Author: Jen Hubley Luckwaldt

Jen Hubley Luckwaldt writes about work-life balance, stress management, and other topics relating to what makes us happy at work. A full-time freelancer, she deals with stress by blurring the lines between life and work to the point where the two spheres are barely separate. The happiest day of her career was when scientists proved that looking at pictures of cute animals makes us more productive.

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How to Manage Remote Teams Working From Home During the Coronavirus

Looking for data? View: PayScale’s Research and Strategy Guide on How to Set Pay for Remote Workers Managing remote workers is challenging under the best of circumstances. And if you’re leading a team that’s working at home during the coronavirus pandemic, you’re certainly not working in ideal conditions. However, you’re far from...
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31 Pi Day Inspirational Quotes From Mathematicians, Physicists and Scientists

Over 30 years ago, physicist Larry Shaw celebrated the first Pi Day on March 14. The date, 3.14, was meant to signify the first three digits of pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. In a bit of serendipity, March 14 is also Albert Einstein’s birthday. History.com notes: The...
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How Companies Reward Top-Performing Employees

The typical raise is still hovering around 3 percent, according to PayScale’s annual Compensation Best Practices Report. But employers are willing to pull out the stops to woo top-performing employees. From November 2019 to January 2020, PayScale gathered responses to its Compensation Best Practices Survey. Most of the 4,903 respondents identified as...
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7 Things You Can Do to Make Your Workplace Better for Women

Unless things change, it will take 208 years before the United States achieves gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum. Women are less represented in government, popular entertainment, board seats and Fortune-500 leadership. Women also earn less than men — only 79 cents on the dollar, according to PayScale’s report on...
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You’ve Probably Already Guessed the Most Popular Employee Appreciation Gift

When it comes to employee appreciation gifts, according to a new survey from Robert Half, most workers would prefer that their companies say thank you with money. Per the survey, the most popular employee acknowledgement was cash, with 54% of respondents saying that’s how they’d prefer to be recognized. Next up: a...
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Jobs Report: Payrolls Added 273,000 Jobs in February, Beating Forecasts

Employers added 273,000 jobs to non-farm payrolls last month, according to the jobs report from the Labor Department, exceeding the 175,000 jobs predicted by economists. The unemployment rate dipped back down to 3.5%, matching a 50-year low. Further, the Labor Department revised reports for December and January to reflect an additional 85,000...
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ADP: February Payrolls Beat Expectations; No Sign of Slowdown Due to Coronavirus

Prior to the release of the monthly ADP National Employment Report, economists polled by Dow Jones predicted the addition of 155,000 jobs to private payrolls in February. This morning, payrolls processor ADP reported that private employers added 183,000 jobs last month. “The labor market remains firm, as private-sector payrolls continued to expand...
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Coronavirus Fears Prompt Employers Like Twitter to Adopt Remote Work Policies

Looking for research? View PayScale’s Research and Strategy Guide on How to Set Pay for Remote Workers The recent outbreak of coronavirus COVID-19 is prompting some governments to close their borders, the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates, and the CDC to urge precautions like handwashing and contact avoidance. But will it induce your...
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29 Things to Do on Leap Day to Boost Your Career

A calendar year is 365 days, but the earth’s orbit around the sun is a bit longer — 365.2421 days, according to History.com. Hence, the need for Leap Day, the extra 24 hours tacked on to the end of (nearly) every fourth February to keep the calendar on track. Of course, we...
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Corporate Wellness Companies Can Predict When You’ll Get Sick, Pregnant, or Need Surgery

The corporate wellness market is booming. According to a report from the RAND Corporation, which was sponsored by the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services, more than half of U.S. employers with 50 or more employees currently offer corporate wellness benefits. Some use outside vendors to administer...
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30 Quotes From U.S. Presidents About Leadership, Happiness and Persistence

Only about 39% of U.S. companies give their employees the day off on Presidents’ Day, according to a survey from Bloomberg BNA. So, if you’re reading this from a location other than your usual workplace, count yourself as one of the lucky ones. But obviously, the holiday is about more than getting...
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How to Lose Your Heart at Work (But Keep Your Job)

Are you thinking about dating a coworker? If you decide to give it a whirl, you’ll be in good company. According to a 2019 survey from jobs site Vault, 58% of respondents have had an office romance at some point in their careers. In fact, only 37% of the 700 respondents said...

Jobs Report: Mild January Weather Boosts Payrolls

Non-farm payrolls added 225,000 jobs last month according to the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, far exceeding economists’ predictions. Prior to the release of the report, economists surveyed by MarketWatch were calling for the addition of 165,000 jobs to public and private payrolls. “It’s a really strong start...
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ADP: Private Payrolls Added 291,000 Jobs in January, the Most in 4 Years

Private-sector employers added 291,000 jobs last month, according to the monthly report from payrolls processor ADP. The tally nearly doubled estimates from economists and represented the highest gains since May 2015. “Mild winter weather provided a significant boost to the January employment gain,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, which...
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Are Wages Growing? The PayScale Index Updates for Q4 2019

The PayScale Index, which measures the change in wages for employed U.S. workers, recently updated. The latest data shows that nominal wages grew 2.5% year over year for Q4 2019. That’s a substantial improvement over the Q3 update, which showed 0.6% year-over-year wage growth for the quarter. However, if you’re not feeling...
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These 100 Companies Want to Hire You to Work From Home

Do you want to work from home? Your odds of landing a remote job might be better than you think. According to research, the number of U.S. workers who telecommute rose 159% between 2005 and 2017. You might also be surprised at the occupations that offer flexible work options. FlexJobs, which offers...
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Gender Wage Gap? Not at Companies That Reveal This Secret

The gender wage gap persists, even when we control for factors like job title, education and experience. In 2019, according to PayScale data, women earned 79 cents for every dollar earned by men and 98 cents for every dollar earned by men with similar employment characteristics. However, the newest PayScale report suggests...
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Are You the Office Mom?

Do you organize office birthday parties, plan after-work events, keep a candy dish at your desk, or take notes at every meeting? If you answered yes to some or all of these, you might be the office mom. And while having an office mom is great for employees who want to feel...
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Jobs Report: Hiring and Wage Growth Slowed in December

Payrolls added 145,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate stayed at 3.5%, according to this morning’s jobs report from the Labor Department. Prior to the report’s release, economists polled by Reuters predicted the addition of 164,000 jobs to public and private payrolls. Over the course of the year, the economy added...
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ADP: Private Payrolls Added 202,000 Jobs in December

The year ended on a high note in terms of job creation. This morning’s jobs report from payrolls processor ADP showed the addition of 202,000 jobs to private payrolls. Prior to the report’s release, economists were calling for an increase of 160,000 jobs, according to Reuters. “As 2019 came to a close,...
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2019’s Hottest Jobs Are Very Different From 2018’s

Tech jobs are hot, but if you want a fast-growing, high-paying job, they’re far from the only game in town, according to PayScale’s survey. “Consumer spending is diversifying the labor force,” writes Sudarshan Sampath, director of research at PayScale, in his annual reflection on the year’s economic trends. “Last year, 6 out...
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You’re Probably Making 1 of These 7 Performance Review Mistakes

Depending on your source, performance reviews are dying, broken … or absolutely essential to a company’s success. One thing they’re not, however, is going away entirely — at least, not anytime soon. That’s bad news for workers who dread review time (i.e., most of them). However, even if you’d rather spend your...
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WalletHub: These Are the 10 Best Cities for Veterans

What makes a city a good place for veterans to live? According to a recent report from WalletHub, 2019’s Best & Worst Places for Veterans to Live, it’s a combination of economic opportunity, quality of life and support. WalletHub compared the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. across 20 metrics, including...
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7 Signs You Don’t Want to Be the Boss

Management isn’t for everyone. While a promotion to management typically means a raise in both pay and status, there are some downsides to being the boss. Of course, there’s also a chance that you’re letting your fears get in the way of your better judgment. It’s not uncommon for passionate, dedicated workers...
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The PayScale Index Shows Steady Wage Growth. But Is the Economy Losing Its Spark?

This morning, PayScale released the updated PayScale Index, which tracks the change in pay for employed U.S. workers. The Q3 2019 PayScale Index showed that nominal wages increased 0.5% quarter-over-quarter. Year-over-year, wages grew 2.6% — respectable, but not the blockbuster growth one might expect, given the tight labor market. “Unemployment numbers hit...
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Study: Employers Want Confidence, Not Arrogance

Your behavior during a job interview might matter even more than your skills. A recent study from TopInterview and Resume-Library found that 70% of employers view personality to be among the top three factors to consider when selecting candidates. And while confidence is appealing to employers, arrogance is not. Forty-two percent of...
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9 Job Seekers Share Their Weirdest Job Interview Stories

Bad job interviews are all too common. If you’ve ever looked for work, you no doubt have a few stories to tell. Maybe the hiring manager just didn’t show, or the human resources representative asked you questions that were flat-out illegal. Perhaps the company gave you the opportunity to meet with several...
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This Mister Rogers Speech Is All the Career Advice You Need

In 2002, Fred Rogers — known to children and former children all over the world as Mister Rogers from “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” — gave his last commencement address at Dartmouth College, which he attended in the 1940s. And although he might have written his remarks for the graduating class and their loved...
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10 Communication Tips Remote Workers Need to Know

Looking for research? View PayScale’s Research and Strategy Guide on How to Set Pay for Remote Workers   Over 4 million employees now work from home at least half the time, according to Global Workplace Analytics, which also reports that 40 percent more employers offer work-at-home options than just five years ago. From a...
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7 Things to Do When You’re Feeling Stuck in a Dead-End Job

Even if you’re a skilled interviewer who knows how to identify problem employers right from the phone screen, you may wind up in a dead-end job at some point in your career. Why? Because jobs continue to change, even after we take them. Sometimes, your job will evolve up to a point...
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6 Ways to Be More Independent at Work (Even When You Work for Someone Else)

Our culture heaps praise on entrepreneurs, those intrepid business gurus who are willing to risk everything to succeed on their own terms. But what if you want to be more independent at work — without going it alone? Not everyone wants to work for themselves. The rewards may be great, but pitfalls...
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How to Toot Your Own Horn (Even When You’re Super Modest)

If you’re lucky, you’ll meet supportive people throughout your career. These folks will help shine a light on you when you deserve it, making sure that higher-ups know what you’ve accomplished. But you won’t have your cheering squad behind you at every job. To make sure that your bosses — and their...
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Struggling at Work? You’re Probably Dealing With One of These 10 Workplace Issues

There are all kinds of reasons why you might be having trouble at work. It may make you feel a little better to know that you’re not alone. Most of us will encounter common workplace issues at some point in our career. Maybe you’re underpaid or overworked. Maybe your boss is a...
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When Is Work Flexibility a Bad Thing?

