Seventy-two years ago, the house I grew up in was occupied by the DeLong family: a husband and wife, one son, two daughters. The husband worked as a salesman, his son as a clerk. None of the women held a job. The neighbors were laborers and waitresses and machinists. One industrious man worked 60-hour weeks at a poultry farm; another unfortunate resident had been unemployed for more than three years when census-takers knocked on his door in 1940. For many of us today, working means cubicles and computers and commutes. It means colleagues who have graduated high school, and many who have also f... view article details
Summer Presents Unique Opportunities for You to Advance Your Career Summer is No Time to Slack Off at Work And suddenly, Summer. Coats go into storage, you’re buying sunscreen by the gallon, and your mind instantly shifts from spreadsheets and status meetings to suntans and sandy beaches. However, while kids might be screaming "school's out for summer" and racing for the playground, things don't quite work that way as an adult in the business world. But don't worry, the tips below won't be as painful as summer school. So here are 5 ways you can use summer to your advantage professionally. ... view article details
Finding a great job can be a challenge. But once you land that dream job, you need to realize the real challenge is still looming in the distance. You Only Get One Chance to Make a Good First Impression Finding a great job can be a challenge. But once you land that dream job, you need to realize the real challenge is still looming in the distance. Sure, take a moment to pat yourself on the back and celebrate getting hired. Good for you! But if you want to lay the groundwork for short- and long-term job success, you can’t relax and become complacent. It’s possible to get your future co-workers ... view article details
Find Out Why You Get Along with Certain People at Work Have you ever wondered why it is that you seem to get along with some people and not with others? Or why it is that you can’t seem to get through to another? The answer lies in your personality style, a predictable set of behaviors that defines how others see you as you go about doing what you do. Your style -- a preference for behaving one way rather than another -- governs the way you lead others, participate in teamwork communicate, make decisions, and manage change; it even governs the way you learn. Personality style influences the ... view article details
These "Worthless College Degrees" Might Make You Happy, But Fail the Tuition ROI Test College: Is it Worth It? What's more expensive than going to college? Until recently, the answer was easy: not going to college. Numerous studies over the years have shown that individuals with college degrees significantly out-earn those with high school degrees by $1 million or more over the course of a lifetime. But as the cost of education increases faster than inflation, people are beginning to question how they spend their education dollars. As student loans hit the $1.5 trillion mark and more and mo... view article details
Picture this: You meet someone on Bumble. This person seems like a great match for you. You go on a bunch of dates and start to assume things are getting serious. And then it happens… What happens exactly? Well, nothing. You hear nothing. You see nothing. “Bae” is off the radar like a rogue ship in the night. You, my friend, have just been ghosted. A more recent trend is “zombieing.” The gem who ghosted you suddenly resurfaces months later – as if back from the dead. If the person has the audacity, the communication can open with a super casual line as if the ghosting never even occurred. “Hey... view article details
The Aged Must Adapt You're over 50. You're entitled to feel that you've proven yourself by now, and your current employer seems to agree. But you see the cubicles filling up with 20- and 30-somethings, and you wonder: what do they bring to the workplace that I don't? How does my manager compare the two of us? Face it: sometimes they are the managers!How can you make sure everyone concerned -- you, your younger co-workers, and your employer -- benefits from the situation in which you find yourself? Fortunately, some of those managers are happy to talk about their older workers, and the... view article details
How do you promote yourself while adding value to others? How can you do so successfully across generations?I just had the pleasure of chatting on Twitter with personal branding guru Dan Schawbel, bestselling author and managing partner of Millennial Branding, a Gen Y research and consulting firm. Schawbel and I tweeted about what he describes as “the new rules in the new workplace” in his latest book.Check out what he says about taking your career into your own hands, differentiating yourself, and targeting your audience.(In case you don't use Twitter, the @ symbol before our names is just th... view article details
Choose Your Investments Wisely When a couple decides to have children, the sacrifices start early. Perhaps they look around their cramped city apartment and think about the spontaneous days when they’d hop on the back of a motorcycle and speed off to wine country for the weekend.Suddenly, the conversation turns to selling off the Honda CB77 Super Hawk for a Honda Odyssey EX-L with third row seating, and researching suburban towns where you get the most room for your money.A smart couple putting a premium on education continually weighs the cost of an investment versus the potential pa... view article details
What a Waste Are you interrupting your job duties to read this? Or, more likely than not, are you taking a break between filling out last-minute March Madness brackets? We understand the considerable amount of irony involved in taking time out of your workday to read an article about wasting time at work, but our annual Wasting Time at Work survey results are out and they're pretty interesting. Ever wonder exactly how much time the average American worker spends on non work-related items while on the clock? Are they checking Facebook? Tweeting? Doing some online shopping? And more imp... view article details