July 30, 2004

Getting to those things you're going to do
Posted by at 1:24 PM

You're a geek. You're out of work. You have a long, long list of Things to Do, things you promised you would do because, well, you finally have that well-earned free time you've been hankering for. But somehow things like: Switching back from PC to Mac, learning Java, reading more non-fiction, cleaning the gutters -- end up being pushed shamelessly onto the list of Things You'll Do Next Year. Then to add to the distractions, O'Reilly, publisher of fine technology how-to books, puts out their non-gadget oriented, new quarterly glossy, Make and things like "Hacking your Car Key Remote" or "Kite Aerial Photography -- taking pictures with a camera suspended from a kite" take on a whole new priority...
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We surly New Englanders
Posted by at 8:49 AM

If you're a visitor from out of town or a transplant who woke up one day to find yourself living the pain that can sometimes be life in New England, Globe Columnist Brian McGrory's write-up today may puzzle you.

You see it seems visitors this week to the DNC are giving Boston raves for it's polite people, ample parking, and clean, uncrowded streets and restaurants. No you're not wicked spacin', they're talking about us -- stand-offish, crotchety us, who would lie down in the street to save a parking space, have difficulty meeting someone eye-to-eye in hallways, and who maintain an unexplainable, tight-lipped, dart-eyed suspiciousness if a passerby dares utter a "Hi, How you doin?" to us on the street.

It's not that we're not likable folk. If we let you get to know us, we're just like anyone else around the country. Just somewhere along the way, I believe, because of our history or backgrounds, we get too caught up in ourselves so to speak. Brian hits it dead on when he writes:

Boston is receiving nothing but raves. That's right, raves. I apologize for bringing you such grim news. I know it's hard for you to accept, what with a couple of centuries of built-up inferiority and our security blanket of angst. But the convention was an overwhelming success, inside the hall and on the streets, and it might be time to accept this foreign fate...They really do like us. Now we've got to learn to like ourselves.

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July 29, 2004

Wages sluggish, jobless claims stable
Posted by at 12:50 PM

Reuters has recently posted the latest on the national employment picture. While wage growth continued to drag, unemployment claims stayed about the same as last week.

"The labor market gains we've been seeing are going to continue. But wage growth remains restrained," Lehman Brothers economist Drew Matus said in summarizing the data, which came in close to market expectations.

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On topics of God and politics
Posted by at 12:17 PM

As my father once said, two topics sure to raise hackles in any conversation are God and politics. Agree to disagree from the start, or else everyone walks away from the table upset.

So if you're one of the lucky few to be at work this week while the DNC is in town and have fallen into heated discussion on the latter, the AP has a few common-sense suggestions for those looking to make the work place a politics-free zone.
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July 28, 2004

More visas sought for foreign workers
Posted by at 2:03 PM

It's past mid-summer, but many Cape employers are still struggling to find reliable, hard-working, seasonal employees. That's why many employers are backing legislation to increase the number of foreign workers allowed in the country.
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Today's buzzword is "flexibility"
Posted by at 9:43 AM

Some 6,400 Shaw's Supermarket employees are set to walk off the job Saturday when a new contract deadline expires. The main issue is an increasingly common one heard in the halls these days: The company which owns 39 Shaw's stores in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, says spiraling healthcare costs are forcing them to cut back on employee health benefits. A Shaw's spokesman said, "Some of things we need to get control of are dramatically increasing health care costs, and we need more flexibility in how we run the business."

While employees are indeed one of the largest cost factors in operating a viable business, it's sometimes difficult for those who likely earn the least, and have the least say in the corporate structure, to hear calls for "flexibility" in [insert workplace issue here: "raises","compensation","job security","benefits"]. I wonder if there isn't a way Shaw's can "get control" of some of the other things that don't necessarily affect the bottom line of those who do the lion's share of the labor.
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Trapper John Gone Fishin'
Posted by at 9:40 AM

The Associated Press is reporting today that doctors fresh out of medical school are working fewer hours compared to their predecessors, thanks to new rules that went into effect a year ago curbing duty time.

