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Beyond.com Expands Team By Bringing Marketing and Product Development Expert Aboard

Beyond.com, the premier Career Network focused on helping people grow and succeed professionally, today announced the hiring of John Krautzel as Director of Marketing. With more than 11 years of online marketing experience, Mr. Krautzel has a successful track record of understanding audience needs and translating them to successful product initiatives. In this role, Mr. Krautzel will be spearheading Beyond.com’s new consumer product development initiatives. 

“We are thrilled that John has joined our team,” said Joe Weinlick, Vice President of Marketing for Beyond.com.  “We have a mission to develop products and services to help people manage and get ahead in their careers, and John is the ideal person to lead this program.  He brings a unique insight when it comes to professional audiences and how they engage online. Working with John—someone who has been on the front lines in cultivating effective digital relationships—will be critical as we build future products and continue to grow our online communities.”

Formerly an 11-year veteran with Toolbox.com, a network of online communities of experienced professionals, Mr. Krautzel specializes in building knowledge-sharing communities that allow professionals to collaborate with their peers to solve workplace challenges and manage their careers.  This in-depth perception of collaborative professional relationships will be essential as Beyond.com continues to expand its portfolio of career management services.

While at Toolbox.com, Mr. Krautzel held various positions including: Associate Director of Marketing and Client Services, Senior Marketing Manager, and Search Engine Marketing Specialist.  Prior to joining Toolbox.com he worked for Pilot Freight Services as a Customer Service Specialist coordinating customer needs to 75 satellite offices across the globe.  Mr. Krautzel holds a Bachelors degree in Business Management from West Chester University.

The Death of the Cubicle Has Made My Coworkers Ruder

Yesterday, I read two separate articles about the death of the cubicle and how forward thinking executives (particularly those hip execs in Silicon Valley) are cultivating collaborative workspaces by knocking down those dated cubicle walls. 

While I love looking at pictures of innovative workplaces, I don’t think I could work in one.  No doubt it would be fun at first, but I get distracted easily and working in an open environment at a table, on a couch, or in a hanging chair—I think my productivity would take a hit. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of those cubicle walls tumbling down. I just don’t know if I’m ready to give them up completely.  Right now I sit in an open collaborative environment with pony walls (those half cubicle walls), but even they bring their own set of problems—everyone hears each other’s conversations, talking on the phone is annoying to colleagues, and headphones are a MUST.  In fact I read in the NY Times that headphones are the new cubicle wall and I couldn’t agree more. 

If you look around our office floor you’ll see that about 75% of us wear headphones at some point during the day.  When you sit with 30 people in an open space they're sometimes the only way you can get anything done—even if they’re not dispensing any music. 

However, my one big complaint about not having a traditional cubicle is that my coworkers’ manners seem to have fallen by the wayside.  Because I don’t have a door or high walls, teammates are constantly approaching my workspace and diving right into their questions—there’s no “How ya doin’?”, “Do you have a minute?” or “Can I ask you a quick question?” Because they’ve seen me sitting at my desk while they made their 20-foot approach, they assume I saw them coming my way and am ready to converse.  But in reality, I most likely had no idea you were walking towards my desk because I have my noise canceling headphones on. So even though I’m out on the floor like a sitting duck, make sure you preface your question with “Do you have a minute?” It’s just the polite thing to do.

As for the death of the cubicle, I think we still have a ways to go before I’m sitting in a hanging chair examining the latest employment trends—figure out the noise distraction issue first and then we’ll talk.

The BLS Numbers Are Out But What Did the Beyond.com Career Network See This Month?

Today’s the day, the day that all focus turns to jobs.  How many jobs were added in the previous month? Was the needle moved on the unemployment rate? Which industries are adding opportunities? And what does this all mean for our current economic outlook?

Today the numbers showed that employment rose by 115,000 in April and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.1 percent. Which is what we thought we’d see—unemployment relatively unchanged.   Employment increased in professional and business services, retail trade, and health care, but declined in transportation and warehousing.

So that’s what the BLS says, but what are we at Beyond.com seeing?  True the number of jobs posted on the Beyond.com Career Network won’t result in immediate jobs added to the economy, but we can help predict what we should expect in the months to come.

Opportunities Posted As Compared to March

When compared to last month we've seen a 2% decrease in the total number of jobs posted in April 2012 when compared to the number of job opportunities posted in March.  However, when compared to the number of opportunities posted to the Beyond.com Career Network last year at this time opportunities are up by 236%.  While it is great that jobs are up, we’re not seeing jobs grow as aggressively as many would like, but thoughtful growth is important—if corporations grow too fast that could lead to issues down the road.

