reason for the dissolution was several major cases the firm had been working on settled, and therefore the firm now had much less litigation work on its plate.
I really liked Heller and the people there. It was, in its time, a great firm to work for as a litigator. With this recent news, what really burns in my mind is the idea that a firm could suddenly go kaput due to cases settling.
I have been involved in litigation several times as both a litigator and as the CEO of EmploymentScape. In speaking with attorneys (outside counsel), I am always struck by how expensive they can make litigation. The work they do is often unnecessary or extraneous, and the goal of many law firms (and I say many, not all) often seems to be to get cases and start milking them for fees, until the client will no longer pay and/or the case settles. Incredibly, what usually seems to happen with most litigation, after discovery and motions, is the parties settle and the resulting net gains or losses from the settlement are no different than if the parties had not litigated at all.
None of this is to say I have any issue with the judicial system or law firms in general. My concern, however, is when a law firm begun in the late 1800s like Heller Ehrman goes down the drain because cases settle, something is seriously wrong. Law firms should try to avoid unnecessary litigation and to promote settlement. Settlement is important, and what clients generally prefer. Settlement does not waste valuable time and money in the way full blown litigation can.
I am reminded of a situation many years ago, before I was in law school. I was at a high school graduation party, talking about a speeding ticket I’d gotten with my friend’s father, who happened to be an attorney. He told me a speeding ticket was very serious and spent about 15 minutes telling me all of the steps he needed to take to defend me–and then he got to the part about what his work would cost, which was over $500. That was a good amount of money, especially in those days. I walked away from that conversation wondering what would be the better outcome for me. In the end, I paid the speeding ticket, which I think was $65. No big deal. Yet some lawyers tend to make small matters into big deals, always in search of those billable hours. This really does not suit their clients. Nor does this suit the judicial system. In watching Heller’s demise, I wondered what its failure said about the firm and the way in which many law firms do business today. I am left thinking maybe events like this will change the way we look at litigation and settlement. I think this is a good thing, though the result for Heller Ehrman was not.
The Job Search Market in a Bad Economy
What You Will Learn
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I recently had a discussion with a manager of Legal Authority, my favorite job search company for attorneys, about exactly what happens in the market when there is a recession. Specifically we discussed what occurs in the job market for attorneys—who gets hired and who does not get hired. Since I have been witnessing this process take place for years, I thought learning the dynamics of it would be interesting.
On its most basic level, what happens during an economic recession is that jobs in the legal community involving transactional work slow down for the most part, while jobs involving litigation speed up. Litigation tends to increase when the economy gets bad, because people are more aware of losses in their business dealings caused by the wrongdoing of other parties, and they sue.
Corporate, securities, and real estate related jobs all typically slow down dramatically during a recession. This may also be the case for patent law, although there is typically a greater lag time. Patent work already in the system (“in stream”) continues, but new patent work enters law firms much more slowly than when the economy is bustling. This results in a delay of 2-3 years before patent attorneys may notice the slowdown in work. Jobs in trademark also tend to stop or slow down because less new business and brands are being created in times of widespread financial hardship. Real estate companies, and many other types of businesses or corporations become much more conservative with how they spend their money, and how much work they assign.
This is a very basic summary of what occurs in the market when economic conditions are bad, and it’s exactly what we are seeing now.
The Importance of Giving Access to Information–and Doing Good
What You Will Learn
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I am frequently reminded we are on this earth for a relatively short time. While we are here, it is in our best interest to create an abundance of outgoing goodness and love, and to simultaneously limit the amount of hate, anger, and sorrow that comes into our lives. Indeed this can be much of the struggle of human existence.
At times it seems the more good we attempt to put out into the world, and the more people we try to reach, the more the world challenges us by creating new obstacles. These obstacles actually serve to make us stronger, and ultimately assist us in reaching our goals.
The key is not to give up despite the difficulty. Telling jobseekers that perseverance is key, is in my view, the best piece of career advice anyone can offer.
I recently had a thought regarding some of the employment sites to which I dedicate myself seven days a week, 14 hours a day–specifically, the job sites Hound.com and EmploymentCrossing.com. Both of these sites are dedicated to consolidating all available job opportunities within specific industries, by gathering information from a vast multitude of employment websites. For some time, I have been developing and watching over these sites. My career in the employment industry is a mission of good, one that helps people find jobs or advance their careers.
