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Official Ocala StarBanner Career Resource Guide, Recruitment Tab for April 27, 2014 - Marion County, Florida

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Page 1: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

Know who’s hiring?We sure do.Find companies hiring right now.careersourceclm.com | 800.434.JOBS

CAREERSunday, April 27, 2014

published by the

OCALA

Page 2: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

By Michael OppermannCorrespondent

Although Marion County’s unem-ployment rate is higher than the

Florida average, the local job market is looking up for prospective workers.

Job placement has increased signifi cantly over the past year, with regional unemployment down to 7.5 percent in February, a 1.4 percent decrease from a year ago.

Brenda Chrisman’s job as CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion’s Chief business development offi cer has afforded her a fi rsthand view of this increase in employment opportunities.

“We’ve seen a lot of growth over the past year in the number of job orders we’re doing,” Chrisman said, speaking of the employment notices which CareerSource processes and posts for local businesses.

New employment notices have been coming in so fast in recent months that they’ve actually had to hire a part-time employee to ensure they’re posted the same day the informa-tion arrives.

The Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area actually posted the highest job growth rate of any Florida metro area between December 2012 and May 2013.

Robert Goldberg, co-owner of Spherion staffi ng agency’s Ocala location, also has wit-nessed the recent hiring surge, and sees much of it coming from new busi-nesses moving to the area.

He’s also noticed a spike

in supervisory level construction jobs, which implies that a signifi cant number of businesses are opening or expanding for the fi rst time since the

housing bubble burst in 2007.

Food service, customer service, sales, clerical, nursing and general labor positions all appear to be

hiring, according to statistics from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

“Clerical and offi ce work seem to be in big demand,” Goldberg said. “We’re getting a lot of people to work these days. Competi-tion is getting intense.”

Chrisman is seeing growth in many fi elds, noting that “call centers are expanding. Manufac-turing is growing. Health care is growing.”

Nursing positions are actually in incredibly high demand due to constant workforce turnover and the high regional senior population.

They’re hiring at such a fast pace that “we cannot meet employers’ needs,” she said.

Chrisman fully expects local hiring trends to continue, with the FedEx distribution hub being built in Ocala sparking a wave of hiring that’ll

ripple through the area for sustained growth.

She sees businesses ramping up capacity in anticipation of expanded shipping opportunities, and foresees this will have secondary and tertiary benefi ts for surrounding businesses.

This trend is in line with growth projections from the Moody’s Analytics economic research fi rm, which ranked the Ocala MSA as fi fth in the nation for projected job growth through 2015.

Some occupations see spike in openings 2 | SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE OCALA STAR-BANNER | www.ocala.com

Who’s hiring?Occupations with the

most annual openings in Marion County, with median hourly earnings, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity/Employment Statistics and Wages Program. These are estimates and cover the period of January through December 2013.

Food preparation: 312, 1. $8.64

Retail sales: 304, 2. $10.05

Cashier, 271, $8.943. Wait staff: 185, $8.624. Registered nurse: 132, 5.

$27.13Customer service: 122, 6.

$12.75Stock clerk: 103, 7.

$10.86General offi ce clerk: 8.

103, $10.84Nursing assistant: 98, 9.

$10.93Laborer/freight 10.

mover: 86, $10.25

STAFF PHOTOS BY DOUG ENGLE

ABOVE: David Wheat operates a forklift in the Krausz USA warehouse in Ocala. The company makes couplings and clamps for drinking-water systems. BELOW: Ansafone customer service representative Kathy Coleman, right, trains Nancy Darrah on a call. The company takes inbound calls for retail companies and also off ers answering service for businesses across the country.

The Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area actually posted the highest job growth rate of any Florida metro area between December 2012 and May 2013.

Food service, customer service, sales and nursing are all sectors that are hiring in Marion County

Page 3: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

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Page 4: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

People should be wary of potential job scamsBy Richard AnguianoBusiness editor

Ever see the subject line “Job Offer” in your email inbox?

No? Check your spam folder — but don’t click that link.

Identity thieves and other fraudsters have been known to post fake employment listings and even create dazzling, legitimate-looking websites promising high-paying jobs that need to be fi lled right away.

The idea is simple: Post a lead on a job that doesn’t exist and get the job-seek-er to reveal valuable personal data through a follow-up contact, such as a phone interview or a post via the fi llable form on one

of those fancy, fake websites.

It’s a potential minefi eld for the job-seeker, accord-ing to Bob Walther, chairman and CEO of Wal-Staf, which has offi ces in Gainesville, Ocala and Lake City.

“It’s a big wide world out there, and you have to be so cautious about where you put your personal information,” Walther said. “You can’t be paranoid about it, because there are a lot of great sites and information out there, but just be careful.”

The main problem, the Federal Trade Commis-sion writes on its website, is “scammers advertise where legitimate employ-ers do — online, in

newspapers, and even on TV and radio.”

So how do you tell a legitimate opportunity from a potential rip-off?

Laura Byrnes, communi-cations manager with CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion, offers the follow-ing tips:

Research the company ■

to make sure it is the real deal (to ensure a business is authentic, contact the Better Business Bureau at www.bbb.org).

Keep your email address ■

private and do not provide your Social Security number or any sensitive information to an employ-er unless you are confi dent they are legitimate.

Be wary of any employer ■

offering a job without an

interview.Be alert for any employ- ■

er charging fees to employ, fi nd placement or provide training.

Investigate thoroughly ■

any employer requesting that you transfer funds or receive packages for reshipment, especially if they are located overseas.

Avoid vague offers, ■

exaggerated claims of possible earnings or product effectiveness, or any job posting claiming “no experience neces-sary.”

Job-seekers should exer- ■

cise caution when replying to unsolicited emails for work-at-home employ-ment as well as for employers who conduct their interviews in a home setting or in motel rooms.

Byrnes notes a list of tips and links is available via www.employfl orida.com (search for Employ Florida Caution). She suggests anyone who suspects he or she has been victimized in an employment scam contact the Florida Attorney General’s Fraud Hotline at 866-966-7226.

4 | SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE OCALA STAR-BANNER | www.ocala.com

More resourcesAbout.com: “Top Internet Job Scams” ■

jobsearch.about.com/od/jobsearchscams/a/top-10-inter-net-job-scams.htm

Federal Trade Commission: “Job Scams” ■

www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0243-job-scams#SignsEmploy Florida: “Caution: Be on the Alert for Job Scams” ■

www.employfl orida.com/gsipub/index.asp?docid=922Better Business Bureau: “Fake Employment Agency Fools ■

Job Hunters with Scam Calls”www.bbb.org/blog/2013/04/fake-employment-agency-

fools-job-hunters-with-scam-calls

Page 5: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

By Michael OppermannCorrespondent

While entry-level positions make up the majority of employment op-

portunities, a number of high-paying professional jobs also are hiring quali-fi ed applicants.