For those college graduates entering the workforce in the next few months, more than 52% of jobs posted to our network are entry-level positions, which is a promising sign.

Industries That Are Growing
As for the industries that we’ve seen the most growth occur since March?  They are Customer Service, Hospitality (as we prepare for summer months), and Media & Communications.

Where The Jobs Are
The question we get most—where are the jobs at? Well, when looking at the total number of opportunities posted to the Beyond.com Career Network, the most jobs were located in the New York metropolitan area, however that’s just based on total jobs.  When you compare the total number of jobs posted in relation to the number of available workers (Civilian Labor Force) in a specific metropolitan area—the most opportunities are actually in San Jose, CA, Bloomington, IL, and Columbus, IN.

So that’s what we saw in April, while job growth was slow, we hope we’ll see some pickup as college grads emerge on the scene.

How to Survive Bring Your Child to Work Day

That’s right today’s the day you either dread or love.  I’ve heard mixed things from many people about how they feel towards this national day.  Some feel like this while others can’t wait to show off their kids to their colleagues.

In the past we didn’t make a big deal about the day here and I’m not a mom yet so this holiday never had an impact on me (besides when I went to work with my dad as a kid and I remember it not being all that exciting).

Overall though they have a nice day planned for the kids—complete with an office tour, games, movies, and ice cream.  As for me, I’m on a deadline—so hanging out with the kiddies will not be on my agenda.  And even though I won’t have much interaction with my colleagues’ children I will still be impacted by their presence as my colleagues home and work lives collide.  So how can I stay on target despite the pitter-patter of 15 youths running through the office?

Headphones are ESSENTIAL.  It’s only 10:00AM and I’m already distracted by the tinking sound of pucks bouncing off the air hockey table.

Assign Someone to Spend Time With the Kids.  This happens to fall on our lovely HR Manager today.  She has developed a schedule that is sure to keep the kids entertained throughout the day and out of Mom and Dad’s hair.  Plus the schedule is so jam-packed with activities that the kids should be exhausted by the end of the day—which should make their parents happy.

Accept That Your Production Level Will Be Low & Use the Day to Get to Know Your Coworkers Better.  Many of us try so hard to maintain a work life balance but if there’s any day that throws caution to the wind—its Bring Your Child to Work Day.  This however is a great opportunity to get to know your colleagues on a personal level.  While I don’t have kids, I always enjoy a funny kid story and I like meeting my team members’ children because I already know all the amusing things they do.

I assume that my production level will certainly not be up to the level that it usually is today—so I guess it’s better to accept that disappointment now and enjoy day.

It’s Official, I’m an Office Hoarder!

It defeats me to say this— because in other aspects of my life I LOVE to throw things out—but I’m an office hoarder.  When it comes to work, I just can’t seem to let go!  But, I recently became so overwhelmed with the amount of stuff on my desk, that I decided it was time to clean house.

I started the massive clean-up on Friday afternoon at 3:30PM and as the office emptied out for the weekend I found myself surrounded by piles of papers, notebooks, and tradeshow giveaways at 6:30PM.  At that point I just started to chuck things in the recycle bin—only half looking at them to see if they were important—I figured they’ve been in this pile since 2010, I won’t miss them and so far so good, my desk is clean, but how can I prevent this from happening again?

Here are five tips I plan to use to combat the clutter:

• Ask for your own recycle bin.  I feel bad throwing something away which can be recycled, so things pile up on my desk until I take a trip to the recycle bin, but if I had my own recycle bin (to also help further cultivate my laziness) I probably wouldn’t still have my coworkers resume from when she interviewed for her job here more than four years ago.
  
  
• Set up a reoccurring meeting with (your new) recycle bin. Friday afternoon is a good time to do this. Anything that’s been completed in the course of the week—toss it!
  
  
• Create and stick to a to-do list. Create a to-do list at the beginning of the week and stick to it.  Break it down by day and focus on those things for that particular day, this should help you stay focused and organized.
  
  
• Come up with an organization system. When I was cleaning up my space I noticed that I had an unused set of plastic shelves that hold file folders.  I finally put them to good use and I’m attempting to stay organized by filing and not piling.
  
  
• Stop the printing! I am VERY guilty of this, especially at the end of the day when I have trouble focusing on my computer screen, so I instead print something out, which I read and then banish  to a pile that won’t be looked at for another 2 years.

So far after day one I’m on track to not fall back into my old patterns, I just hope these easy behavior modifications can keep me organized and on task—we shall see.  If you have any tips you use for staying organized, let me know, as you can see from the picture of my desk (before the clean up) I can use all the help I can get.