Tarrant Business

Felony/misdemeanor job fair draws hundreds of jobseekers, few employers

Organizers of Tarrant County’s third annual Felony and/or Misdemeanor Friendly Community Career Fair succeeded in getting more than 700 jobseekers to clear all the necessary hurdles to score invites to the fair. About 400 attended the fair, held Friday at a church at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth.

 

Getting employers there was another challenge. Ten employers signed up to exhibit at the job fair. Six showed up, representing sales, general labor, highway and other construction, and call center jobs.

Victor Pratt, one of the job fair organizers, said the employers agreed to allow their contact information to be emailed to the jobseekers.

 

“When we’re in the vein of building esteem and challenging jobseekers to be empowered, I’d qualify it as a success,” Pratt said. “All the guys are wearing neckties. All the women are dressed conservatively.”

 

With employers, he said, “we didn’t quite close the deal.”

 

The organizers _ led by the Tarrant County Reentry Initiative _ congratulated the jobseekers on helping further the reentry mission.

 

“We’re all ambassadors for re-entry,” Angel Ilarraza, coordinator for Reentry Initiative, told the jobseekers before the fair started.

 

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram 

The slog for long-term unemployed

Here's our Sunday story on challenges facing the long-term unemployed.

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram 

(Photos, clockwise from upper left: Harold Reed moderates weekly Southlake Focus Group meeting; Reed celebrates a jobseeker's landing; Jerry Harraman)

 

Laid-off execs finding jobs at same or higher levels, Right Management data says

Right Management, a career transition arm of Manpower,  says its data show that three of four laid-off executives who received Right Management services and got jobs in the first half this year landed posts at the same or higher levels.

The likelihood of landing a better job was higher for executives in the South, at 76 percent, compared to a 72 percent national average, Right Management said.

The firm analyzed data on nearly 600 senior-level positions, and includes titles such as general manager, director, vice president, senior vice president, executive VP, and CEO.

Right Management tips for executive-level jobseekers in today's market:

• "Get up to speed fast...Know the priorities and develop a plan for the first 30, 60 and 90 days."

• "Understand the culture of the prospective employer in advance of the interview."

• "Highlight in resume and during interviews how interpersonal and work skills will align with the company's culture."

The study was conducted Jan. 1-June. 30.

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram

Sales jobs: Rickey C. Cooper

Why I mention Sales is because this might be the way back into employment. 

Following up from the Job Fair which was held Tuesday in Fort Worth at the Texas Motor Speedway which is very NICE! I came across a company there.

Apex Energy Solutions http://www.apexenergysolutions.com/ located in Irving , Texas hosted a booth at the Career Fair and I spoke briefly with a young lady and handed her my resume. 

Well they called me in for a presentation this morning which I did attend, I was impressed with their marketing strategy and the energy the employees displayed for success. 

I am encouraging all individuals that would like to get started into a new career to call Jeromy Gold at office: 972-719-7801 are Cell: 817-899-0455 and have him schedule you for one of their presentations. 

I was very reluctant at first to attend but after I got there and I experienced the professionalism they displayed I had to share this experience with my readers. 

Until next time keep your head up and don't give up it's all we have.

God Bless,

Regards,

Rickey C. Cooper

rccooper43@yahoo.com

Felony/misdemeanor job fair working to stay on track

Organizers of Tarrant County’s third annual Felony and/or Misdemeanor-Friendly Community Career Fair are still trying to piece together enough employers for the July 30 fair.

 

Right now, as many as seven have signed up to exhibit at the fair, said Victor Pratt, one of the organizers and principal in criminalbackgroundjobhelp.com, a state contractor that helps place people with criminal backgrounds in jobs.

 

The goal: 10.

 

“If we don’t get 10, we’ll postpone it a few weeks,” Pratt said.

 

Organizers will decide Monday whether to go ahead with the job fair on schedule, he said.

 

It’s the same problem the organizers, headed by the Tarrant County Re-Entry Initiative, encountered last year in the middle of the recession. The fair went off as scheduled, with 10 exhibitors and 170 job applicants in attendance.

 

This year, 2,500 people registered to attend the job fair by this summer’s deadline. Pratt said 700 of those cleared the necessary obstacles, including attending a two-hour orientation and completing a number of assignments, and will be invited to attend. The rest didn’t complete the process and won’t be allowed in, Pratt said.

 

The fair’s location will be disclosed on short notice, and only to invitees, Pratt said.

 

Job openings so far including construction, tax preparation, car hops and food servers, mortgage collector, personal care attendant, home health, and telemarketing, Pratt said.

 

Employers who sign up to exhibit agree to accept applicants who have misdemeanor or felony backgrounds, on a case by case basis. Some have formal matrices that set forth the situations in which they’ll employ people with criminal backgrounds.

