• A good cover letter must contain NO ERRORS. Proofread 100 times over and ask for a second opinion. A minor error could immediately disqualify you as a viable candidate.
• Make your cover letter about THEM. Before you write, re-read the job posting, look over the company website, pour over news articles and learn as much as you can. Try to describe yourself in terms of how/why you would be a good fit for their enterprise.
• Understand what makes the company unique. It’s not enough to say you want to be a “residence-hall director.” You have to explain how you are good at speaking in large, impersonal residence halls.
• Don’t repeat your resume. People looking to fill administrative jobs do not want to read the same thing twice. You want to express what your goals are and highlight the most important reasons you would be a good fit. Include information that can’t be summarized in a bullet point.
• Be positive, but not cocky. Managers don’t like to read statements like “I’m the best person for this job.” Instead, reveal your qualifications and let readers draw their own conclusions based on the evidence provided.
• Keep it simple. A one page cover letter for administrative jobs is best. Anything over three pages is outrageous. What does the reader absolutely need to know about you? What makes you stand out?

Law school deans responded by reminding that not all law school graduates go on to become lawyers or work in legal jobs. Nationwide, 8 percent of graduates gained employment in full-time, long-term work for which a law degree was preferred but not required. Some go on to teach, run businesses, work in non-profit organizations or delve into politics, for example. School officials added that many graduates found work as sole practitioners or smaller firms, but did not achieve “official” full-time status until they pass their bar exams.

Questions loom about the value of a law degree. Over 40,000 students enter the legal jobs market each year. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed by students who feel they were misled by a school’s job placement statistics. Whittier, for example, charges students $39,000/year for what they say will be an 85.5 percent chance of being fully employed nine months after graduation (according to their ranking in US News & World Report). However, in reality, the study found that only 17 percent of the 2011 graduates were in full-time long-term legal jobs.

Top-rated schools like Harvard, NYU, Columbia, Stanford and the University of Virginia still boast over 90 percent employment rates, but only a dozen schools had employment rates of 80 percent or more. In fact, 87 lower-tier schools had legal jobs placement rates of less than 50 percent. Over 20 law schools had less than 40 percent employment rate, including Golden Gate University, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and the University of the District of Columbia.

Only 8 percent of the 2011 grads gained employment at a larger firm with over 250 attorneys. Mid-sized firms are less likely to take a chance on recent grads to fill their legal jobs, so many former students were taken on part-time or on a contractual basis. More than 40 percent of the Class of 2011 wound up working in a firm with 10 attorneys or less.

A: Many people work accounting jobs without the Certified Public Accountant designation, although employers do prefer CPAs. Also, Hudson Financial estimates that CPAs earn 5 percent more money.

Q: What accounting jobs can I get with no degree or experience?

A: Entry-level accounting jobs include Staff Accountants, Junior Auditors, Assistant Accountant and Accounting Clerk. You can begin by expanding your current responsibilities to include budget department forecasting, analysis, financial reports or internal audits. Most students are able to secure an internship by the end of their sophomore year.

Q: Is the CPA exam hard?

A: In 2010, less than half of those who took the CPA exam passed 3 out of 4 of the exam’s sections. The best passing rate was 50.66 percent for the regulation section. Graduate and undergraduate students from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas Austin had the best passing rate, with 73 percent in 2009.

Q: What else do I have to do to become a CPA?

A: In addition to passing the exam, you may also need 150 hours of education and a year of experience in accounting jobs. This experience may come from public accounting or under direct supervision from a CPA, depending on the state that you’re in. Check with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy to find out what your state requires.

Q: What accounting jobs can I get with experience, but no degree?

A: If you want to move to a new company, you may want to take online classes to pursue a degree. Another option would be to build industry contacts that will vouch for your experience and abilities. It can be extremely tough to catch a break during an employer switch if you got into the field decades ago when requirements were different.

