SkillStorm

June news for SkillStorm!

• SkillStorm is now working with Liberty Power. Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Liberty Power is one of only four national retail electric providers licensed in 16 or more states and is the only certified, minority-owned, independent retail electric provider with a national presence. SkillStorm is providing Liberty Power with development team and Information Technology support.
• SkillStorm recently provided a Linux administrator to Jettis Technologies. Based in South Florida, Jettis Technologies offers end-to-end, real time secure transaction processing solutions.
• SkillStorm recently provided a Web Developer to the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) in Rancho Santa Margarita, California. PADI is the world’s leading scuba diving training organization. With more than forty years experience and 5,300 dive shops and resorts worldwide, PADI training materials and services let people experience scuba diving from nearly anywhere.
• SkillStorm recently provided a Technical Support Representative to the Governance Institute. The Governance Institute is a membership organization serving non-profit hospital and health system boards of directors, executives and physician leadership. Based in San Diego, this organization conducts research studies, tracks healthcare industry trends, and showcases governance practices of leading healthcare boards across the country.
• SkillStorm is currently providing engineering recruiting support to Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG). PSEG is a publicly traded, diversified energy company headquartered in New Jersey, and one of the ten largest electric companies in the U.S.

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Are Resumes True?

So, for all readers out there that have ever hired anyone, here is a great question for you: How many interviews have you done (Percentage wise) where what was on the resume did not actually match up to what the person had done on the job? Well, I'm sure you are thinking carefully about this...right? I can tell you in 14 years of hiring internal sales member, plus the 5000+ interviews I have completed for my placement at customers, more than 60% of all resumes I have seen do not match 100% with the truth of what someone has accomplished.

Hence my creation of the following: "There are 2 times in someone's life when they are perfect. 1) When they are born and 2) When they write their resume!"

So, 2 quick lesson's need to be learned here for both the hiring manager (interviewer) and the job seeker (interviewee): 1) Don’t lie! It will all come out in the end and you will certainly lose credibility with anyone you’re interviewing with immediately. 2) Managers, dig and dig deep! Be a master at getting to the truth. I don’t think people are liars by nature, but remember, this is their personal commercial and embellishment happens all the time. It is your job to not just look at the fit of the person to your team, but look at the ethics of how they present themselves. If they embellish on the resume, what will they do in your workplace?

For more tips, follow the blog here and/or contact a SkillStorm representative.

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SkillStorm Lends a Hand!

This week our Dallas office lent a helping hand to the Mi Escuelita preschool. Mi Escuelita is an inner city preschool where many families are below the poverty level. The school needed to be cleaned, organized and rearranged in order to shut down until the students return in the fall. Our SkillStorm team assisted with the clean up and shut down of the school for the summer. SkillStorm learned about Mi Escuelita through a local connection with the Salvation Army.

After supporting the Salvation Army Angel Tree program every year, the office decided as a team to look into other community service programs offered throughout the year and not just at Christmas. Mi Escuelita served as a great way for SkillStorm to support the school, the staff and most of all the children.

“We thought it was a great experience. It was the least we could do for the teachers and other staff that work so hard throughout the year,” said Ted Stout, Managing Partner of SkillStorm. “Now that the school’s summer vacation has been shortened due to a new schedule, the last thing they want to do is spend that time cleaning the school. That’s where we come in! We were able to assist with sweeping, mopping and washing all of the various toys, puzzle pieces, letters & numbers, chairs etc. Basically, anything that the children use on a day to day basis.”

While the Dallas team was there, the staff and many teachers made a video to show at their Teacher Appreciation Dinner this week. They made a music video to the Nickelback song, “Rockstar. “It was great to see them all unwind and have fun together after the stresses of the school year.” said Stout. “We will be looking for the video on YouTube soon!




