first job as a professor was at an Ivy League university. The students were happy to be taught, and we, their teachers, were happy to be teaching them. Whatever portion of their time and energy was being eaten up by social commitments-which may have been huge, but about which I was ignorant-they seemed earnestly and unproblematically engaged with the academic experience. If I was naïve about this, they were gracious enough not to disabuse me. None of us ever questioned the importance of what we were doing.

Whether you call them CAR (challenge, action, result), STAR (situation, task, action, result), PAR (problem, action, result) or OAR (opportunity, action, result) stories, these stories are a critical component in your resume, leadership addendum, positioning statement and other marketing collateral, as well as in your interview.

More and more career advisers are bemoaning the practice of revising one's resume to death. Leave it alone once you're happy with it, we advise. That can be a Catch 22 for those of you who are never happy with your resume. The point is some of you are putting too much effort in perfecting your resume and not enough at seeing the whole picture.

"For many job seekers, finding the right fit could be one of the biggest hurdles in the search. After all, finding an appealing job that you'll enjoy is a big decision. You don't want to regret your choice after a week - and you certainly don't want to feel like you've wasted ten years of your life when you finally realize it's not the right fit."

The Dream Act puts education within reach even for the Golden State's illegal immigrants. While weighing 50 education bills yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Dream Act into law Saturday, opening the state's purse of financial aid to even those who don't have official documentation. Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/10/09/california-passes-dream-act-allowing-aid-for-undocumented-students/#ixzz1aURp5Vq3

Much attention has been directed at college completion rates in the past two years, since President Obama announced his goal that the United States will again lead the world with the highest proportion of college graduates by 2020. The most recent contribution to this dialogue was last month's release of "Time Is the Enemy" by Complete College America.

"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 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."

ob seekers today spend a lot of time online, and for good reason. After all, the Internet is a great tool for job seekers to research, connect, and network with practically any company on the planet. With the click of a mouse, you can send your resume, cover letter, and top ten list of reasons why you are the best employee to just about anyone.

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.

It's long been known that high-powered careers can hamper or delay women's plans to have children. But a new study suggests the challenges loom especially large for women of Generation X.

To get a read on applicants, more employers are using pre-hire assessments, which can check personality, cognitive ability and competency, among other areas. About 56% of companies are using some sort of assessment tool as part of the hiring process this year, up from 48% in 2010, according to Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based research firm.

The application process for millions of job hunters will soon be simplified -- as long as they're on LinkedIn, that is. Yesterday, the professional networking site announced a partnership with Taleo, the country's largest job applicant tracking system provider, to allow job seekers to auto-fill basic biographical and professional history information from their LinkedIn profile into online job applications.

Although the economy is technically in a recovery, unemployment remains high. And the Fed's August 9 decision to keep rates low through mid-2013 suggests that policymakers expect weak growth for the foreseeable future. What's happening to older workers in this never-ending malaise?

No one has been writing best-selling career-advice books longer than Richard Bolles, author of the "What Color Is Your Parachute" series. (1975 was the only skipped year since the series was launched in 1970.)

WASHINGTON -- Whether they called them "near-completers" or "ready adults" or "stop-outs," the educators and policy experts gathered here today agreed that people who have earned most but not all of the credits they need for a college degree should receive more attention.

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.

There are many platforms out there that may help your personal brand - for instance, Twitter to promote your work or Facebook to interact with customers. Though those social networks can absolutely help your image and brand, they serve their users for multiple purposes.

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.