(npr.org) – Sometime last year, I started seeing videos from a site called Xtranormal pop up on blogs and YouTube. They contained talking robots, animals and even historical figures carrying on monotonous-sounding conversations about anything the (amateur or professional) filmmaker desired.

While a majority of the content illustrated a bunch of real-life scenarios of all sorts, lots of job venting videos started getting attention. Check out this one called “So You Want to Be a Journalist?” — I think fellow workers in the news world can relate to it.

Read the rest here!

(www.theladders.com) – When I was a human resources executive doing hiring interviews, I almost always began my interviews with candidates by requesting, “Tell me about yourself.” I did that for a number of reasons, the most important of which was to see how the candidates handled themselves in an unstructured situation.

I wanted to see how articulate they were, how confident they were and generally what type of impression they would make on the people with whom they came into contact on the job.

I also wanted to get a sense of what they thought was important.

Most candidates find this question to be a particularly difficult one to answer. That is a misplaced view. This question offers an opportunity to describe yourself positively and focus the interview on your strengths. Be prepared to deal with it. These days, it’s unavoidable. Like me, most interviewers start off their interviews with this question. A lot of interviewers open with it as an icebreaker or because they’re still getting organized, but they all use it to get a sense of whom you are.

Read the full article here!

Arianna Huffington managed to sell The Huffington Post to AOL for $315 Million.  Not a bad deal for Ms. Huffington, especially since she hasn’t even had to pay many of the people who provide content for her site.

Some of the bloggers, led by Jonathan Tasini are now suing, saying they should be paid for all the work they did.  Forbes quotes Tasini as follows:

In my view, the Huffington Post’s bloggers have essentially been turned into modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington’s plantation. She wants to pocket the tens of millions of dollars she reaped from the hard work of those bloggers….This all could have been avoided had Arianna Huffington not acted like the Wal-Marts, the Waltons, Lloyd Blankfein, which is basically to say, ‘Go screw yourselves, this is my money.’

Modern day slaves?  Now, I know voluntarily entering into an agreement to provide content for free with the absolute ability to quit at any time is almost like slavery, except for the part where it is nothing like slavery.  You don’t gain sympathy with hyperbole.  At least you don’t from me.

Read the full article here! (via bnet.com)

You’ve been reading all of the stuff online. Apparently, we’re supposed to feel badly if our job doesn’t immediately match our expectations. The key to happy work, we are told repeatedly, is to have workers who are passionate. A job is not worth having if your passion does not precede your position.

It is not useful to share these notions with the landlord or other creditors.

For most of us, the idea of having a job that finely integrates our skills, talents, curiosities and self-concept is just that, an idea. We go to work and try to move things in the direction of our dreams. It’s our job to make the work meaningful.

Read the full article here! (via glassdoor.com)

(Kevin Purdy at Lifehacker.com) – Know how when you’re looking for someone’s email address at their firm, you find it and it seems so obvious? “Bob Smith, bsmith@somethingcorp.com, of course!” Peepmail checks out domains to find the address of people whose names you know, and saves you the random Googling.

Read more here!

The jobless rate across the U.S. fell to 8.8% in March, and a Tuesday report from the Labor Department shows improvement has become more widespread.

Some 34 states reported an unemployment rate drop last month from February. The unemployment rate fell to 8.2% from 8.3% in the northeast; to 8.3% from 8.4% in the midwest; to 9.0% from 9.1% in the south; and to 10.7% from 10.8% in the west.

States that have suffered the worst of the housing bust continue to lag behind the nation in job growth, with Nevada, California and Florida still leading the nation with unemployment rates well over 10%, according to the Labor Department’s release of state unemployment. Nevada retained the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 13.2% in March. California and Florida both have unemployment rates above 11%.

Read the full article here! (via wsj.com)

Send a thank you note. Banish that ‘objective’ line from the top of your resume. That’s some of the advice from a recent survey by CareerBuilder and Harris Interactive, which queried more than 2,800 employers between February 21 and March 10.

With the number of employers saying they plan to hire soon at a three-year high, the odds are finally shifting a bit in favor of job seekers. Here’s what you can do to make sure your resume gets to the top of the pile:

Read the full article here! (via bnet.com)

According to Wikipedia, a job board is a website recommended for job hunting, the choices presented varying from very general tasks to precise niches. In the past few years, this kind of activities practically exploded; this trend was on constant rise, before the economic crisis, things changing quite fast afterwards. Recent statistics have shown that each year the sums transacted in outsourcing are growing more and more.

When trying to demonstrate the importance of the job boards in the global economy, there is some serious evidence that we can present, meaning a very relevant number: at the moment of writing this article, freelancer.com stated that $87,732,495 USD were transacted since February 2004. This amount of money is enough to buy more than 30 of the most expensive cars in the world, or 2 of the most expensive yachts or maybe to produce the “Avatar” movie again, so we are speaking about a lot of money.

Read the full article here! (via instantshift.com)

The job market is showing signs of life, though its slow recovery suggests unemployment will remain high for years to come.

Employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the biggest monthly gain in three years, with one-third of the growth coming from the government’s hiring of 48,000 temporary workers for the 2010 Census. Despite those gains, the jobless rate held steady at 9.7% as new workers entered the job market and people who had previously quit the labor force returned.

The average length of unemployment rose last month to the highest point since record keeping began in 1948: more than 31 weeks. The number of workers out of work for six months or more rose sharply.

Read the full article here! (via online.wsj.com)

FORTUNE — The employee gardens at Timberland’s Stratham, N.H., headquarters are eating up the lawns and sprouting new sections. Fruit trees were planted in a roundabout in front last fall, and a big arbor for native grape varieties will go in sometime this year. Next year, the shady patch behind Timberland’s leased offices could become a blueberry patch.

