Rich or Poor, Offer Letters Are Still Necessary If you’ve worked at any level in the corporate world, you’ve probably received an offer letter of employment. As a teenager, your first job offer – babysitting, mowing lawns, washing dishes, waiting tables – was probably pretty informal. Ah, but that first official offer letter.Sure, things might have gone great on your interview. You’re 99% sure they’re going to give you the job. Hopefully you negotiated a nice salary increase. You can’t wait to tell your parents and friends. And HR even verbally said you got the position. But it wasn’t... view article details

Productivity bonuses have their roots in the days when manufacturers rewarded hourly workers for speeding up their work pace. For instance, a worker who finished rolling 100 packages of shrink-wrap would earn a productivity bonus because an increase in personal efficacy meant a greater rate of output - and more profit - for the company.No longer confined to hourly workers, productivity bonuses are now being used throughout the payscale as rewards for performance and efficiency.In a survey of 783 employees across diverse companies, 20 percent of executives said they are seeing productivity rewa... view article details

'Now ever since I was young it's been my dream That I might drive a Zamboni machine I'd get the ice just as slick as could be And all the kids would look up to me.'- Gear Daddies, 'The Zamboni Song,' bonus track from Billy's Live BaitThose lyrics from the Gear Daddies' ode to the ZAMBONI ice resurfacing machine are fitting for Al Sobotka, keeper of the ice at Joe Louis Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings. Sobotka, a lifelong hockey fan, began working at the arena when he was in high school.'It was just a job I got when I was in high school, and I kept at it, working in the maintenance departm... view article details

Sometimes Vacation is More Stressful Than Work The holiday season is filled with stress. Family gatherings, crowded shopping malls and 24/7 Christmas music on the radio are just the tip of the iceberg. But the one thing that should combat this stress -- lots of time off from work between Thanksgiving and Christmas -- has the potential to be even more stressful than being at the office. It's no secret the economy hasn't been stellar the last few years. That has led to many layoffs, which has resulted in surviving employees wearing many more hats and doing jobs that didn't used to be th... view article details

The adage 'You never get a second chance to make a first impression' is never truer than when you submit your resume. Because this is likely the first glimpse of you that employers will get, make it an impressive one.A great resume can open a door, but an inferior one can just as quickly close one. This article explores 14 resume mistakes to avoid at all costs.Yes, you need a cover letter even when you are emailing your resume, posting it to a job board, or sending it electronically. A cover letter is the best place to introduce yourself, identify your goals, and briefly describe why you are a... view article details

Disintermediate. Recontextualize. Envisioneer. You’ve got to give business executives one thing: They love their jargon. Clinging to their buzzwords like Leo DiCaprio to a life raft, there are managers out there who seem to enjoy a squirt of dopamine every time they use a verb like architect (yes, as a verb!) or interface. Throw in some adjectives like constructivist, interdisciplinary, metacognitive or inquiry-centered, and then tack them on to nouns like bandwidth, convergence and methodologies and you’re well on your way to a minor stroke as you try to process the message lurking behind all... view article details

Steer Clear of These Careers on the Verge of Extinction The Future Looks Grim For Some Occupations Remember those men who went door-to-door selling vacuums, encyclopedias and other wares? Today, they are thing of movies and memories. The simple fact of the matter is some careers are fleeting, and aren't good bets for the future. Whether made obsolete by innovation or invention, it's important to take what information we currently have an apply it to the future when making decisions that will have lasting impacts. With that in mind, here are six jobs and careers about to go the way of the do... view article details

"Insourcing" Means Employers Are Finding It Less Expensive to Have Employees Stateside It's a familiar story: labor costs get too high, so management decides it will be best, in the long-run, to send jobs to another country. Only this time, the story has a twist ending. It is China – long considered an oasis of exceedingly cheap workers – that is losing jobs and the United States that is gaining them. Over the past two years, several major and not-so-major companies that had been outsourcing work to China have decided to bring some of the jobs back to the U.S. The trend -- often called "reshor... view article details

For many, if not most, of us, the Internet is an essential work tool. It lets us send e-mails, share documents, participate in video conferences, conduct research, and browse cat videos (only during breaks, of course). Now, three communities are taking things even further, deploying widespread networks with speeds at or above 1 gigabit per second in the hopes of boosting economic development.How fast, exactly, is 1 Gbps? Well, the average Internet speed in the United States is somewhere between 5 and 6 megabits per second, according to various reports. These 1-Gig systems, therefore, are as mu... view article details

There is, it seems, a skills gap in this country.Even as the national unemployment rate lingers above 8 percent -- 12.5 million people -- tens of thousands of jobs are going unfilled as employers contend that they just can't find qualified candidates. Applicants need to get more education, more skills, more experience, according to hiring managers.But the problem may not lay with the job-seekers alone, according to Why Good People Can't Get Jobs, a recently released book by Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School. Companies' own expectations and practices, Cappelli argues,... view article details