Diversity Job Fair At Mellon Arena Coming October 9th

The Employment Guide and The Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh will host The 2007 Pittsburgh Diversity Employment and Career Education Expo at the Mellon Arena on Tuesday October 9th from 10:30AM to 3:00PM. The job fair is free for all job seekers and no prior registration is required. Geared toward hourly entry level to mid level skilled positions, approximately 30 companies are expected to be on hand looking for qualified and motivated job seekers in multiple categories. Categories such as healthcare, nursing, skilled trades, office / clerical, retail, drivers, law enforcement, customer service and more, with career training opportunities as well. Some of the companies attending include Manpower, Boscov's, Giant Eagle / Market District, SMG, CareerLink, Maronda Homes, Transitional Services, First Student, Leeds, Lenzner Coach Lines, Mainstay Life Services, Pennsylvania State Police, Best Buy, New Century Careers, Student Transportation of America, Inc., Kaplan Career institute, United States Post Office, Army National Guard, Sunrise Assisted Living, Academy of Court Reporting, All State Career School, Verizon Wireless and more. Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to the event.

City County Career Day Set to Get Underway Tuesday September 18th.

In what is being billed as the largest job fair event in Pittsburgh history, City County Career Day, or C3, will be held tomorrow at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh. Approximately 250 companies, including over 50 social service organizations, will be on hand offering employment, information and advice to what could be over 4,000 job seekers. Although centered on the building trades due to the large number of Pittsburgh area building projects slated to get underway over the next year, employment opportunities from all categories and skill levels will be available.

The event is a partnership between the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board, PA CareerLink, the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, the Pittsburgh Partnership and the Western Pennsylvania Builders Guild. Hours will be 10AM until 3PM with free admission to all jobseekers. Services that will be offered include tips on resume writing, interviewing skills, finding community resources and even how to get the most out of a job fair.

If you plan on attending try to get there early and make it a point to smile and shake hands. This is an opportunity to make a good first impression.

Mary Serves Up a Lesson to Pittsburgh Recruiters, Very Well Done With a Side of Reproach

We were reading other Pittsburgh related Blogs last night when we saw Pittsblog had endorsed the reading of a frustrated job seeker's blog outlining her search for a higher level position in the Pittsburgh area with nothing but frustration and unprofessionalism from the Pittsburgh recruitisphere to show for it. Our biggest interest came from Mary’s post concerning the attendance of a job fair that was held at PNC Park last June. We also decided to publicize her travail, because her experience relates to all job seekers and recruiters, whether entry level hourly jobs or highly experienced professional positions.

As an organization that also produces multiple large job fairs each year, we hear most often from the “other side”, that is, recruiters who have attended our job fairs. Though many successes have occurred for employers and job seekers at these events, we have seen a common thread running among the recruiters who complain the most about not finding qualified job candidates for the positions they have open. Mary makes the point very well from the job seekers standpoint.

Many recruiters, though with the best of intentions, simply are not people persons. That is, whether they are in Human Resources or head a department for their organization, they are not trained and are not good at engaging people in a public forum. We suppose most people who do this well are currently in Sales or Public Relations or Politics.

Unfortunately for Mary her disappointment in the behavior of recruiters came from expectations that were too high for what a job fair is all about (or of most value to job seekers). Job Fairs, especially for higher end positions, are more of a research mechanism than an actual interview opportunity. Also, she is correct that going to a job fair during the last hour of an event is less likely to get her quality time with the companies that remain (another bad habit of local recruiters is leaving before an event is over)

This does not offer to excuse the behavior of recruiters, only to explain them. Blog postings like Mary’s should go a long way in educating company decision makers about how much they are missing out on available Pittsburgh talent because they are so enthralled with their systems that they forget what their purpose is. Rude or belittling behavior is unprofessional. Period.

As for any other advice for Mary in her job search, please leave your comments and suggestions on her blog. It will be a shame for yet another intelligent professional job seeker to leave Pittsburgh for lack of opportunity (which are actually out there but unaccesable to those without connections). We suggest she contact The Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, as they offer job search assistance for professionals as well as hourly.

To read Mary’s postings and blog, here is the link.

