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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.

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.

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. 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.

Our careers and our lives are constantly changing. With so many twists and turns it is almost guaranteed that our career plans will not be stagnant. There are many different types of individuals who are moving in/out of a traditional career. Recently the term "comeback parent" has been coined for the parent who has left a paid position outside the home to raise a family, and is now returning to paid external employment. Another example is the graduate student who alternates full time employment with full or part time education. Some leave to take care of an aging relative, start a private practice or a business, attend to personal health issues, or even work part-time from home. While juggling various roles in life, it is important to manage our careers even if it is not currently the highest priority. Networking is an important way to effectively and efficiently tend to your career at all times.

Q: I worked in the health-care industry for 15 years as a geriatric nursing assistant, but I recently decided that my career wasn't paying the bills and went back to school for a B.A. in organizational management and communication. The problem is, I have never worked in an office setting and I'm not sure how to go about learning etiquette, how to speak appropriately, etc. I thought that once I got a degree, everything would be self-explanatory, but it really isn't. Can you help?

I'm always reading career-advice articles about coping with a bad boss or firing someone in the most appropriate way. But what about ending a work relationship with a person who's not your manager or your employee? How do you know when this is the right solution -- and how can you extricate yourself with your dignity intact?

Seventy-seven percent of members of Freelancers Union, which has 120,000 members nationwide, have had clients that didn't pay at least once, says Sara Horowitz, executive director. Worse yet, more companies are trying to renegotiate lower prices with freelancers after work has been delivered, says Gary Swart, chief executive of oDesk, a freelance-management Web site that acts as a liaison between freelancers and clients.

Dear J.T. & Dale: My husband and I both have worked in high tech for more than 20 years. With all the stress from outsourcing and reorgs and overly aggressive management, we feel like Lucy and Ethel in that famous "I Love Lucy" episode where the assembly line keeps gets cranked up faster and faster. We've been investigating alternative careers, but none of the resources we've used addresses how the work environment fits into the picture. We fear making a career change that ends up trapping us in a new toxic environment. - Kathy

The truth is that many employers generally like older hires because they tend to be more reliable, conscientious and loyal. However, candidates over 50 have to overcome hiring managers' fears that they have one foot out the door. Your friends should de-emphasize their age by removing dates from their resumes and making subtle changes to their appearance to look younger. Most importantly, though, they should showcase their enthusiasm for the job and how motivated they are to achieve, which will make employers more likely to believe they're in it for the long-term.

"[I]f you are asked "how has your teaching changed over the years" or "how has your management of people changed over the years" or "how has your interaction with clients changed over the years" the wrong answer is "it hasn't.""

"In Saturday's WSJ, writer Virginia Postrel has a retrospective on the "Mommy Track." She takes us back to a controversial 1989 Harvard Business Review article by Felice N. Schwartz called "Management Women and the New Facts of Life." Schwartz started with the fact that not all working women want the same things. Some are chiefly career-focused, making "the same trade-offs traditionally made by the men who seek leadership positions." However, most women want children, Schwartz wrote, and "are willing to trade some career growth and compensation for freedom from the constant pressure to work long hours and weekends.""

The joy of a private office-it's something 89% of senior managers in the U.S. have celebrated. Soon after, though, there's the realization that the space feels cut off from the action. At times, the four walls can feel like barriers to keeping in touch with colleagues.

Did you know you should have strong action verbs strategically placed throughout your resume? Well, now you do! Most importantly, you want them at the beginning of the majority of your bullet points and accomplishment-based statements. Please do yourself -and every hiring manager out there-a favor; do not start your sentences with: Responsible for…Worked with…or any other opening that lacks power and punch.

"Invisible Transfer Students February 28, 2012 - 3:00am By Mitch Smith Enrollment managers have long spoken about the mobility of students, citing the high number of credits transferred in and out of their colleges and grumbling that federal graduation rate calculations fail to account for those transient degree-seekers. Data released today by the National Student Clearinghouse back those assertions, showing that a third of those who were first-time college students in 2006 had attended at least one other institution by summer 2011. The study followed 2.8 million full- and part-time students of all ages at every type of institution. Students were counted as transfers if they enrolled at a second institution before earning a degree. Thus, students who moved to a four-year institution after earning an associate degree were not counted, but university students who took a community college class over the summer were. High school students who enrolled in concurrent enrollment courses were not counted as transfers. The Clearinghouse researchers found that a quarter of those who transferred did so more than once and that the greatest number of moves, 37 percent, took place in a student's second year. It also found that 43 percent of transfers were to public two-year institutions, making them the most common transfer destination for students from every type of institution except other public two-year colleges. This study, unique in including part-time students and in following students who might transfer several times, joins a small but growing body of research on the mobility of students. The findings don't surprise Clifford Adelman, a senior associate with the Institute for Higher Education Policy whose research agenda includes national transfer patterns. Loyalties to a particular institution or location, which can discourage transferring, have long been eroding, Adelman said. He calls the phenomenon "geomobility" and said it has called attention to ineffi

Even before you appear to cross the final loop and successfully complete your course, it may be any technical or management oriented, the first & foremost thing haunts your mind is securing a proper and beneficial apprenticeship. An apprenticeship is the most crucial part of a study which actually adds fuel to the career which helps it to run for ages without many breaks. Here are few points jotted which could help you in finding a appropriate apprenticeship after your course.

A Group Discussion or GD, as it is famously known, judges the character of an individual. It analyzes the behavioral characteristics in a individual his or her management abilities, social abilities, team abilities, troubleshooting abilities and the ability to lead and this will be helpful to join any IT job.

"The average number of applications submitted per job opening fell to 118 in the fourth quarter, from 187 during the same period in 2010, according to new research from the Corporate Executive Board."

"BeMIS: A New Career Matchmaking Tool An individual's personality and character play an important role when it comes to choosing the right career and being successful in it. Finding an effective way to measure these two factors is one of the keys to helping clients achieve their employment goals. BeMIS (the Behavioral Management Information System) is a powerful tool for identifying relevant character and personality attributes, and includes personalized development plans for helping clients to develop new career-facilitating behaviors and eliminate those that impede successful career choice, competence and satisfaction."