The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in nine months, showing improvement for the long-shaky labor market.

Initial jobless claims dropped by 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 381,000 in the week ended Dec. 3, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast claims would fall by 7,000, to 395,000

For the week ended Nov. 26, claims were revised up to 404,000 from an originally reported 402,000.

The four-week moving average of new jobless claims, closely watched by economists since it smoothes out volatile weekly figures, decreased last week by 3,000 to 393,250.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!

Holiday parties may seem like a time to kick back and enjoy – and yet they also may be the best opportunities all winter to grow your network and add a little warmth to those who have helped you out, or may do so in the year ahead.

After all there are plenty of holiday celebrations and fundraisers where you can build connections, whether it’s a group of neighbors at a cookie exchange, a professional association holiday happening or your company’s party or potluck. Every social event brings opportunities to connect – and those connections, carefully nurtured, could lead to career or other opportunities later on.

Read the full article on glassdoor.com!

Everyone who cares, even modestly, about design can name a few decisive events that set them on that path. Steve Jobs was no different, but he was also extraordinarily lucky: The formative design lessons he got were so far ahead of their time that they would lay the groundwork for Apple’s success with the Macintosh, the iMac, iPhone, and the iPad. Here’s six of the defining design lessons that Jobs learned, and which imbued every product he created.

 Craft, Above All

Under Jobs, Apple became famous for a level of craft that seemed almost gratuitous: For example, on the “Sunflower” Macintosh of a few years ago, there was an exquisitely fine, laser-etched Apple logo. As an owner, you might see that logo only once a year, when moving the computer. But it mattered, because that single time made an impression. In the same way, Jobs spent a lot of time making the circuit boards of the first Macintosh beautiful–he wanted their architecture to be clean and orderly. Who cared about that? But again, that level of detail would have made a deep impression on the few people that would have seen the inner guts.

Read the full article on fastcodesign.com!

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

Read the full article on blogs.hbr.org!

You nailed the job interview, and now the hiring manager wants to know when you can start, and whether you’re planning to take some time off between leaving your current gig and starting the new one. You may be tempted to take a week off just to put your feet up, or start as soon as possible to avoid any gaps in your income, but here’s how to make the right decision and determine whether you’re mentally or emotionally ready to start a new job right away.

Read the full article on lifehacker.com!

It’s that time of year again; time to reflect on all the bounties of 2011. Time to dig deep and think about what we are thankful for despite an imperfect economy, Kim Kardashian’s shocking divorce, and all-around challenging times.

Whether you’re just starting out at your first job, settling into mid-management or a seasoned professional, there are (hopefully) a number of career lessons you’ve learned along the way that have helped you in some significant way — lessons that might have even changed the entire course of your career.

To create a little healthy communal learning, we asked job seekers to share the career lessons they are most thankful for. Here’s what we learned.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!

You know it’s coming.

It’s the most feared question during any job interview: Do you think I would look good in a cowboy hat?

Just kidding. The real question is: Can you tell me about yourself?

Blecch. What a boring, vague, open-ended question. Who likes answering that?

I know. I’m with you. But unfortunately, hiring managers and executive recruiters ask the question. Even if you’re not interviewing and you’re out networking in the community — you need to be ready to hear it and answer it. At all times.

Now, before I share a list of 10 memorable answers, consider the two essential elements behind the answers:

Read the full article on theladders.com!

It’s been a long time coming, but Google has finally given the official go-ahead for businesses to create profiles on the Google+ social network.

We have gone hands-on with the new option to offer you a simple walkthrough, demoing just how quick and easy it is to get set up on the service.

Take a look through our image gallery above for our no-nonsense how-to. Once you’ve got yours set up, link us in the comments to your brand’s Google+ page.

If you’re looking for inspiration, then take a look at what other brands have created in the gallery below.

Read the full article on mashable.com!