But growing pains abound. Some medical students and experienced doctors are getting stuck with more work and hospitals are spending millions of dollars overhauling work schedules. The new demands were put in place last July after persisting concerns that excessive hours clocked by wearied residents may put patients at risk.

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July 27, 2004

I, Design
Posted by at 3:22 PM

15 years ago, building design was all about making work life easier, more convenient (read) lazier, and the checksum result has been skyrocketing healthcare costs and the increasingly bulging waistline of American workers, according to Phil Dordai, a principal with Hillier, a Princeton, N.J., architectural firm.

But in recent years there's been a shift among designers to encourage business owners to construct or renovate buildings in ways that motivate or require employees to get more exercise.
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Liar Spotting 101
Posted by at 11:35 AM

In a good job interview, candidates ought to raise as many, if not more questions as their interviewer. And while there's always an "understood trust" between parties, how does one know if the other is lying in their responses?

According to John T. Wells, CPA, CFE, and founder and chairman of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, liars almost always give up some telltale signs of their deception.

Behaviorists tell us that lying is innate to the human species and comes about for two genetically programmed reasons: to receive rewards and/or to avoid punishment. Whether we lie depends on our calculation of the reward/punishment equation. This is called “situational honesty.” Because most of us are conditioned to believe lying is wrong, it creates stress. (That’s not true with very young children and pathological liars.) The degree of emotional discomfort is determined by two factors: the adverse consequences of the lie and our perception of being caught. Experienced interviewers know that stress causes most people to react differently when they lie. How to recognize the signs of stress and detect lying are skills auditors need to acquire.

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It's not all bad for BoA expats
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:14 AM

Moving from Boston to Charlotte may hurt your Red Sox addiction, but your wallet may rejoice.

A Red Sox fan can get lonely in Charlotte, N.C., but Gavin Dowell has a lot to console him: a bigger house for less money, and a commute that's half as long.

Dowell is one of dozens of former FleetBoston Financial Corp. employees who are uprooting their families now that Bank of America Corp. has acquired Fleet. For those like Dowell who are moving to the bank's Charlotte headquarters, housing got sweeter: He bought a 3,060-square-foot place that is a third cheaper but 35 percent bigger than the Boston-area home he has on the market.

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July 26, 2004

Whole Foods, the whole shebang
Posted by at 4:40 PM

FastCompany writes on John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, corporate mover-and-shaker and corporate responsibility crusader.
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Money-making moms
Posted by at 12:17 PM

CNN Money has some suggestions for stay-at-home moms who want to find ways to earn some extra income.
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July 23, 2004

It's late July, do you know where your vacation is?
Posted by Colin Moor at 6:06 PM

Summer is that season that always seems to rush by at a sprinters pace.  Yes, it is already late July and many American workers have not planned, let alone taken any vacation time.  We all know those folks who say, "I'm too busy at work to take any vacation."  I was reading an article on MSN Careers and learned the startling fact that each year American employees give back more than $21 billion dollars in unused vacation days to their employers. What's wrong with this picture!

Remember what it was like to be in school, when you had every summer off and got to spend your days playing and goofing off for week after week? Wouldn't it be great to be able to do that as an adult? Sadly, we Americans not only don't use our summers for rest and relaxation, we hardly use any vacation time at all. According to an Expedia.com survey, 63 percent of Americans work more than 40 hours per week and we hand back more than $21 billion dollars in unused vacation days to employers each year.

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Noting the nookie
Posted by at 4:14 PM

Fortune magazine's Ask Annie (Fisher) tackles the age-old question of whether and when to reveal an office romance to the powers that be -- a sticky situation in this case, since the powers are involved in the lovin' la vida loca.
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More jobs, worse work
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:14 AM

It seems that every day brings statistics of job-growth in America. But, are the jobs quality? Are the jobs those that can support your family? Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach, in a New York Times editorial, argues that the jobs growth is almost exclusively at the lower end of the market.

