September 28, 2006

It may not be the best time to go into the jewelry business
Posted by Diane Danielson at 11:24 AM

In Boston, many are still reeling from the news that famed jeweler Shreve, Crump and Low is down and out and on the block for sale at only $9.6 milliion ... not a lot of inventory for a 100+ year old company. (although hot off the presses is a last minute attempt to save them by David & Co. and a few others). But, then this morning there was an article about Generation Y not buying watches in the National Jeweler:

SEPTEMBER 22, 2006 - Paso Robles, Calif. -- Consumers ages 18-24 are less likely than other age groups to use a watch as their primary way to tell time, a new survey finds.

The survey, conducted by the Jewelry Consumer Opinion Council (JCOC), found that of the 16 percent of the 18 to 24 year olds who do not own a watch, 78 percent tell time with digital devices, and 42 percent say ownership of cell phones or iPods makes watches unnecessary.

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Eight things that can boost your pay
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:06 AM

From BostonWorks partner Salary.com come these eight tips on how to improve your compensation:

The value of the "face" - the person doing the job - is the value of the "space" adjusted for characteristics known to have an influence on an individual's pay. Salary.com calls these "personal variables," adjusting for eight personal variables in the Personal Salary Report.

Read the piece.

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September 27, 2006

Website for non-profit board info
Posted by Diane Danielson at 1:05 PM

Just heard about the site, www.boardsource.org. Which is an organization that helps non-profits build effective boards. The site has lots of materials and workshops for current board members as well as useful materials for anyone considering volunteering for a non-profit board.

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A cool salary tool, indeed
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:28 AM

Jobs aggregator Indeed.com (partially owned by BostonWorks and the Globe's parent firm The New York Times) is launching a nifty new salary tool on their site. It uses rolling 12-month data from their millions of aggregated job listings to assess salary levels for a broad range of positions.

From the company's blog post on the beta launch of the new tool, called Salary Search:

It’s Market-based. Most salary tools are based on historic survey data that may not be accurate or up-to-date. Indeed Salary Search shows you what current job openings are paying - which is what matters if you are in the job market. Traditional survey-based salary tools can be poor at tracking completely new kinds of job - Iraq Reconstruction Program Advisor, for example - whereas Indeed monitors the very latest jobs as they are published.

You can put a geographic filter on it as well, say "Sales Manager" in "Boston".

Read the whole blog post here. Check out the Salary Search tool here.

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100 Best Companies for Women
Posted by Diane Danielson at 7:44 AM

The list is in. Visit USA Today to get Working Mother's latest list featuring 18 newcomers.

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September 25, 2006

Five key questions before taking a job
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:47 AM

How do you know if a potential employer will be a good fit or not? Well, this article from Yahoo! HotJobs advises you to look before you leap - ie, ask a few questions to find out if employees are happy at the potential hiring firm or not:

When you're considering taking a new job, it's important to find out how a potential employer treats employees. But getting the answer to that question, along with others that will help you determine if you'll be happy at the company, may take some sleuthing. Here are five questions that will help you decide if the company is a fit - and some unconventional ways to find the answers:

Better to know before you go, right? Read the full piece.

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September 23, 2006

When do we reach equality?
Posted by Diane Danielson at 11:21 PM

As part of Newsweek's focus on women leaders, Anna Quindlen captures all the angst that accompanies the advance of women in corporate America.

There's one question that always lurks around the margins of the battle for equal rights: how will we know when we've won? Sometimes it seems like a classic dance of two steps forward, one back. Indra Nooyi, an Indian-born numbers cruncher, was recently named CEO of Pepsi. But that makes her one of only 11 women now running a Fortune 500 company, which works out to slightly more than 2 percent. CBS appointed the first woman solo network news anchor. But some genius Photoshopped a publicity still of Katie Couric even though Walter Cronkite had long ago made clear that a person with a normal face and physique can read a teleprompter. And Forbes magazine just published an essay titled "Don't Marry Career Women," by a male writer who couldn't see the advantages of a wife who could pay the mortgage and support the children even if her husband lost his job or suffered a massive coronary.

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September 21, 2006

To stay or not to stay
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:13 PM

That is the question, if you are thinking of leaving your job - or bailing out of any relationship, come to think of it, personal or professional.

Our friends over at Yahoo! have two recent articles tackling this issue, one of which is from columnist David Bach:

Friends, summer is almost over. Hopefully yours has been fantastic and you're recharged to hit it hard this fall. If you're going back to a job you love, try to get a raise by using my five steps. . . They could change your life.

But if you're really not excited about going back to work this fall, it may be time to rethink what you do or where you do it. These signs can help you decide whether it's time to quit:

The second piece, "Do you hate your job?", explores the first of Bach's reasons to quit in depth:

There are as many reasons for hating a job as there are jobs. Some of the most prevalent include a lack of autonomy and flexibility, a corporate culture that doesn't fit with your values, feeling disrespected or unappreciated, and discrepancies in pay. But the top reason is a difficult boss.

