Jobs: Getting and Keeping One -- Advice from One Boss

You looking for a job?  Or know someone who is, and you want to help?  Then read on.

(Potential employers are welcome to read this, too.)

America seems to be stuck with an unemployment rate of 9% or more.  But most people do not realize that even with so much unemployment there are still millions of job openings that are going unfilled.  Apparently, one of the big reasons that companies are not able to fill these openings is because they are not able to find enough qualified candidates.  Bloomberg Businessweek magazine has a current article profiling this situation; click here to read it.


When a business is hiring, the manager or owner usually wants to hire as quickly as possible, and hire somebody with the best possible qualifications to be successful in the new employment. Also, it is usually to the employer's advantage to choose an employee who will remain in that position for an extended period of time.  Most job seekers probably want to find a job sooner rather than later, and stick with it as long as possible.

So far, so good.

Add education and educators to help the nation's economy

"The inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."  So said Winston Churchill, according to a book in my library.  Maybe so; in any case, it's pithy.

The June 2011 issue of Smithsonian magazine contains a great article on some folks in the Columbia River Gorge area who are in the business of developing and producing aerial drones; this is a story about entrepreneurial small business, and it's a good one, currently available at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Drones-are-Ready-for-Takeoff.html.

Stick with me; there's a connection here.  By the time you reach the end, you might even agree with my case for increasing public funding for education!

More is needed

Here's a description of a thing called a "Congressional virus" which could infect your computer:  The computer locks up, the screen splits erratically with a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem.

That's a modestly funny comment on the nation's political and governing environment.  But the most entertaining thing about this is when I first saw it--in November 1995!  Political dysfunction in the US Congress at that time caused short-term shutdowns of certain parts of the Federal Government.

Our recent--and perhaps current--episode of similar dysfunction has not produced any similar events because the Congressional passage and Presidential signing of what is apparently being called the "Debt Bill" has avoided the near-term possibility of the US Federal Government defaulting on payments which it is obliged to make.

So far, so good.