If you work in the technology sector, good news: You’re chances of losing your job fell dramatically last year.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Monday that computer, electronics and telecommunications firms announced 37,038 planned job cuts in 2011, the lowest level since the company started keeping tabs on such cuts in 1997.

That’s a 79 percent drop from 2009, when layoffs in the tech sector hit a peak of 174,629. It’s also a 21 percent drop from 2010, the outplacement firm said.

In total, U.S. companies across all industries announced 606,082 layoffs in 2011, up 14 percent from the year before.

Challenger, Gray only counts layoffs that companies announce publicly, so it’s possible some companies are quietly cutting staff.

It also offered one other caveat: Tech-sector layoffs surged in the second half of 2011, which could portend an uptick in layoffs this year.

Still, Challenger, Gray is predicting that the technology sector will continue to grow in 2012. It notes that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, computer and electronic manufacturing companies saw a net gain in jobs in 2011, for a total of about 1.12 million.

In general, the economy has been slowly adding jobs each month as the country works to recover from the Great Recession.

The technology industry has long been a hub of both good and bad employment news. While some IT workers have had their jobs outsourced to cheaper overseas locales, other computer scientists and engineers have found their skills to be in high demand.

The earnings season hasn’t offered clear guidance on where tech firms are headed. Google surprised Wall Street last week with a rare earnings miss, for example, while computing giant IBM beat its earnings estimates for the quarter.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BestLogic Staffing Receives 2011 Best of Wethersfield Award

U.S. Commerce Association’s Award Plaque Honors the Achievement

NEW YORK, NY, December 17, 2010 — BestLogic Staffing has been selected for the 2011 Best of Wethersfield Award in the Employment Opportunities category by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA).

The USCA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2011 USCA Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)

U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a New York City based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Association

CONTACT:
U.S. Commerce Association
Email: PublicRelations@uscaaward.com
URL: http://www.uscaaward.com

CHECK OUT BESTLOGIC STAFFING  www.bestlogicstaffing.com

BestLogic Staffing wishes you Happy  New Year…

www.BestLogicStaffing.com

The latest economic reports now describe the economy as “good, but not great.”  We are seeing some slightly positive signs that the economy will improve, unemployment rates will drop, and that certain sectors (like small businesses) are hiring again. Still, competition for the 2012 job market will be fierce as we still see in the U.S. 9% unemployment rate, with many more being under-employed.

So, how do you set yourself apart and position yourself for a job in 2012?  Social media, in combination with your current job-searching techniques, is the answer.

1: Manage Your “Digital Persona”

Your first step is to see yourself as others will see you.  Most people see this as just your “online resume.”  However, at some point in the process, your future employer is going to do a Google search on you.  Your goal here is to maximize your presence online – to “represent you in the most positive light” wherever you can.

First, remove anything you can that you don’t want an employer to see – start with your popular social media sites like Facebook, and photo-sharing sites like Flickr or Tumblr.  Change the privacy settings to private to help remove this content from the public eye. Those pictures of you at your family cookout – smoke in one hand, drink in the other – may be harmless family fun, but you never know when it will tip the scale for an employer.

Now improve the sites you can control, usually starting with LinkedIn.  If you haven’t figured this out already, the best quote I have heard about LinkedIn is “it is facebook with a tie.”  This is THE place for most employers to find you or research you later.  In addition to the obvious resume-like aspects of your LinkedIn profile, ask for recommendations from current and former co-workers.  Make sure what is included here is how you want to present yourself.

Next, start getting active.  This is discussed further in the next section, but focus on joining LinkedIn groups or communities/blogs/sites that are in your area or discipline.  Focus on those which have relevant conversations on your area of expertise.  Start answering questions, posting or sharing idea, or promoting great content you see.  Think a bit like a magazine publisher – pushing your (and other’s) great content into these groups.  Remember, this leaves a digital footprint- much of which will be on your LinkedIn profile page.  Employers are in these same communities and will see what you have to offer long before you face them in an interview.

2: Create Your Network

Pride, stigma of being out of work, embarrassment, or other concerns keep most people looking for a job in “stealth mode.”  The best advice I have received was to realize that almost everyone has – at one time or another – had to really work at finding a new job.  The vast majority is eager to help you, but in true Jerry Maguire fashion, you have to “help them, (to) help you.”

Use your groups and communities to search for former colleagues and connect with them – whether on LinkedIn or other social site or community.  Find a few names or authors you want to follow (I am on LinkedIn, by the way) whose opinion you liked or you see as a good connection point for you.