Of course I hope you don't hate your job. But if you do, now you have a little reading to do and some assistance on possible next steps. Good luck.

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September 19, 2006

Junk food in the office
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:47 PM

By now we all know that Twinkies and Coke and all things sugary, while tasty, are just plain bad for us. Obesity and diabetes are a huge national health issue. With the epidemic rising among kids, as well, vending machines peddling the junk are being yanked out of schools nationwide.

But what about the nation's workplaces where, among other activities and occupations, millions of sedentary workers sit parked in front of computers all day long?

While children across the nation are being denied junk food in schools, their parents are devouring cakes, cookies and other goodies at work despite employers’ efforts to promote healthy living, according to a new national survey.

The survey conducted in May and June 2006 by Harris Interactive® for The Marlin Company, the workplace communications experts, found that 53% of US workers report that their company encourages healthy behavior in its employees at least a moderate amount through information or resources about healthy living. But 74% of US workers say that sometimes, if not always, cake, cookies or candy are served for special occasions like a birthday or holiday.

Sound like your company? If you want to read more, go to this page and click on the link titled "Despite Employers Promoting Healthy Behavior...".

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September 15, 2006

Social networking goes corporate
Posted by Diane Danielson at 3:02 PM

Interesting article from the Wall Street Journal entitled "Offices co-opt consumer web tools." It looks at how companies are using wiki's, blogging and social networking tools for a competitive advantage.

Hill & Knowlton is one of a number of companies that are co-opting consumer Web technologies for everyday office use. Examples includes social networking - which connects people online through common acquaintances - and "wikis" (think Wikipedia) - which let several people change a document on a Web page and then track those changes. In the past year and a half, Intel Corp., Quark Inc., SAP AG and International Business Machines Corp. have begun experimenting with such innovations as recordings of meetings that can be downloaded to iPods, blogs where employees can talk back to their bosses, and internal Web pages that allow people to read their colleagues' meeting notes and add their own.

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September 14, 2006

This just in: drinking will help your career.
Posted by at 5:11 PM

We may have been happy to learn that a daily glass of wine has health benefits, but we're ecstatic that it can also help your career. According to the results from a recent study, CNN Money reports:

"In fact, a study conducted by two economists and published Thursday by the Reason Foundation and in the latest edition of The Journal of Labor Research, says that drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more than those who refrain from drinking."

And look at the time- it's after 5 p.m., so get to happy hour! For the sake of your career, of course.


Read the rest of the article here.

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September 13, 2006

Plans for Devens drug plant on course
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:57 PM

Despite the current troubles at the top of NYC-based drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, there should be little to no adverse impact locally, as reported in today's Globe:

Yesterday's ouster of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s chief executive won't affect the company's plans to build a $660 million drug plant in Massachusetts, a spokesman said.

Despite the uncertainty hovering over the troubled New York pharmaceutical giant, which will be run by an interim chief, the company still expects to break ground on the site of the former Fort Devens this year.

Why the interest from the Job Blog, you say? Well. . .

With the potential to employ 550 people and expand to an investment of $1 billion or more, the plant marked a triumph of the Romney administration's efforts to court businesses.

Read the full article.

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September 12, 2006

Wages finally poised to rise
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:40 AM

Here's some good news on the job front. The Globe reports today that wages, which have been stagnant during the economic rebound, should finally begin to move upward:

The US job market remains strong, and that should translate into bigger pay raises for workers, whose wages have risen sluggishly during the current expansion, said a top economic adviser to President Bush.
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Wages haven't kept up with inflation, [Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers Edward P.] Lazear conceded, but soaring energy costs are mostly to blame. With oil prices retreating, unemployment below 5 percent, and a growing economy creating demand for labor, workers should soon experience real gains.

"We are optimistic of a very good year in terms of compensation," he said.

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September 11, 2006

The workplace five years after 9/11
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:21 PM

Today marks five years since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 hit the United States. Much changed in our lives in that single day - including the workplace.

BostonWorks took this opportunity to ask leaders from the leading regional human resources trade group, the Northeast Human Resources Association, to tell us what they felt the biggest change and biggest challenge are in the workplace since September 11, 2001. Here is a sample, from NEHRA president Anne Slein, HR Director at Polaroid:

As I reflect on the post 9/11 workplace, two things come to mind. The heightened awareness on workplace security, globally, has increased dramatically. We are far more aware of global events as it relates to the business travel plans of our employees as well as the need to tightly control who comes in and out of our offices. The second is a stronger focus on work/life balance for employees. Today's employees consider more thoughtfully the need to be present and available to those who are near and dear to us.

Read the other reflections from NEHRA leaders.

