VIA MSNBC:

GRANDVIEW, Mo. – Don Carroll, a former financial analyst with a master’s degree in business administration from a top university, was clearly overqualified for the job running the claims department for Cartwright International, a small, family-owned moving company here south of Kansas City.

But he had been out of work for six months, and the department badly needed modernization after several decades of benign neglect. It turned out to be a perfect match.

After being hired in December, Mr. Carroll, 31, quickly set about revamping the four-person department, which settles damage claims from moves, and creating tracking tools so the company could better understand its spending.

Conventional wisdom warns against hiring overqualified candidates like Mr. Carroll, who often find themselves chafing at their new roles. (The posting for his job had specified “bachelor’s degree preferred but not required.”) But four months into his employment, it seems to be working out well for all involved.

It is a situation being repeated across the country as the aspirations of many workers have been recalibrated amid the recession, enabling some companies to reap unexpected rewards.

A result is a new cadre of underemployed workers dotting American companies, occupying slots several rungs below where they are accustomed to working. These are not the more drastic examples of former professionals toiling away at “survival jobs” at Home Depot or Starbucks. They are the former chief financial officer working as comptroller, the onetime marketing director who is back to being an analyst, the former manager who is once again an “individual contributor.”

The phenomenon was probably inevitable in a labor market in which job seekers outnumber openings five to one. Employers are seizing the opportunity to stock up on discounted talent, despite the obvious risks that the new hires will become dissatisfied and leave. “They’re trying to really professionalize this company,” said Mr. Carroll, who is the sole breadwinner for his family of four and had lost his home to foreclosure. “I’ve been able to play a big role in that.”

In some cases, of course, the new employees fail to work out, forcing the company through the process of hiring and training someone else. But Mr. Carroll is just one of several recent hires at Cartwright who would be considered overqualified, including a billing clerk who is a certified public accountant and a human resources director who once oversaw that domain for 5,000 employees but is now dealing with just 65.

They represent marked upgrades for Cartwright, a modest-size business with expanding ambitions. The company is benefiting from an influx of talent it probably never would have been able to attract in a better economic climate.

“There’s a nice free-agent market right now,” said Randy Woehl, the human resources director. “The best it’s ever been.”

Exact numbers for workers toiling in positions where their experience or education exceed their job descriptions are hard to come by, in part because the concept is difficult to measure and can be quite subjective. Several studies have put the figure at roughly one in five American workers, although some doubt the numbers are that high. Economists and sociologists, however, agree that the frequency inevitably increases in hard times.

Nevertheless, an overriding complaint among many job seekers, particularly professionals, is how often they are rejected for lower-level positions that they desperately want and believe they could practically do in their sleep.

Read more here.

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

For Susan Williams, the road to working as a serial temp for the U.S. Census Bureau ran through law school and a recession that has stalled many a professional career.

After just two years as an associate at a small firm in the District, Williams was laid off in November 2008. She assumed she would land another job within four months. When that didn’t happen, her brother mentioned seeing an ad that the Census Bureau was hiring.

In short order, Williams, who had specialized in food and drug law, became a census crew leader, training and supervising 20 other temporary field workers canvassing addresses for the 2010 Census. That $21.50-an-hour job lasted just 10 weeks, but the census called her back for another six-week stint, canvassing shelters and dormitories. After that ended, she was rehired to recruit other temps for the census. Now she is working on technology operations in the District’s census office.

“I’m still putting out applications for attorney positions,” said Williams, 30, whose census job is helping her pay down her student loans. “But right now, I like that it’s a steady paycheck. It’s nice to get out of the house and have something to do.”

The Census Bureau expects to hire at least 700,000 people throughout the spring and summer for part-time jobs, paying $10 to $25 an hour, mostly to knock on the doors of people who don’t send in forms that will arrive in mailboxes this month. Many of the expected 3 million to 4 million applicants will be like Williams: highly educated and in the prime of their working life but sidelined by a recession that has driven the unemployment rate to almost 10 percent.

The field of candidates was dramatically different for the 2000 Census, which was conducted during a boom with record low unemployment of 4 percent. Competing against the many businesses that had “Now Hiring” signs out front, the Census Bureau spent $9.5 million on “help wanted” ads, sent recruiters to job fairs and pushed wages to record levels.

Still, some offices didn’t meet hiring goals, and the Census Bureau ended up with a temporary workforce with an average age in the mid-50s and composed largely of retirees.

“This time around, it’s a new ballgame,” said Wendy Button, a hiring specialist with the Census Bureau. “We’re seeing professionals with advanced degrees taking temporary jobs part time. It’s incredible.”

In the Washington region, many churches have offered their fellowship halls as sites for the written test that all applicants must take. Throughout the winter, hundreds of job applicants have arrived at many testing sites hours before they open.

