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American Morning

'BusinessWeek' Editor Discusses Job Market

Aired July 01, 2002 - 09:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to talk job market now. The latest government unemployment numbers are down. Some see that as the silver lining in a very tight job market. But more than 8 million unemployed Americans are still looking at the cloud, especially the 1.6 million who have been out of work now for 27 weeks or more.

Michelle Conlin is "BusinessWeek's" working life editor. She joins us with a closer look at the job market and some tips on getting back to work.

Good to see you, Michele. Welcome.

MICHELLE CONLIN: "BUSINESS WEEK": Good to see you. Thank you.

ZAHN: So what are the job seekers telling you? Are they expecting this market to get any better in the months to come?

CONLIN: Well, typically, when we kind of start to see evidence of a recovery, what happens is you see this surge of hiring and companies getting more comfortable going back into the labor market, but that's not happening this time, and just as the expansion wasn't typical, the dot-com bubble wasn't typical, this recovery isn't very typical, and so we're not seeing that.

We're seeing a little bit of a slow creep of progress. But it's definitely a slow creep. A lot of reasons for that. One, there's still so much economic data that's mixed. We haven't seen corporate profits return the way that we need to. Of course, there's been all these accounting scandals, which have really spooked the markets, and spooked the hiring market. And one last factor I think is very key, is that companies got so badly burned during the boom by going into the labor market, binging on hiring, literally staffing up, only to have to turn around and get rid of all those people, pay them costly severance and benefits, and so CEOs are really going to want to see the whites of the recovery's eyes before they feel confident about going back in and hiring people on a permanent basis.

ZAHN: So when they start to see the whites in the eyes, where are they going to hire first?

CONLIN: The first place they're going to go is to the free agent temp sector, and temps can mean anybody from a blue-collar temp to an administrative assistant, all the way up to lawyers and doctors who are temps. Temps are, really, becoming the shock absorbers. That's where companies look first, because they can take them on quickly. They can get rid of them quickly to meet demand, and they don't have to worry about the headache of taking on a permanent hire. So that's one sector that is already hot and will continue to get hotter.

ZAHN: But you got folks who have been sitting out there for more than 27 weeks now...

CONLIN: That's right.

ZAHN: ... 1 1/2 million Americans, or even more than that, saying, you know, give me a break, when are you going to find me some help? What kind of advice can you give them?

CONLIN: Well, I can mention some, you know, -- it's interesting, because it used to be that if you worked for a company and you left and got a new job, you were kind of considered a traitor, and you never could go back. And one big piece of advice I have is to go back to previous employers and see if you can get on on an interim or temp basis, because if you have your foot in the door that way, you'll be the first to be chosen when they do want to hire on a permanent basis.

The other one is when you're interviewing, you know, we were all schooled to talk, talk, talk -- have your commercial, be as aggressive as you can in that interview. Research actually shows it's the people who listen, who know how to absorb information, ask intelligent questions that get that job, because companies want to hire leaders, and even if they're interviewing a counter boy at Arby's, that counter boy could end up becoming the a district manager, and they want to see if they're getting a leader on their hands.

Being salary savvy is very important. You don't have to disclose your salary. I made this mistake, myself, once, years ago, when someone asked you how much you are making. I would never advocate lying, but there are ways to kind of gracefully negotiate your way out of that question. For example, Well, I'm looking for positions in the range of X and Y -- just make sure the X is something you'd be comfortable with. And surprisingly, most employers will be satisfied with that, and they won't press you against the wall.

ZAHN: That's smart.

CONLIN: Yes. I wish I had thought of that when I started out.

ZAHN: A lot of wish we had thought about that several jobs ago.

Let's talk specifically about the manufacturing sector, where a lot of folks have lost jobs. Is there any advice that's specific to those workers?

CONLIN: Well, you know, every great period of economic transformation, there's always those horse-and-buggy jobs that sort of evaporate, and unfortunately, that's what's happening in the manufacturing sector. A lot of those jobs are not going to come back. And so what you need to do, if you're in that sector, is to look at yourself and say, Do I actually have the skills that I'm seeing this company needing and that I know they're going to need in a year? And if I don't, you have two choices: You can either do everything you to get those skills -- and companies are starting to bend over backwards to try and supply them -- or you can start thinking seriously about retooling yourself to get into a different industry, because manufacturing continues to become a smaller and smaller piece of our economic pie here as we move more towards the services, knowledge economy, where it's really people who have skills to sell who are the winners in the labor market.

ZAHN: You've given us a lot of helpful information this morning. Michelle Conlin. Thank you.

CONLIN: Thank you.

ZAHN: And may all those hires see, what did you say, the whites of the eyes of the recovery coming soon. Thank you.

CONLIN: Thank you.

ZAHN: Take care. Stay employed.

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