Career Development

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.

On one side, the Obama Administration, Capitol Hill Democrats, Wall Street whizzes and budget experts have been wearing out their thesauruses looking up new words for "catastrophe" as they try to explain to the public that failing to raise the $14.3 trillion federal debt limit by Aug. 2 would result in a radically different country on Aug. 3. Read more: http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2011/07/19/debt-ceiling-could-a-deal-cost-the-economy-a-million-jobs/#ixzz1SeaCmUlr

I do. I worked in my family business-a funeral home. From the time I was five, my parents found ways for me to "help out." My first responsibility was to collect broken flowers from funeral sprays so my mother could easily vacuum. It might sound morbid-but it was a way for my parents to spend time with me, instead of dropping me off with a baby sitter. And I learned some invaluable lessons about work ethic along the way.

Tamara Guion-Yagy was disappointed when Tetra Tech, an environmental engineering firm in Pasadena, Calif., hired somebody else for the job that she wanted. The 40-year-old graphic designer thought she was being tried out when the firm hired her as a temporary worker.

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.

Selling is all about building relationships. Focusing on the positive ones is imperative, according to Philip Styrlund, CEO of the Summit Group, a sales training firm. The same is true of your career.

o get you prepared, here are 20 real job interview questions that such companies as Google, Capital One and Goldman Sachs asked internships candidate. The interview questions were compiled by Glassdoor.com, an online job community that encourages people to anonymously share that inside look at jobs and companies.

While it might seem fun to work at a company where the average age is below thirty and everyone is on Facebook and Twitter, you're better off working with more seasoned colleagues, say experts. FINS readers agree. Of 654 respondents in FINS' informal online questionnaire Sign or Decline, 88% said they'd accept their dream job if their new coworkers would all be 20 years older than them.

While it might seem fun to work at a company where the average age is below thirty and everyone is on Facebook and Twitter, you're better off working with more seasoned colleagues, say experts. FINS readers agree. Of 654 respondents in FINS' informal online questionnaire Sign or Decline, 88% said they'd accept their dream job if their new coworkers would all be 20 years older than them. At some of the hottest employers, that's simply not possible. The median age of an employee at Facebook is 26, according to data from PayScale, a Seattle-based firm that gathers compensation data. Compare that with more traditional companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard where the median age is 44, according to the same data.

The U.S. tech sector will lead the world in revenue and employment growth in the next year, according to a new survey from KPMG, the accounting and consulting firm. India and China will have the second and third most employment growth next year. Last year, the U.S. ranked third in revenue growth, and fourth in employment growth. KPMG surveyed 102 C-level and senior executives in the computing industry. The top drivers of revenue growth are cloud computing, mobile apps, and data analytics, the executives said. Mergers and acquisitions will continue to rise, as 68% of respondents said they would be involved as a buyer in the next two years. Despite the U.S.'s resurgence in tech employment growth, fewer of the executives surveyed say they plan to increase headcount. Last year, 72% said they would hire more, but this year it's only 49%. (KPMG)

Last month, Brandi Greygor did the unthinkable for an entrepreneur just starting out: She took a weeklong vacation. "I needed one because I ran myself into the ground," says Ms. Greygor, a 35-year-old mother of two who also works part-time for a consulting firm from her home in Union, Ky.

How do you get kids ready to become entrepreneurs? Journal Report Read the complete Small Business report. The classic answer, of course, is the lemonade stand: Encourage your kids to start a homespun business instead of just bugging you for money. But entrepreneurs and educators say the real solution goes much deeper than that. There are crucial psychological traits an entrepreneur needs to succeed, they say, and parents should help kids develop them at every opportunity. Here's a look at those attributes-and how to foster them.

Growing up on a ranch in Iowa, Jessica Utesch spent many a long afternoon mucking out manure. But she was surprised when she came home from college to take a summer job at the ranch-and her dad handed her a shovel.

Twitter may have cost former Congressman Anthony Weiner his career, but when used properly, social media and other Web tools can actually help you get a job. FINS spoke with Coleen Byrne, a former sales director at Yahoo, about the perils of not being on LinkedIn, reaching out to old friends and colleagues, and using the Web to network offline. Byrne is the co-author of The Web 2.0 Job Finder.

Twitter may have cost former Congressman Anthony Weiner his career, but when used properly, social media and other Web tools can actually help you get a job. FINS spoke with Coleen Byrne, a former sales director at Yahoo, about the perils of not being on LinkedIn, reaching out to old friends and colleagues, and using the Web to network offline. Byrne is the co-author of The Web 2.0 Job Finder.

I'm thinking about a career change and would love to go on a few informational interviews to learn more about the fields I am considering. But I rarely hear anyone talk about informational interviews anymore. Are people still giving them or are they too worried about their own jobs to take the time? How would I go about setting one up? Who should I target? Are certain questions off limits?

For a solid hour, Rick Rush repeatedly inserts a small piece of metal - the parking gear of a future pickup truck - into a slot, adds a spring and lowers hydraulic machines to bolt parts together and ensure they're properly placed. With 87 seconds to complete the tasks before each transmission casing glides by on a conveyor, the wiry 61-year-old toils with a purposeful hunch at a steady, brisk pace.

Do you think rude people appear more authoritative at work and tend to get ahead faster than polite colleagues? According to research from the University of Amsterdam published in the latest "Social Psychological and Personality Science," they do.

ndebted law grads and experienced lawyers who are out of work are moving into what we describe today as the "third tier" of the legal profession: working as temps, generally known as contract attorneys, performing document review work.