Kevin Sheilley, president and CEO of the Ocala/Marion County Chamber and Economic Partner-ship, said businesses are looking for “anyone in the skilled [trades] areas.”

While this applies to manufacturing positions such as welders, electri-cians and CNC machine operators, there’s also demand for chief fi nancial offi cers, accountants and information technology, or IT, professionals.

Brenda Chrisman, CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion’s chief business development offi cer, has seen numerous job postings for white-collar workers in all of these fi elds.

CareerSource recently posted several chief fi nancial offi cer positions to Monster.com, and applicants from around the country have been submitting their resumes.

They also regularly post jobs for people with backgrounds in account-ing, fi nance and comput-ing.

“If you have an account-ing and fi nance back-ground, you’re not going to have too much diffi culty fi nding a job,” Chrisman said, adding fi nance experts experienced in manufacturing are particularly sought after.

Due to the ongoing computerization of the workplace, Sheilley noted that “there is always a demand for IT profession-als.”

Chrisman explained that local businesses regularly lose experienced IT employees to competitors in nearby cities.

“The market here is small,” she said. “It is hard to compete with those larger regions.”

Because of this, she said, local businesses are “constantly looking for

people with programming skills. The schools can’t turn them out fast enough.”

Although employers are looking for skilled workers, a limited talent pool and strong competi-tion means that successful applicants must distin-guish themselves from the crowd.

Proper degrees and certifi cations are only the starting point when seeking to land one of these positions.

“At minimum, the successful job candidate needs to be computer profi cient, possess soft skills and maintain occupational skills regardless of the gap in

employment,” said Laura Byrnes, communications manager at CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion.

Volunteer work and ongoing educational initiatives also show employers a job-seeker is motivated and depend-able.

“They need to volunteer, get active and do some-thing to upgrade their

skills so employers can see they’re trying to do something to improve themselves,” Chrisman said. “That shows commit-ment.”

“Job-seekers also need to know how to strategically market themselves and navigate this very differ-ent labor market dynam-ic,” Byrnes said.

Offi cials: Look for more openings in IT work, skilled trades

DOUG ENGLE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER/FILE

Registered Nurse Clinician Kim Ingalls tends to a baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Munroe Regional Medical Center. Registered nurses in Marion County have the highest median hourly earnings among those occupations with the most job openings.

DOUG ENGLE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER/FILE

Electrician Tom Oneill uses a jack hammer to cut out a section of block wall to install a switch box on a home being built in the Preserve at Heath Brook. With the economy picking up, businesses are hiring many in skilled trades, like electricians, welders and machine operators.

www.ocala.com | OCALA STAR-BANNER CAREER RESOURCE SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 | 5

Which openings pay best?Here are jobs in Marion County with the highest median

hourly earnings among those with the most annual job openings, according to the state of Florida. Included after the median wage is the number of annual openings and the minimum required education level. These are estimates and cover the period of January through December 2013.

Registered nurse: $27.13, 132, bachelor’s degree1. Elementary school teacher*: $24.90, 76, bachelor’s 2.

degreeAdministrative support supervisor: $19.61, 58, work 3.

experienceLicensed practical nurse: $19.08, 64, postsecondary 4.

nondegree awardRetail sales supervisor: $17.19, 79, work experience5.

*Except special educationSource: Florida Department of Economic Opportunity/Oc-

cupation Employment Statistics and Wages Program

Page 6: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

By Jim RossManaging editor

Years ago, the pro-tocol was simple. You followed up a job interview by

sending a hand-written thank-you note to the in-terviewer.

But what’s the best practice now? Send an email? Shoot off a text message? Post a greeting on the interviewer’s Facebook page?

The additional options can be good — unless you choose the wrong one.

First things fi rst: Should you follow up at all after a job interview?

Experts agree: Yes.“Don’t think that it

doesn’t matter, because it does,” said Alison Doyle, About.com’s job search expert.

Following up is courte-ous and gives you another valuable opportunity to show the interviewer you are serious about getting this job.

And in a competitive labor market, small gestures can have out-sized impacts.

In 2012, Accountemps, a specialized temp agency for accounting, fi nance and bookkeeping profes-sionals, commissioned a survey of 500 human resources professionals from companies with 20 or more employees. Of the respondents, 91 percent said they liked to receive a thank-you gesture after an interview.

As for method: Eighty-seven percent of survey respondents said email is an appropriate way and 81

percent cited phone calls. Only 10 percent said text messaging was appropri-ate. (Respondents could choose more than one method.)

Doyle wasn’t surprised that text-messaging ranked so low, since it’s a bit too invasive. Email, on the other hand, allows the candidate a little room to say “thanks” and also to get another shot at making his or her pitch for the job.

And the tried-and-true handwritten note? Only 38 percent of respondents said that was an appropri-ate method of following up.

“The old-fashioned way still does work,” Doyle said. But be mindful of time. If the job must be fi lled quickly, a candidate doesn’t want to lose

valuable time waiting for the postal service to do its work.

How important is timeliness? Jerry Flanders is workshop coordinator for CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion, which provides education/training and employment services. He recommends a hand-written note only if the candidate can person-ally deliver it within 24 hours to the interviewer’s

offi ce.To avoid bothering the

hiring manager, a follow-up thank-you call could be placed after hours so you can leave a thoughtful voicemail message.

Emails are quite useful, Flanders said, because they allow more room to elaborate on important points in addition to saying “thanks.”

As for social media: Flanders said LinkedIn might be appropriate, since that site is used exclusively for business relations, but Facebook probably isn’t a good idea.

Indeed, in the Accoun-temps survey only 27 percent of respondents said social media was an appropriate way to follow up.

Like Doyle, Flanders said

the important thing is to follow up appropriately.

“You’re sending a statement to that employ-er” that you understand and appreciate the correct protocol, he said.

Michael Stewart, a University of Florida senior who is majoring in telecommunications, said candidates defi nitely should send an email after an interview.

Why? First, because this is the digital age and an email seems appropriate: less intimate than a text message and less formal than a written note.

