RiseSmart announced today that Transition Concierge To-Go™, a mobile application that delivers personalized job leads and other job-search tools to laid-off workers, is now available as an iPhone Web app.

Transition Concierge To-Go is free to eligible employees of companies who use RiseSmart’s Transition Concierge™ as their outplacement solution. Transition Concierge arms workers with the most powerful set of job-search tools and transition service support available today, while making it simpler than ever for employers to measure the ROI of their outplacement programs.

RiseSmart currently has several thousand employees in the system who can begin using Transition Concierge To-Go immediately. To add the app to their iPhones, users can go to m.risesmart.com, tap the plus sign and then tap “Add to Home Screen.” An icon will be added to their iPhone’s home screen for easy, one-tap access. Users only need to log in to the app on their first use.

The app sends relevant job opportunities directly to workers’ iPhones, enabling them to see the latest job leads that match their skills and preferences; tag jobs they like for follow-up; send themselves a reminder to take action on a job lead; review notifications for job-related Webinars and networking events; contact a RiseSmart Transition Specialist via phone or e-mail with feedback; review preferences, settings, favorites and more.

A primary distinction of RiseSmart’s Transition Concierge, compared to traditional outplacement agency offerings, is that the solution provides highly personalized job leads to each employee on a weekly basis. RiseSmart uses proprietary aggregation and semantic search technology to match each employee’s job preferences against hundreds of thousands of active job listings across the Web. Then, a specialist assigned to the employee’s account hones these results by hand — ensuring that only pertinent leads are delivered to each employee.

Transition Concierge To-Go was launched as a BlackBerry application in April, and will soon be available on the iPad and Android phones. You can find the app listed in Apple’s Web app directory.

Volunteering for groups such as the Red Cross has become a resume-builder for many in the recession.

Once upon a time, conventional wisdom was that someone who already had a job was around six times more likely to find a new job than someone who was out of work. Unfortunately for the unemployed, things just got worse. A lot worse.

Last week, CNN Money reported that many companies and recruiters are no longer considering unemployed applicants:

Employment experts say they believe companies are increasingly interested only in applicants who already have a job. “I think it is more prevalent than it used to be,” said Rich Thompson, vice president of learning and performance for Adecco Group North America, the world’s largest staffing firm. “I don’t have hard numbers, but three out of the last four conversations I’ve had about openings, this requirement was brought up.”

Whether or not employers can legally advertise that they will only accept candidates who are already employed — by, for instance, stating it in a job listing — has become a murky gray area. Some companies have removed such language from their job materials, including one South Carolina recruiter who did so after being asked about it by a CNN reporter working on the story!

But whether or not it’s explicitly expressed, what’s obvious is that even those who have been laid off for reasons that have nothing to do with their performance have a lot to overcome.

So…where to start? Many people who haven’t been able to find a job are finding other ways to boost their resumes, as this article explains:

They are tour guides, airport greeters, hospital helpers, fund-raisers and more. They provide hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work for free. They are volunteers. And, neither the struggling economy nor summer doldrums have taken a lasting toll on their numbers or hours of service. But they aren’t always easy to find: Some area organizations have worried about finding enough help this year. Yet help has come from a strange place: the ranks of the unemployed. Many people who have lost their jobs are volunteering to stay busy and fill gaps on their resumes.

What’s most interesting to me about the article is that it tracks how attitudes towards the recession and unemployment have shifted. Initially, many people faced with job insecurity or job loss dropped everything else to focus on finances. But that has shifted yet again, sometimes for the very reasons laid out in the CNN Money report:

When the local economy hit the skids, “we initially lost volunteers - about 200,” Baugher said of the volunteer corps of nearly 2,000 people today. Then, as Lee County’s unemployment soared — to a peak of 14.2 percent in January — “we got droves of people coming in to volunteer: people who’d lost their jobs. … Quite a few got jobs through volunteering.”

In fact, entrepreneur and author of The Brazen Careerist Penelope Trunk thinks that job-hunting is the last thing you should do when you’re unemployed. She’s got five other things you should be doing, which all at their core are basically ways to prepare for your next job.