Work flexibility, which can include options ranging from full-time telecommuting to flextime scheduling, has been touted as an answer for everything from work-life balance issues to climate change. But while more flexibility is obviously a good thing for employees — especially working parents who are trying to combine a career and family...
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7 Interview Mistakes That Are Costing You Job Offers

Are you having trouble moving from runner-up to brand-new employee? Almost everyone has been there at some point in their career, getting multiple interviews but no firm offers after months of meeting with hiring managers. Sometimes, of course, it’s not your fault. It’s possible to be impressively qualified and a solid interviewer...
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World Health Organization Recognizes Burnout as an ‘Occupational Phenomenon’

The World Health Organization recently added burnout to its handbook for healthcare providers. Per the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” The ICD-11 describes three dimensions to the syndrome, which is classified as an occupational phenomenon,...
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7 Things You Need to Know Before You Start Working From Home

Americans spend a lot of time at work — 47 hours a week on average, according to a Gallup report, compared with 35 hours a week for many workers in Germany or Sweden. Add to that an ever-expanding daily commute, and the difficulty balancing work and family in a country with no...
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How to Support Your Coworker Who’s Dealing With Mental Health Issues

Nearly one in five adults lives with a mental illness in the United States, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Given that roughly 60 percent of Americans aged 16 or older have jobs, it’s a fair assumption that many workers deal with mental illness. Perhaps you’re one of them. If...
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3 Office April Fools’ Day Pranks That Got People Fired

You spend a lot of time with your coworkers. If you’re lucky, some of them may even become friends. But even if work comes to feel like a second home, it’s not a good idea to get too comfy. Some things are just not a good fit for the workplace. Among them:...

7 Ways to Spot a Bad Company Culture During the Job Interview

One person’s dream job is another’s nightmare. Often, it comes down to culture fit. Company culture could be described as the identity of the organization – its personality. As a job seeker, part of your goal is to find and secure an offer from an employer with a similar personality to your...
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Jobs Report Disappoints: Payrolls Added Only 20,000 Jobs in February

Employers added 20,000 jobs to public and private non-farm payrolls last month, according to this morning’s report from the Labor Department. The tally was the lowest since 2017, and considerably lower than the 180,000 jobs forecast by economists. “We’re not going to be able to create that many jobs month in and...
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5 Obstacles to Work-Life Balance and How to Beat Them

What is work-life balance? The short answer is that it depends on who’s defining the terms. For an entrepreneur, work-life balance might mean enough time to work on all their ideas and still grab food now and then. For an office worker whose passion is mountain biking, it could be enough time...
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How to Be Happy at Work: 15 Ways to Beat a Bad Day

You know those days at work when nothing seems to go right? Your clients are dissatisfied, your coworkers aren’t holding up their end of the bargain and nothing you do works out the way you planned. Don’t resign yourself to enduring until the clock hits 5 (or 6 or 7). There are...
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The Real Reason Why People Quit Their Jobs

Employers need to know why people quit their jobs — and how to keep them from doing so. It costs money to recruit, hire and train replacements for employees who jump ship. And that’s not even figuring the cost of losing the institutional knowledge that seasoned employees have and new hires don’t....
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95 Percent of Managers Hate Performance Reviews. So Why Are We Still Doing Them?

Have you had your annual performance review this year? If so — and things went well — you’re probably just relieved that it’s over. Unsurprisingly, most surveys show that employees don’t care for performance reviews. But would you believe that your boss probably shares your sentiment? Management research firm CEB “found that...
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Underpaid? Do These 3 Things Before You Quit

Unemployment is at a 49-year low and more people are quitting their jobs. Are you thinking of joining them? If so, money might be a contributing factor. In a recent survey from The Ladders, 30 percent of job switchers named pay as a reason to change jobs. (Even more popular reasons: “boredom...
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Do This Before You Answer, ‘What Are Your Salary Requirements?’

It’s everyone’s least favorite job interview question: “What are your salary requirements?” And while there are ways to avoid answering until you’re comfortable starting the salary negotiation process, sometimes you’re going to get stuck. Other times, it’s in your best interests to answer when asked. For example, PayScale’s research has shown that...
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5 Work-From-Home Jobs That Pay $100,000 or More

When you think of work-from-home jobs, do you think of low-paying customer service gigs – or outright scams, like stuffing envelopes? If so, it’s time to expand your horizons. While there are plenty of low-wage jobs and fraudulent “opportunities” out there, high-paying work-from-home jobs do exist. Depending on your skills and experience,...
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5 Ways to Prevent Burnout (Even When You’re Really Busy at Work)

Twenty-three percent of full-time employees surveyed in a recent Gallup study reported feeling burned out at work “very often or always.” An additional 44 percent said that they felt burned out sometimes. The main causes of burnout, according to Gallup, included unfair treatment at work, high workloads, lack of support from management...
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This Japanese Company Pays Employees to Sleep

How much sleep did you get last night? If you’re like most people, the answer is: not enough. According to a 2013 Gallup poll, Americans average 6.8 hours of sleep a night. That’s down more than an hour since 1942, and shy of the CDC’s recommendations of seven or more hours of...
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Don’t Fall for These 5 Salary Negotiation Myths

Seventy percent of people who ask for a raise get some kind of pay increase, according to recent results from PayScale’s survey. Thirty-nine percent even get the exact amount they ask for. Still, many people are reluctant to ask. Only 37 percent of respondents say they’ve negotiated for a raise at their...
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3 Associate Degrees That Lead to High-Paying Jobs

Want to earn the big bucks and skip the hefty student loan debt? Pick the right two-year program, and you can earn more than many bachelor’s degree holders in half the time. Not all associate degrees lead to high-paying jobs, of course. (Ask any early childhood education major, and they’ll tell you...
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The 5 Most Meaningful Majors, According to Grads

Money is only one factor in job satisfaction. That’s why PayScale’s survey asks respondents whether their job makes the world a better place. That’s also why PayScale’s recent College Salary Report looks not only at majors that pay you back, but those that lead to jobs with high meaning. The biggest surprise:...
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The Zeigarnik Effect: Why You Should Let Your Mind Wander at Work

Stuck on a tricky problem? Focusing too keenly on it might work against you. To find a solution, suggests productivity researcher Chris Bailey, let your mind wander. Bailey, the author of Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction, ran a year-long project in which he conducted dozens of...
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College Salary Report: 5 High-Paying Jobs for English Majors

Once again, alums from STEM schools top the list of high earners on PayScale’s 2018-19 College Salary Report. But what if you’re just not a math and science kind of person? If you’re headed to college to study English, you’ve probably already heard the question: “What can you do with an English...
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The Right (and Wrong!) Ways to Ask for Help at Work

Even if you’re the most organized person you know and willing to work round the clock to meet your goals, you won’t always be able to go it alone. Sooner or later, even superstars need to ask for help at work. When that happens, you might panic. Our culture prizes individualism, strength...
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5 Things to Do on Friday Afternoon to Make Next Week Easier

There’s a reason companies opt for summer Fridays instead of, say, summer Tuesday afternoons. The last hours of the day in the last workday of the week tend to be unproductive, to put it lightly. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With a little planning, you can use your Friday...
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Here is How Much It Costs to Leave the Workforce

Women earn 77.9 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to PayScale’s recent report, The State of the Gender Pay Gap. That’s a comparison of all women to all men, regardless of job title, experience, or seniority. However, even when we control the data for all compensable factors, women still earn...
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Should You Take a Promotion Without a Raise? Experts and Employees Weigh In

When you get a promotion, you hope it comes with a nice pay boost. But for various reasons, sometimes companies offer the title change without the cash. Maybe budgets are tight, or your manager hopes that by changing your title, they’ll be able to lobby for a pay increase later on. Maybe...
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5 Cover Letter Mistakes That Are Costing You the Interview

Do recruiters and hiring managers even read cover letters anymore? The answer is: maybe. But even if HR only skims, you need to use your best salesmanship and communication skills when you sit down to write your cover letter. Why? Because a good letter might help — but a bad one will...
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Your Team Isn’t a Family. Here’s How to Motivate Them Instead.

Managers, have you ever heard yourself say, “We’re more than a team, here. We’re like family?” If so, stop right there. While it might sound like a good way to motivate your team, claiming to be a family is more likely to inspire eye rolls than productivity. Why? Because your reports know...
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How to Find a Job

The real truth is that there’s no one perfect way to find a job. Every option has upsides and downsides. Apply online? You’ll be trying to stand out among hundreds — if not thousands — of candidates with similar resumes. Apply through a friend? Referrals work — but PayScale’s data show that...
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5 Salary Negotiation Mistakes That Will Keep You Underpaid

Only 43 percent of respondents to PayScale’s survey said that they’d ever negotiated salary in their current field. Why? Mostly out of fear. Among those who had never negotiated salary, 28 percent said that they were uncomfortable asking, while 19 percent said that they didn’t want to be perceived as pushy. Eight...
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How to Negotiate Your Starting Salary When It’s a Long Shot

Do you negotiate your starting salary, each and every time you take a new job — even when it seems unlikely you’ll get what you’re asking for? If you answered no, you’re in good company: 57 percent of respondents to our survey said they’d never negotiated salary in their current field. But...
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What Makes a Good Cover Letter? Hiring Managers and HR Pros Explain

What’s your least favorite part of the job application process? If you said, “writing cover letters,” you may or may not be relieved to hear that few hiring managers seem to care about them. In one survey, only 18 percent said cover letters were an important part of the hiring process. “I...
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5 Work-From-Home Jobs for People Without a Bachelor’s Degree

Here’s another bonus of low unemployment: companies are now willing to consider workers who have non-traditional backgrounds. (Read: lack the formal education usually listed as a requirement in job listings.) These opportunities even include work-from-home jobs. If you think about it, it never made sense to restrict some jobs based on education...

5 Companies Hiring for Remote, Part-Time Jobs Right Now

Looking for research? View PayScale’s Research and Strategy Guide on How to Set Pay for Remote Workers   Forty-six percent of professionals say they’re interested in part-time jobs, according to FlexJobs, a jobs site that specializes in remote, part-time and contract work. Specifically, the company says that remote, part-time jobs are growing in popularity....
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The Negotiation Tactic That Turns Good Jobs Bad

Seventy-five percent of respondents to our survey who asked for a raise received a pay increase. The other 25 percent? Well, it’s a good bet that some didn’t know how to ask the right way. Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that everyone who doesn’t get the raise they deserve...
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Hate Your Internship? Here Are 5 Steps to Getting Something Out of It Anyway

The right internship can help you choose a career, develop your skillset and build the foundation of a professional network that will stick with you long after you’ve moved on to bigger and more lucrative things. But what if your internship isn’t the right internship? What if it kind of stinks? It’s...
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10 Steps to Getting That Promotion

If your goals for this year included getting a promotion, but you’re not quite there yet, it might be time to check your strategy. To move up the ladder at work, you need a lot of things working in your favor. You have to do good work, of course, but you also...
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5 Ways to Be Lucky at Work (and Everywhere Else)

Are you a lucky person? Trick question. As a wise man once said, “In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.” If you’re about to counter by naming friends and acquaintances who seem to always find the four-leaf clover in life — and especially, in their career — keep in mind...
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3 Ways to Celebrate Pi Day at Work

Thirty years ago, physicist Larry Shaw led a parade of pie-gobbling math and science enthusiasts at the San Francisco Exploratorium in the very first Pi Day celebration. Today, March 14th is officially recognized in the U.S. as a day to appreciate not only the ratio of the circumference of a circle to...
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5 Work-From-Home Job Scams

If you’ve ever searched online for a work-from-home job, you’ve seen the ads: Make a bajillion dollars in your jammies, with just a laptop and a dream! Stuff envelopes and earn more than an anesthesiologist! Accept wire transfers and collect high profits! Just like your grandma used to tell you, if it...
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Behold, the 7 Worst Employee Appreciation Gifts

