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

Ellison Says, Stock OnlyA look at Oracle Corp's (ORCL) proxy statement filed September 11, 2000, reveals that CEO Lawrence Ellison will take all of his pay in stock options for four years.For the company's fiscal year ending May 31, 2000, Ellison was paid $208,000 in base salary and received no annual bonus. This is considerably less than he received in fiscal 1999: a base salary of $1 million and a bonus of $2.75 million. But before you start worrying about how the Ellisons are going to make ends meet, take a look at the next column on the summary compensation table. It shows that Larry Ellis... view article details

Fewer Young People Are Buying Homes I rent a charming apartment in a seaside town in Massachusetts for a reasonable price. 'Charming,' of course, is long-cherished real estate code for 'small,' and 'reasonable,' in this market, is not a modest sum. If I bought, I could probably get more space for my money (not to mention equity), but I lack the sterling credit and sizeable down payment that are essential to getting a mortgage these days. And so I find myself the apartment-dwelling epitome of an inauspicious trend: the marked decline in homeownership among young adults. Nationally, the... view article details

In Sex and City, Carrie Bradshaw lamented the cost of attending the weddings and baby showers of her married friends. Bridget Jones bemoaned her lot as she charted a life of dinner parties and family gatherings as the only singleton surrounded by smug-marrieds.Were Bridget and Carrie right? Is it less expensive to attend these events as half of a pair than on one’s own? Salary.com surveyed over 1,000 professionals to look at the cost of attending weddings, showers, christenings and other celebrations. How do these costs vary between single and married attendees? Do the smug-marrieds have a rea... view article details

Welcome to Our Annual Father's Day Survey Much is made of Mother's Day because it has become a full-blown Hallmark holiday over the years. But once all the hype and hoopla is over, there's this vague feeling that you're leaving something out. That something is dads -- and Salary.com hasn't forgotten.Our annual Father's Day Survey is back this year as we celebrate dads and all the work they do for their families. Every year Salary.com surveys thousands of dads to find out how much time they spend on household and childcare duties. Then, using our extensive salary data containing inform... view article details

Recycled. Upcycled. Eco-friendly. Sustainable. Organic. Everywhere you look signs, labels, and headlines make it clear that the country is going green. But how – if at all – does that translate into jobs?An estimated 3.4 million of U.S. jobs qualified as 'green' in 2011, according to a recent report from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, up nearly 5 percent over 2010. In the private sector, environmentally friendly jobs grew at an even faster rater: more than 7 percent, from 2.3 million to 2.5 million. Employment across all industries and categories, meanwhile, grew by just slightly more... view article details

Parting with Tradition For most of us, working on a resume is pretty uninspiring stuff. Fire up Microsoft Word, search for synonyms for “experience,” fiddle with the spacing until everything is lined up just so. Should the font be Arial or Times New Roman? 12-point or 11-point?But because we live in the digital age, there are a few brave souls among us who are turning the tedious traditional resume into something a little more creative and compelling. Personal branding websites, video resumes and social networking profiles are becoming increasingly valid ways for job seekers to distin... view article details

Job descriptionProject management is the process of planning, organizing, staffing, and guiding the process of creating a solution or system. Project managers are responsible for providing a plan and the means on which to base management decisions throughout the life of a project. There are many scheduling software tools available to help project managers perform their job, including PERT, Microsoft Project, Scitor Project Scheduler, and many others. While such applications are usually designed for certain industries or projects, they all use Critical Path Methodology, or CPM. CPM plays a larg... view article details

Salary.com's Annual Father's Day Survey Reveals Dad's Parenting PaycheckNo longer relegated to the role of babysitters, modern-day dads are putting in long hours performing various jobs on the homefront.Salary.com conducts an annual survey which determines how handsomely dads would be compensated if parenting came with a paycheck. Using a hybrid Job Valuation Tool and based on Certified Compensation Professional benchmarking principles that determine the value of jobs, salaries for 1,074 stay-at-home and working dads were created using the 10 most common 'dad jobs' including: day care center t... view article details

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 incorporates several different initiatives designed to jump start the economy. In a recent survey we attempted to gauge how confident our readership is in the effectiveness of these initiatives.Tax Relief ($288 Billion) The largest section of the bill, Tax Relief received a favorable response from our readership. Regardless of party affiliation a clear majority had faith that tax incentives and tax breaks will have a positive impact.Health Care Reform ($147.7 billion) Health Care Reform showed striking - if not ... view article details