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This article claims that the most important things to understanding millennials in the workforce are to 1) let them share responsibility 2) Support their desire for a work-life balance 3) let them work for a purpose and 4) to give them continuous feedback. All four of these things tie in to the common belief that millennials in the workforce work for purpose and for ethical reasons that bring fulfillment to their work.

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Generational conflict in the workplace (Millennial employees vs. Gen X, Boomer employees vs. Gen X, and so forth) has become a growth industry lately for consultants, speakers, and authors. But I'm doubtful that this industry's central premise-the idea that everyone in a generation acts essentially like everyone else in that generation, and that it's possible, therefore, to "generationally manage" your workforce-is the most useful way to think about your workforce.

Here's an alternative view of your workforce: Although there are, on average, differences between generations, they are dwarfed by the sharper distinctions you'll find between individual human beings. And individual human beings, rather than generations, are what make up a workforce. Doug Carr of FRHI speaks eloquently to this point:

For an organization to go out and say 'millennials are this way' or 'Gen Xs are like this' is too broad-brushed. Across all three of our brands, we stick to the approach of 'Select the best,' based on the characteristics we feel are best for the position. We don't muddy the waters by saying "when you're hiring a millennial, look for X," because, whether you're 22 years old or you're 50 years old, if it's in you to give heartfelt service, we want you working here. Psychologically, all such high performers, according to the methodology we use in collaboration with Gallup, are going to have very similar profiling characteristics.

In regard to millennial employees in particular: I'm going to disappoint some readers by refusing to join in with the very vocal chorus that's been ranting about "kids these days," kids who, so the silly talk goes, "expect medals for just showing up." Not only am I not interested in piling on, I don't think "kids these days" are deserving of any such pile-on. Millennial employees represent the best-educated (the most schooling, the highest SAT scores, computer coding and other advanced skills learned as early as middle school) and most thoughtfully-raised (more about that below) cohort in history. And, regardless of whether you agree with this assessment of millennial employees, you'd best get used to them being around; it's predicted that by 2025 three quarters of workers globally will be millennials.

Having said this, it's true that different generations tend to bring different expectations to the workplace, and that there's value in understanding these expectations and fulfilling them to the best of your ability as an employer. As far as millennials in particular are concerned, here are four of these employee expectations, with suggestions for how to address them.

1. They want to share responsibility-so find ways to let them. Millennials, in many cases, have grown up under a style of parenting that supported individual empowerment, where the kids were almost always included in family decision-making. Now, as they enter the early stages of their careers, millennial employees are often getting a bad rap for coming into the workforce with an immediate sense of entitlement. While that's a gross overgeneralization, it's fair to say that millennials are looking for a feeling that they're more than a cog in a massive machine. So as an employer, "try to create opportunities that give Millennials the chance to take responsibility and find success on a micro level before they move on to larger roles," says Jay Coldren of EDITION. For example, continues Coldren, "Make one small team of employees responsible for handling the ordering and stocking and determination of par levels [the quantity an item needs to fall to to trigger a reorder] of the office supplies. In a restaurant, a small team can be made responsible for ordering the wines, while others are deputized to handle the stocking and ordering of the serviceware, and so forth. Offering up such areas of micro-responsibility will keep your new workers engaged outside of the normal scope of their day."

Millennials also may expect a timetable for career advancement that comes off as unrealistic to their managers; as one company leader said off the record to me, "Great people are coming into our industry who are highly educated and who all want to be directors of everything immediately." The most successful response to this is a simple one: compromise. Make it clear that advancement isn't possible on the millennial's idealized schedule, but that if they make a commitment to their current position and department that may seem long to them (yet is shorter than the previous norm in your company), they will be rewarded with additional opportunities for growth on a timetable that they can depend on.

2. Support their desire for work/life balance. Millennials have often shared with me their unwillingness to sacrifice their off-work time or to make other lifestyle compromises in return for financial compensation. It's been argued that millennials' inclination in this regard relates to them having watched their boomer parents delay happiness in return for career advancement, a worldview they're not willing to buy into for themselves. Regardless of the reason for this attitude, it needs to be taken into consideration by employers today.

Shelley Meszoly, Regional Director of Sales and Marketing at Fairmont Southampton (Bermuda): "My younger staff will work their rear ends off for me when they're here, but they're also all about having their nights and weekends entirely free and clear."

There's no silver bullet solution here that I'm aware of. Humane scheduling is a challenging question that has been stumping even mighty Starbucks, which, after The New York Times shined a light on the issue, has committed companywide to coming up with more compassionate scheduling approaches. A start is to accept that the millennial desire for work-life balance is admirable and that any scheduling solutions you make in this regard will also benefit your overall workforce; the desire to have time for a life outside of work is not exclusive to any one generation.

3. Let them work for an ethical organization-by being one. Just like millennial customers, millennial employees (and potential employees) are concerned with organizational ethics and social responsibility. The extent to which you can satisfy these concerns will determine a significant part of your success in recruiting and retaining your pick of employees.

Doug Carr:

[In recruiting], we work very closely with schools such as Cornell. The students who've been coming out of university for several years now are very focused on the social responsibility profile of any organization they're considering working for. They want to know your company's stance on the environment, on community involvement and social responsibility, whether your company wins awards for its eco-tourism or green lodging. All of this plays a large role in whether or not they're interested in coming to work for you.

4. Yes, they want feedback. So give it to them. Many millennials have received adult feedback throughout their earlier years; they've often had close involvement from parents in their education and close support and encouragement from teachers and mentors at school. The contrast can be jarring when they arrive at their first professional position and suddenly have nobody who's interested in telling them how they're doing. One recently-hired millennial told me "this was the first time in my life that nobody cared about the quality of my work-or if they actually did care, I couldn't tell. The quality of my work could be great, or just o.k.; the response I received was the same either way."

The solution here is obvious, and is an organizational win regardless of generation: provide more input. Not just via formal, periodic performance reviews, but through informal responses daily, or weekly. Your employees will appreciate this, and you'll get more out of them to boot.
Micah Solomon is a Seattle company culture consultant, customer service consultant, keynote speaker, trainer, and bestselling author.

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You've Got Millennial Employees All Wrong; Here Are The Four Things You Need To Know Now

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Generational conflict in the workplace (Millennial employees vs. Gen X, Boomer employees vs. Gen X, and so forth) has become a growth industry lately for consultants, speakers, and authors. But industry's central premise-the idea that everyone in a generation acts essentially like everyone else in that generation, and that it's possible, therefore, to "generationally manage" your workforce-isn't useful way to view the people who work for you.

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What I like about this article is that it takes a different approach to the topic of millennials in the work force than most of the other articles I looked through. This article describes millennials as being known for their lazy and self-entitled tendencies and describes the work force in a time dominated by millennials as the biggest "ego-massaging era". This article makes claims that millennials are also lacking in social skills as well and that millennials are generally a burden on the work force. This article is definitely unlike most others on its topic.

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Have you ever laughed at your parents for not being able to change their social media settings - and then had to Google how long it takes to boil an egg?

Or rung your boss on Monday because you felt ill on Sunday, and therefore felt deserving of another day off - in order to enjoy "a proper weekend"?

If so, don't say another word. You are already pegged as a 'millennial' - born roughly in the decade after 1983 - and a member of the generation branded the most entitled and self-absorbed in human history.

Yesterday the CBI, representing the heavyweights of British industry, issued yet another exasperated harrumph on the fecklessness of young people entering the workplace; its latest study of business leaders reporting that a third of companies are dissatisfied with graduates' attitude to work and ability to "self-manage".

Text-speak and Twitter reductionism is also letting our young hopefuls down, a similar number complained, with literacy and numeracy skills so poor among university leavers, that they have to be topped up in the workplace.

If there was ever a moment which laid to rest the image of the eager be-suited graduate, plucked fresh from a university milk-round for a job-for-life, and confirmed its replacement with a casually-dressed slacker, strolling into work late on his phone, only to complain there's no room on the office bean bag, this must surely be it.

Indeed, when British marketing guru Simon Sinek gave his blistering analysis of everything that's wrong with Generation Y last year, it hit such a nerve that it went viral within a day and has now racked up over a million hits on You Tube.

With devastating clarity, he painted a picture of how a generation given everything for nothing has created a crisis of unmet expectations in the workplace: "They're thrust in the real world and in an instant they find out they're not special, their mums can't get them a promotion, that you get nothing for coming in last - and by the way, you can't just have it because you want it."

Chief Operating Officer of Be Wiser Insurance group, Crescens George is one of the business leaders bemoaning the cost of "graduate ego massaging time".

George recalls one young man he recruited a few years ago straight from university onto an accelerated future talent programme on a good wage. Far from being keen to learn the job from the bottom up, George said the young man let it be known that dealing with customers in the call centre was too far beneath him to contemplate.

"We were almost on the verge of terminating his employment contract. But he had good analytical skills, so we saw the future potential, supported him in learning the basics and today he is in a relatively successful and relevant role."

George adds: "You would expect that university education would tease some basic business etiquette, and certainly communication skills. He did not communicate, besides showing a sheer lack of interest in the job. He was not willing to make the sacrifice of learning through the ranks.

"I can only attribute this to the stress of £50k debt (from studentloans) hanging over his head and finding out the real world of work is different to how it's painted in the lecture rooms. Had we not had to waste 12-14 months on unnecessary graduate ego massaging time, I am sure this employee would have tasted his success a little sooner, and opened doors to leadership opportunities by now."

Professor Cary Cooper of the Manchester Business School agrees with the CBI that some young graduates do seem to be lacking in social skills: "They have been raised on Facebook and texting. The way you develop your social skills is by face to face interaction and this generation has had the least of that."

But he maintains young graduates are every bit as enthusiastic and eager to learn as previous generations. They just have little interest in kowtowing to traditional management structures and are viewed with suspicion by bosses because they don't expect to stay at the same company for long.

"The new graduates have seen older employees, who have been at their companies for many years, dismissed and treated like disposable assets. They are trying to protect themselves. So in other words, that tradional contract of employment has been broken for that generation. They don't have the same company loyalties that were expected in the past.

"Senior managers are hanging on to the old ways and expect these young people to act and behave in the way they did when they were picked up at their university milk rounds in the Eighties. As a result, I don't think employers know how to use them. But if you push their to the best of their capabilities, they will still come up with the goodies."

Averil Leimon, leadership psychologist with the White Water Group, agrees that millennials "certainly want different things" - and it could be this which is making us uncomfortable.

"They want a more balanced life. They have often seen one or both of their parents working flat out and not coming home till late, knackered after the commute. They want to find ways to incorporate real relationships, be hands on in bringing up their kids, keep up external interests and be fit and healthy.

"They grew up with technology so they know how to work remotely and cannot see why sitting in a building is required. They don't 'go to work', they just work. Technology is integral to their lives so they do not split home and work as rigorously as previous generations. They seek close and rewarding relationships at work, not just in their personal lives."

Indeed, some business leaders are already proclaiming we need to be more like millennials, instead of trying to making us more like us.

Retail guru Mary Portas now describes herself as a "fiftysomething millennial, or what you might call a slashy," and sees nothing wrong with Generation Y demanding the work-life balance their parents never had.

"I'm a businesswoman/TV presenter/ author/charity retailer/mother/wife/ DJ/anything that comes along that inspires me," she recently told the Telegraph; as a result, she has now reshaped her company in line with that thinking. Her management and board "now have the right to take as much holiday as they like, when they like, set their own hours and take open-ended maternity leave."

So why are condemning young people for wanting the balanced lifestyle we never achieved?

Psychologist Averil Leimon says: "I was recently working with an investment banker. He told me: ' Millennials have no values '. "I said: 'Gosh, really? Don't you mean they have different values?'

"He then inveighed about his son, who has rejected his father's absent, workaholic, money-focused way of life for something different and more personally rewarding.

"Indeed, if we were to design a business all over again to suit human nature, allowing people the chance to use their strengths for fair reward and have a satisfying home life, wouldn't we want this, too?"

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What's the problem with millennials in the workplace?

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Have you ever laughed at your parents for not being able to change their social media settings - and then had to Google how long it takes to boil an egg? Or rung your boss on Monday because you felt ill on Sunday, and therefore felt deserving of another day off - in order to enjoy "a proper weekend"?

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This article re enforces what we discussed in class. Your resume is literally looked at for less than 15 seconds before a company moves onto the next one. Thus, it is so important to make those the 15 seconds that company will remember. It then lists a ton of effective tips in constructing resume, which we have discussed in class. The ones I found most important were to avoid crazy fonts, to quantify, and to make sure you tailor is to the specific job your applying to.

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This article slightly criticizes how much millennials are praised in the workforce and seems to be pushing for people in the work force to work harder at encouraging the workforce as a whole and not excluding the part of the workforce that millennials don't account for. This article makes claims that millennials growing up with technology has put them at an advantage above the generations before them but what the author wants to point out that the other parts of the work force are just as able to bring about that same energy and innovation and apt for technology to the workforce as well.

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Photo: Adobe

We are all bombarded by content about millennials - how they study, work, buy, socialize and do virtually everything else. Demographers and researchers typically consider this magical generation as having been born between the early 1980s to the mid-1990s or early 2000s. The common premise is that millennials share characteristics that will have unique influence across industries, given the large population they represent.

The headlines and content speaks to the need for everyone, and most especially companies hiring or selling, to change. However, is it really an age group and demographic category that will have influence and require the need for change? Or is it that all generations face a profound time of digital disruption that is shaping how we study, work, buy and live?

I will put it out there - I have a problem with the label of "millennials." The assumption is that this cohort will study, work, buy and live differently. I believe we all must adapt to learn, work, consume and live in a world which is increasingly more mobile, global, connected and social, no matter our age. We are living in a time in which change is upon us. It is exciting, as an optimist, thinking about the nature of the change we have seen across industries in the last decade alone. What lies ahead in both the short term and long term is change - change that is based on the underlying foundation of technology.

Clearly, "millennials" are fortunate that they have lived in an era of constant technology change. When my son (a "millennial") was very young we brought his Gameboy or PSP out for dinner - today's parents to young children simply hand over their own mobile device, loaded with the latest apps. Now that my son is nearly grown, we share the same approaches to how we communicate, consume, commute and share across the country with the benefit of mobile apps, platforms and services. We may be divided by age but technology unifies how we work, how we buy and how we communicate.

My son and I aren't unique. The workers of the future include many of the same workers we have today. While someone may not be a digital native, they can be just as fluent and just as effective. They have lessons to teach the younger cohort, and they want the same core things from work - challenge, success and a feeling of community.

As a leader at Adobe, a key element of my role is ensuring we build great experiences for our people - employees and customers. You will not be finding me talking to the needs of the "millennials." Instead, I am passionate about creating an environment which is prepared to innovate, adapt and adopt based on the opportunity for digital disruption across the entire workforce. We should be cautious about singling out a cohort based on common characteristics. I would contend that instead we should adopt language and approaches that underscore the importance of inclusion across all ages and demographics. We should outline the importance of all in the workforce embracing change and seizing the opportunities that evolving technologies provide in all aspects of life.

The alternative is that we all embrace being called "millennials," as a state of mind rather than an age, with the opportunity for change and continued digital disruption ahead.

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Photo: Adobe We are all bombarded by content about millennials - how they study, work, buy, socialize and do virtually everything else. Demographers and researchers typically consider this magical generation as having been born between the early 1980s to the mid-1990s or early 2000s.

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These quotes are all very useful as we learn about careers within this class. The one that really caught my eye reads, "It's not what you achieve, it's what you overcome. That's what defines your career." This essentially means that there will be obstacles in choosing and maintaining a career, but these obstacles are ultimately what define you. It is ok to not always be successful, but it is important to learn from these mistakes. Your achievements are also important, however, what is really important is the things that are hard and take time to overcome that really matter.

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This article talks about how millennials surpassed Gen Xers as accounting for the largest portion of todays work force. Gen Xers were only the largest portion of the work force for a short period after the baby boomers dominated the work force. It is likely that Gen Xers can surpass millennials some day if the economy improves but it as Generation X continues to age, the majority will reach retirement age and they will no longer participate in the work force.

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More than one-in-three American labor force participants (35%) are Millennials, making them the largest generation in the U.S. labor force, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

As of 2017 - the most recent year for which data are available - 56 million Millennials (those ages 21 to 36 in 2017) were working or looking for work. That was more than the 53 million Generation Xers, who accounted for a third of the labor force. And it was well ahead of the 41 million Baby Boomers, who represented a quarter of the total. Millennials surpassed Gen Xers in 2016.

