Career Development

"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."

"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."

"Welcome to the GED COMPASS. The GED Testing Initiative is a public/private partnership that aims to improve the New York City GED testing system, including testing infrastructure, test-taker readiness, and public awareness and support. Through the Literacy Assistance Center, new tools are being developed including a GED Compass web portal to ensure that GED test takers know where to enroll in GED prep programs, prepare for the exam and secure a GED test seat. This website was developed for people interested in learning about how to get a GED in New York City. There are many ways to achieve this goal and this website will help you find the path that is right for you. In New York City finding a place to take the GED was difficult. Finding information about what you need to do to prepare for the test was hard to find. The Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) partnered with the New York Community Trust to take a close look at the existing system and see how it could be improved. The result was a comprehensive report written by literacy expert, Jacqueline Cook, called Our Chance for Change: A Four Year Initiative for GED Testing in New York. You can see the full report here. "

"As the recession continues, unemployed people over the age of 50 continue to face steeper job hunting challenges than their younger counterparts. People over 50 search for new jobs for an average of 36 weeks or longer, compared to 27 weeks for younger workers. And while the overall unemployment rate has held steady, the rate for those over 55 actually rose from 6.8% to 7.1% accounting for more than 2 million people in that age group out of work."

"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. "

"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. "

With today's stale job market limiting employees' mobility, executives have a unique opportunity to boost the motivation and productivity of their top talent without spending lots of money. Unfortunately, many companies are missing the mark - especially when it comes to managing their emerging leaders, or "high potentials." Here are the five biggest mistakes companies are making with high-potential talent:

"The passage by NCDA of the Minimum Competencies for Multicultural Career Counseling and Development confirms the long known reality that the work of career counselors is impacted by the complexity of culture as much as psychotherapy and other forms of counseling. As career services professionals, the Competencies provide us with a useful framework for engaging our increasingly diverse client population. The Competencies challenge us to shift our counseling paradigms, improve our techniques, modify our theoretical approaches, and to be aware of our own cultural blind spots as we attempt to meet the unique needs of our clients and to better understand how culture impacts career development. While the Competencies provide basic guidance about the skills and knowledge needed to be a culturally competent career practitioner, it is still a challenge for career experts to understand how they can integrate multicultural competence into their everyday practice. This article seeks to examine some factors to consider when developing one's multicultural competence as it pertains to career counseling."

WASHINGTON - The United States is doing a lousy job at helping people get training and then find a job, argued a group of scholars who gathered here Wednesday to unveil a set of suggested reforms.

"Last year, Jackie Siddall described in a blog post how a message she received on Twitter prompted her to buy a folding kayak for around $1,900."

"Five years ago, Augusto Giacoman was commanding about 30 soldiers and leading raids in Iraq. Now he spends his days in classrooms alongside former bankers, engineers and other civilians earning a master's in business administration."

Winter 2009-2010 issue on Charting the Projections 2008-2018 is now available online.

"After three rounds of interviews for a sales position with Prudential Insurance Co. of America, Patricia Rosa received a letter in February saying her job application was denied based on information from a background check she authorized the company to conduct. The only blemish on her record, she says: Poor credit that built up since she lost her job two years ago."

"The idea that employers perform Internet searches on job candidates is nothing new -- and the frequency of these searches is climbing. Some experts report that up to 85% of hiring managers "Google" a candidate before or after an interview."

"ast year, business owner Paige Darden stumbled upon an employee's MySpace profile saying this person was planning a two-hour lunch because her boss was out of the office. "

"When I do a seminar for prospective career changers, I always ask the audience how many people are using LinkedIn to communicate directly with contacts in their new industries. Typically, only a handful of people raise their hands. But given the fact that tapping the social-media groundswell is one of the best ways to launch a new career, active participation in sites like LinkedIn should be 100%."

"Can you teach a dinosaur to dance? More importantly, can you teach him to network in 21st Century style? I was skeptical. But George Langis, a veteran turnaround executive, dispelled doubts by learning new networking steps that may hasten his job hunt. He went from conventional handshake networking to creating a personal brand that would be easily marketable online. Though Mr. Langis still hesitates to plunge into "tweeting," his experience could benefit countless other older applicants with rusty job-hunting skills. "