By Elizabeth Garone 

Q: As a LinkedIn user, I am seeing many people stating, “looking for a job opportunity” and other similar statements in their profile or status. If you are unemployed, is it good to announce that you are looking for a job this way, or does it potentially damage your image?

A: In the past, it was common to try to hide the fact that you’d lost your job. But that has changed in the current economy. “The stigma of being unemployed in this economy is almost non-existent,” says Terry Karp, career counselor and co-founder of the Bay Area Career Center in San Francisco. “It is commonly understood that many talented people have been laid off completely due to a business decision by the company, not their performance.”

While it’s acceptable to let people know that you are looking for a position, it’s important to approach it professionally and to be specific about your needs. One way to do this is to use LinkedIn’s “professional headline” to establish your identity. Ms. Karp recommends adding the words “in transition” or “seeking a new challenge” to your title. LinkedIn also gives you the opportunity to fill in a status box. “Use this area to describe contract or consulting gigs you have as well as any volunteer work you are doing,” suggests Ms. Karp. “This approach enables you to reinforce your brand through the headline as well as highlight current relevant projects.”

Dan Schawbel, author of “Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success,” also believes in getting the word out. “If your network is unaware that you’re job searching, then how are they supposed to support your search?” he asks. “Visibility creates opportunities, both in marketing products and with people.”

When crafting your profile, you need to be honest, says LinkedIn spokeswoman Krista Canfield. “Don’t list on your profile or résumé that you’re doing free-lance work if you really aren’t,” she says. “Hiring managers may ask you about that free-lance work or consulting gig during the interview and if you don’t have the references to back that work up, it could count against you.”

If you aren’t doing any contract or other work, then you’ll want to at least list a position that reflects the type of role you’re seeking. For example, you could include something along the lines of: “open to free-lance and consulting work in the graphic design industry” or “seeking a challenging sales position in the real-estate sector,” suggests Ms. Canfield.

You’ll also want to update your status regularly. “Status updates remind your network that you’re looking for a position and what types of jobs you’re looking for,” she says. “Plus, you never know. Someone in your network might know someone that works at the company you’re researching.”

Andrew Ravens, assistant vice president for corporate communications at Eastern Bank in Boston, credits LinkedIn status updates for helping two friends land jobs. One friend mentioned in her update that she was moving back to the Washington, D.C., area. Mr. Ravens saw the update and immediately put her in touch with an old college roommate who works in the same field. Through the connection, the friend eventually landed a job. In the other case, a friend posted an update that she was looking for broadcast journalism work. Again, Mr. Ravens was able to connect her with someone in the field. “It made me feel really good to help them out, especially with things so tough out there,” says Mr. Ravens. “If it weren’t for their status updates, I wouldn’t have even known they were looking.”

In order to have your status updates seen, you’ll need to grow your network, say the experts. “The larger your LinkedIn network is, both in volume and in real relationships, the better your chances are at finding a job,” says Mr. Schawbel. “Most jobs come from second- and third-degree contacts anyway, so it’s not just who you know but who they know and who knows you.”

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By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

There’s been no shortage of warnings about the career dangers of posting racy content on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Yet many job hunters still don’t heed that advice, and others don’t realize they’re doing just as much damage by doing things like bending the truth or spamming their résumés. Recruiters say such faux-pas can result in immediate and lasting career damage.

“You’re going to be remembered—and not in a positive way,” says Colleen McCreary, chief people officer for Zynga Game Network Inc., a San Francisco developer of social games including FarmVille. “Recruiters move around a lot from company to company, and that can carry on with them for a long period of time.”

Ms. McCreary says candidates consistently damage their reputations by sending cover letters that disingenuously claim a specific position at the company is their dream job. With a check of Zynga’s applicant-tracking system, she can see that those people submitted the same letter for several other openings, too. “They’ve now lost all their integrity,” she says. As an alternative, she recommends that job hunters write about the two or three positions they’re most qualified for in a single letter.

Job hunters also regularly flub by submitting their résumés to multiple recruiters and hiring managers at a single firm. “What they’re doing is a huge turn off because it sucks up a lot of time for people,” says Ms. McCreary.

Likewise, job hunters repeatedly derail their chances by applying for positions for which they don’t even meet the basic requirements. “There are a few people out there who seem to see it fit to apply to every job we ever post,” says Dan Goldsmith, a managing partner at AC Lion, an executive-search firm in New York. “Those people just go right in the trash folder.”

There are also job hunters who repeatedly send the same recruiters their résumés year after year, which can give the impression that they’re desperate or a job hopper, adds Mr. Goldsmith.

Liars make up another category of memorable job hunters. “People will say they graduated from [a] school and you find out from looking online that… they just took a course,” says Ms. McCreary.