Did you know that today is Employee Appreciation Day? If not, don’t feel too bad. The no-gift you got from your employer has to be better than some of the employee appreciation gifts we’ve found out there on the internet. Don’t believe us? Well, would some corporate swag improve your mood today?...
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How to Deal With Your Coworker Who Won’t Stop Talking

Open-plan offices have unleashed many horrors, but perhaps none are as difficult to cope with as the chatty coworker. In the olden days, you might have had an office with a door. Now, you probably spend the bulk of your workday toiling away, elbow-to-elbow with your colleagues in one big room. That’s...
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The 10 Biggest Resume Deal-Breakers (and How to Avoid Them)

Does your job search feel like it’s going nowhere? If you’re sending out multiple applications – through job boards, corporate sites and networking connections – without getting a response, the problem might be your resume. Recently, TopResume asked 379 recruiters, hiring managers and HR executives, “What are your biggest resume ‘deal-breakers’ that...
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5 Common Work-From-Home Jobs and What They Pay

When you think of work-from-home jobs, do you think of low-paying gigs? If so, it’s time to realign your expectations. The typical telecommuter earns $58,000 per year, according to research from Global Workplace Analytics. Seventy-five percent make at least $65,000 annually. Unsurprisingly, given that pay rate, most are skilled workers in professional...
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Office Romance: 7 Rules for Dating Your Coworker

Office romance is at a 10-year low, according to CareerBuilder’s Annual Valentine’s Day Survey. Conducted by Harris Poll, the survey shows that 36 percent of respondents have dated a coworker, down from 41 percent last year. Why is love at work on the decline? One theory is that the #MeToo movement has...
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10 Abraham Lincoln Quotes to Inspire You at Work

Political consensus is hard to come by these days — which is a big reason why it’s a bad idea to talk about politics at work. But there’s one point on which historians, at least, seem to agree: Abraham Lincoln was one of the best presidents in U.S. history. Harold Holzer, director...
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Why You Only Got a 3 Percent Raise Last Year

More employers are concerned about employee retention this year, but you wouldn’t it know it from raises: PayScale’s annual Compensation Best Practices Report shows that while 84 percent of organizations plan to give raises in 2018, 73 percent estimate an average increase of 3 percent or less (the same average increment as...
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‘I Got Laid Off and Now the Company Wants Me Back (at a Discount)’

Layoffs are a lot like breakups, especially in the aftermath. You might find yourself nursing your pride, on top of your heartbreak. You might even fantasize about your ex crawling back to you. It does happen, in business as in your personal life. But as one Redditor found, having your former employer...
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‘How I Got Fired the First Week on the Job’

When you’ve been fired, it feels like you’re the only person in the world who’s ever lost their job. Then, you start talking to your friends and family and discover that it’s a pretty common occurrence. Beyond that, it might even be good for you. “…I have come around to the view...
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Should Any President Get Credit for a Booming Economy?

Last night, in his first State of the Union address, President Donald Trump welcomed a “new American moment,” saying, “There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.” And by almost any measure, the American economy is strong. The stock market and the GDP are up and unemployment...
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Everything You Need to Know About Job Referrals

Over one-third of new job offers go to candidates who received a referral, according to data gathered for PayScale’s latest report, The Impact of Job Referrals. But not all referrals are valuable when it comes to negotiating pay. Between April 24, 2017 and August 25, 2017, PayScale asked 53,000 workers if they...
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10 Ways to Survive Working in a Job You Hate

“Do what you love” is a nice concept, but the reality is that most people have to take at least one meh job at some point during their careers, just to keep the lights on. The question is: how do you survive working in a job you hate long enough to get...
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How to Work Less and Do More in 2018

Americans work longer hours than the citizens of nearly any other industrialized nation. We take little vacation and have no federally mandated paid family leave. Many office workers bring their work home with them, checking email after-hours and on weekends. You’d think that all this work would make us the most productive...
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How to Negotiate a Raise During a Promotion

It seems like it would be easy to negotiate a raise during a promotion, but that’s not always the case.   You know that it’s more expensive for your employer to recruit, hire and train a new employee than to give you the raise. But they know how much you’re making right...
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These 9 Jobs Are Worthy of the Most Respect (According to Redditors)

In a perfect world, the more useful a job was to society, the higher the paycheck would be. In the real world, well, let’s just say there are probably very few millionaire social workers out there. (Approaching zero, if you don’t include folks with trust funds).   High pay says more about...
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How to Negotiate a Pay Raise

Average raises will be 3 percent next year, according to data from Willis Towers Watson and Aon Hewitt. That’s better than no raise, obviously, but it also doesn’t do much to improve most workers’ standard of living — especially when you take inflation into account.   To get ahead financially, you need...
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Santa’s Salary Will Make You Want to Grow a Long, White Beard

If you celebrate Christmas and have kids — or pampered pets — you may have already paid a visit to your friendly neighborhood mall Santa this year. Perhaps you even stopped a moment and thought about how tough it is to be the man beneath the whiskers. (Especially if some of Santa’s...
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If Your Boss Says This, Ask for a Raise

“If your boss ever says, ‘I wish I had 5 more people just like you’ it’s time to ask for a raise,” brendon7800 recently wrote in the LifeProTips subreddit. But is this really true? First, it’s important to understand why organizations give raises — or at least, why they should. Compensation strategies...
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10 Ways to Mess With Your Coworkers

You can pick your friends, and sometimes your enemies, but you can’t pick your coworkers. Ideally, of course, you’d all get along — at least well enough to get the job done. Sometimes, however, your inner Jim Halpert rises to the top and insists on getting revenge the old-fashioned way: by driving...
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5 Jobs That Let You Set Your Own Hours

In a recent FlexJobs survey, respondents chose a flexible schedule as the second-most desirable work arrangement, after full-time telecommuting. That makes a lot of sense: most workers are juggling multiple priorities at home and at work. Being able to set their own work hours would go a long way toward providing work-life...
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5 Strategies to Beat Procrastination

Procrastination gets a bad rap, but there are upsides to putting things off. In his TED Talk, organizational psychologist Adam Grant makes a convincing case that it can fuel creativity, giving you “time to consider divergent ideas, to think in nonlinear ways, to make unexpected leaps.” But, too much of a good...
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Hiring Managers to Job Seekers: No Thank-You Note, No Job

Technology has changed how we interview for jobs, as well as how we work once we’re hired. If you’ve looked for a job in the past few years, you may have interviewed via video conferencing or automated phone screening. If you’ve applied for a job online, your resume was almost certainly sorted...
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How to Make $1M Over the Course of Your Career With One Simple Trick

If you want to get rich, waiting for your annual pay increase probably isn’t going to do it. A 2016 World at Work survey found that most employers planned to give a 3 percent raise in 2017. It appears that they’ve stuck to that: The PayScale Index showed a 2.8 percent year-over-year...
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How to Do Two Things at Once

First things first: if you can avoid multitasking, definitely do so. Trying to concentrate on more than one thing at a time is a recipe for mistakes, not to mention stress. Plus, most of us can’t really split focus like that anyway; research has shown that the most effective way to get...
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The 10 Worst Boss Reactions to Employees Calling in Sick

Sixty-eight percent of U.S. workers in the private sector receive paid sick time, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But some workers are more likely to have access to sick leave than others. For example, 93 percent of managers have sick time, while only 46 percent of workers in the service...
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The 7 Worst Things That Happen During Performance Reviews

Some companies have abandoned the traditional annual performance review — and when you read stories like the ones we’ve collected for this post, it’s easy to see why. While a good review can serve as a formal checkpoint that solidifies your professional goals, a bad one can be a disaster for both...
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How to Hire and Support Veterans (and Get Big Business Results)

Tomorrow is Veterans Day in the U.S. If you’re looking for entrepreneurial spirit, problem-solving ability and mental toughness, your veteran employees are your greatest resource. But unlocking that potential often requires some adjustment on the part of HR and management. To give your veterans and their teams the tools they need to...
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Do These 5 Things for Your Best Performance Review Ever

Even if you’re hitting all your numbers and have a great relationship with your manager, you probably aren’t exactly looking forward to your performance review. Few conversations offer the same combination of judgment on past behavior and anxiety about future potential as an annual evaluation. Ideally, nothing at your review will be...
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The 5 Worst Things Employees Have Done Right Before They Quit

If you’re invested enough in your career to read career advice, chances are good that you know how to quit a job without burning your bridges. You give two weeks’ notice, provide a written resignation letter, extend an offer to help your soon-to-be former boss train your replacement or find coverage and...
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When Is the Best Time to Talk Salary During the Interview Process?

In a perfect world, employers would list salary ranges in job ads. Here in our imperfect world, well, things usually work pretty differently. “Employers who play coy on salary — including employers who do pay competitive salaries — will often tell you that it’s because everyone assumes they should be at the...
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Amazon and 3 Other Big Companies Hiring for Work-From-Home Jobs

If you want to work for a brand-name employer, but you also want to do your job while wearing pajamas, you’re in luck. There are several big-deal companies currently hiring for work-from-home jobs, according to job listing site FlexJobs. FlexJobs recently compiled a list of work-from-home jobs posted in their database by...
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10 Inspirational Quotes About Knowing Your Worth

Are you being paid appropriately, for your expertise, stills and experience? If you answered with a shrug, now’s the time to change all that. Take PayScale’s Salary Survey and get a free report with a range based on your qualifications. Of course, getting the data is just the first step. To translate...
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13 Spooky Halloween Cubicles to Inspire Your Office Decor

Halloween is arguably the best holiday of the year, especially at work. At the very least, there’s usually a sharp uptick in candy and other assorted treats. And, some offices go all out, with costume contests and cubicle-decorating competitions. If your workplace is seriously into Halloween, now’s the time to embrace the...
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Get the Most Out of #Compference17 With a Schedule Customized for MarketPay Users

Figured out your schedule for Compference 2017 yet? If not, we get it. There are tons of great sessions to choose from and planning how to spend your days (a mere two of them!) isn’t easy. So, if you’re still struggling with what to attend, put these six sessions on your calendar....
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10 Ways to Troll the Hiring Manager

First things first: obviously, you shouldn’t actually troll the hiring manager at your next job interview. Probably, you don’t even need me to tell you that: why waste your precious time and risk alienating a potential contact, just for a joke? (Unless you have a hidden-camera prank show. In which case, I...
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Talk Like a Pirate Day: 5 Modern Pirate Jobs

Arr, mateys! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, the best nonsense holiday in the history of nonsense holidays. (Sorry, Everything You Do Is Right Day. You had a good run.) If you’re spending the day cutting out paper parrots to wear to your afternoon meeting and tormenting your coworkers with your...
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Are These the 7 Worst Bosses of All Time?

