Claims for U.S. jobless benefits fell last week and productivity cooled in the fourth quarter, signaling hiring may accelerate as companies reach the limits of how much efficiency they can wring from existing workforces.

Applications (INJCJC) for unemployment insurance payments dropped by 12,000 to 367,000 in the week ended Jan. 28, according to Labor Department figures issued today in Washington. Worker output per hour increased at a 0.7 percent annual rate from October through December, down from a 1.9 percent gain in the prior three months, another report showed.

After focusing on cutting costs during the recession, American businesses are taking on more staff as they gain confidence the recovery will be sustained. In prepared remarks to Congress today, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke today highlighted improvements in the job market and production, while cautioning the outlook remains “uncertain.”

Read the full article on bloomberg.com!

Pinterest is social media’s rising star — and now has the traffic stats to prove it.

The darling network of brides-to-be, fashionistas and budding bakers now beats YouTube, Reddit, Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace for percentage of total referral traffic in January, according to a Shareaholic study.

Pinterest accounted for 3.6% of referral traffic, while Twitter just barely edged ahead of the newcomer, accounting for 3.61% of referral traffic. In July 2011, Pinterest accounted for just 0.17% of referral traffic, proving the site’s blockbuster growth.

Read the full article on mashable.com!

When I began writing Passion & Purpose in 2009, I met Susan, a young woman on the brink of quitting her investment banking job to pursue her lifelong passion of starting a nonprofit. A year later, when I asked how her new venture was going, I was surprised to hear that she “couldn’t bring herself to quit” in the first place. And when we bumped into each other last week, I found her toiling away in exactly the same role, still dreaming of her nonprofit venture, but now more depressed than ever.

Why can’t Susan just leave the job she despises? More generally, what powerful forces are pulling us back toward the “devil we know”?

As job dissatisfaction rates climb up towards 80%, it’s pretty safe to conclude that many of you reading this would rather be doing something else professionally. But in my interviews, I was surprised to find that people’s inability to quit their current jobs had nothing to do with the perceived riskiness of their new professions, the fear of unemployment if job options fell through, or even how well they had defined their proposed new career step. An overworked lawyer was hesitant to pursue his dream of regaining balance in a comparatively safe nine-to-five corporate job, despite given numerous opportunities to do so. A marketing professional who dreaded the thought of planning the next strategic campaign couldn’t bring herself to move into management consulting, a move which she acknowledged would be both exciting and a much-needed change. And the many young men and women I met who hated their jobs but didn’t know what to do instead? Most of them are in the exact same place today.

Read the full article on blogs.hbr.org!

You’ve probably heard too many times to count that “in this economy, you should be happy to have any job at all.” Perhaps that’s true, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try to find something better if you hate the job you’ve got. Here are a few things you can do this weekend to prepare to make a positive shift in your work life.

Update That Resume

Before you set out to apply for a new job, you’re probably going to need an up-to-date resume. It’s easy to let resume updating slide while you’re employed because you have a job and it isn’t the most fun thing to do. Fortunately there are some tools to make it easier to get started and make sure it’s in top shape.

First things first, if you don’t want to figure out the exact formatting of your resume and other tedious tasks, Resunate is a service that’ll simply take your information and create a resume tailored to the type of job you want. If you’ve got a LinkedIn profile, you can also use the LinkedIn resume builder to save yourself the hassle of reassembling that information. If you want something a little different, VIsualize.me can create an infographic out of your work experience.

Read the full article on lifehacker.com!

The value of the web economy in G20 countries will nearly double by 2016, according to Boston Consulting Group.

Driving the spurt from $2.3tn (£1.5tn) to $4.2tn (£2.7tn) will be the rapid rise of mobile internet access.

The study, commissioned by web giant Google, assumes that in four years 3bn people will be using the internet, or nearly 50% of the world’s population.

The research suggests that the UK is one of the most advanced e-commerce economies.

Right now, every year about 200 million people are going online for the very first time.

Read the full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16753902

Is this a good thing? It certainly can be. As a career transition expert, I view temporary work as a perfect chance for a career switcher to try on different hats, work in various types of businesses, even add new skills and experience.

A temporary, “dip in the pool” assignment lets you get a feel firsthand if this is something you really want to do. I always tell people who ask my advice on changing careers–do the job first-moonlight, apprentice, volunteer. If you can get paid for a temporary gig, go for it. That’s the only way you’ll know if the new career is all you dreamed it would be.