Executive recruiter Russ Riendeau says he checks candidates’ résumés against their LinkedIn profiles and often discovers discrepancies. “It’s helping me assess whether candidate is indeed who they say they are,” says Mr. Riendeau, a partner at East Wing Group, a search firm in Barrington, Ill. Résumés should tell a candidate’s full story, he says.

Meanwhile, many job hunters are also continuing to overlook the dangers of posting provocative photos and other dubious content on social-media sites. Case in point: Recruiter Lori Fenstermaker says she lost interest in a recent candidate for a legal-assistant job after finding her raunchy MySpace profile. “She represented herself in a way that would not align with the company’s philosophy and ethics,” says Ms. Fenstermaker, founder of Automatic LLC, a search firm in Grand Rapids, Mich. “Anything someone publishes online could knock a person out of the running per se.”

There are also some job hunters who are unwittingly going out of their way to spoil their prospects. Last year, a candidate for a senior client-services position invited Mr. Goldsmith to be part of his Facebook network. After accepting, the recruiter found a semi-nude photo of the candidate, prompting Mr. Goldsmith to withdraw this person from consideration. “It was so horribly inappropriate,” the recruiter recalls. “To flaunt that with such a lack of sensitivity to professional decorum is very disquieting.”

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And the winners are…

There’s a new No. 1 in town: tech powerhouse SAS. Yes, even in a tough job market, some employers dole out perks like on-site saunas, discounted massages and classes on Wii bowling. Meet this year’s top 100; profiles include maps, contact info and more.

1. SAS

2. Edward Jones

3. Wegmans

4. Google

5. Nugget Market

6. DreamWorks Animation

7. NetApp

8. Boston Consulting Group

9. Qualcomm

10. Camden Property Trust

See the Top 100

Source: CNNMoney.com

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These 22 Best Companies to Work For have at least 500 openings each, totaling more than 87,750 jobs. What are they looking for in a new hire? Before you apply, check out these excerpts from our interviews with HR professionals and others in the know.  Click on the company name for more details.

Edward Jones
2010 Best Companies rank: 2
Current openings: 631

Wegmans Food Markets
2010 Best Companies rank: 3
Current openings: 1,500

Google
2010 Best Companies rank: 4
Current openings: 1,000

Qualcomm
2010 Best Companies rank: 9
Current openings: 617

Cisco
2010 Best Companies rank: 16
Current openings: 595

Whole Foods Market
2010 Best Companies rank: 18
Current openings: 1,160

Genetech
2010 Best Companies rank: 19
Current openings: 523

Scripps Health
2010 Best Companies rank: 40
Current openings: 510

Ernst & Young
2010 Best Companies rank: 44
Current openings: 622

USAA
2010 Best Companies rank: 45
Current openings: 650

Booz Allen Hamilton
2010 Best Companies rank: 52
Current openings: 695

Nordstrom
2010 Best Companies rank: 53
Current openings: 4,766

CarMax
2010 Best Companies rank: 56
Current openings: 570

Deloitte
2010 Best Companies rank: 70
Current openings: 11,000

PricewaterhouseCoopers
2010 Best Companies rank: 71
Current openings: 5,097

American Express
2010 Best Companies rank: 73
Current openings: 1,300

Marriott International
2010 Best Companies rank: 82
Current openings: 4,696

Accenture
2010 Best Companies rank: 84
Current openings: 45,000

Publix Super Markets
2010 Best Companies rank: 86
Current openings: 1,300

KPMG
2010 Best Companies rank: 88
Current openings: 2,700

FedEx
2010 Best Companies rank: 91
Current openings: 1,602

Intel
2010 Best Companies rank: 98
Current openings: 1,220

Source: CNNMoney.com

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By ALEXANDRA LEVIT

Q: I am driven, hard working and smart, but I lack the self-discipline to look for a job. I have hired a career counselor, but I still can’t muster the motivation I need and am always procrastinating. Do you have any advice for being a more effective job seeker?

A: Acknowledging the fact that you have a problem with self-discipline is half the battle. Next, you need to employ some strategies to conquer your natural tendency toward procrastination. Create a calendar of job search-related tasks that you will do each day and concentrate on checking as many of them off the list as you can. When the urge comes to do something else instead, force yourself to think about whether a momentary reprieve is worth having to overhaul the whole calendar to reschedule a particular task. You should also think about the big picture. Sometimes the most effective job hunting activities require the most effort and, in turn, produce the greatest rewards — like a job that is satisfying and pays well. A final trick I use for procrastination is to start with the least complicated part of a particular task. Once I’ve finished one component, I gain momentum and it’s a lot easier to keep moving.

Q: I’ve worked at a series of small companies where I’ve mostly done in-house computer programming. The projects were designed by me, built by me and serviced by me. However, my methods have since been replaced and I have no intention of learning new ones. I’m not sure what to do next. I’m nervous about entrepreneurship or working for a large company.

