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Forget mentors. If you want to reach top management you'll need sponsors-powerful senior players who will stake their reputation on your behalf. While mentors offer informal advice and coaching, a good sponsor opens the doors of the promotion elevator and pushes a protégé through.

Mid-career derailment can happen any time, but in today's economy there is no room for complacency. With job opportunities harder than ever to find, it's a particularly rough time to be fired or demoted or to hit a career plateau. You can reduce your risk for derailment by paying attention to your value and effectiveness and by focusing on interpersonal skills, adaptability, team leadership and bottom-line results.

There are many reasons U.S. companies give for their lack of robust hiring -- from weak consumer spending to uncertainty over the direction of government policies on debt and spending. Some industries have significantly boosted employment over the past year while others continue to shed workers. But even those adding jobs are hiring far fewer than would be needed to put America's 14.1 million unemployed back to work. Here's what it looks like on the ground in some industries:

After working for more than six years as manager of digital licensing for Warner Music Group in Burbank, Calif., Michael Locke, 34, felt like he wanted more. But there wasn't much latitude for change within his job and department.

Over the past 10 years: * The U.S. economy's output of goods and services has expanded 19%. * Nonfinancial corporate profits have risen 85%. * The labor force has grown by 10.1 million. * But the number of private-sector jobs has fallen by nearly two million. * And the percentage of American adults at work has dropped to 58.2%, a low not seen since 1983. What's wrong with the American job engine? As United Technologies Corp. Chief Financial Officer Greg Hayes put it recently: "Sales have come back, but people have not.''

It's never too early to make a bad impression. A cover letter or introductory email is often the first thing a potential employer sees when reviewing a job applicant. It's the first opportunity to impress recruiters and hiring managers and, therefore, the first opportunity to disappoint them. Everything from copy mistakes to inappropriate jokes in a cover letter could derail an application. Here are the top ten worst things to put on a cover letter:

The economic downturn has forced employers to tighten their belts and do more with less. With fewer resources available, many companies have refrained from handing out raises, even when an employee is given additional responsibilities and a title change.

The economic downturn has forced employers to tighten their belts and do more with less. With fewer resources available, many companies have refrained from handing out raises, even when an employee is given additional responsibilities and a title change. According to a recent study from OfficeTeam, a subsidiary of staffing firm Robert Half International, about one in five human resources managers have acknowledged that awarding promotions without salary increases is at least a "somewhat common" practice at their company.

Most weekday mornings David Herbert, 44, is out the door by 4:15 a.m., hoping to get a jump on the 74-mile slog from his home southwest of Olympia, Wash. to downtown Seattle. Rather than fight traffic the entire way, the information technology manager drives 45 miles to Tacoma, boards the 5:35 a.m. train for the one-hour ride to King Street Station then takes a bus for the final 20 minutes of his commute to the office.

"The job market is tough for many. But people still need others to repair their cars, do their accounting, fix computers, write apps and even sell them things. And there's been more growth in opportunities for those occupations than others, according to online job postings."

To pitch a prospective client for her ad agency, Amanda Zolten knew she a had to take a risk. But the client's product-kitty litter-posed a unique challenge.

"Forget privacy. Shared workspaces are the latest trend in office space. The offices, set up in a variety of ways but emphasizing open space and the ability to rent a single desk, are also known as co-working spaces. Such offices have long been popular with technology start-ups in the San Francisco Bay Area looking for cheap space, but as the latest tech wave rises, shared workspaces are popping up in cities around the country. Besides the cost advantages, entrepreneurs in technology and other fields say they like co-working spaces because their open floor plans boost collaboration, offer more flexibility on leases and can even help land investors."

The longer one has been out of work, the harder it is to find a new job. New unemployment figures out Friday from the Labor Department are likely to point to continued pain in August. At last count, nearly 4.5 million Americans had been unemployed for 52 weeks or longer and were still looking for work.

All year long, from every direction, surveys bombard students.

Managers concede that favoritism plays a big role in deciding who gets promoted, however few will admit to playing favorites.

After working a full day at the stables of her horse transport and training business, Melissa Weiser heads to BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse.

Obama will use his speech before a joint session of Congress tonight to marshal a sense of urgency behind his jobs agenda and to try to open a new phase in the fight over proposals to fix the economy.

There's an art to dismissing an employee. Using the phone usually isn't the way to go. The recent firing of Yahoo's Carol Bartz via a phone call brings that practice into view.

Job candidates get good at smiling into the webcam as interviews via video become increasingly common.

In Thursday's much-anticipated jobs speech, President Barack Obama called for new infrastructure programs, payroll tax credits, and decreased government regulation to create new jobs, as well as extended benefits for the unemployed.