Putting these pieces together, there can be no mistaking the unusual bifurcation of the recent improvement in the American labor market. Lower-end industries, which employ 22 percent of the work force, accounted for 44 percent of new hiring from March to June. Higher-end industries, which make up 24 percent of overall employment, accounted for 29 percent of total job growth over the past four months.

Roach suggests our new "global labor arbitrage" as the cause.

Under unrelenting pressure to cut costs, American companies are now replacing high-wage workers here with like-quality, low-wage workers abroad. With new information technologies allowing products and now knowledge-based services to flow more easily across borders, global labor arbitrage is likely to be an enduring feature of the economy.

I don't buy his cause/effect argument entirely, but it's an interesting theory.
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July 22, 2004

Moving beyond a military career
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:42 AM

Today's CareerJournal gives some hints for military professionals returning to civilian life.

One recommendation works equally well for technology types trying to integrate into a business environment:

Can you learn how to speak in English? The military is famous for its jargon. In fact they've raised it to a fine art. So it's essential to learn how describe your skills and accomplishments in language the average "suit" can comprehend. If you've been in uniform for a long time, I'd suggest role-playing with friends from the private sector.

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July 21, 2004

Who needs a ceiling when you can live in a cave?
Posted by Diane Danielson at 6:25 PM

Earlier this week I wrote about the steel ceiling in Pittsburgh, but it sounds like some of the businessmen across the pond in the UK are implementing a rock ceiling ... as in the type of ceiling one usually finds in a cave dwelling.  And no, I'm not making this up, but here's a quote by a Member of the European Parliament who hails from York, England and ironically was a newly appointed member of their Women's Rights Committee:

[ Godfrey Bloom] told the media: "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age."

A range of fellow politicians were outraged, saying his views were terrifying and outrageous.

Mr Bloom, an investment fund manager from York, told journalists he wanted to deal with women's issues because: "I just don't think they clean behind the fridge enough".

"I am here to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home. I am going to promote men's rights," he added.

After being criticized, Bloom claimed to have made the point in jest in order to make a stronger point - that equal rights legislation is in fact writing women out of employment and that the European Parliament should stay out of this issue.  Sorry Mr. Bloom, maybe I didn't understand you the first time because I was too busy cleaning behind my fridge?  Yeah, right.

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Black men unemployed at 2x the rate of whites, hispanics
Posted by at 11:54 AM

As reported on WBUR this morning, NU's Center for Labor Market Studies has recently come out with a report which finds that one in four black men are unemployed for at least a year, and shows the jobless rate of black men is now twice as high as that of Hispanics and whites.
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July 20, 2004

Outsourcing a Roy-al with Cheese
Posted by at 8:47 AM

Colorado Springs McDonald's franchisee, Steven T. Bigari, has a new take on the outsourcing trend. To increase customer satisfaction, reduce complaints, speed order delivery, and of course, save money, he developed a system that allows him to consolidate McDonalds customer orders to a central call center.

The way it's described hungry patrons roll up to the drive-thru and order -- but instead of talking to someone inside the restaurant they're talking to someone in the call center some several thousand miles away. A picture of the order is created and returned to a customer viewing screen for confirmation. Then the call center places the order at the local restaurant and the happy hamburger customer gets their chow as quick and accurately as any other transaction.

"I don't know about tech," said Bigari. "I know about people who like to eat hamburgers." And he knows that people who like to eat hamburgers don't like the wait or the mistakes that often occur at drive-throughs, where many restaurants make well over half of their sales. One mishandled order can stall a line of cars, irritating customers and workers alike.

Want to try it? Apparently the McDonalds in Norwood, MA, has outsourced their drive-through ordering. --------

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July 19, 2004

Forced night owls
Posted by at 1:46 PM

Due to power shortages amidst an ongoing heat wave, authorities in Shanghai, China, have forced some 2,400 companies to switch their working hours from day to night, and asked some 3,000 others to introduce some form of night-time operations, in order to conserve power.
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Mass. jobless rate steady, some pick-up in tech
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:06 AM

As reported in Saturday's Boston Globe, the unemployment rate in the state held at the same 5.2% it was previously, some cause for concern as the region struggles to rebound, but still below the national rate of 5.6%:

Employment growth in Massachusetts slowed from its torrid spring pace as the June jobless rate held steady at 5.2 percent.
- - - - -
''The report is a waning of the recent job growth figures," said Michael Goodman, director of economic and policy research at the University of Massachusetts' Donahue Institute. ''It is really too early to start to worry. Most of the indicators have been positive, so this may be a blip."

