Although the economy is growing, it’s doing so very sluggishly, with unemployment  still hovering around nine percent. For every job available, there are about four unemployed people, according to statistics.

The news focuses relentlessly on layoffs and the long-term unemployed. As unemployment remains high, people become anxious about job security and the stability of their employer. It appears as if the job market has crashed and burned, that no one out there is hiring. Reading the headlines, it is easy to believe this myth, but it is exactly that, a myth. Companies are still hiring. In fact, some human resource consultants say the number of job offers made during a recession remains about the same as in a more healthy economy. Even in a recession, innovation and entrepreneurship are still at work, and companies are working to bring new products and services to market.

But, reading the doom and gloom in the headlines sometimes makes people feel that it’s not even worth the effort because the economy is so bad. But this is not true. The job market still exists; it has just become more selective. People who are valued for their skills, experience and accomplishments will have little trouble finding a job, and can get a job offer in a relatively short period of time.

Those in the worst position during a recession, however, are the long-term unemployed. They stand little chance of getting a job offer during a recession. They might even have trouble gaining employment in a growing economy, because there is little value placed on their skills and competencies.

The economy doesn’t stop during a recession, it just slows down, and the same thing happens in the job market – it slows down. Companies make more effort to avoid risk, and so hiring decisions tend to take longer. But, eventually, hiring managers reach a decision – they must, because they need to continue their operations so that they can serve their customers.

So, if you are a job candidate, you can be pretty sure there is a company out there that needs your help; you just need to be smart and savvy in your job search. Network, persevere and look for the companies that are attempting to start new projects.

Working on short- and long-term temporary assignments with Bayside Solutions in San Francisco can be a great way for someone to keep skills current and learn new ones. Contact a recruiter today to learn more about the different type of assignments we have available.

You have been laid off from your job and are looking for another one. The employment picture is a rather bleak one, as you have no doubt found out. You had a very good salary at your old job, and you are willing to take a pay cut to find something else, which you tell employers.

But that doesn’t seem to help much. The conventional wisdom among some employers is that if you were making more in your previous position than they are willing to offer for this one, you won’t be around that long because you will be looking for greener pastures. They will assume that you are overqualified for the job.

How do you handle a situation like this?

One way to blunt the problem is by focusing on your skills and experience and how much they can help the company. If you can provide the expertise they need, if you can help them solve the problems they have, the company might not be so focused on salary.

Another way around this problem is to work through a staffing agency, taking a position as a contingent or contract worker. This will help you on several levels. First, you will be employed by the staffing agency, not by the company where you will be working. All salary and benefits issues are with the agency, which will not be so concerned with past salary history. Second, you will get a foot in the door at a company, and if you perform well, you may get a job offer that way.

You also can try avoiding talk of past salary altogether. It may be tough to do, but it’s always worth a try. What you could do is research what the salary range is for the job you are applying for, and focus on that if you get the chance to interview.  Be sure to focus on a salary range, rather than pinning yourself down to a specific figure.

Finally, if company officials are still convinced that a previous high salary is a disqualification because it means a worker will soon move on, you should let hiring managers know your circumstances have changed and that you understand you may not be able to command the type of salary  With the high unemployment rate, and many workers underemployed, people are just glad to have jobs, and are much more likely to hang on to them.

Produce positive results in your career by bringing your résumé to a Bayside Solutions recruiter. We can help you contact some of the mover and shakers at some of the Bay Area’s finest employers. Give us a call today!

During your job search, you discover what can only be called the job of your dreams – it’s just what you’ve been looking for, and it matches your qualifications exactly.

So you apply and land an interview. The interview is a great success. You get along well with everyone there, and they seem to really like what you have to say.

Afterward, you send a thank you note and wait. A few days go by, then weeks, and still no word. Finally, you get a letter of rejection in the mail. You are dumbfounded. It looked like the perfect job. You breezed through the application process.

You may get the urge to take this rejection personally, but don’t. There may be many reasons why you didn’t get the job, some of which might come as news to you.

The first thing to remember is that this isn’t an exact science. There is no fool-proof method that hiring managers use to choose people. Some of the selection is actually taking place at a subconscious level. It is more intuitive. So the whole thing is not really about you, it’s about the recruiter.

Another thing to keep in mind is the competition, especially with the current high unemployment rate. There were probably 200 or more other people who applied for the same job you did, and only about 10 (if that many) even got called for an interview. So, in a way, you can consider yourself lucky that you made it to the interview stage. This is actually an opportunity for you to take advantage of – apply for other openings at the company for which you believe you are qualified. Since the hiring managers now know you, and you have made a good impression, you may end up with something better down the road.

