Most of the East Coast stopped in its tracks yesterday afternoon, sure they were feeling something other than a plane flying overhead or someone moving furniture on the floor above them.
An earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale struck the area outside Charlottesville, VA, sending a flurry of personal belongings crashing onto floors. Some buildings were even faced with structural damage.
I’ve always found it ironic that one person’s unfortunate situation somehow becomes someone else’s lucky day. It’s sad, but probably true, that many contractors and construction workers may see a spike in terms of work availability both in the Charlottesville area and in parts of Washington, D.C. and other major metropolitan areas where fault lines are located and buildings faced damage.
Take advantage of your skills. That’s what you can take from this.
If you’re a manual laborer able to assist in any way, market yourself and call customers. Ask if they need anything or are facing damage. Working on commission is difficult, and if you’re a freelance worker, an opportunity like this might be too important to pass up. A client may be impressed now with what you’ve done to put their life back in order and you may receive regular calls or a resounding recommendation to other friends or family in need later on down the road.
Treat this opportunity, and other ones like it, as an opportunity to market yourself.
The entire basis of finding a job, whether it be something manual like painting or road-paving or something conceptual like software designing or web development, is that you’re able to help your client–whoever that may be.
The earthquakes faced in Colorado and the East Coast over the last few days are just one giant example of this, but there are always more cropping up in the most unlikely situations. If you’re there when they do occur, you’re more likely to find yourself employed in the future.
Treat each opportunity as a chance to show your skills and help someone else out. They’ll appreciate you for it.
On Monday morning, I attended an annual event in the Shenandoah Valley: four university presidents came together to speak about their university’s progress over the past year and projects and priorities for the year ahead.
Much of the conversation revolved around money; not just the lack of it, but the money universities are putting back in to the community.
At a time when most of the country is reeling from the effects of an economic recession, people are less able to commit to the monthly tuition installments for higher education.
So not only are we running from college classes, but college towns in general. After all, this generation is nothing but trouble, right?
You might be surprised to know just how much money college students (or their parents) put back in to the economies of college towns.
JMU produced a pamphlet on the subject using last year’s data and, believe it or not, if you’re unemployed or looking to start a new career, you might want to move to a college town.
In 2009, JMU-related spending created 4,500 non-JMU jobs in the surrounding community. According to the University’s Office of Institutional Research, that’s about 13 percent of all employment in the community.
Maybe that’s not much, but it’s better than working somewhere that doesn’t have a guaranteed jump-started economy each August when students and parents come in flocks to the local Wal-mart and Target stores for groceries and school supplies.
And don’t just look at working in a college town. Make sure there’s a solid athletics department. The report done at JMU showed that visitors (parents, friends, alum) spent more than $15 million in 2009.
Not only is there a solid income for the university and local businesses, but imagine what the town looks like on a game day in the middle of September. There’s also a wide variety of non-educational jobs available in college towns.
Typically, there are multiple department stores, grocery stores and a decent-sized shopping mall. Local dining (chains and family-owned places) see an increase in traffic during the academic year. Tanning salons, gyms, movie rental stores, and hair salons might also see a major spike in traffic.
If you’re looking for a job and you can guarantee you’ll see more than 20,000 people coming back to your community every August, you’ll be able to make due during the lull in the summer when many students travel home for a few months.
I’ve only been blogging regularly for about a year now. And I’ve certainly never posted a vlog – a video blog post.
But last month I stumbled across several posts calling for signups for VEDA.
“VEDA?” I thought. “What’s that?”
Vlog Every Day in August. That’s what it stands for.
It sounds challenging and a little bit egotistical, talking to a camera every single day about your life. I mean, how much new information in such a short time can one person really share with the world without rehashing the same thing after a while?
That’s when I discovered the prompts.
Today’s prompt, appropriately enough, is My Dream Job. Hundreds of people across the world are taking a few moments to sit down in front of a webcam and broadcast an insight into what they’d do with their lives under the best circumstances.
It’s a little troubling, thinking that you can’t just reach out and touch your dream job. A lot of us have decided to look the other way and muddle through another fiscal year doing something we loathe in order to pay the bills.
Why?
The economy’s not stable. You want to start a family. You have to pay for college. You don’t think you’re really cut out for the job, even if you had the opportunity.
We’ll tell ourselves anything to keep from actually placing an application in the hands of a potential manager, won’t we?
That’s why I’m challenging you to do two things today.
First, head on over to that lovely invention called YouTube and watch some VEDA Day 8 videos. Get the wheels churning in your head. Maybe you’ve never even considered what you’d do with your life, if you could do anything. Consider this a little research.
Second, search online and see if there’s anything even remotely close to that dream job that you could be doing right now. Scour some listings. Think about your skills. Line up a few applications and throw your resume into the ring. You deserve it.
And then come back here to tell us about your dream job. We want to know.
If you could do anything at all, what would it be?
By Andrew Wasserstein
While the internet is a great job searching tool, online postings have almost always been seen and applied to by others. What ensues is a resume overload; it isn’t always clear who will be the hardest worker or most driven from a pile of papers.
Sometimes, showing up in person gets you the job. That’s what worked for me. While I applied to be a day camp counselor as opposed to a high-paid executive, the same theory can be applied to any situation.
Two days into the summer before my freshmen year of college, I was unemployed. While the thought of starting school was exciting, I still had two months ahead of me and nagging parents pressuring me to get a job in every conversation. I had applied everywhere I could think of and still couldn’t find a job.
One of my friends mentioned that her day camp had sent out an e-mail a few days before asking for last-minute counselor applications. I thought I’d give it a try and decided to apply online that same day. After applying, when I called up the camp, I was told that they weren’t really looking for counselors any more, but that they’d keep my name on file and call me if anything changed.
“Yeah right,” I thought.
The camp started two days later. Following my dad’s advice, I showed up to the campgrounds on the first day. Dressed for the part and carrying my bathing suit in my backpack, I went into the administrative office. I told the office assistant that I applied and was ready to work if any counselors didn’t show up that morning.
While explaining this, the camp director walked in. I told him my story.
They both said that I wasn’t needed that day, but that they admired my ambition. They wrote my name down on a sticky note and attached it to the computer screen on the desk. They said they’d call me if they needed extra counselors.
I left shortly after and headed back home.
Sure enough, later that night, I got a call from the camp director asking me to come in the next day where they would place me in a group on a trial basis and see how it worked out. I came the next day and tried to be the best counselor that I could be. I did the job well and was kept on for the remainder of the summer. Had I not shown up to the office that first day, I doubt I would have been called back and might’ve spent the summer sitting around at home, bored out of my mind.
But thanks to doing this, I enjoyed my summer and earned some money for the upcoming year.
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