Sunday, January 16, 2011

Personal Business Advisor - Senior Advisor

I spent four and a half decades working in health care and enjoyed every day. Starting at 17 years old, I joined the Navy and was put through the best medical training any branch of the military has to offer. I was attached to the Marine Corp as a Medical Corpsman (combat medic) and went through Basis Marine Combat School, Jump School, Combat Swimmers’ School and Jungle Warfare School  before completing two tours with a 1st Recon Unit in Vietnam. After six years with the Marine Corps I worked as a Certified Critical Care Registered Nurse, cross trained as a Registered Respiratory Therapist, in adult and neonatal Intensive Care Units.

After receiving a MBA from a renowned business university, I held positions as an acute care hospital administrator/CEO at several major hospitals. As my career opportunities expanded I moved to the corporate level of health care management, where I held positions ranging from V.P. of Operations, V.P. of Development to V.P. of Acquisitions & Mergers with a number of national/global for-profit hospital companies.

I started my first business when I was 27 years old and during my career I owned and operated several health care companies. I realized early on that working for yourself is the best investment that an executive can make. I eventually sold all the businesses that I owned for many times what I had invested in them. As I approached retirement age I was looking for something different- a new challenge. 


At the time I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and having worked only in health care my vision was somewhat myopic. I did know that I wanted to continue helping people.

Fortunately I was contacted by an Advisor from Personal Business Advisors. My Advisor presented various executive career opportunities that both fit my skill-set and my criteria. He also provided sound advice related to career transition.  After several weeks of exploring and reviewing different options I selected working for Personal Business Advisors.

It was a decision that I don’t regret and I can, without hesitation, recommend and endorse Personal Business Advisors to other executives regardless of where they are in their career. 

I have been an Executive Senior Advisor with Personal Business Advisors for over a year. I enjoy working with top level executives and providing assistance in their career transition. I have the flexibility and lifestyle that I was looking for and I believe that I am providing a service that no other company provides.

I feel like I am helping executives discover new possibilities during a time where our economy and the executive job market are in crisis.

Dennis Hanson
Senior Advisor
http://www.personalbusinessadvisors.com/

Saturday, January 15, 2011

More Resume Bloopers and Blunders

"SKILLS: Committed to meeting deadline."
Just one?

"HOBBIES: Michael Bolton."
That's a first.

"SKILLS: I'm try-lingual."
She either speaks three languages or has trouble with just one.

"COVER LETTER: I host a superlative proficiency for resolving complex systematic problems. I have pedagogic expertise conducting sales, and I can be quickly utilized as an assiduous, visceral and proactive problem solver."
Easy for you to say.

-- Are you applying for jobs? Find out what they pay.
"EQUIPMENT: Human brain 1.0."
We'll wait for the upgrade.

"POSITION DESIRED: Profreader."
It doesn't look good...

"DATE OF EMPLOYMENT: 2002-9999."
She's earned her gold watch!

"EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS: Maintained a 2.0 GPA."
We can't "C" why you highlighted this fact.

"REFERENCES: Scott."
We'll need a little more to go on.

"EXPERIENCE: Demonstrated ability in multi-tasting."
You'll love our vending machine.

"EXPERIENCE: Only employee of a small distribution company."
Can't get much smaller than that.

"APPLICATION: Q: How large was the department you worked in with your last company? "A: 3 stories."
OK ... Then, approximately how many people sat on each floor?

"PERSONAL: I can describe myself in three words: committed, hard working, and very strategic thinking."
That's seven words.

"REASON FOR LEAVING: Pushed aside so the vice president's girlfriend could steal my job."
We're glad you're not bitter.

"OFFICE EQUIPMENT: Stapler."
Did you find it tough to master?

"EXPERIENCE: "Responsibilities included recruiting, screening, interviewing and executing final candidates."
Seems kind of harsh ...

"EXPERIENCE: I was brought in as a turnaround consultant to help turn the company around."
Sounds like you may be going in circles.

"COMPENSATION: My compensation should be at least equal to my age."
And bonuses "tied to" your shoe size?

"WORK EXPERIENCE: Responsibilities included checking customers out."
And then did you rank them on a scale of 1-to-10?

"CURRENT SALARY: $36,000. Salary desired: $250,000."

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

By Barbara Safani

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Good Jobs: The Only Cure for Poverty

We didn't need the Census poverty data released today to tell us what we already know: families are facing the highest rates of economic hardship in a generation. However, maybe such stark numbers can help increase the urgency around one of the most important issues of this moment and move us beyond the naysayers who attack every anti-poverty strategy, yet have nothing new to offer. While the crisis of poverty in our communities is not new, the recent spike is clearly the result of our current recession. What we can't forget is that this recession was triggered by reckless Wall Street schemes impacting a middle class already being squeezed away by 30 years of failed right-wing economic policy.

