In this Issue:
The Economic Stimulus Plan and Your Company
How Can Managers Catch Resume Fraud?
This Issue's Cartoon!
The Economic Stimulus Plan and Your Company
A key component of President Obama’s stimulus package is infrastructure spending. The construction industry is the focus -- and jobs are being created by this legislation. A wide range of construction segments will benefit from this legislation. Some economists believe that 2.5 million jobs will be created by implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
A breakdown of the ways in which the Stimulus money will be directed offers promise to many and various components of the construction industry. Below are some of the specific ways that the money may help jump-start the construction industry and get it rolling again:
- Modernizing Roads and Bridges
- Requires states to obligate at least half of this funding within 120 days
- States have over 6,100 projects totaling over $64 billion that could be under contract within 180 days
- This will create 835,000 jobs
- Improving Public Transit
- Invest in high-speed rail
- Funds for new construction of commuter and light rail
- States have 787 ready-to-go transit projects totaling $16 billion
- Prioritizing Clean Water / Flood Control
- This will create more than 375,000 jobs
- Experts note that $16 billion in water projects could be quickly obligated
- Modernizing Public Infrastructure
- This includes $5 billion in DOD facilities improvements, including housing for our troops
- $4.5 billion to make federal office buildings more energy efficient
- Modernizing the Electric Grid
- Improve the efficiency & reliability of our nation’s electricity system
- Improve state and local government energy efficiency
- Energy Efficiency Upgrades
- Renewable energy tax incentives for wind, geothermal, hydropower and biomass
- First time homeowner Tax Credits
- Will add 300,000 homebuyers
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How Can Managers Catch Resume Fraud?
By Cari Tuna, The Wall Street Journal
As more people look for jobs – and become increasingly desperate -- hiring managers need to be on guard, experts say. "Survey after survey shows that people lie and mislead on their resumes," says Lee Pomeroy, president of Executive References LLC, a background-checking firm in New York. During the downturn after the Internet bubble burst, "as people were unemployed more, the accuracy of the data fell off," he says.
Managers should review résumés with a skeptical eye, verify credentials, and ask the candidate specific, detailed questions about claims.
- Inflated Credentials Surface in Executive Suite
Some fudges: A candidate may list a university he attended, but from which he never earned a degree. Or, a job-seeker may say he served as CEO of a company and worked there four years, but that doesn't necessarily mean he was CEO for all four years, says Mr. Pomeroy.
When managers ask candidates about claims on their résumés, they should look for suspicious behavior. Red flags include: Broad, vague answers to specific questions. Other times, job-seekers refuse to say to whom they reported, or who reported to them, citing "confidentiality." "There's something shady going on," says Jason Hersh, a managing partner at KleinHersh International, a Willow Grove, Pa., search firm.
Other ways to avoid being duped:
- Confirm the circumstances of every change in employment – whether voluntary or involuntary – with a candidate's previous employers, says Mr. Pomeroy. And when considering managers and executives who are exiting a battered or liquidated firm, especially in the financial services industry, employers should try to understand the role the candidate played in the firm's fate.
- Ask the candidate for exact dates – to the day or month – of prior employment, and ask him to explain any gaps. "There can be that embarrassing two-month [job] in between, or those 90 days in jail," says Michael D. Allison, chairman and CEO of International Business Research, a corporate-investigations firm in Princeton, N.J.
- Don't call only the references provided by a candidate. Seek additional references, such as former colleagues, supervisors or direct reports, Mr. Allison says.
- Don't assume candidates provided by an executive search firm are well-vetted, says Peter LeVine, a reference-checking consultant in Delray Beach, Fla. "You can't afford to make assumptions."
- Run a Web search. "Anybody who doesn't Google that employee creatively is making a mistake," Mr. Pomeroy says. If anything turned up by a search – a title or date of employment, for example – doesn't match a candidate's résumé, "keep digging."
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Happy Recruiting,
The ConstructionJobs.com Team