Next, you can label a section “Expertise” and talk about different areas where you excel or skills that you have. Maybe you are good at Relationship Building or Sales Training, perhaps Presentations and Proposals are your thing, or maybe you know all about Closing Strategies. Put this in a bulleted section where HR personnel looking to fill sales management jobs can easily scan these core competencies.

Then you will move into “Professional Experience,” which is the nut and bolts of your sales management jobs resume (and also the most difficult to nail.) For each employer, you’ll want to list the name, town/state, your job title, and the month/year you worked there. Summarize your core responsibilities in a sentence and then list “Results.”

When pondering your sales management jobs’ results, ask yourself:

• Did I increase sales territory?
• Did I win an award, recognition or survey ranking?
• Did I add buyers / customers?
• Did I introduce any new ideas that were implemented?
• Did I save the company any money?
• How many people did I supervise?
• Did my team drive up profits for the company?
• Did I surpass sales goals? (If so, by what percent?)

Lastly, list your education qualifications, including the name of the university, the city/state, your degree and what year you graduated.

In 2010, 81 percent of those in nursing jobs required postsecondary education. This percentage will rise slightly to 82 percent. However, 94 percent of professional and technical workers will require advanced education. The report found that 24 percent of all healthcare jobs will require a Bachelor’s Degree (up from 21 percent in 2010). This high percentage is only secondary to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math occupations.

While the number of nursing jobs is expected to expand by 26 percent – the fastest of all healthcare occupations – this is still less than the demand for nursing services, which creates a shortfall of 800,000 jobs. Those who want a job will need at least an Associate-level education (which accounts for 80 percent of all nurses), if not a Bachelor’s degree (40 percent of all nurses).

The demand for healthcare support workers like home aides and substance abuse counselors is predicted to rise substantially. But here’s another catch: while workers in clinical and hospital nursing jobs are well-compensated, 70 percent of healthcare support workers earn less than $30,000. Seventy-two percent of these workers do not currently possess a college degree, but 54 percent of all workers in the field will need advanced education by 2020, according to Georgetown’s report.

There Are A Few Bad Seeds Working In Human Resources Jobs.

Sure, there are times when people in human resources jobs have wreaked quite a bit of havoc within their companies. Some CEOs wind up getting fired along with the HR directors they once trusted. Other times, HR directors ascend to the CEO position, pushing out those in charge. Some HR people can be power-hungry, overambitious and overzealous. They can become embroiled in scandals that rock a company to its very foundation. Yet, these situations are the exception – not the rule.

The Balancing Act Can Be Tricky.

HR reps are largely seen as business partners of the executive managers they report to. While they need to preserve the corporate culture and protect the employees, people in human resources jobs are hesitant to “bite the hand that feeds them,” so to speak. Depending on the CEO in charge, HR may be utilized as key players in employee development, engagement and performance… or they may be a minimal expense necessary for hiring bodies.

The Bottom Line:

If you find yourself in a human resources job, you may find that you bear the brunt of the responsibility for what happens in the company – in the employee’s eyes, anyway. You are the frontline between workers and management. However, this can be a good thing if you are devoted to the career development of those you oversee, if the top-level executives care about the management of human capital in a way that motivates, and if corporate culture is something that matters in your organization.

Other Reasons Why Banking Jobs Aren’t So Hot…

• 21.1 percent admitted that the changing perception of banking jobs in society is reason to consider a different profession. At one time, it was prestigious to be a banker, but now many are viewed as “sharks,” “scam artists,” or “nickel-and-dimers.”
• 14.5 percent of the people questioned said decreased compensation was the reason they would not recommend banking jobs. Many of the most lucrative positions have been consolidated or eliminated.
• 10.1 percent mentioned increased regulation as reasons not to pursue banking jobs. As previously discussed, there are fewer paths to big prosperity since the government crackdown on unscrupulous business practices.
• 13.7 percent said that increased competition, decreased hiring and the outsourcing of banking jobs overseas put a damper on the industry.
• Other negative aspects of banking jobs included: lack of work-life balance, few opportunities for mobility and the risky nature of the business.