The second reason is speed. You probably aren’t the only one being considered for the job.

“They might decide (on a hire) that day,” Stewart said.

6 | SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE OCALA STAR-BANNER | www.ocala.com

Guidanceon the Web

CareerSource: www. ■

careersourcencfl .comAlison Doyle: job- ■

search.about.com/od/thankyouletters/a/thankyouletters.htm

Experts say email a good way to follow up aft er an interview

Page 7: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

www.ocala.com | OCALA STAR-BANNER ADVERTISEMENT SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 | 7

Page 8: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

By Carla ViannaCorrespondent

Before applying to work for the city of Ocala, a candi-date must read and

agree to the organiza-tion’s seven core values: customer focus, integrity, responsibility, knowledge, innovation, effi ciency and leadership.

Consider it a code of ethics, reminding future employees of the specifi c qualities a company is looking for, said Jeannine Robbins, public informa-tion offi cer for the city of Ocala.

“There are a lot of quality individuals out there,” she said. “The fact that we ask them to read through and agree to those makes the (hiring) process much easier for us.”

Beyond the education and experience require-ments, employers look for candidates equipped with a strong set of soft skills, said Deborah Bowie, vice president of chamber development at the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce.

It’s the ability to commu-nicate effectively, to listen and to respond, to take and give directions, and to be proactive and profes-sional.

“Beyond tech skills and

basic criteria: Can you problem-solve? Can you get along well with others? Can you motivate?” Bowie said.

She said these soft communication skills are taught in many companies through mentoring programs.

Local programs such as The Red Carpet Customer Service Training and Certifi cation coach employees in both internal and external customer service.

The three-hour course is taught at the Santa Fe College Center for Innova-tion and Economic Development or at individual businesses. Kim Tesch-Vaught, executive director at Career Source of North Central Florida, said the

program has been popular within the health care industry.

When it comes down to it, employers across all industries are looking for people who show up on time every day with a good attitude, she said.

In addition, a candidate should fi t in well with the workplace culture.

Infi nite Energy’s human resources manager, Stacy Benfi eld, said the compa-ny places extreme value on its family-like culture.

“We are looking for people who value being part of the atmosphere and care about fellow co-workers and the community,” Benfi eld said.

She said these are values a person should have before walking into the company.

The challenge is assess-ing these traits during the interviewing process.

“Each company has their own culture,” Tesch-Vaught said. “One of the things that I would suggest is to take time to read about the company when you’re paneling your resume for the job you’re applying for. Many times you can identify what the company is really looking for.”

ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

Beyond education and experience, employers look for candidates who have soft skills. These skills include the ability to communicate eff ectively, to listen and respond, to take and give directions, and to be proactive and professional.

“Beyond tech skills and basic criteria: Can you problem-solve? Can you get along well with others? Can you motivate?”

DEBORAH BOWIE, vice president of chamber development at the

Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce

Employers look beyond education, experience

8 | SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE OCALA STAR-BANNER | www.ocala.com

Page 9: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

By Andy FillmoreCorrespondent

A resume can be your ticket to surviving perhaps the most crucial eight sec-

onds of your job search. “According to research

by Yahoo, many employ-ers today scan incoming resumes for fi ve to eight seconds and with the volume, many of them get tossed,” said Jerry Flan-ders, resume workshop coordinator with Career-Source Citrus Levy Marion, an employment and career opportunity center serving both job seekers and employers.

CareerSource is one of the state resources listed and linked on the Employ Florida Marketplace website (www.employfl or-ida.com) with Employ Florida Vets, Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and Enter-prise Florida.

Kristin James, 40, who seeks a job as a reception-ist, turned to Career-Source in Ocala for help with her job search, which is available at no charge.

She is involved in the “roadmap” process, which involves an application, assessment and placement process at CareerSource.

James said re-entering the workforce was like starting “at square one.”

“They’ve been very helpful here,” James said as she worked with Deborah Roberts of

CareerSource. “(CareerSource) has

been a big help with preparing my resume,” James said.

Classes are held by CareerSource with job seekers at computer workstations examining the building of a resume and designing targeted resumes.

Flanders said “the rules have changed” for making resumes since the “old days prior to the great recession of 2006-07.”

“It used to be many potential employees were big fi shes in a small pond,

but today an employer may get hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes from online sources, and the job seeker becomes a small fi sh in a big pond,” he said. “It’s just way more competitive.”

Flanders reviewed three important steps toward building a professional, targeted resume.

First, Flanders said, ■

avoid the pitfall of a resume that is not present-able.

“The grammar and tenses must be correct, and the resume must be reviewed for errors and

mistakes,” Flanders said.Second, Flanders said, ■

don’t start the resume with the older format of stating “your objective” but open the resume with “what you bring” as far as skills and special qualifi -cations to help the employ-er succeed.

Third, Flanders said, ■

resume writers must be sure to “target” the information in their resume to a specifi c position and “match their skills” highlighting special training, licensing and certifi cations toward a specifi c job.

The resume itself, not only the content, speaks to the potential employer.

“From your resume an employer can get a sense if you have basic computer skills (and it can) refl ect your email communica-tion skill,” Flanders said.

The Career Development Center at the College of Central Florida, according to the CF website, www.cf.edu/departments/ssw/sa/career, “helps students and graduates with career assessment, career counseling, employability skills training and labor market information.

Services include extensive career resource library of books and multimedia materials on career planning and occupations, and access to employer information.”

The website states the center offers services including resume reviews, counseling, assessment, placement and on-campus recruiters aimed at “individuals who want to know more about suitable career options, or are uncertain about career choice and career deci-sion-making.”

Local resources can help you build the perfect resume

ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

Having trouble getting noticed by employers? There are local resources available to help job applicants perfect their resumes.

Job applicants can turn to places like CareerSource, CF

YOU CAN HELPOpt to Adopt Donate Volunteer

www.ocala.com | OCALA STAR-BANNER CAREER RESOURCE SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 | 9

Need resume help?CAREERSOURCE CITRUS LEVY MARIONLocation in each countywww.careersourceclm.

com

COLLEGE OF CENTRAL FLORIDA CAREERDEVELOPMENT CENTER291-4419, ext. 1721,

1572 and 1564www.cf.edu/depart-

ments/sa/ss/career/

EMPLOY FLORIDAwww.employfl orida.com

MARION COUNTYPUBLIC LIBRARY“Job and Career Accel-

erator” provides advice on resumes and other employment matters. Users must register.jca.learnatest.com/

lel/?HR=http://www.marioncountyfl .org/library/li_home.htm

Page 10: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

YOU SEEK.WE FIND.

