Well, apparently there's an underground industry out there that is thriving on people like you. "Proxy test-takers" are a worldwide problem, the Globe reports, especially in countries with a high population of technology workers.

Cisco Systems Inc., the Silicon Valley firm behind some of the world's biggest computer networks, and Pearson VUE, one of the world's largest test administrators, recently conducted a trial run of an anticheating system intended to identify and crack down on "proxy test takers," people who impersonate others to take exams for them.

Officials at Cisco and Pearson VUE told The Boston Globe this week that during an eight-month span ended in June 2008, they monitored hundreds of thousands of exams given in eight countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Cisco said it had confirmed that one in 200 of those exams was taken by a proxy, and not the actual enrollee.

Randall T. Trask, a vice president at Pearson VUE which administers some of Cisco's tests, said he suspected the numbers were "the tip of the iceberg" because they only measured a limited number of one company's tests. Cisco's exams are given in 4,400 test centers in more than 160 countries, according to Pearson VUE's website.

In many white-collar fields, certification tests have taken on growing significance as a prerequisite for many well-paying jobs and proof that employees are maintaining their skills. In the highly competitive technology industry, surveys have shown that technicians with enough certifications can add up to $35,000 to their annual salary.

However, the story notes that Cisco is launching a new test-security system that includes software to help catch test abnormalities, as well as procedures for having each test-taker's photograph taken and stored with their test scores in a database.

Cheating on job certification exams is nothing new. The Globe reported in December that a growing number of websites were offering "cheat sheets" that essentially held the questions and answers to a variety of tests. From the article:

Pirated answers to hundreds of professional qualifying exams, in fields ranging from school-bus driving to medical technicians, are openly available, sometimes for as little as $4 each, from a thriving network of cheating websites, The Boston Globe has found.

As many industries move to require certification by examination, the trade in crib sheets has emerged as a lucrative and well-organized global black market. One operator in Oregon made $700,000 in about nine months before his arrest; the owner of the Ohio website pocketed more than $300,000. A Pakistani who sells stolen answers for computer technician exams proudly displays photos of a stable of luxury cars on his website.

Recently, the dangers of Internet-based cheating have become more apparent. The Globe reported earlier this month that tens of thousands of soldiers obtained answers to tests in a range of military skills from websites. The Army case was especially egregious, testing specialists said, because even modest measures that are widely used to prevent cheating weren't in place. The sheer number of Army cheaters also surprised some testing specialists.

So, what do you think about the proliferation of ways to cheat on exams? Are you confident that new anti-cheating measures will help curb the problem? Or do companies place too much emphasis on these tests that are administered by third parties? Share your thoughts in our forums.

The women, in sum, are for the first time withdrawing from work with the same uniformity as men in their prime working years. Ninety-six percent of the men held jobs in 1953, their peak year. That is down to 86.4 percent today. But while men are rarely thought of as dropping out to run the household, that is often the assumption when women pull out.

“A woman gets laid off and she stays home for six months with her kids,” Ms. Boushey said. “She doesn’t admit that she is staying home because she could not get another acceptable job.”

The biggest retreat has been in manufacturing, where more than one million women have disappeared from payrolls since 2001. Like men, many have not returned to jobs in other sectors.

Wage stagnation often discourages them from pursuing new jobs, says Lawrence Katz, a labor economist at Harvard. “While pay was rising solidly in the 1990s, you had women continuing to move into the work force,” Mr. Katz said.

Pay is no longer rising smartly for women in the key 25-to-54 age group. Just the opposite, the median pay — the point where half make more and half less — has fallen in recent years, to $14.84 an hour in 2007 from $15.04 in 2004, adjusted for inflation, according to the Economic Policy Institute. (The similar wage for men today is two dollars more.)

Not since the 1970s has that happened to women for so long a stretch — and because this is a new experience for them, “women may be even more reluctant than men to accept declining wages,” said Nancy Folbre, an economist at the University of Massachusetts.

Click here for full story.

Think again.

As more and more Americans struggle with the faltering economy, rising gas prices, and inflation, there are many opportunities for someone living on the edge of credit health to take a dive into dept.

Add that to the continuing trend of companies cutting jobs and benefits (GM is the latest large US company to announce a paring of workers), and is seems the conditions are ripe for having a lot of unemployed workers struggling to pay the bills, all while looking for new employment. And it can create a sort of catch-22.

That's because some employers check a candidate's credit history before hiring them.

In a recent Bankrate article, Steve Bucci, "The Debt Advisor" columnist, took a question from a reader who lost a job offer because of bad credit. Besides working hard to improve your credit score and pay off debts (which can be difficult if you have no job to begin with), Bucci tells the reader that the only other recourse is to be as up-front as possible with the company you're applying to about your credit problems. Bucci writes:

You are on the right track to mention your past credit troubles when you are interviewing. As luck would have it, my brother Jim Bucci -- the HR guru from Availity (a medical software company) -- is currently visiting me. So, as I was grilling some burgers, I was able to grill him for some insight.

