The Greatest Hits Collection

Like careers, music is an important part of my life. I rarely get a chance to combine the two, but I sometimes think of making a mixtape of songs about careers. Here’s what I would include:

“Get a Job” by the Silhouettes. This song came out in 1958, during a recession. The lyrics are slurred quite a bit and therefore hard to follow in places, but someone has compared them to the opening chapter of Native Son.

“Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys,” by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. This 1978 release by the two country outlaws is one of the few songs that deal specifically with career choice. It points out one career development issue that is often overlooked: the effect of career choice on one’s significant others.

“Dark as a Dungeon,” by Dolly Parton. This is from a whole album with careers as a theme: 1980’s “9 to 5 and Odd Jobs.” The song was written by Merle Travis, who was born and raised in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, the heart of coal-mining country. He has said he was trying for a folkish sound with the opening, something like “Come all ye fine and tender maidens.”

“When I Grow Up (To Be a Man),” by The Beach Boys. This song from 1965 deals with some of the issues, including career choice, that adolescents face. The backup singers count off the years “18, 19, 20, 21” in a way that is a little bit ominous.

“Take This Job and Shove It,” by Johnny Paycheck. David Alan Coe wrote it and recorded it in 1978, which unsurprisingly was not during a recession. This was a brilliant idea for a song, because everybody has fantasized saying this at one time or another. I remember having this go through my head when I actually did quit a job.

“Working in the Coalmine,” by Lee Dorsey. This 1966 hit was written and produced by the New Orleans great Allen Toussaint. It’s a reminder of how soul-killing some work can be. I’ve always loved the spoken line, “Lord, I’m so tired! How long can this go on?”

“Detroit City,” by Bobby Bare. This 1963 song points out that the ability to move from place to place in pursuit of a career is a great asset but also can be the source of a lot of stress. “By day I make the cars,/By night I make the bars.”

“Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos),” by Joan Baez. This song, from her 1971 album “Blessed Are…,” was written by Woody Guthrie in response to an actual plane crash that killed several undocumented farmworkers who were being deported to Mexico after the harvest was over. It’s a reminder that, for all they are demonized by some politicians, border-crossing farmworkers are not only vital to our economy but are fellow humans with families and dreams of their own.

“Welcome to the Working Week,” by Elvis Costello. This song is remarkably brief, reflecting the aesthetic of Costello’s 1976 debut album, “My Aim Is True,” and also the fatalism that is its theme: “You gotta do it till you’re through it so you better get to it.”

“Don’t Talk to Me About Work,” by Lou Reed. This song was originally on his 1983 album “Legendary Hearts” and is a sardonic look at some of the stresses of the workday.

“Big Boss Man,” by Elvis Presley. This is a 1967 recording. Jimmy Reed originally popularized the song, but it was written by Al Smith and Luther Dixon. It highlights some of the tension between managers and the workers they supervise, who sometimes wonder why their boss is in a position of authority. Speaking of The Boss....

“Jersey Girl,” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Tom Waits wrote this song, but Bruce made it one of the most famous B-sides of all time. This is the obvious choice for me to end this mixtape, partly because I’m a fellow native of the Jersey Shore, and partly because the song is about the joys of being finished with the workday. (“I know that job you’ve got leaves you so uninspired.”) I might have included The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” for a similar theme.

It’s significant that resentment of work is the overwhelming theme of these songs, and it would be difficult to find a collection that emphasized the more positive aspects of work. I think this may happen because popular songs are appreciated mostly as entertainment, as diversions from such practical matters as making a living.

I welcome any suggestions for additional career-related songs that deserve inclusion.

Myths About Public-Sector Employment

I’ve been thinking about public-sector employment for several reasons. Right now I’m working on a book to be titled 150 Best Federal Jobs. And in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Ohio, and many other states, governors are making noises about their states’ obligations to public-sector employees. So this is a good time to dispel some myths about work in the public sector.

One myth is that public-sector employment is increasing. This myth fits nicely into a broader narrative of creeping socialism. For example, last week, Speaker Boehner asserted that President Obama has added 200,000 federal workers since he took office. However, the facts don’t bear out such claims. The FedScope database of the Office of Personnel Management (a goldmine of data about federal jobs and an important source for my current project) reports a total of 107,057 nonpostal jobs added in fiscal years 2009 and 2010. Even with the addition of postal jobs, that’s well short of 200,000. Evidently the Speaker’s aides were also counting temporary Census jobs, so the Speaker was talking about cutting some federal jobs that actually are already gone.