The state still has a long way to go to restore the 199,000 jobs lost since the downturn began in early 2001. On the bright side, the beleaguered high-technology industry in June showed its first monthly job additions since January.

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Discrimination by the numbers
Posted by Diane Danielson at 9:52 AM

Continuing on my roadtrip last week, I left Pittsburgh for DC and caught this interesting article in the  Washington Post about the new study by the National Partnership for Women & Families which breaks down 10 years worth of EEOC claims by race, age and ethnicity.  Interesting highlights (or lowlights, depending on how you look at them) include:

• Data showed that claims of sexual harassment and sex discrimination continue to rise, but the number of claims filed by white women have decreased, while those filed by black and Hispanic women have increased.
• The overall number of age-discrimination claims has gone down during the past decade. But when the partnership broke those claims down by race and other characteristics of the complainant, it found that age-discrimination claims filed by women had increased.
• White women file more claims than women of color do, but white women's claims, while going up and down from year to year, declined 11.5 percent from 1992 to 2003.  Meanwhile, black women filed 3,898 sex discrimination charges in 1992, and 4,686 in 2003, a 20 percent increase. Hispanic women filed 1,052 charges in 1992 and 1,763 charges in 2003, a 68 percent increase.
• Meanwhile, complaints filed by women who face discrimination because they are or may become pregnant have increased by 39 percent during the decade, even as the nation has seen a 9 percent drop in its birth rate, according to the report.

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Writing your own ticket
Posted by at 9:27 AM

Sunday's NYT's looks at the increasing use of Graphology, or hand-writing analysis, by a potential employer to determine a candidate's potential for a particular position.

...As corporate governance scandals have proliferated, many companies have been searching for new ways to weed out potentially troublesome hires and to monitor the behavior of existing employees. One of the latest tactics is handwriting analysis..."Handwriting analysis, like personality testing, is a fashionable practice with very weak scientific support," said Annie Murphy Paul, author of the forthcoming "The Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies and Misunderstand Ourselves" (The Free Press, September 2004). "Companies are looking for a shortcut, but these techniques don't reveal much that's meaningful about the person being analyzed."

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Surviving the work party faux pax
Posted by at 9:23 AM

The New York Times suggests how to handle career fumbles at the company outing.   

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Working with A.D.D.
Posted by Jason Butler at 5:25 AM

This weekend's New York Times magazine writes about how Attention Deficit Disorder affects your working life.

They arrived late. They fidgeted while we talked. They started to ask questions but forgot where they were headed. They kept saying, ''One more thing,'' until I learned to be blunt to the point of rude in my goodbyes. One woman sent me long, bursting e-mail messages, sometimes several of them a day, one of which literally ended, ''running off to my next projecttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt zoommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!'' One man called me on my cellphone at 8 on a Saturday night because he thought of a question he had to ask. He would not be deterred, even when I told him I couldn't really talk because I was visiting my father in the hospital. Robert Tudisco, a lawyer whose A.D.D. was not diagnosed until he was an adult and who now represents clients with the disorder, tried to explain how it feels to live inside an A.D.D. brain. ''As I sit here and talk to you in a relatively calm conversation,'' he said, ''there's an amusement park going on in my head.''

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July 18, 2004

In Pittsburgh, not just a glass ceiling but a steel one
Posted by Diane Danielson at 9:46 PM

Just got back from Pittsburgh and I managed to catch this article in their City Paper which talks in detail about how southwestern Pennsylvania is one of the hardest places in the country for women to find equal wages and opportunity.
 