Will the Pittsburgh Region See It’s Best Quarter of the Year Yet to Come?

With the advent of multiple very large construction projects set to get under way within the next 4 months, southwestern Pennsylvania’s job market is poised to see its best quarter in over 5 years. This year to date has seen the first bit of growth for this market since 2001. Year to year growth (July to July) was just over 4,600 jobs created (only .4%).

The upcoming September to December time period should see that and more. Although paltry from a total percentage standpoint, it is the beginning of what should be decent economic news for at least the next 2 years, barring a major unforeseen shock to the economy.

In the hourly Pittsburgh jobs arena, we are seeing very strong demand in the hospitality market, retail, security and sales, along with the always growing plea for healthcare workers. Manufacturing, though anemic by historical standards, has stabilized in the region.

Another symptom of the improving job climate is the continued reduction in applicants for career training schools. As jobseekers gain employment they are less likely to seek retraining. We’re not talking about 4 year college degree programs but the 1 and 2 year programs favored by job seekers seeking retraining. This is something we have seen very strongly in the south and west as those job markets heated up in 2005 and 2006. Look for an announcement coming within the next 3 months of a major Pittsburgh career school closing it’s doors.

Top 10 Most Difficult Jobs to Fill Include Many in the Hourly Realm

The one glaring fact that stands out most when looking at this year’s Manpower index of most difficult jobs to fill is that the majority of them are hourly positions and most do not require a 4 year college degree. Sales people lead off the list for the second year in a row. From what we hear in Pittsburgh this runs in all sales categories from entry level retail up to sales Engineers and Pharmaceuticals. Also mirroring what we see in Pittsburgh are the dire need for qualified auto mechanics. Many dealers are in a position to limit their service hours because they cannot find enough mechanics to handle the workload they are seeing in their shops.
A large part of the reason for this national phenomena is the same as we are seeing here as well. The start of the Baby Boomers reaching retirement age. Too many of our young workers have been brought up in a go to college or you’ll die mentality. Not enough have given thought to a career in what used to be considered either dirty or menial work that didn’t pay well. All of those old perceptions are long gone.

Here is the article from Manpower as posted on MarketWatch:

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Sales representatives, teachers and mechanics are the top three jobs for which employers are struggling to find workers, according to a survey released Thursday by Manpower Inc.

Overall, 41% of firms surveyed said they're struggling to find qualified workers for
at least one position, according to the survey of 2,400 U.S. firms.
The survey asked each company, "Are you having difficulty filling jobs due to
lack of available talent?" If they said yes, the survey asked, "What is the one job you are having the most difficulty filling?"

Sales representatives topped the list. That category includes retail sales and
business-to-business sales, but not telemarketers, said Melanie Holmes, vice
president of corporate affairs at Manpower, in a telephone interview.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics "projects that an additional 736,000 retail
sales people and an additional 187,000 sales representatives are going to be
required by 2014," she said.
Teachers, the No. 2 job most in need of filling in the survey, includes elementary
and post-secondary teachers, she said, noting the BLS projects an additional
need for 524,000 post-secondary teachers and 265,000 elementary-school
teachers by 2014.
Third on the list, mechanics, including automotive service technicians, diesel
service technicians, small engine mechanics, aircraft and avionics equipment
mechanics and industrial machinery repair. Overall, among mechanics, "more people are retiring than replacement workers are coming in and doing apprenticeships and doing the training they need," she said.

Demand driven partly by lack of skills

Changes in the labor pool are affecting firms' ability to find workers, Holmes said.
"Demographics are not in employers' favor," she said. "Because of retiring baby
boomers and the fact that birth rates are not keeping up with those that are
retiring."

Another reason: Job seekers lack sought-after skills. "There might be people, but
they don't have the skills that are necessary," Holmes said.
"As with many things these days, the world of work changes so quickly and so
dramatically. If we're not very careful to keep our skills up-to-date as an individual, and as an employer if I'm not working to keep my workforce's skills up-to-date, people can become redundant," she said.

