How to use a varied work history to your advantage Perhaps, generations ago, students graduated from college and found jobs related to their majors. They stayed at these jobs for several years before moving on to the next job, which was still in the same industry but hopefully a step up. For today's...

Fashion is subjective, and not just the artistic designer clothes you see in glossy magazines. What you're wearing today might make you cringe 10 years from now when you flip through your photo album. To be accurate, when you flip through your Facebook photo albums on your featherweight glass tablet. Take a...

You might have heard an urban legend about a job seeker who goes on a lunch interview with his potential boss. When the meal arrives, the job seeker sprinkles salt on his food before tasting it. Immediately the employer knows she has no interest in hiring this man. The job seeker isn't flexible, but he is...

We're halfway through 2011 and many job seekers are wondering what the state of the job market is. Although the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases employment figures each month, the data can be informative but still doesn't answer the questions a lot of people have: Who's hiring? What are my chances of...

Celebrities don't always make the best role models. For every Bono and Oprah Winfrey there is a real housewife of [choose your city] screaming at her supposed friend in a busy restaurant. Celebrities don't always make the best authors either. Just because someone can sing or act doesn't mean they're capable...

In the new movie "Larry Crowne," Tom Hanks plays a Navy veteran who is a manager at one of those big box stores where you can buy bananas, a TV, new tires for your car and a fish tank all under one roof. Although he is something of a superstar employee, he's unceremoniously let go when the company downsizes,...

I once had a job where, after four months in the office, I still couldn't pinpoint exactly what one person in my office did. She and I would be in the same meetings, but she didn't say or do anything that hinted at her professional purpose. Not once did we collaborate on a project, though we made polite...

When you try to assess the state of the economy, you can quickly find yourself confused and not sure what to think. On one hand, you have the employment rate, which seems to have only taken baby steps downward but is significantly better than it was a couple of years ago. Then you have the amount of new jobs...

Most parents choose their children's names carefully. They realize that their offspring will be branded with these names for the rest of their lives (or at least until they can legally change them at 18). No rhyming names. No names where the initials spell out something silly or embarrassing. No names of...