You’ve found it! Found it! The perfect job for you! It’s exactly the type of job you want, and you’re sure the work, people, and salary will be great, right? Maybe—but maybe not. This scenario is not uncommon to many of us. We have all gotten very hopeful at one point or another during our job search, and why shouldn’t we? There is nothing wrong with being hopeful; staying positive is a great attitude to have while looking for work. But the rules of finding a job can be a lot like the rules of dating—you don’t want to get too attached without getting to know each other first.

Things to Find Out Before the Interview

Job description. Job boards will usually have some kind of job description, but you may encounter jobs that don’t have a clear, written description at career fairs or other networking events. Ask yourself if you know the following:

•    Areas of responsibility and job functions
•    Required education, experience level, and technological experience
•    Location of the job
•    Time requirements (how many hours per week you are expected to work and the shift you are expected to work)

Based on this information, decide if this is the right job to apply to. If you cannot find this information in the job description, either try calling the HR rep to find this information out; or if this is not possible, apply to the job and find out this information during the interview.

The company’s products, services, and mission. Let’s say you’re a PR graduate who wants to work in meeting planning. You apply for a meeting planning position for PETA—but you own a crocodile skin purse and a fur coat. It doesn’t seem like your values align with the company’s mission, so this may not be the best fit for you. If you don’t find this information on the company’s About Us section on its Web site, you might be able to find out more on sites like www.zoominfo.com where you can get detailed information about companies and their industry leaders. You can use LinkedIn to find out more about the company by using the Search Companies option. You might also want to find out who will be interviewing you and search for that person through LinkedIn, using the Search People function.

Things to Find Out at the Interview

Company culture. The company wants to decide if you are the right fit for an organization, and conversely, you are deciding the same. Ask the interviewer about the company culture—the shared values and actions of the employees. This might be something difficult for an interviewer to define (and what the interviewer says may or may not actually be what the culture is), but pay attention to keywords like casual, friendly, busy, efficient, ethical, and so on. Take notice of the way the employees are dressed and how they interact with one another. Ask questions like, “Would I be expected to work more in teams or individually?” “What is the company’s growth plan?” “Why is this position open/what are the primary reasons for people leaving this company?”

Expectations for this position. Just because you’re interviewing for the same title you had at your last position, doesn’t mean the job expectations are the same! Find out the following:

•    What kind of traits does the ideal candidate have for this position?
•    What are some of the challenges in this position?
•    Do you see any significant changes in this position in the near future?

Things to Find Out After the Interview

With dating, there are certain things you may not want to ask your partner until you are “official.” The same is true with waiting to ask certain questions until you get the official job offer. After you have received a job offer, there is a litany of questions you may want to ask to find out if the job is the right fit for you:

•    What is the yearly/hourly salary?
•    How many paid vacation days do I have?
•    What is your benefit package?
•    Am I expected to work overtime? Do you pay for overtime?
•    When do you assess raises; what is the typical raise rate?
•    Do you give bonuses, and what is the typical bonus amount?

Just like finding the right partner may take a long time, so might finding the right job. Find out everything you need to know to create a successful partnership, and make sure you don’t settle!

How does one go about getting the name of someone in human resources or the name of a hiring manager? Job listings posted all over the place simply read: No phone calls and direct résumé to BD or some other letter combination at some post office box or no-reply email address. Getting a name is like pulling a needle from a haystack. A good read might be something from Sherlock Holmes or a day with reruns of Get Smart to help solve the dilemma.

I won’t lie; getting a name can be tough, very tough. It can be done though! It takes work and a bit of sleuthing. Anything that is worth something is worth working for - right? So, here are some ways to win the holiday turkey - THE NAME.

1. Try calling the receptionist at the company where you are applying. You can ask the receptionist for the name of a person in human resources. If you are nice and engage the person on the phone, you will likely come away with a name.
2. When calling a company, ask to be directed to the human resource department; you will likely get the voice mail of a person within the department. Even if he or she is not the right guy or gal, when your résumé shows up, he or she will pass it along to the appropriate counterpart in the department.

Looking for the name of a hiring manager? This takes more digging.

1. Use LinkedIn and Facebook to find people. If you are on LinkedIn you will need to do a lot of looking to identify people that are associated with the company you are targeting. Join affiliated groups so that you can write to those people directly without an introduction. Is that sneaky? No. LinkedIn is a tool like any other. You need to know how to use it. From there, you can introduce yourself to a person at your targeted company, network with them and obtain a name. Facebook takes a little more work, because you need to introduce yourself and be added as a friend.
2. Traditional research also works. When doing research on a company, oftentimes the company will have a listing of senior management. You can start there. Send a letter or email to one of those people. You never know, you might get a response asking you to send your résumé to them directly, or they might even give you the name of someone to reach out to within the company.
3. Network with everyone you know. The rule of six degrees of separation is what LinkedIn is all about. You can get names from friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, and many, many others.

