SavvySugar

Play Career Faceoff and Win a Monthly Prize!

SavvySugar — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:00:51 -0800

Remember when you used to dream about what you were going to be when you grew up? By age eight you probably knew exactly what you wanted to do with your life, but for many of you those career convictions changed quite a bit over the years. Since you've basically been weighing your job options since you can remember, you should know which job is cooler, right? Play our Which Career Is Cooler? game to find out!

How does it work? Each time you select the career with the higher "popularity" score based on readers' votes, you get points! Take a chance at winning the $1,000 a month prize!

8 Successful Companies That Are Still Hiring

SavvySugar — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:45:36 -0700

Personal experience and news reports might tell us that nobody is hiring right now, but Fortune says to think again. The magazine recently released its 40 Under 40 - a list of the hottest rising stars in business - and many of them are looking to expand their teams. To see who these entrepreneurs are and what they’re looking for, read more.

Ask Savvy: Six Answers For Your Co-Worker Conundrums

SavvySugar — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:00:31 -0700

Working closely with others has its challenges. Sure, teamwork is rewarding and it's helpful to have someone you can bounce ideas off of, but cubicles can get crowded quickly. You've asked me a series of smart and challenging questions about co-worker relations that I've had the pleasure of answering to the best of my ability. Here's hoping my advice will help you solve your current conundrums.

1. I Don't Want to Share My Office With a Co-Worker	2. How Do I Tell My Co-Worker Her Lunch Stinks?	3. My Lazy Co-Worker Is Affecting My Morale
4. My Co-Worker Has It in For Me!	5. Co-Worker Gives TMI About Sex Life	6. Relating to Work Friends

Submit a career or finance question for me to answer while giving other readers the opportunity to weigh in. Why rely on a Google search to satisfy your concerns when you can get help from your trusted community of Sugar friends? Ask away by posting your questions in my Ask Savvy group and I'll answer them on the site.

How Not to Behave: Career Questions From Mad Men

SavvySugar — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:00:40 -0700

When it comes to workplace drama, Mad Men has it all: high-stakes accounts, employees fighting for promotions and power, interoffice affairs, drinking on the job, and professional talent clouded by shenanigans, secrecy, and even sexual harassment. Whenever I watch the show I am both captivated by the saucy situations and characters and thankful for how far we have come as professionals since the 1960s. Obviously, the characters' antics spark all kinds of career questions for us modern women. I've shared my learnings from the show, but where do you stand on their behavior?

January Jones Wanted to Be a Storm Chaser - What About You?	Have You Felt Discriminated Against at Work?	Do You Attend Conventions For Work?
Did You Intentionally Choose Your Career Path?	Have You Ever Had a Drink While on the Clock?	Do You Know Which Co-Workers Smoke?

Performance Review Time: 5 Tips For Evaluating Yourself

SavvySugar — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:00:35 -0700

For many companies, holiday season is synonymous with performance-review season. And chances are, that process will include a self-evaluation. Filling out self-evaluations can be tricky (are you talking up your accomplishments enough? Will your boss agree with your assessment of your performance?), but they don’t have to be painful. Read on for five tips to help you shine on your self-evaluation.

Be realistic: Try to evaluate yourself as objectively as possible, and think about your performance in the context of your job description. Remember that simply fulfilling the requirements of your position doesn’t necessarily mean you’re blowing your boss’s expectations out of the water. At the same time, be sure to give yourself credit where credit is due; performance reviews aren’t the time for false modesty.

Be specific: Sweeping statements about your job performance won’t get you very far in a self-evaluation. For every accomplishment or strength you mention, have a specific example to back it up.

For three more tips on acing your review, keep reading.

Would You Ever Job Swap With Your Partner?

SavvySugar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:00:10 -0700

In an admittedly gutsy career move, Susan Barton will be taking over her husband's job at Slate for two weeks. The experiment, a kind of real-world take on Freaky Friday - and aptly titled Freaky Fortnight - details the adventures of this 30-something mom and her husband switching roles - Susan taking to the office at Slate as an editor, and her husband taking the reigns at home to care for their two children.

It's a brave attempt at experiencing daily life in someone else's shoes. At a certain point, our own routines have become second nature, and it's impossible to know exactly where another career path would take us, how it would affect us, and how we would fare. So, despite the occasional wishful thinking to experience life as a movie star or dream job of your choice, tell me, would you ever seriously consider switching jobs with your partner?

Are You More Tech Savvy Than Your Boss?

GeekSugar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:15:23 -0700

Have you found yourself in this situation? Your boss is either a bit of a technophobe or just doesn't understand how email/her BlackBerry/the office scanner works and asks for your help every time she turns on the device? One writer at Marie Claire confesses she has to help her boss with even the most mindless tech issues - and she's not alone. After swapping war stories, the writer and her friends doubled over with laughter from tales of bosses adding "www." to the front of email addresses, trying to use the computer's calculator function by tapping the numbers as if they were on an ATM screen, and the inability to silence a cell-phone ring.

It makes sense; many of our superiors rose through the ranks working in far less technical environments. (Can you imagine working without a computer!?) But it's still a strange feeling. As the writer says, "Aside from technology issues, I'm not used to teaching my boss something she doesn't know."

Have you had to deal with a similar situation? Do you have a funny story? Share it in the comments after taking the poll.

Can You Guess the Least Stressful Job?

SavvySugar — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:45:09 -0700

Money magazine took a survey of 35,000 employees on their overall job satisfaction, and came up with some interesting results. In addition to the highest paid jobs in the country and the overall 10 best jobs, the survey yielded a list of the 10 least stressful jobs, based on what percentage of employees rated their position as low stress. The results may surprise you; see if you can guess which jobs rated lowest on the stress meter.

Take the quiz

Want to Work Less? Try Sharing Your Job

SavvySugar — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:00:27 -0700

We all know that it’s important to maintain a happy work-life balance, but sometimes that’s easier said than done. Over the past decade, more and more employees, most of them women, have turned to job sharing to strike that balance. Job sharing allows you to essentially split a job (and its title, responsibilities, and salary) with another person, meaning you both work part-time.

Aside from the obvious benefits for the job-sharing employee, a job share can actually work out pretty well for employers, too. It often results in happier, more productive employees who are extremely thorough in their work. It also means better job coverage, since one job-sharing partner simply fills in while the other is sick or on vacation.

Even if your company doesn’t currently offer any shared positions, it might be open to doing so. One friend worked herself into a job share by writing up a detailed proposal for her boss and getting a partner on board with her plan ahead of time; another friend did the same with her teaching job in order to spend more time with her young kids. Is job sharing something you’d ever consider?

Back to Basics: Interview Dos and Don'ts, Part 3

SavvySugar — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:00:59 -0700

Recently, I taught a workshop on interviewing to 400 high-schoolers. I had to find a way to keep the information short, sweet, and simple for the 17-and-under crowd, and in doing so, I realized I was getting a pretty nice interview refresher myself.

For the workshop, I broke down the interview process into dos and don’ts for before, during, and after the interview. I've already given you my basic tips for before and during an interview; to see my dos and don'ts for after your next interview, keep reading