With the rise in unemployment, one industry that hasn’t been hurting is outplacement. But many laid off workers whose former employers gave them an outplacement package as part of their severance find themselves still unemployed and wishing they hadn’t bothered with outplacement at all.

According to the Wall Street Journal, few outplacement firms offer statistics on success rates and most employers use outplacement for good PR, to avoid lawsuits, and to minimize unemployment insurance payments.

But not because they genuinely want to help the newly laid off?

Apparently not.

One ex-Pepsi admin assistant interviewed by the WSJ says the outplacement firm she was sent to sent out cover letters riddled with typos that she didn’t get to review. The company she applied to received a surprisingly similar letter from another ex-Pepsi job seeker, leading her to believe the firm she was sent to was pumping out templates. [See below]

To make matters worse, the interview advice she received from a coach she worked with at the firm was not to order cranberry juice because it hinted at a urinary tract infection. What?!

Two other executives who remained nameless in the article said they too were chided for interview faux pas including the “immature” choice of ordering a diet soda and not following the interviewer into the bathroom to continue a conversation.

Again…What?!

I’m sure there are exceptional outplacement firms that give individualized attention to clients and valuable career and interview advice. But for a thriving industry that’s seeing revenue growth, shouldn’t they all meet those standards and shouldn’t they have the resources to hire more and qualified employees?

If their business is to find unemployed people jobs, why don’t they hire some of their clients? Just a thought.

Read the WSJ article here.

Image links to interactive graphic on WSJ.com.

This week’s New York Times Corner Office section featured Maigread Eichten, CEO of FRS, a maker of energy drinks. Eichten had a lot of insightful things to say about her leadership style and how she approaches management.

A swim coach as a teenager, Eichten told Times reporter Adam Bryant that she learned to deal with people and to cope with not making everyone happy all the time dealing with athletes and parents poolside.

“I was 17 and you’ve got these parents screaming at you every weekend — “How come Johnny didn’t get to swim?” and “He’s better than Sally.” — and you’re going back and forth on this every week: Do I want to win or do I want to swim all the kids, and the kids are looking at you and the parents are screaming at you.

That experience is very similar to many days how I feel here. I feel like I’m a judge, and I use that mental image a lot, which is that my job is not to make everybody happy. My job is to chart the right course and, at the end of the day, I leave this building and if I feel like I’ve done the right thing and people respect me, I’m happy. But on any day someone is probably unhappy with a decision that I made in the day, and that’s the best I can do.

It’s the same thing with the swim team. Mr. Smith is probably mad that I didn’t swim his daughter, and sometimes I have to look at little Jane and say, “You know what, you’re not going to swim the 100 fly today, sorry.” It’s a team sport.”

The idea of her staff as a team and herself as a coach is one that Eichten brings up again when helping her employees to stay on target or work through a problem. As their coach, she intuitively knows when a team member needs guidance.

“Eichen: I walk around a lot and if I see in people’s eyes that they need help, or if I get a sense that something’s up, I drop things because sometimes people just need help.

Q. And you’ll sense that just by the look in their eyes?

A. Absolutely, or I can hear it in their voice. I can hear it in their voice, and I think that’s really important that you have sense for your people. I call it my Spidey-sense. My 13-year-old daughter does not like this, by the way. It’s the same Spidey-sense I have with my kids. If something’s off, something’s off, and if I get a sense something’s off, I drop everything and I will not let go until I know what it is because it’s a sign there’s a problem.

Q. So how do you broach it?

A. Well, my people know me well enough. They know I’ll come in, I’ll close the door, and I’ll just say, “O.K., spill it.” There’s no warm-up for me. They know I will not leave. I want to help. I always say to them: “Look, guys we’re in this together. We’re a team.”

Even if you don’t possess a “spidey sense” like Eichten, it seems the key to her success is open communication and accepting that while you can’t please everyone all the time, you can help them and remind them that they’re a aprt of a bigger team and that while they might not be getting what they want, what’s important is that the team succeeds.

As for her advice for job seekers, “Be superqualified” and don’t be afraid to be annoyingly informed about the job and the company.

“I interview a ton of people and I get really frustrated with interviews, to be honest, because I find that people come in a lot of times and they don’t even know that much about the company, which I find just really odd.