The one that makes the most sense to me is number five, “practice talking about yourself with everyone.” Rarely do people acknowledge that interviewing is a skill that takes practice, and many people — particularly those laid-off after years with the same employer — are decidedly out of practice:

High performers practice for interviews. So now you know what you’re aiming for, but you need to talk about it with everyone – parties, at the gym, on the phone with friends. When they ask how you’re doing, talk about what you’re doing like you are in the job interview. And the good news is that the better you get at talking like that, the more you will actually believe your story, the story that being unemployed is lucky because you have learning opportunities.

However, eventually most people will be back to the job search, and news like the CNN Money report can be discouraging. But it’s important to remember job-search-steps.com’s assessment of the unemployed jobseeker’s secret weapon: “Actually, you have one big advantage from a job search standpoint when you are unemployed: time.”

Are you ready to get extreme with your job search?

Stories abound in this recession about stacks of resumes unread by employers as applicants pile on to job openings. It’s not enough anymore to be qualified for a position. Sometimes it’s not even enough to make a resume that stands out. So what can you do to have a better chance of getting an interview, and of ultimately landing that dream job — or, indeed, simply a job you might like?

Here are five extreme measures for extreme times:

1. Make a list of what you will and won’t do.

Laurie Ruettlmann at Punk Rock HR argues that even when people have been out of work for a while, and start to say things like “I’ll do anything for a job,” they don’t really mean anything. She suggests making three lists: “things I would never do for work, “things I might do for work,” and “things I really want to do for work — whether I have the skills right now or not.”

My point is simple: you have to do the work and figure out the psychology behind your unemployment before you post your resume everywhere and pray that someone calls you for an interview. That’s now how life works, anymore. An honest list that outlines standards and expectations will help you to redirect and redefine your job search.

2. Put together a marketing plan for yourself.

The days of just spamming employers with blind emails whenever a new opening appears online are over. Even tailoring your resume to individual employers, though often a good idea, isn’t a guarantee. Take a cue from some of the leaps and bounds in 21st century marketing. Modern companies work hard to sell their brand, what can you do to sell your own brand better?

Jerome Young at Forbes.com has some solid ideas. He points out that everything you use to brand yourself — resume, cover letter, online profile and interview remarks — must have a consistent message. But his central theme, in a nutshell, is showing what you’ve done, rather than just telling:

Have you increased revenue or profit? Have you decreased costs or minimized risk? Tell concise success stories of how you met these goals, and you’ll make yourself an exceptional candidate. To identify those success stories, you must understand how your position and your accomplishments clearly helped the bottom line of the business. That allows you to explain the value you’ve provided in the past and can offer in the future…

Examples of what you’ve done are far more effective that just talking about what you’ve done. Websites, pictures of products, and actual products themselves grab an employer’s attention and generate interest. I have offered employers a slide show with pictures of me working, just so they can visualize me effectively laboring on their behalf.

3. Establish your credentials.

Dan Burns of Career Rocketeer reiterates that the typical application package is no longer enough to establish your brand with employers. He suggests what he calls a “credentials package” that includes a customized cover letter, customized resume and a references summary, along with two additional pieces that he calls a “summary of qualifications” and “personal profile.” The summary of qualifications, he says, can be particularly good for snaring the interview:

After you pique the hiring manager’s interest with your cover letter, you save him/her the time of going through the details of your résumé by providing qualitative, objective, and definitive reasons why you are the best person for the job. If done correctly, often the Summary of Qualifications is sometimes all that the hiring manager has to read to select you for the interview.

4. Pay close attention to even the smallest of details.

Careless mistakes, all-too-common in this era where applicants can point and click to respond as quickly as possible, can ruin an otherwise promising bid for a great job. Maria Hanson at LiveCareer has collected some ironic and painful examples of real-world carelessness on resumes, comments like “speak, read, and wright English/Spanish.” And “I’m very detale oriented”:

“Making errors on your resume just screams, ‘I’m careless, I don’t care to double-check my work or have a friend look it over, and that’s exactly the same sloppy, lazy effort I’ll give you as my employer,’” says Tony Katsulos, who keeps a file of the worst resume bloopers he’s received as head of Jetstream Public Relations.

