The Y generation (me included) has becoming increasingly interested in tangible, short-term rewards. Our goals have followed our materialistic desires, and many of us yearn for ridiculously high salaries within an unrealistic time frame. Even if you graduated from Harvard or Yale, you are not entitled to a six figure salary and mansion before you put in your time in the workforce.

Unfortunately, many university graduates’ parents provide them with an elaborate and extravagant lifestyle from an early age. This leaves them with the desire to outdo their parents. This desire comes with an attitude of entitlement but a lack of perseverance. Unless you have amazing contacts (or your parents do), corporate America has plenty of casualties, young people who think their intelligence is a substitute for experience.

Check out the full article on thejobbored.com!

(Jessica Liebman on businessinsider.com) – I’ve been Business Insider’s Managing Editor for nearly a year now. A big part of my job is recruiting; since we’re a fast-growing company, we’re constantly looking for new talent, from interns to site leads.

I’ve estimated that between career fairs and in-office interviews, I’ve interviewed over 150 people. This doesn’t count phone interviews, which I usually do one or two of every day.

To be fair, most people come prepared.

I’ve been particularly impressed with the graduates of Syracuse University’s Newhouse school. They come with sharp ideas, crisp resumes, and sometimes even a folder with “Business Insider” printed on it to hold extra copies of their clips. (I’m happy to report that we have four Newhouse alums at Business Insider, all of whom were amazing hires.)

From blatant job interview questions like: “Greatest weakness, weakest attribute, most significant failure.” To soft – “What might your previous employer say?” Even softer – “You certainly seem to have a lot of strengths, but we understand no one is perfect.” The question will come one way or another, everyone knows it, yet still befuddled by it.

There have been many Rules of Thumb (R.O.T.) developed over the years, from making light of the question with an answer like “Pizza!” to true confessions, putting a cloud over everyone, to developing a response that actually demonstrates a strength, “I tend to be a workaholic” or “perfectionist.” (Yuk!)

Read the rest on careerealism.com!

A graphic designer has to take care of its portfolio because it is the way in which he presents his abilities. The portfolio is a collected sample which showcases your creativity and ability and you need to submit it properly to your public. Potential employers or clients may read it and what they see can help them to decide whether they want to hire you. That’s why a good presentation has to be properly built up. Along this article we will analyze which samples are better and how to arrange them, we will see example of both online and printed portfolio and how to present them to potential customers/employers.

Read the full article on instantshift.com!

Crafting a compelling, convincing cover letter is not easy. The pressure to the capture the reader’s attention without being annoying can be paralyzing. Concentrate on showing how you can contribute to the employer’s success while avoiding these mistakes.

Assertions That You Are the Ideal Canidate

Chandlee Bryan, Community Manager at StartWire, shares this advice:

Don’t ever say you are the ideal candidate for the job. Unless you’ve seen the applicant pool and you know the hiring values aside from the job description, you can’t assume you are the ideal candidate.

Here’s a tactic you can use instead: Restate primary qualifications of the job and show how your past experience and skill set fits “hand in glove” with the requirements. You ask for ____; I offer ___. Bullets work well for this. Including short, concrete examples of past achievements that are relevant for the job is another winning approach.

Read more useful tips on wisebread.com!

GRIM number of the week: 14,087,000.

Fourteen million, in round numbers — that is how many Americans are now officially out of work.

Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the optimistic talk of an economic recovery, unemployment is going up, not down. The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June.

What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?

The United States is in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one. That is off the charts. Many Americans have simply given up.

Read the full article on nytimes.com!

The Wall Street Journal reports that employee perks are up!  Companies that have been treating their employees like [insert bad word of your choice] are, apparently, now realizing that their best employees just might be prone to leaving them if a better offer comes along. 

Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. of Chicago conducted a survey of 100 Human Resource executives and found out that things are looking better on the employee perks scene:

About 18% said their companies have restored all pre-recession perks and 41% have brought back some of those that were cut or eliminated. Nearly one quarter of respondents indicated that their firms had introduced entirely new perks.

Read the rest on bnet.com

The jobs market got two optimistic signs Thursday as private sector employers added 157,000 positions in June and fewer people filed new claims for unemployment benefits, according to two reports.

Payroll processing company ADP said private jobs grew rapidly in June — a figure that was much higher than expected and more than four times higher than the prior month. May’s figures were downwardly revised to 36,000 jobs.

Economists were expecting a gain of just 60,000 private sector jobs, according to consensus estimates from Briefing.com.

Smaller businesses led the charge in June. Small businesses, defined as those with fewer than 50 workers, added 88,000 jobs in June. Medium-size businesses, defined as those with between 50 and 499 workers, gained 59,000.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!

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.

So Ms. Guion-Yagy worked even harder at the same temp job, often staying late to finish work. Her manager responded by creating another full-time position for Ms. Guion-Yagy. “I knew I’d be good at the job and liked the work,” she says. “I just needed to show them how much.”