Meanwhile, the oldest members of the post-Millennial generation (those born after 1996) are now of working age. Last year, 9 million post-Millennials (those who have reached working age, 16 to 20) were employed or looking for work, comprising 5% of the labor force.

These labor force estimates are based on the Current Population Survey, which is designed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and serves as the basis for its unemployment and labor force statistics.

In 2017 the Generation X labor force was down from its peak of 54 million in 2008. The decline reflects a drop in the overall number of Gen X adults (Census Bureau population estimates indicate that their population peaked in 2015). In addition, last year only 82% of Gen Xers were working or looking for work, which is lower than their share in the labor force in 2008 (84%).

Though still sizable, the Baby Boom generation's sway in the workforce is waning. In the early and mid-1980s, Boomers made up a majority of the nation's labor force. The youngest Boomer was 53 years old in 2017, while the oldest Boomers were older than 70. With more Boomers retiring every year and not much immigration to affect their numbers, the size of the Boomer workforce will continue to shrink.

While the Millennial labor force is still growing, partly due to immigration, it is unlikely that the Millennial labor force will reach the peak size of the Boomer labor force (66 million in 1997). The Census Bureau projects that the Millennial population will peak at 75 million. At that number, a high rate of labor force participation would be needed to reach a labor force of 66 million.
Note: This post was originally published on May 11, 2015, under the headline "Millennials surpass Gen Xers as the largest generation in U.S. labor force," which reflected the Center's definition of Millennials at the time (born between 1981 and 1997). This updated version reflects the Center's newly revised definition, under which Millennial births end in 1996, and the incorporation of more recent information.
Topics: Millennials, Work and Employment, Generations and Age

Richard Fry is a senior researcher focusing on economics and education at Pew Research Center.

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Millennials are the largest generation in the U.S. labor force

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More than one-in-three American labor force participants (35%) are Millennials, making them the largest generation in the U.S. labor force, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. As of 2017 - the most recent year for which data are available - 56 million Millennials (those ages 21 to 36 in 2017) were working or looking for work.

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This article is so important when dealing with careers. It stresses the importance of being patient and not setting your expectations too high. As college students at a very prestigious University, we all set very high standards for ourselves and want to achieve everything as fast as we can. However, this article reveals that this is hurtful to us psychologically. We must be patient with ourselves and allow life to steer us in the right direction. We have our whole lives ahead of us. We also need to lower our standards and be more reasonable, as this will limit disappointment and result in our well being rising. The articles states... "rather than twiddle your thumbs expecting everything good to happen right now, be patient that things will happen at the right moment, when you’ve put in the right amount of effort." This is so important to realize as college students and provides a very wise insight to live by.

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This article is very helpful in providing a detailed explanation of what not to do when writing a cover letter. It really helped me understand how cover letters work and what their purpose is. The article stresses that when writing a cover letter, you shouldn't highlight any lack of skill, lack attention to detail, focus too much on the past, speak of money too soon, or make it all about you. These tips are very helpful as I think about making my own cover letter and as we discuss the in class.

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Do you know what to include in your cover letter? Use these samples, templates, and writing tips to create effective cover letters that will get you hired.

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This article talks about the difference between millennials and the generations before them. Workers from the baby boomers generation grew up valuing material items and money a lot more because of the rapid increase in consumerism their generation saw through their lives, possessions became something that motivated the working class. Millennials on the other hand are described as being more driven to work for a purpose and meaning rather than just for the paycheck.

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Fulfillment at work, fulfillment at home... Millennials want it all and they want it fast. Unlike many Moderns, Millennials want to be home for dinner, and want to feel like their 9-5 job has a real purpose. They are constantly seeking purpose in what they do for a living and at the same time want to know how their job is helping them get to the top. They're constantly questioning where they are going next and why. That is, which position they will hold next. If your organization can't tell them that, they'll seek out another firm that will.
This was written with Sienna Zampino.
In the 80s and early 90s, many of the white collar workers of the financial world, like myself, were very much motivated by share price. Many of us worked very hard to get the share price up. Our incomes were often central to how we defined our value and our lives. You might remember the bumper sticker, "He Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins".

Fast forward two decades and you notice that Millennials are concerned with other things. Money is important and they do enjoy making it, however, they long to be part of something bigger than themselves. The workplace doesn't define them to the degree that it did for too many Boomers. Millennials want to lead a balanced life. They want to be happy at home and happy on the job - money is somewhat secondary.

Giving your young employees a purpose will enable them to envision a future with your company. Young people are fickle. They are on an endless search for happiness. If an organization is unable to map out a road plan, a purpose of employment, it will unfortunately notice a high 0-2 year turnover. Millennials need direction and meaning, an interesting mixture of altruism and self-interest.

Millennials are loyal to a job rather than an employer. This is partly a response to their parents sometimes being loyal to a firm that would often lay them off without hesitation when times got rough. A Vice President friend of mine got laid off two weeks ago by a big multinational. When I talked to him that day he reflected that he had always told headhunters when they called, he was loyal to the firm, right after he said that his voice cracked as he realized what he had just said about the firm that fired him that very day.

The Millennials have learned this lesson well, "Why be loyal to an organization that doesn't return that loyalty when the chips are down?" They are ambitious and expect their employers to identify a clear-cut path towards future growth. Promotions, whether they include more money or not, equate to growth. When the path is non-existent or too entangled, the company becomes less alluring.

Integration is an important factor in keeping Millennials. While 63% of young professionals believe that employers successfully integrate young talent, only 31% of new graduates feel that companies properly integrate new employees. Poor communication is often the underlying cause. Onboarding programs are essential to launching a young person's career. Orientation provides a clear sense of the company's purpose, mission, value and goals and where an individual fits in the grand scheme of things.

Often Millennials are incredibly self-assured about their career potential. Their confidence only becomes swayed when their employer fails to provide them with a vision. Imagine an airplane halted on the tarmac. The passengers are seated, the baggage is stowed and the engines are running. The pilot is merely waiting for the signal to go. This is exactly how Millennials feel, arriving at an organization with a hazy vision of the future, but a clear desire to move forward. The message, however, signaling approval for departure and the destination, must come from somewhere. The pilot cannot leave without mission control's guidance. If their plane remains halted, passengers will return to the hanger and jump on another plane.

I have coffee with a couple hundred students and alumni every year and discuss their careers. Over the past 14 years of my doing this, I've noticed the drastic change in these conversations. Many more of the undergrads and MBAs today are looking into working for NGOs, or at least for corporations which have serious Corporate Social Responsibility programs. This search for meaning and purpose is on the agendas of most Millennials in the Western World and increasingly in the developing economies.

What I've also noticed in the last five years mentoring Millennials is that fewer young people working at famous, demanding firms are willing to spend more than a few years there. Families and too much travel do get in the way, but they are also asking themselves the question, "Why work so hard?" To their credit, firms in the consulting and investment banking industry have seen this as well and are changing their ways. Most top consulting firms are having their consultants back in their home office on Fridays so that they are only away Monday to Thursday, unlike the Sunday night to Friday night routine that was common back in my day.

Millennials perceive their parent's generation as a generation riddled with mistakes. The pursuit of the perfect house, matching BMWs and in-ground pools at times outweighed the importance of family. Looking to the future, Millennials want to balance their work and family lives. They want to be home for dinner, and companies are beginning to implement programs where this kind of lifestyle is possible. The "Deloitte Dads", a support group for young working fathers at Deloitte consulting, is great example of the early days of this change.

Employee engagement tools that encourage work-life balance respond to postmodern demand. As far as Millennials are concerned, they want their employers to embrace change and adapt to their needs. And they should. After all, they are the future of all companies.

Organizations who wish to prosper will focus more time on meaning at work, have an organizational purpose and contribution which gives people a sense of satisfaction and a genuine feeling that they are making the world a better place. I work with the Children's Hospital in Montreal and having a sense of meaning and purpose is almost a given for them. The challenge is for firms like cosmetics firm L'Oreal and global banking giant Deutsche Bank to create firms that Millennials can buy into as being firms with greater purpose. I believe it can be done. L'Oreal and Deutsche Bank have made very considerable progress in the past decade in this regard. So should you.

Sienna Zampino is a research assistant of mine and a freshman at McGill. This post is based on a soon forthcoming book co-written with Margaret Snell, , Working More Effectively with Millennials. The "Leading, Managing" part is deliberately crossed out. Why? Because these words are too strong for Millennials.

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Millennials Work For Purpose, Not Paycheck

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Fulfillment at work, fulfillment at home... Millennials want it all and they want it fast. Unlike many Moderns, Millennials want to be home for dinner, and want to feel like their 9-5 job has a real purpose. They are constantly seeking purpose in what they do for a living and [...]

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What is job stress, how to assess it and how to cope with it. Also a free assessment included.

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Melissa had been the ideal worker, always willing to take on new projects, work long hours and weekends - until last year. There were subtle changes at first. Her demeanor turned from always positive to always negative. She began to have problems sleeping. She felt frustrated with a lack of progress within the firm, and a growing sense of no longer being a part of the team.

She started to use sick days for the first time - some for a nagging number of illnesses, some for "mental health" days. Luckily for Melissa, she had some friends who recognized the problem she was suffering from was job stress.

What is Job Stress?

Job stress is something we all face as workers - and we all handle it differently. There is no getting around it. But, not all stress is bad, and learning how to deal with and manage stress is critical to maximizing job performance, staying safe on the job, and maintaining both physical and mental health.

For workers like Melissa, infrequent doses of job stress pose little threat and may be effective in increasing motivation and productivity, but too much - and too prolonged - can lead to a downward spiral - both professionally and personally.

Some jobs, by definition, tend to be higher stress. We're talking about ones that are in dangerous settings (fire, police); ones that deal with demanding customers (customer service providers); ones that have demanding time pressures and demanding customers (healthcare); and ones that have repetitive, detailed work (manufacturing). But stress is not limited to any one particular job or industry.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, states that job stress, now more than ever, poses a threat to the health of workers - and the health of organizations.

NIOSH defines job stress as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker. Stress also occurs when the situation has high demands and the worker has little or no control over it. Job stress can lead to poor health and injury.

Job Stress Statistics

Numerous studies examining job stress sound an alarming bell about the mental and physical health of American workers:

A Northwestern National Life study found that 40 percent of workers report their job is "very or extremely stressful." And that one-fourth of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives.

A Families and Work Institute study found 26 percent of workers report they are "often or very often burned out or stressed by their work."

A Yale University study found 29 percent of workers feel "quite a bit or extremely stressed at work."

A Princeton Survey Research Associates study reports that three-fourths of employees believe the worker has more on-the-job stress than a generation ago.

A Gallup Poll found that 80 percent of workers feel stress on the job, and nearly half reported that they needed help in learning how to manage it.

According to an article in Shape magazine, women are 60 percent more likely to suffer from job stress than men.

Symptoms and Warning Signs of Job Stress

While the causes can be something other than job stress, here are the most common symptoms and early warning signs of job stress and burnout:

Apathy

Negativism/cynicism

Low morale

Boredom

Anxiety

Frustration

Fatigue

Depression

Alienation

Anger/irritability

Physical problems (headaches, stomach problems)

Absenteeism

Causes of Job Stress

There are two schools of thought on the causes of job stress.

According to one theory, differences in individual characteristics, such as personality and coping style, are best at predicting what will stress one person but not another. The focus then becomes on developing prevention strategies that help workers find ways to cope with demanding job conditions.

The other theory proposes that certain working conditions are inherently stress-inducing, such as fear of job loss, excessive workload demands, lack of control or clear direction, poor or dangerous physical working conditions, inflexible work hours, and conflicting job expectations.

The focus then becomes on eliminating or reducing those work environments as the way to reducing job stress.

Strategies for Managing Job Stress

While many of the methods of preventing job stress need to be developed and supported by the organization, there are things that workers can do to help you better manage job stress.

Here are 10 tips for dealing with the stress from your job:

1. Put it in perspective.
Jobs are disposable. Your friends, family, and health are not. If your employer expects too much of you, and it's starting to take its toll on you, start looking for a new job/new employer.

Know that you can build a resume with us (for a new job) should you make the decision to part with your current job.

2. Modify your job situation.
If you really like your employer, but the job has become too stressful (or too boring), ask about tailoring your job to your skills. And if you got promoted into a more stressful position that you just are not able to handle, ask about a lateral transfer - or even a transfer back to your old job (if that's what you want).

3 Get time away.
If you feel the stress building, take a break. Walk away from the situation. Take a walk around the block. Take in a little meditative time. Exercise does wonders for the psyche. But even just finding a quiet place to sit and listen to your favorite chill mix on Spotify can reduce stress.

4. Fight through the clutter.
Taking the time to organize your desk or workspace can help ease the sense of losing control that comes from too much clutter. Keeping a to-do list - and then crossing things off it - also helps.

5. Talk it out.
Sometimes the best stress-reducer is simply sharing your stress with someone close to you. The act of talking it out - and getting support and empathy from someone else - is often an excellent way of blowing of steam and reducing stress. Have a support system of trusted people.

6. Cultivate allies at work.
Just knowing you have one or more co-workers who are willing to assist you in times of stress will reduce your stress level. Just remember to reciprocate and help them when they are in need.

7. Find humor in the situation.
When you - or the people around you - start taking things too seriously, find a way to break through with laughter. Share a joke or funny story.

8. Have realistic expectations.
While Americans are working longer hours, we can still only fit so much work into one day. Having unrealistic expectations for what you can accomplish sets you up for failure - and increased stress.

9. Nobody is perfect.
If you are one of those types that obsess over every detail and micromanage to make sure "everything is perfect," you need to stop. Change your motto to performing your best, and leave perfection to the gods.

10. Maintain a positive attitude (and avoid those without one).
Negativism sucks the energy and motivation out of any situation, so avoid it whenever possible. Instead, develop a positive attitude - and learn to reward yourself for little accomplishments (even if no one else does).

Final Thoughts on Dealing With Job Stress

Okay, so it's a cliche, but your health is everything. You need to take care of yourself, and no job, customer, or boss is worth putting yourself at risk. Find a way out through one or more of our 10 strategies. Take control of your situation - and fix it - and you will have better mental and physical health, as well as better relationships with the people around you.

Questions about some of the terminology used in this article? Get more information (definitions and links) on key college, career, and job-search terms by going to our Job-Seeker's Glossary of Job-Hunting Terms.

Succeed in the workplace! Find great tools and resources for succeeding at work: Workplace Resources for Dealing With Your Job.

Dr. Randall S. Hansen is founder of Quintessential Careers, one of the oldest and most comprehensive career development sites on the Web, as well CEO of EmpoweringSites.com. He is also founder of MyCollegeSuccessStory.com and EnhanceMyVocabulary.com. Dr. Hansen is also a published author, with several books, chapters in books, and hundreds of articles. He's often quoted in the media and conducts empowering workshops around the country. Finally, Dr. Hansen is also an educator, having taught at the college level for more than 15 years. Visit his personal Website or reach him by email at randall(at)quintcareers.com. Check out Dr. Hansen on GooglePlus.

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Managing Job Stress: 10 Strategies for Coping and Thriving | LiveCareer

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Melissa had been the ideal worker, always willing to take on new projects, work long hours and weekends - until last year. There were subtle changes at first. Her demeanor turned from always positive to always negative. She began to have problems sleeping.

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This article discusses the most important aspects in choosing a career. The author makes an interesting point pertaining to the role predicted happiness plays in choosing a career. While he makes it clear that you should be happy with your given career, he explains that humans are often very bad at predicting their future happiness. Thus, we cannot merely choose a career that we think will make us happy, because it very well might not make us happy in reality. We also have to consider, according to this article, the opportunities the career will provide us to grow, the stability it will provide, and the motivation that will arise from the given career choice. I liked this article because it made it a point to convey the practical aspects that go into choosing a career, and not just the emotional aspects we are often trying to fulfill.

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Work hours are crazy in America. In most European countries employees are only required to work the bare minimum. They are encouraged to go home and spend time with their families. In the article the girl said she worked 10 hours consecutively on her feet and because of this she had back pain. That is not okay to do.

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This website has a very long and detailed career guide, including some topics like
in which job can you help the most people?
How can I put myself in the best position to get a high impact job?
...

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Why Superman was wrong to fight crime - comic from SMBC.

Many people think of Superman as a hero. But he may be the greatest example of underutilised talent in all of fiction. It was a blunder to spend his life fighting crime one case at a time; if he'd thought a little more creatively, he could have done far more good. How about delivering vaccines to everyone in the world at superspeed? That would have eradicated most infectious disease, saving hundreds of millions of lives.

Here we'll argue that a lot of people who want to "make a difference" with their career fall into the same trap as Superman. College graduates imagine becoming doctors or teachers - careers that help people directly. But these may not be the best fit for their particular skills. And like Superman fighting crime, these paths can often only help a limited number of people at once.

