Wishing you a joyous holiday season.

May 2009 be a year of peace, happiness and success.

Mark, Eric and the McKinley Team

The holiday season is a time for getting together with family and friends as well as providing a much needed break from the day-to-day demands of the workplace.

It also provides an opportunity to check some of the latest gadgets and widgets.

Sandra Haida has come up with a list Ten Cool Gadgets You Must Add to iGoogle that you might want to check out.

You may have seen some of them before but never really had a chance to check out how they can make your life easier – why not do it now and have them ready to go in the new year?

Chris Brogan recently asked a millennial to explain her perspective on the workplace.

This is how she explained it:
We crave personal development - . If we aren’t being challenged, if we’re not constantly learning from the projects we take on, if we’re not allowed to test new waters -you can bet we’ll seek out new jobs.
We pursue unconventional paths - In a time of low job security, rather than taking the single corporate job path, many of us will explore our options, whether that means taking on multiple jobs or starting our own businesses.
We value company culture - No longer is a company just a place to toil away at a desk from 9-5 — we’re looking for a vibrant community in which our coworkers are our friends and our bosses are our mentors.
We’re not afraid to ask - We’ve been taught the importance of asking for exactly what we want. We’re not afraid to raise difficult questions in the workplace.
We just want to do what we love - As long as our careers provide both the opportunities and rewards we thirst for, we’ll be more than willing to invest serious time and energy into our work. If you can give us that, we’ll be star performers.

So this is how one millennial sees it - anyone from Gen X or a Boomer care to comment?

With the economy on its way down and winter just around the corner, the competition for jobs is heating up. And when the going gets tough, the tough get… a little too creative.

According to a provider of background screening services, roughly 10 percent of the education verifications completed by the company during the second quarter of 2008 revealed discrepancies. Nearly one of every 10 candidates is lying about his or her educational background.

“Unemployment’s high; people need to put food on the table. And going in for a job that requires a degree and not having one is obviously going to put you at a disadvantage,”  “So [candidates think,] ‘Why not lie?’ If you’re applying to 10 different jobs, maybe you’ll get one of them. Plus, they think people don’t check these things out.”

The repercussions of hiring an employee who lied on his or her resume can be serious - it can mean the difference between having qualified and unqualified people in positions.

Do you want to get the people that you think you hired – check out McKinley’s hiring solutions.