"The message is not just for people looking for jobs, but for all of us: We need to
keep our skills up-to-date [and] pay attention to the changing world of work,"
Holmes said. "We need to be very careful to take charge of our own careers and
not expect somebody else to hand-feed us what we need. We need to look
around and get the training or experience that we need to keep up."

Nurses drop off Top 10 list

Sales representatives topped the list of hardest-to-fill jobs for the second year in
a row, while teachers and mechanics replaced engineers and nurses/health-care
workers in the second- and third-place positions this year, according to the
survey. But "even though some jobs fell off the top 10 list, demand for these positions still exists," said Jonas Prising, president of Manpower North America, in a press release.

Here's the Top 10 list:
1. Sales representative
2. Teacher
3. Mechanic
4. Technician
5. Management/executive
6. Truck driver
7. Driver/delivery
8. Accountant
9. Laborer
10. Machine operator

Monster Online Ad Index for Pittsburgh Declines First Time Since January

Monster’s monthly index of online recruitment demand declined slightly for the first time since January for the Pittsburgh region. The index is used as a measure of recruitment activity and is leading indicator of job demand in a market. Declines this time of year are noted to be normal as retail and many other industries have not yet begun their fall recruitment campaigns and schools are still out for the summer. Year over year demand is up strongly, however, as our the Pittsburgh job market recovers from the heavy job losses by major employers like US Airways between 2002 and 2005. Here is the report:

Online Job Demand in Pittsburgh Eases Slightly in
July, According to the Monster Local Employment Index

PITTSBURGH, August 16, 2007 – The Monster Local Employment Index for
Pittsburgh dipped two points to a level of 115 in July, as gains in healthcare demand
were not enough to stem a general summer slowdown in online recruitment activity.
Nevertheless, Pittsburgh remains one of the strongest growth markets in the nation
when comparing year-over-year online recruitment trends, reflecting historically tight
labor market conditions and sustained print-to-online migration of the help-wanted
advertising market.

The latest Index findings demonstrate soaring recruitment demand in the healthcare
sector, which is struggling with supply shortages in certain key occupations such as
nursing. Both the healthcare practitioners and technical; and healthcare support
categories edged up last month, defying seasonal expectations. It is likely that these
recent upward trends in the healthcare categories reflect employer efforts to expand
the online visibility of long-standing, as opposed to newly created, specialized healthcare
openings in an already tight job market.
The business and professional service segment also maintained a generally strong
growth pace when accounting for seasonality. The market’s largest occupational
categories such as management; and business and financial operations edged down only
slightly from historical highs. Meanwhile, the computer and mathematical category
continued growing at a double digit annual pace, indicating high demand for IT
professionals. Still, food preparation and serving related remained the fastest growth
category year-over-year while military specific declined the most.
In all, two occupational categories rose in July, while 15 declined and two were
unchanged.

City County Career Day Looming Large For September

With the job market in Pittsburgh turning a corner this year, what is being billed as the largest job fair in Pittsburgh history is taking shape for September 18th at the convention center in downtown Pittsburgh from 10AM to 3PM. Over 250 companies are expected to attend. The event is a partnership between the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, PA CareerLink, the Builder’s Guild, the Pittsburgh Partnership, the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board and the Sports and Exhibition Authority. The attendance goal is over 4,000 job seekers. This event is focusing on the building trades with multiple large construction projects slated to be under way in the next 2 years. There is now worry that the number of current workers available for these projects may not meet the demand. The Employment Guide is partnering to produce the event guide that will be distributed in The Employment Guide the full week before the event as well as at the event itself. This event guide will list many of the companies attending as well as the types of positions they are looking to fill.

If you are a potential company that would like to attend this event, please contact the PA CareerLink Pittsburgh office for more information. The cost for companies to attend has been kept to a minimum due to funding from the various partners and special cooperation by the Sports and Exhibition Authority. For job seekers, attendance is free with no pre-registration needed.

Seminars on many topics will be held throughout the day, including apprenticeship programs for all of the local building trade unions.

Although the focus of the event is on the building trades, it is by no means limited to that area. Companies from all walks of life will be found eagerly looking for a chance to speak with qualified job seekers. Many interviews will be held on the spot. Never have so many resources been available under one roof before. Stay tuned for more information as the event draws closer.