A cover letter can be the first step of a new career journey. Or it can be a dead end that dooms your attempts to get a job. It all has to do with how you write it.

By Luke Roney, CareerBliss Each day, workers around the U.S. are faced with a crucial decision: what to have for lunch. For some, however, the "lunch" in their lunch break is a mere suggestion. And their midday hour away from the office has little to do with eating.

By Luke Roney I'll admit it from the outset -- I do enjoy working from home. Occasionally. When there is some sort of complication or emergency on the home front, it's great to have a boss who's OK with me logging on remotely. But, working full-time from home (or from Starbucks) just isn't my cup of nonfat...

Have you seen Britain's Prince Harry lately? Of course you have -- photos of the prince's pixelated privates have been all over the Web and the news for the past couple days. For Harry, the private-photos-made-public (thanks, TMZ) will likely result in few consequences, save a possible reprimand from his...

By Luke Roney I knew, as it was happening, that the job interview was going badly. The guy asking the questions -- the managing editor at a mid-size Southern California daily -- had lost interest in me quickly. He put his feet up on his desk and began eating his lunch. I sat wordlessly as he ate. The crunch...

By Rochelle Kaplan Being fired from a job can happen to anyone and can occur for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you had a personality conflict with your immediate supervisor and your supervisor prevailed. Or, the job description was completely different from the one given to you during the interview and it...

Sure, there's a long-term payoff for practicing diplomacy in the workplace. Good career karma can come in the form of employee referrals, glowing LinkedIn recommendations, networking opportunities, leads on new jobs and more. But who needs any of those things?

Much has been written about how to expand your professional network – attend events, make connections, build relationships, et cetera, ad nauseam. Building your network, of course, is a worthwhile pursuit, but while you're busy looking for new connections don't overlook the older ones - namely your...

There are plenty of obvious ways to screw up a job interview: show up late; take a call mid-interview; unload about your old boss; steal the interviewer's pen (booze on the breath or dog poop on the shoes also can lead to a less-than-desirable outcome). But there is a more subtle job interview killer out...