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The internship, in which she worked 15 hours a week researching and blogging about corporate workplace benefits, was virtual-she needed only a computer and Internet access. Ms. Roig, a senior at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, never even met her boss, in Atlanta.

For many companies, tough economic times inevitably end up pushing the work environment to the back burner. Benefits are slashed, innovative programs are dropped, employees get shut out of big decisions. Employees are lucky to have a job, many bosses figure. Anything extra is unaffordable.

Your written plan describes your business, outlines your goals and serves as a road map for future activities- everything from handling unforeseen complications to repaying borrowed money. It's a document that should grow with your business, undergoing constant tweaks as your big idea evolves from a concept into a successful company.

The Morning Journal brought a lot of bad news to the residents of Lorain, Ohio, this past December. Layoffs at a major steel company, at a trucking company, and throughout the county government. And, of course, Ford Motor Company, a major local employer, was in turmoil.

"Every semester a lot of professors' lectures are essentially 1 reruns because many instructors are too busy to upgrade their classroom methods."

"Although some employers report trouble finding workers, about 4.4 million Americans have been looking for jobs for at least a year-and that doesn't include the ones who have given up. Here are some of their stories."

"Weeks after Rosalyn Ray was laid off from her job as a medical health clerk last year, she decided to hire someone to revamp her résumé. "

"In this installment of The Résumé Doctor, three experts critique the résumé of a candidate trying to make the jump from consumer marketing to health-care marketing. She has held numerous marketing positions and works part-time in private practice as a dietitian. "

"If you've been marking time at work and hoping to get a new job, you've got company. Employment experts caution, though, that moving too quickly could land you in a new job that you dislike even more. Here are some ways to improve the odds of finding the right one. "

"Alex Barnett spent 14 years as an attorney handling several high-profile class-action lawsuits involving consumer fraud and product defects. But after getting laid off by two firms in the spring of 2008, he began prepping for a different kind of spotlight: He launched a career in stand-up comedy."

"In a tight job market, building and maintaining an online presence is critical to networking and job hunting. Done right, it can be an important tool for present and future networking and useful for potential employers trying to get a sense of who you are, your talents and your experience. Done wrong, it can easily take you out of the running for most positions."

"There are some very important things they don't tell you on career day. Chief among them is that there is a good chance that at some point during your working adult life you will have an abusive boss - the kind who uses his or her authority to torment subordinates. Bullying bosses scream, often with the goal of humiliating. They write up false evaluations to put good workers' jobs at risk. Some are serial bullies, targeting one worker and, when he or she is gone, moving on to their next victim. "

"What is the best way to give notice at a job you haven't even started? I am an M.B.A. student who was offered a marketing position in December. I accepted the job, telling the company that I would start in September since I was still in school. Now I have a much better job opportunity in high tech, which I would much rather take. I would have a much bigger impact and turn in a better performance at this second job. How can I tell the first employers that I now want to decline their offer?"

"Fearing a shortage of qualified managers as business picks up, some companies are bolstering leadership-development efforts. Layoffs and training cutbacks in the past two years have thinned manager pipelines. And employers worry that baby boomers who postponed retirement during the recession will start to depart as recovering stock prices reinflate retirement funds."

"Job growth remained weak in July as employers continued to expand slowly, according to surveys released Wednesday."

"For all the recent research and writing on happiness, studies that synthesize findings from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities have been notably missing, says Sissela Bok."

"As an academic adviser, I am something of a delinquent, and as delinquents often do, I blame the problem on poor role models at key moments in my youth. My own undergraduate academic adviser never gave me any good advice. Or any bad advice, for that matter."

"In late 2007, Taylor Senatore and Jennifer Frank withdrew most of their personal savings-a combined $250,000-to launch California Wine Merchants in New York. The duo, who teamed up after discovering by chance that they shared the same entrepreneurial goal, figured that amount would cover all of their start-up costs and even leave change to spare."

"Watching fellow college students working for $7.50 an hour after graduation, Tana Walther, a fashion-design major at Kent State University in Ohio, snapped up an alternative offered by her father-to run a Pita Pit restaurant franchise he would buy."