In surveys, bad managers are frequently one of the top reasons people quit their jobs. In fact, there’s an old saying, “People don’t quit their jobs. They quit their managers.” If you’ve ever had a bad boss, you probably understand why. It’s nearly impossible to make progress on your professional goals when...
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Amazon Prime Air Pilots Protest Working Conditions

Last week, a billboard truck rolled by Amazon’s corporate HQ in Seattle. Its rotating messages read: “No Amazon Prime Air Without Pilots,” “Don’t Ground Prime Air” and “Prime(d) for Disaster.” The protest isn’t inspired by Amazon directly, but by the company’s Prime Air partners, Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings and Air Transport Services...
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U.S. News & World Report Adds PayScale Salary Data to ‘Best Colleges’ Rankings

Every year since 1983, U.S. News & World Report publishes its Best Colleges report, ranking over 1,800 of the country’s top schools on metrics related to academic excellence. This year, for the first time, U.S. News displays PayScale salary data on school profile pages, to give readers insight into their earning potential...
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Hate Your New Job? Here’s How to Return to Your Old Job

The scariest thing about taking a new job is that you can’t really know what you’re getting into … until you’re already in it. Sure, you can learn to recognize red flags during a job interview (potential bad bosses, a corporate culture that’s just not a good fit). But people can fool...
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These 5 Salary Negotiation Mistakes Will Cost You Serious Money

If you always take the first salary offered — and never ask for a raise once you’re happily toiling away for an employer — you’re likely to wind up underpaid. Add in the fact that real wages are 7.5 percent lower than they were in 2006, and you can see how not...
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Women Earn Less Than Men at Google, According to Employee-Gathered Data

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Labor sued Google to obtain salary data as part of what it described as a routine compliance evaluation. (Federal contractors like Google are required to prove that they pay men and women equitably.) Later, a DOL representative testified in court that the company suffered from...
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Working at Google: Amazing Perks, High Pay and a Chance to Be ‘Googley’

Want to work at Google? You can expect things to be different right from the start. Google’s hiring process is famously, well, Googley, focusing on cultural fit as well as expertise and problem-solving ability. “In my case, I went through five interviews focused on leadership, role-related knowledge, problem solving, and ‘Googleyness,’” said...
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10 Quotes About Failure That Will Inspire You to Succeed

At some point in their careers, all your greatest heroes have failed. Every artist, politician, business guru, inventor and athlete must learn the pain of defeat in order to achieve success — and recognize it when it arrives. But, of course, it’s easy to forget that when you’re engaged in your day-to-day...
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Is This the Craziest ‘Ask a Manager’ Question of All Time?

Ask a Manager is the go-to advice blog for people who are dealing with trickier-than-normal workplace conundrums. Got a coworker who’s making you watch her kids? Forced to wear a dunce cap at work when you don’t make your goals? Got a boss who’s so rigid, he won’t even let you attend...
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Why You Shouldn’t Fake Happiness at Work, According to Science

To be successful in a professional environment, you have to be able to manage your emotions. If workers didn’t have some level of emotional self-control, meetings would regularly devolve into shouting matches and teamwork would break down, grinding productivity to a halt. However, there’s also a lot to be said for authenticity...
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Working at Uber: High Stress, Lots of Controversy … and Surprisingly High Job Meaning

It’s been a rough year at Uber, the company behind the ride-sharing app that has become synonymous with the gig economy. In February 2017, former Uber engineer Susan J. Fowler published a blog post, Reflecting on One Very, Very Strange Year at Uber. In it, she alleged that the company’s culture allowed...
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10 Companies With Flexible Jobs for Working Parents

America is a tough place for working parents. Lack of paid family leave, expensive childcare options and corporate cultures that encourage constant work often leave parents scrambling. It’s hard to balance child-rearing and a paying job, when many jobs demand more than 9-to-5. One option that can alleviate some of these challenges:...
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PayScale’s VIP Blog Roundup: Employers Who Ask for Pay Stubs During Salary Negotiation

Job interviews can be demoralizing, even when things are going well. Why? Because you can only control half of the process, at most -- the part relating to your own behavior. Things can get especially dicey during the salary negotiation phase. You can’t make a prospective employer develop a compensation plan that...
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7 Things to Do When You’re About to Get Fired

What do the most successful people in the world have in common? Most of them have been fired at some point in their careers. Seriously, all your heroes — Oprah, Steve Jobs, J.K. Rowling, both Edison and Tesla — every artist, entrepreneur and mogul you admire has suffered from unexpected unemployment at...
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Protect the Earth From Aliens and Earn 6 Figures at This Rare NASA Job

Space exploration comes with risk, some of it too small to see with the naked eye. If you want to help mitigate that risk — and maybe even save the earth from alien invaders — you’ll be excited to hear that NASA is currently hiring for a planetary protection officer. The salary?...
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Black Women’s Equal Pay Day: When Black Women’s Pay ‘Catches Up’

The gender pay gap is worse for women of color. Black women who work full-time in the U.S. typically earn 63 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men, according to The National Partnership for Women & Families. The same data show that median wages for black women in the U.S....
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Is That Work-From-Home Job a Scam?

More employers have gotten the memo that telecommuting is good for workers and organizations, but not every company will let you work from home. The solution for some would-be remote workers is to find a new job. But, the commonness of work-from-home scams makes it hard to tell legit jobs from frauds....
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TED Talks Are Making You a Terrible Public Speaker

In the decade-plus since they arrived, TED Talks have become incredibly popular with professionals, and for good reason. Where else can you see your favorite novelists, social scientists and self-help gurus speak about creativity, happiness and leadership — with insider stories from underwear models, magicians and ocean explorers? But although TED Talks...
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3 Salary Negotiation Tips for Reluctant Negotiators

Only 43 percent of respondents to PayScale’s survey said they’d ever negotiated salary in their current field. So, if you’re not super excited about asking for more money, you’re in good company. That doesn’t mean you should avoid negotiating, however; 75 percent of those who asked for more money got some kind...
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How to Get Hired After You’ve Been Laid Off

Maybe you saw the signs of impending unemployment; maybe the pink slip caught you unawares. Whatever the sequence of events, you now find yourself laid off and without immediate job prospects on the horizon. Before you panic, consider: you are in excellent company. One-fifth of American workers lost their jobs right after...
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5 Signs You’re Underpaid

Everyone could use more money, but how can you tell when you’re really underpaid? The answer isn’t to poll your coworkers or friends and compare your salary against theirs. For starters, you can’t be sure that everyone you talk to will be 100 percent truthful. Also, it’s impossible to know whether you’re...
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PayScale’s VIP Blog Roundup: 20 Surprising Work-From-Home Jobs

When you think of work-from-home jobs, you probably think about customer service representatives or bloggers — jobs that can easily be done with just an internet connection and a laptop. But these days, technology has made it easier than ever for a whole host of occupations to give up office life and...
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PayScale Is Headed to #SHRM17 Conference. See You There?

Next week, June 18 – 21, the PayScale crew is off to New Orleans for SHRM17 Annual Conference and Exposition. We’re excited – we love the chance to talk with customers and future customers. Our theme is Bring Pay Forward, which means transforming comp. We want to pull it out of the...
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How to Deal With Your Dead-End Job

It’s nearly inevitable: at some point in your career, you’ll wind up in a dead-end job. Maybe you took a promising gig, only to have the company falter or the management lose focus. Maybe you lost another job, and took something just to keep paychecks rolling in and a roof over your...
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3 Salary Negotiation Tricks to Get More Money (Even If You’re Scared)

Over a quarter of respondents to PayScale’s survey who had never negotiated salary said they’d held back because they were uncomfortable discussing salary. Another way to say that is that they’re scared to ask for more. If you feel the same, you’re in good company. But just because the thought of negotiating...
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Every Day Is Bring Your Cat to Work Day at This Japanese Company

Ferray, an IT firm in Toyko, has a unique cure for work stress: since 2000, the company has been host to a revolving roster of office cats. Currently, nine felines call the office home during the day. The policy was introduced by request from a staffer, but Hidenobu Fukuda, the head of...
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Maybe Don’t Hug Your Coworkers

Confession time: I’m a hugger. When another person might be inclined to go for a warm handshake, I’ve got my arms flung open wide like I’m greeting a long-lost relative at the airport. Over time, I’ve learned to pick up cues that other people don’t view social gatherings as a full contact...
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Comp Strategy for Small Businesses: 2017 Compensation Best Practices

Only 29 percent of small businesses have a compensation strategy, according to data collected for PayScale’s Compensation Best Practices Report, compared with 37 percent of all organizations — despite the fact that small businesses must compete with larger orgs for talent, generally with smaller compensation budgets. That doesn’t mean that SMBs aren’t...
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Comp Strategy for Small Businesses: 2017 Compensation Best Practices

Only 29 percent of small businesses have a compensation strategy, according to data collected for PayScale’s Compensation Best Practices Report, compared with 37 percent of all organizations — despite the fact that small businesses must compete with larger orgs for talent, generally with smaller compensation budgets. That doesn’t mean that SMBs aren’t...
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How to Ask for a Raise: Do These 3 Things

Over half of respondents to PayScale’s survey said that they’d never negotiated salary in their current role. That’s too bad, because 75 percent of those who did ask received some sort of pay increase. When it comes to how to ask for a raise, if you don’t ask, you (probably) won’t get....
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5 Work-From-Home Jobs That Don’t Require a Bachelor’s Degree

Contrary to the myth of the low-earning telecommuter, 75 percent of remote workers earn more than $65,000 per year, per GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com. That puts them squarely in the upper 80th percentile of earners. But those work-from-home jobs tend to be management level or higher, requiring a significant investment in education. What if you...
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Are Job Interviews Broken?

Think back to your last job interview. Did you feel like the interviewer’s questions revealed your aptitude for the job? If you’re on the other side of the conference table, think about your last hire. Did you feel like your questions helped you figure out how the candidate would fit into the...
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Study: ‘Personality Factors’ Might Save Your Job From the Robots

In 2013, researchers from Oxford University predicted that robots will replace human workers in up to 47 percent of U.S. jobs over the next 20 years. But a new study shows that if you have a relatively high IQ and had an interest in arts and sciences during school, your job might...
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5 Weird Work-From-Home Jobs You Didn’t Know About

When you think of work-from-home jobs, a few occupations spring to mind: customer service representative, blogger, software developer … basically, anything that depends more on the use of a computer than face-to-face interaction. But as technology gets better, opportunities to telecommute expand past these commonly held roles. Don’t assume that just because...
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Low-Income College Students Earn Less After Graduation

PayScale’s College ROI Report ranks the return on investment for a college education at hundreds of four-year schools. The data makes it clear that choice of major and school have a big effect on earnings after graduation. Unfortunately, PayScale’s research also highlights another factor that affects post-grad earnings: household income when students...
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California’s Overtime Law Would Eventually Raise Salary Beyond FLSA Rule

A federal judge’s ruling put a halt to the Obama administration’s rules expanding overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. But, if your organization is based in California, a new proposal might require you to raise some employees’ pay anyway. State legislators recently proposed a law raising the salary threshold for...
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PayScale Index: Wage Growth Slows in Q1

Wages in the U.S. grew 2.1 percent annually in the first quarter of 2017, according to the newly updated PayScale Index, but slowed from Q4 2016. “The labor market is in transition from the post-election bump in Q4,” said Katie Bardaro, VP of Data Analytics and Lead Economist at PayScale. “The most...
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PayScale Index: Wage Growth Slows in Q1

Wages in the U.S. grew 2.1 percent annually in the first quarter of 2017, according to the newly updated PayScale Index, but slowed from Q4 2016. “The labor market is in transition from the post-election bump in Q4,” said Katie Bardaro, VP of Data Analytics and Lead Economist at PayScale. “The most...
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5 Ways to Tell It’s Time to Ask for a Raise

Every worker wants more money, but many are uncomfortable asking. In fact, data collected for PayScale’s Salary Negotiation Guide show that only 43 percent of respondents had ever asked for a raise in their current field. Most who hadn’t asked held back because of fear: 28 percent said they were uncomfortable negotiating,...
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Does Your Company Proactively Address Gender Inequity?