We help local BUSINESSES find talent. We help JOB SEEKERS find opportunity.

If you’re like most businesses, you put your employees at the top of the

priority list. You might offer the best product or service, but without the

right team, your business will never reach its full potential.

So how do you find the right employee?

CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion is part of a powerful, statewide network

of workforce professionals who help employers of all sizes recruit, hire,

train and keep the best and brightest employees.

We can help you:

• identify top talent in your industry

• review resumes and screen candidates

• access local and state labor-market data

• host recruiting events and schedule interviews

• train new recruits and current works

Our competitive edge comes from the work we do to cultivate a robust

pipeline of talent, ensuring they’re ready to work when you’re ready to hire.

Solutions that work for you

Whether you need a job or have your eye on the corner office, we can

assist you in your search for your next opportunity. That might be a new

job with another business or a new position with your current employer.

So how do you find your next opportunity?

CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion is part of a powerful, statewide network

of workforce professionals who help job seekers prepare, search, identify,

train for and seize career opportunities in our region and across the state.

We can help you:

• identify top employers hiring right now

• develop a resume and search openings

• prepare for job interviews

• candidate skills and interest assessments

• apply for training scholarships

The benefit of working with us is our statewide reach. You can look for

your next opportunity right in your own backyard or throughout Florida.

careersourceclm.com | 800.434.JOBS connect with us

CareerSource Citrus Levy

Marion, formerly Workforce

Connection, has joined with

the state’s 23 other regional

workforce development

partners to help lead the new

CareerSource Florida network.

Our services are available to

you at no charge.

CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion is an equal opportunity employer/program. Auxiliary aids and services available upon request. Call 800-434-5627, ext. 7878.

10 | ADVERTISEMENT SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE | 11

Page 11: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

YOU SEEK.WE FIND.

We help local BUSINESSES find talent. We help JOB SEEKERS find opportunity.

If you’re like most businesses, you put your employees at the top of the

priority list. You might offer the best product or service, but without the

right team, your business will never reach its full potential.

So how do you find the right employee?

CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion is part of a powerful, statewide network

of workforce professionals who help employers of all sizes recruit, hire,

train and keep the best and brightest employees.

We can help you:

• identify top talent in your industry

• review resumes and screen candidates

• access local and state labor-market data

• host recruiting events and schedule interviews

• train new recruits and current works

Our competitive edge comes from the work we do to cultivate a robust

pipeline of talent, ensuring they’re ready to work when you’re ready to hire.

Solutions that work for you

Whether you need a job or have your eye on the corner office, we can

assist you in your search for your next opportunity. That might be a new

job with another business or a new position with your current employer.

So how do you find your next opportunity?

CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion is part of a powerful, statewide network

of workforce professionals who help job seekers prepare, search, identify,

train for and seize career opportunities in our region and across the state.

We can help you:

• identify top employers hiring right now

• develop a resume and search openings

• prepare for job interviews

• candidate skills and interest assessments

• apply for training scholarships

The benefit of working with us is our statewide reach. You can look for

your next opportunity right in your own backyard or throughout Florida.

careersourceclm.com | 800.434.JOBS connect with us

CareerSource Citrus Levy

Marion, formerly Workforce

Connection, has joined with

the state’s 23 other regional

workforce development

partners to help lead the new

CareerSource Florida network.

Our services are available to

you at no charge.

CareerSource Citrus Levy Marion is an equal opportunity employer/program. Auxiliary aids and services available upon request. Call 800-434-5627, ext. 7878.

10 | ADVERTISEMENT SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE | 11

Page 12: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

By Andy FillmoreCorrespondent

The motto for Mar-ion County Public Schools Career and Technical Education

is “Training Tomorrow’s Workforce Today.”

Marion County public high schools offer both academic courses and technical programs in cooperation with Marion County Career and Technical Education to prepare students to enter the workplace.

The seven county public high schools and one state charter school, Francis Marion Military Academy, each offer a mix of about 10 technical programs, ranging from agriculture to Web design, at their campuses.

Joan Stark, with Marion County Public Schools Career and Technical Education offi ce, said of 10,000 students in ninth through 12th grade, about 8,000 are enrolled in at least one technical course, with health occupations being a top choice.

“It’s a whole new ball-game looking for employ-ment today,” Stark said about the importance of technical training.

“In the work world, use of computers is increas-ingly important,” Stark said. “For example, a chef may get his request (digitally). With our technical courses, stu-dents can also get neces-sary certifi cation to get jobs like Servsafe for culinary jobs, (Automotive Service Excellence) certifi cation for automo-tive work and Autodesk credentials for drafting work,” Stark said.

Stark said she encour-ages students to visit Florida Choices’s website at www.fl choices.com to research career ideas.

Another option for students on a vocational track is Marion Technical Institute, considered a county high school.

“Every April, we take one MTI student from each of the seven academies here and visit each 10th grade class in the county high schools,” said MTI student internship coordinator John Conway about exposing local students to various career fi elds.

“We also have a parent night,” Conway said.

Students in any of the seven other county high schools can opt to attend MTI, where the focus is on technical training.

MTI’s seven academies provide students with employment-focused training in the highly technical automotive fi eld, building sciences includ-ing green technology, business and fi nance, culinary arts and baking, information technology, law and government and robotics, automation and design.

The seven academies are

held in “classrooms,” which are actually workshops and labs, including: a full kitchen and in-house Springboard Cafe, which serves the public by appointment; multi-bay auto repair garage; design and mechanics lab with a 3-D printer; and computer-assisted design lab where students train on instru-ments like dial indicators and calipers.

Students can perform under realistic conditions including handling computer virus attacks, the making of specialized components by computer design, making banquet food and repairing automobile brakes.

Every workshop and lab stresses computer skills increasingly needed in the workplace, even in positions not traditionally linked to the use of computers.

Other workshops include one for information technology and a realistic, near full-size mock courtroom where students act as litigants with jobs such as paralegal, legal secretary and crime scene investigator.

School system nurtures students on a career track

SCHOOLS on Page 13

Programs include culinary arts, building sciences, information technology and robotics

STAFF PHOTOS BY ALAN YOUNGBLOOD

LEFT: Chloe Deen dishes out frosting at Marion Technical Institute in Ocala. ABOVE: Kyle Aldret prepares sweets for the morning coff ee cart at MTI. MTI’s seven academies provide students with employment-focused training to meet the needs of local industries.