Another reason for the rejection letter may have to do with abrupt changes in direction by the company. It may have wanted to hire you, but changes to budgets or other factors may have led to a sudden imposition of a hiring freeze. Again, keep in touch with the company – you may be contacted again later when it starts hiring again.

Another factor in the rejection may just have to do with the hiring manager’s impression of whether you will be a good fit for the position, or how well you will fit in with the current employees. So, again, this is not about some failure on your part, but more about the culture of the company.

Stay proactive, and don’t take things personally. If you get rejected, contact the hiring manager and tell her to remember you for future openings and ask her if r she could refer you to anyone in her network who may be hiring.

Speaking of hiring, Bayside Solutions is always looking for terrific professionals who want to work in some of the Bay Area’s best companies. Contact us today to learn more about the temporary, direct-hire and temp-to-hire opportunities we have.

It is fairly common knowledge that people who are unemployed have a tougher time finding a job than those who are working because of the stigma attached to being out of work.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, recent research has shown that this bias against the unemployed is not influenced by their skill level or how they lost their job.

In the research, people were asked to judge various pretend job candidates. In the study, the same résumé was shown to two groups of people. One group was told the résumé belonged to someone currently employed; the other group that the résumé belonged to an unemployed person. The groups rated the résumé of the employed person more highly even though it had the same information as the unemployed person.

The groups were looking at the same résumé, but they rated the ability of the employed person higher, based solely on the résumé, than the ability of the unemployed person. And the groups said they would be more likely to hire the employed person.

And it didn’t matter how the job applicant lost his or her previous position, whether he or she was laid off, fired, or left voluntarily: the candidate was still viewed less favorably than a person who was employed, even though all of the applicant’s qualifications were the same. The only way to remove the stigma of unemployment was if the loss of the job could not be connected to the person at all, if, for example, the person lost the job because the company went bankrupt.

The research showed that people make psychological connections to being unemployed that leads to prejudice.

The longer a person has been out of work, the harder it is to find a job – this is also well known. But researchers have thought this was mostly because hiring managers were concerned about skills eroding among the long-term unemployed. But the research showed that even when there is no evidence of a skill downgrade, unemployed job applicants still face discrimination.

It is this psychological stigma attached to unemployment that can help explain why those who are out of work have fundamentally less opportunity of getting back into the working world.

If you’ve been out of work for a long time, working as a temporary for Bayside Solutions can help you show employers that you have the work ethic they seek. We have many short- and long-term – and even direct-hire – positions with some of San Francisco’s best companies. Contact us today and get back to work!

You’ve just received a promotion at work to a supervisor’s position, and you’re feeling pretty good, until you talk to your college buddy and find out he’s been promoted to vice president at his company.

We’ve all been in situations like this.  We are always comparing ourselves to others as a way to gauge our success.  But in doing this we must be careful that we don’t fall into a trap.  The trap is the constant shifting of the goal posts and continually redefining what we consider to be successful – however successful and accomplished we already may be.

It’s the trap of creating new desires after we have fulfilled others.  We ignore all of the things we’ve accomplished because all of sudden success is getting something more – a new job, a new title, a new achievement.

We put ourselves on a treadmill.  We constantly create new goals harder to reach than the ones before, and if we manage to reach these even more difficult goals, we look beyond them to even more difficult ones.  We are never satisfied, no matter how long our list of achievements may become.

Setting new goals and striving after them is in itself not a bad thing.  But it can become harmful when it puts us on this treadmill where what we want to achieve is not determined by our own inner drive but by what we see others doing.

But there are things we can do to avoid this.  One activity is to record the progress you have been making toward what you consider to be your ideal position, not some position you see a friend or acquaintance achieve.  And then you need to figure out if you are gaining the kind of skills and knowledge you will need to reach your ideal position.

Also, make a scale you can use to record how fulfilling and satisfying your work is to you.  Record on the scale frequently how much you are enjoying your work.

This will help you avoid the trap of measuring your success only by the achievements of others.  It will help you to look beyond just external measures of success, to look within at the internal measures as well.

If you’re looking for your next terrific position and live in the Bay Area, give Bayside Solutions a call. We can help place you in temporary, temp-to-hire and direct placement positions with some of San Francisco’s finest companies.

Has work taken over your life? Are you feeling stressed and overwhelmed most or even all of the time?

Watch out — your stress literally could kill you!

