Jobless Rate Hits 8.5%; 663,000 Jobs Lost

Today’s released unemployment number ate deceiving: they do not reflect those that have given up work, stopped collecting unemployment, or work
part time–unemployment is more like 20% even higher in some cities like Detroit.

Yet at least half of all American’s do have jobs, and can keep them.

Don’t “assume” you will eventually become a statistic. My book “Bulletproof Your Job” (HaprerCollins) is a great tool, with tricks, yes tricks, and secrets on how to keep your job. Even you are of work, visit my website www.bulletproofyourresume.com to find the secrets on how to get your resume noticed.

Read the NY Times Article >>

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Bulletproof Expert Drops All Charges for Ex-HC Staff

Just a quick update to Wednesday morning’s story about Stephen Viscusi, the resumé-building expert offering his services to laid-off HarperCollins employees: Having initially reduced his fee by half, Viscusi tells us he ultimately decided to forego any compensation after hearing from more than 50 people who’d been dropped by the company (which published his Bulletproof Your Job last year). “I was actually shocked at the quantity of people who contacted me,” Viscusi emailed. “The Collins people who called me for help seemed in ‘shock and awe’ over their dismissals.”

Viscusi also commented on how many of the confirmed layoffs had come from editorial. “It seems that the people responsible for ‘sales’ of our books should be just as accountable as the people who purchase them,” he observed. “After all, if you can’t find a book in a bookstore to buy, whose fault is that? The author, the publisher, or the sales rep who couldn’t get it merchandised and stocked correctly?”

(Note: Writing about the layoffs for The Wrap, former PW editor-in-chief Sara Nelson quoted an anonymous source who estimated that 20 employees had been cut; commenters were quick to dispute the tally: “The cuts to staff, including the buyouts, were more like 100 to 120,” said one.)

Bulletproof Job Man Reaches Out to Harper’s Fallen

Collins Business published Stephen Viscusi‘s Bulletproof Your Job last fall, and he says he’s grateful to the imprint—everyone at the company, really—for making it a success. That’s why he’s offering any former HarperCollins employees who were caught up in yesterday’s layoffs a 50 percent discount for his resumé consulting services at BulletproofYourResume.com.

“I suspect some of the temporarily surviving HarperCollins executives still left may have taken pages right out of Bulletproof Your Job to keep their own jobs,” Viscusi emailed us last night, “because the HC scenario played out as I describe in my book. My strategy explains how more junior executives were kept—and moved up the ladder while the bosses get the ax… Some people at HC read the book, others may not have. Either way, they are a case study for their own product.”

The “unprecedented discount” for the former HarperCollins employees (who are “like family to me,” Viscusi observed) covers the creation of a new resumé as well as a personal consultation with Viscusi himself.

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7 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Career

As the economy sinks further into a recession — one that the Federal Reserve has now indicated will be longer and deeper than previously thought — job security for most Americans has quickly evaporated.

According to minutes from the Fed’s December meeting released Tuesday, the unemployment rate is expected to rise significantly into 2010, to a level higher than the 6.5% to 7.3% range the agency projected at its October meeting.

The unemployment rate, which hit 6.7% in November, is already at its highest in 25 years. Gus Faucher, director of macroeconomics at Moody’s Economy.com, expects it to peak at more than 9% in the first half of 2010 — a jump that would be similar in severity to that during the double-dip recession in the early 1980s (see table). “Businesses are certainly going to be cutting back,” Faucher says.

Unemployment Rates Through the Years

At 6.7%, November’s unemployment rate is still nowhere near its peak of 10.8% in late 1982,
but economists predict it could get there by the first half of 2010.

Continue Reading >>

What’s Worrying You: CBS 2 Follows Up Stephen Viscusi

Cindy Hsu Reporting

Finding a job is what’s worrying many of our viewers this new year, who have been responding to our calls to tell us what their concerns are with the economy in 2009.

On Tuesday, CBS 2 introduced Anderson to Stephen Viscusi, the author of “Bulletproof Your Job.”

“Just talking to Stephen, I realized, yes, I was really not sending the right message. I think I was not detailed enough,” she told CBS 2.

Viscusi re-did Anderson’s resume, expanding her objective to include her specialty for healthy cooking, and adding a lot more details about her former clients such as their ages and medical conditions. He asked her to change the long message on her phone, so it’s more professional.

“So when they call you they can feel like they’re getting you, and they’re going to feel comfortable with who you are and what you’re about, and that you’re easy to reach,” he said.

