where the jobs are 2015

BROUGHT TO YOU IN PART BY

It’s a challenge at first. You need to learn the right skills, build up your strength, work hard, and keep your eyes open. It doesn’t always work out in the beginning, and missing can be painful and discouraging. But don’t despair:

Volume One’s special jobs section is here to give you the resources, statistics, and advice you need to pull back the bowstring, take careful aim, and send your occupational arrow sailing toward the bull’s-eye.

Get ting that perfect job is like hit ting your target.

WRITERS Christina Berchini & Tom Giffey • EDITORS Tom Giffey & Eric Christenson • DESIGN Serena Wagner

True to its moniker, the Baby Boom generation is still mak-ing noise. This time, it’s in the local and national labor mar-

ket. If you listen closely, the rumble you hear is the tectonic shift of this massive generation – which makes up about 30 percent of today’s workforce – entering retirement. Nationwide, 10,000 Boomers turn 65 every single day. This cascade is turning the rumble into a roar, creating challenges and opportunities for work-ers and employers alike.

“If you just look at the raw number

of working-age adults, there’s going to be a huge supply-demand issue that employers are going to be experienc-ing, and some of them are experiencing now,” explains Jennifer Owen, direc-

tor of the Aging & Disability Resource Center of Eau Claire County. Owen says nearly one in four Eau Claire County residents are 60 years of age or older – and the county’s demographics actually skew younger than most other parts of Wisconsin because of the concentration of college students here. By 2050, Owen says, the share of the county population 65 and older will have grown 75 percent, while the share of people 25 to 54 will have grown only 2 percent.

On one hand, the aftermath of this demographic tidal wave should offer some smooth sailing for Millenials, many of whom have struggled to find jobs in recent years. (According to non-partisan advocacy group Generation Opportunity, the unemployment rate for 18- to 29-year-olds was 13.8 percent in April when people who had given up looking for work were included.) Aging Boomers will leave many jobs vacant, while other jobs will be created to care for the graying population. On the other hand, vacancies are often – and will continue to be – in higher-level jobs

requiring skills that took Baby Boomers years to gain.

“Personally I’d like to think this is a really great opportunity for people to be passing on their knowledge to the younger workforce,” Owen says, “but I think there is a lot of intergenerational conflict that still exists.”

Owen, who recently gave a presen-tation about the aging workforce spon-sored by the Eau Claire Area Economic Development Corp., says employers need several strategies to deal with the demographic shift and the result-ing conflicts. First, employers can offer incentives and flexibility to older work-ers to entice them to stay on the job past retirement age, she says. Secondly, employers need to encourage education

RIDING THE WORKFORCE WAVE

VolumeOne.org July 22, 2015 44

retirement of Baby Boomers creates opportunities – and problems –

for younger Chippewa Valley workersW O R D S : T O M G I F F E Y

“If you just look at the raw

number of working age adults,

there’s going to be a huge

supply-demand issue that

employers are going to be

experiencing, and some of them

are experiencing now.”

Jennifer Owen, director, Aging & Disability

Resource Center of Eau Claire County

1. Registered nurses

2. Welders

3. Computer numerican control-related

4. Software/IT

5. Certified nursing assistants

6. Drivers (with commercial license)

7. Physician assistants

8. Maintenance

9. Machinists

10. Physicians

TOP 10 HARD-TO-FILL POSITIONS IN THE VALLEY

Department of Workforce Development survey results, 2014

1. Registered nurses

2. Truck drivers

3. Customer service reps

4. Welders, cutters, solderers

5. Supervisors/managers of office/administrative workers

6. Insurance sales agents

7. Accountants/auditors

8. Machinists

9. Medical secretaries

10. Human resources, labor relations, and training specialists

HOT JOBS FOR 2020 IN WEST-CENTRAL WISCONSIN

West Central Workforce Development Areas Occupational Projections, 2010-2020

C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 4 6

and mentorship for younger workers who will fill the jobs left open by retiring Boomers.

These retirements leave “big shoes to fill,” says Renee Melton, a client ser-vice manager in Eau Claire with Adecco, an international staffing agency. “A lot of our retiring employees wore mul-tiple hats from having so much experi-ence under their belts,” Melton says.