Now that you have your network, start to leverage it.  First, don’t just say “hi, looking for a job, let me know if you hear of anything.”  You will get a lot of well-intentioned support, but little else.  You need to take the reins here and do the following:

1. Tell them your situation,
2. Tell them what type of job you are looking for (including titles, locations or descriptive terms),
3. Provide them a list of companies you would like to work for (this gives them a place to start steering you),
4. Give them an indication that you would like to set up some time to discuss this with them.

You need actionable steps and you want these folks to start connecting you to other people to improve your network.  True story: I knew one woman who was 9 people removed from her original contact to land her perfect job. That is tenacity!

3: Research Opportunities

Besides just checking the job boards and LinkedIn (which is a valuable not-to-be-skipped step), start looking for opportunities not disclosed yet.  Follow your 5-6 ideal companies and read their updates on twitter, facebook, blogs, etc.  What are they saying?  Where are they expanding? What new deals have they won? Do those have a need for a fine professional like you?  In generally, employees are looking for the best person that is the easiest to find.  Make it easy for them.  John Decker continues, “If someone can get to a manager with a problem before they start formally looking for candidates, and can do so with a good introduction, they have a much better chance of being hired. Be the only candidate, not one of hundreds.”

4: Prepare Yourself for the Interview

Great! You have landed that coveted interview.  You need to research the heck out of the company and the people you will be interviewing with.  Visit their LinkedIn profiles and see what they are reading, their backgrounds, their roles, etc.  Guess what – they are doing the same thing about you.  And, since you have worked on your digital persona, you know what they think of you.  Be prepared to answer questions on the “pro” and “con” of you.  Know how to respond no matter which “position” your interviewer takes.

5: Leverage Intel for Your Negotiations

Just because the economy is bad and you may just “need a job,” it doesn’t mean you need to be at the mercy of your future employer.  Try sites like Glassdoor and (again) LinkedIn to see what these companies are offering for your type of job and what the average in the market is.  Check your network to see if they have some perks you can ask for (extra vacation, additional training, conferences to attend, etc.)  Most often, if you leverage this as “career development” you can find most employers willing to negotiate with you.  Worst case, you know that you got the best deal you can, and now you can make the decisions with the benefit of full insight.

Next Steps

Find the few things you know you can do right now.  Some of these may not apply to you.  Pick your battles.  But know that finding any job, let alone that “great job” is hard.  The more you practice “socializing your job search,” the better you increase your odds over the next person.

Great blog written by Todd Wilms, SAP (http://www.forbes.com).

If you liked the skills listed above, check out the executive recruiters at  BestLogic Staffing. Additionally if you need a new Resume or Cover Letter, visit AssembleMyResume.com.

Wish you the best in 2012 !

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s jobs package could lift U.S. economic growth by one to three percentage points in 2012, add well over one million jobs and lower the unemployment rate by at least half a percentage point, judging by early estimates.

It might not exactly deliver the “jolt” Obama claimed in his speech to Congress Thursday night, but it would be enough to make a difference.

The basic idea is to give a sufficient boost to get the stalled recovery over the hump where households, banks and businesses have paid down more of their debt loads and regained the confidence to start spending, lending and hiring again.

Once demand picks up, the private sector will kick in and begin hiring, and the fiscal props can fall away.

It would deliver the economic medicine prescribed in recent weeks by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the International Monetary Fund to prevent a worrisome slowdown in global economic growth from turning into recession.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also can assure his fellow finance officials at the G7 meeting of top industrial nations in Marseilles on Friday the United States is pulling its weight.

The wild card of course is whether a Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives will agree to the full $447 billion package, an unlikely prospect given their criticism that the $830 billion stimulus program of February 2009 failed to deliver lift-off for the U.S. economy and added to the huge U.S. budget deficit.

The U.S. economy is so scarred by the 2007 housing credit implosion, the bank failures it triggered in 2008 and the deepest recession in 70 years that it is taking a very long time to recover and create jobs.

“What you come down to is that there is no silver bullet, no magic bullet that this president or anyone can propose that would drive unemployment down to 5 percent in the next year,” said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, an economic modeling firm in St. Louis.

“It has to come from the private sector and for that you have to work through the overhang from the housing crisis that is suppressing aggregate demand,” he said.

This suggests that Obama’s jobs program most likely would serve as a palliative, not a cure, leaving room for the Federal Reserve to provide further monetary stimulus to keep the economy from slipping back into recession.

BUILD AMERICA

Analysts at Capital Economics estimated that Obama’s plan is equivalent to 3 percent of U.S. GDP and should be enough to add significantly to 2012 growth if passed in full by Congress.