Addressing gender inequity — and making sure your employees know you’re doing so — could make a big difference to your bottom line. Why? Employee retention. In short, if your employees don’t perceive that you’re proactively trying to make things fairer for women at the company — by paying equitably and promoting...
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#BlackWomenAtWork Highlights the Racism Black Women Encounter in the Workplace

On Tuesday, Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly claimed he couldn’t concentrate on a clip of Rep. Maxine Waters speaking on the House floor, because he was distracted by her hair (which he referred to as a “James Brown wig”). Later that same day during a press conference, White House Press Secretary Sean...
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Man and Woman Switch Email Signatures. Man Has Worst Workweek of His Life.

In addition to doing the same job as men (statistically for less money), working women have an additional full-time occupation: convincing clients, bosses, and coworkers that they’re worthy of the same respect as their male colleagues. A story that went viral this week, recounted on Twitter and Medium by the participants, illustrates...
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5 High-Paying, Part-Time Jobs That Let You Work From Home

When you think of work-from-home jobs, do you think of low-paying gigs? If so, it might be time to adjust your perspective. While there are plenty of entry-level, non-professional roles for people who want to work from home, those aren’t the only game in town. Professionals can find telecommuting jobs that satisfy...
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The 10 Worst Employee Appreciation Gifts of All Time

Today is Employee Appreciation Day, and if you didn’t know that, well, chances are your company didn’t get you anything. But before you get mad, consider: sometimes no gift is better than a bad gift. If it’s the thought that counts, what does a gift card you can’t use or re-gifted swag...
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The Real Women Behind ‘Hidden Figures’

Hidden Figures is a box office hit, grossing four times its budget in a little over a month of release. It’s also raking in awards and nominations, scoring two Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and three Oscar nominations. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the film is that it...
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How to Get Hired for Your Dream Job in 2017

Are you hoping to change jobs in the coming year? If so, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey from TopResume, 65 percent of professionals listed a new job among their New Year’s resolutions. Setting that goal is a good first step. But, to get hired in 2017, you need more...
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It’s Time to Put the Myth of the Lazy Millennial to Rest

Millennials, amirite? With their participation trophies and their entitlement and their fickle job-hopping ways. In our day, we knew how to be loyal and wait for gratification (or at least, raises and promotions). These kids today wouldn’t know hard work if it bit them in the emojis or whatever. There’s just one...
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25 Super-Productive Things to Do in 5 Minutes

The end of the year always seems like it should be slow. After all, half your coworkers are out of the office, and the other half have their minds on holiday planning and not on work. But for many businesses, a lot needs to happen at the end of the year. The...
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PayScale’s VIP Blog Roundup: What Oprah, Richard Branson, and Bill Gates Do on the Weekend

Want to be successful? It’s not a Monday through Friday gig. The one thing the world’s most successful media moguls, inventors, and artists have in common is that they don’t stop doing what they do, just because it’s the weekend. If that makes you feel tired already, don’t despair: the real secret...
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Can Trump Bring Back Manufacturing Jobs?

During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised to create jobs, revitalizing the manufacturing industry. Since 2000, the U.S. has shed 5 million manufacturing jobs. The question is, can Trump or any U.S. president bring those jobs back to the U.S.? A lot depends on what killed those jobs in the first place....
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It’s Salary Season: Here’s How to Get the Raise You Deserve (Eventually)

Google searches for “salary” were up 29 percent last week, and it’s not hard to guess why. It’s annual performance review time, the point in the year where even the most conflict-avoidant workers are thinking about raises, and how to get one. Very few of them will get the raise they deserve...
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5 Jobs That Let You Set Your Own Hours

Jobs with flexible schedules offer some obvious work-life balance benefits. They might allow you to work at home in your jammies, or work part-time and have more of a life outside of work, or they might offer short-term contracts that let you travel the world in your spare time. But one thing...
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5 Things to Do Right Now to Prepare for Your Performance Review

At many companies, the end of year is performance review time. If that’s the case at your organization, you might feel a little nervous, even if you’ve hit all your goals and have a generally good relationship with your manager. If one or both things are lacking, well, it might be panic...
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10 Salary Negotiation Quotes That Will Inspire You to Ask for a Raise

Review time is coming up, and while raises aren’t expected to amaze anyone next year, it’s almost always worth it to make your case for more money. Data gathered for PayScale’s Salary Negotiation Guide showed that 75 percent of those who asked for a raise got some sort of pay increase. The...
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PayScale’s VIP Blog Roundup: Team-Building Exercises That People Won’t Hate

If you’ve worked in an office environment for a few years, chances are you’ve had to participate in a team-building activity at some point. Whether you built a house out of Tinker Toys or did trust falls, one thing is for sure: you were probably horribly embarrassed the whole time. This is...
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3 Salary Negotiation Challenges and How to Beat Them

If negotiating salary were easy, everyone would do it. However, PayScale’s data show that only 43 percent of people have ever asked for a raise in their current field … despite the fact that 75 percent of those who asked, got some kind of a pay increase. If you’re one of the...
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How NOT to Use a Competing Offer to Get a Higher Salary

What’s the best way to negotiate a higher salary? If you’re lucky enough to have one, using a competing offer is a good choice. After all, nothing says you’re in demand like another company willing to pay top dollar to secure your services. Of course, no negotiation method is without its potential...
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The 7 Scariest Workplace Ghost Stories

Even if you love your job, you probably wouldn’t want to spend all of eternity at the office. (Though it sometimes feels like you’re already doing just that.) Maybe that’s why workplace ghost stories are just a little bit creepier than the ones that take place in Addams Family-style haunted houses or...
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5 Salary Negotiation Tricks to Raise the Offer

Very few people enjoy negotiating salary, but that doesn’t mean you should let it go. Failing to ask for what you deserve, especially at the offer stage, could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your career. What’s more, most hiring managers expect candidates to negotiate. “Any employer...
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5 Negotiation Tips for People Who Hate Confrontation

PayScale’s data show that 75 percent of people who ask for a raise get one — but only 43 percent of people who responded to our survey said they’d ever asked for a raise in their current field. What gives? Mostly, the discrepancy boils down to being afraid of a negative result,...
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To Be Heard at Work, Get Your Own Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper

Last night’s debate wasn’t quite the interruption-fest that we saw at the first presidential debate, but it still felt familiar to anyone who’s ever been repeatedly talked over in a meeting — in other words, most working women. Not only did Donald Trump interrupt Hillary Clinton 18 times, while she only interrupted...
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5 Dumb Email Mistakes Everyone Makes (and How to Stop Making Them)

Email has been with us for well over 40 years, and in common professional use for more than 20 — but you’d never know it, if you went by how often most of us screw up while using it. Part of the problem is email’s ubiquity. If you work in an office,...
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5 Jobs for Night Owls

When Ben Franklin said, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” he hadn’t conducted his experiments with electricity yet. If he had, he might’ve started pondering technologies that make it easier to work into the wee hours of the morning, and reassessed. Our culture reveres early...
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3 Things to Do When You Find Out You’re Underpaid

Maybe you discovered that your coworker with the same job earns more than you; maybe you took PayScale’s Salary Survey, and passed out from shock when you saw the range for your job title, experience, and skills. However you found out that you’re underpaid, the next question is: what do you do...
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How to Become an Application Support Analyst

When you were a kid, teachers probably told you that the job you’d have as an adult hadn’t even been invented yet. Their prediction turned out to be true for those who were born before ubiquitous internet, cellphones, and relatively inexpensive personal computers. As a result, some of today’s most in-demand, high-paying...
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10 High-Paying Part-Time Jobs

Part-time jobs pay less than full-time jobs—that much is obvious. The surprise is that many of these jobs pay less not just because employees work fewer hours total, but because the pay rate is lower per hour. Generally speaking, it’s easier to get a part-time gig if you’re not worried about getting...
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93 Percent of Workers Say They’re More Productive Outside the Office

If you’re like most workers, the location in which you do your job isn’t up to you. Your company either allows employees to work from home, on a part-time or full-time basis … or mandates that everyone comes into the office. If your employer is in the latter camp, they might want...
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Why You Get the Sunday Night Blues (Even If You Like Your Job)

On the surface, it makes no sense: you finally have a job you love, or at least like, but here you are, dealing with the Sunday Night Blues again. Before you question whether you’re on the right track professionally, rest assured: you could be running your own company, making money hand over...
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The 5 Fastest-Growing Dangerous Jobs of 2016

Every year, CareerCast releases a list of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S., compiled by cross-referencing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Some of the jobs are what you’d expect: Firefighter makes the list, as does Police Officer...
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What Will Millennials’ #FirstSevenJobs Look Like?

Last week, Alaskan songwriter Marian Call shared her first seven jobs on Twitter and asked other users to do the same. The resulting hashtag, #FirstSevenJobs, provided insight into the rocky road that leads from first job to dream career (if we’re lucky). However, as Ben Steverman points out at Bloomberg, the career...
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3 Meditation Tips for People Who Hate Meditating

Want to be better at your job, less stressed out, more focused, and just plain happier at work, all while having just a little bit more in common with Oprah and Steve Jobs? Meditation is the way to go. Before you roll your eyes and click away, consider: you don’t have to...
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Want a Flexible Schedule? These 5 Job Types Might Be Your Best Bet

There are a lot of reasons to want a job that looks very different from the traditional, 9-to-5, 40-hour-week, office gig. Maybe you’re trying to combine raising a family with continuing your career. Maybe you’re an entrepreneur, and need the extra hours to build your empire. Or, maybe you just want more...
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Facebook Wants to Build 1,500 Housing Units, But Is It Enough?

Technology companies add a lot to the communities in which their campuses are located, not least of all revenue, both in terms of taxes and employee spending. (Lunch might be provided, but you have to leave the office sometime.) But, it’s not all good news for the areas that tech firms call...
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15+ Examples of Corporate-Speak That Will Make You Want to Retire Tomorrow

Who knows why corporate culture lends itself to obfuscation instead of clarity? When the very first caveman painted pinstripes on his hide and began gesturing at whiteboard made of stone and crayon, he probably used twice as many grunts as necessary. Maybe the point of corporate-speak is to be slippery: after all,...
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Job Rejection 101: What NOT to Do, When You Don’t Get the Job

Rejection is tough to take in any area of life, but when you’re turned down for a job you were really excited about, it can be particularly devastating. Most of us need to work for a living – getting a job rejection has a real impact on our bottom line. Also, there’s...
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5 Ways to Be Happier at Work (Without a Big Raise or an Awesome New Boss)

A lot of what makes us happy at work is beyond our control. Autonomy, for example, leads to higher productivity and job satisfaction, but if your boss won’t let you have a say in how your day is structured or your projects evolve, there’s not a lot you can do to change...
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How to Answer the 3 Hardest Job Interview Questions

Let’s face it: when it comes to job interview questions, even the easiest can feel pretty tough. For one thing, you only have a limited period of time in which to make a good impression on the interviewer and find out what you need to know about the job. For another, unless...
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Resume Keywords: What They Are, Why They Matter

Most new jobs come from networking, but that doesn’t mean you should skip applying to job openings, whether it’s through a corporate website or a job search board. However, if you’re applying online, there are certain things you need to do, in order to make sure that your resume gets to a...
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When Should You Use an Outside Offer to Negotiate Salary?