“As companies look to backfill these positions, they may have to hire two to three people to compensate for what some of these people did because the inexperienced worker isn’t going to be seasoned enough to take on everything the retiring person could.” However, she says, job duties may also be split among multiple workers. “If you’re just enter-ing the workforce and want to move ahead in the company you’re working for,” Melton adds, “you’re going to need to be flexible with job duties and look for those opportunities to help out.”

Scott Hodek, a labor market econ-omist with the state Department of Workforce Development, believes men-toring and succession planning are a must for businesses impacted by retiring Boomers. “What we’re going to see is unprecedented promotional oppor-tunities, which for a worker is great,” he says. “For a business that hasn’t been suc-cession planning for this, you’re going to have some problems.”

While businesses should have been plan-ning for this eventual-ity five to 10 years ago, Hodek says, the day of reckoning was delayed by the Great Recession: Many Baby Boomers who would have otherwise retired – the first wave of them hit 65 in 2011 – stayed at work to rebuild their shrunken retire-ment accounts. Now, however, more of them are retiring, which means the size of the labor market is barely growing or is standing still in some Wisconsin counties.

So what can job hunters – especially those just entering the job market – do to take advantage of the situation? Hodek advises that these people avoid gaps in their résumés, which can be a turn-off for potential employers. Even

if volunteer work or unpaid internships are their only options, unemployed or underemployed workers should keep their resumes full, he says. Younger workers can also keep an eye on which professions have the most openings in the Chippewa Valley; such data tracked annually by the Regional Skills Gap Initiative (see accompanying chart).

While she agrees that the aging workforce should present big oppor-tunities for young workers, Owen of the Aging & Disability Resource Center notes that this isn’t always the case – at least anecdotally. Owen surmises this may be because the kinds of jobs cre-ated because of an aging population

– in home health care, for example – are demanding professions that don’t pay particularly well and thus may not be attractive to many younger workers.

One the whole, how-ever, the combination of Baby Boomers leaving the job market and a growing economy means the out-look is generally positive for job-seekers, especial-ly those just getting out of school: the National Association of Colleges and Employers says its

hiring projection for job-hunters with bachelor’s degrees grew 9.6 percent over last year. Meanwhile, recent grads of UW-Eau Claire have a 96 percent placement rate and a median salary of $43,854, says Staci Heidtke, UWEC’s associate director of Career Services.

“Young job-seekers have an oppor-tunity to step in and be in the driver’s seat with employers – as long as they develop the skills needed to do the job and perform at a high level,” Heidtke says. “Young job-seekers face great job growth and opportunity, especially for those college-educated workers. Skills that are in demand include communica-tion, leadership, and critical thinking.”


Students and employers mingle at a UW-Eau Claire job fair

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96%placement rate for UWEC grads after six months

$44Kmedian salary for those UWEC grads

SAVVY SECRETS FOR JOB-HUNTERSWe talked to Chippewa Valley experts about what it takes to land the job you want.


STACI HEIDTKE | Associate director of Career Services, UW-Eau Claire

Q: What common mistakes do job-seekers make when assessing the local job market?

A: Many job-seekers look at job postings and underestimate their ability to do a job. Perhaps it is because the position is in an industry they lack experience in or the position is not exactly in the area they were educated in. Those job-seekers should focus on the transferable skills they could bring to the position. Many employers are happy to teach a specific skill if the employee is a hard worker, easy to work with, a strong communicator and has grit.

Job-seekers don’t always market their skills and abilities as well as they could. They should have a 30-second pitch to offer employers, including experience and education that makes them a good fit for a position.

List past work history on a résumé, even if it seems to be unrelated to the job you are applying for. This allows the employer to understand your transferable skills when making hiring decisions.

Q: Nationwide, younger workers face a much higher unemployment rate than

older workers. What can and should younger workers be doing to increase their chances of finding employment?

A: Not enough job-seekers access the hidden job market. Many jobs are filled by word-of-mouth and on the recommendation of a trusted colleague or employee. I encourage people to get out and visit employers, and talk to hiring managers about their ideal employee. Gaining that insight helps the job-seeker to understand the daily responsibilities for a position, or how that position contributes to the success of an organization. Conduct an informational interview or shadow someone working for an employer you find interesting or in a profession you are interested in. When doing this, ask your contacts for names of other people you should meet. This is a chance to expand your network and learn more about the local job market – espe-cially to learn about current or future openings.