When times are prosperous, companies are more likely to use temporary jobs as a low-risk way to vet full-time candidates. But the conversion rate from temporary to permanent worker has been low over the past few years as more companies lean on temps as a hedge against a double-dip recession, says Jonas Prising, president of Manpower North, a temporary-staffing company in Milwaukee, Wis.

Read the rest on online.wsj.com!

With more job stress than ever resting on your shoulders, it may be tempting to leave – either quitting or being fired – in a blaze of glory, giving everyone who made you dread going to work a piece of your mind. But experts say that while it may feel good at the time, it’s not your best career move.

“It’s never a good idea to be a public flameout, unless you’re going for a career in reality TV,” says Chandlee Bryan, community manager at StartWire, a company that develops online recruiting tools. “If you want to be Snooki, it’s probably a great way to quit.”

News travels fast

The main reason to leave a job graciously is that you never know when you’ll need assistance from your former boss or want to come back and work for your former employer. Dan Ryan, owner of Ryan Search & Consulting, says it’s better for the company to be able to re-hire you, too.

Read the rest on chicagotribune.com!

Check out this workspace show and tell! People post pictures of their home offices and workspaces and share great ideas about getting organized- get inspired or post your own space!

 Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool.

You’ve likely seen the usual closing line on an online job posting: “No phone calls, please.”

But how important is it to abide by potential employers’ requests not to call about, or even show up in person for, a job opening? How else is one to stand out in a sea of electronic applicants?

The answer: It’s very important. And there are many other ways that job seekers can differentiate themselves from the competition.

Recruiters and hiring managers largely agree that going against the “no calls” request is a surefire way of jeopardizing a first impression.

“No matter how much technology changes our world, hiring decisions will ultimately be influenced by human behavior,” says Patricia Lenkov, a New York City-based executive recruiter specializing in senior-level job searches.

Read the full article on chicagotribune.com!

Just about everyone is using Facebook for personal networking, but you can use it for professional networking, as well. With lots of job search applications to choose from, Facebook is becoming more than a social networking site. These Facebook applications can all be used as part of your job search.

Before you start, be sure to adjust your privacy settings so professional connections and potential employers aren’t viewing too much of your personal information.

How to Get Facebook Job Search Applications

Login to Facebook, click on Profile, type the application name in the search box, then follow the instructions to install. Or, visit the Facebook Application Directory and search using “job search” “career” or “jobs” as keywords.

Read the rest on about.com!

It’s important to be as honest as possible with your recruiter about your career, preferences and anything else that could affect your job search.

“Job seekers sometimes fail to tell their recruiter when their company, position, or compensation preferences change. Second, job seekers hurt themselves by not telling recruiters about personal obligations and other things that might interfere with their job searches,” says Katy Keogh, of the staffing firm Winter, Wyman.

“Bring these things up at the last minute, and they can be a deal-breaker. Why? Changing the game at the last second with a hiring company makes you look sneaky or complicated for no reason at all.”

Read more on businessinsider.com!

Web apps are a friend to all who mash the keyboard from nine to five. They live in the cloud, are accessible from any Internet connection and are great for chopping those mundane work tasks off at the knees.

We’ve previously highlighted a batch of web apps that reduce the headaches and keystrokes associated with common tech chores, and after receiving some great feedback from readers, we thought it only right to hunt down a few more worthy bookmarkables.

See below for five more picks, and remember to leave your own time-saving web ditties in the comments.

Read the rest on mashable.com!

Everyone has plateaus in their career, but you want to avoid those slumps whenever possible—especially in this job market. The Wall Street Journal offers a few tips for constantly improving your job performance.

The Journal bases their tips off of the Center for Creative Leadership’s study of executive derailment, their number one tip being to ask for instant feedback:

Read the rest on lifehacker.com!

Your hands are clammy and your heart is racing as you progress through the the job interview gauntlet at a particular company. One interviewer blends into the next, and the questions vary from the ever-popular, “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” to “How many cups of coffee do people in London drink per day?”

It doesn’t help that recent job reports show fewer jobs being added to the economy, which means that companies are being more stringent than ever in the interview process, and that the competition for open positions will continue to be fierce.  And, let’s face it, some interviews are tougher than others. But, does a difficult interview directly correlate to a difficult job or an unpleasant work experience?

Read the full article on glassdoor.com!

She never had to look for work.

As a Truman scholar and a top-notch statistics, marine biology and water-quality expert with two master’s degrees and a Ph.D., work looked for this seasoned professional. Until recently, that is, when the bottom fell out of the economy.

After a recent layoff, the overwhelming prospect of redoing her resume is paralyzing the mid-career scientist. Because we’re hearing plenty of stories like hers, we turned to time-management and resume experts for help on how to prepare for a major resume update, even if you’re going to have a professional do the writing for you. Read on for their tips.

Read the rest on theladders.com!