If you’re uncomfortable negotiating salary – and 28 percent of respondents to PayScale’s survey described themselves as such – getting an outside offer might seem like a no-brainer negotiation strategy. After all, what better way to prove that you’re worth the extra cash than getting independent confirmation in the form of a...
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PayScale’s VIP Blog Roundup: 8 Ways to Make More Money

Given the choice, most of us would like to make more money, but sometimes it’s less a case of “like to” and more a situation of “have to.” If your expenses are beginning to exceed your income, either because you’re underpaid or because life threw a hurdle in your way, you’ll be...
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Do You Need More Autonomy at Work?

Studies have shown that more autonomy at work leads to higher job satisfaction and greater productivity, and is more valued by employees than either money or the ability to boss people around. In fact, research suggests that even the desire to have more power is linked to a perception that the wielder...
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Women Are More Likely to Be Underemployed Than Men

More women than men consider themselves to be underemployed, according to PayScale’s latest report, The Underemployed: The War on the American Worker. Underemployed women and men also pick different reasons for characterizing themselves this way, according to our survey. Forty-nine percent of women and 43 percent of men report being underemployed. Women...
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Almost Half of American Workers Are Underemployed

For PayScale’s latest report, The Underemployed: The War on the American Worker, we surveyed 900,000 workers to determine how prevalent the problem is among workers in various demographics, and what that underemployment looks like. Forty-six percent of respondents to PayScale’s survey characterized themselves as underemployed. Seventy-six percent of those respondents said they...
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5 Bad Boss Stories That Will Make You Grateful for Your So-So Manager

Bad bosses are a big deal. It's next to impossible to enjoy your work if the person in charge is a micromanager, or unavailable when you need them, or just plain incompetent. At some point in our careers, most of us run into a less-than-ideal boss. But, there are a few horrible...
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#MondayMotivation: 5 Tricks to Achieving Flow

Have you ever become so absorbed in your work, it was as if the rest of the world disappeared? If so, you have some experience with flow, a mental state often described by positive psychologists as total immersion in an activity. Also known as “being in the zone,” achieving flow is obviously...
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To Get More Done, Pretend You’re Going on Vacation

Have you ever noticed that you’re super-productive right before you go away for a week or two? The thought of a potentially distraction-free vacation is a powerful inducement to get stuff done in a timely fashion. The thing is, you could probably use that kind of time management wizardry even when you’re...
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Hate Your Job? Here’s How You Got There

Last year, only 32 percent of U.S. workers were engaged in their jobs, according to Gallup. A little over 50 percent were “not engaged”; 17 percent were “actively disengaged.” That’s an awful lot of people who aren’t crazy about their jobs – or at least, not crazy enough about them to concentrate...
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#MondayMotivation: 3 Sports Psychology Tricks to Beat the Grind

If you’re reading this from your desk, you’re probably not a professional athlete. But, that doesn’t mean that you have nothing in common with your favorite sports heroes. For example, you both have to deal with what performance psychologist James Taylor calls “the Grind,” the point at which training (or working) becomes...
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BLS Jobs Report: Just 38,000 Jobs Added in May, Unemployment Dips to 4.7 Percent

That is not a typo: last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added just 38,000 jobs to public- and private-sector, non-farm payrolls. That’s considerably lower than economists estimated before this morning’s release of the monthly The Employment Situation Summary; economists polled by Reuters predicted the addition of 162,000...
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Is the End of the Verizon Strike a Victory for Union Workers?

Earlier this week, Verizon made a tentative deal to end the strike by nearly 40,000 of its union employees. The workers, who were represented by The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communication Workers of America unions, returned to work today under a short-term agreement. The strike has been ongoing since...
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5 Work-From-Home Jobs That Aren’t the Usual Customer Service Gigs

When we talk about work-from-home jobs, we’re usually talking about a very specific type of role that can be done over the phone or computer. It’s true that it’s easier to find a telecommuting job if you work in certain industries – customer service, for example, or administrative support. But not all...
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5 Work-Related Superstitions That Are Holding You Back in Your Career

Unless you’re a Major League Baseball player, you probably don’t readily admit to being a superstitious person – at least not at the office, where being sensible and making decisions based on data is part of projecting a professional image. But in reality, most of us do harbor at least one or...
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5 Ways to Write a Horrible LinkedIn Recommendation

Good LinkedIn recommendations do more than just tell prospective hiring managers and recruiters that you know your stuff – they might help those folks find your profile in the first place, by boosting your results in LinkedIn’s search rankings. Bad LinkedIn recommendations, on the other hand, are worse than nothing at all....
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When You Can’t Quit Your Horrible Job, Do These 5 Things

Short of living with someone you can’t stand – sorry, parents of surly teenagers and people with weird Craigslist roommates – there’s nothing that will make you unhappier than hating your job. That’s partly because most of us spend the bulk of our waking hours at work, and partly because work provides...
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Elon Musk’s Annual Salary Is Less Than $40k, But Don’t Lose Sleep on His Behalf

According to a recent filing, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was entitled to a $37,584 salary last year. As usual, he didn’t take it. (The Wall Street Journal reports that Musk never takes his salary.) However, lest you worry that everyone’s favorite real-life Bond villain/superhero is going to have trouble making ends meet,...
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How Your New Salary Negotiation Hero Scored a $30,000 Raise

In the post-recession economy, most people would count themselves lucky to get a 3 percent annual raise, or make a jump to a new job that gives them a couple of extra thousand dollars a year – even if that bump seems to disappear, once taxes come out. But not Claudia Telles....
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Are Millennials Changing the Culture of Work?

What the boss says, goes. Don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t print out and hang over your desk. Don’t expect a free lunch, or a fast promotion, and always remember: your mama doesn’t work here. Those are the old rules of corporate culture, and most of us – especially if we...
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5 Ways to Avoid Answering the Worst Job Interview Question, ‘What’s Your Salary History?’

First things first: anyone who tells you that you can always dodge the salary history question is probably trying to sell you something. The reality of the situation is that sometimes, you just can’t wriggle out of answering this question – not if you want to stay a viable candidate for the...
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When an Occupation Becomes Female-Dominated, Pay Declines

During any debate about the gender pay gap, one argument will eventually emerge: women make less than men because they choose lower-paying jobs. But what if it turns out that women aren’t so much choosing low-paying jobs as working at jobs that are low-paid precisely because there are more women in those...
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PayScale’s VIP Blog Roundup: How to Update Your LinkedIn Profile (Without Tipping Off the Boss)

Keeping a job search secret is more complicated these days than not getting busted looking at a job search site on the company time. Part of the problem is that personal brand is so important for job seekers; to show hiring managers and recruiters what you have to offer, you have to...
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IT, Healthcare the Top Fields for Telecommuting Jobs, According to FlexJobs

If you want to work from home, you might have an easier time finding a telecommuting gig if you’re in healthcare or computer/IT. Those two industries dominated FlexJobs’ list, The Top 100 Companies With Work-From-Home Jobs, which ranks the companies that offered the most work-from-home opportunities on the site in the past...
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Roger Goodell Makes a Lot More Money Than NFL Players, and Here’s Why You Should Care

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell took a pay cut last year. Before you feel too bad for him, however, keep in mind that even after a $1 million cut, Goodell made $34.1 million over the 2014-5 season – more than every football player in the league, save Atlanta Falcons QB Matt Ryan, whose...
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Too Scared to Negotiate Salary? Try These 3 Things

Along with strategic advice on getting paid what you deserve, PayScale’s Salary Negotiation Guide offers insight into why you’re not already commanding a salary that’s commensurate with your skills and experience. For example, if you’re like many people, you might be too scared to ask. Of the 57 percent of respondents to...
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The 12 Jobs Projected to Grow 30 Percent By 2024

Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics updated their Occupational Outlook Handbook to reflect projected job growth from 2014-2024. The updated Handbook is essential reading for anyone who’s thinking about changing careers in the next few years, and wants to make sure that there are jobs waiting for them on the other side...
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How to Find Legitimate Work-at-Home Jobs

It’s one of the most common questions in the comments on any post related to working at home (and even some that aren’t): “How can I find a real work-at-home job?” The key to the question is the word “real.” While there are plenty of shady people out there on the internet...
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Have Trouble Saying No? Get Inspiration From These 5 Quotes

It’s good to lend a hand, especially at work. No one likes that co-worker who never helps anyone out. However, if you’re too accommodating, you might find yourself without enough time to get your own work done. Boundaries are important, even necessary. You can’t be productive if you don’t have any time...
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How to Apologize Without Looking Weak

Imagine a world in which no one ever said sorry. If you pictured a society composed entirely of stodgy businessmen, frowning and adjusting their ties, it wouldn’t be strange. The debate over whether or not to apologize will probably rage on for as long as there are corporations and leaders to run...
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Behold, the 5 Scariest Office Ghost Stories

The office is full of horrors, most of them fairly mundane. There was the time that project fell apart … as if through unseen forces. Or, the time your pens … just disappeared. And who could forget the mysterious case of the co-worker who vanished … overnight? OK, that last one was...
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Justin Trudeau and 5 Other Successful English Majors

On October 19, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party won a decisive victory in the Canadian national election. The prime-minister designate assumes office in November, and has already started movement on his campaign promises, but even if you don’t care about Canadian politics (or any politics) there are a few interesting things...
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How to Recover From Embarrassment at Work

Even if you’re a pretty mellow person, you probably still have that cache of “ugh” moments stored in the back of your brain. Since most of us spend the bulk of our waking moments at work, it’s not a surprise if a lot of them feature TPS reports and accidental CCs. No...
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The 5 Best Graduate Degrees By Salary

A graduate degree isn’t a guarantee, either of employment or high earnings. For one thing, not all graduate degrees are created equal. Some fields obviously grow more than others, and may or may not reward candidates with advanced degrees on their CVs. Some occupations require licensure to practice, or set the barrier...
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#College2Career: Sarah Fenske on Why Unpaid Internships Are Worth It

One of the biggest challenges for entering college students is finding time to do everything they need to do, in order to prepare for a successful career after graduation. As part of PayScale’s College Salary Report, we asked several successful people to tell us how they bridged the gap between choosing a...
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5 High-Paying Jobs That Didn’t Exist 10 Years Ago

When we were kids, teachers told us that the jobs we’d have as adults hadn’t even been invented yet. That’s not strictly true. Take a look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, and you’ll see plenty of familiar job titles with projected growth rates of 30 percent or more...
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The 5 Highest Paying Bachelor’s (and Associate!) Degrees

Very few students choose their major from a list of top-paying degrees. Even if financial considerations are paramount in your decision process, you’ll probably start by examining your strengths and interests. In other words, you might not choose your major for love, exactly, but you don’t want to sink time, effort, and...
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PayScale’s VIP Blog Roundup: How to Rebound From Burnout

Feeling totally done with work today? Unfortunately, it's probably not time to go home yet. Worse, maybe your problem isn't just a "today" issue – burnout can sneak up on you, and knock out your productivity for quite some time. In this week's roundup, we look at ways to prevent and overcome...
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What Does ‘Job Meaning’ Mean, Anyway?