But even if you aren’t thinking of career changing, here are other reasons why a  temporary assignment may be worth it.

• Gets you out of bed in the morning. You’ve got something to do.
• Gets you in the door. It may lead to full-time work with an employer eventually. Don’t miss the opportunity.
• Gets you decent pay. You can make your experience a plus. Employers are typically willing to pay you generously, providing you have the chops, if you solve their problem or need quickly. It lets them bypass the hand-holding and learning curve stage that a younger, less experienced, but lower-paid worker, might require.
• Builds your professional network. Nurture relationships with co-workers during your assignment. You never know where a contact may lead you, and who they might be able to refer you to for future jobs.
• Lands you new and au courant references for future employers to contact about what you’ve been up to lately.

Read the full article on forbes.com!

Get on a Southwest flight to anywhere, buy shoes from Zappos.com, pants from Nordstrom, groceries from Whole Foods, anything from Costco, a Starbucks espresso, or a Double-Double from In N’ Out, and you’ll get a taste of these brands’ vibrant cultures. 

Culture is a balanced blend of human psychology, attitudes, actions, and beliefs that combined create either pleasure or pain, serious momentum or miserable stagnation. A strong culture flourishes with a clear set of values and norms that actively guide the way a company operates. Employees are actively and passionately engaged in the business, operating from a sense of confidence and empowerment rather than navigating their days through miserably extensive procedures and mind-numbing bureaucracy. Performance-oriented cultures possess statistically better financial growth, with high employee involvement, strong internal communication, and an acceptance of a healthy level of risk-taking in order to achieve new levels of innovation.

Read the full article on fastcompany.com! 

Union Square Ventures recently posted an opening for an investment analyst.

Instead of asking for résumés, the New York venture-capital firm—which has invested in Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga and other technology companies—asked applicants to send links representing their “Web presence,” such as a Twitter account or Tumblr blog. Applicants also had to submit short videos demonstrating their interest in the position.

Union Square says its process nets better-quality candidates —especially for a venture-capital operation that invests heavily in the Internet and social-media—and the firm plans to use it going forward to fill analyst positions and other jobs.

Companies are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates’ suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether.

Read the full article on wsj.com!

Have you heard about the highly contagious Koala flu that turns people into horrifying, albeit adorable, zombie marsupials who subsist only on human thigh meat and eucalyptus leaves?

No, you haven’t, because it hasn’t happened — yet. When it does, we’re probably all going to get it because of annoying co-workers who insist on coming to the office when they’re sick.

Yep, humanity will meet its end thanks to Marge down in accounts receivable, who figured, despite the bad fever and hunger for human flesh, she’d suck it up and come to work.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!

Fat paychecks, sweet perks, fun colleagues, and over 70,000 jobs ready to be filled — these employers offer dream workplaces. Like Google, which reclaims the top spot this year to become a three-time champion. Meet this year’s top 100, network with the winners on LinkedIn, and more.

 Read the full article on cnn.com!

Next time you are sitting in a meeting, take a look around. The odds are high that you will see your colleagues checking screens, texting, and emailing while someone is talking or making a presentation. Many of us are proud of our prowess in multitasking, and wear it like a badge of honor.

Multitasking may help us check off more things on our to-do lists. But it also makes us more prone to making mistakes, more likely to miss important information and cues, and less likely to retain information in working memory, which impairs problem solving and creativity.

Over the past decade, advances in neuroimaging have been revealing more and more about how the brain works. Studies of adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using the latest neuroimaging and cognitive testing [PDF] are showing us how the brain focuses, what impairs focus — and how easily the brain is distracted. This research comes at a time when attention deficits have spread far beyond those with ADHD to the rest of us working in an always-on world. The good news is that the brain can learn to ignore distractions, making you more focused, creative, and productive.

Here are three ways you can start to improve your focus.

Read the full article on hbr.org!

If you’ve ever hired anyone for a job, you understand a whole new perspective on what makes an applicant stand out—and what makes you toss an application to the bin. Fair or not, blogger, consultant, and hirer Charlie Balmer discusses honestly the mistakes that can ruin your chances with a potential employer.

I will be very honest with you in this post. Most interview articles only show obvious mistakes, as if most people don’t know showing up late is bad form. I will tell you the things I didn’t really know about until I was the one interviewing, and interviewing for a variety of positions and person-types. No interview prep article ever prepared me in the right way for how interviewers really think. That is what I will be sharing with you today.