That’s one stack of resumes you don’t want to be in.

5. No matter what, don’t get desperate.

Thinking outside the box can also go horribly, horribly wrong. Laurie Buhl at Yahoo! HotJobs has a long list of things to avoid, such as coming off like a social media stalker and standing on the corner with a sign. And don’t forget that it’s possible to make your personal branding too unique:

Executive recruiter Kim Bishop has seen a variety of wacky queries, including one large package containing the message “Will work for food,” and resumes comparing themselves to Broadway shows and to NCAA tournaments. “One person asked whether he should send an employer confetti in an envelope. I said, ‘Think about it: would you want confetti all over your desk?’”

"Join me, and together we can rule the company bandwidth."

I’ve written this year already about the ongoing social media controversies in the workplace, but the questions seem to get trickier and trickier rather than easier. Should companies ban employee use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like at work? Should they have a policy in place detailing appropriate and inappropriate uses of those sites? Should they do the complete opposite and just trust their employees to do the right thing?

There’s no definitive answer. One study finds that employees perform better when they’re allowed access to whatever sites they want. That argument goes like this:

People who do surf the internet for fun at work–within a reasonable limit of less than 20 per cent of their total time in the office–are more productive by about nine per cent than those who don’t…. People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration. Think back to when you were in class listening to a lecture - after about 20 minutes your concentration probably went right down, yet after a break your concentration was restored. It’s the same in the workplace. Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a day’s work, and as a result, increased productivity.

Then the next study finds that social media sites decrease productivity:

Companies that allow users to access Facebook in the workplace lose an average of 1.5% in total employee productivity, according to a new report from Nucleus Research…Of those using Facebook at work, 87% said they had no clear business reason for using the site.

It’s enough to confuse both employers and employees. Increasingly, many companies are either banning Facebook entirely or drawing up specific policies addressing the use of social media sites.

But what should those policies look like?

The HR Capitalist addresses this question and provides a sample draft of such a policy. I like how Kris Dunn lays out employers’ options on this topic: a company can go “Darth Vader” and micromanage social-media use, or take a more common-sense approach.

Of course, either could backfire — no one wants to end with a Rebel Alliance undermining their policy, but then again, “common sense” can be defined differently by everybody when it comes to social media. In the article, Kris recommends keeping it simple, with something like this:

“<Insert your company name here> encourages team members to be active in social media as a representative of our company.  Only three rules – be real, add value and don’t say anything that would embarrass your mom.  If your mom has low standards, then don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of USA Today.  Simple enough.”

It’s kind of genius, you have to admit. But for those who want to get into the nitty-gritty details, you might check out this article on 10 “must-haves” for a social media policy; it includes an excellent sample policy as well.

This is the billboard that greeted President Obama in Buffalo.

When President Obama arrived in Buffalo, New York, a few weeks ago, he got about the last thing in the world he wanted: upstaged. Rather than reporting his message of economic recovery, media outlets were leading with reports like this one from CBS:

Frustrated western New Yorkers have a pointed message for President Barack Obama when he visits the economically troubled region Thursday: “I need a freakin job.” The president makes another stop on what the White House calls his “Main Street economic tour, this time to Buffalo, NY, the anchor city in a region that was hard hit long before a recession that made things even worse, Awaiting him will be a billboard carrying a simple, direct message: “Dear Mr. President, I need a freakin job. Period.”