The other factor to bear in mind is that the overall number of jobs increases as the population increases (except during recessions), so what counts is not the total number of government workers, but rather their fraction of the nation’s population. The Office of Management and Budget projects (PDF) that the fraction representing federal employment will decline slightly, continuing the trend of several decades. The OMB report notes, “In 1953, there was one federal worker for every 78 residents. In 1989, there was one federal employee for every 110 residents. By 2009, the ratio had dropped to one federal employee for every 147 residents.”

Another myth that is particularly current right now claims that public-sector workers earn more. The is true only if you look at all public-sector and all private-sector workers. But the two workforces are not comparable. For example, only about half as many federal workers are on part-time schedules as those in the private sector. On average, federal workers are also older and better educated. Most important, public-sector employees tend to work in higher-skilled occupations than private-sector workers. Think of all the fast-food workers, groundskeepers, home health aides, and other low-skill workers in the private sector. Some of these jobs do get done in government-run facilities (for example, the cafeteria in the state house), but these positions are few compared to those in the private sector, and the trend is toward contracting this work out to private businesses.

One interesting study by the Economic Policy Institute (PDF) focused on state and local government employees, who are receiving special attention in these times of drastic budget shortfalls. The study used data from the Current Population Survey to match comparable workers in public-sector and private-sector jobs. The researchers found that low-skill workers do have an advantage in jobs for state and local government, probably because they are more likely to be unionized than in the private sector. When total compensation (including pensions and other benefits) are quantified, “High school graduates received total compensation of $53,880 on average working for state and local government compared to $50,596 for workers employed by private employers, a public employment compensation premium of 6%.” However, more-educated workers actually pay a penalty in total compensation for taking a job with state or local government: 25% for those with bachelor’s, 31% for a master’s, 21% for a doctorate, and 37% for a professional degree.

Let’s not forget that many of the statements we read in the newspapers about public-sector employees are motivated by politics rather than by economics. Wisconsin is a perfect example of this. If the governor were concerned only with dollars and cents, why did he target only the public-sector workers who opposed him politically (the teacher union) and not the public-sector workers who supported him (the state police union and one powerful firefighter union)?

One advantage that public-sector workers definitely have, on average, over private-sector workers is job security. Some of this result from the higher unionization rate of public-sector workers. Some results from civil service regulations that are designed to prevent government workers from being favored or targeted for their political loyalties. And some results from the inertia of public-sector positions; private-sector businesses are more nimble at both creating and terminating jobs.

Occupations with Many Part-Time Workers

People work part-time for many reasons. Some can’t find a full-time job. Some need a lot of free time for nonwork responsibilities, such as school or care for a dependent child or parent. Some use this work arrangement as a way to try out a career or to break into one; others use it to gradually back out of a career into retirement. Still others combine it with another job (perhaps also part-time) that doesn’t pay enough.

After 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped publishing figures about the percentage of part-time workers in each occupation. However, these percentages are unlikely to have changed greatly. That’s why the following table is probably still accurate in its selection of occupations with more than 50 percent part-time workers, based on 2006 figures.

The figures for employment 2008 are for all workers, not just part-timers (but you can do the math with the percentage of part-timers to get a rough idea of how many there are). The figures for projected growth, projected annual job openings, and median annual earnings are also for all workers. Note that part-timers in most occupations earn a lower hourly rate than do full-time workers. The exceptions are a few highly-skilled health-care occupations, in which the part-timers tend to be night-shift workers, who earn a premium.

Dental Hygienists is the obvious winner in terms of both earnings and job growth, and it’s also the one requiring the highest level of skill. The occupations with the highest number of job openings have both a large workforce size and a lot of turnover. Most of these occupations tend to be held by younger workers. In some cases, there are physical demands that young people can more easily meet (e.g., Models or Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers). In other cases, the low pay and low skill requirements make the job attractive to young people with limited work experience and low income needs.

The main exception is Crossing Guards, which attracts many retirees. Municipalities like to hire them partly because they can be trusted with greater responsibility than younger workers. They enjoy the ability to find part-time work within walking distance of home. In addition, their roots in the community allow them to learn about job openings.

[Note: On some browsers, you may have to scroll down a bit to see the table.]