PayScale’s latest report, The Most and Least Meaningful Jobs, looks at which occupations are described by workers as making the world a better place. The jobs that make the list probably won’t come as a surprise – surgeon is on there, as is English teacher and clergy member – but that doesn’t...
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Your Boss Wants You to Be Happy at Work (and That’s Bad News)

The sound you hear is your boss tossing his computer out the window after reading that headline. After all, isn’t working for people who care about their employees’ feelings a good thing? Before you accuse anyone of being an ingrate, rest assured: individual bosses who care are still a positive. However, as...
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Seriously, Do Not Lie About Your Salary as a Negotiation Tactic

While the best salary negotiation advice is to try not to divulge your salary history, or to push the hiring manager to state a range, many won't play along. That's because they know that the person who names a number first is at a disadvantage – and they'd prefer to be "Not...
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Early Career Success Guide: Don’t Forget About the Soft Skills

Hard skills will help you get the job, but if you want to keep it (and excel) you need soft skills as well. Knowing how to communicate effectively, rebound from a setback, and express commitment to your work will impress the boss, your co-workers, and your company’s clients – all of which...
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Maybe Don’t Wait for the Weekend to Apply for Jobs

One of the challenges of looking for a job when you have a job is finding time to apply, without taking the risks of applying on the company time. For that reason, some job seekers dedicate their weekends to job searching, sending off their cover letters, CVs, and cold inquiries on Saturday...
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All Stay-at-Home Parents Should Get a ‘Wife Bonus’

Someday, Dorothy will pull back the curtain on the internet and we’ll discover not a man pulling levers, but the greatest communication tool of the 21st century, entirely powered by human outrage. Look no further than the recent flap over social researcher Wednesday Martin’s forthcoming book Primates of Park Avenue, which examines...
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3 Ways to Tell That Your Boss Doesn’t Want You to Take Vacation

Why wouldn't you take all your vacation time? Maybe because you're afraid you're not supposed to. Managers don't always say what they mean, especially when it comes to things like taking time off. The party line might be that taking PTO is encouraged and supported ... but do you sense a little...
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The 5 Best Jobs for Working Parents

Being a working parent was hard enough in the olden days, before mobile technology stretched office workers’ days from 9 to 5 to 24/7. For many people who struggle to balance family commitments and professional responsibilities, even a workday that allowed them to leave the office and continue toiling online from home...
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PayScale’s Best Jobs: This Quiz Will Tell You Which Job Is Right for You

Ask any career counselor: working in the wrong field is like trying to write with your less-dominant hand. Maybe you can struggle along, but you’re never going to excel – and worst of all, it’s uncomfortable. That’s why the goal when picking a career isn’t to choose the highest-paying job or even...
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Horrible Company Policy Alert: Some Employers Require Doctor’s Notes for Sick Days

Have you ever thought to yourself, “This is a pretty good job, but it could be better, if only my employer would treat me more like a child”? If not, you’ll probably be less than impressed to hear that at some companies, only a doctor-excused absence will do, when it comes to...
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Salary Negotiation Fail, Fixed: What to Do When You Accidentally Lowball Yourself

Is there any part of the interview process that's more horrifying than answering the dreaded salary requirements question? You can dodge it all you want -- and you probably should -- but if the hiring manager won't budge, you'll probably have to come up with some sort of an answer. Chances are,...
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Everything You Need to Know About the Minimum Wage Debate

Should we raise the minimum wage? On the surface, it seems like an easy question: only Ebeneezer Scrooge would suggest paying the lowest-earning, hardest-working employees a wage that won't support their families. When we delve deeper, however, the issue gets more complex.
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The 5 Most Stressful Food Service Jobs

There’s a reason the great Tina Fey once said that her job producing, writing, and starring in 30 Rock was less stressful than “managing a Chili’s on a Friday night.” The job is set up to encourage stress: everything you have to do needed to happen five minutes ago, it’s a multitasking...
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These Are the 5 Happiest Food Service Jobs

High stress. Low pay. Little to no job security. There’s a reason that many of the food service occupations PayScale examined for its recent Restaurant Report rate poorly for job satisfaction or job meaning, or both. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who works in the restaurant business hates their jobs. Here,...
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How to Give Negative Feedback

No one likes negative feedback — either receiving it, or giving it. In fact, we might hate giving constructive criticism more than getting it; leadership development researchers Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman found that while 92 percent of respondents to a survey valued corrective feedback, most managers felt uncomfortable giving it. Comfort...
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21 Pieces of Career Advice We’d Give Our Younger Selves

If you could go back in time and give your younger self career advice, what’s the one thing you’d say? For some, it would be to negotiate a higher salary or start investing more heavily in a 401k. Others might go all the way back to college and follow their dreams —...
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The 15 Most Annoying Co-Worker Behaviors

For the most part, you don’t pick your co-workers. Even if you did, it’d be hard to see through the veneer of professional behavior most folks put on for a job interview, and sniff out the future popcorn-burners and nail trimmers. Worst of all, unlike with irritating personal acquaintances, there’s no avoiding...
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Do Not Call In Sick Using These 7 Ridiculous Excuses

It’s hard to get time off. Over the past 20 years, access to paid vacation days has declined, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while more employers are offering sick time and other personal leave. This means that the temptation to take the occasional “mental health” day is stronger than ever...
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5 High-Paying Jobs for English Majors

For today’s prospective college students, the pressure is high to choose a STEM major, and set themselves up for a high-paying, in-demand occupation. There’s just one problem: what if science and technology — outside of the scope of speculative fiction — genuinely don’t excite you?   (Photo Credit: Tim Geers/Flickr) “It’s great...
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College Salary Report: Majors That Pay You Back

If you want to get rich — or at least, comfortable enough not to have to worry about paying off those loans — which major you choose can be even more important than which college or university you decide to attend. PayScale’s latest release of the College Salary Report focuses on the...
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How to Stop Beating Yourself Up for Mistakes at Work

What’s the most stressful thing that ever happened to you at work? If you’re like most of us, making a mistake is at least in the top five. The problem, of course, is that there’s no way to avoid messing up at some point. As the saying goes, if you never make...
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How to Get the CEO to Respond to Your Email

Would you email Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or Marissa Mayer? If the answer is no — and you have something to say — maybe it’s time to ask yourself why.   (Photo Credit: pfarrell95/Flickr) “CEOs are thirsty for insight from the front lines,” writes Peter Sims at HBR Blog Network. “And yet...
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ADP Jobs Report: Economy Added 204,000 Jobs in August

The private sector added 204,000 jobs last month, according to this morning’s ADP National Employment Report, slightly lower than the 215,000 jobs predicted by economists.   (Photo Credit: photologue_np/Flickr) “August marks the fifth straight month of employment gains above 200,000, continuing an encouraging trend for the U.S. labor market,” says Carlos Rodriguez,...
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Job Relocation Checklist: Do These 5 Things Before You Move

The hardest part of moving for work is deciding to take the plunge. Once that’s out of the way, you’re dealing with details. Of course, how you handle the little things that go into your relocation can make a big difference to your quality of life in your new home and at...
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5 Jobs for People Who Love Travel

Most workers who travel as part of their jobs get to see the insides of identical conference centers from sea to shining sea. It’s exciting if you like single-serving coffee or collect hotel soaps, and less exciting if your true love is travel — the real kind, where you get to immerse...
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Low Stress, High Pay? These 3 Low-Pressure Jobs Can Pay $70k or More per Year

It’s common to think of stress and pay as a tradeoff. For example, surgeons and air traffic controllers pull down the big bucks because their work is not only beneficial to society, but potentially tough on the cortisol levels of the job-holder. We don’t care how good you are at managing stress:...
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Avoid These 7 Interview Mistakes

Want to ace your next job interview? It’s not just about doing the right things. What you don’t do can be just as crucial to getting hired.   (Photo Credit: notionscapital/Flickr) In particular, don’t do any of these things: 1. Show up smelling like anything. Obviously, you don’t want to smell like...
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Male CEO Steps Down to Spend Time With Family

When a woman quits her job to spend more time with family, no one bats an eye. When a man does the same, it’s news. Earlier this week, Max Schireson announced that he’d be leaving his role as CEO of MongoDB in order to travel less and be at home with his...
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How Much Money Do You Need to Make, in Order to Feel Like a Success?

Whoever said money doesn’t buy happiness never tried to pay their mortgage armed with only a positive attitude. Most of us need a certain amount of financial security in order to be satisfied. A recent CareerBuilder survey translates that into dollars and cents: $75,000, it turns out, is the magic number. But...
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The 5 Jobs That Ranked the Lowest for Job Meaning

Low-meaning jobs aren’t necessarily low-satisfaction jobs. Sometimes, they even pay a good salary and/or have minimal stress. PayScale’s latest data package The Most and Least Meaningful Jobs looks at all the things that can measure a “good” job — however you define that term for your own life and career.   (Photo...
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Is It OK to Ask About Salary in a Job Interview?

The conventional wisdom is that it’s in a candidate’s best interest to delay the salary discussion for as long as they can, both to gather information on the position and its duties and to encourage the hiring manager to throw out the first number. A recent survey from staffing services provider Robert...
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The Popular Myth That Women Are Better at Multitasking Might Be Wrong

Who’s good at multitasking? No one, according to a spate of recent studies, collected by Tom Bartlett at The Chronicle of Higher Education — or at least, no one multitasks well enough to make it more efficient than doing one thing at a time. There’s also a startling lack of concrete evidence...
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If You Want to Work at Zappos, You’ll Have to Join the Club (or at Least, Their Social Network)

Want to work at the company that brought you next-day shoe delivery and free returns? You’ll have to join Zappos Insiders, the organization’s new social network dedicated to networking with current and future Zappos employees. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reports, the social network will be the only way to get...
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Is It Possible to Make Too Much Money?

Being overpaid is probably not something you’ve ever spent much time worrying about. After all, real wages are down 7.7 percent, compared with 2006 numbers, and 23 percent of workers were laid off at some point during the recession. Earning too little seems more likely — and more dire — than earning...
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Choose the Best Passwords at Work or Anywhere Else

Yesterday, eBay announced that the encrypted passwords and personal details of all 233 million of its users had been compromised in one of the largest security breaches of all time. What does that have to do with you at work? Well, if you use the same password for multiple accounts, as many...
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3 New Jobs Created by Marijuana Legalization

Whether or not you think pot should be legal, one thing is for sure: it’s great for the economy. In the first 18 months of legalized marijuana in Colorado, the state expects to rake in over $180 million in taxes. And that’s just the government’s take. Many individuals are also lining their...
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‘Tuition’ Is a Beyonce-Inspired Plea for Student Debt Forgiveness

Seventy-one percent of college seniors carry student loan debt; worse, 35 percent of college graduates under 30 are “seriously delinquent” in paying their loans, which means that they haven’t made a payment for 90 days or longer. Meanwhile, unemployment remains high among recent graduates and real wages have declined. What’s a cash-strapped...
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South Korean ‘Star Teacher’ Makes $4 Million a Year

In the U.S., teachers make average salaries in the $40,000 – 45,000 range. But for one elite tutor in South Korea, teaching earns a wage comparable with that of a CEO or another captain of industry.   (Photo Credit: Marc Smith/Flickr) CBS News recently followed South Korean tutor Kim Ki-Hoon as he...
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34 Percent of Us Work on the Weekends

If you’re reading this at work right now, you’re not alone: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Time Use Survey, 34 percent of employed people are at work on the weekends, as opposed to 83 percent on week days.   (Photo Credit: Julian Bleecker/Flickr) Who are these 34 percent of workers?...
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Be a Satisficer, Not a Maximizer

When you're given a task to accomplish at work, do you insist on doing everything in your power to accomplish it in the best possible way, or do you work to get the job done so that it meets requirements, and move on?
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3 Ways to Answer ‘What Are Your Salary Expectations?’

