The Dog Ate My Homework and Other Lame Excuses

I never told a teacher that the dog ate my homework in grade school. It would not have worked for me because a.) I usually had my homework done and b.) we did not have a dog. But somewhere along the line, it must have been used by some enterprising student who felt safe because … Continue reading →

Let’s End Degree Inflation

By 2020, 35 percent of the job openings will require at least a bachelor’s degree; 30 percent of the job openings will require some college or an associate’s degree; and 36 percent of the job openings will not require education beyond high school. That’s a big change in just one generation. Continue reading →

Robots Get Fired for Low Performance

There’s new hope for those workers who are preparing to be replaced by robots (or managed by robot overlords.) A January 14 article in the Wall Street Journal reports that a Japanese hotel whose workforce consisted mainly of robots, has pulled the cord (so to speak) on the experiment. Continue reading →

FlexJobs: Survey Says Nearly Half of Military Spouses Feel Discriminated Against

(Courtesy Flexjobs.com) The unemployment rate among military spouses is 16%, more than four times higher than the civilian unemployment rate. According to a FlexJobs and Blue Star Families survey of more than 500 military spouses, nearly half (46%) of military spouses have felt discriminated against in their job search because they are military spouses. Read on for more of … Continue reading →

Ode on a Liberal Arts Graduate

For the record: I’m a proud liberal arts graduate. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin with big dreams and a double major that doesn’t have a darned thing to do with my work now. If you’re a parent despairing over your new grad’s choice of major, take heart. You could be the proud parent … Continue reading →

Let’s Eliminate Employee Probation

“Probation” has a couple of meanings, including one from our criminal justice system. Its technical definition is “the release of an offender from detention, subject to a period of good behavior under supervision.” We also use it for newly hired employees, making their first few months feel like a presumption of incompetence until proven otherwise. Continue reading →

Dressing for Confidence

Let’s face it; after you’ve been job searching for a while, your confidence takes a beating.  You may feel invisible; especially if your job search is mostly online, you may feel like no one knows you’re there.  It may be tempting to go for comfort over style when you do venture out.  After all, who cares what you wear to the grocery store, right? Continue reading →

The Second Shift

Much has changed since the women’s movement in the 1970s, but one factor remains the same: women still work two shifts. One paid one at the office, and the other unpaid, performing most of the household and childcare tasks at home. Continue reading →

Young Workers: Set your Career on FIRE

Most of us think of retirement age as somewhere between 62 (Social Security eligibility) and 70 (mandatory retirement age for some professions, and the age when Social Security payments max out.) But a wave of young people have decide life is too short to spend 50 years of it working. Continue reading →

Make the Most of Your Raise

If you’re anything like the rest of Americans, once you get that raise, you may be tempted to upgrade your life or take a long-overdue vacation. However, the best thing you can do is save more and/or pay off debt. Continue reading →