Right-wing commentators will use today's figures to argue for more of what got us here. Don't get me wrong, their policies have been successful. But they have only been successful at what they are designed to do: prioritize wealth creation for the rich, leaving barely a trickle for those below. Since the 1980s, the dominant economic policy has been a combination of tax cuts aimed at the rich and deregulation designed to maximize profits for the top 1%. Coupled with an any-job-is-good-enough approach to employment and a labor policy that has stripped away the foundation supporting middle class jobs, the result is an explosion of the working poor. The poverty rate for working age people between 18 and 64 rose to 12.9 percent last year, its highest in more than four decades.

The only way to reverse that trend is to create and sustain good jobs that pay enough to meet families' needs and lift them out of poverty. Without a focus on job quality, we can look forward to annual increases in poverty well into the future.

Disturbing as the numbers are--with 43.6 million U.S. residents officially suffering in poverty last year--the official figures underplay the true extent of economic hardship. The Federal poverty level, $11,161 for an individual or $21,756 for a family of four with two children, should more appropriately be defined as a measure of extreme poverty. A more accurate measure of poverty would be to set the bar at twice the Federal poverty level, $22,322 for an individual or $43,512 for a family of four. Below those income rates, getting by is still a significant struggle in the U.S. today--and yet this definition would include a third of all Americans, many of them working.

Unfortunately, the forecast for jobs is not good. We find ourselves in what has been called a jobless recovery, and the few jobs that the economy is creating merely perpetuate the cycle of working poverty. As a recent study from the National Employment Law Project shows, while job losses from the recession were spread across all income levels, job creation has been primarily in low-income industries. The top three occupations among industries that grew this year are retail salespersons, cashiers, and food preparation workers. These are among the lowest-paying jobs, with few benefits and minimal job security. The low-wage job trend is expected to continue, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting that the majority of the fastest-growing occupations over the next decade will be among the lowest-paying sectors. Clearly, the economy is not poised to create good jobs on its own.

However, while Republicans push to make permanent the Bush-era tax cuts for the top 1%--people who have thrived over the last thirty years--those of us concerned with real answers are mapping a better course. Promising strategies have been designed to maximize the good jobs that will actually reduce poverty, both by improving existing jobs and creating good new jobs.

In Los Angeles, a living wage policy covering hotels near the Los Angeles International Airport has improved pay in existing jobs and helped more than 5,000 workers and family members earn their way out of poverty. Studies have put the net benefit to the community from increased wages and spending at more than $23 million in the first four years, through wage increases combined with the economic boost as those families spend their new income in local stores and restaurants.

Other successes include the creation of quality new jobs, many harnessing stimulus money in combination with local workforce programs. Among other projects, we have helped enact construction career programs in Los Angeles that guarantee good jobs and direct them to local residents in low-income communities. Stimulus money has become a political football, but the reality is that the resources it provided have been instrumental in the creation of good jobs. The critical question is how local leaders use such resources.

The question the Census poverty data should push us to ask is simple: what kind of a recovery do we want? Do we want a recovery where the only jobs we create are at the bottom of the income ladder? Or do we want to leverage everything at our disposal--local programs, federal spending, and standards that will raise the bar for the quickly-vanishing American middle class? Following the right wing's narrow focus on profit at the top, even dressed up as anti-poverty policy, would continue to concentrate wealth and take us in the wrong direction. The only way to truly address poverty--and restore the middle class--is to embrace an economic strategy focused on the creation of good jobs.