12 | SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE OCALA STAR-BANNER | www.ocala.com

Page 13: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

Best Care…Best People

of Marion CountyFeel better. Live better.

BestPlace toWork

Your Hometown Hospice since 1983

Imagine a workplace where…• employees feel respected• trust, pride and fairnessare part of the corporateculture

• you make a difference inthe lives of your patients

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Stop imagining…this is what our mission is all about.Call (352) 873-7400 orhospiceofmarion.com/careers.html

Students retain their status with their “base” school and continue academic courses and college-related work while getting hands-on training at MTI.

Conway said the student body size of about 300 at MTI is conducive to individual mentoring.

MTI graduates can enter the workplace with the training and credentials employers like Lockheed Martin and Intec are seeking.

MTI also works closely with local employers, including Hilton Ocala, Ford/Lincoln of Ocala and DeLuca Toyota.

“We work as a bridge with local industry,” Conway said.

MTI culinary arts and North Marion High School senior James Clay Rob-erts, 18, at MTI for one year, has completed an unpaid internship serving

banquets at Hilton Ocala.“I plan to go to the

College of Central Florida in business administra-tion,” Roberts said.

Conway said MTI students, including Roberts, who have completed a 40-hour volunteer internship often take part-time jobs with the host employer.

The Ocala Human Resource Management Association, the local branch of the Society of Human Resource Man-agement, is planning to have MTI students sit in on monthly meetings of the organization for human resource professionals and affi liates when guest speakers address work-place issues from sexual harassment to workers’ compensation.

“We are working with MTI to have two students attend our monthly meetings,” said Donna Healy-Strickland with OHRMA.

SCHOOLS: Many students taking on internshipsContinued from 12

Senior Jonathan Berecz, left, and Junior Krishna Maharaj work on the universal joints of a Jeep in the automotive program at Marion Technical Institute.

ALAN YOUNGBLOOD/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

www.ocala.com | OCALA STAR-BANNER CAREER RESOURCE SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 | 13

Page 14: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

By Andy FillmoreCorrespondent

In 2013, David Marrero decided it was time for a job change.

Marrero, 53, dropped out of Vanguard High School in 1975 and took a job on a horse farm to help his single mom support his four siblings. He moved to New York in 1988 and worked his way up to managerial jobs in the supermarket trade and worked in a pharmacy.

When he returned to Ocala in 1998, he couldn’t get work at CVS, Publix or Winn-Dixie, “even as a bag boy,” he said. Marrero took a job in a fast-food restaurant in Gainesville and then worked with a family tree service.

Marrero went to Career-Source Citrus Levy Marion last year — when the workforce develop-ment agency was known as Workforce Connection — for help in obtaining his GED and then, because of an interest he mentioned in helping elderly patients, began attending Marion County Community Technical & Adult Educa-tion.

CTAE conducts techni-cal courses in the county high schools for enrolled students and has a separate center for adults, where Marrero obtained certifi cation to work as a certifi ed nursing assistant.

“I felt out of place at fi rst at CTAE, but I paid attention and moved up front in class and began to enjoy it,” he said. “One counselor told me my placement test scores were high, and I decided to go for the Medical Assistant program, which involves phlebotomy and lab work.”

Marrero now works with Champion Home Health and aspires to work as a

medical assistant in a medical offi ce setting.

“I went from not being able to fi nd any job to actually having employers solicit me,” Marrero said.

So what’s available for Marion County residents seeking a new career path, like Marrero?

CTAE assistant principal Dan Davis said the school’s motto is “A Career in a Year” and noted Florida now has 48 “technical centers” like CTAE, which offer a pathway to a high school GED and an array of courses including radiol-ogy, medical assisting, fi refi ghting and cyberse-curity.

Students can obtain the credentials required by

many of the current “hot” job opportunities in the medical and culinary fi elds, like the Safe Serve certifi cation for kitchen personnel.

The College of Central Florida has an Assessment and Career Services center providing vocation-al-oriented testing for students and for non-stu-dents on a fee basis.

The CF center can provide tests necessary for application to the military, law enforcement and other occupations.

CareerSource communi-cations manager Laura Byrnes provided a tour of the agency’s northeast Ocala facility where offi ce manger Jamie Dodd and staff assist job seekers

with a place to use offi ce equipment in their search or meet with staff to draw up an “employment road map,” both available at no charge to the job-seeker.

The “roadmap” starts with registration and expediting then proceeds to assessment and meet-ings with placement specialists and coordina-tion with recruitment specialists who work with area employers to match seekers with openings.

Placement specialist Katherine Toro with CareerSource said she looks at each applicant’s “hard skills and soft skills,” or occupational skill and interpersonal communication skills, both of which can be

addressed at the center, and tries to fi nd a proper employment fi t.

Placement specialist and Air Force veteran Gary Strickland works closely with veterans and handles the Disabled Veteran Outreach Program.

La-Von Landis, also a placement specialist at CareerSource, said she works closely with clients 45-to-65 years old on resumes and where to fi nd additional training on computer usage.

“I love to ring the (ship) bell up in the front of the CareerSource building,” Landis said. “It means we’ve matched another seeker and a job.”

CareerSource holds job fairs for local employers

and has two mobile units, overseen by mobile coordinator Jonathan Delicate, including a 40-foot unit with 11 computer workstations which will come to an employer to handle visiting applicants.

Recent and upcoming stops for the mobile unit include Walmart, Burling-ton Coat Factory and the Salvation Army.

CareerSource helped match about 1,100 seekers with jobs per month regionally, an increase from about 842 in 2012.

There also is a Career-Source placement and resume assistance center called “Patriot Connec-tion” on the College of Central Florida campus.

Seeking a new career path? You have options in Marion

ALAN YOUNGBLOOD/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

David Marrero, left, gives a breathing test to fellow medical assisting student Julie Suter during class at Community Technical & Adult Education in Ocala. Marrero, 53, changed careers and is fi nding opportunity in the medical assisting fi eld.