Women in the Pittsburgh region earn substantially less than men, and the gap between them is larger than most other places. Using 2000 Census figures, a Pitt research team led by Ralph Bangs found that median earnings for women were $17,705 a year, less than 60 percent of what men make. During the 1990s, women’s wages rose while men’s wages fell slightly -- testimony to a local job market that is weak for everyone. Still, when compared to the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, Pittsburgh’s gender gap is the third largest. 

I couldn't find out where Boston ranked, but the article also had some universally interesting theories about how women may be holding themselves back by (1) not asking for what they want; and (2) not helping each other.

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July 16, 2004

Know thy inner boss
Posted by at 1:59 PM

Working Wounded offers some advice on relating to the boss and suggests that the risks you take at work, in relation to your supervisor, need to be calculated in order to achieve your goals.

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Getting answers to those tricky questions
Posted by at 1:40 PM

When interviewing for a job, there are some tricky questions that you'll want answers for but, have no way of directly asking or getting an honest response. Business Week's "10 Employer Secrets Worth Cracking," offers tips and suggestions on getting the answers to these tricky questions:

1. Will this company be able to take care of me in retirement?
2. Is the 401(k) program loaded with lousy funds?
3. Will I keep getting stock options?
4. Does the company snoop on its employees?
5. Is the company able to cope with all the new regulatory scrutiny?
6. Is turmoil at the top likely?
7. What is the company's hidden culture?
8. Is the company as family-friendly as it claims?
9. What's the (real) travel and expense policy?
10. Is the company in good financial shape?

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July 15, 2004

So, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Posted by Colin Moor at 12:13 PM

It's never too late to take a good look at your current professional status and evaluate whether it's what you really want to be doing for the long term. There are many ways to analyze career satisfaction and one of them is to utilize one or more of the assessment instruments that are available.

CareerJournal.com has a good overview of what tools you can utilize to help establish your "career road map".

Finding these tests couldn't be easier, thanks to the Internet. They can be starting points for choosing another career you might like and be good at. At the very least, if you enjoy your present job and industry, they can confirm that you should stick with them.

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July 14, 2004

Book recommendation: Getting Things Done
Posted by Jason Butler at 2:39 PM

Getting Things Done is an excellent book on how to organize your work life to maintain your sanity. You should check it out.

If nothing else, it will help you get out from under your horrible mess of an email inbox.
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July 13, 2004

Love him or hate him
Posted by at 9:56 AM

In the Scientific American, Bill Gates ruminates as futurist on topics as far reaching as artificial intelligence to cosmology to the innate immune system.
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July 12, 2004

Another expensive Wall Street diversity awareness program
Posted by Diane Danielson at 4:31 PM

A few months ago Merrill Lynch's bill for "boys behaving badly" topped $100 million. Today, Reuters reports that Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a little over half of that to avoid potentially embarrassing testimony in court.

Morgan Stanley ... agreed on Monday to pay $54 million to settle sex bias charges filed on behalf of hundreds of women who complained they were denied raises and promotions and subjected to lewd behavior at the huge U.S. investment bank.

The settlement announced by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman allowed the Wall Street powerhouse to avoid a public showdown over claims by women they were groped, slapped on the buttocks and faced office antics such as stripteases and breast-shaped birthday cakes.

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The attack of the revenge of the new economy
Posted by Jason Butler at 10:17 AM

What's that I smell? Could it be .... 1997? Scott Kirsner in today's Globe thinks so.

But while the 1997 and 2004 editions of MacWorld may not have much in common, the atmosphere in the tech world today isn't all that different from seven years ago. After a long bout of pessimism, there's once again hope that a volatile mix of venture capital, bright ideas, entrepreneurs, and public markets can create valuable companies. That, plus a tinge of nuttiness. Could the similarities between 1997 and 2004 lead us back to a bubble-world of irrational exuberance? I'll leave that judgment to you.

