“Find a new (or better) job.” If this is your New Year’s resolution, you will be in good company with one out of four Americans who set goals at the start of the year.

But what’s the best way to keep your resolution? Especially given that a majority of individuals who make promises to themselves in the form of resolutions don’t keep them.

Here are three ways to help yours stick:

1. Get Ready

Create your own inner circle of trusted friends and supporters. Tell them three things:

a. What interests you
b. What you do best — skills and interests
c. How you plan to conduct a search

Then make the big ask: Now that I’ve shared this with you, will you hold me to it? Will you ask me regularly how it’s going and encourage me to keep it up?

Why this works: Peer pressure. It is harder to give up when you’ve said what you want to do out loud. In addition, people who know you are looking can keep an eye out for jobs that might fit you — and put in a referral or a good word on your behalf. (Did we mention that referrals are one of employers’ favorite ways to find new employees?)

2. Get Set

There’s no need to rush out to the 50 percent off Calendar sales to get better organized…use StartWire’s  free tools to:

a. Find and apply for jobs (check out our Express Apply features under Application Connect)
b. Track where you’ve applied (you may be able to receive auto updates on your application status)
C. Download an electronic record of your job search activity (StartWire keeps your data confidential but allows you to generate a report you can use to update others on your search. If you are receiving unemployment, you may be able to use this for your Work Search record.

3. Go!

Even if you applied for a job in November and are waiting to hear back, follow up! Following up and making a habit of applying for jobs as soon as you see them listed is a good way to stay visible for employers — especially if you’ve asked contacts inside a company to put in a good word for you.

As always, we’ll continue to give you tips that you can use for your job search in 2013.

Regardless of whether we hit the fiscal cliff or not, we will be back next week with tips you can use to protect yourself from economic slowdowns and unemployment.

Let’s make it a great year!

“There’s no reason to look for a job in December. Everyone’s out for holiday parties — who’s in the mood to work? With the exception of seasonal workers needed to ring up holiday sales, no one hires new employees between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.”

This week we’re here to dispel the myth that December is a terrible time to search for a new job. In fact, last week CNN Money career expert Anne Fisher penned an advice column entitled “Why the holidays are the best time to find a new job.” Want proof? Fisher cites a recent ExecuNet survey of recruiters that indicates Santa is not the only one making a list and checking it twice. A whopping 69% of recruiters report placing “as many, or even more, candidates in December as in any other month.”

Why do employers keep hiring? First, most American businesses don’t take a long winter’s nap until after the holidays. In fact, many recruiting firms and employers work round-the-clock to complete searches by the end of the calendar year — especially since the fiscal year for many organizations also ends December 31 and some have a “use the money or lose it” policy for hiring.

Throughout December, we will showcase best practices for holiday networking — with an eye for efficiency and fun so you can make the most of your time with family and friends. In the interim, here are three reasons why you shouldn’t give up your search in December.

1.  You have a better chance of beating out the competition.

Many job seekers temporarily suspend their job search until January; others make a New Year’s resolution to start looking for a job. In fact, USA.gov places “getting a better job” as #4 on the list of top New Year’s resolutions made by Americans.

Just as the first people in line have a better chance of getting the limited number of super sale items on Black Friday, you can be first in line to apply for jobs that are open right now. (As a reminder, StartWire only lists jobs that are less than two weeks old; we can send you alerts of new positions — and we also have a new ExpressApply feature that eliminates the long application process so that you can apply for jobs in under 30 seconds!)

2.   Holiday events are a wonderful occasion to meet friends of friends — powerful networking connections.

You’ve heard it here before: On average, one out of every 33 candidates is going to get hired from an online source—such as a job board or a career site. If you are referred, your odds go up to one in four.

One of the best ways to get those referrals is through friends of friends — people often referred to as “weak ties.” Studies show weak ties are often likely to be one of the most effective leads for new jobs, especially since you are most likely to come “top of mind” if someone you just met and had a great conversation with is asked for a recommendation on who to hire for a job.