Space may be sparse, but enthusiasm runs high for Timberland’s Victory Garden, and for the overall concept. Corporate-backed employee gardens are growing like weeds, experts say, with small firms and Fortune 500 companies both buying topsoil and seeds.

Read the full article here!

Job application apps and other online tools have officially gone viral. Never before has it been easier to keep track of jobs and contacts on the go. A great example is the old standby, Monster.com, which now has apps for the iPhone, Droid, and iPad that allow you to keep your job search — including resume, cover letter, and listings — with you at all times. Because if you’re hunting for a job, the last thing you want to do is to be a day late — and possibly a job short — just because you missed a posting.

Read the full article here! (via moneywatch.bnet.com)

Even though millions of Americans are looking for work, many employers say it’s too hard to find good help. So, many companies and organizations are encouraging employees to be on the lookout for talent and are offering cash bonuses for referrals that lead to a hire.

Employee referral programs can be found in all kinds of industries, from technology to finance and manufacturing to health care.

“We’ve had great success with it,” says Jennifer Richards, the administrative director of human resources at the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle.

Read the full article here! (via npr.org)

If you believe that “great minds think alike,” and you lean toward working with people who are similar to you, you just might want revisit that conviction. Even if you’re naturally drawn to people who are like you, you’ll probably be more productive if you work with people who have ideas and work styles that are different from yours. The key is being willing to adapt, which most of us find challenging.

A new OfficeTeam study suggests that while most (70 percent) professionals surveyed said it could be challenging to team up with colleagues who don’t have styles similar to their own, two-thirds (66 percent) recognized benefits to collaborating with those who approach things differently.

Read the full article here! (via glassdoor.com/blog)

Degrees like an MBA or JD can in many instances help to land you a great career opportunity but the real danger of being over-educated exists as more and more people choose to go back to school. Today’s question comes from a job seeker who wonders if he attended too much school for his own good:

How does one discuss their past if their work experience is limited but education is advanced? I always feel like interviewers want me to explain how my previous jobs have primed me for the current position (and I can only answer honestly and in a limited capacity). Am I just flat-out not qualified?

Education is important but experience is what makes an individual successful in the corporate world.  There is a reason why top MBA programs take few (if any) students coming straight out of their undergraduate education. They understand that advanced studies provide the greatest rewards only when there is the context of real-word experience to enhance it. If you speak with MBA graduates a few years out of school they’ll tell you that the classroom, even through case study, can’t prepare you for the gamut of decisions to be made and situations you’ll be placed in when working in a real job.

Read the full article here! (via hollaforthatdolla.com)

It surprises most people when they find out that I am double majoring in Graphic Design and Marketing. They understand it is a great pairing, and that they can go hand in hand, but when they hear “marketing” they think my course is tailored to just marketing. It isn’t.

Being a business student, I had to take courses in all the other concentrations my university offered, such as accounting, management, and finance. While some of my fellow business students feel that learning about these subjects may not pertain to them and the field they plan to go into, I feel different. I have learned quite a few things in my business classes that I also use in my freelancing. What are some of those lessons?

Read the full article here! (via freelanceswitch.com)

Working from home is becoming more common, more accepted by managers and more sought-after by employees than ever before, according to a survey conducted by Skype, one of the bastions of telecommuting technology.

As someone who regularly works from home, I find this trend hardly surprising. But it’s not just bloggers, startup types and technophiles who are making pajamas the new “business casual.” Even seasoned executive types (like my own father, for example) are logging in remotely these days.

The proliferation of online collaboration tools is one indicator that “WFH” (that’s short for “working from home,” my dad tells me) culture is blossoming. In fact, Skype and tools like it have pretty much made the necessity of a 9-to-5 physical presence behind a cubicle-bound desk obsolete.

Read the full article here! (via mashable.com)

FORTUNE — With about five candidates for every job opening these days, some responsible for hiring decisions have resorted to desperate measures in their efforts to narrow the field. Researchers at career site Glassdoor.com culled through tens of thousands of queries reported by job seekers who had done their best to come up with answers on the spot, and selected the oddest interview questions of the past 15 months.

Read the full article here!

Job seekers, there is no doubt you are facing a very challenging time. Whether you have 20 years of experience or only a year, the pressure is on. But realize it is not impossible to find opportunities, despite our current economic standing.

Job seekers, you have to go the extra mile to show employers you are the right fit. A few years ago, employers could handle the risk of hiring the wrong fit, but today it is very different. The cost to let an employee go and hire another is very high. Employers want to pick the right fit the first time around.

Here are my tips to help you stand out:

Read the full article here! (via careerealism.com)

Being one’s own boss is a lucrative profession for budding freelancers, but it has its own set of challenges. Being the boss implies that you take all the responsibility for your business. One lapse and you could ruin your reputation, without any guarantee that you’d have an opportunity for redemption.

One of the major challenges for the client of a freelancer is getting them to meet deadlines. Both parties have undoubtedly been witness to the deadline demon. I have had firsthand experience with this, having been the culprit on more than one occasion. Lucky for me, I was dealing with clients who were patient enough to cooperate and didn’t let me go. I learned my lesson and offer the following list so that you do not have to experience the lesson the same way I did.

Read the full article here! (via instantshift.com)

While the U.S. economy recovers, the average worker seems to have lost a sense of meaning at work. They’re disengaged — and that disengagement is costing companies big money. According to a 2010 employee engagement study by Gallup, “disengaged employees erode an organization’s bottom line, while breaking the spirits of colleagues in the process. Within the U.S. workforce, Gallup estimates this cost to the bottom line to be more than $300 billion in lost productivity alone.” Ouch.

Read the full article here! (via management.fortune.cnn.com)