A: Here’s the thing that stood out to me in your e-mail: “I have no intention of learning new methods.” In order to stay marketable in any field, you have to keep your skills current. This is especially true in information technology, where technologies change rapidly. I know that it can be frustrating to be at a certain level in your career and still need to pursue education or certification, but to refuse to do so simply isn’t practical. It seems to me that starting your own business or making the transition to a different type of organization won’t solve your problem and will probably result in more work than revisiting your programming methods and determining what you need to learn to develop these home-grown applications in a twenty-first century small to medium-sized business.

Q: For 20 years, I ran an enormously successful business in Massachusetts, raised and educated three children, and kept a nice home. I retired, moved to California, began teaching, and pursued graduate education. Along the way I noticed gaping holes in knowledge among the students, so I wrote a book comparing those who succeed to those who fail. Now, I’m running up against brick walls promoting the book. What can I do to get my work reviewed?

A: Many people believe that the hardest part about writing a book is coming up with 60,000 words worth of material, but this is not the case. Promotion, which these days is moreand more the responsibility of the author, is far more difficult. Now that more than 300,000 new titles are published every year, even with an established platform in a particular industry it’s hard to get noticed amidst all the noise. So don’t be too hard on yourself. That said, there is one major thing that you can do to increase the likelihood that your book will get real or virtual ink. First, get to know the editors at the education trades and the writers of related blogs; volunteer to write expert guest pieces for them (instead of asking them outright for reviews). You’ll be providing valuable content to their readers and your book will be promoted indirectly through the byline you’ll get at the end of each piece.

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By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 27, 2009

In a Florida operating room, a senior citizen with a collapsed vertebra lies face down and unconscious on the operating table, surrounded by members of a medical team.

If all goes well, they’ll insert a tiny inflatable balloon into the brittle bone and then stabilize it by injecting cement. It’s a delicate procedure that deploys needles close to the spinal cord, and it takes a coordinated effort.

There’s an anesthesiologist alternating with a nurse anesthetist, an X-ray technician and a circulating nurse; there’s a pair of scrub techs to handle surgical instruments; there’s the surgeon, a middle-aged orthopedist who has never performed this type of operation before.

And, at the foot of the operating table, there’s Chuck Bates, a guy who studied biology in college and always wanted to go to medical school but never did.

Instead, he began his career selling hot dogs to grocery stores.

As the surgeon prepares to make an incision, Bates stares at the X-ray monitor.

Come up one centimeter and make your incision there, Bates tells the surgeon.

A little later, when it appears that the doctor is going to use his hand to push a needle into the patient’s spine, Bates suggests that he try a mallet instead.

Just tap-tap-tap, Bates advises.

The job wholesaling hot dogs enabled Bates to get an MBA on the weekends, and then a friend told him about a career more in tune with his interests, which led to employment with Kyphon, a manufacturer of medical devices.

Devices used to repair fractured vertebrae.

That’s how Charles E. Bates III came to be standing at a patient’s feet several years ago, doing his part to advance a new procedure called kyphoplasty.

Click here to continue reading this article…

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By DIANA MIDDLETON

With so much competition for every job listing out there—there are more than 6.1 job seekers for every job opening, according to the latest job-opening and turnover data from the U.S. Department of Labor—wowing a recruiter during a job interview is even more crucial. According to a new survey of nearly 500 human-resources professionals released by the Society for Human Resource Management, there are plenty of ways to derail a job interview—and some of them may surprise you.

The basic don’ts: arriving late to an interview or trashing a previous employer. But some hiring managers say even experienced professionals have made other slip-ups.

Often, job candidates speak in a too-familiar way with hiring managers—a major problem, according to 20% of survey respondents. Mary Willoughby, director of human resources at the Center for Disability Rights in Rochester, N.Y., once interviewed someone who was so comfortable, he commented on a sty she had near her eye.

“My mind was made up at that point,” she says. The candidate was not hired.

For 67% of hiring managers who responded to the survey, dressing provocatively is a major deal breaker—even more significant than having a typo in your application materials (58% found this to be an interview killer). Chantal Verbeek, head of enterprise talent at ING U.S. Financial Services, says she’ll forgive a typo if the applicant’s skills are extraordinary, but revealing or sloppy apparel equals an instant rejection. “You’d think that’d be obvious,” she says

Job seekers have also been blasting HR managers with questions about benefits, vacation time and schedule flexibility much too soon in the interview process, according to the survey. (Thirty percent of hiring managers say it’s okay for applicants to inquire about salary in post-interview follow-up conversations.) Some 39% of hiring managers surveyed said applicants shouldn’t bring up salary at all—unless the interviewer brings it up first.

