The Inside Job
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5 Tips for Business Travel
Continue reading… 1 CommentAmericans make more than 405 million long-distance business trips a year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Studies find that most of us actually like business travel—that may be part of the reason teleconferencing never took off.
Some of us, I'll wager, are much better at it than others. As I sit here typing in a hotel room in southern Arizona, I'll certainly agree that I have plenty of room to grow in skill and efficiency. Here are five lessons I've learned in the past couple of days. Truly seasoned travelers may find these no-brainers, in which case, I'd encourage you to offer your own.
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DNC Bloggers Choose Yoga, Not Cheetos
Continue reading… 5 CommentsHave you ever wondered what career bloggers' working lives are really like?
This morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, cohost Willie Geist quizzed the "Cheetos eaters, " aka the 400 bloggers covering the Democratic National Convention. Geist asked serious questions like "Have you ever, or do you now, eat Cheetos while blogging?"
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Career Prospects After Weird Baby Name Craze
Continue reading… 6 CommentsEarlier this week we talked about whether smoking can hurt your career. Other seemingly irrelevant things could handicap advancement as well, such as your name.
While a bizarre first name rarely says much about the individual who carries it—serving instead to lay the parents out like an open book—will Zuma, Apple, or Kyd have trouble being taken seriously in the working world?
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Income Data: What Women Earned Last Year
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThe U.S. Census Bureau today released some key figures on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage. Let's take a look at the income highlights:
Real median household income increased 1.3 percent, to $50,233, in 2007.
- Real median income (inflation-adjusted) for black and non-Hispanic white households rose in 2007 for the first time since 1999. It was flat for Asian and Hispanic households.
- Real median income rose in the Midwest and the South, declined in the Northeast and was flat in the West.
- Income for foreign-born households with a householder who was not a U.S. citizen dropped by 7.3 percent, to $37,637.
- Women who worked full time, year-round, earned 78 percent of what corresponding men earned. But both men and women saw an increase in real earnings after three years of declines.
- Income inequality decreased in 2007 from 2006. The top fifth of the nation's households saw a decline, while aggregate income grew for the third and fourth quintiles.
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Toyota Refuses to Lay Off Workers
Continue reading… 16 CommentsToyota refuses to lay off the 4,500 workers idled for three months by halted production of the company's Tundra pickups and Sequoia SUVs at plants in Texas and Indiana.
From Workforce Management:
As the U.S. auto industry sheds workers, and even Nissan offers buyouts, Toyota is sticking by its proud—and expensive—tradition of no layoffs during hard times.
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A New Diet From the Burger King Ad Guys
Continue reading… 4 CommentsWe know well the work of Crispin Porter + Bogusky. This is the advertising agency that has given Burger King a makeover. As AdAge.com puts it: These are the guys "who coined 'Meatnormous,' introduced the Quad Stacker, and unveiled the Double Croissanwich filled with 'meat and cheese and cheese and meat.'"
(This is also the agency that's creating spots for Microsoft that will feature Jerry Seinfeld.)
But back to the meat and cheese and double meat—partners Alex Bogusky and Chuck Porter seem an unlikely pair to produce a diet book, to say the least. Selling self-control would seem a strange career move. But here it is: The 9-Inch Diet: Exposing the Big Conspiracy in America. The book is about portion control—eating your meals off a 9-inch plate.
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Audio: You're Playing With Fire When You Negotiate
Continue reading… 2 CommentsI spoke yesterday with Washington, D.C.'s WTOP News about navigating a minefield. Actually, we talked about searching for a "backup job" when you fear you may be laid off. It's not unlike a minefield. You can listen to the interview here.
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Why Web Surfing at Work Is a Nonproblem
Continue reading… 6 CommentsAs long as U.S. productivity continues to grow at a solid clip, why do managers feel that it's necessary to moderate their employees' use of the Internet?
Consider the results of a new survey by the Creative Group, a staffing firm: The survey found that a majority—57 percent—of executives at large U.S. companies and advertising agencies think it's OK if employees surf the Web for leisure purposes at work.
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Why Every Job Search is Different
Continue reading… 1 CommentWhen it comes to our job search or career efforts, we often feel like there's some secret solution that we haven't discovered. There's an enormous cottage industry dedicated to helping us find better jobs or succeed in the ones we have. But there is no secret solution. There's no one right way to do things.
In reporting my story on searching for a job when you've already got one, I spoke with several careers experts. I figured these issues would be simple and straightforward. I was way off.
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The Best Places to Learn HR Secrets
Continue reading… 1 CommentFistful of Talent—a blog where recruiters, consultants, and human resources experts have their say—this week listed its top 25 "Talent/Recruiting/HR/Human Capital Blogs."
Reading these blogs will give you a tremendous edge in understanding management decisions and help increase your career savvy:
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The New Face of Promiscuity
Continue reading… 1 CommentHow can you be promiscuous online? Through indiscriminate linking and networking on sites like LinkedIn.
