Iowa courts are facing a serious shortage. The Gazette's courts reporter Trish Mehaffey talks with Becky Lutgen Gardner on the opportunities available to Iowa job seekers.

Key points:

• Iowa is facing a 'beyond crisis' level shortage of court reporters, with 33 job openings in the state and a nationwide high demand.
• Court reporting offers an annual starting salary of nearly $56,000 and involves transcribing court proceedings using specialized stenography skills.
• There's only one school in Iowa offering a two-year real time/court reporting degree, contributing to the shortage. The program recently went virtual and saw its highest enrollment in years.
• Despite the strenuous certification process, court reporters enjoy the varied nature of the job and the learning opportunities it provides.
• The shortage is affecting court proceedings, with court reporters having to juggle between different judges and hearings, causing delays and increased stress.
• Temporary solutions include hiring retired court reporters and conducting remote hearings, but a long-term solution is still needed.

Questions, comments? Contact us at Corridor Careers

In this podcast we discuss the recent trends in employee onboarding. Joining us is new product manager for Corridor Careers, Becky Lutgen Gardner. Becky brings a wealth of experience as well as recent employee onboarding experience.

Resources:

• Back to Human, 9 employee onboarding trends for 2023
• Trends in employee onboarding that can shape your onboarding process

This week we chatted with Gazette reporter Izabela Zaluska. Izabela walked us through her story on the Iowa City program that builds connections for job seekers to the skilled trades.

This interesting program helps job seekers learn more about trades before entering an apprenticeship program so they will better understand what trades are a good fit for them.

Resources:

• Izabela's article on thegazette.com
• Link to program opportunity
• Other skilled trades opportunities

Job openings in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City in trades

We had a great conversation with The Gazette's Des Moines Bureau Chief, journalist Erin Murphy.

Recently Erin talked with a state economist in his piece on how difficult it will be to recoup Iowa's worker losses.

Some highlights:

• Slow population growth for nearly a decade has led to more job openings than people to fill them in Iowa.
• 'Brain drain' of young Iowans who benefit from Iowa's schools and universities are leaving at higher rates for other states.
• Retiring and aging workforce leave many skilled positions hard to fill with the sheer volume of them.
• Immigrants have continued to be the main source of new population in Iowa and many legislatures will be focused on how to reform legal pathways for immigrants who wish to come to Iowa to fill the many jobs we have to fill.
• Many state-funded upskilling and re-skilling programs are being strengthened by additional funding.

You can read Erin's story here on thegazette.com

So what does this news mean for job seekers? More competition among employers for their skills. Additionally, job seekers who are currently struggling to find jobs or a better career can benefit from multiple apprenticeship or upskilling programs available near them at local community colleges or workforce training centers.

Want to hear more from Erin Murphy? You can sign up for his weekday newsletter On Iowa Politics or listen in to his On Iowa Politics podcast. Once the legislative session in Iowa starts back up in Iowa, Erin will be covering all the happenings at the statehouse.

Just for fun:

• Confused Breakfast Podcast (mentioned Pork Tornadoes Drummer Mike Schulte)

Freelance ideas mentioned:

• Social Media Strategist (content manager or creator, marketing strategist)
• Fiverr freelancing https://www.fiverr.com/
• Pet Sitting https://www.rover.com/
• Minor repairs (handy services)

A big one we forgot to mention: Delivering newspapers!

In this podcast we review the Google-recommended functional resume format and talk about the ins and outs.

Resources:

• Google webinar about practical resume strategies
• Make a copy of this google docs functional resume
• Standard resume template
• Video Resume tips

Mental Health resources for job seekers mentioned

• Local Mental Health Tools
• 988 Suicide Hotline
• Foundation2 Crisis Line

Free training from Google:

• Create a resume that stands out
• Nail your job search process
• Google professional certificate training

Kirkwood training resources

• FastTrack Career Certificates

IowaWorks Earn & Learn Apprenticeships

Show notes:

1. Identify your learning objective: What do I want to learn?
2. Set a measure of success.
3. Review learning opportunities: YouTube, Google, Kirkwood + beyond