“The results of the candidate survey were fascinating,” said OneWire President Brin McCagg. “It is clear that the effects of the economic crisis still resonate.” The overall perception is that the banking jobs industry is still a volatile market, he says.

Take, for instance, call center customer service jobs: Workers are thrown into the pit with minimal training, little room for independent decision-making and the expectation that they manage eight screens at once. Bad service is expected and that is precisely what is delivered, more often than not. New products and tools, changing organizational structure and new customers create an ever-changing landscape that, frankly, makes it hard for customer service reps to keep up.

One quick-service restaurant studied grew their menu from 25 to 100 menu items in just a few years. Cashiers now had 55 different ways to ring up the restaurant’s signature drink. Manning the register should be the least of the rep’s concerns. It’s all about customer service… isn’t it?

The answer, Harvard researchers say, is to design “kinder, simpler” customer service jobs. Front-line jobs need room for empathy and responsiveness, they say. For instance, LSQ Funding Group automates their risk-management analytics, rather than burdening employees with the task. Front-line workers are only expected to support clients and they are hired on the basis of personality, rather than techie skill-sets. Not surprisingly, their turnover rate is less than 5 percent, which is almost unheard-of in financial operations centers.

Customer service jobs would be much nicer if the people at the top would commit to bold decisions, rather than offering “a little of everything.” Executives must invest in process improvement and reward bright thinkers who discover ways to simplify the daily tasks of front-line service reps. There needs to be a shift from quantity to quality. That is how a company stands apart from the competition in this day and age.

Companies offering technology jobs are trying to squeeze more productivity out of a shrinking workforce, says Bodhi Ganguli, an economist with Moody’s Analytics. “Businesses are laying-off workers and haven’t been rehiring, so they’re spending money on technology that will make the remaining workers more productive,” he explains.

“We’re in the early innings of an IT baseball game,” says Ray Rothrock, chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. “I think IT, broadly stated, is still the king of the hill [for job growth.]” After spiking at 12 percent growth in the late 90s, technology jobs have been growing by a healthy 6 percent annual rate each year since. Cloud computing, healthcare and IT systems management are all bright spots for future hiring.

While the demand is high, this isn’t to say that getting technology jobs is a walk in the park, either. The labor force is still very competitive and hiring managers are extremely picky about who they select. Often times, HR departments are looking for an impossible combination of skills from their employees. The jobseekers that gather the most education, the most internship experiences, and the most job skills will have the best prospects, simply put.

Yet, for eager jobseekers, it can seem like a huge leap from finding the job posting to actually getting hired. Susan Harker, Amazon’s Director of Global Talent Acquisition, recently discussed what it takes to land one of the technology jobs offered by the global giant.

• Skills – Harker says Amazon needs a broad range of schools from software development, to design, and digital media to network engineering. Basically, she says, they are looking for “people with really strong technical passion and skills who want to build products that directly impact the customer experience.”
• Preferred Qualifications – “The ones that tend to fit the best are the people who have gone beyond the basics and built something, can show they think differently and have taken bold bets,” Harker adds.
• Values – Amazon is not just looking to fill technology jobs with bodies, but they are looking for pleasant workers who fit the company culture. It is important for jobseekers to read through the company website, including the mission statements, before arriving at the interview – or even drafting a cover letter, for that matter.
• Intelligence – You can get on the fast track to employment if you attend a job fair or conference where Amazon reps are looking to recruit for technology jobs. They may present you with a challenging coding question – and, if you can solve it on the spot, you may land a development position interview right then and there.
• Ownership – Amazon is looking for candidates who can demonstrate specific responsibilities and achievements from internships and past projects. Even people who have limited “real world” experience, but who may have contributed to a successful club, team or online group will be considered, says Harker. Speak in terms of results and the technology jobs Amazon offers will be open to you.