Title	Empl 2008	Part- Time	Growth 2008- 2018	Annual Job Openings	Median Earnings 2009
Library Technicians	120,560	65.0%	8.8%	6,470	$29,570
Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop	350,680	63.9%	6.5%	26,680	$18,110
Crossing Guards	69,930	62.0%	9.4%	2,560	$23,390
Counter Attendants, Cafeteria, Food Concession, and Coffee Shop	525,400	60.9%	9.3%	43,490	$18,180
Dental Hygienists	174,060	58.7%	36.1%	9,840	$67,340
Demonstrators and Product Promoters	102,790	56.1%	7.1%	3,690	$22,510
Models	2,240	56.1%	16.0%	100	$27,330
Lifeguards, Ski Patrol, and Other Recreational Protective Service Workers	115,230	55.3%	11.2%	9,080	$18,700
Protective Service Workers, All Other	87,680	55.3%	14.0%	7,150	$29,420
Library Assistants, Clerical	121,980	52.5%	11.1%	6,420	$22,980
Ushers, Lobby Attendants, and Ticket Takers	106,120	52.4%	13.7%	8,190	$18,050
Motion Picture Projectionists	10,830	52.4%	0.6%	470	$20,420
Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers	420,650	50.6%	5.5%	20,570	$17,700

The Importance of Soft Skills

I just finished reviewing JIST’s second online workshop. The first one we created, Job Search Advantage, is about job-hunting skills. The new one, still in development, is about mastering soft skills.

During a session at last week’s Careers Conference, one participant said he regretted that many people consider soft skills something extra, something nice to have but not essential. He argued that they should be recognized as the most important skills of all.

I agree, and I believe that everyone needs to take stock of his or her soft skills. One important reason is to decide which careers and job openings to pursue. It helps to have a good understanding of your ability with and interest in such work requirements as reading other people’s feelings, being persuasive, accepting criticism, and being supportive. So, for example, a person with both ability and interest in being persuasive might consider a position in sales; someone good at being supportive might consider health care or a team-oriented work environment. Someone who feels inadequate at reading other people’s feelings or just lacks interest in doing so might want to avoid team-oriented work and look for careers or positions where the work is done solo, for example in some mechanical repair jobs.

If you already know what your job target is, you have an entirely different reason to think about your soft skills: to be able to sell yourself as the best person for the job. Nowadays one reason why some jobs are not being sent to a foreign shore is that they depend on a human touch. For example, although some help-desk jobs are being done abroad, many companies are maintaining an American staff to do this work because they find that American workers achieve a better rapport with American customers. These workers need to be able to ask the most effective questions of the people who call and rapidly detect any confusion that may arise. Other jobs that are not in danger of being offshored, such as many health-care jobs, nevertheless need workers who are able to interact well with the public and work well as a team.

It’s not enough to identify the soft skills you have mastered that make you a good job candidate. You need to go further to think of ways to demonstrate your mastery of these skills to the potential employer. The job interview gives you only a very limited opportunity to demonstrate these skills, and you may not even get that far if your resume shows no signs of your soft skills. So you need to indicate your soft skills on your resume and do so in ways that go beyond mere assertions. For example, instead of merely saying that you are skilled at negotiating, you might identify a particular instance of a difficult negotiation you accomplished. You can demonstrate your teamwork skills by giving an example of a collaborative accomplishment. You may think that achieving something as part of a team somehow dilutes your credit, but you can make it count as an achievement for the teamwork skills it shows.

One additional reason to take stock of your soft skills is to recognize which ones you need to work on--and then get started on doing so. As with any skills, with these there is the problem that you can’t get the job without the skills but seemingly can’t get the skills without the job. The solution is to find ways to build the skills in nonwork situations, such as volunteer activities. Volunteer with a community organization to serve on a project that requires you to work with other people. It may help for you to become more active in a group you already belong to, because you’ll be less shy about working with people you already know. As you get involved in projects requiring soft skills, it’s vital that you ask for constructive feedback from your co-workers and accept it without being defensive. Alternatively, you may be able to build these skills in your current job by asking your supervisor for a low-stakes, limited assignment that uses these skills; again, ask for feedback and make use of it to improve your skills.

Soft skills are not really soft when you consider the impact that they can have on your career.

The Joys of Working at Home

My wife and I both work at home. She is a technical writer, and I write books about careers. According to the Center for Clean Air Policy, the number of telecommuters increased from about 3 million in 1993 to 6 million in 2008. That’s only a small slice of the total U.S. workforce of 150 million, but the growth is impressive and is likely to continue, for several reasons.

The shift to a knowledge-based economy is one factor that has encouraged work-at-home arrangements. An increasing number of jobs (such as our writing jobs) don’t depend on access to factory-scale machinery, so they can more easily be done where the worker lives. To be sure, some knowledge-based jobs such as laboratory research still require facilities that few people have in their homes. Workers in some highly collaborative jobs benefit from close contact with co-workers. And health-care jobs require a lot of personal contact with patients, either in an office or in their homes.