When you first walk in to my office, I am expecting you to be one of the 99%+ people who I know I won’t hire in the first 5 minutes. I am hoping I will be proven wrong, because I really want to hire you and be done interviewing. Unfortunately, most people looking for jobs don’t deserve them. Here are the most common ways I know you don’t deserve any job I have to offer.

Read the full article on lifehacker.com!

Your workload has increased, so have your boss’s expectations. But scaling back could mean losing a job.

Talk about stress.

Paul Baard, an organizational and motivational psychologist at Fordham University’s graduate business school in New York, knows just how stressful a work environment can get. He has consulted with athletes in the high-stakes, high-pressure world of professional sports.

What secret has he passed along to those clients? When you are in a slump, you can still contribute by encouraging your teammates.

Read the full article on wsj.com!

How much time do you spend each day getting better organized? Cut it in half.

When it comes to investing time, thought and effort into productively organizing oneself, less is more. In fact, not only is less more, research suggests it may be faster, better and cheaper.

IBM researchers observed that email users who “searched” rather than set up files and folders for their correspondence typically found what they were looking for faster and with fewer errors. Time and overhead associated with creating and managing email folders were, effectively, a waste.

By combining threading with search, technology makes an economic virtue of virtual disorganization. The personal productivity issue knowledge workers and effective executives need to ponder is whether habits of efficiency that once improved performance have decayed into mindless ruts that delay or undermine desired outcomes. Are folders and filing systems worth fifteen to twenty-five minutes a day of contemplative classification and sort for serious managers?

Read the full article on hbr.org!

This is an interesting idea, what do you think?!

The Case for a Four-Day Work Week

After living within the confines of a four-day work week during the past four months at Slingshot SEO, my first reaction to questions about this unbelievable perk is “Why not?” Small business owners, CEO’s and executives from all over the country ask me on a weekly basis if it really works. My answer is a resounding YES!

Obviously, if you have a large customer service component to your business or if you must be open for retail hours, it takes a bit of ingenuity and some scheduling prowess to adjust to this type of schedule. Perhaps after reading this blog post you will want to try a pilot version of the famous Slingshot SEO four-day work week in your business. If you do, I would love to hear how it goes or answer a question or two.

First, let me explain the “why” behind this concept by beginning with a very important aspect of the “people” portion of any business – the “company culture.” Believe it or not, many aspects of our culture are directly related to this special perk. Here are a few of the reasons for that statement and perhaps a few questions you should ask yourself as a business owner:

Read the full article on inc.com!

The surprise smash-hit social networking site of 2011 wasn’t Twitter, Tumblr or Google+. In fact, it was a site that, even today, is still an invite-only social network. The Palo Alto site Pinterest has skyrocketed into the top ten most visited social networks of the past year and continues to gain traction and popularity.

The image-based platform is a simple enough concept: Users create and name Boards anything they like (Places I’d Like to Visit, Pretty Dresses, My Cookie Creations, etc.) and post relevant photos on corresponding Boards, while categorizing Boards under one of the 32 general Pinterest categories. Users follow one another based on interests, and photos are displayed in a pin board-type feed that is simple, yet visually stunning.

But how can brands and companies utilize this platform to their advantage? Here are five ways to jump on the Pinterest bandwagon to reach an already established female audience and a rising male audience.

Read the full article on mashable.com!

Finding a job during these difficult times can be hard for almost every type of professional, so you want to give yourself every advantage possible. The social networking age has changed the way that we get jobs and make career connections. One of the best ways to attract potential employers is by having a strong LinkedIn profile that is easy to find by employers.

According to recent research, more than 85% of employers use LinkedIn to find new hires.  How can you make your LinkedIn profile stand out from the millions of others so that recruiters and hiring managers will find you? (And perhaps more importantly, want to follow up with you after they find you.) Here are some tips for remaking your LinkedIn profile so that you can land that job of your dreams. Or, if you’re not that picky, just a job.

Read the full article on recruiter.com!

Happy friday everyone! Check out one of the most recent games our client Awesome Giant (Seattle) has available on iTunes.  One of our candidates, Jacob, created some of the illustrations.  

Take a look here!

U.S. employment grew solidly last month and the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, offering the strongest evidence yet of an acceleration in economic activity.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 200,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, the most in three months and way above economists’ expectations for a 150,000 gain.

The economy needs to sustain the current pace of job creation to signal a robust recovery is finally under way.

The unemployment rate dropped from a revised 8.7 percent in November, which was previously reported as 8.6 percent. The jobless rate is now the lowest since February 2009.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!