The Work Buzz

Hello, everyone-

As our last post said, we’re holding a contest where we ask you to submit your questions based on that week’s topic. We’ll choose one person’s question to answer and then send him or her a copy of Career Building, which will bring you hours of joy for the rest of your life. It’s a contest that’s fun and informative — what more could you want?

This week’s topic is interviewing. We want to know what questions you have about interviewing. We’ll pick a unique question that we haven’t tackled before and that we think other job seekers or professionals are wondering about, too.

If you want to see a list of interview questions we’ve already answered over the history of The Work Buzz, look here.

Remember, for this week’s topic, submit your comments to this post by 11.59 p.m. CST. We’ll answer the question on Friday and notify the winner via e-mail to send him or her the book, so make sure you provide a valid e-mail addres to us. (Refer to the previous post to read the rules and regulations.)

So, readers, let’s hear your questions about interviews!

Ever since we launched The Work Buzz, we have grown fond of you, our inquisitive readers. We post about news, pop culture happenings, studies and anything else that we think will help your job hunt or workplace issues. And you always let us know how you feel about our posts in our comments section. Sometimes you make us laugh, often you make us cry, and on occasion we end up doing both simultaneously.

For that reason we decided to spice things up a little! Today we launch Talk to The Work Buzz! What is it, you ask? I’ll tell you: It’s a contest where we ask you for questions on a specific topic, and if we choose your question, we’ll not only answer it but we’ll also give you a nifty prize!

Here’s the deal:

At the beginning of each week for the next three weeks we’ll give you a topic and invite you to ask us a question in the comments sections. We’ll pick a question to answer  and post the response on Friday and notify the winner.

What do you win? A copy of Career Building from the editors of CareerBuilder.com, which addresses topics from job hunting to salary negotatiations to getting along with your co-workers.

The next post will have the topic, but let’s get the rules and regulations out of the way first: Continue reading – Announcing the Talk to The Work Buzz! Contest

We’ve been a little crazed here at TheWorkBuzz lately and just realized the day has passed without posting our regular breakdown of the BLS’s monthly unemployment numbers. Luckily, our colleagues at TheHiringSite.com have already written about that very subject so we’ll refer you to their post.

When a house has been on the market for an extended time without an offer or even a showing, homeowners often get help staging their property and even make over important rooms, like kitchens and bathrooms. When it comes to your job search, perhaps you should use this approach with your resume.

With electronic job applications and ATS systems being the norm, it’s difficult to really make a statement because hiring managers are often viewing stripped down versions of your resume. All that time you spent formatting your resume might not even matter depending how a certain employer receives and processes job applications. 

And even if your expertly formatted resume reaches the intended hands, it’s even tougher now to stand out from the competition when there are more and more job seekers vying for fewer jobs. You really need to do all you can to differentiate yourself.

If you’ve been using the same basic resume for your entire job search and are getting ho-hum results, it might be time to do a gut rehab — deconstruct your resume and rebuild it. Watch this video from CareerBuilderTV to learn 10 ways to get employers to notice your resume:

Continue reading – 10 ways to make your resume stand out

After a lot of sound and even more fury, the House of Representatives finally passed a $15 billion jobs bill. (Yes, billion.) The bill has been debated, criticized, lauded, feared, analyzed and everything else you can possibly do to a bill. The final vote was 217-201.

Continue reading – House passes jobs bill

Try to have a conversation about your job without complaining about your boss or griping about the little things just eat at your nerves. Like peanut butter and jelly or Ricky and Lucy, work and complaints belong together. Due to the nature of my job, I see a lot of data about workers and job satisfaction. More often than not workers have a list of grievances to address with their employers. Factor in the recent recession, which burdened many workers with extra responsibility after layoffs, and you’ve got one disgruntled workforce.

Or so I thought. Continue reading – Workers consider their jobs ideal. No, seriously.

Millennials get a lot of attention these days. For some strange reason everyone seems to be fascinated with the current crop of young workers. Maybe we’re all taking Whitney Houston too seriously when she sings that the children are our future. Regardless, you can’t pick up a newspaper or blog (including this one) without reading about the exotic culture of the 18-29 crowd. These professional newcomers are revolutionizing the workplace … or so we’re told. Continue reading – Millennials: Too optimistic about their careers?

When I look back at pictures of myself from years ago — specifically the 1980s — I cringe. The jeans, the ill-fitting shirts, the hair gel. At the time I thought I looked cool and no one told me otherwise. Alas, the pictures do not lie. I have the same feelings about my earliest job interviews, where I thought I was smooth and polished. I was actually a fumbling mess. I remember telling an interviewer that, no, I didn’t know anything about the company. Continue reading – Interview mistakes you wish you could take back

Talk of workplace productivity, motivation and passion (or lack thereof) typically focuses on employees and what they’re doing wrong. “Are you slacking off on the job?” “Is your bad attitude hurting your career?” (I even admit to addressing similar topics here and in articles.) Bosses are left to wonder how they can get the best out of their workers. But sometimes, the situation is reversed and the boss is the one who needs to get back to work. Continue reading – The boss doesn’t care anymore … so now what?

We try to discuss current workplace topics as much as possible, but we can’t possibly keep up with every news item that comes out. So here’s a quick rundown of some noteworthy workplace-related items worth reading:

• Panel OKs lower pay for young workers (in Arizona)
• Highlights of Senate jobs bill
• How to decline Facebook friends without offence
• Workplace bullying: How common is it?