After getting fired in October from the high-tech startup where he had worked for more than four years Joshua Filgate, a 27-year-old engineer in Southborough, Mass., took the usual steps to jump start his job search. He updated his resume and his LinkedIn profile; applied for 100 positions listed on Internet job sites, and let family, friends and former co-workers know he was out of work. Within a week one contact — a venture capitalist in the Boston area — sent him a text message with the name of another venture capitalist who he recommended Filgate follow on Twitter. This was someone who Filgate’s friend also followed, but did not know personally.

Filgate, who had never used Twitter before, followed the suggestion. Soon after, the venture capitalist, a partner at the Boston firm General Catalyst, tweeted:

“What are top recruitment firms for mechanical engineers, process engineers, materials scientists, manufacturing engineers?”

Read the full article on forbes.com!

I grew up hungry to do something creative, to set myself apart. I also believed creativity was magical and genetically encoded. As early as the age of 8, I began sampling the arts, one after another, to see if I’d inherited some gift.

Eventually, I became a journalist. For many years, I told other people’s stories. I was successful, but I rarely felt truly creative.

The first hint I might have sold myself short came in the mid-1990s. In the course of writing a book called What Really Matters, Searching for Wisdom in America, I took a five-day seminar on how to draw, led by Betty Edwards, author of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

When Edwards peered down at the self-portrait I had drawn on the first day, she smiled. My artistic development, she told me gently, seemed to have been arrested somewhere around the age of six. This was, she hastened to add, no evidence of lack of ability, but rather of training.

Read the full article on hbr.org!

In a perfect world, friendships, relationships, and business contacts would all develop naturally and blossom exactly how you’d like, but that’s not the world we live in. In reality, we’re all busy people, and relationships take work—work that sometimes slips our mind. Rather than leave it all to chance, here are a few things that can help you leave a great first impression, and form that into a lasting relationship.

How First Impressions Work

People often say “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”, and that’s actually quite true—which is why it’s so important to start on the right foot. In fact, one popular study showed that those impressions can form in just a few seconds:

Read the full article on lifehacker.com!

Have you heard about personal branding? It’s the idea that in the 21st Century, you are responsible for the degree to which you are known; that you are responsible for your own marketing.

The theory goes that you are a brand and your success depends on that brand being widely visible. So, you need to have sexy visuals, lots of recommendations on LinkedIn, Search Engine Optimization of your profile and resume (this is a trick that makes your profile appear higher in search results).

You need a personal coach, a visual resume, video clips and a hundred other services. Then, people will easily find you and yours will be a life of leisure.

Read the full article on glassdoor.com!

I hate wearing pants. They’re uncomfortable and restrictive, the waist too snug, the legs too itchy. And they deny people their inalienable right to see my calves, which I consider two of my best features.

Yet here I sit. In an office. In pants.

It’s the noncozy fate of the American worker in today’s notoriously pro-pants business environment. But, fellow shorts enthusiasts, there is a way out: telecommuting.

I’ve received several questions on the subject of working from home, from people who want to do it and bosses who wonder whether it’s a good idea. So I recently rolled up my pants legs and did some reporting.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!

Whether you are a new middle manager or a new President-elect, the common wisdom is that you have three months to make an impact in your new role. And yet when preparing for job interviews, candidates make the mistake of believing that most questions will be about their past experience, not what they plan to do once hired.

New hires have to impress their bosses, peers, and employees in less time than it takes some of us to arrange a meeting. So if you’re interviewing for a job, plan to be asked the question: “What do you hope to achieve in your first three months?”

First, approach this question — and indeed, every interview question — as an audition. Imagine your interviewers running a movie in their heads where you are sitting working with their team, presenting to their boss, talking to customers or shareholders.

Read the full article on hbr.org!

Halloween is the best holiday of the year. There are no family obligations, no special meals with complicated instruction and lots and lots of candy. And also, Zombies. So, it’s highly possible that your Human Resources department has been taken over by these Zombies. (For some reason, I feel that Zombies should be capitalized.  I think this is because I don’t want to offend them.)

Here are 10 signs that your HR department has been taken over by Zombies:

Check the rest out on bnet.com!

Question: Do I need to date myself?

Karl Lohrmann prefers not to answer questions about his age. But it’s hard to avoid revealing it, sometimes indirectly.

