October 31, 2006

Good news for local job seekers: Mass. economy growing faster than US
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:11 PM

Welcome news announced recently by the US Department of Commerce and UMass about the local economy:

The Massachusetts economy, boosted by demand for technology products, grew twice as fast as the national economy in the third quarter, according to figures released yesterday by the US Department of Commerce and the University of Massachusetts.

It's great news for job seekers, across a range of industries:

The UMass report indicates a turnaround for the state economy, which in recent years has significantly lagged the national expansion. Massachusetts is now matching the nation's rate of job growth, while the state's broader economy has posted three consecutive quarters of solid economic growth above 3 percent.

"The state has experienced the strongest growth since the recession, lifted by worldwide demand for its technology and science-based products," said Alan Clayton-Matthews, the UMass-Boston professor who did the analysis.
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Moreover, said Clayton-Matthews, the job growth is in high-paying sectors, such as technology, biotechnology, and financial services. Manufacturing employment also has stabilized, boosted by record exports of technology, scientific products, and other products.

Read the entire piece from the Globe.

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October 30, 2006

Ten tips to help you find work
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:11 AM

This article from "Climb" columnist Penelope Trunk in yesterday's BostonWorks section of the Boston Sunday Globe is proving popular with folks online. Here's a sample tip to whet your appetite:

4. Turn a nonjob into a job. Many companies use temp agencies as recruiting firms. Instead of going through the interview process, companies sift through temp workers until they find one they like. So when you find yourself temping at a company you like, give a star performance. Even if the work doesn't require much skill, personality matters a lot in this sort of situation, so be fun and charming. And don't be shy about asking for full-time work. Note that this tactic will work for an internship, as well. Matt Himler, a student at Amherst College, started out looking for an internship, and shifted his focus when he saw an actual job was a possibility. He now gets paid to blog for AOL Money & Finance.

Read the whole piece.

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How to launch a career with your blog
Posted by Jason Butler at 6:19 AM

Fast Company reports on how many folks are jump-starting their careers by writing a blog.

Gone are the days of sending in clips or walking a portfolio into an office. Employers, like everyone else, are checking out potential hires on the Internet with a few clicks of a mouse. Writing a blog, could improve your chances as a candidate because an updated sites boosts your ranking in search engines and offers potential employers a full sense of who you are. "I have gotten a couple of freelance clients from my blog, simply because they liked my writing style," says Laina Dawes, a freelance writer and the creator of the blog, Writing is Fighting.

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October 26, 2006

B.A. = C-A-S-H
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:22 PM

A new report issued today by the US Census Bureau may answer the very question I posed in a Job Blog post two days ago ("Is college worth it?"):

How much is a bachelor's degree worth? About $23,000 a year, the government said in a report released Thursday.

That is the average gap in earnings between adults with bachelor's degrees and those with high school diplomas, according to data from the Census Bureau.

And that's not all:

College graduates made an average of $51,554 in 2004, the most recent figures available, compared with $28,645 for adults with a high school diploma. High school dropouts earned an average of $19,169 and those with advanced college degrees made an average of $78,093.

The apparent moral of the story: stay in school - as long as you can.

Read the full article.

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'The Office' as model behavior - or not
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:28 AM

Many of you are undoubtedly familiar with NBC's Emmy-winning hit TV show "The Office", starring Steve Carell.

Now management experts at universities have siezed upon the popular satirical show as an educational tool, reports NPR's "Morning Edition":

Morning Edition, October 25, 2006 · The dysfunctional workplace portrayed in the TV show The Office rings true to many viewers. It also provides a roadmap of how not to manage a workplace.

To hear this audio segment (length: 3:36), follow this link and click on the "Listen" button.

What do you thnk? Fact, or fiction? How close a resemblance does the show bear to real life in your office? Let us know on the BostonWorks message board.

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October 24, 2006

Is college worth it?
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 1:30 PM

That's a huge question for parents of high school students - and the students themselves.

Now comes the news from the College Board's annual "Trends in College Pricing" report that the annual cost increase, while not quite as high as the previous year's, is still outpacing inflation:

The news that price hikes are getting smaller is tempered by the fact that this decade has been a period of an extraordinary increases in college costs. Published prices are up 35 percent in five years -- the largest increase of any five-year period in the 30 years covered the report.