In contrast, Nobel Prize winner Karl Landsteiner discovered blood groups, enabling hundreds of millions of life-saving operations. He would have never been able to carry out that many surgeries himself.

At the same time, many graduates feel unfulfilled in their careers because they don't have a job that directly helps people. But there's no need for this. It can be fulfilling to help indirectly as well, so by being more open-minded and creative about how to do good, more people can find a career that both uses their unique skills and helps others.
Reading time: 20 minutes.
Below we'll introduce four ways to use your career to help tackle the social problems you want to help work on (which we identified in the previous article). The four ways are earning to give, advocacy, and research, as well as direct work. We'll make concrete recommendations on how to pursue each approach.

Once you've chosen a problem, as we covered in the previous article, the next step is to work out how best to contribute to solving it.

Consider indirect approaches such as research, advocacy and earning to give, as well as direct work. You might be able to find a path that offers more influence, or that's a better fit for you.

Then focus on the approaches that are most needed in your problem area. Some problems are best solved through changing policy. Others most need research, while others require funding, and so on.

Finally, because the most successful people in a field achieve far more than the typical person, choose something where you have the potential to excel. Don't do something you won't enjoy in order to have more impact.

Ultimately, look for the best option on a combination of (i) how pressing the problem is (ii) how large your contribution will be (iii) your degree of personal fit.

The bottom line

Approach 1: Earning to give

Would Bill Gates have done more good if he'd worked at a small non-profit? We don't normally think of software engineering as a path to doing good, but Gates has saved the lives of millions of children by funding vaccines. That's a huge amount of good, even if you're not keen on Microsoft.

We often meet people who are interested in a higher earning job, like software engineering, but are worried they won't make a difference. Part of the reason is that we don't usually think of earning more money as a path for people who want to do good. However, there are many effective organisations that have no problem finding enthusiastic staff, but don't have the funds to hire. People who are a good fit for a higher earning option can donate to these organisations, and make a large contribution indirectly.

Earning to give is not just for people who want to work in high paying industries. Anyone who aims to earn more in order to give more is on this path.

Consider the story of Julia and Jeff, a couple from Boston with two children. Julia switched from non-profit admin work to social work at a prison. Jeff used to work as research technician. He decided to train up to become a software engineer, and eventually got a job at Google. The couple were able to earn more than twice as much, so started to donate about half their income to charity each year.

By doing this, they probably have had more impact than they could by working directly in a non-profit. Compare Jeff's impact to that of the CEO of a non-profit:

Jeff can live on about two times as much as he would have earned in the non-profit sector, and still donate enough to fund the salaries of about two non-profit CEOs. On top of this, he may also have some positive direct impact too, since Google has developed valuable innovations like Google Maps and Gmail; and he thinks he's happier in his work because he enjoys engineering.

Moreover, Jeff and Julia can switch their donations to whichever organisations are most in need of funds at any given time based on their research, whereas it's harder to change where you work. This flexibility is particularly valuable because we don't know which problems will be most pressing in the future.

This opportunity exists because (as we saw earlier) we happen to live in a world with huge income inequality - it's possible to earn several times as much as a teacher or non-profit worker, and vastly more than the world's poorest people. At the same time, hardly anyone donates more than a few percent of their income, so if you are willing to do so, you can have an amazing impact in a very wide range of jobs.

Earlier, we also saw that any college graduate in a developed country can have a major impact by giving 10% to an effective charity. The average graduate earns $77,000 per year over their life, and 10% of that could save about 40 lives if given to the Against Malaria Foundation for example.

If you could just earn 10% more, and donate the extra, then that's twice as much impact again. And if you think there are better organisations to fund than Against Malaria Foundation - perhaps working on different problems, or research or advocacy - the impact is even higher.

Since we introduced the concept of "earning to give" in 2011, hundreds of people have taken it up and stuck with it. Most give around 30% of their income, and some more than 50%. Collectively, they'll donate tens of millions of dollars to high impact charities in the coming years. In doing so, they are funding passionate people who want to contribute directly, but who otherwise wouldn't have the resources.

One of the people we advised in 2011, Matt, has donated over $1m while still in his 20s, and was featured in the New York Times. He finds his job more enjoyable too.

Another quit his job as a software engineer and founded a startup. He has pledged all of his income above minimum wage to charity. If his startup's current valuation is accurate, then he'll give millions of dollars to charity in the next decade. His startup also reduces paperwork for doctors, and so it has direct impact too.

"Without 80,000 Hours' research, I wouldn't have started this company; and without their community, I wouldn't have made it this far."

Read Ben's story

Should you earn to give?

Earning to give has been our most memorable and controversial idea, attracting media coverage in the BBC, Washington Post, Daily Mail and many other outlets.

For this reason, many people think it's our top recommendation. But it's not: it depends on your situation.

You're a good fit for a higher earning option. Don't become a consultant if you'd hate it - you'll be more likely to burn out and put your career in a worse long-term position, and you won't earn that much anyway. Even if you only care about your impact, it's important to be good at your job.

You want to gain skills in a higher earning option (for use in more direct work later on), and earning to give could help you to stay engaged with social impact while you do so. (In the next article we explain why it's important to gain "career capital".)

You're very uncertain about which problems are most pressing. Earning to give provides the most flexibility because you can easily change where you donate, or even save the money and give later.

You want to contribute to an area that is more funding-constrained rather than talent constrained.

We think earning to give is an option worth considering when:

In fact, if you're especially focused on the global problems we think are most pressing, especially within the effective altruism community, then we don't think earning to give should be your first choice. This is because these areas seem more talent constrained than funding constrained. Instead, we recommend trying to first contribute directly, in effective non-profits, government or research.

Common objections to earning to give

Can people actually stick with it? Won't they end up being influenced by their peers to spend the money on luxuries rather than donating? We were worried this would happen when we first introduced the idea, but it hasn't. Hundreds of people are pursuing earning to give and while some have left because they thought they could do more good elsewhere, no-one we know has simply given up their plans to donate. In part, this is because many people pursuing earning to give made public pledges of their intentions to donate, often through Giving What We Can. The existence of a community that earns to give also makes it much easier to stick with today.

Don't many high earning jobs cause harm? We don't recommend taking a job that does a lot of harm in order to donate the money. In practice, most people who earn to give work in the fields of technology, asset management, medicine or consulting, and we think these positions do a small amount of good, or are neutral. For instance, many (but not all) financial traders make profits at the expense of other traders, so they're moving money around, mostly from rich people to other rich people. Of course, there are some people who cause harm in these industries, but that's true of any industry.

More broadly, there are lots of ways to earn more money, and we doubt all of these are harmful. What about medicine, engineering or private tutoring? There is also the option to make the industry better from the inside. If you're socially motivated and you replace someone who doesn't care about the harm they do, that may well be better for the world.

What if I wouldn't be motivated doing a high earning job? In that case, don't do one. We only recommend earning to give if it's a good fit. Just bear in mind, as we covered previously, that you can become interested in more jobs than you might think.

Couldn't I have more impact doing something else? There's a good chance that you could, as we cover later in the article.

(To go into the ethics of earning to give in more depth, see this paper we published.)

What's the best way to earn to give?
How to earn to give
To learn about how to best earn to give - including recommendations of which jobs to take - see this article:

Which charities are most effective?

As we've seen, many social interventions have no proven impact, and many other charities are poorly run black boxes. So if you give to the wrong organisation, you won't achieve much.

On the other hand, so long as there's at least one highly effective organisation to fund, then earning to give can be high impact. You don't even need to limit yourself to funding charities - you could fund research, political advocacy or for-good for-profits instead.

We've already covered GiveWell's top recommended charity, Against Malaria Foundation, as an example of an effective organisation. Learn more about which charities are most effective to donate to.

Approach 2: Advocacy

One alternative to earning to give is advocacy - the promotion of solutions to pressing problems. Advocacy can also be pursued in a wide range of careers, and can be even higher impact than earning to give.

1. Earn to give yourself.

2. Earn to give yourself, and persuade a friend to earn to give as well.

Consider the following options:

The second path does more good - in fact probably about twice as much - and this illustrates the power of advocacy.

Many of the highest impact people in history have been advocates of one kind or another. Take Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus, sparking a protest which led to a Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional. Parks was a seamstress in her day job, but in her spare time she was very involved with the civil rights movement. After she was arrested, she and the NAACP worked hard and worked strategically, staying up all night creating thousands of fliers to launch a total boycott of buses in a city of 40,000 African Americans, whilst simultaneously pushing forward with legal action. This led to major progress for civil rights.

There are also many examples you don't hear about, like Viktor Zhdanov, who was one of the highest impact people of the twentieth century.

In the twentieth century, smallpox killed around 400 million people, far more than died in all wars and political famines. Credit for the elimination often goes to D.A. Henderson, who was in charge of the World Health Organization's elimination programme. However, the programme already existed before he was brought on board. In fact, he initially turned down the job. The programme would probably have eventually succeeded even if Henderson hadn't accepted the position.

Zhdanov single-handedly lobbied that WHO to start the elimination campaign in the first place. Without his involvement, it would not have happened until much later, and possibly not at all.

So why has advocacy been so effective in the past?

First, ideas can spread quickly, so advocacy is a way for a small group of people to have a large effect on a problem. A small team can launch a social movement, lobby a government, start a campaign that influences public opinion, or just persuade their friends to take up a cause. In each case, they can have a lasting impact on the problem that goes far beyond what they could achieve directly.

Second, advocacy is neglected. This is because there's usually no commercial incentive to spread socially important ideas. Instead, advocacy is mainly pursued by people willing to dedicate their careers to making the world a better place.

Advocacy is also neglected because it's uncomfortable to stand up to the status quo, and it's often difficult to see the effect of your efforts, which makes it less motivating than doing good directly. Zhdanov was more important to the elimination effort than Henderson, but Henderson got the credit. For these reasons, advocacy can be a high impact path for those who are willing to step up.

In fact, there's reason to think that advocacy is typically better than earning to give. One reason for this is that everyone wants more money so there's a lot of competition, which places a limit on how much you can easily earn (and subsequently donate). There's a lot less competition to spread good ideas, for the reasons we just discussed. So we expect that it would be possible for many people to influence more money than they could donate.

Advocacy is also an area where the most successful efforts do far more than the typical efforts in the field. The most successful advocates influence millions of people, while others might struggle to persuade more than a few friends. This means if you're a good fit for advocacy, it's often the best thing you can do, and you're likely to achieve far more by doing it yourself than you could by funding someone to engage in advocacy on your behalf.
How to become an advocate
If you're interested in pursuing a career in advocacy - including recommendations of specific types of jobs - see our full article:

Approach 3: Research

People often pan academics as Ivory Tower intellectuals whose writing has no impact. And we agree there are many problems with academia that mean researchers achieve less than they could. However, we still think research is often high impact, both within academia and outside.

Along with advocates, many of the highest impact people in history have been researchers. Consider Alan Turing. He was a mathematician who developed code breaking machines that allowed the Allies to be far more effective against Nazi U-boats in WW2. Some historians estimate this enabled D-day to happen a year earlier than it would have otherwise. Since WW2 resulted in 10 million deaths per year, Turing may have saved about 10 million lives.

And he invented the computer.

Turing's example shows that research can both be theoretical and high impact. Much of his work concerned the abstract mathematics of computing, which wasn't initially practically relevant, but became important over time.

On the applied side, we saw lots of examples of high impact medical research earlier in this guide.

Of course, not everyone will be an Alan Turing, and not every discovery gets adopted. Nevertheless, we think research on average is effective, and frequently better than working directly on a problem. Why?

First, when new ideas are discovered they can be spread incredibly cheaply, so it's a way that a single career can change a field. Moreover, new ideas accumulate over time, so research contributes to a significant fraction of long-run progress.

However, only a relatively small fraction of people are engaged in research. Only 0.1% of the population are academics, and the proportion was much smaller throughout history. If a small number of people account for a large fraction of progress, then on average each person's efforts are significant.

Second, this is exactly what we'd expect from economic theory. Most researchers don't get rich, even if their discoveries are extremely valuable. Turing made no money from the discovery of the computer, whereas today it's a multibillion dollar industry. This is because the benefits of research come a long time in the future, and can't usually be protected by patents. This means there's little commercial incentive to do research relative to its importance. So if you do care more about social impact than profit, then it's a good opportunity.

In fact, the more fundamental the research, the harder it is to commercialise, so, all else equal, we'd expect fundamental research to be more neglected than applied research, and therefore (all else equal) higher impact. On the other hand, applied issues can be more urgent - applied breakthroughs like the telescope can let us make fundamental breakthroughs faster - so it's hard to say whether applied or fundamental research is more pressing on average.

Like advocacy, research is especially promising when you're a good fit, because the best researchers achieve much more than the median. Most papers only have 1 citation, whereas the top 0.1% of papers have over 1,000 citations. And when we did a case study on biomedical research, remarks like this were typical:

One good person can cover the ground of five, and I'm not exaggerating.

If you might be a top 10% researcher in a pressing problem area, then it's likely to be the highest impact path for you.

Which research areas are high impact?
How to go into research
See our full guide to doing high-impact research, both within and outside academia:

Example: Hauke became unsatisfied with his potential for impact in academia during a neuroscience PhD. He applied to almost all our top recommended career paths, and was offered a position by Giving What We Can. He now leads their efforts to research the cost-effectiveness of different charities.

Don't forget supporting positions

Becoming an academic administrator doesn't sound like a high impact career, but that's exactly why it is. Research requires administrators, managers, grant makers, and communicators to make progress. Many of these roles require very able people who understand the research, but because they're not glamorous or highly paid, it can be hard to attract the right people. For this reason, if a role like this is a good fit for you, then it can be promising. What ultimately matters is not who does the research, but that it gets done.

A hero of ours is Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh. He studied for a PhD in comparative genomics, but ultimately decided to pursue academic project management. He became a manager at the Future of Humanity Institute, which undertakes neglected research into emerging catastrophic risks, like engineered pandemics. He did a heroic amount of work behind the scenes to keep things running as funding rapidly grew. When there was an opportunity to start a new group in Cambridge, he used what he'd learned to lead efforts there too - at one point managing both groups. The field would have moved much more slowly without his management. Learn more in this interview with Sean.

If you're interested in these positions, the best path is usually to pursue a PhD, pick a field, then apply to research groups.

Approach 4: Direct work

If you do want to help directly, how can you do that most effectively?

The problem with many direct work positions is that they're not neglected. For instance, in earlier in the guide we saw that clinical doctors in rich countries don't usually have a large impact because there are already many doctors in these countries, so the most important and impactful procedures are going to get done anyway. We also saw that neglected areas are higher-impact due to diminishing returns.

Another problem is that many want to work at organisations that are more constrained by funding than by the number of people enthusiastic to work there. This means if you don't take the job, it would be easy to find someone else who's almost as good. Think of a lawyer who volunteers at a soup kitchen. It may be motivating for them, but it's hardly the most effective thing they could do. Donating one or two hours of salary could pay for several better trained people to do the work instead. Or they could do pro bono legal work, and contribute in a way that makes use of their valuable skills.

Other direct work positions limit your potential influence. Think of Superman fighting criminals one by one, or Dr Landsteiner trying to work really hard to perform more surgeries rather than discovering blood groups.

However, there are plenty of other situations when working directly is the most effective thing to do. There are many great teams working on innovative, neglected solutions to pressing problems. If you're a good fit for one of these, and they're finding it hard to hire (they are "talent constrained"), then it can be the best option. Learn more about working at effective non-profits.

Entrepreneurship - both non-profit and for-profit

If an effective organisation doesn't exist within the area, then you could help found one. This was our thinking with 80,000 Hours: we knew no-one else was systematically doing this research.

Here's another area where this might be true. As of the last decade, several very large foundations have been created that want to fund charities that carry out evidence-based health interventions, such as the Gates Foundation, CIFF, and the Open Philanthropy Project (which is partnered with GiveWell). However, these foundations are short of projects that meet their criteria. If you could build expertise in getting health interventions efficiently implemented, you could raise tens of millions in funding from these foundations, and have far more impact than earning to give.

This is what Joey and Kate are doing. They left college early to focus on fundraising for charities like Against Malaria Foundation. However, they realised it would be even higher impact to try to set up something new. They spent six months reviewing a list of health interventions, and found one that looked effective, was simple to roll out, but didn't have a charity focusing on it.

They settled on text reminders for vaccinations in India, which have been shown in four randomised controlled trials to make it significantly more likely for people to get vaccinated. They're now setting up this organisation and already have raised $200,000 from the Open Philanthropy Project.