The biggest single boost could come from a $250 billion reduction in payroll taxes. Obama proposes extending an existing 2 percent cut in the payroll tax and increasing its size to 3.1 percent for workers, and adding a cut for employers.

“These payroll tax reductions are the proposals that have the greatest chance of getting passed by Congress because it will be harder for Republicans to vote against proposed tax cuts,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics.

The tax cuts could add as much as $375 billion to economic output to the $14 trillion U.S. economy, based upon Congressional Budget Office estimates in August of the economic impact that fiscal stimulus programs can have on GDP.

But not all of that would be fresh stimulus money, since a $112 billion payroll tax cut is already in place and would simply be extended. Additionally, the full impact would be lessened because it does not target lower income workers.

“It gives money disproportionately to people at the top of the income scale. Higher income individuals are more likely to save the money, they don’t need to spend it on essentials, so the effective impact is lessened,” said Roberton Williams, senior fellow at the centrist Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Still Macroeconomic Advisers estimated that the 2 percent payroll tax cut extension alone would add 400,000 jobs and boost GDP in 2012 by 0.5 percent. The larger sum might increase that to roughly 0.7 percent GDP and 600,000 jobs.

The second biggest element in Obama’s plan is the $105 billion in infrastructure investment, which could add as much as $262 billion to the economy, based on the CBO figures.

Macroeconomic Advisers estimates that could create about 150,000 new jobs in the first year and add over half a million jobs over three years — good news but small for an economy that usually generates over two million jobs a year when in good health.

The challenge also would be to find “shovel-ready” projects where highways, railroads or school renovation plans are on the drawing board awaiting funding. Otherwise it can take years to get major construction projects under way.

Extending unemployment benefits, which total $49 billion in Obama’s plan, also has a significant impact. It could add up to $102 billion to the economy. Macroeconomic Advisers estimates it would add 0.25 percent to GDP growth in 2012 and create 200,000 new jobs by putting extra cash in consumers’ pockets.

Economists were re-running computer models late on Thursday to update their figures. Based on a smaller $300 billion stimulus package that Obama unveiled, Ian Shepherdson, U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, had estimated a 1.3 percent boost to GDP and 1.7 million jobs over the life of the programs.

Their initial reaction was if it were adopted in full, which is quite unlikely, the plan would lower the 9.1 percent unemployment rate closer to 8 percent in 2012 and give a welcome boost to an economy that grew at a 1 percent annual rate in the second quarter. But it is does not guarantee solid recovery.

“Is this going to be more than a panacea for our problems? It is hard to tell,” said Williams. “This downturn has been deeper and longer than anything we have seen since the 1930s and we don’t fully understand it. What we do know is that what we did in 2009 was not big enough.”

(Editing by Mary Milliken and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/09/09/idINIndia-59240420110909?type=economicNews

Happy Holidays from BestLogic Staffing

www.BestLogicStaffing.com

• Pay attention! This is probably the most important rule you have to follow in a meeting. If it is your boss giving a meeting the last thing you want is to be caught spacing off. It may be hard, but focus on what is being said. If it helps to take notes throughout the meeting. This can keep you focused on what is being said and will be a great way for you to review the meeting later.  If you can, resist doodling on your note taking paper.
• Avoid side conversations with fellow meeting attendees. This is rude and very distracting to the rest of the group. A speaker will naturally lose the train of thought if another conversation is interrupting their presentation

• Absolutely, positively one of the rudest ways to interrupt a meeting is a cell phone ringing. Either turn the cell phone or pager on vibrate or leave it off. This is usually an unspoken rule, but for those who just may not realize it is not polite, this is your notice. Another rule, do not answer the phone if it does ring. If your life or job requires you to answer, excuse yourself from the room before answering.
• When appropriate ask questions. Questions encourage participation in the discussion and can keep the attendees involved. Do not ask a question during the middle of a speech or presentation. Wait until they are invited.
• Do not get up to use the restroom or to get a drink of water until there is a break in the meeting. These things should be taken care of before the meeting commences. If a pitcher of water is on the table then it is appropriate to carefully pour yourself a glass.
• Text messaging during meetings is also a no-no. The constant vibrating phone with the incoming texts is distracting. Again, if it is an emergency, step out of the room to take care of the situation. It should also be mentioned that playing any kind of games or surfing the internet with your phone or palm pilot, would be considered in bad form during a professional meeting.

These simple rules may seem like a given to most, but there are some who do not consider any of these above topics as rude or an interruption. Meetings are a part of life and the best way to get through them is by being as professional as possible.

Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Thanksgiving in Canada falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the United States. Because of the longstanding traditions of the holiday, the celebration often extends to the weekend that falls closest to the day it is celebrated.