Our bodies produce a large amount of the hormone cortisol whenever we feel stress. This is part of our heritage of the fight-or flight reaction experienced often by our ancestors thousands of years ago. Our bodies can handle just small and infrequent amounts of cortisol at one time. Unfortunately, our stress-filled jobs can mean that cortisol courses through our bodies frequently, paving the way for many different types of nasty conditions and diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, etc.

Yet we all have to work, right? Below are some tips to help you relax at work and at home so that the amount of cortisol your body secrets is minimized.

Express gratitude. Studies repeatedly show that expressing gratitude for the people, things and events of your life can really lower your level of stress. These things for which you’re grateful don’t have to “big;” just being grateful for a sunny day, or for rain to water your lawn, or the playful antics of a puppy, can go a long way to keeping you calm.

Some people find that writing down five things for which they’re grateful twice a day (morning and evening) goes a long way to helping them not become overwhelmed when the inevitable stresses of the day arise.

De-clutter your workspace and your home. Have you noticed when you have a desk cleared of clutter how calm it can make you feel? Studies show that too much “stuff” truly can cause stress and a cluttered desk or house can make for a cluttered, jumbled and over-stressed mind. Even just placing your papers into neat piles on your desk can go a long way to helping you keep your mind calm. You also should consider taking the neatness factor up a notch and perform a de-cluttering of your files, drawers, papers, folders and other work-related documents. Do the same at home. Clear out your closets, garage, spare room, kitchen, etc.

When the stress hits, take several deep belly breaths. If you find yourself feeling stressed, stop for a moment, sit in a chair with your legs apart with your hands on your stomach. Breathe out slowly through your nose, but do so with some force so that you’ll feel your stomach pull in. Aim to do this 30 times and you’ll no doubt notice the significant calming effect this procedure can have.

Contact Bayside Solutions when you’re stressed about finding a great job in the Bay Area. We have many terrific temporary, temp-to-hire and even direct-hire assignments with some of San Francisco’s best employers. Contact us today.

We all want to be busy at work. Of course, while we don’t want to be overwhelmed with work, there’s little that’s less frustrating than sitting around with not much to do. There’s the boredom factor, of course, but especially in today’s economy some workers may try to “look” busy in an effort to stave off the chance of being fired or laid off.

Yet we don’t really think too much about what “being busy” really means. We sometimes dive right into projects or tasks with taking the time to really think about why we do so. We may not communicate with others in a meaningful way and we also may not take necessary breaks from all the “busyness.”

If you’re someone who prides yourself on always being busy at work, you may not realize you’ve let this idea of the virtue of being busy at all costs to take over your work life.

To see if you’ve done so, ask yourself the following questions: Is your work moving your toward a particular goal, such as learning new skills, receiving a promotion or taking on more responsibility? Are you finding that you often try to look busier than you really are? Do you constantly check for e-mail or phone messages and do you feel uncomfortable if you don’t? When things do slow down, do you feel at odds? Do you ever feel guilty about taking time off for work or for taking a vacation?

What we all need to do is to take a look at our work and decide if it really is meaningful and challenging. If you find that most of your workday entails performing relatively meaningless tasks (such as checking e-mail), you’ll be able to make some changes.

One way to do this — to get yourself out of the “busyness” frame of mind — is to take a break from all things electronic for at least an hour a day. Instead, read, write or think about your work. You may not be able to eliminate all your “busyness” at once, but cutting back step-by-step can be a good idea. For example, if you find that you’re on the telephone two hours a day, see if you can reduce it to 90 minutes.

The goal is not to cut out the “busy work” completely, but to avoid those dead ends that keep you from getting done the real work that needs doing. You’ll find that you’ll become much more productive and accomplish a lot more when you reduce the amount of “busy work” in your work day.

If a new job is what you’re after, then your “real work” will entail contacting Bayside Solutions. We help hundreds of San Francisco-area job seekers find temporary and full-time employment with the Bay Area’s top employers. We look forward to hearing from you!

The way of the business world has changed completely from what it was even just five years ago. The “new normal” is constantly in flux and a firm’s leadership must change the way stay flexible in order a company to thrive — if not survive — in today’s fast-paced, global economy.

No longer can a firm’s leaders take on the “top-down” style of management, where an executive barks orders to the minions below, expecting employees to carry them out without input. This type of organizational structure has gone the way of the dodo — to extinction.

And good riddance!

Instead, leaders today need to persuade (not coerce). Leaders need to be honest, not dictatorial. In addition, a companies leaders should come from all levels of an organization, of all ages so that leadership will be nimble and innovative and also wise and efficient.

Leadership best practices today call for a company culture where everyone has a say, where ideas are welcome. This will help spur employees to greater innovation.