I went to business school, and I decided I wanted a PepsiCo internship. They were only taking one intern, so my shot at getting this Pepsi internship was slim to none, because I had no experience.

But I decided I wanted this internship and what I did was — I think about this all the time when I interview people, sort of, why don’t they do this to me? — I researched all the people coming to campus to interview. I knew everything about them. I knew everything about Pepsi-Cola and the PepsiCo company. I knew everybody in the U.C.L.A. recruiting office and I wrote the story of myself as a brand and I came up with a whole talk about why Pepsi should hire me, and the assets I could bring.

I had called up the two or three people who had been Pepsi interns from other campuses, and I found out every single thing that they had done as interns. So I had done all that work before I took this interview. I was one of the four people they took back to New York for an interview, and I got this internship. I was probably also incredibly annoying, but I certainly was superqualified.”

And what I would say to my kids is, to get the job you need two things. You need the functional skills, but then you also have to be superprepared, and you have to have incredible passion. You have to make that person want to hire you. They have to have a reason to hire you. There’s no excuse why you can’t have that.

I’m just really surprised by some of the people I interview. A few people, when I say “FRS,” they say, “I haven’t tried the product.” If they say that, the interview is over.”

Read the full article here.

According to a Stanford University study, if you’re among the many multi-tasking individuals regularly juggling numerous sources of information simultaneously, you may be doing more harm than good.

“People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found,” wrote Adam Gorlick of the Stanford Report.

The study tested multi-taskers’ abilities to filter out relevant information while being shown a variety of information. Low multi-taskers did better at all tests administered, whereas high multi-taskers were easy distracted.

“The researchers are still studying whether chronic media multitaskers are born with an inability to concentrate or are damaging their cognitive control by willingly taking in so much at once. But they’re convinced the minds of multitaskers are not working as well as they could.”

Bottom line: by doing less, you might accomplish more.

Might want to take that skill off of your resume…

Read the full article here.

I’ve been getting way too many e-mails with two attachments. One is a resume and the other is a cover letter. Aren’t cover letters supposed to be, well, letters? Personalized communications not “to whom it may concern?” I sometimes refuse to open them on principle. But if someone sent me a musical cover letter, you bet I’d take notice. And according to this inventive applicant’s YouTube stats so did over 13,000 others. I’m not suggesting you take guitar lessons anytime soon, but think of a way to stand out. An attachment on an e-mail isn’t it!

The previous blog post emphasized the importance of revamping your look both physically and emotionally after a lay off or other job loss. Looking good and feeling good are essential in portraying a positive, professional demeanor. But how about keeping that digital presence looking smart too! The majority of our interactions with people are via email or other relatively impersonal technology. It’s important to remember that your email, your tweets, and all other digital communication is a representation of yourself.

So use that spell check, put a little extra effort into personalizing your emails, and make them friendly! Another way to keep your “digital you” looking fresh and savvy, mix up your email signatures. Mashable had a great post today with 5 ways to “spice up” your signature on Gmail. Some of them work for other webmail clients, too. Check out my two favorites below and read about them all on Mashable:

Wisestamp

Location Signature

“In the aftermath of a layoff, style is critical.”

So says the Wall Street Journal, which ran a story today on revamping your style and adjusting your attitude in the wake of a job loss. One interviewee, Michael Guarini a former president of the health division at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, says he ditched his usual business casual duds and now wears formal business suits to all networking meetings, even with long time acquaintances.

Why go fancy, you may ask. Shouldn’t your skills speak for themselves? Even the Journal admits that dressing up can cause some eye brow raises and a few “I hope you didn’t wear a suit for me.” comments. But ultimately, Guarini gets noticed. He is remembered for looking polished, professional, and serious. If you’re serious about your job search, you should look the part.

The author of the article, Christina Binkley, delves into the psychological aspects of the post lay-off makeover as well, urging the unemployed to hold their tongue and not bad-mouth their former employers in a reactive rage.  This is something we’ve emphasized in former blog posts and columns as well. But no matter how logical it may seem, Binkley points out that in a state of anger and emotional distress even the most collected business person can lose their cool.

How to avoid a meltdown before it happens? It seems Binkley’s only recommendation is to take some time off before jumping into the “dating pool,” likening a lay-off to a break up. She offers some post-meltdown suggestions and ways to keep your communication direct, but in terms of skipping the damage control, taking a vacation seems to be the best answer to the problem.