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July 9, 2004

Willing Slaves
Posted by Jason Butler at 10:49 AM

Our friends at the Monster Blog point to this long but worthwhile book excerpt in the Guardian: Willing Slaves

Two ways of measuring the demands of a job have defined industrial relations since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution - time and effort - but a third has emerged in the past few decades: emotional labour. It's not just your physical stamina and analytical capabilities that are required to do a good job, but your personality and emotional skills as well. From a customer services representative in a call centre to a teacher or manager, the emotional demands of the job have immeasurably increased.

It then goes on to talk about Microsoft, and how its model is just a touch different from the norm.
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July 8, 2004

Great networking questions
Posted by Jason Butler at 2:13 PM

Jill Konrath has some examples of great networking questions.

10 "Feel-Good" Questions

1. How did you get your start in this business?
2. What do you enjoy most about what you do?
3. What separates your company from your competition?
4. What advice would you give someone just getting started in your business?
5. What one thing would you do with your business if you knew you couldn't fail?
6. Over the years, what significant changes have you seen take place in your profession?
7. What do you see as the coming trends in your business?
8. Describe the strangest (or funniest) incident you've ever experienced in your business.
9. What ways have you found to be most effective for promoting your business?
10. What one sentence would you like people to use in describing the way you do business?

(via Business Opportunities Weblog)
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Perks picking up
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:15 PM

The Boston Globe reports today that, with the job market picking up, wooing candidates with perks is also back in style - but with a new twist:

The economy is coming back and so are the perks.

But forget the fancy cars and foosball tables that dominated the dot-com era. Instead, specialists are predicting that companies eager to recruit and retain workers will offer a slew of lifestyle benefits as the economy recharges. The new perks range from pet insurance and home-buyer assistance programs to ''quiet" rooms to alleviate stress and onsite chiropractors to help workers ease aches and pains.

If you're still on the outside and trying to break back in, this is icing on the cake. The key for you is just getting to the table (ie, getting an offer). Then you can have a happy discussion about pet perks and other fun things.
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Sugar and spice and not so nice
Posted by Diane Danielson at 12:42 PM

Here's some interesting insight into the women of The Apprentice direct from down under. Apparently the first season is now playing in Australia and I found this article discussing the roles of the women on the show - The enemy within for female executives. (Note sometimes the Sidney Morning Herald requires a free registration, sometimes not - must be an Australian thing).

[The Apprentice] provides an unexpected insight into why women seem to get marginalised in a corporate environment, even if they are smarter than the men they work with.

Like the alpha girl "plastics" in the movie Mean Girls, the women of The Apprentice have wasted emotional energy fighting for the top "girl spot", over-analysing, arguing, putting each other down, and competing for male approval instead of to win the game. As a result, by episode 10 which aired this week, the men are winning.

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July 7, 2004

Europe is now feeling our pain
Posted by Jason Butler at 9:50 AM

Europe's 35-hour workweeks? C'est fini.

After nearly 27 years at Siemens, Mr. Stahl, 42, feels he has no choice but to put in the extra time. Like millions of his fellow citizens, he is struggling to accept the stark new reality of life in a global economy: Germans are having to work longer hours.

And not just Germans. The French, who in 2000 trimmed their workweek to 35 hours in hopes of generating more jobs, are now talking about lengthening it again, worried that the shorter hours are hurting the economy. In Britain, more than a fifth of the labor force, according to a 2002 study, works longer than the European Union's mandated limit of 48 hours a week.

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July 6, 2004

It's a long and winding road ...
Posted by Diane Danielson at 2:56 PM

... to tenure. Unless you're an academic woman with children pursuing a career in science and engineering; because in that case it's apparently a dead-end road. At least that's what the results say from a National Science Foundation study released last month and reported on in today's Globe,

Women in science and engineering are less likely than men to earn tenure, and having children earlier is particularly damaging to a woman's chances of upward mobility, according to a National Science Foundation study released last month.

"Our results say that if you're a male and you're married and have children, it doesn't hurt your career. If you're a woman, it does," said Jerome T. Bentley, lead author of the study and chairman of the economics department at Rider University in New Jersey.