“I’m filling out a lot of applications online. I don’t know anyone who fills out an application on paper anymore,” said Lohrmann, 62, of Chicago. “Most of these forms ask for my college-graduation date. You can’t leave the question blank; you can’t submit an incomplete form. How can I fill out this form without dating myself?

Answer: There are ways to get around the question, but almost all of them draw attention to the issue, said Janine Yancey, president of emTRAiN of Sacramento, Calif., an employment law training company that educates managers on do’s and don’ts of workplace. “By not answering, you are calling attention to the matter,” she said. “You can put in vague date ranges; for example, you can write, ‘Graduated in the 1980s.’ ”

If the inquiry comes up during an interview, “the best thing you can do is reframe the question,” Yancey advised. “Tell the interviewer how many years you’ve been in the workforce. As a candidate, you could say, ‘If you are asking me how many years I’ve spent in this particular industry, I’ve been working for X years.’ You’re talking about relevant years of experience: it’s smooth, seamless, not confrontational.”

Read the full article on theladders.com!

Everybody’s heard the complaints about recruiting lately.

Even with unemployment hovering around 9%, companies are grousing that they can’t find skilled workers, and filling a job can take months of hunting.

Employers are quick to lay blame. Schools aren’t giving kids the right kind of training. The government isn’t letting in enough high-skill immigrants. The list goes on and on.

But I believe that the real culprits are the employers themselves.

With an abundance of workers to choose from, employers are demanding more of job candidates than ever before. They want prospective workers to be able to fill a role right away, without any training or ramp-up time.

Read the full article on wsj.com!

It’s such a common job search refrain:

“I’ve sent my resume out hundreds of times and I’ve heard nothing back!”

9 times out of 10 though, there’s a simple reason. Want to know what it is? Well, you’ve got to go a bit into the psychology of the hiring manager.

In this job market, when an employer posts a job, she’s likely to get dozens – nay – hundreds of resumes for that posted position. So if you’re that person doing the hiring, you’re looking for any reason to cut that stack of resumes down to size. I mean, realistically, you’re only going to call 3-4 or 10-15 people for interviews, right? So when that stack of resumes hits your desk or your inbox, you’re looking for the quickest and simplest reasons to cul the herd, right?

Read the full article on thejobbored.com!

Leaders are often challenged to connect with and motivate team members outside of their own generation. I’d like to think that those of us in the creative field are a little bit better at this, specifically with younger generations as us creatives are “hip” and potentially more technically savvy than leaders in other functions. But reality would quickly set in when a Generation Y team member would talk to me about foursquare (which I had to look up to make sure I correctly represented the name), and they weren’t talking about the game with the red rubber ball—of which they knew nothing about.

I recently read an excerpt[1] of an interview with Dr. Gustavo Grodnitzky[2] that explained the four generations currently working and motivating factors for those generations. Dr Grodnitzky describes those generations as such:

1. The Silent Generation/Traditionalist, born 1925–1945. These workers are traditionally motivated by their desire to leave behind a legacy and are extremely loyal. Typically these folks worked for the same employer for most of their career and rarely took risks—they accepted what was served up to them.
2. Baby Boomers, born 1946–1964. These workers work hard (and long hours) to achieve success. They measure success by the things they acquire, thus compensation is extremely important to this group.
3. Generation X, born 1965 to 1981. These are the children of Baby Boomers who saw their parents work extremely hard and long and are rejecting that way of working.  In fact, this generation prides itself on how productive they are within their day without need to work excessive overtime. The practice of work/life balance is extremely important to this generation, and they want to be measured by their output, not the number of hours they sit at their desk.
4. Generation Y/The Millennials, born 1982-2000. These workers live a “blended life”—technology/being connected is not a choice, but a way of life. Responding to a work email while watching prime time television—they were already on their iPhone/Droid posting to Facebook, whereas other generations are more likely to needed to boot up their computer or, at the very least, go find their phone. These folks are motivated by their peers—they want to work with people they like.

Read the full article on creativeexecs.com!