Job Interview Prep, Remote Workers, Hiring Trends for 2019, the Blue-Collar Worker Shortage, and more

As the year 2019 inches closer by the minute and companies fine-tune their annual plans, industry trends and practices of the future are weighing heavily on many recruiters and HR professionals’ minds. What do they need to know now to succeed in the next year? What about the next five years? Ten years?

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Remote job listings grew more than 50% in some unexpected fields last year, according to a FlexJobs report. Fields that saw high growth in remote work for 2018 included law, science, and project management. It's no secret that remote work is on the rise. According to a 2017 telecommuting report by FlexJobs, the number of US employees who "worked from home at least half of the time" grew 115% in twelve years, from 1.8 million employees in 2005 to 3.9 million in 2017.

Feel confident by keeping in mind three things every interviewer wants to know. It’s pretty much a given that job interviews are fearful experiences, a necessary evil that you must survive in order to get hired. It is easy to imagine yourself being interrogated, with a bright light focused on you as your interviewers delight in throwing one daunting question after another your way. One way to defuse the angst you feel, and increase the chances for interview success, is to recognize that the interviewer has his or her own angst with the process.

The U.S. is currently dealing with a very tight labor market. And blue-collar jobs, in particular, are experiencing an acute worker shortage. The Conference Board, a nonprofit research organization, defines blue-collar occupations as “construction, extraction, farming, installation, maintenance, repair, production, transportation, and material moving, as well as low-pay services such as health care support, protective service, food preparation and serving, building and grounds cleaning, and personal care and service occupations.”

While most media companies end each year with a roundup of what happened during the past year, Well+Good, a wellness-focused media company founded in 2010, closes each year with a look towards what they predict will be pertinent to their readers in the coming year. Their annual wellness trends report, which was recently released, has historically been pretty spot on in identifying emerging trends in the wellness space ranging from what readers will eat, what they'll wear, how they'll work out and what they'll chose to put in their medicine cabinets in the new year.