However, you don't need to be the leader of an organisation. As with research management, operations roles are both vital and difficult, but because these positions are unglamorous, it's often hard to attract the right people.

Finally, direct work can be for-profit as well as non-profit. For instance, Send Wave enables African migrant workers to transfer money to their families through a mobile app for fees of 3%, rather than 10% fees with Western Union. So for every $1 of revenue they make, they make some of the poorest people in the world several dollars richer. They've already had an impact equivalent to donating millions of dollars, and they're growing quickly. The total size of the market is hundreds of billions of dollars, and several times larger than all aid spending. If they can slightly accelerate the roll out of cheaper ways to transfer money, it'll have a big impact.

If you're providing a service directly to beneficiaries, a for-profit is likely to be more effective because you get better feedback on whether your service is useful, and you can scale up more quickly. (We'll be collecting more advice on doing good in for-profits in our tech entrepreneurship review.) Non-profits are best when they're doing something that's very hard to commercialise, such as research, advocacy, helping the extreme poor, and the provision of public goods like a clean environment, or services like education that take a long-time to pay off.

However, sometimes it's even possible to use for-profits to do socially important research and provide public goods. Elon Musk's Tesla sells fancy electric cars to rich people, which isn't very high impact. But the real mission of the company is to develop cheaper batteries that will make it much easier to transition to a green economy, and eventually electrify all of transport. Musk also created SpaceX, which makes money by selling cheap rockets to NASA, but the real mission of the company is to speed up the colonisation of space, and make humanity more likely to survive a disaster on Earth.

How can you find a good direct work position?

1. Decide which problems you think are most pressing.

2. Identify the best organisations within these areas, especially those that are especially limited by talent rather than funding. You can look in our problem reviews for recommended organisations, and then see this longer list .

3. Find the positions where you'd be the best fit.

If you want to find a job with direct positive impact:

Here are some jobs we'd especially recommend working towards:

What about if you want to found an organisation?

One mistake people make is trying to work out which organisations are needed from their armchair, or by choosing an issue that they've happened to come across in their own lives. Instead, go and learn about big, neglected social problems. Take a job in the area, do further study and speak to lots of people working on the problem, to find out what the world really needs. You need to get near the edge of an area before you'll spot the ideas others haven't, and have the connections you'll need to execute.

Which is the right approach for you?

We've now seen that by thinking broadly - considering earning to give, advocacy, and research as well as direct work - you can find many more ways to make a big contribution to pressing problems.

Hopefully that has given you some new ideas for jobs you could take. Now, how do you narrow these options down to find the best one?

The first thing to note is that these four approaches are not exclusive, and you can do more than one at the same time. For instance, a teacher helps their students (direct impact), but could also develop new educational techniques (research) or tell their students about pressing problems (advocacy). We know a teacher who did private tutoring in order to donate more (earning to give). As we've seen, often your impact is more about how you use your position than the position itself. This means, you'll want to look for the positions that offer the best balance of ways to contribute directly, through advocacy and through donations. In our career reviews, we assess each path on these three ways of contributing.

The second point is that there is no single best approach for every problem. Rather, focus on the approaches that are most needed by the problems you want to solve. For instance, breast cancer doesn't need more social advocacy to promote awareness, because almost everyone is aware that breast cancer is a problem. Instead, it probably needs more skilled researchers to develop better treatments. If you just focus on raising awareness, then your efforts won't go as far. We highlight which skills are most needed within each area in our problem profiles.

Third, do something where you have the chance to excel. Throughout this article, there is a vital general principle to bear in mind: the most successful people in a field have far more impact than the typical career. For instance, a landmark study of expert performers found:

A small percentage of the workers in any given domain is responsible for the bulk of the work. Generally, the top 10% of the most prolific elite can be credited with around 50% of all contributions, whereas the bottom 50% of the least productive workers can claim only 15% of the total work, and the most productive contributor is usually about 100 times more prolific than the least.

Just as we saw with choosing a problem, this means the most effective approach for you will be something you enjoy, that motivates you, and is a good fit for your skills. We sometimes come across people tempted to do a job they'd hate in order to have more impact. That's likely a bad idea, since they'll just burn out. Their example could also discourage others from doing good.

An outstanding charity worker will likely do more good than a mediocre engineer earning to give, and the reverse is also true.

On the other hand, as we've seen, people often underestimate how easily they can become interested in new jobs.

We explain more about the importance of personal fit and how to work out which career is best for you in a later article.

If you already have expertise in an area, then that should also be factored in. We have more specific advice broken down by area here, as well as in the career reviews and problem profiles.

Conclusion: in which job can you help the most people?

There are many more paths to helping others in your career than we normally talk about. Bill Gates started as a software engineer, and saved millions of lives through earning to give. Rosa Parks was a seamstress, and helped to trigger the civil rights movement in America through advocacy. Alan Turing was a mathematician, and helped to end WW2 through research, as well as inventing the computer. Elon Musk is a businessman, but is helping to revolutionise the car and space industries to reduce risks to humanity's future.

Most people aren't Bill Gates, but even at a normal graduate salary, anyone can have an astonishing impact through earning to give, literally saving hundreds of lives. And it's often possible to do even more through advocacy, research or direct work.

Moreover, if you focus on the approaches that are best suited to the problems you want to solve and where you have the best personal fit, you can do even more good again. And you can do this while having a more satisfying career too.

In this way, even if you don't want to be a doctor or a teacher, it's possible to do far more good with your career than is normally thought.

Apply this to your own career

1. Decide which two to five problems you think are most pressing.

2. Find the relevant problem profiles, read the list of career ideas in each profile, and note any that could be a good fit for you.

3. Go through the four approaches we covered in this chapter, and list out any other options that could be a good fit for you.

Before we move on, make an initial short list of high impact careers you could work towards in the long-run. The following steps may help:

The aim at this point is just to come up with more options. We'll explain how to further narrow down in an upcoming article.

If you're early in your career, try our career quiz
It's a six-question quiz that filters our recommended list of careers based on your answers.

If you already have experience, read our advice by area

Recap of our career guide so far

1. Helps others.

2. Is something you're good at.

3. Has the right supportive conditions (e.g. engaging work, fit with the rest of your life).

Earlier, we saw that an enjoyable and fulfilling job:

1. Is focused on the most pressing problems - those that are big in scale, neglected and solvable - as we covered here.

2. Uses most effective approaches, considering research, advocacy and earning to give as well as direct work. That's what we covered in this article.

3. Is something where you have the chance to excel. We'll explain how to work out where you have the best personal fit later on.

We've now also seen that the job that most helps others:

Should you sacrifice to do more good?

People often ask us whether they should sacrifice what they enjoy in order to have a greater impact. But, as you can see above, doing good involves less sacrifice than it first seems. A personally satisfying job involves helping others, because that's fulfilling. And a high impact job will also be personally satisfying, because if you don't like your job you won't be good at it and you'll burn out. So there's a lot of overlap.

We've also seen there are lots of ways to have a big impact with little, if any, sacrifice. So, rather than making sacrifices, the key thing to focus on is finding these highly effective ways to help.

That's not to say there's no trade-off at all. It's unlikely that the very best career for you personally is also the one that most benefits the world. Ultimately, you'll have to make a value judgement about how to weigh helping others against your own interests. But fortunately, the trade-off is much less than it first seems.

How can I put myself in the best position to get a high impact job?

You probably can't just walk into your dream job right away. Instead you'll need to build your skills, connections and credentials - what we call career capital - and put yourself in a better position for the long-term. Especially early on in your career, it's best to focus on both impact and career capital.

In the next article, we'll look at how to build career capital and best position yourself for long-term success.

Part 7:Which jobs put you in the best position for the future?

If you're new, go to the start of the guide for an overview.
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Why Superman shouldn't have fought crime and what this shows about doing good with your career

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Why Superman was wrong to fight crime - comic from SMBC. Many people think of Superman as a hero. But he may be the greatest example of underutilised talent in all of fiction. It was a blunder to spend his life fighting crime one case at a time; if he'd thought a little more creatively, he could have done far more good.

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Like we discussed in class everyone needs an incentive to work. Bonuses are what people that work for companies work towards, and it's also what assures they will do their best work. It is understandable the economy is slow but employees should be rewarded in some way.

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I liked this article because it really stresses networking and getting out there to get to know people and work your way in the system. It may seem bad, but sometimes you need help, you can't just cook a meal with no way of knowing, you ask your mom and you get the job done.
Networking also helps you get people experience.

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I love this article because it emphasizes the importance to do what you love for work. At least try to include what you like, because that way you're able to work more efficiently and time will go by faster.

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I enjoyed this article because it helps you think of outside the box. Knowing competition and other companies besides the one you're applying at is a really good way of knowing how to beat them so you can be better.

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I really liked this article because I've not applied for jobs because I've felt underqualified. I know a lot of students I've mentored felt this way before as well. I think it's very good advice to apply for jobs you are interested in-- there's more to an employee than someone who meets the qualifications perfectly. There's not much to lose if you apply to a job that you expect to be rejected from. This article is a very interesting way of looking at these opportunities.

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No matter what field your career is in, there are many ways for you to be successful. Sundheim talks about how to be very effective at your job. I think it's interesting how he talks about how you can be successful by knowing your values, and to care about the people you work with. I think a lot of people know that you have to work hard to succeed, but it's also about setting up an environment where you will work well.

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Job interviews can be really stressful, but with a few psychological tips or tricks. In this article, there are 21 tricks to help us ace our interview. We have learned most of the tips through our lectures, thus I have picked some tips that we have not learn or those that I have nerve learned. The most amusing tips for interviews is to not smile too much. According to some researchers if one smiles too much it can undermine their success in a job interview. Another tip that we know which is to ask your interviewee a question before you leave, but you should also ask them why they brought you in for an interview. By asking that question you draw the interviewee to talk about your strength.

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Working hard is really important to reach for your goals, but taking breaks in between work is as important to run more efficiently. The article above talks about the importance of taking breaks and how you should take breaks. The reason why one should take breaks is simply to boost performances. Breaks can replenish attention, ensure better performances, boost focus. One of the most popular breaks people take is 'snack break', but the best way to take breaks is a psychological detachment. So anything from medication, physical activity, or learning something new would be the ideal breaks that would boost an individual to work better.

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This article is very intriguing and informative. We always hear about the "elevator pitch" and its importance. However, few have training on this and are able to recite one. This article gives prime examples of valuable pitches, as well as offers guidance into different methods of pitching yourself to a potential dream employer. I plan on utilizing the information in this article going forward in my job searches.

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I think this was interesting because it talks about how your career needs to be fluid. What you do depends on your current situation and who you meet. I think it's really important to build your network up because you never know if you can use them as a resource to help your career. I also think it's  very important to gaintransferrable knowledge. You never know what life will throw at you, so the more prepared you are, the better off your career will be

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/actiontrumpseverything/2014/03/08/why-career-plans-are-dangerous-to-your-career-and-what-you-should-do-instead/#37287a61d581Brown brings up an interesting point here about how industry is always changing. Just because Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are some of The largest companies right now  they may not be in the next decade. It's always useful to be fluid about your career and to be prepared to change.  

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/actiontrumpseverything/2014/03/08/why-career-plans-are-dangerous-to-your-career-and-what-you-should-do-instead/#37287a61d581Brown brings up an interesting point here about how industry is always changing. Just because Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are some of The largest companies right now  they may not be in the next decade. It's always useful to be fluid about your career and to be prepared to change.  

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This thanksgiving break I watched a movie on Netflix with my sibling on Greek life, and I wondered if actually Greek life helps with career planning. This article talks about how having a Greek life background can actually help you for your career. By taking leadership positions, it leads an individual to cultivate intellectual and emotional connection with the organization and in the future for the company he or she will be working. By having a connection with the workplace individuals will have higher motivation to run for higher positions and for bigger responsibilities.

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http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/12/pf/college/college-grad-jobs/index.html

The stigma surrounding liberal arts graduates from college is that they either go to law school, become a teacher, or get a terrible- minimum wage paying job. Two economists recently took a closer look into the future of Liberal Arts Grads and found that only 9% of recent grads landed low-skilled, low-paying jobs. There is some truth to the myth as over half of recent grads ended up as over-qualified workers in jobs that didn’t require college degrees. More than one third did end up earning $52,000 per year.

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http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/16/news/economy/census-poverty-income/index.html

This article is about the average salary for families in the United States. In 2014 the average was $53,657. A year earlier the income was actually higher, $54,462. This median is below the estimated peak that was set in 1999. Americans are weary as to the economy recovering fully and where it is headed as the nation’s poverty rate has been at a steady 14.8%. More than 1 in 5 Americans are in poverty. This article is relevant to many of us as we explore different careers with varying salaries and where they will compare with the average of the rest of the economy.

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http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/03/news/economy/low-minimum-wage-worker/index.html

This article is about a single mom who is raising her son on a $7.50 per hour salary. She works on average of 20 hours per week. The article shows how she pays for groceries, rent, her electric bills, child care, and gas. Making such a small amount of money is hard to make ends meet but this mother is making it work along with the help of food stamps and a few other governmental programs. This article is helpful is showing people that even if you aren’t making $70,000 per year, you can still make ends meet and support yourself and a child.

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http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/24/pf/college/student-loan-refinance/index.html?iid=EL

This article could be useful for any student with student loans. This student saved $20,000 by refinancing her student loan. Many don’t know this is an option but you are able to refinance loans whether they are private or federal loans, there are many options out there. Refinancing is different than consolidating loans and it is important to know the exact difference.

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Self-promotion in the 2017 is a must for all of us to stand out from the crowd, and especially for women it is even harder for us to differentiate or advocate for ourselves. This article focus more on how females could advocate for themselves with tips and guidelines. The first tip she gives us is to form a coalition to recognize in each other in meetings. Second is to create a brag club to talk about your accomplishment . Third promote each other on social media. Fourth is to find yourself a mentor.

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First impressions are the last impressions, is the most cliche quote we have all heard. But with this article I was able to realize exactly what people look at when 'judging' someone for the first time. The first cue is "babyfaceness" , which means having a baby life face with big eyes, or big forehead. Second cues is "familiarity" , so if a certain face reminds you of certain person with certain characteristics you are more likely to judge or connect the person you are meeting for the first time with the other person you met in the past. Third, would be fitness. Finally, would be "emotional resemblance" of your facial features.

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Happiness in a career should be the main thing a job hunter looks for. If you are not happy at your job it will feel like a waste of your time. This in turn will reduce quality of work and productivity. This article explains how a career plan or path is important to make sure you will be happy with a potential career. Having a map and knowing what you need to do will help when making a career decision. The article highlights the importance of flexibility and knowing what makes you happy about certain careers. When you have a career path you have an idea of what you want to do in life, and this in turn will make you happy.

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LinkedIn is one of the most popular way to find jobs in the current day and age. This article gives tips on how to use LinkedIn to the best of your ability. It is important to make your headline eye catching but also clear and concise. You need to be active on the site and it really helps to follow companies you are attempting to work for. Through my use of LinkedIn I have found it important to use the website to research companies. This can help when figuring out if you want to apply for the job, and prepping for interviews.

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Often today we do not hear of people enjoying their jobs. People can being to feel stuck in their careers, but there are ways to make your job more enjoyable. This article focuses on making small changes, such as decluttering your desk or create a positive visual for when you are stressed. Many of the other steps recommended include the employee taking the steps to get involved with the employer.

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This article discusses the importance of employees to find happiness in the work that they are doing. Employers should realize that their employee's happiness is an important detail to pay attention to, because this can greatly effect the productivity levels. I think that this article gives great insight on what an employer can do to make a work place better for workers. The reason that this is important goes beyond productivity, for it also increases the interest that workers have in the job and increases a company's reputation.

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Cover letters are just as important as resumes, but most students do not focus on creating a strong cover letter. According to the article, many hiring managers claim that cover letters are the most important aspect of an application. The reason for this is that a cover letter synthesizes a person's skills and background and allows a recruiter to understand why a candidate would be perfect for the job. One of the main tips to creating a strong cover letter is to speak about what you bring to the company and how your past experiences make you qualified for the position.

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A strong resume is vital when applying to job positions. It is the first thing that companies look at when they are considering a candidate for a position. For this reason, it is important to have a strong resume. This article shows how to create a strong resume and write a great cover letter that will impress companies. This article discusses how there is more than one way to create a resume and how resumes vary from career to career, but gives great general guidelines to create a great resume. Some tips include creating a section for your objectives, summary, and work history.

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This article discusses the link between happiness and success and describes the importance of being happy. The article describes how happy people tend to be more successful. This article does a great job in encouraging people to find a career that makes them happy because happiness is the key to success. Happiness is a choice and making this choice can greatly impact a person's career.

