A few years ago, when unemployment was low and the economy was rosy, all you needed to do to get a job was get your resume in front of as many people as possible. You had to carpet bomb, stuff electronic resume boxes, and simply wait. One of the companies you reached out to probably had a job opening and you probably were a pretty good fit.

Nowadays, the jobs are harder to find and companies aren’t going to take a risk on a “pretty good fit.” So, I compiled a list of ten tips I’ve tried to use when crafting my resume during a job search.

(Click to continue reading…)

When I started college in 1998, the dot-com bubble was only an anxious froth. Computers were becoming increasingly popular and hardly a day went by when you didn’t hear about some hot new startup. They hadn’t really exploded yet, that wouldn’t be for another year, but everyone wanted to get into “computers.” The path to riches was paved not with cheese, as Feivel once thought, but with Internets and electronics.

Nowadays, computers are commonplace and while computer science and engineering still pepper the top job lists, there are a few jobs out there that you probably didn’t know paid as well as they do. Thanks to US News and World Reports, we now know eleven of them. I only looked at the more interesting ones.

(Click to continue reading…)

With the weak economy and everyone feeling like their job, if they still have one, is in peril, people are trying to add to their skill set and make themselves a more productive and valuable employee. They’re augmenting themselves, not their résumé. If you’re one of these people, you’ve probably considered taking some courses or preparing for exams so you can get additional certifications. If you’ve done a little bit of research about self-paced computer training software packages, you’ve probably come to the same conclusion as I did – there are two very separate and specific “types” of self-paced learning packages and each one is designed to fulfill a very different need.

(Click to continue reading…)

Do you know what the top ten recession proof jobs are? According to Laurence Shatkin, author of150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs, they are:

1. Computer systems analysts
2. Network systems and data communications analysts
3. Network and computer systems administrators
4. Registered nurses
5. Teachers, postsecondary
6. Physical therapists
7. Physicians and surgeons
8. Dental hygienists
9. Pharmacists
10. Medical and health services managers

Unfortunately, the list itself is useless. It’s useless because we’re already in a recession. The people who are looking for jobs can’t switch careers on a whim. The people who are working aren’t going to quit their jobs for a “recession proof” job. In that respect, they’re useless because you can’t act on it. Fortunately, you can learn something from it.

(Click to continue reading…)

If you’re out of work or looking to supplement your income, you might want to consider working for the U.S. Census Bureau to help collect the 2010 Census. According to CNNMoney, the 2010 Census will put 1.4 million people to work and projected to cost $14 billion, $212 million in advertising. If you want to make some extra cash and have the time, you might want to get the ball rolling on securing a job with the U.S. Census.

(Click to continue reading…)

Over three million, six hundred thousand jobs have been lost since the recession started over a year ago. Three million, six hundred thousand. If you’re one of the three million, six hundred thousand, my heart goes out to you and I hope you’ll follow my friend Sarah as she chronicles her battle against joblessness in Diary of a Firee. If you still have your job and you haven’t started preparing for the possibility that you will lose it, start preparing. You have all the tools you need right now to fortify your finances so that, should you lose your job, you will be prepared for it.

These tips were tailored for young professionals but they can apply to anyone. They are focused less on family-related money saving ideas and more on the things individuals and couples tend to do, especially if they’re in the younger working demographic.

(Click to continue reading…)

Did you know that you may be able to deduct the cost of looking for a job from your taxes?

(Click to continue reading…)

It’s seven o’clock and you’re just leaving work. You’re tired after a long day of work and all you want to do is turn into a vegetable in front of yet another episode of Law and Order. As you walk to your car, you notice someone clipped the bumper and managed to unhinge it from the chassis. It’s scraped, a little cracked, and almost most importantly, since it is the bumped, it looks like crap. The culprit left no note. You are probably out a few hundred dollars of your deductible to get it repaired… fortunately you have an emergency fund… unfortunately, you’ll have to tap into it for this.

That situation is one of any number of reasons why emergency funds are so important. In the situation above, you are likely required by law to fix an unhinged bumper and any visit to the shop will cost you a few hundred bucks. Without an emergency fund, you might resort to a credit card or a short term loan. If you can’t pay that back, it quickly becomes a downward spiral you can’t escape. A minor expense becomes a major expense. But how much should you have saved in an emergency fund? The answer depends on who you ask! Some experts say twelve months of expenses, other will say six months, and even others say “however much you feel comfortable with.” The answer, unfortunately, is that the amount “depends” on you and your situation.