Outwardly, the White House claimed not to be letting one billboard interefere with the president staying on message. But quickly it became clear that this one sign, which boiled the U.S. unemployment problem into one simple slogan, had struck a nerve. It seemed like even the president was listening:

But here’s a sign the job seekers’ message to the administration may be getting through: The White House just announced Obama will travel next Tuesday to Youngstown, Ohio — where unemployment hit 15.1 percent last month, the city’s highest jobless rate in more than 15 years. The focus of Obama’s visit: “jobs and the economy,” according to the White House. And a more direct sign still: Obama press aide Bill Burton was asked about the billboard in today’s press gaggle. His reply was, “The President is here to talk about jobs, what his administration has done to create jobs, what we need to do in order to create an environment where small businesses can create jobs. So the answer is, we’re on the path to creating more jobs, and we’ve got a lot more work to do.”

Suddenly a victory march became a pledge to work harder on jobs creation—and all, basically, because of the sign. It was the brainchild of a group that runs a Web site called inafj.org, the brainchild of Jeff Baker, a Buffalo businessman who lost his small business in 2009. Suddenly, CNN was calling him, more or less, a folk hero:

Unemployment is part of everyday life for millions of Americans and one man finally decided to do something about it. He created a grassroots organization, “I need a freakin’ job,” to give a voice to the fifteen million unemployed.

Whether or not Baker is a folk hero—and opinions run the gamut—he definitely touched a nerve. It may be true, as the president’s defenders argue, that there’s only so much Obama can do about job creation. But anger about the failed economy has hit a boiling point, and Baker’s billboard channeled it effectively.

The question is, what will he do with that momentum? Though Baker is clearly a conservative himself, he claims inafj.org is a non-partisan effort. But the website has an anti-government tone that is sure to turn off a lot of moderates. Some of the rhetoric goes way beyond the immediate problem of unemployment, and the angry tone is more motivational than practical. Some of the laundry lists of complaints:

Cynical is what you become after witnessing the destruction of American exceptionalism and realizing that you are a casualty of a handful of greedy animals feeding on the soul of a great nation. Obvious is the government’s need to get out of the way so that inventive young entrepreneurial Americas have the opportunity to stimulate an economy that produces jobs. Catastrophic is being a recent college graduate with diminished opportunies and the real obligation to repay educational debt.

The site’s endless hyberbole aside, it does highlight some issues that barely get attention in the mainstream media; the 27 percent youth unemployment rate, for instance.

If Baker can succeed in building a grassroots movement, what exactly will it do (besides sell T-shirts, which are the site’s current #1 export)? There is a petition on inafj.org that visitors can sign, but it doesn’t reference any specific plan of action. Is inafj.org doing anything but venting American rage at unemployment?

Baker thinks so, though he won’t give specific details. In any event, we can expect him to make plenty more noise.

More workers are looking for the exit, the government reports.

The Great Worker Exodus of 2010 may finally have arrived. Several economists last year had projected a huge uptick in workers walking away from their jobs, but when January 1 rolled around and the economy was still mired in layoffs and unemployment, their prognosis seemed a lot less likely.

That appears to be changing. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of Americans quitting their jobs in February surpassed the number being laid off or fired—the first time that’s happened since October of 2008. For the 15 months since, the average number of workers quitting their jobs has been hovering around 1.75 million, way down from the 2.7 million average since the BLS started tracking the data 10 years ago.

Clearly, the largest and longest recession since the Great Depression created a widespread feeling that anyone was lucky to any job, making workers a lot less likely to risk leaving a regular paycheck. Also, there weren’t nearly as many jobs to go to, and there was fierce competition for a lot of jobs that might have previously been easy to transition into.

However, job dissatisfaction, employee ambition and other factors that prompt workers to leave their job didn’t go away. That’s why surveys conducted in the last quarter of 2009 found that as many as 60 percent of workers said they planned to seek another job when the economy improved.

That job exodus appears to have begun, with the BLS reporting that about 1.87 million people quit their job in March. That’s 100,000 more people quitting than were laid off in the same time period. The shift will likely only get bigger, and it has companies specializing in recruitment and outplacement services ramping up for a big need in the market, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Adecco Group, a world-wide staffing firm based in Zurich, has seen several of its clients ask for candidates for key positions after employees made surprise departures, says Vice President Rich Thompson. Although so far there haven’t been widespread departures, Mr. Thompson says his company is readying itself for large-scale changes within the next few months. “We’re preparing for a massive reshuffling of talent at all job levels in all industries,” he says, noting that the recession earlier this decade was so short and shallow that the turnover this time around is likely to be much greater.