I also believe the business model our sites follow is the correct one. For example, as with a site like Google, our goal is to consolidate and organize the world’s information. In our particular case, we are organizing job related information. Giving democratic access to this information is my prime motivator. Providing access to organized job opportunity information is no different from building libraries in different cities. It is no different from providing Internet terminals or wireless Internet access to retail establishments. Essentially, our companies are assisting people by providing information so they can make empowered decisions about their careers. After all, instructing a job seeker to search for all opportunity and information available is always regarded as good career advice.
Sometimes people misunderstand our service mission. While I hate to be negative, recently I’ve discovered some of this misunderstanding has impacted our business in a surprising way.
Some time ago a landlord with whom we were to lease an office found a website posting which claimed our company “steals” jobs from employer websites, and resells the information. The person criticizing us had started a long message thread about how what we were doing was wrong. Incredibly, the landlord did not want to rent to us because of what he read. I was completely taken aback by the news.
Organizing information is as old as the hills. Libraries consolidate and organize books and reference materials. Google does this as well with all the content it indexes on the Internet. EmploymentCrossing.com organizes job listings on the Internet, while Hound organizes employer jobs on the Internet.
I believe giving people access to information is a good thing, and provides a much needed service. I also believe a career is one of the most important things in people’s lives because it provides a sense of identity, and of purpose. Career choices can seriously influence the quality of one’s life.
I love what I do, and I hope to influence as many people as possible. I know the more I push, the more I, and the companies I work for will come under attack. That’s fine. I am ready for the challenge.
Our websites are unique. We do not accept advertising, nor do we charge employers to post job openings. Therefore, our only priority is showing our members every job we can possibly find, in the most democratic and unbiased way. I understand that with the democracy of the Internet it is easy for people to post their opinions, positive or negative.
But we must understand they are just that: other people’s opinions, not necessarily fact. I encourage everyone to be thorough in their research. Weigh your options not only with word of mouth or Internet posts, but with actual fact. I’ve built my businesses on thorough research and I’m happy to know it’s enriched thousands of lives.
The Effect of a Weakening Economy on the Job Market
What You Will Learn
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In the latter half of 2008 Wall Street and the banking system were undergoing major changes. I remember hearing the stress in people’s voices when I spoke to them in New York, and I believed we had reached a sea change of sorts, in the way the job market and the economy were about to shift.
The economy was clearly in very serious trouble. After 9/11, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, which stimulated many housing purchases across the land, allowed for the refinancing of homes, and put a lot of money into the economy. This was largely possible due to the securities markets, which at the time, were in their prime. Had none of this occurred, the current economic situation would probably be markedly different.
The rise of securities jobs and the lack of defaults on mortgages were due to rising home values caused by falling interest rates. Securities, with their inherent risks, were not being adequately priced on the market. The housing bubble, as it is referred to now, made a massive impact on the job market, since a lot of the money stimulating the economy came from revenue generated by securities.
I believe the situation in the market became much more severe due to the rise of the Internet. While its growth initially created a lot of jobs, it also made it very easy for people to do information intensive work anywhere in the world (such as IT jobs), which has created fierce job competition. Moreover, information intensive companies have little incentive to keep their work in the United States, where the wages are higher than in many other parts of the world. The result is that many Americans have moved further and further into more of a “protectionist mode” with regard to their jobs over the past several years. Consequentially we have seen less innovation. This is especially true of manufacturing jobs in the United States.
America needs innovation in order to succeed, and having wide open borders for information to pass through will foster innovation from abroad. While no one can offer career advice that will completely change the marketplace, you can succeed despite and economic downturn by becoming innovative.
The most sophisticated professions here in the United States, such as engineering jobs, aviation design jobs, and others, can already be easily outsourced to engineers abroad. This is not to say that innovation from abroad is a bad thing. However, I do believe workers in America must prepare for this evolving global job marketplace.
Manufacturing jobs have taken a huge hit in America, and I believe that more jobs involving information and communications–such as journalism jobs (which can now be done from overseas with an Internet connection and access to news sites), customer service jobs, graphic design jobs, and others–are soon to go elsewhere.
This leaves the American economy in a position of needing major, widespread and immediate innovation in order to create new jobs. I am very curious to see the outcome of this shifting dynamic.
America has always done well when faced with challenges such as those we are facing now. I believe we will rise to the challenge again.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.