Anderson had primarily used Craig’s List to look for jobs, but Viscusi is putting her resume up on half a dozen career sites, and coached her on interviewing skills, such as always giving a firm handshake, asking for the job, and offering to try the job for a trial period.”If it’s between Sonia and

XYZ candidate, and Sonia says to me, ‘I’m more than willing to try this job for 90 days,’ and she can prove herself in that time, statistically most people who offer that, not only do they land the job they land a permanent job as well,” he said.

Anderson walked out feeling good about her meeting with Viscusi.

“I am very, very good, very optimistic, I just know that something good is going to happen,” she said.

And Viscusi said Anderson’s positive attitude is key.

Watch the segment >>

Bulletproof Your Job Now in Korea!

Check out a recently authored article in Korea’s 3rd largest newspaper, The Chosun Daily.

Read the article >>

Lie To Family About Layoff Over Holiday?

Expert Suggests ‘White Lie’ About Job Loss Not Out Of Question

It’s that time of year again: Time to face your well-meaning but nosy, opinionated relatives during the holidays. Only this year, you might have to break the news that you’ve just lost your job.

Stephen Viscusi, author of the recently published “Bulletproof Your Job,” said he’s gotten a slew of letters from those fired and laid off who dread having to tell Aunt Gladys and Uncle Ernie.

“When you’re trapped in that small kitchen with your family members who only see you once a year, and they ask how your job is, how do you tell them in front of your little nieces and nephews?” said Viscusi, who acknowledges he’s never been unemployed himself.

Read full article >>

As Global Jobs Are Threatened, Viscusi’s Job-Saving Secrets Are Exported Abroad by HarperCollins: China Buys Rights to BULLETPROOF YOUR JOB

New York, NY – December 4, 2008 — As the economic crisis spreads around the globe, publishers in China, Russia, Korea and Spain have licensed rights to Stephen Viscusi’s BULLETPROOF YOUR JOB to help workers hold on to their jobs.

Viscusi’s book, BULLETPROOF YOUR JOB: 4 Simple Strategies to Ride Out the Rough Times and Come Out on Top at Work (HarperCollins), has been described as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War for the new millennium.  In BULLETPROOF YOUR JOB, former headhunter Viscusi—who is known as “America’s workplace guru”—shares the tricks of the trade to protect your job, even when the office grapevine is abuzz with looming cutbacks and the boss is talking about “a numbers thing” from above.  Viscusi’s secrets will ensure that you keep your job, even as your friends in the next cubicle or in the next spot on the assembly line are losing theirs.

On November 21, CollinsBusiness announced that China, the world’s largest nation with a population of more than 1.3 billion people, licensed the Chinese simplified language rights to Jilin Publishing to bring BULLETPROOF YOUR JOB to Chinese readers. Translation rights have already been licensed to publishers in Russia, Korea, and Spain.  This brings the total number of countries now bulletproofing their jobs to five.

Viscusi’s strategies and tactics for hanging on to your job are universal—they translate to any language, any culture, any workplace. And even though the employment news is bleak around the world, his supremely practical secrets can help anyone protect their job when pink slips are raining down.

For information: www.bulletproofyourjob.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Viscusi
Contact: Stephen@viscusi.com
Phone: 212-979-2422 or for 24-hour interview access: 917-692-4760

It’s Not Your Imagination—Your Boss Is Ignoring You

Many people are paying close attention to signs that they may be next up for a layoff. Job shedding has accelerated since the start of the year, and mass layoffs in September were the highest they’ve been since 9/11.

So here’s one sign to watch out for: the boss’s cold shoulder. The Wall Street Journal reports that managers who have become unhappy with an employee’s performance, or who fear having to break bad news, may begin pulling away—shunning meetings, conversation, invitations, and the like.

Apparently some bosses use cold-shoulder subtlety to give feedback. An example from the story:

Bob Miglani, senior director of external medical affairs for Pfizer Inc., says he has purposely made employees that reported to him feel left out of the loop, by not inviting them to meetings or waiting a long time to answer their emails. He has also declined their meeting requests even if he’s able to make the meeting so that the employee will see that he didn’t want to attend.

“The whole point is to spur them to ask you what’s wrong and take charge,” says Mr. Miglani, who says some employees he’s managed are too sensitive to handle frank feedback, so he resorted to the subtle cues.

Read the full article now >>

Lehman Brothers

Thanks to criminally reckless behavior at the highest institutional levels both on Wall Street and in Washington, there was nothing these people could do to save their jobs. But YOU can. If this mess doesn’t make you get serious about bulletproofing your job, you should start packing up your desk right now.