While a shift like this can be scary for companies looking to retain talent, overall economists see this kind of “workforce mobility” as a positive sign for the economy. Time Magazine added it to its list of reasons the economy “isn’t a total basket case” and the Motley Fool made it one of three signs the job market is back.

However, the timing could be more a matter of perception than real change in the economy. Indeed, stockbloghub.com points out that while fewer jobs are being lost, there is still a dearth of new jobs being created:

The problem has been, at least since the middle of 2009, not with too many people being fired, but with not enough new jobs being created … In February and March, the rate of new hires did pick up a little bit, but it remains at a very low level. In March this year, there were a total of 4.242 million people who got new jobs, up from just 3.670 million who found new jobs in March of 2009. The total number of people who lost their jobs fell to 3.698 million this year versus a total of 4.444 million who lost their jobs in March of 2009….The number of job openings has started to increase (the job openings numbers are a snapshot of the last day of the month, while the hires and fires are the totals for the month), but they still remain far below the worst points of the 2001 recession and the jobless recovery that followed it.

One good thing about a single-page resume is you can fit it on a t-shirt.

Let’s face it, the one-page resume never seemed fair. After working years to build interesting, solid careers, job seekers were suddenly told to boil it all down to what would fit on a single, generously spaced 8 x 10 page. Resume writers often have to spend far more time figure out how to cut out their experience to fit than they do crafting useful descriptions of everything they’ve done.

Once, not so long ago, it was acceptable to document one’s career with two, three, even four pages. The idea wasn’t so much that a human resource staffer would necessarily read all of it, but if someone responsible for hiring a position was interested in a particular candidate and wanted to read a little deeper into his or her particulars, the information was there.

Somehow, that got replaced by the notion that no one in their right mind would read more than one page about any one person, even if that person was being considered for an important position. Once an important tool for providing an in-depth look at the history of a job candidate—and a useful reference point for interviewers—the resume has since become basically a quick and crude means of weeding out unqualified candidates.

But in 2010, the art of the resume is at a crossroads. Joe Grimm at Poynter Online does an excellent job of laying out some reasons that the one-page resume may be a thing of the past. Two important ones:

(1) People are doing more. The best are simply winning more awards, having more opportunities, changing jobs more frequently and earning more degrees than used to be the case. They can sustain quality into a second page. (2) Look on LinkedIn. It’s hard to tell which resumes are one-pagers and which are longer. And when I see your digital resume on my computer screen, can’t I blow up the type? The same thing happens when you e-mail me a resume. I can blow it up. Digital resumes are making the concept of “page” a little arcane.

Unfortunately, though, Grimm doesn’t think breaking the one-page convention is a safe bet—yet:

I have thought for a long time that the one-page rule should be dead. However, a lot of the people that like them are still alive. So, it is wisest to stick to one page. While I will not ditch a resume just because I have to turn to a second page, some of the recruiters I respect insist on the conciseness of one page. So, I have a one-page resume and you probably should, too.

Louise Kursmark at careerthoughtleaders.com says the one-pager isn’t going anywhere. In fact, she says, resumes will only continue to get shorter.

Resumes for people at all levels are by necessity becoming crisper and more to the point. Factors influencing this trend include the proliferation of smart phones and other hand-held devices with minuscule screens; the explosion of the social media site Twitter that condenses all messages to 140 characters; and the bombardment of multimedia messages and advertisements that constantly entertain, distract, and shift focus. Readers quickly lose interest in wordy resumes that don’t get right to the point.

It’s interesting that Kursmark thinks resumes will continue to get shorter for the same reason that Grimm thinks they will get longer: technology has taken away the boundaries of the printed page. Certainly Kursmark’s points about screen-size are legitimate, but as the iPad has shown us, smaller is not necessarily the wave of the future.