Wayne Hatcher, director of the region that includes Virginia and now working on his fourth decennial census, said both the number and caliber of applicants are noticeably higher this year.

“Sometimes in the past, we were only able to find folks available on a part-time basis,” he said. “This time, people are available to work pretty much full time.”

The Commerce Department said last month that it expects the temporary spurt of census hiring to probably knock several tenths of a percentage point off the unemployment rate.

Most of the jobs will be what Census Bureau Director Robert Groves has called “tough work,” making house calls on nights and weekends to people who haven’t returned their forms. Census takers may make as many as six visits to each house to determine whether the residents have moved or if they just aren’t answering.

Ten years ago, about one in three households did not respond. Groves estimates that every 1 percent of households that don’t answer the questionnaire cost taxpayers $85 million to send workers looking for them.

The exact number of census takers needed to make those visits will not become clear until next month, when the forms are due. The Census Bureau estimates that by the end of summer, it will have hired 4,500 people in the District, 19,000 in Maryland and 22,000 in Virginia. Wages vary but are $20 an hour in the District and Alexandria, $18.50 in Rockville, $18 in Manassas and $15.50 in Frederick. Most people will put in 17 to 19 hours a week, Groves said.

Applicants must be at least 18 and pass a background check that includes FBI fingerprinting. People convicted of serious felonies are not eligible.

One of the most important factors in hiring is where an applicant lives. The agency favors hiring census takers from the neighborhoods where they will be making house calls, thinking that people are more apt to open their door to someone they recognize. In some neighborhoods, language skills are also a priority.

“When we hire, we’re hiring local people,” Hatcher said. “We like people to generally work within their neighborhood or close to it so they’ll have a certain comfort level and know some of the people in the community.”

Valerie Mann is hoping she gets tapped to be a census taker in her District neighborhood, Shepherd Park. An independent business consultant who works out of her home, she said that her workload is down in the faltering economy and that she has more spare time than she has had in years.

A friend in Baltimore told her about census-taking jobs, and Mann, 57, thought it would be a good way to earn some money, get some exercise and meet people, all while performing a service that will benefit her community.

Being a bit of an overachiever, with a master’s degree in public relations and marketing from American University, she took the application test twice, just so she could improve her score from 18 correct answers out of 28 to 24 correct answers. “I knew I could do better,” Mann said.

Now she is waiting for a callback, confident that she will stand out among the competition.

“I could be a supervisor,” she said, citing her experience managing as many as 45 people as executive director of three nonprofit organizations with budgets of $5 million and $6 million. “Perhaps those skills would be useful.”

Source

VIA MSNBC:

If you’re looking to land a job out of college, enhance your career or find a new one, maybe you’re thinking about jumping on the blogging bandwagon.

But do you really need blogger on your résumé?

“No one has to have a blog,” said Allen Johnston, a social media professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Business.

“It can be purposeful if it’s professional, well thought out and intelligent,” he said. “But it’s a different thing if you just ramble without a strategic plan. You’re opening yourself up to disaster.”

Blogs, or Web logs used to share opinions and ideas with the world via the Internet, have taken off in the past decade. There were 126 million blogs on the Internet as of January, according to BlogPulse, a division of ratings firm Nielsen that tracks blogs.

For those who are decent writers, have something to share that’s related to their profession or passion, and have time to commit to posting frequent entries, blogging can be a great tool. (Full disclosure: I blog about labor and workplace issues on CareerDiva.net.) For the rest, it may be best to sit on the blogosphere bench.

The key is figuring out if a blog will really help your career aspirations or not.

Read more here.

(Washington, DC) — The U.S. Justice Department is being asked to investigate the Hyattsville Police Department amid allegations of racial discrimination against black police officers on the force. The Montgomery and Prince George’s County chapters of the NAACP are backing six black officers who work for the Hyattsville department, claiming they’re held to a different standard than white officers. The complaints date back to 2002. The civil rights group says black officers have been the targets of sexual harassment and wrongful termination, and they exist in a hostile work environment. The complaint was submitted to the Justice Department back on Friday. Hyattsville Police say they haven’t been able to review any of the documents related to the allegations.

Copyright © 2010 Metro Networks Communications Inc., A Westwood One Company

There is a new school in Baltimore that uses video games to give disadvantaged students careers in video game development and design. They recently received news coverage for their efforts.

Urban Video Game Academy featured on CBS, WJZ-TV from Mikey Digital on Vimeo.

Here is a list of their objectives.

1. better prepare disadvantaged youth for college-level study in video game design and related fields such as computer science, digital art and engineering;
2. excite and inform disadvantaged youth about career alternatives in the video game design industry and related fields such as computer science, digital art and engineering;
3. instill in disadvantaged youth a positive self image and teach them teamwork, leadership skills, positive social interaction and good communication skills;
4. provide after-school and weekend activities that will keep disadvantaged youth engaged in productive activities; and
5. encourage related businesses and public organizations to support these efforts.