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This talk and the associated article shares an insightful view on success and happiness. In the talk, Shawn Achor describes how the idea of working hard to be happy is backwards. With this mindset, one will never truly be happy. I think that listening to Shawn Achor's point of view will allow more people to realize that happiness pushes us to be more productive.

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A resume is a standard part of one’s job search and is a great way for an applicant to provide a summary of your skills and accomplishments and it’s like an “advertisement” for who you are and why you’re best fit for a specific job. Every job applicant is coming in with that polished 1 page resume especially McCombs students who are all given a specific resume format in their BA 101 class. You want your resume to look unique and stand out and this article is a great guide on first, what to include/ how to format your resume and second, how to make it stand out from the rest.

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While resumes are written to highlight/market your skills, cover letters are a great opportunity to distinguish yourself from the others applying to the exact some job. You want to tailor the cover letter to address the job and the hiring manager specifically and be creative. This is a way to show the manager a side of you on top of the resume and the interview. Read this article for a step by step on how to write a winning cover letter.

https://www.livecareer.com/how-to-write-a-resume
The second article I posted has 19 questions that students may have about resumes and it also works as a great checklist to make sure you've included everything you need with the right format.

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A case interview a type of job interview where the applicant is presented with a challenging business scenario and they must propose a solution to it. This type of interview is commonly used by consulting firms to better screen candidates because it has them assess their analytical skills and allows firms to see how the applicants solve problems under pressure. It requires a lot more
preparation and this article is a great way to start.

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Cover letters can be a powerful way to show your personality and individual interest in a company to recruiters that a resume just can't. Although they aren't often explicitly required in addition to a resume, they can help draw attention to your application. This article provides some helpful tips in writing your first cover letter, from the basic structure to the importance of customizing each letter to specifically show how your skills and experiences make you a good fit for the position in question.

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This article does a great job of highlighting some seemingly simple interview questions that often trip up candidates. I have found myself momentarily stuck from questions like these, and would have found this article helpful. It correctly emphasizes balancing thoroughness with oversharing on some typically asked open-ended questions like "tell me about yourself" or "why are you interested in this position?" Often times in interviews, trying to sell yourself too hard can ultimately work against you.

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This article provides information about a typically underutilized tool in the college job-seekers arsenal: informational interviews. Sometimes the most difficult part of beginning a career search is finding out which aligns with your talents and interests. Informational interviews give potential applicants the ability to hear from someone who's position they might be in a few years in the future, and are effective informal networking opportunities.

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This article provides a few tips on writing effective resumes. Resume crafting is an incredibly important skill for all of us, regardless of if we plan on going into the workforce, graduate school, or some other occupation following graduation. I also identify with this article because in my job as a student recruiter for the McCombs honors program, I routinely tell hopeful students this same information. Specifically, the importance of quantifying as much as possible: the person looking at resumes probably sees lots of club founders or presidents, so the title itself does not mean much. But, if the applicant can quantify what they've done (like "Organized a food drive that raised 1000 pounds of food for the local homeless shelter") it gives the recruiter a more tangible sense of the applicants abilities and accomplishments. These are timeless tips, and mastering them can provide a big boost in our recruiting effectiveness

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This article highlights some common mistakes that college students encounter when looking for a job. The first, simply applying to more jobs, while simple is incredibly important from a purely statistical perspective, putting students in a better position for ultimate success. The point that I want to echo the most is the importance of networking and doing more than simply applying on a company's website for a position. I got my own internship primarily through connecting with a recruiter through an introduction of a friend who worked at the company last summer. This not only substantially sped up the recruiting process, but made me more relaxed because I could put a face to the organization and have an open conversation about why I wanted the position and was qualified for it.

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This article involves the same subject as my previous post. It is so important we know how to write cover letters we do not have relevant experience in because we are still capable of doing the job and the cover letter can help you show that. This article helps you determine whether applying for the job is reasonable, highlight the keywords and attributes that you fulfill, pull out your key accomplishments and give specific examples, demonstrating your interest towards that position, and finishing off your cover letter strong.

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This article provides important tips to help when you are applying to a job and writing a cover letter that you have no previous relevant experience in. It says that apologizing for what you don't have in any way can actually damage your cover letter and that it is better to focus on skills you have that can be transferred over to writing a cover letter.

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This article helps you formulate an answer to the question, "what type of work environment do you prefer?" This is a question that is often asked in interviews to internships and jobs. It is even to significant to consider while applying and speaking with admission officers of Med, Law, and Grad schools. It is good to research information about the work environment to whatever it is you are applying to but it is also important to not sound like you are just reading what you read to them. This article helps you form a neutral response that also covers what you like and do not like.

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This article lists 11 career quizzes that can help you find your dreams job. We've taken some that are listed in class, but it is helpful to have a few other options available. It lists the cost of each test and what type of results each test delivers. Additionally, it lists what types of questions each test asks.

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This article asks the question we all struggle with everyday: how do we choose a career that aligns with our passions? This article tells you what passions are realistic enough to make a career out of and what factors play a role in making this possible.

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this article is interesting to me and to my future career because I like politics and my star plan is to be politician. Since, the middle east is facing a big change and especially in Saudi Arabia. Thomas L.Friedman traveled to Riyadh and interviewed the new crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman face to face. He asked him about many events that were happened in Saudi Arabia includes woman driving and most importantly the arresting of other billionaire princes who are involved in corruption. The world was questioning these events and having a different opinion about them, however, after this interview everything was answered perfectly and clearly.

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as a college students, we sometimes lack the experience of how is it like to work in a corporate or how to succeed. This article shows you a 6 life skills that might be useful to be succeed at work. I found most of them are useful, and especially collaborating across differences. This tip is important since it makes be aware of other people differences.

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I found this article interesting and is related to my career. The article talks about Melanie Whelan, who she is a businesswoman who have served as a CEO of SoulCycle. Melanie was interviewed by Susannah Hutcheson who wrote this article. I found reading Melanie answers to a basic questions useful, since i believe its always great to read the story of successful people to learn from them and from their mistakes so you can become better in the future.

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I'm good at writing my resume, however, i found it difficult to write my cover letter. I always get confused about which to write and which not to. I found this article and I read it, so it focuses on personality and how to show it in the cover letter by the right way. Includes how to know that you are not being rude, sharing the right stuff, and highlighting your skills. recommended to read.

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As a college students, we need to build up networking that may be useful for our careers. And, i found this article that provides top 10 career networking hints for college students. I found most of them useful by applying them. I never knew about the school's career service office until I read this article. I actually went and i wanted to take advantage of the career assistance provided (one of the tips). recommended to read.

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A 5 minute video with many suggestions for interviews, including searching&exploring, and the whole interview process.

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How to Ace an Interview: 5 Tips from a Harvard Career Advisor

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I found an interesting quiz and it's quite accurate for me.

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This Test Will Reveal What Type Of Career You Should Actually Have

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This article lists templates for different types of emails for the professional setting. I have always struggled knowing how to write a technical email, so I would definitely recommend this article.

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When I was looking through various articles, this one really stuck out. This past summer, during my internship, I had trouble knowing what to talk to my boss about. I wish I would have talked to my boss more about her experience and advice for tough work situations. If you also are having trouble knowing what to talk about with your boss, I would definitely recommend this article!

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This article tells you how to properly be an interviewee, and I agree with what it says. The most important thing to do in an interview is to be yourself ultimately while conducting yourself in a professional manner.

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Washington D.C. has been know to be a competitive region to live in for job opportunity and economic growth. A new study came out that this competition and gap between the have's and have-not's has grown dramatically due to improvements in technology. The IT industry is actually hurting the gap between the middle class and the upper class and making it harder for the middle class to survive Washington's economy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/dcs-economy-is-creating-fewer-opportunities-for-the-middle-class/2017/11/19/284cc24e-cb2f-11e7-b0cf-7689a9f2d84e_story.html?utm_term=.6f0254d2541a

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The Washington area's economy has long had its share of inequalities. Technology is continuing to exacerbate the differences between the haves and have-nots, two economic studies released in the past week suggest, as innovations in fields such as IT and mobile technology create high-paying jobs for some while eroding pay and benefits for others.

An analysis by Brookings Institution researchers found the transition to so-called digital work has primarily created jobs in high-paying and low-paying sectors here, hollowing out the middle-class opportunities that have long been an engine for growth in America. A separate study by researchers at George Mason University shined a light on the extent to which part-time contract work - where benefits are sparse and pay is declining - is becoming a bigger part of the local job market.

Job growth in the D.C. metropolitan area has slowed lately after a banner year in 2016.

The region added just 46,400 jobs in the one-year period ended in October, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Unemployment rates sank in Maryland and Virginia to 3.8 percent and 3.6 percent respectively, leading economists to question whether they can get any lower.

In the District the picture is less rosy: The unemployment rate for the city has been steadily climbing, reaching 6.6 percent in October, up from 5.8 percent the same time last year.

That could be partially caused by a hiring slowdown at many government agencies: The jobs figures released Friday estimate that federal employment has shrunk by 2,300 jobs since October 2016.

Still, the climbing unemployment rate has puzzled the region's top economists. "I would be surprised if this sticks, just because it runs counter to what we're hearing from businesses in the District," said Andy Bauer, a regional economist with the Richmond Federal Reserve.

[Trump's war on the federal bureaucracy may already by hurting D.C.'s economy]

The jobs that are being created here tend to fall into two distinct categories: high-paying opportunities in technology and business sectors, which are often located in the suburbs, and service-related opportunities at restaurants, bars and entertainment venues.

"We have a lot of highly skilled digital workers being paid well, and their spending is supporting this growth at the other end . . . the yoga instructors, the physical therapists, those working in food preparation," said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings.

Growth at the top end of the income spectrum has been driven by relatively high-paying software and IT jobs that are popping up primarily in the D.C. area's outer suburbs.

Market analysts, cybersecurity analysts and software-related occupations grew by 10 percent, 2.7 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, each year since 2010, the Brookings researchers found.

Even more jobs are being created for cooks, repair workers and personal health-care aides, where employment grew annually by 6.8 percent, 7.9 percent and 24 percent, respectively, between 2010 and 2016. The estimates released Friday suggest that trend has continued in 2017.

Some also see it as a problem that much of the new work in the D.C. region is occurring outside the traditional employment structure. As opportunities in the so-called gig economy proliferate with the rise of companies like Uber and Lyft, a large class of semi-employed individuals is growing without the same set of employment benefits offered by more traditional employers.

[Why the D.C. area's tech incubators struggle]

A new report from the Stephen S. Fuller Institute at George Mason University found 526,000 non-employer establishments in the D.C. area - meaning people who operate as freelancers, contractors or sole-proprietors - a category that saw a 78 percent increase between 1997 and 2015.

The number of people in a traditional employment situation went up by a much smaller 46.9 percent.

Gig-style work isn't necessarily a bad thing. In many cases, it gives skilled workers a way to augment their income while sharing their expertise more widely. The report found many of these workers hold positions in the higher-paying scientific and business sectors, as well as in the real estate industry.

The region's self-employed "are where some ideas are going to evolve from that will become sustainable businesses in the future," said Steven Fuller, an economist and the institute's namesake. "This isn't where those workers are going to end up. . . . It's where they're starting."

The profile of people who work as part-time contractors is changing. Those working outside of a typical employment relationship once made about the same as their fully employed counterparts, the report found, but that started to change after 2004.

The report pegged a rough measure of average income for those contractors in the Washington area at $46,770 per year in 2015, a 20 percent drop from the category's peak in 1998. That doesn't even account for the fact that such workers often have to cover their own expenses.

For the first time in 2013, the number of contractors working locally in taxi and limousine services (read Uber and Lyft) exceeded the number of real estate agents, jumping from a little over 10,000 to almost 30,000 in about three years.

"There's definitely an evolution happening here," said Ellen Harpel, the report's author. "It could be because there are more people joining the labor market, or it could be something more negative . . . like people taking these side-gigs for extra income."

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D.C.'s economy is creating fewer opportunities for the middle class

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The Washington area's economy has long had its share of inequalities. Technology is continuing to exacerbate the differences between the haves and have-nots, two economic studies released in the past week suggest, as innovations in fields such as IT and mobile technology create high-paying jobs for some while eroding pay and benefits for others.

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Studies have shown that people who are happy with their careers are more likely to earn more money. Having a job that you enjoy will give you motivation to perform to the best of your abilities, which in turn will allow you to increase your income. You will be fulfilled in life and enjoy your career. Working in an area you enjoy will actually help you succeed and in turn you will inspire others to follow career paths that will satisfy them.

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In all states, earning a graduate degree raised pay by at least 21%!

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75% of job applicants lie on their resumes. They assume that HR managers do not go through and verify but they sure do. Never lie on a resume they will figure it out. Especially if it's a skill that you don't have.

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With the new careers being created every day career planning has become more important than ever. It is important to understand your work interests, your personality, your values, and your skills. Career counseling is available and there are numerous benefits to having career plans in mind.

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This is always a big topic for us students but it is nice to see that at a certain point our college majors/degrees wont limit us to jobs. We are the only ones that can limit our job possibilities, so as long as we are working hard we can get into any position we really want.

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We havent talked about this much but this way more important than people think. Planning for retirement is key to having that life we all want at that age. Even though retirement is along way from us small things add up to our savings and will play a big part in the long run.

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Work life balance is something that needs to be talked about and understood. People always want to work for big companies but at what cost. At this age we tend to ignore the importance of having a balance between our work and daily lives. And its about doing easy things that will let us enjoy work or our daily lives a bit more.

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Since we are starting to talk about Linkedin its important that will have quick and easy ways of improving our profiles. Its not always about the most but about making people see what you got.

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Here is another article that clearly states that success is not about money. Doing something that you are interested and advances you as a person both intellectually and monetarily more shows the quality of success obtained.

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Career satisfaction is important. Success should not simply be measured in monetary compensations, but rather happiness and self-fulfillment.

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I find this article useful for many reasons. First, it identifies that most people enter the work with no actual plan. Setting goals is a useful tool on the road to being successful. Second, it provides a comprehensive outline as to actually coming closer to forming a worthwhile career plan.

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The recruitment industry need reform. Many employers and job seeker have stressed difficulty and displeasure with the current recruitment process. Finding the right employees and the right fit is excessively important and needs to be streamlined.

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This article shows that no one really knows what they want to do until they actually do it. I am an economics major, but I would not be surprised of I ended working in technology or sales. This article shows that there is a much greater chance that I do not end up with a job closely related to economics.

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I thought this article was interesting because it talks about how your parents influence what your career will look like. I think it's good to be aware of what your tendencies may be when you get a job-- if you tend to be a workaholic maybe you need to focus on splitting your time up better.
https://hbr.org/2017/10/your-feelings-about-work-life-balance-are-shaped-by-what-you-saw-your-parents-do

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This article covers a lot of the topics we have been discussing in class and relates to the Capstone assignment. It brings up why we don't try and find work that satisfies our soul rather than our desire for money. Some of the steps they suggest to help find your dream job are actually quite useful. They force you to really think about what you want in a job and the exact steps you'll need to get there.

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When kids are very little we tell them "Be whoever you want to be!" but as kids get older, the message changes.

By the time most kids are in middle school, the adults around them have begun teaching them to be practical. Little by little kids stop believing that their grandest dreams can come true.
Watch on Forbes:
Some kids grow up without losing their faith in themselves - or their belief that they can accomplish whatever they want to accomplish and become whoever they want to be. What's different about those kids?

Maybe the kids who hang onto their dreams have support from their family members, who tell them not to give up on their most audacious plans.

Maybe they faced adversity early on and overcame it, learning in the process that most of the obstacles we face are not as formidable as we have been led to believe they are.

Maybe the kids who never give up on their dreams are kids who just don't care what other people think. It takes guts to depart from the standard path: Go to school, get good grades, find a good job and keep it whether you like the job, or not.

It takes courage to say "I want to make my own path!"

At any working age it is possible to move closer to your dreams, find work that celebrates you, and run your career like the business it is.

Your career is a business just as surely as any multinational corporation is. It is your ship to steer - but only if you know how much power you possess!

The first step in finding work that will ask more of you - making use of your talents, personality and passion - and also give you back more than a paycheck is to give yourself permission to dream again.

As adults we can feel foolish or exposed when we allow ourselves to dream really big -- the way we used to do when we were kids. But without a big dream to follow, how could anyone take the big steps that will move them into the life and career they want?

The first step is to give yourself permission to create a vision for your life and career.