However, technology has the potential to make a work-at-home arrangement easier for many of these jobs, too. As computing power has increased, more and more tasks that have traditionally required a physical laboratory can be performed in a virtual laboratory, through a simulation that stay-at-home workers can run from their desks. Computer networking also makes it easier for workers to collaborate remotely. With video contact (such as Skype) and remote desktop access, you and the other worker can feel very much as if you’re in the same room even as you work from your home offices. Telemedicine is being used to bring some health care tasks (mainly diagnosis) to underdeveloped countries, but we may see its use growing here. A relative of mine with heart problems has her vital signs checked remotely from home several times per day. The workers who interpret these signs could also be at home.

Work-at-home arrangements are not just more feasible now; they are also more desirable to employers. One former employer of mine encouraged workers to spend one day per week at home because of traffic increases in the township where the company was located. This policy allowed the company to expand its workforce without a commensurate increase in the number of cars on the township roads. The arrangement also reduced the burdens on company facilities such as janitorial and cafeteria services, not to mention electric power. Of course, these costs were shifted to the workers, but most workers are willing to take on the burden of running a home office for the benefits that the work-at-home arrangement offers.

And that is yet one more reason why the arrangement is growing: Many workers are more satisfied this way. From my own experience, I can list several reasons that the arrangement is so satisfying. The home setting is less stressful than a corporate office. I am rarely interrupted except when I want to be. I have the companionship of my wife, my dog, and my two cats. I can listen to Internet radio as I work (something that many companies forbid because of the drain on bandwidth). I have total control over the lighting, the heating, and many other aspects of the workplace. I can make a lunch better suited to my idiosyncratic tastes than I could find in a corporate cafeteria and fresher than I could have by brown-bagging. (In fact, the temptation to snack is one of the drawbacks of working at home.) With no need to commute, I save time, run up less mileage on my car, and reduce my risk of accidents. I can participate in the truly important meetings by teleconference but avoid the trivial ones.

This last advantage also can be a disadvantage in some circumstances. Working at home means you lose facetime with your co-workers. The bonds of water-cooler gossip are harder to develop from home. When performance appraisal time rolls around, your boss may feel more positive about onsite workers whom he or she sees every day.

Even more serious is the possibility that the job you are doing at home could be done--for less pay--by somebody whose home is in Bangalore, Shanghai, or some other offshore location. The same factors that encourage your employer to have you work off-site apply to these workers as well. So if you are choosing a job on the basis of how readily the work can be done at home, perhaps you should also look for a position that requires occasional on-site work (such as a weekly meeting) or some attribute (such as a security clearance) that an offshore worker is unlikely to possess.

If you have a fairly extroverted personality, work at home can lack the energy input that you would get from personal contact with co-workers. In my case, this means that working at home has made me very responsive to journalists who call to interview me about career-related issues. I enjoy the contact, albeit remote, and I’m happy to talk for as long as they press me with questions.

Workers with small children who are considering at-home work need to be realistic about how well they will be able to divide their attention between their jobs and their children. They probably will need to arrange day-care services just as if they were working in a company office. A toddler can be much more demanding than my cat, who right now is curling up under the desk lamp.

Earning Less Because of Recession

It should be no surprise that workers are earning less now because of the recession from which we’re still recovering. This is a tricky thing to quantify, for several reasons. For example, when you lay off a lot of low-skilled people, the average wage figure for those who are still employed actually goes up. However, if you look at the experiences of individuals over time, you’ll find lots of evidence that people are earning less, especially when they lose a job and take a new job.

This is the theme of a disturbing article in The Wall Street Journal: “Downturn's Ugly Trademark: Steep, Lasting Drop in Wages.” The article offers several accounts of workers who lost good-paying jobs and are now working in positions such as Starbucks barista and school janitor.

The most obvious reason for this drop in wages is simple supply and demand. When the labor market is overcrowded with job-seekers, people who are being hired have less leverage to ask for good wages. Or you might phrase it this way: The large number of job-seekers effectively bid down the price that it costs to hire them.

This is also the conclusion of a blogger on the PayScale.com site. Using a measure of earnings that the site developed, called the PayScale Index, he shows the inverse relationship between this index and unemployment. The PayScale Index began to decline in the first quarter of 2009, just when unemployment jumped from about 6.5 to about 9.2. Just as unemployment has shown only tiny declines since then, so has the PayScale Index remained quite flat.

The drop in wages is particularly severe for people who are laid off, and this is not just a temporary effect. The Columbia University labor economist Till von Wachter and two colleagues analyzed Social Security data to explore the effects of the recession of the early 1980s. The researchers found (PDF) that earnings of those who were laid off improved somewhat after the initial drop in pay, which averaged around 30 percent, but did not return to pre-recession levels. Earnings remained 21 to 27 percent lower 20 years later.