"By volunteering information about a difficult situation or period in your past, you may improve your chances of getting hired," he says. "Companies always look for as many indicators of success as they can when making a hiring decision. Your ability to admit to a past problem and show a positive plan to correct it can count as points in your favor."

A proactive approach may give you a better chance of remaining in the "potential candidate" stack rather than being filed in the trash can.

For my readers who see a layoff coming or plan to look for a higher-paying job in the future, remember to start the credit review and dispute process as far as six months in advance to allow time for corrections to show up.

Bad credit can not only impair your ability to get a job, but it can also affect your chances at moving up the ladder at your existing job because some companies run credit checks when considering candidates for promotions, writes Monster.com finance career expert Dona DeZube. In addition to checking your credit report for problems before it lands on the desk of a career decision-maker, DeZube offers tips for addressing your bad credit with your potential employer. Here are a few:

Get Your Story Straight

What can you say when you're asked about poor credit? Your best bet is to keep your answer short, sweet and sincere. Acknowledge the error of your ways. Assure the employer that there was a one-time problem and you've changed. For instance, you might say: "I came from humble beginnings, and when I went away to college, I'd never had any experience with credit. I got overextended, and that was wrong, but I learned a lesson and worked hard to pay off all my debts. Since then, I've had clean credit and I hope this won't hold me back, because I really want to work for your company."

If you are turned down for a job because of credit problems, the employer has to give you a copy of the report and explain your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Don't Trip Up

There is one other way a credit report can trip you up. When you apply for a new credit card or loan, you provide information about your current employer. That information is passed along to the credit reporting service. If you leave a job off your resume and it appears on your credit report, someone may notice the discrepancy. That's another good reason to pull your own report from all three companies before you start interviewing.

Is It Fair?

If you have poor credit, you're unlikely to agree with employers who think good credit is important. Instead of beating your head against the wall, try applying for work with smaller companies where the hiring process isn't standardized and there are no professional human resources folks to suggest credit checks.

So, are you worried about your credit score affecting your ability to get a job? Has it already? How do you plan on overcoming bad credit when going through the job search process?

Share your thoughts on our forums.

The European Union has a mandate that all workers receive at least four weeks vacation, and many countries go above that. Government workers in the United States, as well as many in the education field, get at least five weeks. The rest of us are usually offered two weeks, with the hope that one day, after 10 years at the company, we'll be graciously rewarded with another week or two.

Should Congress vote to enact a minimum vacation standard? Absolutely. Anyone who says more vacation would make business suffer and companies less productive has no argument today. The economy and the dollar are sagging horrendously, mostly due to lousy fiscal decisions by the government. Taking a few extra days isn't going to make Q1 results drop or cause another 1987 market crash. It will, however, keep employees sane and in greater mental health.

It's also true some folks don't enjoy their lives outside work. Perhaps it's because they're not allowed to have them in the first place.

The MBTA just reported its fifth consecutive month of year-over-year increases in ridership, which for May was 5.3 percent higher. Try not to wrinkle your suit.

Perhaps commuting on the Pike was a bit better last month, as there was 3.5 percent fewer drivers - about 600,000 cars - in May versus last year. Of course turnpike officials saw that coming, and increased tolls.

So where's the relief? About a week ago the IRS increased the business mileage rate by eight cents to 58.5, but that won't help workers commuting back and forth from home. Add to that double-digit declines in the US market indexes and rising food prices and you've got a truly grim picture.

All the better to make friends with the guy you're squished against on the train.

Because of this trend, it would seem logical then that domestic IT jobs would become more scarce as more companies send IT work overseas.

But is that really the case?

A few recent reports show that demand for IT positions in the near future will continue to grow at a fast rate, making domestic IT work an in-demand industry. In fact, there seems to actually be a shortage of qualified IT workers in the US right now. The AP reports:

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 854,000 professional IT jobs will be added between 2006 and 2016, an increase of about 24 percent. When replacement jobs are added in, total IT job openings in the 10-year period is estimated at 1.6 million.

The bureau estimates that one in 19 new jobs created in the 10-year period will be professional IT positions.

"The fact remains that technology permeates all businesses now," said Lou Gellos, a spokesman for Microsoft Corp. "All companies have that person down the hall to help with computer issues."

Amid the growing demand, the number of students entering computer sciences and computer engineering fields at major universities is dropping.

So, there will be a marked increase in the number of available IT jobs in the next 8 years, with a lot less people coming into the field from US universities. Seems like it will be a good time to be an experienced IT worker in the near future.

A report by Boston-based staffing firm Veritude enforces that. Their survey of HR and IT professionals shows that skilled IT workers in the US will indeed be in demand.

Among the human resources and IT professionals surveyed, more than half (53 percent) expect to increase the number of information technology staffers in 2008, while 43 percent anticipate their IT staffing will hold steady. In addition, very few respondents – only 4 percent – expect their IT staffing requirements to decrease. The research also reveals that among the expected new hires, 77 percent are "permanent" positions, indicating future stable, long-term growth of IT departments.