About Mi Escuelita Preschool :
Mi Escuelita serves children ages 2-5 and is located at St Matthews in Dallas. Mi Escuelita Head Start locations admit children ages 3-4, while Mi Escuelita Private locations admit children ages 2½-4. With over 80% of language skills developed by age 5, early childhood education is imperative to reduce dropout rates in later years. In Dallas, the dropout rate among Hispanic children with limited English proficiency is estimated to be 64%. Over 80% of Hispanic dropouts claim that their inability to effectively communicate in English significantly impacted their decision to leave school. Mi Escuelita works with at-risk children to ensure that they receive a quality education as well as preventative health, dental, vision, nutritional, speech, and behavioral care.
To learn more about Mi Escuelita and how you can get involved visit their website at www.miescuelita.org

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Temp Jobs down 63,000 in April

From Staffing Industry Analysts: "Less worse: Temp jobs off 63,000 in April!
The April decline in temporary help payrolls, of 63,000 jobs, was the smallest since October. It’s also noteworthy that the temporary share of total employment losses has been moderating—in the first half of 2008, temporary job losses accounted for about a quarter of all jobs lost, but that share has been declining and in the last three months averaged just 10.9%."

What does this mean? A few things: 1)Considering the monthly average of temp job loss was averaging 80,000 per month October through March, this shows signs of slowing down 2)This shows that companies are looking to keep a "flexible" workforce currently rather than bringing on full time employees.

This is is definitely in line with what we here at SkillStorm have seen in the past recessions. Companies hiring will first start with the "flexible" hire in a risk adverse measure to see what happens in the economic climate. The old adage of "putting a foot in the water before jumping in!".

Find a great staffing firm and get yourself leveraged with them NOW! Here at SkillStorm and StormStaff (www.skillstorm.com or www.stormstaff.com ) we are ready and wanting to help!

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DOW and Hiring

Many questions have come up of course recently about how the stock market can show signs of job growth. Now, I will not call myself an expert at this, but this is an opinion based on my years in this business and past recessions. Some key points have been the strength in the DOW to stay over 8k over the last few months. Now, also the volume of trades has increased tremendously which certainly shows signs that investors are starting to get back in the game.

The overall economic situation show signs that the rate of economic decline is abating which leads to assumption that the slump should end by late this year. Emerging economies have generally
weathered the recession better than developed ones and seem likely to have stronger
recoveries. Thanks to aggressive stimulus, the US and China should be first to recover.

So, with all that being said, I can see companies feeling more confidence in hiring when stabilization in the DOW pushes above the 8500 mark and we see the financial sector starting to open up the check books for business loans. Short and sweet...look for job growth to increase by end of 2009 and early 2010. Keep the faith and use all your resources to find work....remember, most companies will hire project, temporary's, and contract labor before full time employees. Find a great staffing firm like SkillStorm or StormStaff and let them do their best to help you find work.

Brian Brown

EVP

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JOB HUNTING TIPS - NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

We know many people are on the job search, so we thought it might be helpful to put together some tried and true tips on the job hunting process. Click here to check them out or visit:

http://www.SkillStormFamily.com/jobhuntingtips

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HOW IMPORTANT IS SOCIAL NETWORKING?

Social networking has stirred up quite a buzz in the past few years. By now, most people have checked out or at least heard of sites such as Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com, MySpace.com and Twitter.com. These are a few of the most popular, and better yet, they are free to use!

These sites have benefitted the recruiting business immensely and can be extremely effective for sourcing and recruiting job candidates. Many companies are using sites like these to post open jobs and keep potential candidates up-to-date on their companies and prospective opportunities.

Need someone with extensive experience? How about recent college graduates, or even college students for that matter? No problem. These sites are used by a wide variety of people, ranging from top-level professionals to entry-level candidates.

Finding highly qualified professionals can be tough sometimes, but networking technology can help recruiters reach a whole other pool of candidates to help them find the right fit for the job. Recruiters should take full advantage of every resource and tool at their disposal, and social networking sites are no exception.

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