According to the Associated Press, U.S. workers can expect skimpy raises in their base salaries next year, but top performers may still fatten their paychecks with merit compensation.   A study just released by Hewitt Associates, a human resources consulting firm, found base pay will rise by 3.8 percent in 2009, marking the ...

Well, the gymnastics competitions that are my favorite part of the Olympic Games are over.   As usual, the events were dogged with controversy.  This year, it had mainly to do with the ages and scores of the Chinese gymnasts. In 1997, to counter the increasing trend towards younger and younger gymnasts, the International ...

I’m pleased to share with you the formation of a new online advocacy organization called Qvisory that is dedicated to helping young adults with their money, work, and health concerns.  Qvisory was the brainchild of Andy Stern at the Service Employees’ Union, and has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.  In conjunction ...

My friend and 30/20 Vision radio show co-host Lindsey Pollak and I had the opportunity to contribute to Marci Alboher’s New York Times career coach roundtable on management consulting and investment banking as careers for soon-to-be college grads.  Here was the question, as well as highlights from our responses: “I will be graduating ...

Well now, this is kind of scary… While employers and hiring managers are seeing more job applicants with online degrees these days, they’re not exactly clamoring to hire them. According to Vault.com’s 2008 Online Degrees Survey, while 49% of those who make hiring decisions have encountered applicants with online degrees, a 15 percentage ...

I just received an e-mail from Pat Viro, a reader who has a job in an interesting new field known as “nurse consulting.” You’ve probably heard of the growing need for health professionals to care for a quickly expanding number of senior citizens.  This demographic shift has been well documented.  For example, according to ...

I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails from desperate folks who are short on cash and are hoping against hope that they can get a raise at work.  But just in case they can’t, over at Brazen Careerist, Alex Fisher has some great ideas for saving money during the current economic downturn.  Among my favorites: Replace your light ...

According to USA Today, this summer Utah will become what experts say is the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees.  Gov. Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, says he's making the change to reduce the state's carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide ...

In his bestsellers Brand Warfare and Career Warfare, author David D'Alessandro offered sharp advice for building a brand and building a career. His new book, Executive Warfare is the advanced class for the truly ambitious. The book covers what it takes to rise to the top-and to do the even harder thing, which is survive there.  In ...

So Bill Gates is preparing to retire as CEO of Microsoft. Gates and his childhood friend Paul Allen founded Microsoft on April 4, 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to make and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, an early computer that was sold to hobbyists. Gates dropped out of Harvard University in his third year to focus on ...