Job Search

Letters crawling with creeping arrogance inflict hiring managers with terminal cases of Don’t-Hire-This-Jerk-Itis. The job seeker couldn’t figure out how to find a C-level HR person’s name to follow up with. “I found out that… the secretary (sorry, assistant) forwarded my letter to the HR recruiter without showing it to his boss,” he wrote. Look … Read More

Set yourself up for success at your new job — even before your first day there. You don’t just start a new job these days; you onboard. Ladders solicited advice from career development and HR experts on the best ways to maximize those first days and months in a new position. Here are 10 onramps … Read More

Even if your ultimate goal is full-time employment, freelance work can open doors. Be careful, though, to make smart choices about what assignments to accept. Even for professionals who’d rather stay on a payroll than hang out a shingle, freelancing and contract work have been lifesavers the past couple of years. As millions of full-time, … Read More

After two years of unemployment, Rob Smith was sad and scared to return to work. You may be too. Although it’s surprising to hear, psychologists and career experts say Smith is more the norm than the exception.   After nearly two years of unemployment, Rob Smith finally got a job offer. It was with a … Read More

Following your heart to a dream job? Research, talk to an accountant, consider a tweak to your current job and whether it is really a change of job that will satisfy you. “Do what you love.” We’ve all heard that career advice before and we’d like to think we follow it, or would, if given … Read More

Depression and anxiety create a destructive cycle for job seekers, making it harder to find a job. Soroush Ghaderi was a confident young engineer. He worked at Sun Microsystems, one of the giants of Silicon Valley, where he had been on staff for 10 years, almost his entire career since college. As Sun’s fortunes faded, … Read More

As you age, you will want to change the types of jobs you seek, the personal brand you introduce, even the way you present your resume. Whether you are 22 or 62, a job search may be in your future. But the 20-something’s job search strategy should look very different than the 60-something’s — and … Read More

Is there a best time of year to search for a new job? To everything there is a season. The Old Testament declared it. Pete Seeger and the Byrds sang it. And many things in our lives follow discernible calendar cycles. Does the same apply to the job search? Do companies follow a business calendar … Read More

A marathon runner determines training and running 26 miles to be easier than the job search, where she can’t control the finish line, if there is one. Marc Cenedella wrote a piece a few weeks ago comparing the search process with running a marathon (It’s a marathon, not a sprint, Nov. 8, 2010). As a … Read More