Let me asked you who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? Lots of good food and no need to shop for presents. It’s a day of turkey dinners, family gatherings and reflection; a holiday with deep roots dating back to 1621. Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday, our time to focus on everything for which we’re grateful.

Especially while job hunting, Thanksgiving is about seeing the good in our lives and feeling appreciation despite outer circumstances or conditions. Our happiness isn’t about how much stuff we’ve accumulated. Rather, it’s about feeling grateful for who, what and where we are right now. It’s about gratitude for how far we’ve come, what we do and for the challenges we’ve worked through.

Tips for your Job Hunting

• Network!  Think of the people you know — relatives, friends, professors, classmates, co-workers at summer jobs, and others. Make more of an effort to meet with people, and use these conversations to ask their advice, to make them aware of your job search, to learn more about their jobs or their organizations, and to get the names of others who might be useful in your job search.
• Target your Résumé. Make sure your résumé is targeted to the employers who receive it. Make sure your résumé is easy to read and the most important details stand out. Make more than one résumé if you are applying to more than one industry.
• Be prepared. You should have a copy of your résumé at all times. It is also a good idea to have fresh copies of your résumé prepared in case you are called to an interview at the last minute.
• Create a contact database. Write down all the employers you contact, the date you sent your résumé, any contact made, people you talk to, and notes about those contacts. Keep a notepad with you at all times — take notes as soon as you hear about an opportunity or when you leave an interview. Get into the habit of updating your database daily.
• Make a “to do” list every day. This will help you organize your list of priorities and keep you focused on finding that perfect job.
• Try the buddy system. Link up with a friend who is also job hunting. Arrange to speak weekly and report on accomplishments, best practices, and future plans.
• Learn how to talk about yourself. Throughout your job search you will speak with many people at different levels. You must be comfortable having conversations about yourself with other people. Keep in mind that you never know who may end up being useful to your job hunt.
• Prepare an elevator speech. You never know who you’ll meet in an elevator, in line at the coffee shop, or on the street. Know what your skills are and how to communicate them. You should be able to tell prospective employers and others you meet what you can offer. You should also be able to talk about how your skills relate to the industries that interest you.
• Find out all there is about employers in your field. Remain current on any issues or developments in the field, read trade journals or professional publications, and read the newspaper. It is extremely impressive during an interview if you know about the latest merger or coup in the industry.
• Practice for each interview. Practice is the key to interviewing well. Friends, relatives, and career services counselors can help you formulate strong answers to questions you might not anticipate. Look at the list of possible questions on the interviewing section and prepare yourself.
• Follow-up with leads immediately. If you find out about a position late in the day, call right then. Don’t wait until the next day.
• Stay confident. Job hunting takes time and energy. Remain confident, but prepare yourself for challenges ahead. Don’t get disgruntled if you are still looking for a job and it seems like everyone you know has an offer. Most students find their jobs after graduation.

Check out one of our Sites:

www.bestlogicstaffing.com

www.assemblemyresume.com

www.engineringjobz.us

www.IRNC.us

An interview gives you the opportunity to showcase your qualifications to an employer, so it pays to be well prepared. The following information provides some helpful hints.

Preparation:

• Learn about the organization.
• Have a specific job or jobs in mind.
• Review your qualifications for the job.
• Be ready to briefly describe your experience, showing how it relates it the job.
• Be ready to answer broad questions, such as “Why should I hire you?” “Why do you want this job?” “What are your strengths and weaknesses?”
• Practice an interview with a friend or relative.

Personal appearance:

• Be well groomed.
• Dress professionally.
• Do not chew gum or smoke.

The interview:

• Be early.
• Learn the name of your interviewer and greet him or her with a firm handshake.
• Use good manners with everyone you meet.
• Relax and answer each question concisely.
• Use proper English—avoid slang.
• Be cooperative and enthusiastic.
• Use body language to show interest—use eye contact and don’t slouch.
• Ask questions about the position and the organization, but avoid questions whose answers can easily be found on the company Web site.
• Also avoid asking questions about salary and benefits unless a job offer is made.
• Thank the interviewer when you leave and shake hands.
• Send a short thank you note following the interview.

Information to bring to an interview:

• Resume or application. Although not all employers require a resume, you should be able to furnish the interviewer information about your education, training, and previous employment.
• References. Employers typically require three references. Get permission before using anyone as a reference. Make sure that they will give you a good professional references.
• Transcripts. Employers may require an official copy of transcripts to verify grades, coursework, dates of attendance, and highest grade completed or degree awarded.