Ex-convicts are 'at the back of the line' in their struggle to find work during the recession. It's a burden Gregory Headley feels all too well.

By Aaron Smith

If you think it's tough getting a job during a recession, imagine what it's like for an ex-convict.

Gregory Headley, 29, knows exactly what it's like. The Harlem resident was released from prison in July after serving two years and eight months for the criminal sale of a firearm. Now that he's out, he said, the conviction is dogging his attempts to land a full-time job.

"There's no nice way of saying, 'I sold a gun,' " Headley said recently as he headed to his part-time job cleaning sidewalks.

By Anne Fisher

Dear Annie: I'm a week away from my 54th birthday and, man, am I getting discouraged. After being laid off from a fairly senior job in May, I've spent the past few months networking nonstop, and managed to get three interviews. One interviewer never got back to me at all, and the other two both said I am overqualified for the jobs they have to offer.

I suspect that "overqualified" is corporate code for "old and expensive," so I tried to explain that I am more than willing to take a step or two down in position and salary (both my kids are out of college now, and our mortgage is almost paid off), but I still hit a brick wall. How does one get around being seen as "overqualified"? --Highly Experienced

By Ed Orum for AOL Find a Job

It was a drive I had done many times before - home to office, office to home - but this time was different. I had just been laid off from my job, and I knew I wouldn't be back. HR didn't ask for my keys or badge, but I felt strangely disconnected from a place that once served as my home away from home.

As I walked along the row of my colleagues' cars, I looked at their names, labeled on a sign above each spot. Some I would keep in touch with, others I would probably never see again. I wondered why they had escaped my fate. A pair of blank signs reminded me of the two who were cut a few months before me. Back then, I felt lucky. Today, I felt sorry for myself.

By Ed Orum for AOL Find a Job

If you think it's tough to find a job where you live, consider yourself lucky you're not looking in El Centro, California - the unemployment rate hit 30 percent there in September. To be fair, even when times were good in the rest of the U.S., El Centro still struggled with a 20 percent unemployment rate.

Why is it so bad there? El Centro, like many other communities in the U.S., rely on one business for most of their lifeblood. In this case, it's agriculture. When was the last time someone told you they were starting a farm?

Researchers found axed Boeing workers healthier than those left behind

By Michelle Conlin

As the Great Recession continues to devour jobs at an alarming rate, tales are legion about the millions of unemployed struggling to right their lives and recover their self-esteem. But what happens to those left behind?

Would it surprise you to learn that survivors can suffer just as much, if not more, than colleagues who get laid off? It certainly surprised a team of academic researchers who embedded themselves at Boeing from 1996 to 2006, a tumultuous decade during which the company laid off tens of thousands. The results of the study will appear next year in a Yale University Press book called "Turbulence: Boeing and the State of American Workers and Managers."