14 | SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE OCALA STAR-BANNER | www.ocala.com

ResourcesCAREERSOURCE CENTER2703 NE 14th St.Ocala, FL 34470Phone: 840-5700Jamie Dodd, supervisor, ext. 1119Fax: 840-5712Hours: Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

PATRIOT JOBCONNECTIONPatriot Job Connection Coordinator:Gail Buzard, ext. 11103003 SW College RoadBuilding 42, Suite 109Ocala, FL 34474Phone: 840-5762Hours: Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

COMMUNITY TECHNICAL & ADULT EDUCATIONDeborah Jenkins, director1014 SW Seventh RoadOcala, FL, 34471Phone: 671-7200

Page 15: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

By Kathy BoccellaThe Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia

In one of the newest and fastest-growing secondary schools in Chester County,

teacher Katie Smith was demonstrating proper technique to 16-year-old Courtney Draper and 18-year-old Scott Persing — with a big assist from Dwight.

Dwight is a silken-haired shih-tzu. Persing was anxiously shaving fur from the squirmy toy-breed canine at the Brandywine campus of the Technical College High School, run by the Chester County Interme-diate Unit, taking another step toward a veterinary career.

Formerly branded “vo-tech” and disdained by baby boomers and their children who saw them as dumping grounds for college-track washouts, programs such as this — redubbed “career and technical education,” or CTE — can barely expand quickly enough to meet the demand from a new generation of students.

They have watched costs skyrocket and job pros-pects dwindle for univer-sity graduates, even as well-paying skilled jobs in manufacturing, auto repair and medical centers that don’t require college degrees go begging.

Draper, Persing and thousands of others are opting to learn something beyond biology, geometry and Shakespeare: a trade.

“You’ve got to keep calm because they can sense it,” Persing said of dogs as he worked on Dwight. Persing is a senior from Downingtown East High School who, like many of

the 750 students on the Brandywine campus, aspires to both a career and a college degree.

In another corner of the 180,000-square-foot former warehouse, reinvented as a vocational high school two years ago, the gentle hum of dog shears gives way to the blast of a spray-painting machine at the auto-tech-nician shop, where Reggie Stoltzfus, 18, of Coates-ville, Pa., was painting a car fender. “I love it,” he said.

Enrollmentgrowing

Increasingly, employers are approaching school districts with the goal of developing — and in some cases paying for — highly targeted programs to create qualifi ed applicants for hard-to-fi ll jobs. In Chester County, the Sikorsky Global Helicop-ter unit in Coatesville has talked to the Intermediate Unit about launching an aviation-training pro-gram.

Joe O’Brien, executive director of the Chester County IU, which has built two CTE campuses since 2008 at a cost of $63.5 million and which plans to replace a third facility with a new building in the next few years, said enrollment had jumped 10 percent in recent years and should continue to rise as the county looks to devise new job-pipeline programs with top local employers such as Sikorsky.

“We had a young man last year who went to 3D Collision — they hired him right out the door for $60,000,” O’Brien said. “I know a lot of college

graduates would pull their teeth out for $60,000.”

Such stories are fueling both a surge in career-training enrollment and a long-overdue overhaul of outdated vocational and tech programs — in the region and nationally. The fast-changing landscape not only is a product of the job market; a 2009 Knight Report found that Phila-delphia students in such programs completed high school and attended post-secondary schools in greater numbers than their peers in comprehen-sive high schools.

Most students spend two to three hours a day for up to three years in career training, although a few schools, such as Bucks County Technical High School, where enrollment also is growing, are self-contained and even offer adult-education classes. The sending district pays the IU $9,784 per student.

In Philadelphia, which has struggled for decades to adjust to the loss of lower-skilled factory jobs, school district offi cials are working on an overhaul of

career-oriented education that would roughly double the number of slots — cur-rently pegged at about 6,000. The plan calls for upgrading the hodge-podge of programs at 34 schools with a more focused approach, beginning with a manu-facturing academy at Benjamin Franklin High School funded with help from Philadelphia Phillies’ co-owner and philanthro-pist John Middleton, slated to open next year.

Though the nation has moved toward more advanced manufacturing, “we still need welders and assemblers and electrome-chanic technicians,” said Clyde Hornberger, former executive director of the Lehigh Career & Techni-cal Institute and now a consultant in Philadel-phia. “Tastykake said, ‘We don’t really have bakers in our plant. It’s all automat-ed.’ But technicians keep that equipment going.”

Image is a battleThe job market realities

have motivated many students to reroute their educational roadmaps.

“My freshman and sophomore year in high school, I thought I’d want to be an engineer. But sitting there in class wasn’t for me,” said 18-year-old Nick Way from Souderton High School, who’s now studying machinery at the North Montco Technical Career Center. “I wanted to get out there and work.”

Today, Way leaves the technical school at midday to work at an apprentice-style job at nearby B&G Manufacturing Co., where he helps make medical parts such as bone screws and vertebrae.

Michael Lucas, adminis-trative director of the North Montco school, said enrollment in September was expected to be about 15 percent higher than it was fi ve years ago.

One of the biggest hurdles is stigma — not among students, but parents, who still believe any diversion from the four-year college degree track is a mark of failure.

Instead, the reality is someone such as 18-year-old Jocelyn Imdurgia, a senior at Bishop Shana-han who attends Brandy-wine’s health career academy for nursing in partnership with Dela-ware County Community College. She expects to graduate with seven college credits and eventually get a four-year degree.

“I always knew I wanted to be a nurse, and when I found out this school was being built, I was really excited,” said Imdurgia, who is learning to take vital signs and document patients’ conditions at the Veterans Affairs facility in Coatesville.

Educators say increas-

ingly, the economics of vocational training make sense not only because of the improved likelihood of students actually getting jobs in this market, but because course credits can often shorten the time to earn an associate’s or four-year degree.

“A lot of it has to do with their realizing that with a skill in industry it’s a lot easier for them to fi nd a decent-paying job,” said Seth Schram, principal of the Brandywine campus in Chester County. But he noted that 75 percent of his students go on to some kind of secondary educa-tion in a two- or four-year college or trade school.

In the affl uent western exurbs, Schram said, district offi cials are always on the lookout for job needs that appear to be unmet — working on cars, in restaurants, or with pets, for example.

“We looked around and saw there were tons of barbershops out there, and so we opened a barbering program,” he said. “There are only two licensed programs in the state, and we have one of them.”

Technical schools expanding to meet new needs

MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE

Downingtown East students Scott Persing, 18, and Courtney Draper, 16, practice their skills on Dwight the shih-tzu at Technical College High.

www.ocala.com | OCALA STAR-BANNER CAREER RESOURCE SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 | 15

By the numbers5: Percentage increase

in students at North Montco Technical Career Center over the last fi ve years10: Percentage increase

in students at two Ches-ter County Intermediate Unit CTE schools over the last few years6,000: Students in 34

Philadelphia CTE schools

Page 16: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

Q: Many people have been laid off where I

work, and sooner or later, I suspect it will be my turn. I want to prepare for an eventual job search, but I’ve been out of the job market for 10 years. I’ve read that an “online profi le” is a very important factor now, and wanted some advice on how to get one. I have an old Linke-dIn account I haven’t touched in years, and a current Facebook account I use daily. Where do I start and what do I need?