Which all raises the question: is it worth it? When does the cost of a four-year college education outweigh the benefits? Are we at, near, or past that tipping point?

While a topic worthy of much ink and many analyses, all you have to do to read what others have to say - or give your own opinion - is to click here and join the (somewhat heated) conversation on Boston.com.

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October 18, 2006

Wal-Mart workers walk out over changes
Posted by Jason Butler at 12:17 PM

How far can an employer go before even its own managers walk out?

The protest wasn't led by any union group. Rather, it was instigated by two department managers, Guillermo Vasquez and Rosie Larosa. The department managers were not affected directly by the changes, but they felt that the company had gone too far with certain new policies. Among them were moves to cut the hours of full-time employees from 40 hours a week to 32 hours, along with a corresponding cut in wages, and to compel workers to be available for shifts around the clock.

In addition, the shifts would be decided not by managers, but by a computer at company headquarters. Employees could find themselves working 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. one week and noon to 9 p.m. the next. "So workers cannot pick up their children after school everyday, and part-timers cannot keep another job because they can be called to work anytime," says Vasquez.

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October 17, 2006

Special Section: Your Career
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:17 AM

If you missed it in this Sunday's Globe, you can catch all the articles from the "Your Career" Special Section online. Topics include the New England job market outlook, hot careers in the area, and other tips, trends and advice for those either seeking a job or building a career in Greater Boston.

From the New England job market piece:

Like a reliable old ferry, the New England job market is moving forward again, carrying workers to good careers in marketing and accounting, engineering, and law. It's not a high-speed catamaran flying over the water at a breakneck 1990s pace, but it's no longer stalled at the dock with discouraged workers happy to jump ship or take any job at all.

Check it out here.

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October 16, 2006

Mass. software, hardware firms growing, hiring
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 10:55 AM

Welcome news from today's Globe about the rebounding local tech sector:

Employment in professional and business services, comprising a variety of tech firms, has grown a healthy 2 percent in the last year, twice the rate of overall employment growth in Massachusetts, according to the state Department of Workforce Development. Makers of technology products are bucking the trend of job losses in manufacturing and adding jobs -- more than 3,000 in the last year. Massachusetts tech exports are surging; foreign sales of semiconductor manufacturing and testing equipment nearly doubled in the past year.

This accompanying graphic from the piece helps tell the story.

Start your search for Greater Boston technology jobs here.

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October 13, 2006

Local tech jobs for high school grads
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:13 PM

If you're a local high school graduate with some tech skills, Friday the 13th may just be your lucky day.

As this story reports, many area financial institutions are hiring tech help locally, and recent high school grads are who they are looking to recruit:

At a time when many manufacturing jobs have evaporated, low-income high school graduates are gravitating toward technology support and other back-office jobs, a class of work more associated with Bangalore than Boston. Yet, several financial services giants, including State Street, Bank of America Corp., and Putnam Investments, are running local operations that serve their employees across the nation or overseas.

"We have a voracious need for technology people," said Richard W. Pearl , a vice president for State Street. "So, not only can we fulfill our own needs, but we can help the Boston community."

Check out the full piece from today's Globe.

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October 10, 2006

Following your bliss
Posted by at 4:16 PM

Are you thinking about changing your career path but don't know where to start? If so, you might be interested in reading this article by Tory Johnson, "Good Morning America's" workplace contributor. It doesn't claim to have all the answers, but it does offer practical first steps.

For a generation, workers would decide on a career and stick with it until retirement. Today, it's very common for people to change their careers as many as four to seven times in a lifetime. And as many as half of all employees in this country say they'd love to make a job change if they could.

The reasons for changing careers vary from displeasure with initial choices and boredom to new values and dreams for yourself or even the desire to make more money.

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More work, same old pay
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:58 PM

Maybe it's not news to all those laboring in the trenches day after day. You're working harder and earning more for your employers, but you're not seeing anything more in terms of your own compensation. In economics-speak, productivity is up, wages stagnant.

