Career Advice & Insights

Time for a change. Try this visualization exercise to figure out where you should go next with your career. Among the most distressing facts of the Great Recession is the length of unemployment. Previously, job seekers could expect a search to last four to six weeks for every $10,000 they expected to earn. The average … Read More

Will Bad Credit Hurt Your Job Chances? Tight times can blemish credit reports. How do background checks affect hiring decisions? Worried that recent economic travails have blemished your credit report? That those mortgage payments that went out a few days late might catch up with you? Or the cable bill you let slide for an … Read More

You don’t have to take this job. You have options. We’ve heard the comparison a thousand times: A job search is very much like the dating game. You never want to look desperate. You don’t want to come across as having low standards. You don’t want to come across as though you would go out … Read More

At current rates of unemployment, being without a job bears less stigma. It’s called “candidate forgiveness,” and companies are in the mood to practice it. Where do you find the silver lining in the darkest economic cloud since the Great Depression? It’s hard to think of positives. Supposedly, the roads are less crowded as fewer … Read More

Recruiters regularly work across geographies. Does it pay to find a recruiter who knows the terrain? When you’re working with a recruiting firm, will its location affect your chances at landing the job you want? If you’re trying to find a job in a new location, does it pay to find a recruiter already there … Read More

Here are two methods to improve your habits and your outlook when you need it most — when you’re searching for a job. It’s not so bad being out of work – not at first, anyway. You get to sleep a little later, see the kids off the school, play with the dog a bit, … Read More

Dig out those job-search receipts: If you shelled out for resume preparation, employment agency fees or interview-related travel in 2009, you might see some of that money come back to you. Her husband is an aeronautical engineer. They moved from Texas to Connecticut, where he found work with a defense contractor. She, however, worked in … Read More

Jane Helfen had been at Agilent 26 years when she found herself on the hunt. “Getting laid off was the kick in the pants that I needed,” she said from her new desk. If Jane Helfen had not been laid off last May, she says she’d still be in her former position at Agilent, waiting … Read More

Not all tax deductions are created equal. We often use the aphorism that the job search is a job itself. Like most maxims, it’s easy to take for granted — until there’s actual personal value at stake. When you consider your relationship with the IRS, your job hunt does indeed take on a decidedly entrepreneurial … Read More