By Madeline Janis

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Friday, January 14, 2011

How the FBI and Better Business Bureau Are Cracking Down on Job Scammers

Job scams are becoming so prevalent that the FBI and the Better Business Bureau are stepping in to protect desperate job seekers. The old adage that "If it looks to good to be true, it probably is" bears little sway when you, like 45 percent of all out-of-work Americans, have been unemployed for six months or more.
"The dismal employment rate means that a lot of people are desperate for work and may be grasping for any job -- which creates a great opportunity for scammers," said Stephen A. Cox, president and CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. "Not thoroughly researching a job opportunity can make a bad situation even worse, and a victim can lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars to any number of job-related scams."
The FBI has issued press releases warning of these types of scams, and has devoted an entire section of their website to alerting people about them. They've investigated far too many hoaxes that actually induce victims to unknowingly commit crimes that land them in jail.
Breaking the law for a 'job'
Kelly, a disabled Kentucky resident, was actually arrested for his unwitting participation in one of these scams:
"I am on disability and I don't have a car. I was looking for extra money for the month, because I don't receive a lot from disability. So when an e-mail came to me offering me a job that I could work from home I jumped at the chance." The job involved receiving cashiers checks and money orders, cashing them at his bank then wiring the money to another country, but keeping a piece for himself. Of course when the bank notified him that the checks were fake, he discontinued all contact with the phony company. But a few months later he was arrested on seven counts of criminal possession of forged instruments, and found guilty of felonies, for which he served 150 days in jail. "Beware of any e-mail that offers a job!" he counsels.
Stacy, from Washington, explains how she was approached with a different pitch for the same scam: "...They ask you to be an accountant," she says, again processing foreign checks that turn out to be phony, through your own bank account. "If you are very lucky," she cautions, "the bank will just want the money back. But be advised they can charge you with the federal crime of passing fraudulent checks. Run from this! You could find yourself in prison."
Another work-from-home scheme that could send you to prison, as well as incur huge fines, involves Web-based international companies offering you the chance to sell high-end electronic items like plasma televisions and home theater systems, at reduced prices. As an "affiliate," you're told to offer the merchandise on well-known Internet auction sites and accept the payments, then pay the company, typically by wire transfer. The company is then supposed to drop-ship the merchandise directly to the buyer, so you don't have to stock, ship or warehouse the merchandise. But of course the merchandise is never shipped, and the buyers take legal action against you, the affiliate.
It seems hard to believe that people would actually fall for this, but Randy Johnston, a lawyer who specializes in going after scammers, says, "Job-hunting scams rise along with the unemployment rate. These con artists target desperate people, and if you've been out of work for a while, you're desperate and are more likely to fall for stuff like this." As the author of the book 'Robbed at Pen Point,' he's seen it all. "Crooks make a killing" during tough economic times when people are most desperate.
Four huge red flags
Even if there's no chance of going to prison, job scams can be a tremendous waste of time and money. The BBB recommends looking out for the following red flags when searching for a job online:

Red Flag #1: The employer asks for money upfront
It's seldom on the level when an applicant is asked to pay upfront fees or make a required purchase to get a job. BBB often hears from job hunters who paid a phony employer for supposedly required background checks or training for jobs that didn't exist. Also be wary of job placement companies that ask for large upfront fees to find you a job.

Red Flag #2: Employer e-mails are rife with grammatical and spelling errors.
Online fraud is often perpetrated by scammers located outside the United States. Their first language usually isn't English, and this is often evident in poor grammar and the misspelling of common words.

Red Flag #3: The employer requires you to check your own credit report.
After posting their resumes online or responding to online job listings, many job hunters received what they thought was good news: an e-mail from an interested employer. But in order to be considered for the job, the applicant has to check his or her credit report through a recommended website. The truth is, the e-mail is just an attempt to get the job hunter to divulge sensitive financial information or sign up for credit-monitoring services.

Red Flag #4: The employer quickly asks for personal information such as Social Security or bank account numbers.
Some job seekers have been surprised to learn they've gotten a job without having to do a single interview. However, when the employer then asked for personal information in order to fill out the necessary paperwork, suspicions were raised -- and rightly so. Regardless of the reason, a job applicant should never give out his or her Social Security or bank account numbers over the phone or e-mail and only after they've confirmed the job is legitimate.
What to do
If you're approached online about a job you didn't apply for, one of the best and quickest ways to check out its legitimacy is to visit the Better Business Bureau website, where you'll find more red flags and documentation of job search scams. If the particular one you're searching for doesn't come up, do a google search. These days, you can never be too careful.

By Lisa Johnson Mandell
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New Unemployment Numbers Devastating but Not Debilitating

"Expert" economists predicted that at least 140,000 new jobs would be created in November and that the unemployment rate would hang tight at 9.6 percent (if not be reduced a fraction). So it felt like a punch in the stomach to the American work force when the Department of Labor's monthly report stated that only 39,000 jobs had been added and that unemployment has climbed to 9.8 percent.
"The numbers are devastating," says national trends expert Michael G. Zey, PhD, a professor at Montclair University. "They show this so-called economic recovery has been tepid. In a true recovery, we would be adding more than 200,000 jobs per month, and bringing back some of the 8 million jobs lost since 2007."
But how can the number of jobs added be so low, especially since the Department of Labor also announced today that in October 172,000 jobs were added? That's a revised number up from 151,000. You may have also heard reports that 600,000 holiday jobs were opening up. Well, the November numbers released today have been what they call "seasonally adjusted" and don't include most of the part-time, temporary positions.
That's not to say that the abundance of seasonal work won't have a positive effect on the economy, however. Even part-time jobs increase people's spending power, and that increases profits for the companies doing the hiring.