Join Radio One and Central Union Mission in acknowledging the life and accomplishments of one of our nation’s most significant leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Celebration will incorporate music, prayer, and observations by Central Union Mission leaders. The program will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and conclude with lunch.

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

The water main break disrupting traffic near 17th and P streets NW occurred after a contractor began working on a streetscape project in the area, Department of Transportation officials say.

The contractor lifted a catch basin, or manhole cover, and the water main broke. Officials said the 20 inch main was installed in the 1880s.

Source

“Gilbert Arenas has another thing coming,” Ben Ross was saying outside Verizon Center on Thursday morning.

“He’s not above the law,” Earl Bell said.

“He thinks he is,” Ross said. “Gilbert thinks it’s a . . . joke.”

“He needs to be prosecuted,” Bell said. “See if he laughs then.”

“Yeah, and fire your damn fingers again like they’re guns, Gilbert,” Ross said.

“What an idiot,” Bell said. “I hope they kick Arenas out of the league.”

The beleaguered Washington Wizards guard was suspended indefinitely without pay Wednesday by National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern over a gun incident in a Verizon Center locker room last month and Arenas’s behavior since — including an episode Tuesday in Philadelphia, where he pretended to shoot his teammates with his hands during a pregame huddle. “He is not currently fit to take the court in an NBA game,” Stern said in a strongly worded statement that promised “a substantial suspension, and perhaps worse.”

Arenas apologized in a statement of his own. But it hardly dampened the public outrage over the behavior of the star athlete, who brought four handguns to the arena and displayed them in the locker room in the midst of a gambling dispute with teammate Javaris Crittenton.

“I mean, how stupid is this guy?” Chris Johnson said Thursday, while standing on Abe Pollin Way, the one-block stretch of F Street NW named for the late Wizards owner who dropped the team’s old name, the Bullets, because of violent crime rates in Washington and the assassination of his friend, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

“How many millions is he making?” Johnson said.

Arenas signed a six-year, $111 million contract extension with the Wizards in 2008.

“Pay somebody to store your guns, man,” Johnson said. “You can afford it. And don’t play around with them. That’s nothing to joke about, man. That’s reckless. And then he goes out there, with the situation, and makes fun of it on the court, with the fake guns? Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Arenas was interviewed Monday by local detectives and federal prosecutors about his weapons stockpile and the locker room incident, which he has maintained was a prank. On Tuesday, a D.C. Superior Court grand jury began reviewing the case.

Arenas could face up to 20 years in prison on felony charges of carrying handguns without a license. But that didn’t stop the mercurial player from joking about his plight in interviews, on his Twitter stream and on the court. (The professionals got in on the act, too, with David Letterman even reading a list of top 10 excuses, including: “Coach didn’t specify what kind of pregame shoot-around it was.”)

“Gil needs to be serious,” said Tommie Williams, who was on his way to a pretrial drug test at D.C. Superior Court. (”Coke charge,” he shrugged.) “Guns — that’s a serious offense in D.C. He’s gonna find out. Honestly, he know better.”

Upstairs at the courthouse, Dontea Robinson was waiting for a friend, and wondering why people are so worked up about the Arenas case.

“There’s people out there doing worse things than that,” he said. “It was a practical joke. He never meant to harm nobody. They should take it light on Gil.”

At City Sports, just up the block from Verizon Center, cashier Naja Kelly was shaking her head, not far from a rack of Gilbert Arenas jerseys ($75 each — and no buyers lately, she noted). At the back of the store, the player’s signature Adidas shoes were languishing, too, and had been marked down, with some styles sitting on the clearance table (two pair, $50).

“It’s stupid, what he did,” she said. “Let me boost my image and go the thug route. But everybody knows you’re not a thug.” She wondered why Arenas hadn’t been charged yet. “I’m a student at Howard, and we’ve had incidents where people have had handguns, and they’ve been detained right away.” She wondered, too, whether he’d receive anything more than a prosecutorial slap on the wrist. “He won’t go to jail. But I’m sure he’ll be doing gun safety ads and talking to kids about why guns are bad. But is he really going to change his mentality? They never do.”

In an interview with the New York Daily News this week, Rev. Al Sharpton inserted himself into the Arenas story — and the broader issue of lawlessness and criminal behavior in the NBA and NFL — by asking why black leaders hadn’t spoken out about the “culture of violence being perpetuated in professional sports.” Sharpton also wrote an op-ed for Tthe Post about athletes and guns.

On Thursday, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty declined to comment on Arenas’s fate, saying, “That’s a decision up to the people he works for.”