3.  Job search can be a stress buster.

From cooking, cleaning, and shopping to financial pressures and family drama, the holidays can be a stressful time. If you’re concerned about your career, taking the time to proactively seek out new friendships and opportunities can help reduce anxiety — since you know you’re proactively taking charge of your professional life.

These are three reasons why we believe it makes sense to keep looking in December. What are your thoughts?

StartWire, America’s #1 job search organizer, today announced the results of a national, presidential election survey of active job seekers. The major findings from the survey revealed that presidential candidate Governor Mitt Romney is the favorite with 52 percent of likely voters as opposed to President Barack Obama with 48 percent of the vote.

Romney’s edge lay with those who identified themselves as unemployed or underemployed. Romney was also chosen as the candidate who would create more jobs, while President Obama had an edge on the question of which candidate will look out more for the unemployed.

The specific findings among likely voters included:

•     53 percent of unemployed and underemployed respondents are planning to vote for Mitt Romney versus 46 percent planning to vote for Barack Obama;
•     Barack Obama leads with job seekers who currently hold a full-time job with 58 percent of likely voters vs. 42 percent for Mitt Romney;
•     47 percent of respondents believe that Mitt Romney will create more jobs as President vs. 33 percent for Barack Obama;
•     46 percent believe Barack Obama will look out more for the unemployed as President vs. 39 percent for Mitt Romney; and
•     Of the 859 survey respondents – all of whom are actively looking for work – 37 percent identified as Republicans, 37 percent as Democrats and 25 percent as Independent.

“Jobs and the economy are front and center in this campaign and we wanted to make sure the voice of the active job seeker was added to the debate,” said Chris Forman, CEO and founder, StartWire. “While the StartWire survey shows a tight race, there is a clear correlation between employment and candidate preference. Our research indicates unemployed and underemployed Americans clearly want a change in the White House.”

Seeking to radically improve the job search process, StartWire closes the “résumé black hole” by providing more than 500,000 job seekers with automatic application status updates from thousands of employers. With a network of 7,000+ employers and growing, StartWire improves application visibility and hiring knowledge for job seekers and recruiters.

Editors Note: The StartWire survey was conducted October 16 – October 21, 2012 to the most recent active StartWire user base. 57 percent of respondents indicated that they have been looking for a job for six months or more. For more information regarding the survey, please contact jennifermq(at)yapr(dot)com.

About StartWire™
StartWire™ is a game-changing Internet job search organizer that launched in early 2011. StartWire closes the “résumé black hole” by providing job seekers with automatic application status updates from thousands of employers. Since its inception, StartWire has received rave reviews and write-ups in US News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, About.com, AOL Jobs, CNN, ERE, and Human Resource Executive.

The other night, as I watched the Presidential Debate, I heard a lot of talk about jobs and job creation from both candidates. They each have their own take on how America can best get back on its feet and get people back to work. As I watched, I wanted to know…what do real job seekers think of these plans? Who do you, as an American searching for work, trust with your future?

So, if you’d like to take a minute to share your thoughts, I ask you to take this anonymous survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9JCHXH9

It’s just a few questions, asking you to share your viewpoint as the American job seeker. It’s completely anonymous (I won’t see anyone’s identity or email address when they reply) and completely optional. Share if you’d like your view points out here. If not, thanks for taking the time to read this post!

Here at StartWire, we work hard to make your job search faster and easier. Today we’re proud to announce a big update to our site that’s going to help you enjoy StartWire a little more…

StartWire Mobile is now live!

A lot of you are on the go and relying on your mobile phones to keep you updated – on everything from family and friends, to the news. Wouldn’t it be better if you could search for, apply to and check status updates on your jobs on the go too? We thought so. StartWire Mobile, our new mobile optimized site, streamlines everything that’s great about StartWire on your computer, and puts it in the palm of your hand.

And hey, did we mention, you can now apply to jobs from your mobile device?

Just upload your resume to your StartWire account to activate this feature. Then using our ExpressApply feature (already available on your desktop or laptop), you’ll be able to view and apply to jobs that you qualify for with a few clicks of your thumb. It’s that easy.