I'm not talking about setting goals - that comes much later. In the absence of a vision for your life, goals are nothing more than items on your to-do list. To find work you love, you have to get outside your comfort zone and create a vision for your life and career.

Here's how to do it:

1. Get a journal and start writing in it. Write about what you want in your life and career. Don't censor yourself. If you want to act in the movies, write it down. Many famous actors started acting later in their lives - here's a list of some of them. If you want to run a business, explore your creative side, have more money or change your location - write it down!

2. Accept and embrace the fact that everything that has happened in your life so far was meant to happen just as it did. When we complain about our circumstances (stupid job, bad boss, etc.) and look at our current situation as hopeless, embarrassing or less than we deserve, we create our own obstacles to success. Successful people can say "I don't like my life right now. Oh well - that's okay. I'm not a victim of it. I can change it. Everything happens for a reason. Maybe the hardships I've experienced needed to happen so that I could finally focus on changing my life for the better."

3. Spell out your vision for your life in as much detail as you can. "One day I want to work on Wall Street" is not a vision. Get very granular. I tell my students to picture the clothes they'll be wearing when they walk onstage to accept the award they earned for whatever great achievement they have in mind. Picture the auditorium, the audience and the person who presents you with the award. The more clearly you see your own future, the easier it will be for you to steer in the direction you want.

4. Recognize that the reason most of us don't shoot for our dreams is that it's scary to do so. We may have people around us saying "Who do you think you are? You're no one special. Who are you to have big dreams?" Those people don't deserve to be part of your vision. Don't tell anyone about your plans except for people who support you in your quest. You might decide to tell no one about your vision, and that's fine.

5. As your vision takes shape, look at its place in your life from altitude - that is, with perspective. The first response our fearful brains serve up when we create a grand vision is "That vision is impractical! It would take you years to reach it!" So what? That's all we have - years. We have time, or at least we hope to. What else would we do with our time apart from working toward our vision? Get up above your day-to-day struggles and see your path going back to your birth and stretching out to the horizon. Once you see it, you can take your path wherever you want it to go!

6. Now, put together a plan to move into the career and life you want. Lay out the steps. Some of them will be short-term objectives. Some will take longer. Here's an example to guide you.

Monica is a medical office director. She makes good money considering that she doesn't have a bachelor's degree, but she's not happy in her job. Her physicians are impatient and unappreciative and she doesn't like the way her practice treats its patients.

Monica realizes over time that she's wasting her gifts keeping her medical practice running smoothly. For a few years she's been hoping that someone or something would swoop in and save her.

Gradually it dawns on Monica that if anyone is going to save her, it's going to be Monica herself.

Monica gives herself permission to dream big, the way she did when she was little.

When she was a kid Monica was crazy about horses. She didn't love horseback riding lessons, but she loved hanging around with horses. Monica could see that horses held a special place in her heart.

She would love to work with horses as a job, somehow - but how?

"What possible qualifications do I have to work with horses?" Monica's fearful brain asked her.

"Pipe down," Monica told her brain. "The key is to take a step in the direction of my dream, rather than dismissing it as foolish."

Monica started researching organizations related to horses.

She was amazed how many organizations she found.

Monica took a step and joined the Board of Directors of a not-for-profit agency that raised money to buy wild mustangs that had been rounded up and removed from their habitat, and found them new homes with loving caretakers.

Monica had never been on a not-for-profit Board before. She was almost silent at the first few Board meetings, but gradually her confidence grew.

Monica was shocked to see how just being a Board member reignited her passion for horses.

She decided to finish her bachelor's degree, emphasizing finance and fund-raising. By the time Monica graduated from night school two years later, she was president of the Board of Directors and had helped to raise over $150,000 to find homes for mustangs.

In her volunteer work Monica felt strong and capable. As president of the Board Monica talked to local CEOs almost every day. "My day job sucks my energy away," Monica realized, "but my unpaid night job builds my energy up!"

Four months after walking across the stage to accept her diploma, Monica accepted a job as Executive Director for a new not-for-profit organization devoted to advocacy for wild mustangs. Monica helped to found the organization and when the Board launched its search for an E.D., they say "Monica, you are the obvious choice!"

Monica started her new job on her 51st birthday, but her journey had begun the day she realized she was miserable in her medical practice job, three years earlier.

You can do the same thing Monica did. You can step through the fear that keeps most people stuck in unhappy work situations. You can give yourself permission to dream again, the way you did when you were tiny.

It's your life. No one else gets to decide how you invest your time and talents. You are steering the ship - but only if you know how much power you have!

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How To Find Work You Love -- And Why Most People Don't Try

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When kids are very little we tell them "Be whoever you want to be!" but as kids get older, the message changes. By the time most kids are in middle school, the adults around them have begun teaching them to be practical. Little by little kids stop believing that their grandest dreams can come true.

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Since we are going to be starting to talk careers as action and the steps it takes to start a career (updating your resume, going to interviews, networking...etc) I found this article on job interview mistakes and tips on how to avoid them. Since I'm new to the more professional interview process, I found it interesting and helpful and definitely some things I need to note and make sure I avoid easy mistakes like those listed in the article.

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Since we are going to be starting to talk careers as action and the steps it takes to start a career (updating your resume, going to interviews, networking...etc) I found this article on job interview mistakes and tips on how to avoid them. Since I'm new to the more professional interview process, I found it interesting and helpful and definitely some things I need to note and make sure I avoid easy mistakes like those listed in the article.

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https://money.usnews.com/money/careers/interviewing/articles/job-interview-mistakes-to-avoid?int=careers-rec

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I've been asked to write a couple of cover letters but never knew where to start and what to include on it. I found this article online, which explains all parts and components that a cover letter should entail. It's pretty useful to get a generic idea of formatting and content that should be included.

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I've been asked to write a couple of cover letters but never knew where to start and what to include on it. I found this article online, which explains all parts and components that a cover letter should entail. It's pretty useful to get a generic idea of formatting and content that should be included.

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https://theinterviewguys.com/how-to-write-a-cover-letter-examples-included/

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I found this article about interviewing techniques which I found very helpful in preparing for my own interviews. 

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I found this article about interviewing techniques which I found very helpful in preparing for my own interviews. 

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https://www.thebalance.com/top-interview-tips-2058577

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The ‘war on whites’ is a myth — and an ugly one - The Washington Post

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The ‘war on whites’ is a myth — and an ugly one - The Washington Post

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This article contains information about income, employment, and race.

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Many of those who descended on Charlottesville to attend the white nationalist rally this weekend believe there is a "war on whites" in the United States today. They believe it so deeply that they are willing, in 2017, to carry Nazi flags and chant Nazi slogans. Some were ready to act violently against those who disagreed. One man faces murder charges after driving his vehicle through a crowd of counterprotesters.

The view that white people face broad discrimination is not limited to groups like the ones espousing Nazi propaganda in Charlottesville over the weekend.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll in March 2016 - during the heated Republican primaries - asked Americans which is the "bigger problem in this country: blacks and Hispanics losing out because of preferences for whites, or whites losing out because of preferences for blacks and Hispanics?" Among GOP voters who supported Trump for the Republican nomination, 54 percent picked whites as the bigger losers. Other polls have found similar results.

[Trump fires back after the CEO of Merck resigned from his manufacturing council]

The "war on whites" is a core concern of Trump's base, but it isn't true. White people, especially white males, still have a huge advantage in American society. White people not only control a vastly disproportionate share of the country's wealth, income and economic power, they also enjoy tremendous advantages helping them to stay ahead financially.

On average, whites are far more likely to get hired and are paid more than nonwhites. Just having a "white-sounding name," such as Emily or Greg, makes a job applicant 50 percent more like to get called for a job interview than a person with a name given more frequently to African Americans, such as Lakisha or Jamal, according to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. That helps explain why the black unemployment rate has been about double the white unemployment rate for decades, according to Labor Department statistics.

White families on average have 14 times more wealth than black families and nearly 11 times more than Hispanic families, according to the Census Bureau. Nonwhites are far more likely to live in poverty and go to jail than whites. The American Dream of owning a home has been achieved by more than 72 percent of whites. In contrast, more than half of black and Hispanic households rent.

There's been a lot of attention directed to the plight of the white working class, the "Trump base" that propelled him to victory. It's true that whites without college degrees have a harder time finding good-paying jobs in 2017 than they did in the past as manufacturing jobs have gone to robots. It's also true that suicide and substance abuse is way up among whites in their prime working years, a phenomenon that stunned the nation after Princeton economists Angus Deaton (a Nobel Prize winner) and Anne Case pointed it out in 2015.

But keep this in mind: The white working class still fares better economically than the nonwhite working class. Among Americans who have graduated high school but don't have a college degree, whites have the lowest unemployment rate and are paid on average $150 more than blacks and $125 more than Hispanics every week, according to Labor Department wage data. That helps explain why only 9 percent of white families live in poverty, while nearly a quarter of black families do.

Perhaps the most telling statistic of all is to look at what Americans say when they are specifically asked if they have ever been discriminated against because of the color of their skin. More than a third of blacks and a quarter of Hispanics say they have personally faced discrimination; just 11 percent of whites do.

Here are 10 charts showing the many ways whites are overwhelmingly better off than nonwhites in America today.

White people earn more money

In 2015, according to the Census, the median annual income for households headed by white people was $62,950. For households headed by blacks, it was $36,989. Hispanic households were somewhere in between.

White people own more stuff

Income is only part of the story, though. A better indicator of a household's financial health is wealth, or net worth - the value of everything you own, minus the debts you owe. Here, the racial disparities are staggering.

In 2013, the net worth of the typical white household was $132,483, according to the census. That's nearly 15 times greater than the typical black household's net worth of $9,211. Hispanic households, with a median net worth of $12,460, don't fare that much better.

White people are more likely to be homeowners

Homeownership is a big driver of net worth. For most families, a house is their most valuable asset. It should come as no surprise that whites are considerably more likely (72 percent) than blacks (42.3 percent) or Hispanics (45.5 percent) to own their own home.

White people are less poor

Whites experience less poverty, on average, than members of other ethnic groups. In 2015, the poverty rate for white Americans was 9 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Poverty rates for blacks (24 percent) and Hispanics (21 percent) were more than twice as high.

White people have lower unemployment

White people also experience less unemployment. In 2016, the average unemployment rate for whites was 4.3 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with 8.4 percent for blacks and 5.8 percent for Hispanics.

The remarkable thing about these gaps is how consistent they are across educational attainment. While the rise of Donald Trump has brought a flood of media attention to his white, non-college voter base, black non-college graduates face even more daunting employment prospects.

White people live longer than blacks

Being white in America entitles you, on average, to nearly four more years of life than being black, according to the CDC. Interestingly, this is one realm where Hispanics have an edge, outliving whites by about three years.

White people are more likely to get a bachelor's degree

A good education is the key to a good job, and whites have a clear advantage on the education front. More than one-third of white American adults have at least a bachelor's degree, according to the census. Only 22.5 percent of blacks and 15.5 percent of Hispanics can say the same.

White people are less likely to go to jail

In 2012, according to the Pew Research Center, black men were more than six times more likely than white men to end up in prison. The criminal justice system is a driver of some of the starkest disparities between white and nonwhite Americans today.

White people say they experience less discrimination

A more direct way to measure discrimination is to simply ask people if they've ever been discriminated against, as a Kaiser/CNN survey did in 2015. Only 11 percent of whites said they'd been discriminated against because of their race, compared with 35 percent of blacks and just over a quarter of Hispanics.
Read more: On Twitter, Trump accuses blacks of racism three times as often as whites Trump fires back after the CEO of Merck resigned from his manufacturing council Politicians respond to violent protests in Charlottesville

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Analysis | The 'war on whites' is a myth - and an ugly one

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Many of those who descended on Charlottesville to attend the white nationalist rally this weekend believe there is a "war on whites" in the United States today. They believe it so deeply that they are willing, in 2017, to carry Nazi flags and chant Nazi slogans.

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The short and useless life of a bad resume - ABA for Law Students

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The short and useless life of a bad resume - ABA for Law Students

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Some tips on resumes

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Over the last 20 years, I have reviewed hundreds of resumes. Most of them hit the wastebasket very rapidly. There are a lot of reasons why.

1. The author can't write proper English, punctuate properly, or obey the rules of grammar. Even little things matter - attention to detail is important in the business world and a resume should be proofed carefully before it is sent out. Don't just proof it yourself - have someone you know to be a good editor review it as well.

2. The resume sounds like puffery ("I am wonderful" is not the right tone).

3. The objective has no hint of personality or originality. Some are like eating a spoonful of the Sahara. Add some color (without going bonkers) and make yourself stand out. I always like language that indicates that applicants are self-starters who enjoy both working individually and in a team. You'll certainly have to do both. The truth can be refreshing. I remember someone whose objective indicated his passion for digital forensics while noting that, thus, far, his experience was limited. His passion and candid recognition of his minimal experience struck me, both in his resume and in his cover note. He still works for me.

4. When I look at the resume's metadata (yes, I always do that if the resume is interesting), sometimes the candidate is not the author of the document. Humorously, the name may indicate that mom or dad did the resume (tsk, tsk). There are legitimate reasons for another name appearing as the author - and there's no harm in going to a professional to help with your resume. But be aware that employers sometimes do look at the resume's metadata, especially if they are applying for a position in a technology field.

5. The cover letter (or e-mail) doesn't jive with the resume. The resume may display wonderful writing (thanks to help from someone) but the accompanying note does not. These days, prospective employers want nothing to do with applicants who can't write the English language.

6. The cover letter (or e-mail) fails to spark my interest. This is the perfect place to say something original that will catch the attention of the reader and differentiate you from other applicants.

7. When I advertise for a position, I always ask that the applicant include his/her salary requirements. If you do not do so, you are history - you can't follow instructions. Saying that you are open to discussing your salary is not acceptable. It doesn't tell me anything. I want some idea of what you think you are worth.

8. If you are young, a one-page resume is sufficient. Trying to cram all the minutiae of your life into your resume is not helpful. People reviewing resumes do so quickly, ditching the obvious "losers" and reserving resumes to be looked at more carefully. That said, now and again, I get a very worthy two-page resume from someone who has actually accomplished quite a bit and needs the two pages to document their credentials and experiences- if well done, I will review it carefully.

9. Tell the prospective employer why you want to work for them. This rarely happens - I suppose applicants don't want to take the time to look up a law firm or company and personalize their cover note or e-mail, but rest assured that those who do end up in the pile of resumes I want to look at more closely. The more it is clear to me that they did some homework about my company, the more apt I am to ask for an interview. Virtually every employee I've ultimately hired has made that effort.

10. Tell the prospective employer if you have a skill that might be relevant. For instance, if the law firm or company is involved with high tech work, it is helpful to list any technical certifications or technical skills you possess. More and more, law firms want to know that you are "tech competent."

11. Don't undo your resume with your social media. I vividly remember receiving a well-done resume from a young woman and then visiting her public Facebook page, where she described herself as "sexually adventurous" and boasted that she could run a mile in high heels. Her resume hit the trash can with more than the usual speed.

12. Don't write from your current employer's address. If you will research and apply for jobs on someone else's time, you'll likely to do the same thing to any employer - including me. It is also indicates that you aren't all that bright since employers have the right to monitor work done on company computers.

Your resume is critical. If it fails you, you won't get the job you want. One of the best resources I've seen is from Yale Law, which has a Toolkit for Student Job Seekers including Resume Advice and Samples along with Cover Letter Advice and Samples. It is a good starting point.

One more thing - if you get the opportunity to interview, employers know you are likely to be nervous. In my experience, this is one of the things job applicants worry about the most. I have a story that I hope will calm you if you are prone to "interview anxiety."

Ten years ago, I interviewed an incredibly nervous young man whose hands shook rather severely during our entire interview. He was well-mannered, well-spoken, and incredibly bright. I overlooked his nervousness (as most employers do) and hired him. Ten years later, he is my CEO. Fashion a great resume and cover letter - and if you cannot entirely compose yourself in an interview, may you have the same happy ending as my CEO.

Sharon Nelson Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., is the President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc., a digital forensics, cybersecurity and information technology firm in Fairfax, Virginia. She was the President of the Virginia State Bar June 2013 - June 2014 and a past President of the Fairfax Law Foundation. She may be reached at snelson@senseient.com

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The short and useless life of a bad resume - ABA for Law Students

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Over the last 20 years, I have reviewed hundreds of resumes. Most of them hit the wastebasket very rapidly. There are a lot of reasons why. The author can't write proper English, punctuate properly, or obey the rules of grammar.