(Click to continue reading…)

When I first graduated, the job market was bleak. It was so bleak, I opted to start attending graduate school before ever being accepted (I graduated early in December and wanted to take classes immediately, so I attended while applying). In the few months I did look for a job, I received a whole batch of GFY (go f- yourself) letters from all types of companies. The worst ones were from the companies I didn’t even want to work for, but would accept just to have a job. It wasn’t a pleasant time for me, or my graduating friends, but it taught me a lot about dealing with rejection.

(Click to continue reading…)

Do you have an accomplishment journal?

I don’t know if you’ve seen my Wall of Fame & Fortune & Awesomeness but it’s a list of all the awesome publications and websites I’ve have the pleasure of being in, on, or near. It’s essentially a list of my accomplishments as a result of this blog and it’s something I feel very fortunate to have been able to do. I was in the local paper once when I was in 6th grade for reading to kindergartners in my school, the New York Times was a little bigger than that.

The point of showing that post both here and at the top of every page isn’t to brag or show the world how awesome I am. It’s there because it gives me the motivation to keep doing what I’m doing every day, day in and day out. Life can be a grind, whether its in an office, a restaurant, a factory floor, a job site, or a retail store. Unless you make a record of the highlights, you can often get lost in the grind and find yourself on the flip side without a clue of what happened.

There are a few other reasons why I think an accomplishment journal is crucial.

What Is An Accomplishment Journal

An accomplishment journal is simply a place you can write down and celebrate all of your accomplishments. You define what success is and you define what you consider an accomplishment. The door is wide open and anything you want to put down is fair game. What an office manager considers a success is different than what a stay at home mom or dad considers a success. A student has different goals, and thus different accomplishments to note, than an executive. However, for any one of those people, an accomplishment journal is something that can provide value for years to come.

Why Keep One?

If you ever kept a journal as a child (I didn’t but my wife did and I love reading her cute notes), you know how much fun reading your own thoughts can be. Who and what bothered you, who you liked and disliked, what your concerns were at the time, etc. Now, an accomplishment journal is similar in that you can relive your successes. It makes it much easier to remember the past and offers a glimpse into your own development. That’s the emotional sappy reason, there are also many logical reasons to keep a journal.

It helps you keep your resume up to date. I recommend revisiting and updating your resume every three months, even if you aren’t looking for a job. It’s important to update your resume when the accomplishments and responsibilities are still fresh in your mind. Can you accurately remember the work you did five years ago? If you were put under the gun, like after being laid off, would you be able to remember the work you did last year with sufficient clarity? If you are able to recall exactly what you did, maybe you don’t need to update it every three months. I only know that I can’t, which is why I update it every three months.

It motivates you. One of the biggest things I learned from my wife when she was looking for a job several years ago was the importance of progress when there appeared to be none. One of the tips I offered in my post about Three Morale-Boosting Tips for Job Seekers was to track your progress. Tracking your progress in a job hunt is like tracking your accomplishments. It may seem silly or minor to you but when you send out ten resumes or go out on an interview, those are accomplishments. When you look back after a week of searching, it’s much better to see “I sent out 85 resumes.” than to remember “I spent all week sending resumes.”

It lets you define how success is measured. Mark at Soul Shelter recently wrote about his struggles with the idea of success. Mark is a writer, a midlist writer (where the books aren’t a bestseller but sell enough to justify publication), and struggles each year around the holidays to describe his vocation. While his struggle was with the external barometers of success for his field, bestseller lists and book sales, he does talk about how “we ought to try to recognize and value others’ achievements, big and small, vocational and personal. And most importantly, if we want to be happy and self-confident and continue wholeheartedly doing the work we love—however underpaid or undervalued—we must learn to rely on the measures of success that mean the most to us personally, and strive not to lose sight of them.”

Having your own journal of accomplishments can help further that goal, if only for yourself. Rather than look towards income or other external measures, your accomplishments are whatever you want them to be and when you write them down, they can give you the motivation to work harder. You decide what you want to write down and only you will be reading it, so feel free to write down things that are important to you that may not be important to anyone else.

Do you keep a journal of your achievements and accomplishments? If so, what was your latest accomplishment? It’s ok to share!

(Photo: shuttercat7)