Get moving with StartWire Mobile at m.startwire.com!

We can’t wait to hear what you think of our mobile addition! Try it out and let us know what you think.

If ‘recruiting’ is one of the biggest touch points companies have to those outside of the company, then why do job seekers not receive treatment that customers would? In this year’s Recruiting Trends Conference, Chris Forman, CEO of StartWire is presenting on: Why We Need to Treat Job Seekers Like Customers.

At StartWire, we believe not only that job seekers deserve to be treated like customers, but that companies who do so will benefit from this consideration.  Job seekers, in applying to positions, see the human side of companies that they may not have otherwise. Their experience will often define how they view that company’s entire brand. If you want a good brand image, start with treating the job seekers your organization deals with respectfully. Furthermore, someone may not be a good fit for the open position today – but the perfect candidate for a later opening. They have already shown that they WANT to work there. Treating a candidate well today, even if they aren’t hired, means you may have your next hire already in hand. We all wear many hats, and someone who is a job seeker today, may have a number of chances in the future to interact with your company and their brand. Treat them kindly today, and reap the benefits down the line.

Companies who understand this problem often feel it’s an insurmountable obstacle because they simply have too many applicants and too little time. However, new technologies are being developed to help recruiting departments provide good experiences to job applicants. StartWire’s own ApplicationConnect helps make the application process user-friendly, without adding extra work for recruiters. It’s time to realize that providing a good candidate experience is both important and possible.

The Recruiting Trends Conference features world-class recruiting leaders who will be sharing ideas to address this topic and other key ideas in recruiting to better the recruitment sphere. Here’s to changing the world of recruiting for job seekers, one presentation at a time! Thanks for all of your support StartWire fans!

StartWire is excited to announce that our newly launched product for employers, ApplicationConnect, was chosen as one of the 2012 TOP HR PRODUCTS OF THE YEAR by Human Resource Executive for its unique contribution to the field.  This award recognizes “excellence and innovation in the HR vendor community” and we are honored to be part of such a high performing group.

With Application Connect, StartWire supports the importance of the candidate experience.  Application Connect is a tool devised to encourage businesses to treat applicants like customers.  Applicants can receive status updates on their job applications and have a space to give employers feedback on their experience. This allows businesses to create positive branding practices, which support customer perspective towards their product or service and a better recruiting experience.

As we attend this conference, we will be keeping our ears open for advice from top HR professionals on how to better improve the job search experience for job-seekers!  Thank you to all of your support!

The StartWire team is off to Chicago on October 8-10 to attend the 15^th Annual HR Technology Conference & Expo and support the 2012 Candidate Experience Awards as a sponsor. 

The Candidate Experience Awards encourage businesses to improve the candidate experience.   Searching for a job is a stressful situation and the Talent Board, a non-profit research organization who is behind the CandE Awards, recognizes this.  Their mission is to help employers and candidates have a more effective and humane experience during the recruiting process.  For this goal, StartWire is proud to be a sponsor of the CandE Awards.

The HR Technology Conference explores how technology is bringing about change in HR practices and some new ways of implementing technology to improve HR practices.  Attendees from 27 nations, senior HR executives, the top six most powerful software executives in our world, and HR technology consultants make this one of the most anticipated HR conferences of the year!  More about the HR Tech Expo from their main page.

StartWire’s team is excited to be attending the conference, and proud to be supporting an improved candidate experience. Let’s all keep working to make the job search and hiring process better!

Last week, we shared an exclusive interview with Tucker Robeson, CEO of CDL Helpers, a company that’s out to solve a $5 billion dollar problem in the trucking industry. (Because 89% of truckers who sign on with large trucking companies don’t stay on for longer than a year — there’s a huge cost of staffing and training. Not to mention safety.)

When we sat down with Tucker, we were wildly impressed not only by what he’s doing with his business — but also by his innovative approach to hiring. A former recruiter who studied entrepreneurship in college, here’s his take on the best ways to score your next job.
 