“I’ve had candidates ask if they can work part-time from home right off the bat,” Ms. Willoughby says. “Let’s figure out if you’re the right person for this job before we discuss how little you want to be in the office.”

Using clichés like “This is my dream job” are also major turnoffs for hiring managers. Instead of telling an interviewer you think outside the box, actually do it. Ms. Willoughby recalls a job candidate for an IT programmer position who gently pointed out that the Center for Disability Rights’ Web site had several programming errors. “He handled it in a way that didn’t make us feel ridiculed or demeaned,” she says. “It showed that he was really serious about the job.”

Shawn Desgrosellier, president of Vitality Group Executive Search, coaches job candidates to go into an interview with something—anything—in their hands. The step maintains focus. (He suggested a pen, a notepad or your résumé.) “It’s just awkward going into an interview with nothing,” he says.

There’s also some good news for people with numerous public profiles online: Although social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are rife with clues about job candidates’ private lives, 75% of HR managers surveyed don’t bother to check them.

And the formal thank-you letter after the interview? More than 60% of HR managers who responded say skipping the step is not a big deal. A brief email will suffice—cards and balloons are all overboard.

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Free Product Samples
If you don’t mind giving out your name and e-mail address, you can get dozens of different product samples — everything from lipstick and bleach to colon cleansers and cookies — sent to you at no cost. Simply visit JustFreeStuff.com and TheFreeSite.com and look for links to your favorite sample giveaways.

Free Groceries
Grocery discounts and special offers abound, but did you know you can also get some groceries for FREE? Sure, you might have to “buy one to get one free” but those types of offers can be great ways to save a bundle. Visit GetGroceriesFree.com, a web site started by a penny-pinching mother of three. She scours the papers and the Internet for special deals, and then lists them on her site along with tutorials and actual shopping trip purchases where she shows how she saved 50% or more on her total grocery bills.

Free Movies
If you have a high-speed Internet connection and a decent monitor, you can enjoy a wide variety of movies — all free — from the comfort of your personal computer. At Hulu.com, you don’t need any special equipment and you can catch a great flick anytime online. There are literally HUNDREDS of movies to choose from.  (And we’re not talking low-budget B-movies either — you’ll find Oscar-nominated and critically-acclaimed films, as well.) 

Free Directory Assistance
If you don’t mind listening to a very brief audio commercial, you can find any telephone number for free. Yes, FREE. 1-800-FREE-411 was the first to the market. 1-800-411-SAVE offers advertiser’s discounts to callers, and 1-800-411-METRO will automatically connect you to the business you’re calling.

Free Music Downloads
Gone are the days of the original Napster.com, where you could download even the latest hits 24/7. The good news is there IS still free music to be had on the Web at sites such as YourFreeMusicDownloads.com and FreeMusicDownloadSpot.com. Registration is required at these sites, and although there ARE plenty of recordings available by original artists, you’ll also come across quite a few songs produced by “cover” performers.

Source: dolans.com

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Rank/Job Title/Best Jobs Rank/% Who Say Their Job Is Low Stress

1. Education-Training Consultant / 35 / 60.0%
2. Physical Therapist / 7 / 59.5%
3. College Professor / 3 / 59.2%
4. Software Developer / 12 / 59.0%
5. Technical Writer / 28 / 56.4%
6. Telecommunications Network Engineer / 30 / 55.6%
7. Speech-Language Pathologist / 27 / 53.0%
8. Software Architect / N.A. / 51.6%
9. Occupational Therapist / 14 / 50.0%
10. Civil Engineer / N.A. / 49.1%

From the November 2009 issue
Source: CNNMoney.com/PayScale.com survey of more than 35,000 workers

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Is there anything you want done with regard to your job search before the end of the year?   

Are you hoping for a series of first interviews during the month of November?   

Do you want to go deeper into your current interview process before Thanksgiving?   

Is it a Christmas job offer you’re craving?   

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then keep pressing forward.  Do not let up for one second.  You are just inches away from November 1^st which means that you have about 6 weeks before hiring managers turn their thoughts from interviews to sugar plums and Christmas shopping.   If you’re reading this and have a first interview scheduled for November 1^st, there’s a chance that you can walk out of the month with a job offer by the time hiring managers go home for the holidays.  If you’re reading this and staring at a blank calendar canvas, you’ve got to do whatever it takes – network with medical and pharmaceutical professionals, ask for informational interviews, stand in front of hospitals and hand out your resume to sales reps – to kick-start your job search.  Get moving!

This crazy economy and marketplace are spreading into every facet of our daily lives-including our job searches-because we’re all looking for the same things: a great career, advancement, earning potential based on personal achievement.  And today more than ever, the job candidates who are achieving those things are the ones who are outsmarting and outhustling their competition.  Their hard work, determination, and output are translating into opportunities. 

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