A: You’re smart to prepare for a job

search before losing your current position, and you’ve heard correctly — having an online presence is key.

These days, the majority of employers will conduct a search about you on Google before deciding whether to invite you for an interview. And if you think it’s good if they fi nd absolutely nothing about you, think again.

You want a prospective employer to fi nd some-thing, at the very least a LinkedIn profi le (not Facebook, more on that later). Your name showing up as a member of some professional organization or on a volunteer board is even better.

So let’s start the founda-tion for an online presence by updating your LinkedIn account. Remember, if you’re proactive, you control what’s out there.

Create a profi lePost a good picture. Not

necessarily a studio portrait, but you should look professional and friendly. Having no picture is a red fl ag and raises questions for employers. Don’t you

know how to upload a jpg? Are you awkwardly shy? Why aren’t you complying with the norm? If

you’re worried about “privacy” issues and don’t want a photo of yourself online, you need to get over that — at least while you’re job hunting.

Take advantage of the “headline.” It’s your tag line, so make it memora-ble. Right under your name you get a 120-char-acter “headline,” which everyone sees whenever your name pops up. For example, if want to announce you’re looking for a job it might read: Mary Smith, Public Relations Professional, Looking for New Chal-lenges.

Visibility. When setting your profi le privacy settings, you should enable “public profi le,” which means everyone on LinkedIn can see you, which — unlike your Facebook profi le — is exactly what you want. Of course, in your case, that also includes your current employer, so you might not want to announce your job search just yet.

Use keywords. Complete the Summary and Skills section using keywords. In addition to looking up applicants who’ve applied for a job, employers and recruiters now also use LinkedIn to fi nd people who are employed but have specifi c wanted skills. So make sure you show up on those searches by learning the current popular keywords in your industry and using them

generously in your profi le.Attach your work

samples. Unlike a resume where brevity is king, you have plenty of room to show your stuff on LinkedIn. Attach fi les for articles, PowerPoint presentations, or images. If you’re in a fi eld like graphic design or photog-raphy where portfolios are important, this is a way to make them available.

Networkingon LinkedIn

Connect. Once you have a strong profi le, start adding connections by inviting people from current and past jobs, old classmates, friends and clients. Just like Facebook, once you have a few connections, LinkedIn will offer you additional suggestions.

Join groups. Share ideas, join a discussion, connect with new people. Some-times, groups will post unique jobs not found elsewhere on LinkedIn.

Use search functions — fi nd people, jobs and companies. Organizations have their own “profi le,” and you can “follow” those where you’d like to work. You’ll get notifi ed when new jobs open.

About FacebookSet the privacy settings

on your account so that your profi le is visible only to your “friends.”

When a non-friend (an employer) searches your name, nothing but your (perfectly acceptable) profi le picture and name should be visible. Howev-er, to be extra safe, I recommend you remove

any questionable com-ments, posts or pictures from your — and your friends’ — Facebook pages.

Defensive Googling

If you have a common name, it’s possible that when an interested employer conducts a Google search, they could get negative results about another person with your same or similar name. To prevent that, Goggle your name (in quotes) exactly like it appears on your resume, and make sure the results are clean.

Lastly, the job market landscape has changed a lot in the past 10 years. And just like our personal lives have been affected by technology — and it’s commonplace to text from

your smartphone and share photos digitally instead of writing letters and sending print photos (remember those?) — the workplace, too, has changed; especially the recruiting and hiring process. A signifi cant change is that employers now expect applicants to have basic tech-savvy or “new media” literacy. This is a must-have in order to be considered a viable candidate in today’s job market. Having a well-managed online presence and a solid LinkedIn profi le sends a strong signal that you’re up-to-date and current.

Eva Del Rio is an HR consultant, instructor and columnist. Send questions and comments to [email protected] or fi nd her on Facebook.

Having an online presence can get you noticed

ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

A good way to get noticed by a prospective employer is to set up a professional profi le on a site like LinkedIn.

16 | SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE OCALA STAR-BANNER | www.ocala.com

EVA DEL RIO

Page 17: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

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We offer both our part-time and full-time employeesbenefits including medical, dental and vision insurance,along with a 401(k) plan. At Community Bank & Trustof Florida, we expect to learn and grow togetherwhich is why we offer ongoing training and benefits toemployees as they gain experience.

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By Diane Staff ordThe Kansas City Star

Do you have an elec-tronic resume? It could help your job search, particularly

if it isn’t just a PDF of your paper resume.

Digital formats can give potential employers far more information than anything you could provide on a typed sheet of words.

Online, you can create links to portfolios that illustrate your work. You can include a video that conveys your presentation style, assuming it’s dynamic and worth watch-ing.

You can add color that catches the eye.

Using electronic technol-ogy will help convince prospective employers

that you’re not a dinosaur.Furthermore, most

mid-sized to large busi-nesses are using appli-cant-tracking software and online hiring process-es that are more likely to fi nd and click on your posted resume.

Also, many employers use LinkedIn to search for candidates. In fact, LinkedIn’s “apply now” function, built into some employers’ job listings, may be the only place where those employers swim through the appli-cant pool.

Even without an elec-tronic resume, you’re probably using online job-application forms required by employers.

Now, be prepared for a possible next step: a video interview.

Ask someone with a smartphone or video camera — Skype will work, too — to record you answering sample interview questions or giving your introductory speech. Based on what you see, would you hire you?

Remember, too, that your digital footprint is a big deal. Many employers scour the Web to fi nd information about you — your credit scores, Facebook postings, group memberships and other profi les. Search your name and see what you fi nd. Are you hireable?

Finally, reassess your email address. Make sure it’s a version of your name and not something sketchy, cutesy or detri-mental, like [email protected].

Job hunters need digital profi ciencywww.ocala.com | OCALA STAR-BANNER CAREER RESOURCE SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 | 17

Page 18: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

•Fully accredited, licensed college offering Certificate, Diploma and AssociateDegree training programs ranging two weeks to 20 months.

•No pre-requisite courses or observation hours required to apply.