1. Get creative with how you approach employers.

   I know it’s tough, because sometimes it means spending more money. I’ve been there. However, there are lots of low budget ways to reach people outside of the box.

   For my last resume, I actually included charts that showed how I spent my time in my past jobs – this helped employers see what I was good at and what I had done in the past.

   Want another way to do this? Interview someone who works in the industry you’d like to work with. Ask them to share their biggest challenges. Then write out examples of times you’ve solved problems similar to those challenges – and share those examples – in your cover letters, in interviews – and in any situation where you talk about why you’d like to work in the job and the industry.

   Tip: An easy way to find out what matters to current employees is to check out employee reviews. Track any job you’ve applied to in StartWire and you’ll see a quick link to that company’s information — as well as salary ranges and interview questions you may be asked. (It’s a free back door to Glassdoor.)
    

2. Focus on adding value to the company.

   Companies that weren’t planning on hiring will find room for someone they truly believe will add more value to the company than they cost in wages. Don’t think about meeting requirements. Think about, “How am I going to make this company a better company because I am in it?” It will show during interviews and during conversations with network connections.
    

3. Be friendly – even when asked tough questions.

   Even if you’re asked a challenging question that you feel challenges your credibility, show you can be polite and encourage open, unthreatening dialogue. “I know I’m right doesn’t get offers.”

   One of the questions we love to ask is: “When someone tells you that you are wrong, but you know… you are certain… that you are right, how do you handle it?”

   People that truly love to learn and adapt well to a new job usually show it by answering in ways that are polite and encourage open, unthreatening dialogue. We want to see employees who are open-minded to other opinions. Would you want to work with someone who isn’t?
    

4. Don’t sign up to do something you know you won’t like.

   You will be terrible at it. Eventually, your dislike for your work will seep into your soul and make your whole life less enjoyable, and everyone will notice.
    

5. Be open to re-location.

The economy is tough right now, especially for recent grads and people in the 18 to 25 year-old age range. Our entire nation was built on the efforts of a migrant and mobile workforce. The only reason the Midwest exists is because people were willing to move here, away from their families in the cities, and make something happen. I truly believe everyone has the potential to add value to the world in a unique way. Sometimes, it’s just hard to find the right spot, so you have to go find it.
 

Speaking of relocation, are you hiring?
 

Yes, we’re hiring for three spots right now. You can see them on our Careers website.

We don’t do applications, and we don’t have normal interviews. We just want to see a basic resume, and some reasons we should hire you. We ask people to be creative. We like to see candidates who show they can think on their feet.

Basically, if you’re energetic and have demonstrated through basic work history that you can learn and adapt yourself with passion, we can train you to do the rest.

We want to be the Zappos for truck drivers. We’re hiring people to help us listen to truck drivers employed by our clients.We literally start every call by saying, “How can your day be better, and what can I do to make that happen?” One time, I conference called in a divorce attorney for a driver, because he was so stressed about issues with his wife and his divorce. The poor guy didn’t have the time, being stuck out on the road, to look up someone reputable in his home area and get some advice. So, we made it happen. Whatever it takes.

We gather confidential feedback from our drivers and then share strategies with our clients so that they can help their employees feel more connected to the company and engaged. Truck drivers often feel isolated and cut off from their work just after they make a delivery. Giving a check in, “hey, how are you doing?” call just after the delivery can boost employee morale – and also help companies get valuable information about their clients. Members of our Tactical Management team gather and share this data – those are the primary roles we are hiring for right now.

You can reach Tucker Robeson on Twitter (@tuckrobeson or @CDLHelpers). If you’d like more free tools and strategies for your job search, we encourage you to check out StartWire and send us a tweet — how can we help you in your search?

Finding a new job may not be easy, but sometimes it’s just as hard to be on the other side of the hiring equation. This week, we’re putting the spotlight on the problem by showcasing an industry where employers have a hard time hiring and keeping employees.