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Not for retiring types
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:21 PM

It is not generally our custom to send job seekers to other recruitment sites, but the Globe reports today on an interesting new site, based in Wellesley, focused on a specific - and growing - segment of the job seeker market:

A new online site based in Wellesley is tapping into the graying segment of the labor market that's not quite ready to retire. RetirementJobs.com was launched in May by Tim Driver, former senior vice president of consumer products at Salary.com in Waltham, to provide a link between employers looking for experienced workers and workers eager for a second act.

Read the entire piece from Globe business and workplace reporter Diane Lewis.

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September 6, 2006

Green jobs, part 2
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:35 AM

In the wake of California's breakthrough legislation last week, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, an essay from this week's TIME magazine provides more evidence for the claim that jobs focusing on environmental solutions will provide a huge part of our economic growth in coming years:

The economic benefits are large and calculable. In California, the world's sixth largest economy, the Climate Action Team determined that global-warming reduction would increase income by more than $4 billion while providing 83,000 new jobs. Growth will come from several sources: innovative green technologies will create high-quality jobs and new revenue streams. In addition, companies will have increased purchasing power once they decrease energy costs and reduce imports of fossil fuels. The notion that businesses will leave the state is flawed because all suppliers that sell to California are affected, not only California-based suppliers. The doomsayers just don't get it: we can harmonize economic growth and environmental benefits.

GE's Jeffrey Immelt is right: green is green. See my earlier post on Green jobs.

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September 5, 2006

The latest in corporate buzzwords
Posted by at 8:32 PM

If you're still using words like "digitization" and "rightsizing," it might be time to update your corporate vocabulary. "Delayering" and "unsiloing" are where it's at these days. Check out a few other trendy buzzwords in this recent article from CareerJournal.com.

A new crop of buzzwords usually sprouts every three to five years, or about the same length of time many top executives have to prove themselves. Some can be useful in swiftly communicating, and spreading, new business concepts. Others are less useful, even devious. "Too often people use buzzwords to muddy or cover up what they're actually saying," says Warren Bennis, management professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

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Credit checks as conditions of employment
Posted by Jason Butler at 12:14 PM

Here is yet another thing to worry about as you hunt for your next job. Employers are checking your credit report and refusing to offer employment if anything is amiss.

LaToya Horton was temping at a management consulting firm in Boston last January when it offered her a full-time job as a clerk. Then, the firm said it needed to check her credit.

Horton, 30, of Dorchester, didn't get the job after her credit report showed $18,000 in deferred student loans.

This strikes me as a massive invasion of privacy, but it's perfectly legal.

Federal laws require that companies notify job applicants before conducting credit checks, but many firms reason that viable applicants with good credit have nothing to hide.

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But credit reports were not designed as a predictor of employability, Fellowes said, and people who have thin credit files -- students, young workers, the poor, the elderly -- tend to be at a disadvantage because their scores do not predict how well they will behave in the future. The reason: Too little is known about how they behaved in the past. Fellowes said companies should not rely on credit scores when making hiring decisions because "they could disqualify qualified candidates."

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September 4, 2006

Happy Labor Day
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 11:36 AM

It's Labor Day. And Globe op ed columnist James Carroll reminds us not only from whence the holiday comes, but what it really means for us today:

The readiness with which Americans embrace September each year, and return to the job each morning, suggests that work freely chosen, and freely accomplished, is essential to the good life. The real meaning of the weekend, it turns out, is in how it changes the experience of the weekday. Can it be that liberated work is better than play? Is this what we mean by happiness? The poet Donald Hall locates that sensation in "absorbedness," the being taken up in -- or taken over by -- the task at hand, whether a writer's task or a bank teller's. Hall associates the experience with looking up from one's work and finding that the hours have flown by.

Read the full piece. And as you return to your "freely chosen" work tomorrow, try to remember Carroll's words, which give new meaning to the phrase "Happy Labor Day."

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September 1, 2006

Bean's comes to Burlington
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:48 AM

Back in June I picked up the story that Maine-based retail legend L.L. Bean was in hiring mode - in this neck of the woods.

Now, the other boot has dropped, so to speak. The first Bean's store in the area opens today in Burlington, Mass., and is a big brick-and-mortar bet for the catalog-based outdoor goods company:

With the opening of its store today in Burlington, L.L. Bean embarks on an aggressive campaign to spread its brand across the country with 26 retail shops -- a fivefold increase -- over the next several years. The company is also eyeing international markets, including Canada and Costa Rica.

"This is huge," said Ken Kacere , senior vice president of L.L. Bean's retail stores. "The future depends on what happens in Burlington."

Interested in working there? It's a little late and you will undoubtedly have competition, but I did find one job here via Indeed.com.

Jobs aside, why not take yourself and the fam up to the new store as a Labor Day treat? If you can't get there, satisfy your Bean's fix with a look at this Boston.com photo gallery showing the famed store's evolution over the years.

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