RENEE MELTON | Client service manager, eBay Enterprise Wisconsin for Adecco


A: They don’t see the potential in the opportunities. Not every job is going to start out as your dream job. You have to sometimes be willing to start at the bottom and work your way up. If you can find a company who cares about its employees and it’s future, that will invest in you as a person, and that offers you the opportunity to work really hard towards your ultimate goal then you should go for it and stop limit-ing yourself because of an ideal in your head. Its easy to say that pay doesn’t matter, because for most people they need that paycheck at the end of the week, but it’s also important to keep the bigger picture in mind.



It goes back to what I said about seeing the potential in opportunities. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a number of recent grads, and I always worry when I get the sense that they feel like a diploma equals dream job. That’s likely not the case. And I get it. It’s frustrating. You invest all this time and money into getting a degree and then you may have to still start at the bottom. No one goes into a degree pro-gram thinking they’re going to walk out the door into something entry level. But the reality is, they may have to just to get a foot in the door and make ends meet in the meantime.

Additionally, our culture has developed into one that relies heavily on electron-ic communication and it sets the expectation that you can want everything right now, and get it. When it comes to building a career, those things don’t apply. Getting a job isn’t advancing to the next level in a video game, it’s not deciding on a whim that you want the newest gadget, ordering it off eBay and getting it the next day. Building a career takes grit, it takes work, and it takes people skills – regardless of the field you’re in. Younger workers can learn a ton from the more experienced worker when it comes to building relationships and communicating with people.

UW

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‘Today will be your last day.”

These words randomly emerged from the recesses of my memory the other

night. I was washing dishes and listening to a TED Talk. I was not feeling particu-larly nostalgic that evening, or thinking about anyone or anything in particular.

My memory rewound further to that moment of elation when I received your email offering me the internship. It paid $10 an hour and, given my field, I knew that any pay would impress my professors.

I then found myself fast-forwarding to the scene in which I left that Park Avenue building for the last time, cry-ing as I called my mother from the pay phone to tell her I had been let go. These bookend memories brought their friends from the years in between to crash my peaceful, boring-adult party of kitchen upkeep.

“Today will be your last day.”Every bit of context surrounding

those words swarmed together to form that grand finale in which, as a ner-vous 20-year-old, I sat on one side of the glossy boardroom table, while you and your colleague – I think his name was Martin – sat on the other. I had mostly worked under your auspices, but on occasion Martin and others would assign me menial tasks.

I tearfully gripped my iced tea as the reality set in. I was being fired from my first internship.

And it is with these embarrassing memories that I looked you up recently, out of pure curiosity. I wondered where you were in life. I was pleasantly sur-prised to learn that, after investing such

a large portion of your life into corpo-rate America, you not only climbed the ladder; you redesigned the ladder.

It seems you started calling your own shots. And that’s pretty cool. But the truth is, I also Googled your name with something of a humble goal: I want to thank you for firing me for being a horrible employee 14 years ago.

You implicitly taught me a number of life lessons I wasn’t learning in any of my overpriced college courses. The internal conversations I had after being kicked out of my tiny little cubicle that summer included dialogue that should routinely find its way into the college classroom.

It is with the following list that I wish to both apologize for my perfor-mance and thank you for firing me. Had you never fired me, I’m not sure that I would have made the changes neces-sary to perform well at the following summer’s internship in public rela-tions (yes, someone else actually hired me) or, really, any of the professional endeavors that followed. Failing my first internship taught me many things.

Here are just a few:1. Everyone is your boss. It does

not matter who is assigning a task. Everyone is your boss.

2. There is value in creating tasks for myself in the event that I was not given enough to do. This taught me how to take

initiative and to investigate the dilemma of not knowing what I do not know.

3. The importance of taking notes and asking questions can’t be overstated.

4. If an overpopulated and slow eleva-tor might make one late to work, arrive a few minutes early. Or, take the stairs.

5. Following the elevator fiasco, you taught me that 9:05am, or worse yet, 9:10am, is indeed considered “late.” Moreover, arriving at 8:55am is probably closer to being on time than arriving at 9am on the nose. Arriving at 8:40? Even better.