We’re talking about the transportation industry – and truckers. Whether you love or hate tractor-trailers on the highway, the trucking industry moves supplies that feed us, clothe us, house us, and cure us when we are sick.

Yet Tucker Robeson, CEO and Co-Founder of CDL Helpers, a company that provides employeeretention services to the transportation industry, says the system truckers use to hire and retain employees is beyond broken. So broken, there’s an 89% turnover rate of drivers year-to-year in big trucking companies. Can you imagine working for a company where less than one out of ten employees stay for more than a year?

How expensive is this problem to the trucking industry? Robeson says it’s a $5B dollar problem, and he’s created a business to help fix it. A former recruiter, Tucker was born in Winona, MN and graduated from Saint Mary’s University of MN with a degree in Entrepreneurship. He started CDL Helpers to change the way the trucking industry thinks about its work force, and how drivers are treated and supported by their employers. In a nutshell, Tucker’s mission is to make the trucking industry ask “how’s my hiring?” just as frequently as they ask “how’s my driving?”

We sat down with Tucker to get his perspective on how the recruiting process is flawed and how it can be fixed. While today’s process focuses on the trucking industry, the problems faced by companies in this industry are not unique – many industries struggle to find employees and manage their own reputations. Want proof of this? Just ask companies who’ve had their jobs profiled on the TV show Dirty Jobs?

Here’s Tucker’s take on the challenges faced by the trucking industry in hiring, what’s broken and what can be fixed, and how you can feel confident when you’ve found the right company to work for…

This is the first of a two part series, next week we’ll share Tucker’s unique take on job search strategies that work – and learn more about how he hires!

You say that the recruiting process for the trucking industry is fundamentally flawed. How so? What’s the problem – and what are the costs to both the industry and employees?

Recruiting new truckers doesn’t address the real problem the trucking industry faces: Why are people leaving? If I’m running a successful business, and I pay/treat people fairly, shouldn’t they want to stay?

So many trucking companies have had their names poisoned by former employees, recruits, and others that had a bad experience.  Since they weren’t customers, nobody thought to focus on their personal experiences with the company.  However, bad experiences they encounter could ultimately, end up hurting the company in the future.

When I used to recruit drivers, there were some companies I couldn’t pay people to go to, just because they had heard some horror story from another driver at a truck stop about things going sour. Word-of-mouth is incredibly important to drivers as they look for work.

What are common qualities of top employers in your industry? How can job seekers spot companies who have these qualities?

As is the case with many industries, top employers in the trucking industry are hard to recognize because a lot of advertising and recruiting efforts tout great things that don’t always turn out to be true, and there are very few ways to hold the bad companies accountable. So, you can’t always go by advertising.

There’s a huge lack of trust and misinformation in the industry which has left many drivers extremely skeptical or cynical. That’s part of what we are trying to fix. My company, CDL Helpers, partners with trucking companies to address employee issues. Trucking companies hire us to provide support to new hires during their first few months on a job and we have the ability to escalate problems directly to the top if necessary, to make sure their concerns are addressed.

Breaking into the trucking industry can be challenging for prospective drivers, as there are many hiring requirements that are rigid. You have to be in good physical health, hold a strong driving record, and more often than not – have experience.

Other than that, they should look for companies that are easy to communicate with. After 10 business days post-application, if they haven’t heard anything and can’t reach anyone inside, that’s often an indicator of how things will go from then on out.

The best trucking companies to work for are also usually the hardest to get into. They require the most experience, and the cleanest records. Drivers that work for companies that are headquartered or have a main terminal within 30 miles of their domicile seem to do much better. If drivers can’t find a company that’s close enough to home, they should seriously consider either re-locating to another area, or looking into other careers. Their time at home will be better, they won’t have to risk as much of their own personal resources going to orientation, and they will probably have more reliable miles at the company if they live close by.

Stop by StartWire News next week for Tucker’s perspective on great ways to stand out in the applicant pool and get noticed. In the interim — if you haven’t done so already — pop by StartWire and take advantage of our free tools to organize your search.