National News: Up/down industries; the hiring process, start-to-finish; and skilled workers needed?

As I mentioned early last week, Friday was a mandatory, unpaid furlough day for state workers. That means we had to skip the usual Friday blog post about national news.

But I noticed a lot of interesting employment-related stories last week and I really want to share! So here's a handful of the latest happenings...

CNN Money ran a pair of articles about employment changes during the current economic recovery. One article focused on the industries adding jobs right now, including health care and education. The other article is about "industries the recovery has left behind." These include construction (no surprise), finance and insurance (it's tied to the housing market, so this also makes sense), and "media".

CNN Money also wrote an article about "the secret life of a resume". The story takes an in-depth look at the hiring process for a large, global company (Siemens), from the initial job posting through the final candidate selection.

There's nothing startling about their hiring process, but it sure is interesting! After nearly 190 applications and six weeks, the company made an offer to just one person for a civil engineering position.

Hmm... 190 applicants? Does that sound like a lot for just one job opening? I would venture a guess that it's a product of the large, global nature of Siemens; I don't think most employers are seeing quite that much interest in highly skilled positions. According to staffing company ManpowerGroup, many employers are reporting just the opposite issue -- they perceive a global shortage in skilled workers.