In fact, leaders should come from everywhere in a company, not just from the executive suite. Workers need to be able to move up, down and sideways within an organization, depending on where their particular gifts are best utilized and where their aspirations take them.

Today’s leaders should be accessible to all employees. Leaders today should actively solicit input from the firm’s workers. Employees need to know they may speak their minds freely (within certain boundaries, of course), without worrying that they’ll be demoted, ostracized, ridiculed.

Company leadership today also must be completely honest with a firm’s workers. This is especially true with the prevalence of social networks, making it easy for workers to spread news, gossip or vent about bad management online. News of any sort, good, bad, indifferent, etc. can spread around a company — if not the world — in an instant. Since there’s no place “to hide” anymore, honesty from a firm’s leaders is ever more imperative.

How can Bayside Solutions help your company succeed? We offer Bay Area firms custom recruiting solutions, temporary staffing and other workforce solutions. Contact us today!

Often, when we have a conflict with someone at work, our first reaction is one of anger, because we believe clearly that we are in the right. We see the situation in black and white terms. As we see it, we clearly have right on our side. How could the other person not see it also? Our overriding concern is to get the other person to see our point of view, because surely he or she would then see that we are right.

But sometimes, if we push ourselves to keep a more open mind, and talk to the other person, we begin to understand why he or she acted as they did.

At this point, we begin to lose the sense of clarity and certainty that we had. We see that things are actually more complex than we assumed them to be. The conflict wasn’t really revolving around good and evil.

It can be disconcerting. The loss of clarity and certainty almost always is. It gives a sense of comfort and security if we believe we truly have the right answer, or that we are truly in the right.

It’s alright to feel this way, but we must not let it control our thinking. Because the more deeply we consider something, the more we analyze it and plumb its depths, the more we see that simple and clear answers are not there. What we find more often is ambiguity and complexity. Certainty and clarity are more often not the result of deep thinking, but shallow thinking.

More often than not, being certain about something usually means that we have failed to look at all of the nuances involved in a situation, that we are oversimplifying things.

What business leaders, and leaders anywhere, really need is to look at things more inclusively, taking in the forest and not just the trees. Leaders and all managers need to take into account that reality is full of nuance and paradox, that when we look closely, what appears to be black and white really is varying shades of gray.

This is not an argument for moral relativism, or relativism of any kind. Value systems are still operative here. But it is an acknowledgment that within value systems there is room for different viewpoints and interpretations and shades of meanings and subtlety.

When you’re not sure if you should hire people full time for your San Francisco-area business, consider bringing on workers for long-term temporary positions. This will allow you to stay flexible and then — if you find that you want to hire them onto your own payroll — you’ll be able to ramp up your staffing quickly. Contact us today!

Everybody likes creativity.  Most organizations see it as an asset.  But for all its importance and desirability, many organizations seem to be lacking it.  Innovation is too often something out of the ordinary, rather than what is expected.

One of the reasons for this, according to researchers at Cornell University, is that creative people are actually perceived to have less in the way of leadership potential.  Being creative may actually be a hindrance to moving up in an organization, they said, in a surprising discovery.

In a recent survey, creativity was named by CEOs as the number one quality to have if you want to be successful in guiding a large corporation in the future. So, most businesses see the importance of creativity, and see it as a crucial quality to have.  But seeing its importance and encouraging it within an organization are not the same thing.  In surveys, the responses showed that people who were seen as creative also were seen as less than qualified for potential management slots.

People always say they value creativity, but when they actually come face to face with it, it makes them a little uncomfortable.  They are taken aback a little by it.  The problem is that creativity is at odds with customary ideas of what leadership is.  It is the job of the leader to create a common goal for employees to work towards and, to do that, leaders need to try to get rid of any uncertainty about achieving that goal.  But being creative adds to the uncertainty by going outside the standards of behavior set by the organization to achieve its goals.

Moreover, people don’t have positive attitudes about creative people.  They are seen as quirky or unfocused.  The researchers said that people who are seen as truly original thinkers are more often overlooked for people who don’t rock the boat too much by doing things as they have always been done.

The researchers said that companies need to fight against this kind of pigeon-holing of creative people.  When companies look at how they evaluate performance, they need to look at creativity in a new way, and not through the lens of old stereotypes.  Managers need to be trained to look at these biases they may have and how these attitudes are affecting their evaluations.

When you’re looking for  great job in the tech, construction, scientific, green and other employment sectors in the Bay Area, contact Bayside Solutions. We’re waiting to hear from you!