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There is growing support from a wide range of government officials and economists for a tax credit to companies that hire new employees. The idea is gaining bipartisan support in Washington as the government looks for solutions to the highest unemployment figures in a generation.

Various proposals for job tax credits are currently being considered. One plan, by economists Timothy J. Bartik and John H. Bishop, would provide a first year tax credit equal to 15% of the cost of adding each new employee. In the second year, the tax credit would decline to 10%. The economists claim that this approach would generate 1 to 2 million new jobs in the first year.

The concept of offering tax breaks to companies that hire new employees is not new. The federal government offered a “New Jobs Tax Credit” from 1977 to 1978, in response to the recession that occurred in the 1970s. The program at its peak provided tax subsidies to 1.1 million businesses that added 2.1 million workers, at a cost of almost $4 billion (or a cost of $13 billion in today’s dollars). Or, put another way, it cost about $7,000 per additional worker added.

During the recent presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama supported the concept of a tax break for companies that hired new employees. However, the Obama administration abandoned this concept in early 2009, as many Democrats suggested that a tax credit for jobs would be abused by businesses or that it would be difficult to administer, and the plan was dropped from the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. 

It remains to be seen whether the new jobs tax credit will be approved or not, and what effect if will have on the US employment landscape. In the mean time, the job market remains tough. Currently, unemployment is 9.8% - the highest it’s been since June of 1983. However, on a brighter note,  temporary help agencies report that they eliminated only 1,700 jobs in September, a decrease from the previous month. Economists see temporary jobs as a leading indicator, as employers are likely to hire temp workers before permanent ones.

It looked promising for Chicago—we had tremendous clout with President Obama, Michelle Obama, and Oprah campaigning for Chicago to get the Olympics in 2016. Michelle Obama spoke impassionedly about growing up in Chicago, and President Obama said powerful statements like “One of the legacies I want to see coming out of the Chicago 2016 hosting of the Games is a reminder that America at its best is open to the world." Chicago also showed videos of the beauty of its lakefront location and mesmerizing Millennium Park to the Olympic committee. So what went wrong? What can job seekers learn from Chicago’s failed “Olympic interview”?

Don’t go for the personal plea in the interview; describe the technical reasons why you would be a good fit for the organization.

There were so many powerful, personal sentiments behind the Obamas plea for the Olympics. Statements including “with hard work and discipline and dedication, [Chicago] can make it if we try” and “That's not just the American dream, that is the Olympic spirit. That's why we see so much of ourselves in these Games. And that's why we want them in Chicago. That's why we want them in America.”

As beautifully said as these statements are, they don’t give any indication as to what Chicago can offer the Olympics. In an interview, describe what you can offer the organization,. It seems as if the Obamas were asking what the Olympics could do for Chicago and not what Chicago could do for the Olympics. In fact, Michelle Obama specifically said: “Chicago's vision for the Olympic and Paralympic movement is about so much more than what we can offer the Games. It's about what the Games can offer all of us. It's about inspiring this generation and building a lasting legacy for the next.” In an interview, however, you should explain what you can an offer an organization.

It had been reported that Chicago avoided reporting “stodgy technical details”…but maybe the Committee wanted to hear technical details. Maybe the Olympic Committe wanted to hear discussions of finances. Chicago instead showed videos of blues legened Buddy Guy and snapshots of the pretty city. Mayor Daley emphatically noted “It’s not about the words. It’s about the heart and soul.” But “some of its speakers looked nervous and parts of the presentation came off as stilted. It also was surprisingly low-key…” If you are relying on an image mainly to sell your point (which you shouldn’t), it should at least come across as professional as possible.

Chicago had the passion, the skills, and the right “references” to sell the city to the Olympic Committee. But it didn’t focus on what the Olympic Committee wanted to hear of  what Chicago could offer the orgnanization. Job seekers may have the passion, the skills, and the right references, but that won’t mean much in an interview unless a job seeker can display how those qualities will benefit the organization.

In the latest ADP National Employment Report, US companies cut jobs by 254,000 between August and September 2009. However, this is considered a sign of improvement in the job market: it is the lowest number of jobs cut since July of 2008.

Automatic Data Processing (ADP), a private company, calculated these figures based on a subset of payroll data collected from about 400,000 of their customers, which reflects 23 million US workers. The company’s payroll services are used to pay 1 out of every 6 employees in the United States, so their findings are considered an accurate reflection of changes in US employment.