Councilman Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) was far more pointed. “It was bad enough what he did with the gun, but it was absolutely beyond any good judgment to point his fingers at his teammates and use them as a gun,” Evans said. “The bad judgment exercised by him at that point in time is just unbelievable. I think he should have been suspended, and frankly he could find himself out of the NBA for life. It harms our city, and it’s a terrible role model for our youth. So Gilbert’s got to get his act together.”

At the National Museum of Crime and Punishment’s Cop Shop, a block away from Verizon Center, Joe Greene was hoping Arenas would be run out of town.

“If he actually had those guns and pulled on a teammate? Cut him, void his contract and never let him back in the NBA,” said Greene, a long-suffering Wizards fan, which is about the only kind of Wizards fan there is anymore.

Janine Vaccarello, the cop museum’s chief operating officer, noted that the museum is prohibited by District law from displaying most real guns, unless they’ve been dismantled or are antiques or replicas. “We have to follow D.C. gun laws, so I don’t see why a celebrity wouldn’t,” she said. She wondered what the Wizards might do with their leading scorer. “If one of my employees did what he did, they would be terminated. Gone. It’s against the law. Even if it’s not, no employer is going to be tolerant of an employee bringing weapons to work.”

The Wizards issued a statement on Wednesday endorsing Stern’s suspension and adding: “Under Abe Pollin’s leadership, our organization never tolerated such behavior, and we have no intention of ever doing so.”

That day, outside the courthouse, two construction workers were arguing about Arenas.

“I think he was trying to do the right thing and there was no criminal intent,” Oscar Jenkins said.

“What he did is inexcusable,” Josef Ajamu said.

“I don’t feel he should be punished for what he did,” Jenkins said. “Somebody should say: You made a bad choice. In the future, try to make better choices.”

“He’s a dumbo,” Ajamu said.

Source

VIA CNN:

African-Americans are extremely supportive of President Obama, but their enthusiasm appears to have dramatically dropped from earlier this year, according to a new national poll.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, released Tuesday, also indicates that Obama’s presidency appears to have made blacks more optimistic about race relations, but less than one in five believe the new president has ushered in a new era of race relations in the country.

More than nine in 10 blacks questioned in the poll approve of the job Obama’s doing in the White House, far higher than 42 percent of whites who approve of his performance as president.

But when asked how they personally feel about Obama’s presidency, only 42 percent of black respondents say they’re thrilled, with nearly half of those questioned saying they are happy but not thrilled.

The 42 percent who are thrilled is down from 61 percent in January, when Obama was inaugurated.

“African-Americans are still big fans of the first black president in U.S. history, but the thrill is gone,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

According to the poll, 51 percent of African-Americans say Obama’s presidency has brought some improvement in race relations in the U.S., but only 18 percent feel it’s the start of a new era. Another 23 percent say they’ve seen a real change in race relations over the past 11 months and 7 percent say things have gotten worse.

The survey indicates that three-quarters of blacks believe race relations will improve eventually, which is up from 49 percent of blacks who felt that way a year before Obama was elected.

“Whites take a dimmer view of Obama’s effect on race relations, with a third believing that the new presidency has not changed race relations in the country and 15 percent of whites saying that Obama has made race relations worse,” Holland added. “Not surprisingly, whites are less supportive of Obama, although for a notable number of whites, their negative view of the president is due to the perception that he’s not been liberal enough.”

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted December 16-20, with 1,160 adult Americans, including 259 African-Americans and 786 whites, questioned by telephone. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points and plus or minus 6 percentage points for the African-Americans sample.

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

A Montgomery County man is being held without bond on attempted carjacking and other charges after police say he tried to steal a Honda Civic from a 78-year-old woman walking with a cane — an endeavor that got him attacked by a group of citizens.

Javier Gonzalez-Mena, 27, escaped from the citizens after the alleged Sunday attempt, but displayed a swollen right eye when he was arrested later that day.

The victim, who screamed for help in Spanish, was not injured, a police spokesman said Tuesday.

Police got involved in the case shortly before 1 p.m. Sunday, when they were called to a parking lot outside a Bestway grocery store on Piney Branch Road, in Silver Spring. There, they learned that a suspect approached the woman, showed her a knife and demanded her keys.

She complied, and began walking to the store screaming for help, according to police.

Gonzalez-Mena apparently left something behind that allowed police to develop him as the suspect, according to police accounts. He was located on Arliss Street in Silver Spring, and led police on a short foot chase before being arrested.

Detectives believe he received his facial injury from a citizen who came to help the victim, a police spokesman said.

Gonzalez-Mena was charged with attempted carjacking, attempted theft, reckless endangerment, assault, and possession of a dangerous and deadly weapon, and other offenses, police said.