6. I learned that it is not permis-sible to leave an hour early without asking, even if it is my birthday. (I really have no idea what I was think-ing, with this one. There is no excuse for leaving the office early without expressed permission from your employer and no, not even if it’s your birthday, and no, not even if your boyfriend surprises you by showing up at your job. He’ll have to wait that final hour at the very least.)

You didn’t start out intending to teach me these rules of professional-ism. I learned only after our meeting in that boardroom that I should have done some things differently. The skills you taught me have been applicable in every job I’ve had since. I now teach my college students what you taught me, and I hope they’re listening.

For firing me and encouraging me to find myself, you became one of my biggest inspirations.

Christina Berchini is an assistant professor of English at UW-Eau Claire. She blogs frequently at her own website (www.heycollegekid.com) as well as at the Huffington Post and Success.com, where this essay original appeared in December. To find out what happened after she contacted the woman who fired her, find her blog on Success.com.

‘ I ’M GLAD YOU FIRED ME.’losing an internship at age 20 has provided valuable life-long lessonsW O R D S : C H R I S T I N A B E R C H I N I



SAVVY SECRETS FOR JOB-HUNTERSWe talked to Chippewa Valley experts about what it takes to land the job you want.

STACI HEIDTKE | Associate director of Career Services, UW-Eau Claire


A: Many job-seekers look at job postings and underestimate their ability to do a job. Perhaps it is because the position is in an industry they lack experience in or the position is not exactly in the area they were educated in. Those job-seekers should focus on the transferable skills they could bring to the position. Many employers are happy to teach a specific skill if the employee is a hard worker, easy to work with, a strong communicator and has grit.

Job-seekers don’t always market their skills and abilities as well as they could. They should have a 30-second pitch to offer employers, including experience and education that makes them a good fit for a position.

List past work history on a résumé, even if it seems to be unrelated to the job you are applying for. This allows the employer to understand your transferable skills when making hiring decisions.



A: Not enough job-seekers access the hidden job market. Many jobs are filled by word-of-mouth and on the recommendation of a trusted colleague or employee. I encourage people to get out and visit employers, and talk to hiring managers about their ideal employee. Gaining that insight helps the job-seeker to understand the daily responsibilities for a position, or how that position contributes to the success of an organization. Conduct an informational interview or shadow someone working for an employer you find interesting or in a profession you are interested in. When doing this, ask your contacts for names of other people you should meet. This is a chance to expand your network and learn more about the local job market – espe-cially to learn about current or future openings.

RENEE MELTON | Client service manager, eBay Enterprise Wisconsin for Adecco


A: They don’t see the potential in the opportunities. Not every job is going to start out as your dream job. You have to sometimes be willing to start at the bottom and work your way up. If you can find a company who cares about its employees and it’s future, that will invest in you as a person, and that offers you the opportunity to work really hard towards your ultimate goal then you should go for it and stop limit-ing yourself because of an ideal in your head. Its easy to say that pay doesn’t matter, because for most people they need that paycheck at the end of the week, but it’s also important to keep the bigger picture in mind.



It goes back to what I said about seeing the potential in opportunities. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a number of recent grads, and I always worry when I get the sense that they feel like a diploma equals dream job. That’s likely not the case. And I get it. It’s frustrating. You invest all this time and money into getting a degree and then you may have to still start at the bottom. No one goes into a degree pro-gram thinking they’re going to walk out the door into something entry level. But the reality is, they may have to just to get a foot in the door and make ends meet in the meantime.

Additionally, our culture has developed into one that relies heavily on electron-ic communication and it sets the expectation that you can want everything right now, and get it. When it comes to building a career, those things don’t apply. Getting a job isn’t advancing to the next level in a video game, it’s not deciding on a whim that you want the newest gadget, ordering it off eBay and getting it the next day. Building a career takes grit, it takes work, and it takes people skills – regardless of the field you’re in. Younger workers can learn a ton from the more experienced worker when it comes to building relationships and communicating with people.

where the jobs are 2015

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