Category View (Careers)

Have you ever been fired? No one likes to think about it but, unfortunately, with today’s economy and faltering job market, it certainly can be a strong possibility for anyone in any field. I’m not sure why - I guess it’s because they always see me firing people on “The Apprentice” - but people often ask my advice about what they should do if they lose their job. I say look at it as an opportunity. When you lose a job, it’s a great time to reevaluate your career and decide if you really were doing what you loved in the first place. If more...

Nearly everybody gossips at work. I guess it’s human nature, but people just like to talk about each other, and rarely does it do anything but add negativity to the workplace. Well, at least one employer in Chicago decided to do something about it by banning gossip at his firm. Each of the employees at Empower Public Relations not only agreed not to gossip, but they also agreed that when an employee says something negative behind a co-worker’s back, he or she will be required to repeat that gossip to the person’s face. The policy gives the employees a chance to diffuse the more...

Are men smarter than women? A huge new report says they’re not, but they certainly think they are.  An analysis of 30 different studies shows that men and women are fairly equal in terms of overall IQ, but women tend to underplay their own intelligence while men overestimate theirs. The studies show that on average, women underestimate their IQ scores by about five points while men overestimate their own IQs by at least that much. Because the studies were international, the results were the same whether the people were from the United States or Japan, Argentina or Zimbabwe. But not only do men think more...

Admit it. At some point it your life, you’ve lied. Maybe you tell white lies on a daily basis. Maybe you tell some all-out doozies. Whatever the case, don’t worry about it too much. You’re normal. Experts say there are two kinds of lies - the lies that you tell to help yourself and the lies you tell to protect other people’s feelings, like when you tell someone they look good in that terrible pink-and-green tie. Serious lies are most often told to protect relationships. That’s when people lie about cheating, for example. Obviously, they don’t want to get caught and they want more...

 When it comes to the job outlook these days, it always seems like business forecasters are preaching doom and gloom. But it appears as if things are looking good for employees and job hunters this summer and early this fall. According to a new online job survey, the vast majority of American companies don’t expect to fire any of their employees. In fact, more than one-third of managers said they actually planned to do some hiring. More than half even expect to give raises to their loyal employees later this year. They say that a tight labor market makes it difficult for them to more...

We’ve all heard the saying “connect the dots.” I see it as having enough knowledge to be able to connect the dots in a reasonable and informed way. In a conversation I was having a few years ago, one guy mentioned that the Trump name had become a famous brand around the world. Then he added, “What’s in a name?” and sort of laughed and then said to me, “In your case, a lot!” I noticed that another man seemed out of the loop about the quip. So I said “That’s Shakespeare. ‘What’s in a name’ is a famous line from Shakespeare.&rdquo more...

With summer just around the corner, a lot of employees in a lot of businesses start dressing like it’s Casual Friday every day of the week. They utterly forget about professionalism and start dressing totally inappropriately for work. In fact, Monster, an online job and recruiting site, conducted a poll about the biggest fashion faux pas in the office. Employers complained the most about employees who came in to work wearing tank tops and visible underwear. They also had a problem with employees who wear flip-flop sandals, Hawaiian print shirts, and shorts. Of course...because none of that belongs in a professional environment. If more...

Here’s one of the silliest ideas I’ve heard in a long time. A guy in Atlanta is spearheading a movement called “Friends of the Five-Day Weekend.” He wants to shorten the nation’s workweek to two days, saying Americans already work way too hard. This man argues that Americans already have one of the shortest vacation times in the world and they give up nearly 570 million days of unused vacation a year. But I’d like to point out that the reason they don’t take their vacation days is because they have a lot of work to do. Shortening the work week obviously isn’t more...

For years, career women have heard that it’s fine for them to quit their jobs in order to become stay-at-home moms. They’re told that it’s the best thing for their children and eventually they can make their way back into the workforce when their kids get old enough. But a new book - called The Feminine Mistake - disagrees with all that. The author, Leslie Bennetts, says that women should not quit their jobs when they have children. The theory is that if women depend on their spouses, it could have serious economic consequences. What if the husband gets sick or, worse, more...

This season on The Apprentice, two of the candidates - Tim and Nicole - had what I guess you would call “an office romance.” The romance ended up hurting Tim because he couldn’t figure out if his loyalties were to Nicole or to his team. Plus he couldn’t really concentrate on what he was doing. That’s the risk you take when you mix business with pleasure. It certainly makes the workplace more interesting for you, but rarely does it make you a better employee. A recent survey found that at least 60 percent of workers have had an office romance. That’s a lot more...

I’ve been working in the front office of The Trump Organization since September of 2001. My office is just outside of Mr. Trump’s, and the acoustics are perfect for hearing everything that goes on. It also helps that Mr. Trump rarely closes his door, and that he doesn’t use an intercom. People often ask me what it’s like here, in this rarefied environment, made more famous because of The Apprentice, which brought the workings of The Trump Organization to public interest. My first response is that it’s loud. That was one of my first impressions when I started to work here more...