So it sounds to me like a chicken and egg problem. Are women not going into science and engineering because they have no role models; or are there no role models because not enough women are going into science and engineering to make the changes needed? Hard to say. (But when I asked one of my Ph.D pals what she thought about that, she told me the story of when she published her most recent groundbreaking research, and her tenured professor simply patted her on the head and said "good girl!" So she wasn't taking that as a positive sign of things to come.)
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What John Edwards knew
Posted by Jason Butler at 1:08 PM

Halley Suitt comments on her blog about how the way John Edwards handled himself led to his promotion.

There's one thing about [John] Edwards that is indisputable. Edwards knew when to be quiet and not trash his opponents. He knew it during the torturous campaigning last fall and winter and he ended his campaign with his dignity in tact -- no small thing in that contentious free-for-all.

He knew when NOT to say something. He knew when to say nothing.

There's a lesson in this for the working folks of America: it's seldom worthwhile to trash your co-workers. Or your boss.

(You may have to reload the page if it doesn't load immediately. Blogspot is being wonky.)
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Cut the creativity in your online resume
Posted by Jason Butler at 9:15 AM

The Wall Street Journal reminds us all that when perusing your resume, the recruiter doesn't need to know about your cats.

In some cases, applicants that look good on paper wind up in the reject pile after a case of oversharing.

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July 2, 2004

Surviving and thriving on maternity leave
Posted by Diane Danielson at 10:15 AM

As someone who negotiated a bigger job at a larger salary during my maternity leave, I have to attest that a maternity leave does not necessarily mean the end of your career. Anne Fisher (Ask Annie on the Fortune magazine website) provides some great tips to keeping your career on track throughout a maternity leave.

And while some of you may disagree with mixing work and motherhood during this crucial time period, personally, I welcomed any contact with work. (After all, I was actually good at that ... unlike the whole diaper-changing, crying, feeding, more diaper-changing, more crying, more feeding, still more diaper-changing, and even more crying,...)
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July 1, 2004

Generally speaking, a professional generalist needs a specific strategy
Posted by Colin Moor at 2:32 PM

Been told too many times that you have an "interesting" and "diverse" background. Sometimes those are code words for "What kind of professional are you?" If you have been circulating in the job market as a "generalist" you may want to rethink your strategy An article on CareerJournal.com provides some specific and practical guidance.

Generally speaking, generalists are dead meat.

That's what Liz Wachsler discovered when she began seeking a full-time position as a strategic-marketing manager 15 months ago. Despite her impressive 11-year record with big-name businesses such as NBC, the marketing consultant lacked the highly specific experience that picky employers increasingly prefer.

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It's a two-way street
Posted by Jason Butler at 9:05 AM

One of the joys of the Job Blog is that we can find new interesting voices by seeing who's linking in to us.

We use a tool called Technorati to see who's linking in to BostonWorks -- check out who's linking in to BostonWorks.

Here is a blogger who found our story on backup careers and writes his own take on it.

Hiring manager will ask me why during the layoff I work as McJob. I don't know why there are such stupid people asking stupid question. When there is a recession, any job is a good job. I am sure the hiring manager have gone through the same thing. In today environment, who haven't got lay off yet? If hiring manager prejudice against layoff worker taking McJob, then they are alienating a lot of people, maybe themself too. I am reallly sicken tire of playing this dishonesty.

I love this feedback loop from the world back to us. It's great to know that people are reading and getting value from our work. It's also very useful for us to get a feel for what it's really like out there.
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What it really means to work for yourself
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:56 AM

CareerJournal discusses a topic near and dear to my heart: what it really means to work for yourself.

For those who've worked in large organizations for a long period of time, going out on their own can be a shock. They're often unprepared to operate with minimum resources or be completely responsible for their livelihood today and tomorrow. Consider the woman who went the self-employment route after being downsized from two jobs. She says, "It took six months to realize "I am 'it' " -- that I had no one to do the admin stuff for me, that there was a direct relationship between what I do and whether my family eats." Whether you're dreaming of being in charge of what you do and when you do it, or free from office politics, remember, you have entered into a world in which there is little protection and no guaranteed income.

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