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By Adam BelzStar Tribune (Minneapolis)

Gabe Ciuraru doesn’t see many good op-tions for people his age.

At 23, he’s waited tables, driven tanks for the Israeli army, taken community college classes and taught Hebrew in St. Paul, Minn. Lately he’s been selling cosmetics from a kiosk at the Mall of America.

This fall, he plans to pursue a degree in sports management at the University of Minnesota. But he’ll have to take on a lot of debt, and he’s not optimistic it will lead to a good-paying job.

“I have friends that still live at home because they’re paying off their student loans,” Ciuraru

said. “You’re chained to your desk. And if you’re not, the debt gets bigger.”

People who fi nished high school or college in the past few years came into the job market at the wrong time. The economic downturn slashed pay for young workers and left more of them jobless, even after many went deep into debt to pay for college.

Economists believe they may never recover what they lost in wages and experience.

“If we look over people’s likely future lives, when you’re part of a generation that comes in with a tough job market and your wages are not so great, you don’t recover,” said Richard Freeman, a Harvard University labor

economist. “They are going to be at a perma-nently lower standard of living than they would have been had we either avoided this catastrophe or had we had a successful jobs recovery.”

Demand for college-edu-cated workers probably peaked around 2000, and the decline since then has affected all young work-ers, Canadian economists Paul Beaudry and Benja-min Sand say.

As the number of college diplomas in the job market keeps rising, high-skilled workers are forced to take lesser jobs, “pushing low-skilled workers even further down the occupa-tional ladder and, to some degree, out of the labor force altogether,” Beaudry

and Sand wrote in 2013.The phenomenon was

partly hidden by the housing bubble in the 2000s, but then laid bare by its bursting.

“This has been a terrible decade,” said Phil Gard-ner, director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University. “There’s only been three years where employers have aggressively hired in the last 12 years.”

Morgan Moore, 28, realized in 2008, less than a year into law school at the University of Illinois, that he probably wouldn’t end up working as a lawyer.

He had hoped to work as legal counsel for a corpo-ration, but the prospect

grew distant as the economy sank into recession.

“That amount of time grew from fi ve to 10 years, to longer than that, to maybe impossible,” Moore said. “So rather than wait and see, I decided to pursue other opportuni-ties.”

He fi nished law school so he wouldn’t regret quitting, but when he graduated in 2011, he didn’t have the money for bar exam prep classes. He couldn’t fi nd any work near Chicago, let alone at a law fi rm. So he spent the summer in his fi ancee’s mother’s basement, collecting food stamps.

Ultimately he moved back to Minnesota’s Twin Cities, where he grew up,

in search of any kind of work. He did part-time stints on the sales fl oor at Sears, at a Byerly’s grocery store and parking cars for a valet service.

In February 2012, he started selling cars full time. He doesn’t regret his expensive law degree, but it will take a long time to pay down his $80,000 in student debt. He has no plans to buy a house, and he had to sign up for health insurance through MNsure, the state ex-change.

“Those of us who were negatively affected by the economy are faced with the consequences of a lost three or four years,” Moore said. “That’s defi nitely left an impact.”

WORKERS on Page 19

New workers are starting behind and can’t get ahead 18 | SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 CAREER RESOURCE OCALA STAR-BANNER | www.ocala.com

Page 19: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

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Since 2008, fi rst-time job seekers have faced a market more diffi cult than anything their older siblings or parents have seen.

Unemployment for people younger than 25 hit 21 percent in 2010 and still is well above its prereces-sion high at 15.6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The situation is worse for workers younger than 25 with no college education, whose unemployment rate is 18.6 percent.

Young people who are working have fewer opportunities for advance-ment, in part because fewer older workers are voluntarily quitting their jobs.

“The longer this goes on, and the longer they’re not attached to something meaningful — and there’s a lot of young people who still aren’t — then they’re wasting their human resource investment, which is their education,” said Phil Gardner, director of the Collegiate Employ-ment Research Institute at Michigan State University.

Repeated studies show that people who look for their fi rst job during a recession take as much as a 9 percent wage cut.

These losses can be permanent, and even when they’re not, may fade only after a decade.

The fault lines run through families.

Laura Franklin, 27, and her sister Emily, 32, both went to the College of St.

Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn.

Emily didn’t seriously consider her career until her senior year, yet got a good job four days after she graduated in 2004.

Laura, with a 3.9 GPA and a semester as a full-time substitute teacher under her belt, couldn’t crack the teach-ing market in 2009 or 2010.

She wanted to teach third-graders, she said, because they like to learn and are old enough to work independently. She applied for more than 100 jobs in Minnesota and Colorado through the summer of 2009. She drove to job fairs where lines formed out the door for one opening.

“You’d just hang your

head when you walked in,” she said.

The fi rst few weeks without a job offer turned into months, and then the summer passed, and her computer fi lled with folders of rejected cover letters.

“I was just so defeated,” she said. “My self-esteem was just blown. I said, ‘I give up. I’m going to take care of babies. This is my life. OK.’ ”

She worked at a day care called New Horizon Academy, and a year later, took a job as an early childhood teaching assistant for St. Paul public schools, hoping that might lead to full-time teaching. She worked both jobs — 12 hours a day — to cover her bills, including payments on $18,000 in

student debt.The teaching job never

materialized, so she took a job at a UnitedHealth call center, which led to a better position at Op-tumHealth. She gave up hopes of teaching but believes those years made her stronger.

“I can look back and think, ‘OK, that was awful and such a hard struggle, but I’m so happy with where I am now because of it,’ ” she said. “It makes you appreciate it that much more.”

One reason for optimism is that as more baby boomers leave the work-force, more jobs should open up for younger workers.

The biggest cohort of baby boomers is now in its mid-50s, said Susan

Brower, Minnesota’s state demographer. So she expects the number of retirements to rise over the next 10 to 15 years.

“We do expect to get this boost in terms of replace-ment job openings,” Brower said. “We don’t know exactly what the size of it will be.”

For now, many college students appear to have accepted that it won’t be easy to get a good job.

“If you go down to people 22 or 23 years old now, they don’t feel quite as disillusioned,” said Richard Freeman, an economist. “They under-stood. The signal was coming out from society. It’s amazing, to me at least, how easily people adjust to whatever the current situation is.”

Continued from 18

WORKERS: As baby boomers leave workforce, more jobs should openwww.ocala.com | OCALA STAR-BANNER CAREER RESOURCE SUNDAY , APRIL 27 , 2014 | 19

Page 20: Career Resource for April 27, 2014

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