"Despite recent economic woes across many industries, we are finding that IT jobs are still in high demand with employers continuing to forecast steady growth of IT staffing levels," said Kate Donovan, senior vice president, Veritude. "Many earlier advances in IT were in automating tasks and basic programming. Now employers need on-site IT professionals who can contribute at a strategic level in using IT to achieve and sustain competitive advantages."

Of course, the keyword to all this is "skilled." The Veritude survey shows that companies will have a hard time finding "qualified" IT workers, and workers with specialized skill sets. And with less students honing their specializations in college, where will these workers come from?

Well, thanks to a new ruling by a US federal appeals court, it is now harder for employers to legally gain access to text messages that are sent by employees on company phones, the Associated Press reports:

Under Wednesday's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, employers that contract an outside business to transmit text messages can't read them unless the worker agrees.

Users of text-messaging services "have a reasonable expectation of privacy" regarding messages stored on the service provider's network, Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote in the three-judge panel's unanimous opinion.

...

The judges had few precedents, Wardlaw acknowledged in the ruling.

"The extent to which the Fourth Amendment provides protection for the contents of electronic communications in the Internet Age is an open question," she wrote.

A civil liberties advocacy group called the ruling a "tremendous victory" for online privacy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a posting online that the ruling helps ensure the Fourth Amendment "applies to your communications online just as strongly as it does to packages and letters."

Unfortunately for cellphone-using teens, the ruling does nothing to stop your mom from snooping through your text messages when you leave your phone in your laundry-bound jeans pocket.

OK, admit it, you missed the Celtics' Game 4 comeback last Thursday against the Lakers ... it was getting late, the Celtics looked like toast, and you needed to work the next day. It's understandable.

But then you woke up the next morning, heard the news of the comeback, and wished you hadn't gone to bed so early. You don't plan to let it happen again ... in fact you're terrified you'll miss a chance to witness Boston sports history.

So you stay up late. Really late. After Sunday night's Game 5 loss, your sleep schedule is in shambles and your work day is nonproductive.

And now you have to get ready to do it all again.

With the Celtics and Lakers tipping off Game 6 Tuesday night, and a potential Game 7 on Thursday night, the 9 p.m. start will make for many late nights around Boston. And when a championship is on the line, it's much tougher to turn the game off and catch the highlights in the morning.

So, how do deal with these late nights of basktetball? Do you call in sick to work the following day? Do you go in late? Do you just forego the normal amount of sleep and go to work in a zombie-like state?
Share your thoughts on our forums.

Qudrcps: Recently, a person in our office was handed a Blackberry with eseentially no instructions, was told that she was to forward all her her mail to it, and, no surprise, has ended up with 90+ messages a day. I've talked to her about setting some ground rules for filtering this, but she's afraid to talk to our boss about the information overload.

Maggie Jackson: This is such a tricky question. The boss does set a tone in an office culture; if they're sending emails at 2 a.m. on Saturday, then they send a real message about working long and hard. So bosses need to role-model having boundaries between home and work, plus "giving the gift of attention." Paul Levy, the hospital chief, told me this a while ago. Still, workers too need to take responsibility for drawing boundaries. It's a two-way street.

Maggie Jackson: I think that our culture of efficiency and productivity overall also affects these questions. Frederick Taylor, the great time management guru of the 19th century, believed in chopping up work in order to streamline it. Now, we still chop up work, although we don't make widgets. We fragment our knowledge work in tiny pieces - giving ourselves no time to think!

Maggie also wrote a '10 tips to help quell distaction' article for Boston.com that provides some advice on dealing with information overload and the frenzied pace of working in a office in this technologically advanced society. One thing that gets lost in all the technology is – yes – actual human interaction. From Maggie's 10 tips:

4) Focus on one another

We're so used to splitting our focus between PDAs and TVs, and people and tasks that it's hard to truly attend to any one thing. But continuous partial attention undermines the depth and quality of our relationships and our interactions. When we give each other half-focus in conversations, on conference calls or at meals, we are effectively saying, "you aren't worth my time."

As well, the "creative energy and critical thinking" that occurs in a good work meeting is lost when everyone's madly checking e-mail, writes Intel principal engineer Nathan Zeldes in an article on the costs of "infomania" in the e-journal First Monday. Focusing in full on one another can help people better connect in a fast-paced, overloaded world.

How do you deal with distractions at work, and in your life in general? Share your thoughts on our forums.

Discussing money too early in the interview process. When asked for your salary expectations, say, "Well, it really depends on the specific scope and responsibilities of the position, which I'm still getting my arms around. Perhaps we could discuss this later on in the process when I have more information."

- Lauren Mackler, Lauren Mackler & Associates LLC, Newton

Talking too much during an interview. When you find yourself talking, talking, talking, take a deep breath. The more you talk, the less your interviewer is likely to listen. Give every answer a beginning, middle, and end, and then stop talking.

- D.A. Hayden, Hayden-Wilder, Boston

What are some mistakes that you've made during a job search? Share your thoughts on our new message boards.

And check out more career advice and articles in The Globe Magazine's Careers Issue.