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I found this article online and thought it was interesting to see what job allow for the most flexible lifestyle. I was very surprised to see that many of the top ranked "Best Jobs for Work-Life Balance" are in the technology industry and have 6 figure salaries. Many of the jobs are also in the lower 5 figure salary areas. It is interesting to see the wide range. This article could be helpful for people who are looking for a career that would allow them to be more flexible with their hours and what they do.

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Whether it's even possible to have a healthy work-life balance usually depends heavily on the culture of the place where you work and your manager's attitude.

But a new analysis from the jobs site Glassdoor suggests there actually may be some positions that just generally offer a better deal when it comes to having a career and sufficient time to live your life.

Work-life balance in this context could mean not having to work long hours every week. Or it could mean carrying a big workload but having a very flexible schedule in which to get it done.

The results are based on employee ratings of work-life balance for the same position across at least 81 different employers.

Many of the top 25 jobs on Glassdoor's list are in technology, recruiting, marketing or engineering.

Data scientists and search-engine optimization (SEO) managers came in as No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. They also happen to be in high-demand these days since companies of all stripes -- including brick-and-mortar retailers -- run online sites, said Glassdoor spokesman Scott Dobroski.

There is, however, no correlation between pay and work-life balance. Some positions on the list are 6-figure jobs, while others have salaries that rank low among 5-figure jobs.

Here's the full list:

1. Data scientist: $114,808 a year

2. SEO manager: $45,720 a year

3. Talent acquisition specialist: $63,504 a year

4. Social media manager: $40,000 a year

5. Substitute teacher: $24,380 a year

6. Recruiting coordinator: $44,700 a year

7. UX designer: $91,400 a year

8. Digital marketing manager: $70,052 a year

9. Marketing assistant: $32,512 a year

10. Web developer: $66,040 a year

11. Risk analyst: $69,088 a year

12. Civil engineer: $65,532 a year

13. Client manager: $71,120 a year

14. Instructional designer: $66,040 a year

15. Marketing analyst: $60,000 a year

16. Software QA engineer: $91,440 a year

17. Web designer: $53,848 a year

18. Research technician: $36,525 a year

19. Program analyst: $71,120 a year

20. Data analyst: $58,928 a year

21. Content managers: $60,960 a year

22. Solutions engineer: $92,456 a year

23. Lab assistant: $27,550 a year

24. Software developer: $80,000 a year

25. Front-end developer: $75,000 a year

CNNMoney (New York) First published October 20, 2015: 7:33 AM ET

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Whether it's fewer hours you want to work, or just greater flexibility in scheduling your time, these 25 jobs get consistently high ratings when it comes to providing employees with a satisfactory work-life balance, according to a new analysis from Glassdoor.

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Research: How Subtle Class Cues Can Backfire on Your Resume

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Research: How Subtle Class Cues Can Backfire on Your Resume

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Executive Summary

Research on the effect of social class on hiring found that elite law firms' hiring practices discriminate strongly based on social class but that, surprisingly, an advantaged social background helps only men. In the studies, attorneys viewed higher-class candidates of either gender as better fits with the culture of large law firms, with some attorneys even steering lower-class candidates to less prestigious sectors of legal practice, where positions tend to be more socioeconomically diverse. But even though higher-class women were seen as just as good "fits" as higher-class men, attorneys believed these women were the least committed to working a demanding job of any group (including lower-class women). The findings confirm that the social class people come from greatly shapes the types of jobs they can attain, regardless of their achievements. There are ways to combat this discrimination, however: applicants can ditch the extracurricular activities on their resume, eliminating cues about their backgrounds. Hiring managers can help keep women in the pool by blinding evaluators to first names or substituting with initials.

Every fall, tens of thousands of law students compete for a small number of coveted summer associateships at the country's top law firms. The stakes are high: getting one of these rare internships virtually guarantees full-time employment after law school. The salaries are unbeatable, six-figure sums that catapult young students to the top 5% of household incomes nationally and are often quadruple of those offered in other sectors of legal practice. These jobs also open doors to even more lucrative employment in the private sector as well as prestigious judiciary and government roles. For these reasons, employment in top law firms has been called the legal profession's 1%.

Now imagine four applicants, all of whom attend the same, selective second-tier law school. They all have phenomenal grade point averages, are on law review, and have identical, highly relevant work experiences. The only differences are whether they are male or female and if their extracurricular activities suggest they come from a higher-class or lower-class background. Who gets invited to interview?

We set out to answer this question in a series of studies reported in the December 2016 issue of American Sociological Review. Based on prior research showing that hiring in top professional services firms is highly skewed toward applicants from wealthy families, we expected that an applicant's social class background would play a decisive role in determining interview invitations. And indeed, we found that, in contrast to our national lore that it is individual effort and ability-not family lineage-that matters for getting good jobs, elite employers discriminate strongly based on social class, favoring applicants from higher-class backgrounds. But our research uncovered a surprising - and disturbing - twist: coming from an advantaged social background helps only men.

We uncovered this through a field experiment with the country's largest law firms. Specifically, we used a technique - known as the resume audit method - that is widely seen as the gold standard for measuring employment discrimination. This method involves randomly assigning different items to the resumes and sending applications to real employers to see how they affect the probability of being called back for a job interview. All in all, we sent fictitious resumes to 316 offices of 147 top law firms in 14 cities, from candidates who were supposedly trying to land a summer internship position. All applicants were in the top 1% of their class and were on law review, but came from second-tier law schools. This was important because graduates from the most elite law schools (e.g., Harvard and Yale) are typically recruited on-campus. But law school students from second-tier schools must compete for coveted internship positions by sending in their resumes directly to firms in hopes of attracting employers' attention by virtue of their C.V.s.

We signaled gender by varying the applicant's first name (James or Julia). Directly indicating a parent's occupation or income on a resume might be strange for an employer to see, so we signaled social class position via accepted and often required portions of resumes: awards and extracurricular activities. Reflecting the fact that social class is a complex characteristic that cannot be boiled down to income, education, or lifestyle alone, we used a constellation of resume items to signal social class.

For example, to capture the economic component of class, our lower-class applicants received an award for student-athletes on financial aid. To incorporate its educational competent, they listed being a peer tutor for fellow first-generation college students. By contrast, our higher class candidate pursued traditionally upper-class hobbies and sports, such sailing, polo, and classical music, while the lower-class candidate participated in activities with lower financial barriers to entry (e.g., pick-up soccer, track and field team) and those distinctly rejected by higher-class individuals (e.g., country music). But crucially, all educational, academic, and work-related achievements were identical between our four fictitious candidates.

Even though all educational and work-related histories were the same, employers overwhelmingly favored the higher-class man. He had a callback rate more than four times of other applicants and received more invitations to interview than all other applicants in our study combined. But most strikingly, he did significantly better than the higher-class woman, whose resume was identical to his, other than the first name.

Why did the higher-class man do so much better than the higher-class woman? To further explore this issue, we conducted a follow-up experiment with a sample of 210 practicing attorneys from around the country. We asked each attorney to evaluate one of the same resumes we used in our field experiment and to tell us whether they would like to bring the candidate in for an interview. We also asked them to rate their candidate on factors proven to influence how favorably people view job candidates but that vary between men and women. These included perceptions of the candidate's competence, likability, fit with an organization's culture and clientele, and career commitment.

Just like the employers in our audit study, the attorneys we surveyed favored interviewing the higher-class man above all applicants, including the higher-class woman. This time, though, we were able to understand why. Attorneys viewed higher-class candidates of either gender as being better fits with the culture and clientele of large law firms; lower-class candidates were seen as misfits and rejected. In fact, some attorneys even steered the lower-class candidates to less prestigious and lucrative sectors of legal practice, such as government and nonprofit roles, positions that tend to be more socioeconomically diverse than jobs at top law firms.

But even though higher-class women were seen as just as good "fits" as higher-class men, attorneys declined to interview these women because they believed they were the least committed of any group (including lower-class women) to working a demanding job. Our survey participants, as well as an additional 20 attorneys we interviewed, described higher-class women as "flight risks," who might desert the firm for less time-intensive areas of legal practice or might even leave paid employment entirely. Attorneys cited "family" as a primary reason these women would leave. Parenting strategies vary between social classes, and the intensive style of mothering that is more popular among the affluent was seen as conflicting with the "all or nothing" nature of work as a Big Law associate. One female attorney we interviewed described this negative view of higher-class women, which she observed while working on her firm's hiring committee. The perception, she said, was that higher-class women do not need a job because they "have enough money," are "married to somebody rich," or are "going to end up being a helicopter mom." This commitment penalty that higher-class women faced negated any advantages they received on account of their social class.

Our findings confirm that, despite our national myth that anyone can make it if they work hard enough, the social class people grow up in greatly shapes the types of jobs (and salaries) they can attain, regardless of the achievements listed on their resumes. More broadly, our results illustrate a phenomenon that social scientists call "intersectionality" - a fancy way of saying that, when it comes to understanding sources of advantage and disadvantage, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Crucially, we have found that privilege works differently for men and women in the labor market. While coming from a higher-class background helps men, it can actually hurt women.

Together, biases related to social class and gender skew employment opportunities toward men from privileged backgrounds. Our research adds another twist to just how difficult it is for certain groups to get ahead, even when they achieve an advanced degree.

There are some potential solutions for law firms, however. While biases themselves are difficult to change and merely making people aware of them via training has little payoff, there are quick and cost-effective ways to make the playing field more even in resume screening. When it comes to social class, the answer is simple: ditch the extracurricular activities. We were able to conduct our study only because employers and career services offices encourage (if not require) students to lists hobbies and activities on resumes. Without this information, we would not have been able to indicate social class background effectively. While social class still manifests in other types of resume cues (especially attendance at a top-tier undergraduate institution or law school), blinding evaluators to extracurricular activities or having students omit them from resumes entirely could eliminate those class signals that are least performance-related.

As for gender, blinding evaluators to first names (or substituting with initials) could help keep more women in the pool. In fact, one reason why women seem to do better when they come from the most elite schools may be that employers have limited ability to screen resumes and do not have the chance to engage in the types of resume-based class and gender discrimination we found in our study. Eliminating signals about class and gender as resumes are screened could open the door more widely for talented individuals with varied backgrounds, while creating a more diverse workforce of qualified talent.

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Research: How Subtle Class Cues Can Backfire on Your Resume

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Executive Summary Research on the effect of social class on hiring found that elite law firms' hiring practices discriminate strongly based on social class but that, surprisingly, an advantaged social background helps only men.

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Professionalism 101: A Class On How To Get The Job : NPR Ed : NPR

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Professionalism 101: A Class On How To Get The Job : NPR Ed : NPR

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You can take a college course on just about anything nowadays. There's a class on Kanye West lyrics. And one about the American vacation.

But some teachers think that crucial basic skills are being overlooked in the process. Things like showing up on time for class, meeting deadlines, dressing appropriately, working well in teams.

Some of those things might pop up indirectly in other courses - business or communications, for example. But a growing number of campuses are focusing specifically on "professionalism" - what it entails and how to achieve it.

At George Mason University in Washington, D.C., Dedra Faine teaches a six-week course called Professionalism and Civility. It's now mandatory for George Mason's hospitality students.

Among the subjects Faine covers are: dining etiquette, proper dress and behavior in the workplace, and how to answer a phone properly or handle difficult people.

"All of that plays a role in the morale of the company," she says.

Deborah Popp, a 24-year-old hospitality major, took Faine's course last year.

At first glance, she was skeptical: "I was initially taken aback that it was even acknowledged as something important or something to be aware of."

In her mind, "professionalism" simply meant turning things in on time, she says.

But after taking the class, "I've learned that there is a heart behind it," she says. "There is a deeper meaning, a different kind of care that you give and a different response to people that's more than getting a job done."

Faine, who's been teaching the course since 2013, says she's teaching material that a lot of 20-somethings seem to need.

York College in Pennsylvania does a survey of campus faculty and officials every few years that measures professionalism on campuses. The most recent one, in 2014, found that more than a third of professors and human-resources respondents thought professionalism among upperclassmen had decreased in the past five years.

That survey defined "professionalism" as showing up on time and prepared, being focused and working well with other students.

Teresa Ward, a professor at Butte College, a community college in northern California, decided to incorporate lessons about professionalism into her English and reading classes.

She uses a rubric that students have to fill out and follow. They're asked to identify three to five behaviors that they feel embody professionalism and write them down - for example, speaking coherently or setting goals and practicing self-management.

Then, the students track their own behavior using the rubric, and see how well they did.

One big goal in all of this, of course, is helping students get jobs when they graduate.

Research shows employers are increasingly demanding these skills. According to the 2015 Skills Gap survey, almost half of executives within the manufacturing industry thought their employees didn't have basic employability skills - things like punctuality, attitude and teamwork.

"I think everybody can learn these skills and be trainable and incorporate them into their routine and into their life so they are effective at them," says Gardner Carrick, vice president of strategic initiatives at The Manufacturing Institute, an industry advocacy group. "Understanding the priority that companies are putting on that skill set raises the importance of them and the requirement to have them."

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Professionalism 101: A Class On How To Get The Job

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You can take a college course on just about anything nowadays. There's a class on Kanye West lyrics. And one about the American vacation. But some teachers think that crucial basic skills are being overlooked in the process.

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Job Growth Might Be Slowing Overall — But It's Surging For New College Grads : The Two-Way : NPR

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Job Growth Might Be Slowing Overall — But It's Surging For New College Grads : The Two-Way : NPR

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The pace of job creation slowed substantially last month, the Labor Department said Friday.

Employers added 160,000 employees in April, downshifting from the monthly average of 192,000 workers so far this year. That was a disappointment for many job seekers.

But the country does have one group enjoying lots of opportunities: newly minted college graduates. In fact, economists say this might be the best time to be graduating in a decade.

While the overall unemployment rate held steady at 5 percent last month, the Labor Department says the rate is only about half that for college graduates.

And the freshest grads - the ones getting diplomas this month - are particularly attractive to employers, according to Andrea Koncz, research director for the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Companies are seeking the young and educated to replace baby boomers, Koncz said. "They are continuing to increase hiring knowing that there are retirements, there are open positions to fill, and ... it's important to keep new college graduates in their talent pipelines," she said.

Nearly 3 out of 4 employers surveyed by CareerBuilder, a job search engine, say they plan to hire 2016 graduates, the highest level of hiring in nearly a decade.

This year's graduating seniors are stepping into a generally healthy marketplace: Job openings have been running at nearly record highs, with roughly 5.4 million vacancies, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That's very different from a few years ago when the Great Recession was still depressing hiring and wages. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that "graduating in a recession leads to large initial earnings losses" of about 9 percent.

"For young workers just entering the labor force, being lucky enough to graduate into a tight labor market like ours today can have a huge impact on wages and career prospects," said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist for Glassdoor, an online job and recruiting marketplace.

Mohammed Ahmad, who is finishing up his MBA at Stony Brook University in New York, told NPR he knows he is lucky to be graduating now. His bachelor's degree is in pharmacology, so his resume matches up closely with his older sister's. She also earned an MBA to layer on top of a medicine background.

But there's one big difference. He is graduating now, and she graduated right into the jaws of the recession.

So when Ahmad sat down to send out his resumes, "within like about 20 minutes to a half hour, I got a phone call ... and I scheduled an interview."

When his sister sent out resumes, she had a very different experience. "She would constantly be applying, wouldn't be able to hear back. And if she did hear back it would be for positions she wasn't interested in," he said.

Employment experts say the most in-demand jobs today involve technology, business and engineering.

Friday's jobs report underscored such trends. Professional and business services added 65,000 jobs in April. By contrast, jobs in mining and logging fell by 8,000, piling more losses on top of an already-long losing streak. The leisure-and-hospitality sector, which also offers jobs for noncollege graduates, added only 22,000 workers in April. That's the smallest gain in a year.

Even though overall hiring slowed, raises showed momentum. Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose by 8 cents, to $25.53, in April. Compared with a year earlier, wages are up 2.5 percent.

Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for IHS Global Insight, said in his analysis that those pay gains were the bright spot. With more money in paychecks and less pain at gas pumps, most Americans are in better financial shape.

"The April weakness in payroll jobs is temporary," he said. "In the coming months, jobs growth will rebound to 200,000 a month, or possibly more. Most indicators of the labor market continue to point to ongoing strength."
WSHU reporter Charles Lane contributed to this report.

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Job Growth Might Be Slowing Overall - But It's Surging For New College Grads

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The pace of job creation slowed substantially last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Employers added 160,000 employees in April, downshifting from the monthly average of 192,000 workers so far this year. That was a disappointment for many job seekers. But the country does have one group enjoying lots of opportunities: newly minted college graduates.