 

Pratt emphasizes to employers that the job fair gets buy-in from jobseekers it invites. “100 percent have resumes, and 100 percent are professionally dressed,” he said. “You don’t see that at any other job fair.”

 

Pratt also stresses that many of the jobseekers have never been to prison or jail, and agreed to deferred adjucation to discharge their cases if they complete necessary terms. Employers can still sign up at mysecondchance.us

 

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram 

Job openings continue to edge up in South, BLS says

Here’s more light on the horizon for jobseekers: job openings continue to edge up, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

Openings were 1.17 million at the end of May in the South, which includes Texas, up from 1.08 million a month before, and 864,000 a year before.

 

The job openings rate - openings as a percentage of total employment plus openings - rose slightly, to 2.4 percent in May, from 2.2 percent a month before and 1.8 percent a year prior, the BLS said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover report.

 

“There’s not much change over the month, but we’re doing much better compared to a year ago,” said Cheryl Abbot, regional economist at the BLS in Dallas.

 

Workers also continued to hold onto their jobs, the data showed.

 

“Quits” - voluntary departures - dropped to 714,000 in May in the South, from 744,000 the prior month and 726,000 a year prior.

 

The quit rate - quits as a percentage of total employment - dropped to 1.5 percent from 1.6 percent in April, and 1.5 percent a year before.

 

“That indicates that workers are still not ready to take a chance,” Abbot said. Just before the recession hit, the quit rate was moving in a 2.5-2.7 percent range.

 

Other data:

 

New hires: Rose to 1.64 million in May in the South, from 1.58 million in April and 1.44 million a year prior.

 

Involuntary separations, including voluntary departures, firings, and layoffs, rose to 1.49 million in May in the South from 1.42 million in April, but down fromm 1.6 million a year prior. The separation rate -separations as a percentage of total employment - rose to 3.2 percent from 3 percent in April, but stayed the same as the year prior.

 

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram 

Workers who feel entitled likely to be the most frustrated, study says

Employees who feel entitled in the workplace are "more apt to be frustrated on the job and lash out at their co-workers," new research from a University of New Hampshire prof says.

Assistant management professor Paul Harvey and colleague Kenneth Harris surveyed 223 fulltime employees from various organizations.

"Overall, the frustration experienced by entitled workers appears to stem from perceived inequities in the rewards received by co-workers to whom psychologically entitled employees feel superior," Harvey said.

Entitled employees engaged in abusive workplace behaviors, including insulting, breaking promises, and spreading rumors about co-workers, Harvey and Harris said. Such employees also were likely to engage in poltically motivated behavors such as ingratiation, self-promotion, and doing favors, Harvey and Harris said.

The two found that supervisors' communication reduced job-related frustration among employees who had low levels of entitlement, but increased frustration among employees with high levels of entitlement feelings.

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram 

Job Fairs 07/13/2010

Super Tuesday 07/13/2010,

I am calling this Tuesday as Super Tuesday because the following will list two Job Fairs held in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex:

Dallas job fair: http://dfw.localhires.com/job_fairs/view/1267/Dallas+Job+Fair+July+13%2C+2010

Fort Worth job fair: http://choicecareerfairs.com/

I will attend both Career Fairs in the hope that a JOB will prevail.

- Rickey C. Cooper, rccooper43@yahoo.com

More signs of life in the Texas economy...

Texas’ state sales tax revenue rose 2.2 percent in June, the third straight monthly increase, “but collections from the all-important retail sector were down from the year-ago level,” the state comptroller, Susan Combs, said Thursday.

 

“While overall economic activity is no longer contracting, a resumption of solid growth in sales tax collections is not yet in evidence,” she said.

 

Sales tax collections totalled $1.61 billion for the month, representing sales that occurred in May. Collections in the oil and gas and manufacturing sectors increased, Combs said.

 

Representing May sales, the comptroller this month will send $442.8 million in sales tax allocations to Texas cities, counties, transit systems, and special purpose taxing districts, Combs said. Those are up 3.8 percent from July 2009.

 

Some Tarrant County cities and their allocations: 

• Arlington, $5.95 million, down .96 percent. Year to date: $45.6 million, up 3.3 percent.
• Fort Worth: $7.3 million, up 2.7 percent. Year to date: $56.6 million, down 1.38 percent.
• Grapevine: $2.27 million, up 1.9 percent. Year to date: $18.16 million, up 1 percent.
• Hurst: $1 million, up 2.2 percent. Year to date: $8.1 million, down 2.5 percent.
• Mansfield: $1.15 million, up 15 percent. Year to date: $8.2 million, up 1.99 percent.
• Southlake: $976,450, up 6.15 percent. Year to date: $7.8 million, up .13 percent.

Sales tax receipts are a major source of funding for the state and local governments. Texas leaders are projecting a budget gap of more than $11 billion when legislators reconvene in 2011 to pass a new two-year budget.

 

- Scott Nishimura, jobs and workplace reporter, Star-Telegram