By anthony balderrama on Feb 15, 2010 in Career Advice, Featured, Job Search | 39 Comments
At a glance, you can quickly see that our culture is fixated on tests. From tests for children whose overachieving parents want to get them into exclusive day cares to students playing the college admissions game, people are filling in bubbles left and right these days. And I guarantee that most of us have had [...]
By anthony balderrama on Feb 12, 2010 in Featured, Job Search | 17 Comments
You might have read fellow Work Buzzer Kate Lorenz’s article on strange things written in cover letters and résumés. As expected, hiring managers and employers have seen some pretty bizarre things. A couple of examples:
“One of the weirdest résumés I ever received was from someone who had a statement at the top about how dependable [...]
By anthony balderrama on Feb 11, 2010 in Featured, Fun stuff, Pop culture | 4 Comments
Do you hear something? It’s the sound of proud citizens around the globe puffing their chests as athletes from their nation head to the Olympics. *hums national anthem*
Every two years, either the summer or winter games dominate our TV viewing for two weeks. Events we wouldn’t normally give two hoots about suddenly must be recorded. [...]
By Kate Lorenz on Feb 10, 2010 in Employment Trends, Featured, Pop culture, Work/Life | 6 Comments
When you think of TV’s most famous romantic duos — Jim and Pam, McDreamy and Meredith, Turk and Carla, Sam and Diane, Mr. Burns and Smithers – they all have one thing in common: They met on the job.
But when it comes to finding love, it’s not just reserved for primetime. Regardless of the economy, [...]
By anthony balderrama on Feb 9, 2010 in Featured, Jobs, Telecommuting | 16 Comments
Working from home isn’t exactly a new concept, so I was surprised to see it was a headline story on NPR today. Then I read the actual story, which is yet another lesson not to judge a book by its cover or an article by its headline. Adam Hochberg’s article and the accompanying audio story [...]
By anthony balderrama on Feb 8, 2010 in Featured, Fun stuff, Super Bowl | 2 Comments
If you’re one of the people who tuned into the big game yesterday–and seeing as the audience is expected to top 100 million people, you probably were a viewer–you saw a heck of a game. And by now everyone accepts the fact that the commercials are just as much of a draw as the game [...]
By Kate Lorenz on Feb 5, 2010 in Employment, Employment Trends, Featured, Mature Workers, News, Unemployment | 6 Comments
The BLS released January’s jobs report this morning, and while it wasn’t complete cause for celebration, it was encouraging. The unemployment rate fell from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged, down -20,000 compared to -779,000 in January 2009.
Here are the highlights:
The number of unemployed persons decreased to 14.8 million
Employment [...]
By anthony balderrama on Feb 4, 2010 in Featured, Fun stuff, Work | 25 Comments
Co-workers can really make or break a workplace. A bad boss can make your life miserable, yes, but at least you can commiserate with your fellow disgruntled colleagues. In most situations, they are the ones sitting next to you eight hours a day. They engage in idle chitchat with you and exchange e-mails with you [...]
By rachel zupek on Feb 2, 2010 in Featured | 10 Comments
Working overtime is never fun, no matter what state the economy is in. But, when the economy did take a turn for the worst, many employees found themselves with increased workloads, a worse work/life balance and working longer hours — all for the same compensation.
In a 2009 CareerBuilder survey, 34 percent of employers said their [...]
By Kate Lorenz on Jan 29, 2010 in Featured, Job Search, Mature Workers, Unemployment | 23 Comments
Although there are signs the economy is healing, there are still 15.3 million unemployed workers in America according to the most recent BLS data. Among those unemployed, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up, reaching 6.1 million in December 2009. That means 4-in-10 unemployed workers have been jobless for [...]