It's perhaps the most dreaded question of the interview process. Bid too high, and you could cut yourself out of the running entirely; bid too low, and you'll cost yourself thousands – perhaps hundreds of thousands – of dollars over the course of your career. So what's the right answer?
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10 Online Places to Learn Valuable Job Skills, for Free

Job counselors tell us that the best way to build a successful career is to keep learning and adding skills to our resumes. But education isn’t cheap — for the most part. Fortunately, there are plenty of totally free sources online that will help you develop the skills you need to get...
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How to Explain Long Periods of Unemployment on Your Resume

Given the state of the economy over the past couple of years, you’d think employers would be more understanding about gaps in a potential hire’s CV. But even a prolonged recession can’t change human nature, and no matter how unfair it is, hiring managers tend to pursue employed candidates more ardently than...
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If You Don’t Enjoy Being Yelled at, Don’t Work in These Industries [infographic]

Seattle-based mobile advertising firm Marchex decided to rank the jobs that get yelled at the most over the phone. They found that folks working in tech could expect to get chewed out more than almost any other job.   (Photo Credit: imagerymajestic/freedigitalphotos.net) Satellite TV providers topped the list, getting yelled at during...
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Use a Precise Number in Salary Negotiation

Want to get a raise this year, or more money at your new job than you earned at your old one? Research from Columbia Business School suggests that naming a precise, non-round number when negotiating your salary could lead to higher earnings.   (Photo Credit: 401(k) 2013/Flickr) “It matters because round numbers...
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Get That Raise: How to Document Your Achievements

The end of the year is performance evaluation time for many workers, which means that now’s the time to gather up proof of your awesomeness in the hopes of impressing the boss. But before you can make your case for more money and responsibility, you need to tally up your accomplishments. Here’s...
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Is It Possible to Apply to Too Many Jobs?

It’s tempting to think of getting a job as a numbers game: send out as many resumes as you can, the theory goes, and you’ll definitely get hired. While you definitely won’t get hired for jobs you don’t pursue, sending out thousands of resumes and cover letters can actually be overkill.  ...
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5 Ways to Waste Time at Work

Ever wonder where the time goes at work? One minute, you’re sitting down to make your to-do list, and the next, it’s 5 p.m., and you still have two hours of work left to do.   (Photo Credit: Rennett Stowe/Flickr) Even the most organized among us waste time, often without even realizing...
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Rags-to-Riches Stories Are Less Common Than You Might Think

Forty percent of us still think it’s pretty common to go from poverty to wealth in the U.S., according to research from the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, quoted in the Wall Street Journal. The reality is quite different: only 4 percent of Americans go from rags to riches....
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The 10 Whitest Jobs in America

White workers make up 81 percent of the total workforce, but 90 percent of some job titles, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.   (Photo Credit: Army Medicine/Flickr) In a recent article on jobs with a lack of racial diversity, The Atlantic lists 33 occupations in which nine out...
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How Sharing Mistakes Can Strengthen Your Company

Most of us spend our careers trying to avoid making mistakes — and failing that, trying to hide them. The problem with this way of doing business, of course, is that it makes it hard to fix errors, and even harder to learn from them. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons) Venture capitalist and...
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5 Bad Things About Working at Google (According to Google Employees)

Google is the dream employer for many software engineers and developers. Who wouldn’t want to work among some of the most creative minds in the industry, while scarfing down free cereal and taking up to five months of maternity leave?   (Photo Credit: affiliate/Flickr) But a recent Business Insider piece reminds us...
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Bad Managers Are the No. 1 Reason People Leave Their Jobs

What does it take to make an employee leave a job voluntarily, in a tough economy? A bad boss. (Photo Credit: Found Animals Foundation/Flickr) “Employees don’t need to be friends with their boss but they need to have a relationship,” writes Susan Heathfield at About.com’s Human Resources site. “The boss is too...
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Fewer Millennials in Management Roles

Younger workers generally expect to put in a few years before ascending to management roles. For Gen Y, however, it’s been a long wait.   (Photo Credit: Alex E. Proimos/Flickr) For the purposes of our Generations at Work data package, we’ve defined Gen Y as folks who were born between 1982-2002. That...
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How Not to Follow Up After a Networking Event

Gather around, job seekers, and read the tale of the (thankfully, anonymous) man who wrote the worst follow-up email in the history of networking.   (Photo Credit: RambergMediaImages/Flickr) Business Insider reports that a student at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee sent the following email to a financial recruiter, after a networking...
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How to Negotiate Like a Rational Person

Do you feel guilty (or irritated) when you’re negotiating a starting salary, a raise, or benefits? The problem might be an over-reliance on intuition and emotion, instead of logic and rational thought.   (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons) Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation offers tips for folks who tend to negotiate from...
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3 Great Answers to ‘What Is Your Greatest Weakness?’

Sometimes, when you’re interviewing for a job, it’s hard to believe that you’re not secretly auditioning for a terrible reality TV show. For example, the dreaded question, “What is your greatest weakness?” If you say you don’t have any, you look like arrogant — and untruthful. But list suggested “areas for growth,”...
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25 Inspirational Quotes About Productivity

Are you having trouble getting out of your own way today? Depending on which productivity expert you ask, you’re either in need of a lifestyle overhaul or a new perspective. There’s a quote here for everyone from nap enthusiasts to committed list makers.   (Photo Credit: Playing Futures/Flickr) 1. The perfect is...
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Rich People More Likely to Actually Take Candy From Babies (It’s Science!)

A recent series of studies shows that the wealthy are twice as three to four times more likely to blow a stop sign, four times as likely to cheat at dice, and twice as likely to actually steal candy from children. But more significantly, this research shows that money itself is the...
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Can You Get Fired Via Text?

Once upon a time, it was considered poor etiquette to deliver bad news in any other way but in person, or at the very least, over the phone. You certainly wouldn’t, for example, expect to get a Post-It note from the boss telling you that you no longer had a job. But...
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Surprise: Most Rappers Lie About Their Money

“Rapper” is perhaps the only job title we don’t track in our Research Center. (Yet.) While we can’t tell you whether hip-hop pays better on the east coast or the west, thanks to an interactive feature from Businessweek, we can definitively say that most are lying about what they make. How big...
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Which College Major Has the Highest IQ?

Sure, everyone thinks his college major is best, but until now, we were forced to go by cocktail party conversation and/or odds of post-graduation employment for metrics. Now, thanks to an infographic from Visual.ly, we can parse majors by IQ, too. This graphic lists majors according to average IQ, and then offers...
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5 Best Cities for New College Grads

Got your heart set on living in a big (or biggish) city after graduation, but don’t feel like spending every penny of your graduation money on new digs in a tough job market? A recent Business Insider story ranked the best cities for new grads, in terms of mean annual income, median...
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These 9 Countries Have the World’s Best Maternity Leave Policies [infographic]

Forget Google’s celebrated five-month maternity leave. If you lived in one of these nine countries, you’d have a year off (much of it, paid) to spend with your brand-new family member. Here a few facts to ponder, while negotiating your time off with your boss: 1. Sweden offers the most generous maternity...
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Cash Incentives, Plus Mentoring, Might Convince Some Students to Go to College

A recent study from the University of California Davis and Dartmouth University found that coaching plus cash incentives can have "meaningful impacts" on students' decisions to attend college, as well as finish their degree. The catch? The impact was only noticeable on female students and recent immigrants. Male students who were native...
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3 Ways Body Language Can Get You Promoted

Getting ahead at work might be more about what you do than what you say, and we're not just talking about the stuff that gets discussed at your performance evaluation. In fact, a new study from Duke University found that winning people over might be as simple as mimicking their behavior.
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Dressing Up for Work Can Make You Better at Your Job

They say that clothes make the man, but can they make the man (or woman) more successful at work? Recent research by the Kellogg School of Management suggests that it can. It’s something called the lab coat effect, and you can use it to make yourself more confident in your job. Generally,...
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The 5 Happiest, Healthiest Jobs in America

If you want to feel good, both physically and mentally, you’re better off being a doctor or a teacher than a transportation worker, according to a recent Gallup poll. The survey measured American’s physical, emotional, and financial well-being by examining factors such as exercise, produce consumption, obesity, smoking, view of their workplace,...
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3 Ways to Deal With a Passive-Aggressive Boss

What do your boss and your loved ones have in common? Both sometimes have to tell you things you don’t want to hear. Also, I’m betting you’d prefer that they wouldn’t be passive-aggressive about it. Alas, we don’t have a lot of control over what our managers do, so the burden is...
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How to Strategically Announce That You’re Changing Jobs

What’s the hardest part of changing jobs (besides finding a new one)? Figuring out when to let people at your current gig know that you’re making a change. That’s why Daily Muse columnist Leslie Bradshaw advises job changers to have an internal succession plan. What is an internal succession plan? Basically, it’s...
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An Easy Solution to the Empty Resume Problem

There's no tougher time to write a resume than when you're just starting out. Even if you have great grades, tons of applicable skills, and a passion to learn, it's pretty hard to disguise the fact that, in terms of actual work experience, your CV is pretty bare. Don't fall back on...
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3 Times It’s OK to Stretch the Truth on a Resume

We’ve all heard the advice that we should never, ever lie on a resume — and even if we hadn’t, the number of famous folks who’ve had to step down because of their fibs would clue us in. But is it ever OK to bend the facts, even just a little? In...
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Huffpost Reenergizes Tired Employees With Air Naps

By now, most of us know that taking an afternoon nap is good for us. It lowers blood pressure, researchers say, and might even make you more productive at work. But not every boss is going to be persuaded by research studies — at least, not enough to let us have an...
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3 Surprising Former Jobs of U.S. Presidents

Dig deep enough into anyone’s job history, and you’ll find some jobs that won’t make their resume. Just about everyone has a story about the time they were paid to whitewash a gazebo all summer, or serve tiny pigs-in-blankets to grazers at the grocery store. But most of us don’t think of...
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3 Jobs That Won’t Exist in 20 Years

Are you ready for a world without telemarketers? According to CNN, we might soon be living there. And while this is good news for anyone who's ever wondered how a cruise ship company got their cell phone number, it's bad news, of course, for the folks who work in these jobs. Other...
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Do You Have One of the Unhappiest Jobs in America?

When you’re shopping for your next career, you’re probably most interested in which jobs have the best long-term growth potential. After all, there’s no sense in shelling out all that money on retraining, only to have your new gig disappear in a couple years. But a recent study highlights another very important,...
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Making Animated Gifs Is Now a Job

Further proof that you are never wasting time on the internet, but rather developing your job skills: Some artists are now earning a living by designing animated gifs for corporate brands. If that sounds like something you might have thought up circa 1997, while adding winking cats to your email signature, well,...
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What to Do When You’ve Accidentally Hugged Someone at Work

Most of us would agree that we're not supposed to hug people at work. At worst, hugging could be construed as sexual harassment. At best, well, it's going to make people feel awkward.
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Summer Jobs for Teens at Highest Level in Six Years

At least someone is working. The jobs report for full-time workers might be dismal, but there’s at least one bright spot: more teens have summer jobs this year than they have since 2006. Almost 160,000 teenagers scored summer gigs in May, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Last year,...
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“Pink Collar” Businessmen Start Websites for Women

Women are big business on the internet. They spend more time and money online than men. In fact, 61 percent of online transactions are conducted by female consumers, according to a 2010 comScore report. No wonder, then, that the past few years have seen a spate of online businesses targeted at women....