You have worked hard and paid the piper.  You’ve put in the blood, sweat and tears….toiling into the night,

skipping lunch all to prove your commitment, increase your productivity and ensure your job security! Has

anyone noticed?

You may need to start thinking about what you can do to get noticed for your abilities or potential within

your existing company or outside, but in your career space.  Are you brainstorming future steps to expand

your personal brand and make your job search more successful?

If you haven’t considered two immensely valuable outlets like Linked-In or Twitter or other combinations of

popular social media outlets you could be overlooking the powerful career tools available.

Now, don’t be tempted to dismiss this out of hand…after all, you may think these new-fangled social media

gadgets are too difficult and not very professional. But there are many ways to be promoting your talents

and abilities while contributing and/or learning from the plentiful groups that exist in social media today.

Any way you look at it, separately or in combination, social media can be incalculably valuable in terms of

its contribution to your personal branding and job seeking efforts.

We’re talking about:

• Joining FREE social media outlets that GIVE you exposure in PROFESSIONAL forums where you can both

LEARN and PROVIDE content to the greater community at large which in the end, lends great credibility to

your position as an expert in your field.

Furthermore, when you start building a following or begin dialogue with individuals who actually like the

content you are producing, it’s really building up YOUR BRAND and it’s an acceptable venue….it’s a

veritable coup! The power of these venues lies in the reciprocal dialogue you have when you pipe in on a

topic or start a discussion on your own that is related to a professional topic you have expertise in.  It lends

credibility which is absolutely priceless!

And, let’s face it—being seen as an expert sets you apart from other JOB SEEKERS and distinguishes you as

a leader in your industry. Not only does it boost your status above that of your peers in the eyes of the

public, it also makes them aware of what YOU are specifically interested in and helps them form a positive

opinion about you.

If you decide to seek future employment, you are searchable for your contributions in these forums and

guess what?  Potential employers will read your carefully crafted responses and based upon the findings,

may deem you worth seeking out to interview over the droves of other applicants who have yet to delve

into this avenue of Personal Brand Management.

The bottom line is that getting yourself into the habit of logging into Linked-In and Twitter can have a very

positive impact on the success of your job search.  A note of warning, be aware that you are judged –

however unfairly, on your careful selection of words (or lack thereof) so use your words wisely, but don’t

be afraid to get out there and contribuute to your career community! ENGAGE! You can invest much or little

of your personal time to these social media options—it’s your choice. But there are great benefits if used

wisely whichever you choose to embrace.

Happy Job Hunting,
The Résumé Lady

The most recent jobs report was promising, showing a net gain of 162,000 new jobs in March.  While the actual picture may not be that strong, its a positive sign that we hope will continue in the coming months.  While every improvement in the national jobs picture is important, we are curious to know what companies that hire reliability engineers and predictive maintenance professionals are going to be doing in the coming months.

As such, we are pleased to announce the launch of our first survey – The 2010 Maintenance Hiring Survey.  If you are hiring, or in a position to hire, we would greatly appreciate your input. Click here to take survey Survey results will be published in the coming weeks.

There is an interesting post this morning over at the Huffington Post.  The post, entitled “The Recession Creates a New Business Paradigm: Entrepreneurial Independence &  Individualism” discusses the trend of the unemployed (either out of necessity or desire) becoming entrepreneurs.  This is a trend that we’ve seen arise and one that I don’t think is uncommon during recessions.

The question though is whether or not this move to self employment & entrepreneurship is a temporary transition or if is truly a new employment paradigm. I’m inclined to believe that the answer is yes to both.  Being self employed takes a tremendous amount of skill and confidence and over the years I have seen many a recently unemployed man/woman decide to join the ranks of the consultant, only to run back to a job once one arises.  That being said, there is a reality that many of the jobs that have been lost during this great recession are unlikely to return and many of these lost jobs are in areas that won’t see equivalent replacement jobs come into that market.  So, many of these newly self employed may have no choice but to remain self employed.

The other side of this, and what we are personally seeing with the reliability engineering profession is that the companies, particularly the service providers are embracing this model of the self employed freelancer.  The reason for this is that they need to the flexibility of a variable workforce.  During the past year we saw some of the consulting/service groups lay off waves of talented reliability engineers and predictive maintenance professionals because they couldn’t afford to have them sit on the bench waiting for projects to come in.  On the end user side we know that significant portions of maintenance departments were eliminated and those companies are going to be reluctant to add head count when they can utilize an outsourced solution.

Because of this, I’m inclined to believe that there is likely a paradigm shift, but ultimately the depth of it will depend on whether or not both employers and professionals can find a balance and comfort level.  As someone who has been self employed for the bulk of my career, I can tell you that there is a tremendous feeling of freedom knowing you can work on whatever interests you.  The flip side is that there is also a lot of stress when your wondering where the next job is coming from.  Self employment is not for the faint of heart, but more professionals may need to man up and dive in.

What do you think?

There has been massive amounts of attention paid to health care reform and the key points contained within the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; however, various provisions within that nearly one thousand page document have stayed under the radar screen, like the tiny provision amending the Fair Labor Standards Act (”FLSA”).

The FLSA amendment found in 29 U.S.C. 207 (r)(1) requires employers covered under the FLSA to provide a reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk for her infant child. “Reasonable break time” is not defined in the amendment. Under the amendment, employers must provide such breaks for up to one year after the child’s birth, but do not need to compensate for any time spent on such a break. Employers also must furnish employees with “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public” for expressing breast milk during the breaks.

Employers of less than 50 employees may be excused from providing breaks for breastfeeding, but only if doing so would create an “undue hardship.” Under the new amendment, “undue hardship” is defined as a hardship that causes significant difficulty or expense and is measured by the size, financial resources, nature, or structure of the employer’s business.

Although many states already have their own laws pertaining to expressing breast milk, employers in states that do not must now make sure they provide reasonable breaks for expressing breast milk and secure a private place for this to occur. Employers that are in states that have these laws in place, like Connecticut, must adhere to whichever law is most favorable to the employee.