While the latest figures suggest that the labor market is slowly improving compared with earlier this year, it remains weak. According to the Wall Street Journal, economists expect the unemployment rate to hit 9.8% in September, up from 9.7% in August.

How long will it be until the trend reverses, and companies start hiring more people then they fire? No one knows. The Federal Reserve said last week that sluggish income growth and tight credit are curbing household spending and slowing the pace of the recovery. According to Rutgers University economists Jim Hughes and Joseph Seneca, it could take the United States more than 7 years to recover from the nation’s worst employment decline since the Great Depression. This means we will have to wait until 2017 before employment rates return to the levels of 2007.

Many of us know Kanye West to be a talented, hardworking, and successful musical artist, but for thousands of people out there, those admirable qualities are not the first thoughts they have when they think of Kanye. They think things like “egotistical,” “ungrateful,” and “selfish.” They don’t think about the millions of records he’s sold; they think of him jumping on stage at the VMAs giving his unsolicited opinion while Taylor Swift is trying to accept her award. They don’t think about his sheer determination to make in the industry as a teenager, making a record while his mouth is wired shut due to an accident; they think about him complaining that his music video didn’t win best video of the year in Europe. They don’t think about his acclaimed skills as a lyricist; they think about how he chooses to use CAPS lock for nearly every blog he writes.

As gifted as an employee may be at work, he or she can suffer “Kanye West-syndrome” due to his of her insufferable complaints and actions at the job. Kanye-West syndrome sufferers may be plagued with the following symptoms:

• Constantly feels he or she is more deserving of acclaim than another
• Openly complains about that lack of supposed acclaim
• Gives unsolicited opinions, especially in inappropriate venues
• When apologizing for something, still has excuses for behavior in response
• Believes others copy/mimic him or her artistically
• Complains about how he or she believes others copy/mimic him or her artistically
• Shows up late to meetings or is insufficiently prepared for meetings due to poor behavioral choices
• Uses the CAPS lock or other font, font style, or color/size of text that is inappropriate for business communications

How can you combat Kanye-West syndrome? Well, you could practice all of those behaviors and hope that several eventual apologies will suffice—but that’s not working for Kanye right now, and that’s probably not going to going to work for you at work. Instead, practice the following behaviors at work:

• Congratulate colleagues at work for their successes
• When finding personal success in a team effort, give open credit to all those involved and thank them each of them for their effort
• If you have made a mistake at work, don’t make excuses for it; apologize and discuss how you plan to remedy it
• If you have a potentially negative comment about someone’s work, instead of openly proclaiming it at a board meeting or copying everyone on it in an e-mail, discuss it personally with the individual
• Instead of complaining about lack of acclaim, thank manager for support, discuss current accomplishments, and create goals with that manager
• Don’t use text or font in business communications that can be seen as annoying or showy

You might be one of the most talented, hardworking, and successful people at work; but no one will want to recognize you if you act like a Kanye West at work. Act positive, appreciative, and humble, and you might be able to find even more success in the workplace.

A new survey from human resources company Hewitt Associates found that millions of Americans will receive the lowest pay increases in three decades, as companies continue to control overhead costs in response to the economic crisis. However, while salary increases are expected to continue to decline, companies remain focused on rewarding key employees by providing variable-pay and performance based rewards – which must be re-earned each year.

These conclusions are based on a survey of 640 large companies, which represent 13.5 million US workers. Specifically, they reported that salaried exempt employees will see an average salary increase of 2.5% in 2009; executive pay increases will be 2.2%, and salaried nonexempt workers will see pay increases of 2.6%.

As might be expected, the lowest pay increases were found in industries that had suffered the most economically. The auto industry had pay raises average 1.4% for salaried exempt and salaried nonexempt employees, and 1.3% for auto industry executives (down from 4% last year). Industries with above-average salary increases included construction/engineering (4.5%), research and development (4%), and pharmaceutical (3.9%).

So, what is the unemployment rate in the United States? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS – part of the US Department of Labor), the official unemployment rate is 9.5%. This is a very high number. In fact, the cumulative loss of jobs over the past 6 months has been worse than for any similar period going back to World War II, and the current recession is the longest since the Great Depression. However, the BLS calculation does not count millions of people, including those who have given up looking for a job.

• The government estimate of those employed assumes many people are at work who probably are not.
• Employees who take unpaid leave are not counted as unemployed.
• As many as 2 million people who were looking for work were not counted, because they didn’t look for work in the 4-week period proceeding the BLS survey of employment.

In addition, it should be noted that the unemployment rate generated by the BLS is not an actual number, but an estimate based on a survey of 60,000 households. Using information from various sources, others have estimated that the actual unemployment figure may be 15.6%, 16.8%, or even 18.7%. Whichever number is correct, all of these figures indicates a large number of people who are competing against each other looking for work.