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tress, hair parts, offer rejections, Groupon’s job seekers, background checking, and disabilities — we weigh in on all of them in today’s roundup.
Speaking of weight: the world’s people weigh a collective 316 million tons, of which 17 million tons is in excess globs of body fat. Who knew? Thanks to the researchers at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, now you do.
Wondering what this has to do with recruiting? Nothing, near as we can tell. (Oh, sure, we could have said hiring a fatty will mean time wasted snacking, since the average American needs almost 250 calories just to maintain the excess weight.) But we just thought this is great water cooler talk.
Now, here’s the skinny (no, we couldn’t, can’t, and won’t resist punning): North America has 6 percent of the world’s population, but carries 34 percent of the weight. Don’t go blaming Canada. The U.S. weighs in as the heaviest nation, where it takes a mere 12.2 adults to equal a ton. From now on, we’re counting how many people get on the elevator with us.
Food Stylists Are to Blame
It’s not our fault we eat too much. If those food stylists didn’t make all those dishes look so delicious, who’d eat them? It’s an up-and-coming profession that’s part of the seven awesomeist jobs we never heard of, says Brazen Careerist, a carer site for the under-30s.
Also on the list is Chief Listening Officer, which we figured was some sort of tie-in with the CIA career ad that runs on the site. No so, though. CLOs keep tabs on social media, and do a good bit of posting, and, when needed, damage control.
Our favorite: Parabolic Expert. You teach genuine space cadets how to handle weightlessness, but without actually going into space. (No job is perfect.) Considering how fast a diving jet can get 12.2 Americans from 2,000 lbs. to zero, this has career growth written all over it.
All Stressed Up and Somewhere to Go
We have to admit we’ve seen some CareerBuilder surveys in the past that we didn’t take too seriously, like the one providing us the critical information that “3 in 10 senior management leaders reported they part their hair on the right.”
But some of its new surveys are interesting — including the recent candidate-experience findings. Another piece of new CareerBuilder data is that 56 percent of employers who recruited new employees in the last year say they’ve had an offer rejected.
That’s a fairly high number in a job market where there are so many applicants per job, particularly in cities still essentially in recession. Also interesting: a new Aflac report finding that the best employees are the ones who now want to quit. “Nearly half of U.S. workers are somewhat likely to leave their job this year,” Aflac finds. Those who are “extremely” or “very” likely to job-hunt this year consider themselves the harder workers and the higher achievers.
Meanwhile, Aflac finds, “workers who said they are stressed out are nearly twice as likely (43 percent vs. 25 percent) to leave their job compared to workers who are not stressed.”
A little this, a little that:
- Unlimited Resume Deal. The Wall Street Journal‘s careers site says Groupon sales people are beginning to bail on the daily deal site. The writer cites one recruiter who says he got 40 resumes in five weeks from current and former Groupon workers. A New York recruiter says he’s also seen an uptick in resumes coming from Groupon sales staff.
- Disabilities. The U.S. Labor Department has a new guide out on best practices for employing people with disabilities: Business Strategies that Work: A Framework for Disability Inclusion. Meanwhile, the U.S. EEOC has some new guidance out on disabilities, particularly related to military veterans, summed up nicely here.
- Background checks. HireRight’s new report covers everything background-screening related, helping you benchmark what you’re doing vs. others.
- LinkedOut. Someone built a sourcing tool for LinkedIn … that’s getting the axe.