A glum immediate outlook
Still, unemployment numbers might get worse before they get better, explains Dan Finnigan, president & CEO of Jobvite, a social recruiting software company. People traditionally stop looking for work during the holidays, and therefore drop off the radar. When they start looking again in January, the number of unemployed people seems to increase.
But Finnigan believes that in January job seekers won't just be looking, they will be finding. Right now, he says, most companies are devising their budgets for the upcoming year, and they won't be hiring until the first or second quarter. Corporate America has been sitting on huge amounts of capitol, and has been "reluctant to add to the payroll until they see how the recovery is going," he says. "They've been squeezing as much as they can out of their current work forces, but should finally open up next year. They'll say, 'Enough! it's time to hire more people!'"
Zey points out that profits are indeed up at some companies, but that's because of company wide cost-cutting, which includes layoffs. They're not actually making more, they're just spending less.
Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown and author of the soon-to-be-published 'Where are All the Good Jobs Going?: What National and Local Job Quality and Dynamics Mean for Workers,' adds that while productivity in America is up, that's not going to necessarily create more jobs. "Doing more with less looks good on the corporate bottom line, but not on the bottom line of the American worker," he says.

So what can we do about it?
The answer, according to Zey is in increasing production. "America needs to become a nation of producers again, not the nation of consumers which we have become. We need to increase our manufacturing base." He points out that the financial industry is thriving again, "but we can't all be bankers." The manufacturing sector actually lost 13,000 jobs last month.
Zey feels policy makers should be focusing on areas with much growth potential, such as energy development. "It's quick, and the most logical," he says. He believes that instead of importing energy from foreign sources, we should be expanding on what we have right here within our own borders. And he believes the government is restricting that development, rather than encouraging it.
"I do see a way out of the current situation," says Zey. "But it will require a revolution in policy making and will require take great courage. Tax cuts alone won't help."
And on the political front, today's disappointing rise in unemployment numbers is expected to nudge legislators toward extending unemployment benefits and retaining the Bush-era tax cuts, all of which have been the subject of much debate.

"The important thing to remember," according to Georgetown's Holzer, "is that you should never place too much weight on any one month's numbers. Last month the numbers were much better, and there may have been a little too much euphoria. Just remember, this is only one month. Things will change again next month."


By Lisa Johnson Mandell

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Jobless Claims Jump, Prices Rise

Recovery? What Recovery? Jobless Claims Jump, Prices Rise

 The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits increased by 35,000, to 445,000 last week -- the biggest increase since October. Add the fact that the U.S. Department of Labor just reported big leaps in prices for things like gas, home heating oil, fruits and vegetables, and there are very few Americans who are not feeling the pain economicaly.

U.S. producer prices climbed 1.1 percent in December, as reflected in big gains in the costs of home heating oil (up 12.3 percent), fresh and dry vegetables (up 22.8 percent), and fresh fruits (up 15.4 percent). Optimists point out that inflation, excluding food and energy, rose just 0.2 percent, which is just below analyst estimates -- but whose budgets exclude food and energy?
According to the most recent statistics released from the Department of Labor, last week more Americans lost their jobs than expected. Analysts predicted only about 410,000 people would lose work -- as opposed to the 445,000 that actually lost their jobs. In addition, the number of those claiming state Emergency Unemployment Compensation has risen drastically, up to 3,773,092, an increase of 195,429 from the prior week.
The total number of people claiming unemployment benefits in all programs for the week ending Dec. 25, was 9,193,838. Keep in mind that that's just the number of unemployed people receiving help from the government. There are millions more jobless folks whose benefits have run out and who are not currently eligible for government assistance. Freelancers, minimum wage earners and the self-employed have been hit especially hard.
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Jan. 1 were in Georgia (+11,997), Michigan (+10,129), Pennsylvania (+9,004), New York (+8,379), and Wisconsin (+7,236), while the largest decreases were in California (-13,694), Florida (-1,867), Nevada (-972), Kansas (-841), and New Mexico (-721).

The states with the highest rates of citizens collecting unemployment insurance, for the last week in November were: in Alaska (7.5 percent), Oregon (5.2), Idaho (5.1), Montana (4.9), Wisconsin (4.8), Pennsylvania (4.7), Puerto Rico (4.6), Nevada (4.5), Illinois (4.4), and Michigan (4.3).
Location means a lot these days, as not all states extend unemployment benefits. States where they're still available include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The latest numbers sort of cast a shadow over last week's good news that the unemployment rate has dropped from to 9.4 to 9.7 percent, proving that this recovery is going to be one long, slow haul.

By Lisa Johnson Mandell

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