Now it's official, according to a new report from Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies:

The study, by Northeastern's Center for Labor Market Studies, found the state's median annual earnings, adjusted for inflation, have risen just $546 -- 1.2 percent -- since 1989. Meanwhile, productivity, or the amount produced by a worker in the same amount of time, soared nearly 50 percent in that period.

In other words, the typical employee is working harder, faster, and smarter, but getting few of the benefits, said Andrew Sum, the center's director and study's lead author. Historically, higher productivity has led to higher earnings after inflation. But globalization and other economic forces are breaking the link between productivity and wages, redistributing gains to consumers, corporations, and the richest workers.

Hmmmm. Sounds like a recipe for unhappy workers to me. We can't really blame you for thinking about moving on if you're not properly rewarded for your efforts. Someone's got to feed the family.

If you're looking for a new situation, start here.

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Not your father's law firm
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:11 PM

Say "law firm," or better yet say "Boston law firm," and images of oak-panelled walls, oriental carpets, and traditional mahogany furniture probably come to mind.

Wrong! These days, aka the 21st century, the legal office landscape is changing, as shown in this Boston.com photo gallery:

Law firms have begun to enter the modern age of design, shedding their fusty, dusty art collections and furniture in favor of a more chic image.

Take a walk now through some of their offices, which offer photography, sculpture, abstract art, and other furnishings more residential than commercial in look.

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October 4, 2006

Job seekers turning the tables
Posted by Diane Danielson at 1:45 PM

USA Today writes about how job seekers are looking for scoop on employers online.

Some job seekers are turning to sites such as Jobster, LinkedIn and Vault and seeking out candid posts from current or former employees about a host of topics, from salaries to company culture. Users are contacting or reading what current staffers have to say about where they work —— a twist that could be a potential drag or boon on companies' efforts to recruit.

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October 3, 2006

Before taking a job, consider the fit
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:52 PM

So says columnist Jim Citrin on Yahoo! Finance:

When you cut through all of these issues, the most important consideration is the people equation: the fit. If you accept a job and misjudge the fit -- even if everything else is right --you will, in all likelihood, fail.

Read the whole piece, which offers points to consider both for job candidates and hiring managers.

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October 2, 2006

Deferring Social Security benefits pays off
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:21 PM

OK, so maybe not too many of you (unlike me) are approaching retirement age just yet. But those of you who are - and the farsighted among you younger folks -- should be interested in what Globe "Your Money" columnist Scott Burns has to say about deferring Social Security benefits:

My Social Security representative told me that I had become eligible for $1,995 a month in benefits last May. That's when I reached my full retirement age -- 65 years and 6 months for those born in 1940.

The benefit, she explained, would rise to $2,623 a month (plus adjustments for inflation) by the time I was 70 years old, a period of 54 months. That meant my benefit would increase by $11.63 for each month of delay. Over the course of a year, the monthly benefit would increase by $139.56 [or $1,675 a year].

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Local boys make good
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 12:04 PM

Keep your nose to the grindstone and someday you, too, may win the Nobel Prize.

Well, maybe, maybe not. But the big news around here this morning is just that: two local boys, one a professor at UMass Medical School and the other an MIT grad, were named this year's Nobel laureates in medicine:

A Massachusetts scientist won the Nobel Prize in medicine today for his part in a discovery that created a new way to treat disease by negating the effect of specific genes.

Craig C. Mello, 45, is the first professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to received the prestigious award, which was announced this morning by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. Mello won for his 1998 work with Andrew Fire, then a scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Ph.D. in 1983.

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October 1, 2006

Gender bias in humor?
Posted by Diane Danielson at 12:22 PM

Eileen Boylan writes a really interesting piece in BostonWorks' "View from the Cube" about how humor in the office can evoke another form of gender bias.

And that was why I had no future in this organization. I didn't understand that women in business were not supposed to be funny. Especially funnier than [the boss]. The irony of being terminated at a gender bias seminar, because of gender bias, would have been rich, but I wasn't fired. Our employer, a consumer products company, would not allow it. HR promptly instructed [my boss] that tasteful humor, particularly in an informal meeting, was not grounds for termination. But, it was grounds for making my life even more miserable.

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