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A Better Way to Plan Your Career - Harvard Business Review

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A Better Way to Plan Your Career - Harvard Business Review

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Submitted by: Andy Chen Yang (UT EID: acy284)

I found this article online and thought it was really interesting because it really highlights how powerful being able to find relevant and transferable skills are to keeping up-to-date with the latest trends and changes in the different careers with the improvements in technology and other innovations. For instance, you may currently know how to use a certain piece of software, but in a year or two, a new piece of software will be released that you have to learn all over again. It is essentially very important to future proof your skills by staying relevant with current technologies and finding ways of utilizing skills that do not have an immediate expiration date. The author makes great points on being able to both develop applicable skills to industry rather than pure study skills as well as grow one's network by connecting with people of both similar and varied interests in industry. I definitely agree that it is important to network with people of different backgrounds because it ultimately is who you know who defines your growth and success in a career rather than what you know. I believe that these two skills are essential to optimize one's career path in any industry going forward, and it would be really useful to apply these skills into the real world going forward.

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My students frequently ask me how I planned out my career to become president of Fidelity Investments. I always tell them, "There was no grand plan; I backed into my career one step at a time."

In the years after I graduated from law school, I had no idea that I would ultimately become the president of a financial services giant. I held positions as a law professor, a senior official at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a partner in a law firm.

But during these early steps in my career, I learned a great deal about myself: I found that I really liked doing deals and managing people, rather than drafting regulations and writing articles. So I accepted a job offer at Fidelity Investments in 1987, when it was still relatively young. I spent the next decade climbing the corporate ladder; in 1997, for a complex set of reasons, I was chosen to be president of the company.

What does my history suggest about career planning? That you can't control the trajectory of your career. There are just too many factors beyond your control that will shape your job options-global economic trends, political elections, and technological changes, just to name a few. So don't commit the hubris of thinking that you can determine your professional glide path.

On the other hand, you can increase your probability of success by approaching your career with the right mind-set-one that recognizes that career planning is a continuous process that has to be actively managed. At each step in your career, you need to ask yourself: What can I do next that will maximize my options in the future?
Gain Transferable Knowledge
This process begins with the choices you make at school. You want your education to provide you with the necessary skills and expertise to succeed in a wide variety of jobs. This means that you need to make smart choice about the courses you will follow. I favor those that involve extensive writing, rigorous analysis, or quantitative skills.

Once you have finished your formal education, search for jobs that will allow you to further expand your transferable knowledge - to help you find your next job. Let's say you take a job putting together airplane leases. Within a few years, you could become the world's expert on the subject; however, this narrow expertise probably won't help you in any other line of work. By contrast, if you take a job that will expand your computer programming skills, you can greatly boost your options for later steps in your career.

Gaining experience outside your home country is another way to develop transferable knowledge. I lived for almost two years in Africa and have spent considerable time in England, Japan, and China. Through those experiences, I learned to deal with different economic, cultural, and political environments - which later helped me evaluate or start business units throughout the world.

Similarly, you can make yourself more attractive to more employers by working in different types of organizations during your career. For-profit companies may be concerned about hiring you if you have spent your entire career in government, for instance. At the top levels of management, publically traded companies often fear that a senior executive at a private company won't be able to adjust to the unique pressures of public shareholders and SEC mandates.

Grow Your Network

As you gain transferable knowledge, remember that that is only one piece of the puzzle: your next step should also help you expand your web of personal relationships with peers. To paraphrase a slogan, "Organizations don't hire people. People hire people." The more people you know, the more people will think of you when a job pops open - even when it is not publicly advertised.

Of course, you can build your network to some degree without changing jobs: you can attend conferences or participate in committees at trade associations. But this sort of event-driven networking pales in comparison with the deep bonds you can develop with your colleagues by working, conversing, and traveling with them.

As you ponder your next career step, then, think about the networking advantages you might gain from it. If you're ambitious, you can expand your network by moving to a new company, or even a new industry; obviously, that would be a momentous decision. More modestly, you can grow your network by accepting a job in another unit of the same firm or by heading an interdisciplinary project staffed by people from multiple units.

In this tough economy and ever-changing world, it is more important than ever to smartly evaluate each step in your career. T o prepare for whatever surprises lie ahead, try to make choices today that will maximize your options in the future. Gain transferable expertise - in the classroom or at work - and form close bonds with your peers and colleagues.

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My students frequently ask me how I planned out my career to become president of Fidelity Investments. I always tell them, "There was no grand plan; I backed into my career one step at a time." In the years after I graduated from law school, I had no idea that I would ultimately become the president of a financial services giant.

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Is $100,000 middle class in America? - The Washington Post

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Is $100,000 middle class in America? - The Washington Post

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Hi everyone, I thought this article was very timely with today's topic. Chris

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There's a prolonged pause when I ask Lyft driver Gaby Oseguedaif her family is middle class. Her smile fades as she thinks about it for a while.

"Yeah, I think so. I don't even know what the middle class is anymore," says Oseguarda, who with her husband earns nearly $100,000 a year in the San Francisco area.

The majority of Americans - 62 percent - identify as "middle class," according to a Gallup poll conducted in June. It's the highest percent of people feeling that way since 2003. But a lot of Americans are like Osegueda: They feel middle class, but they aren't sure what it means.

Just who exactly is middle class is in the national spotlight again as President Trump and Republicans in Congress craft tax cuts for individuals and corporations that they say will primarily benefit the middle. Vice President Pence called the plan, which is still being fleshed out, a "middle class miracle" this week. But amid this discussion, the middle class has been defined in different ways. Gary Cohn, President Trump's top economic adviser, recently discussed how a "typical family" making $100,000 a year would benefit. Trump has espoused the value of the plan to truckers, who make around $41,000 a year.

So what is the middle class? In America, an income of $59,000 a year is smack dab in the middle, according to the U.S. Census. But it's not that simple.

[House GOP tax leader threatens to break Trump's promise not to change 401(k) rules]

There is no exact definition of middle class, and a deep look at the data shows a wide variety of individuals could be part of it, depending on where they live and how big their family is. The middle class in San Francisco, where Osegueda lives, is not the same as it is in Peoria. You can explore if your household is middle class in this calculator (more details on our definition below):

Osegueda and her husband are in their early 30s. Both have college degrees - she also has a master's - and launched careers in San Francisco's booming tech industry. She worked in human resources and he's an engineer. They love San Francisco, but a year ago, they moved to Pacifica, a suburb, where rent is more affordable and their young son has space to play. Despite making nearly $100,000 a year, they aren't sure they'll ever own a home of their own, at least not anywhere in the Bay Area.

It's not just San Francisco. A quick glance at the median income in these six American cities highlights how much it varies:
Newton, Mass.: $122,100
Washington DC: $70,800
Denver: $53,600
Dallas: $43,800
Birmingham, Ala.: $31,200
Flint, Mich.: $24,900

Now take a look at how median income varies by family size. The median income for single people in America is just $30,400. For a household of two, it jumps to $65,600. For three, it's nearly $77,000. For four, it's $91,000 (not far from Cohn's definition of $100,000 for a family of four). You get the idea. The more people in a family, the more money they typically need to live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle.

When Americans talk about the "middle class," they are usually thinking about a range, not just the specific income dead in the middle. Pew Research says the middle class runs from $42,000 to $125,000. They define middle as a household of three with an income that falls between two-thirds and double the median income. By Pew's calculation, just over half of American households are truly middle class, far smaller than the 62 percent who self-identify that way.

[Half the jobs in America pay less than $18 an hour. Can Trump help?]

To dig further into the data, The Washington Post opted to define middle class as American households with incomes that fall between the 30th percentile mark and the 80th percentile mark. It captures half of U.S. households, but the range is skewed high enough so that someone would have to be well above the poverty line and earn at least $16 an hour in a full-time job to qualify.

America's middle-class ranges from $35,000 to $122,500 in annual income, according to The Post's calculation (The data is in 2016 dollars. You can see in the chart below how much the range varies by household size). Rakesh Kochhar, associate director of research at Pew, calls it a "fair" estimate. He helped craft Pew's definition.

The bottom line is: $100,000 is on the middle-class spectrum, but barely: 75 percent of U.S. households make less than that.

Others prefer to define middle class by the lifestyle you can afford. They think of middle class status symbols, such as being able to own a home and car and go on a family vacation now and then to places like Disney World or the beach.

Former Vice President Joe Biden headed up a Middle Class Task Force, which put out a report in 2010 classifying middle class like this: "Middle-class families are defined by their aspirations more than their income . . .[they] aspire to homeownership, a car, college education for their children, health and retirement security and occasional family vacations."

In Beattyville, Kentucky, a place dubbed " America's poorest white town," median income is only $16,000 and a typical home costs only $53,000. Deep poverty also exists on many Indian reservations, such as the one in Blackwater, Arizona, where the median income is just $18,000.

On the other end of the spectrum are rapidly developing cities like the San Francisco area, where Osegueda lives. The median income is a whopping $136,000 in Palo Alto, the hub of Silicon Valley. Even engineers at Facebook have been struggling to pay their rent. Being able to save for a home seems even more of an implausible scenario.

"My husband and I sometimes look at each other and say, what are we doing here? A house here costs a million dollars," says Osegueda. "It's kind of insane when you think about it."

['It's cool again to invest': Americans are giddy about stocks as Dow tops 23,000]

Osegueda and her husband once lived in the trendy Mission District of San Francisco, but they moved out of the city when apartments on their block started renting for $4,000 a month for a one-bedroom. Osegueda has been staying home to take care of her one-year-old son, but she drives a few days a week for ride-share service Lyft to help the family budget and mingle with people in the city she loves.

America's vast differences in pay and costs make creating a once-size-fits all tax policy tricky. One of the biggest dilemmas Republicans face as they work on the tax bill is where to draw the tax brackets lines for people of different incomes. GOP leaders are still working out where to set the rates, and at what income level those rates will kick in.

It's even more complicated when you consider race and educational attainment. Eighty-five percent of African Americans and 82 percent of Hispanics make less than $100,000, according to U.S. census data. And 85 percent of people with only a high school education, a group Trump won handily in the election, make under that threshold.

Another big debate right now is whether to get rid of the state and local tax deduction (known as SALT). This allows people to deduct their state and local taxes from their federal income taxes, a benefit that's particularly lucrative for people in high tax cities and states such as San Francisco. It could make a substantial difference to some middle-class families.

Republicans aren't the only ones who have had a dicey time defining middle class. In the 2008 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama famously sparred over this question. They ended up settling on $250,000 as the maximum threshold. Once Obama won the nomination, he campaigned on a promise not to raise "any form" of taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 and couples making $250,000 or less. Clinton resurrected that pledge in the 2016 campaign, taking heat from progressives for pandering to the well off.

Politicians almost always say their top concern is the well-being of the "middle class," taking advantage of the vague definitions of the term to appeal to voters at a broad range of income levels.

But as Republicans look to rewrite the tax code, their proposal to sharply cut tax rates while also eliminating many tax deductions will have winners and losers - including among people who consider themselves middle class.
Read more: 9 ways Trump's tax plan is a gift to the rich, including himself The GOP tax plan, explained in simplest possible terms

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Analysis | Is $100,000 middle class in America?

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There's a prolonged pause when I ask Lyft driver Gaby Oseguedaif her family is middle class. Her smile fades as she thinks about it for a while. "Yeah, I think so. I don't even know what the middle class is anymore," says Oseguarda, who with her husband earns nearly $100,000 a year in the San Francisco area.

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Gender pay gap: the day women start working for free - Washington Post

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Gender pay gap: the day women start working for free - Washington Post

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The median salary for women working full-time is about 80 percent of men's. That gap, put in other terms, means women are working for free 10 weeks a year.

So, if you're a woman ...

Well, that is a little blunt - there are gradients on that difference. The pay gap varies depending on the occupation, working hours, education attainment, experience, and geography.

That explains part of the difference in pay between men and women, but not all of it. And even though most economists agree that after adjusting for age, education, experience and other variables there's still an unexplained gap, there are voices who argue that the gender pay gap is a myth.

Pay gap deniers purport that women's choices, rather than discrimination, cause the pay gap between women and men. But those choices are actually consequences of the social forces at play.

Also, women of color get hit twice: they suffer the effects of the gender wage gap plus those of the race wage gap. While wages for White and Asian women have improved since 2007, salaries for Hispanic women have flatlined, and even declined for African American women.

Here is when women in varying occupations would start working for free, based on the wage gap in that field:

Or search for your profession here:

Women choose lower-paying jobs

Sort of. Women do tend to hold occupations that pay less.

Industry and occupational sorting into 'female' and 'male' jobs accounts for the largest portion of the 'explainable' part of the gap. In 2016, the job search engine Glassdoor did an analysis using half a million self-reported salaries and found that, for their data, occupational sorting accounted for about half of the pay gap. Other studies say it explains about a third.

Here's the pay gap for every occupation, arranged by how many women do each job, with highest share of women at left and the highest share of men on the right.
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But some jobs became lower-paying for everyone when women started doing them.

A comprehensive 2009 study by Paula England of New York University, Asaf Levanon of the University of Haifa in Israel and Paul Allison of the University of Pennsylvania used census data from 1950 to 2000 to confront two views used to explain the observed decrease in median earnings as women entered a field: queuing and devaluation.

The first view, known as queuing, says that as the pay for a profession drops, the job becomes less attractive. People turn to other, higher-paying occupations, but because employers -the view assumes- generally prefer men, it's them who fill those jobs, so women remain in lower-paying ones.

The second view, devaluation, shifts the cause and effect. It says that the perceived worth of a job depends on which of the two sexes holds it, that society views professions occupied mostly by women as of less value -and so do employers; hence when women start filling a job, its value decreases. The study suggests that it is devaluation that explains the drop in pay as more women enter a profession.

Devaluation also explains how two very similar occupations, janitors (mostly men) and housekeepers (mostly women), have different pay scales. The woman-dominated job, housekeeping, has lower pay than janitorial work. Janitors make $12.91 an hour for men, $10.25 for women; housekeepers $11.27 and $9.84, respectively.

Here's how much median earnings for each job changed, for men and women , from 1960 2015:

Women choose to work part-time

You keep saying 'choose'. So let's talk about 'choice'.

Yes, a larger share of women than men work part-time, fewer than 35 hours a week, and more women take career breaks or reduce working hours for family reasons.

But the U.S. is an anomaly among developed countries, with no federally mandated parental paid leave. In Canada, mothers have 17 weeks, paid at half rate; in Spain and the Netherlands 16 weeks, in Germany 14, in Mexico 12, all fully paid; and 39 in the United Kingdom, although paid at a 30 percent rate on average, so the equivalent to 12 weeks.

And in a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, more than half of the respondents thought children were better off if the mother stayed home, 34 percent believed they'd be as well off if she worked. Only 8 percent said they'd be better off if the father stayed home.

So parental leave policies, social norms, and family math -married women still make less than their husbands- influence personal decisions about how much to work. That's why the word 'choice' is so charged.

Also, working more hours doesn't mean earning more money.

Although women who work part time fare slightly better than their male counterparts, they represent just a fraction of all working women. More than two thirds work 35 hours or more per week and still fall short.

Here's how the weekly median earnings change from shortest to longest workweek:

It's not the case for younger, more educated women

Women are just now more likely than men to have a bachelor's degree, so the education level did explain part of the pay gap for older women, but not that much -the Glassdoor study stated that education and experience account for less than 15 percent of the 'explainable' gap.

So while it's true that the gap is wider for women older than 35, it is not altogether gone for women who are younger and more educated.

Here's the breakdown by age bracket:

What this all hints to is that the causes of the gender gap are many and more nuanced than just individual choices or corporate discrimination. However you slice the data, the gap is there. Only by recognizing the complexity of the variables that play into the gap can companies and the government enact policies to root out the deeper causes of those disparities, instead of alleviating its symptoms.

But until then, if you're a woman, since you opened this page ...

About this story

Data was compiled using microdata from IPUMS USA for the pay gap by occupation, for the historical change in earnings by share of women in the job, and for the breakdown by education and by workweek. We used decennial census and American Community Survey 5-year data because is the most comprehensive, despite not being the most up to date, and used people who had worked most of the year. For the recent, general data points, we used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

About the authorXaquín G.V. is an interactive, data and visual journalist from Galicia. He recently led the Visuals desk at The Guardian in London. Before that, he worked at National Geographic, The New York Times, Newsweek and El Mundo (Spain).

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Analysis | Oct. 26, the day women start working for free

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The median salary for women working full-time is about 80 percent of men's. That gap, put in other terms, means women are working for free 10 weeks a year. Well, that is a little blunt - there are gradients on that difference. The pay gap varies depending on the occupation, working hours, education attainment, experience, and geography.