Career Change

I work for free. A lot. Yes, that includes writing this article, indeed writing one every week for AOL Jobs and a separate one each week for U.S. News. And I'm in my 25th year producing and hosting "Work with Marty Nemko" on an NPR station in San Francisco, yes, for free. Why? Because I don't know how to...

Used by 93 percent of companies to recruit, LinkedIn is the most popular professional network in the world. But one profession is categorically excluded from it: sex workers. In its updated user agreement, LinkedIn explicitly bars all sex workers, even legal ones, from its site. One prostitute in Nevada calls...

I recently received this question from a reader. Q: I was hired for a specific job with a specific job title. Months later, my employer changed my title without asking me and made me work in a role that I neither wanted nor was qualified for. I wouldn't have left my prior job for the newly changed job title....

SAN FRANCISCO -- Looking for a career change, Ken Shimizu decided he wanted to be a software developer, but he didn't want to go back to college to study computer science. Instead, he quit his job and spent his savings to enroll at Dev Bootcamp, a new San Francisco school that teaches students how to write...

By the time that he was 24, Thomas Mickens had at least 20 luxury cars, 20 properties, a 38-foot yacht, a series of businesses, and 50 employees. By the time he was 26, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Mickens was released five years ago, with an entrepreneurial spark just as bright. No longer the...

Donna Read never planned to spend the rest of her life working at a grocery store. But the decent wages and great benefits kept her there for 12 years, until she was fired last summer. At age 58, Read fell into poverty, and into a depression that kept her in bed for three months. But now Read is going back to...

Warrior Spirit Band band members Paul Delacerda, King Burton, Sean Foster and Levon Ingram at Rock 4 Recovery. Paul Delacerda has had a long road to his current job as the drummer for a touring rock band composed entirely of wounded military veterans. When he left the Army in 2009, he faced a difficult...

I know a few people in their 40s and 50s who reinvented themselves the old-fashioned way: They went back to school. One became a high school teacher. Another became a psychologist. And a third went through an extensive wine certification program and became the marketing director for a wine retailer. School is...

Something happened last week that has made me call off the hunt for right now: I am flooded with freelance work. I'm up to my eyeballs, which is great -- not only from an income standpoint, but also because it's given me some perspective. After the sobering barrage of comments to my last post about contingency...

The idea of paying someone to help you get a job may strike you as absurd. Yet the practice of using a job coach is growing as workers seek any advantage in a tight labor market. But what would a career coach tell you, if you had the bucks to hire one? Interviews with career coaches uncovered several key...

When William Corbin's girlfriend told him that she was pregnant, he did what he thought was called for: He dropped out of high school to devote himself to drug dealing. He was 15 years old. "I [had to] step up to the plate," the 30-year-old Mt. Vernon, N.Y., native (pictured at right) says. "I needed money."

Sure, there is plenty of evidence that a career coach can help jumpstart a job search or career change. But when shouldn't you hire one? When would it be a waste of your precious income, especially given that coaches can charge as much as $250 an hour? In fact, career coaches say that people should proceed...

The economy is showing signs of life. And that means millions of people who have been stuck in jobs they hate will start looking for work. A 2011 survey indicated that 84 percent of Americans planned to look for a new job when the economy improved. And yet, the reality is that only a small percentage of them...

By Richard Eisenberg There's one question many people in their 40s, 50s and 60s have when they muse about switching from their current occupation into an encore career that will let them have a second act with a social purpose: How do you do it? That's been a toughie, since no one had created a practical guide...

If you find yourself standing at a podium, beside your stone-faced wife, explaining that you need to take personal time to regain the trust of your family, your political career is likely over. But while Eliot Spitzer's penchant for female escorts may have cut short his term as New York governor, his career...

You know what they say: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." If you've been coveting the greener grass of a different career, be sure to stop and reflect before you plan a major shift. While transitioning careers sometimes makes sense, many people mistakenly believe a career change will...

Tami Hausman was about to turn 40 and felt stuck. Working at a small Manhattan public relations firm, she saw no way to grow in her career. "The way the firm was structured, I couldn't expand," she says, adding that she felt confused. "I really didn't know how to take the next step. Should I change fields?...

By Maria Nikias Going on vacation means a laundry list of to-do's before heading out of town. Hire a babysitter, house sitter, pet sitter, but a chicken-sitter? "Chicken sitting" the flyer advertises. "Need someone to care for your hens while you take a trip? Now you have someone to care for your backyard...

The tough economy has forced many people to reconsider their careers. For some, that's meant gaining additional skills to hang on to a job, but others -- sometimes through no fault of their own -- have found that they have to consider a whole new career path. But explaining to a potential employer that you...

Now that I'm job hunting, I've been wondering: At what age do you become that 'older worker" who has hit the brick wall? Based on what I've seen and heard from other mid-careerists, the magic number seems to be 55. Last week, a CNNMoney story, "Workers Over 50 Are The New Unemployables," suggested the even more...