Social promiscuity dilutes the value of Web 2.0 connections. Even the networks themselves are opposed to it. Kay Luo, a spokeswoman for LinkedIn, recently told the New York Times: "We try to discourage promiscuous linking."
Luo does not, however, discourage elitism.
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What You Can Learn From Erin Donohue
Continue reading… 1 CommentIf the odds—any odds—are against you in your career, here's a big dose of inspiration for your midweek rut: Olympian Erin Donohue.
According to the New York Times, Donohue's body is "too short and stocky to be a star middle-distance runner."
But there she is, competing in the 1,500-meter heats in Beijing on Thursday.
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Vote: Does Smoking Hurt Your Career?
Continue reading… 3 CommentsWhat effect, if any, does a smoking habit have on a person's career and opportunities for advancement?
Over at Jobacle today, Andrew G.R. details "the perils of smoking at work":
• Smoking can be a sign of weakness to management.
• It creates a certain perception at work. Smoking is a controversial topic these days, and it depends which person is making the perception whether it is good or bad. Regardless, there is always a stigma attached to the title of "smoker."
• You smell. Sorry, I don't have a nice way to say it. Although I have given up work smoking completely, I enjoy the occasional with a beer. I smell when I do it, and so do you.
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You're Lucky if You're in Advertising
Continue reading… 2 CommentsIt can be really frustrating to work in an industry that seems to be growing less attractive to talented workers. But it can also be a great thing for your career.
In this video from AdAge.com, Nancy Hill, CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, detailed recruiting and retention problems in the advertising industry. Hill, speaking at an industry luncheon, says the industry's single biggest challenge is: "Finding the talent, compensating the talent, growing the talent, keeping the talent—when they have so many other options from Google to Microsoft to Hollywood."
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Go Compliment Your Most Annoying Coworker
Continue reading… 2 CommentsHere's a workplace challenge that involves more guts than gray matter. The Careerealism blog is challenging readers to compliment the most irritating person in their office.
A little primer on the purpose of the exercise:
1. Compliments and appreciation are two different things. People tend to overuse appreciation and under-utilize compliments on-the-job.
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Some Women Work Too Hard to Be Promoted
Continue reading… 3 CommentsYou're a woman. You're a hard worker. But, for some reason, you're not getting promoted. Although you may assume the worst—that you're hitting your head against a glass ceiling—consider that you may, in fact, be working too hard.
That's the message relayed by career strategist Karyl Innis, as reported by the Dallas Morning News:
Ironically, the reward for being known as a hard worker is often more hard work—not that leadership position you may be after.
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The Labor Market in Your State
Continue reading… 3 CommentsHow did your state's workers fare in July? Here's a rundown of unemployment rates that standout, as reported by the Labor Department today. Others run more closely in step with the national trend. (For reference, the national unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent in July—1.0 percentage point higher than a year earlier.)
States with the highest unemployment rates:
- Michigan: 8.5 percent
- Mississippi: 7.9
- Rhode Island: 7.7
- California: 7.3
- Illinois: 7.3
- Ohio: 7.2
- South Carolina: 7.0
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Tamara Urushadze Knows the Color of Her Parachute
Continue reading… 1 CommentIf you want to know what it's like to really have passion and conviction about your work, examine the video here, of Georgian reporter Tamara Urushadze, who refuses to be sidelined on the job by a sniper's bullet to the arm.
Urushadze, 32, was reporting live from Gori, Georgia, when she was shot. The Daily Mail reports that other journalists and aid workers took cover as she "bravely or foolishly" continued to report.
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Can Your Favorite Colors Reveal Your Career?
Continue reading… 11 CommentsIt's hard to know what to make of many of the career assessments out there. I leave accuracy up to the pros and largely measure based on brevity and interest. In those regards, here's a good one:
The Color Career Counselor, offered by Careerbuilder's CareerPath.com, quizzes you several times on your favorite colors and then analyzes your personality.
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I Wish I'd Spent More Time at the Office
Continue reading… 5 CommentsWe've all repeated the phrase: "No one ever said on their deathbed, 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office,'" but do we really agree with it?
Lucy Kellaway called it "sentimental pap" recently in her Financial Times column, and I'm tempted to agree with her.
After all, don't you want to take out the BlackBerry and check E-mail during the subway ride home? We could spend the time reading Hemingway or composing sonnets—but we'd rather check in to see if there was any response to an afternoon presentation, or if a client responded to that recent E-mail. It's desire, not drudgery, that drives us.
Brett Favre apparently had his quiet moment at home and screamed "no" all the way to New York.
Aren't all the purpose-driven, parachute-colored, seven-stepped, power-of-positive books meant to help us craft careers that are about more than paychecks and gold watches? Don't we believe that finding meaningful work makes us one of the lucky ones?
If anything, we may say, "I wish I'd spent my time better at the office." Or "I wish I'd moved my office to the beach." Or "I wish I'd telecommuted more." Or "I wish I'd treated my assistant better."
