Career Articles

The first chapter of Work Strong, "How to Keep (Bad) Employers from Kicking Sand in Your Face," discusses the bullying nature of the modern American workplace. Peter engages the reader in a discussion about how best to work with or around these bully employers. Peter challenges the modern American worker to stand up for themselves and realize that nobody is going to be a better advocate for you and your career than yourself....

The continuing loss of jobs in the U.S. economy-20,000 in January and over 8 million since the recession began--suggests that this recovery will be unlike any we've ever seen. We thought the 1991 and 2001 recessions were strange because they led to "job less" recoveries. Well, this recovery will be ca candidate for "Ripley's Believe It or Not"...

When reading about Apple's announcement of the upcoming release of the iPad, I was reminded of a quote by John Dewey; "If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow." The iPad presents itself as a potentially powerful tool for both professors and students in Higher Education...

I found myself pondering a lot about faculty while reading this month's Work Strong section. I thought about our interview with Professor John Thelin and his advice about working in Academia. He said "consider your work in higher education ...

Now that we've started our discussion about successful career self-management in the 21st Century, I thought I'd pause and tell you a little bit about my book and this blog.

First, the book. Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System is a different kind of "career book" in at least two respects...

Consciously or unconsciously, many-maybe even most-Americans see the world of work as an orderly system. They believe if you do X, you can expect Y to happen. Or to put it another way, if you invest the time and effort to get a doctorate, you should be able to get a good job-or at least a job-in academia.

As many of us have discovered, however, that's not at all the way things happen...

January is a fitting time to think about beginnings. They are, of course, a big part of our lives. Each year, we tear the December page off our calendar and begin a new passage around the sun. Many of us also use the same demarcation point to begin diets or physical fitness programs or family dinners every week. Universally, beginnings are hopeful times, which is why it's so strange that we exclude them from our careers...

When six different student affairs associations worked together and created The Placement Exchange to offer an annual interview and career services event, we immediately became a supporter. Chicago will host the third annual Placement Exchange from March 4th through the 7th. For the cost of a couple of weeks of lattes in registration fees, a candidate can possibly network or interview with scores of student affairs departments...

Only half of all Ph.D. recipients will find jobs in education, according to a 2006 study by the National Science Foundation. With shrinking budgets and hiring freezes now plaguing universities large and small, finding a faculty position is seemingly more difficult than ever.

While the employment picture may look grim, there are strategies that can help make an application and interview stand out from other candid...

We end our chats in 2009 with the most intimate chat of all, our own Chief Information Officer and Co-Founder, Eric Blessner. Eric is truly the soul of HigherEdJobs.com as he is the person ultimately responsible for making sure your experience is all it can be. His dedication to crafting a unique academic job board experience has been his passion since the site opened in 1996. Eric shares with us his philosophy on academic job searches, his favorite HigherEdJobs features, and shares a few secrets of job search success with us this mont...

The American Dream. While it is a quintessentially American aspiration, each of us has a unique vision of just what it is. For some, the dream is a chance to build a successful business. For others, it's a home of their own. And for still others, it's the opportunity to shop until they drop. As alluring as all of these visions are, however, I would respectfully suggest that they are outcomes of the dream and not the dream, itself. The American Dream is actually a state of mind...

The positive growth turned in by the American economy in the third quarter of this year suggests that maybe, just maybe this Great Recession is now in our rear view mirror. As it fades away, of course, the tales will begin about what we did during this terrible time. While recounting those legends is surely important, so too is sharing the insights we've acquired from our experience...

Twitter. Blogger. LinkedIn. A few short years ago, none of these Social Media sites would have been at the top of your list as career tools. However, many people today include them on their lists but still are not sure how exactly they fit into their academic job searches, let alone their careers. We spend some time this month with Rick Klau who heads up Google's Blogger product. In addition to learning about Rick's "Niner" love and how he was a blogger for a future President, we were privileged to get Rick to share his deep knowledge about how people communicate on the internet and his insights into how it can help you in your career and job search....

According to Shirley Robinson Pippins, senior vice president for programs and services at the American Council on Education (ACE), the perception of community colleges is changing...

Most of us go into a job search thinking we may be a little rusty, but confident that, basically, we know what to do. Then you do it, and the galling indifference and humiliating rejection begin. Employers don't acknowledge your resume submissions, executive search and staffing firms don't return your calls, and recruiters act as if you are damaged goods. It's hard not to feel as if you're a failure.

And yet, you're not. Let me say that again: You are not a failure. You are not a loser or a deadbeat or a flop. Your belief that you are (or your concern that you may be) is based on two misconcept...

It is important to remember that we have the honor of shaping the lives of the students who attend our colleges and universities. In pursuit of furthering this honor, many new professionals choose student affairs as their entrance into a career in higher education. It is one of the most popular job posting and search categories on HigherEdJobs.com. We had the opportunity this month to take an in-depth look at the process of a new professional's job search in student affairs with one of the leaders in the field...

We're all familiar with bubbles. There was the dot.com bubble in the 1990s and the housing bubble in the early years of this century. They were overheated investments that ultimately fell flat. In our careers, however, we've done exactly the opposite. Most of us have invested little or nothing in our careers, and the resulting vacuum is strangling our future. That sucking sound we hear is our future imploding...

Job security has joined the pay phone and carbon paper. It's no longer a part of the world of work. Employers may promise it, but they can't deliver it. The global marketplace is just too dynamic, too unpredictable.

Does that mean there is no security in the workplace? Absolutely not. The kind of security you can achieve, however, is unlike that historically promised by your emplo...

After being the centerpiece of the education platform of a winning presidential campaign, community colleges have stayed at the forefront of higher education discussions for many months now. Our conversation this month explores current topics at community colleges including enrollment, faculty recruitment and, of all things, a situation comedy...

When Flavia Benedito, a language tutor educated in Brazil, immigrated to the United States a few years ago, she applied for several positions to no avail. With a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Language and Secretarial Science from Universidade do Sagrado Coracao, and a master's degree in International Business from Universidade Metodista de Piracicaba, the problem wasn't that Benedito wasn't qualified for these jobs...

If you're looking for a job, you're probably doing so with two strikes against you. I realize that's a harsh statement, but sadly, it's almost certainly true. Why? Because most of the people in the job market today conducted their last job search prior to December, 2007, the date today's Great Re...

We've all heard of the alpha male and female. The dictionary defines them as the dominant person in a group, the one everybody emulates and follows. The term was originally coined to describe behavior in wolf and dog packs, but for most of the 20th Century, it also accurately depicted the way we interacted in our careers. One person was on top, and the rest of us brought up the rear...