This advice is certainly smart and sounds like a logical way to let emotions melt away before contacting people about your job search. But is it really realistic? Not everyone can afford to just take a few weeks off. Not to mention if you’re suddenly unemployed, what are you taking time off from? I think this refers to the job search itself, networking, etc. However, with most job searches taking months these days, stalling the inevitable with a few weeks of down time seems counter intuitive.

Other suggestions for cooling off? Talk to your spouse, your loved ones, an old friend who has nothing to do with your industry. Avoid friends in the same line of work, because as Binkley does point out, many executives think they are venting to friends in the office and then their vented frustration turns into office gossip. Talking it out is healthy and talking to someone separated from the situation will offer a different perspective and allow you to see both side of the equation. That’s what friends and loved ones are for, right?

So, blow off that steam and dust off your suit and dress shoes. A whole new, happier, more stylish you is hitting the job market.

Many have asked this question before. And even now in the wake of the Twitter tsunami and the insurgence of many other forms of social technology, it’s still uncharted territory for some and down right terrifying territory for others. Fear not. Marta Kagan, self-proclaimed social media evangelist and extremely creative presenter, created the first of two slide shows found below a little over a year ago to inform us on what the f*** this new medium is and how we can and should be using it. It’s a funny but seriously informative and helpful presentation. If you haven’t seen it yet, flip through and you’re guaranteed to learn a thing or two.

Of course, the first presentation was created a year ago and, as we all know, a lot has happened in a year. Take a peek at the second version which she recently created with updated statistics and tips. Comparing the stats alone is slightly scary considering only a measly 12 months went by. But don’t let them scare you, instead let the presentation inspire you to, as Kagan says, “hop on the f***ing train!”

We spend a lot of time focusing on career management in the face of lay-offs, a down economy, managing smaller staffs to do the same work, etc., etc. The working professional faces quite a mess of challenges in today’s business world. But what if you were just entering the workplace? And that workplace offered very few jobs and an overabundance of more qualified candidates than yourself. What would you be willing to do to continue on the path you imagined for yourself?

This is the plight of today’s college graduate and many college students who want summer work (or permanent work) that will set them on course for their future career. Low to no wages and few opportunities have become the norm, where previously companies offered stipends. The Wall Street Journal recently called it the curse of the class of ’09. While Gen Y might not have a mortgage to pay off or mouths to feed besides their own, their predicament merits attention as well.

This weekend the New York Times detailed the dilemma of several interns who came to NY to find work and experience despite the depressed job market and found that working for free and sleeping on floors is the only way to stay on the path they carved out for themselves.

The article follows several college students working full time unpaid, many sleeping on friends’ floors, others renting college dorm rooms and taking jobs found on Craigslist as extras in movies and video, many of which they admit turn out to be scams.

It’s certainly not the glamorous NYC life many young students and professionals expect to find. But it speaks to the determination of the generation, one that is often criticized for lacking in this area. But is this just what it takes when you’re young and trying to make it? Or is it a new product of the recession?

What odd jobs and circumstances did you find yourself in when you were starting out? Please share any stories about your salad days.

Today Mashable featured an array of graphics showing fascinating statistics on Twitter.

The graphics show what it would be like if the Twitter community consisted of only 100 people, relative to the behavior on it now.

The fun graphics were picked up from InformationIsBeautiful.net, a great blog with visualized ideas and data. It’s an interesting and visually stimulating way to show information. Check it out below.

The latest in interesting career related news and media tidbits :

Job Hunt: We’ve been saying this for awhile, now Reuters agrees: Go Social! (Reuters)

Hired: How to negotiate a good salary despite the bad economy (WSJ)

Fired: 8% of US Companies Have Sacked Social Media Miscreants plus one major Facebook Faux Pas (Mashable)

Words of Wisdom: What’s the best advice Arianna Huffington ever received? She’ll tell you. VIDEO:(Fortune)

Small business: Etsy founders start a “tool for small businesses to market, listen, and respond to their customers using social media,” called Postling. (Mashable)

Media/Social Media: NBC’s new pilot is airing on Facebook first? (Huffington Post)