Be careful who you take career advice from. Knowing who to take advice from is a really good skill for any aspect of your life, but especially in the field of work, because work is changing very fast right now. A lot of advice that was good ten years ago is not good now. And …

Everyone thinks transparency and authenticity are great. But sometimes you need to rein them in. I've talked about how I do this with my blog, which is really an example of how I rein myself in at work. There are times we each have to do this at work, and in some cases, we need …

Pick who you work with very carefully. Because you are likely to become like them. So the first thing is to know what's important to you about you — what you want to become. What you like about yourself. And then, surround yourself with people who match your aspirations for yourself.
Here are some ideas:
Choose people …

Reference checks used to matter a lot. Fifty years ago. When people only changed jobs twice in their life, and they didn't know anyone outside of their company, it made sense that the second company called the first company.
Then, when it became clear that the first company could say one, tiny bad thing and then …

The guy I'm sort of dating asks me, “Do you know Glenda Bautista?”
I say, “No.”
He says, “We're trying to hire her.”
So I check out her blog and dis her and he says, “She was dating Matt Mullenweg.”
I say, “Really.”
He says, “Yeah. I was talking with my business partner and we both thought it must really …

It used to be that the best post-college jobs were the ones that gave you a sense of security (law, medicine) or financial windfall (banking). But the finance industry and grad-school route are both dead ends at this point.
The New York Times reports that we're experiencing a sea change in the career department because the …

Let's sayyou get fired, or laid off, or you quit because after two weeks you know you're at the worst company on the planet. In all of those cases, you will face the interview question: What happened at your last job?
Here's the answer you should always give: “I left to do x.” And you fill …

As the recession persists, we can watch social shifts and cultural trends. Some are good, some are bad. But in either case, one way to control how the recession affects you is to watch the larger trends and decide where you want to fit.
Here are five trends that are emerging in the face of the …

When you want to get a new job, don't look at your resume to see what you could get. Instead, take time to build a resume that meets the requirements of the jobs you want. This doesn't mean using keywords that are in the job description. That is not going to work. Instead, look at …

A recession is typically a good time for graduate schools. Their application pool goes up because people see them as safe shelter from the storm. The scariest part of a down economy is the idea of having no income. Of course, graduate school does not solve for that. But graduate school does solve the second …

There is no other way to figure out where you belong than to make time to do it and give yourself space to fail, give yourself time to be lost. If you think you have to get it right the first time, you won’t have the space really to investigate, and you’ll convince yourself that …

I announced last week that I’ll be running a poll on my sidebar each week. I'm aiming for a new one every Tuesday.
The poll is a fun way for me to think about career topics. A new format always gets me going. But it’s also fun because even after writing about careers for ten years, …

I know that we have a bad economy, so bad that we have a not-yet-President who is running the country from the Chicago Hilton so that the markets don’t implode while Bush gives pardons for cronies.
But can we just take a minute for a reality check? It’s not really bad for people who are young. …

I noticed in the New York Times Book Review last week, there was a nice review of Jim Krusoe’s new book, Girl Factory. I was happy to see that, because Jim Krusoe was my first—and most influential—writing teacher.
Jim teaches creative writing at Santa Monica College, (and his faculty page reveals so much about him). …

A lot of times we think we know what we’re doing in the job hunt, and then someone surprises us with information we didn’t think of. My latest bunch of surprises came from the book, What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here? by Cynthia Shapiro, who I have interviewed before, …

The jobs that are the most fun are where our learning curve is high but we can still achieve results. Usually the list of requirements for a job like this is a little beyond your experience. So how do you get one?
First of all, realize that the people who write job descriptions actually have little …

There is a lot of hoop-la over the recession. Or coming recession. Or statistical but maybe-not-really recession. But the truth is that the job market is just fine, especially for the post-Baby-Boomer set.
The health of today’s job market is not so much a function of economic indicators as it is a function of demographic …

A lot of people worry that they can’t get another job because they don’t have time to find one. This is why hunting for a job from your cube is totally standard. It used to be that people stayed in their jobs 40 years, and a job hunt was an earth-shattering event, and there was …

Getting hired even when you’re not qualified is one of the most important skills to have if you want to keep your work life interesting. Because if you are always taking jobs you’re qualified for, then your learning curve is really flat, and your work life is really boring.
So here are three ways to get …

People ask me this question a lot: If it’s such a good job market for young people then why can’t I find a good job?
The answer is that there are tons of really bad jobs being offered. For all the talk of flexibility in the workplace, very few companies are actually offering engaging jobs with …