To explain this drop, Von Wachter looked beyond the simple matter of an oversupply of job candidates. He believed that the stale skills of workers were (and are) also to blame.

Many workers who have held a job for a long time do not keep their skills current with emerging trends in their job. These are the workers whom employers most readily target when there is a need for layoffs. In other cases, workers have skills that are fully adequate for the job they hold, but the need for that job is declining. This is the case for jobs that can be replaced by automation or foreign workers. Workers in these jobs will need to shift careers before they can find work.

I should caution that it’s not fair to blame the victim of layoffs and pay cuts in every case, especially in such hard times as these. Some workers have lost their job even though they have excellent skills for their position and are working in a field that is in demand. They may be the victim of a mismanaged company that could have survived in normal economic times. Or they may be unable to relocate to find work because they can’t find a buyer for their house. So they end up taking a job at a lower skill level, and with less pay, than they are qualified for.

On the other hand, these unfortunate workers are the exception. Everybody has heard of someone who survived a traffic accident because of a seatbelt that was not buckled. However, the odds of survival are much better for those who do buckle in. Play the odds. Your odds of weathering a recession with a good job and good pay are better if you keep your skills up to date and work in a career that has a future. For some tips on these matters, I recommend my new book, 2011 Career Plan.

Reading the Tea Leaves at the Department of Labor

What are the emerging occupations that will offer job opportunities for young people and career changers? One way to get a clue is to look at how our government, especially the Department of Labor, classifies occupations.

You’ve probably been told since childhood that there are two kinds of elephants: African and Indian. Now it turns out, from genetic evidence, that there are actually two species of African elephants: the forest species and the savannah species. This discovery will mean changes in conservation practices.

Something similar happens among the labor economists in the U.S. government: Every so often, they change the way they classify occupations. Most of the time, they split up occupations, just as the biologists have split up elephant species. Two practical results are that we get (1) more career information and (2) indications of how our economy is changing.

Last year, the government changed the Standard Occupational Classification taxonomy, which is what organizes the occupational titles that appear in all reports generated by all branches of government (Labor Statistics, Census, Economic Analysis, and so forth). SOC 2000 was replaced with SOC 2010.

We’re able to see the specific impact on SOC 2010 on career information now that the National Center for O*NET Development, which prepares the nation’s chief occupational database, has announced its plans for how (in an interim release, next month) it will align the O*NET database with SOC 2010. Several occupational specializations have now become occupations in their own right. Some previously unrecognized occupations have been added. And these changes indicate the directions our economy is taking as the second decade of the 21st century begins.

Green energy is one field where the change is particularly visible. Solar Photovoltaic Installers and Wind Turbine Service Technicians used to be two specializations within Construction and Related Workers, All Other. Now they’re distinct occupations, for which BLS will need to collect workforce and wage statistics and make employment projections. I can’t wait to see these figures! For my books about green jobs, I had to rely on industry sources (historically susceptible to boosterism) for these figures.

The same result has happened in other fields as well. Health care, our fastest-growing industry, provides many examples. Genetic Counselors, which used to be a specialization within Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Workers, All Other, is now an occupation in its own right. Similarly, Nurse Anesthetists and Nurse Practitioners, which used to be confined within Health Diagnosing and Treating Practitioners, All Other, have been promoted to full occupational status. Nurse Midwives and Hearing Aid Specialists have broken free of Health Technologists and Technicians, All Other. (Two new specializations that O*NET is adding to this catch-all occupation are Ophthalmic Medical Technologists and Surgical Assistants.) Some completely new occupational titles in this field are Exercise Physiologists, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologists, Ophthalmic Medical Technicians, Phlebotomists, and Community Health Workers.

These changes reflect the effort to reduce health-care costs by shifting some tasks from doctors to highly-skilled nurses and technicians.

In high technology, you can find Web Developers no longer slotted within Computer Specialists, All Other. Computer Security Specialists used to be a specialization within Network and Computer Systems Administrators but now steps out on its own under a modified title, Information Security Analysts. Some entirely new titles are Computer Network Architects, Computer Network Support Specialists, and Radio, Cellular, and Tower Equipment Installers and Repairers.

In the business world, some new faces are Funeral Service Managers, Labor Relations Specialists, Fundraisers, and Credit Counselors.

The presence in SOC 2010 of new or newly-promoted occupational titles means the government is betting that these occupations are likely to expand. Most of them involve new or upgraded skills, which means limited competition for job openings. If you are thinking about your future career or advise people who are, you should pay attention to these occupations.