I delivered a workshop called You're Hired! Negotiating What You're Worth at the YWCA Young Women and Money conference on December 5, 2009. Get a copy here: Youre Hired Negotiating Salary YWCA 2009 12 05.pdf

Where To Find Stuff

- Invite lets you invite other members to the Working For a Living community. And please do invite people you know who might benefit. This community is for all of us looking for jobs.

- My Page lets you add information about yourself. The more people know about you, the more they can help.

- Events. Add webinars, face-to-face meetings or teleseminars you think the community will be interested in.

- Forum. Start and participate in discussions, and see what the Working for a Living community it is thinking.

- Members is a list of current members.

- Tools. Find help in resumes, interviews, using job boards, LinkedIn and other key topics. Comment on what's there and add content of your own.

- Hiring captures the latest info on labor, industry and market trends. (It is not a job board!)

-Going Solo. I've never met so many people who are thinking about starting their own business. Great idea but it's not for everyone. I'll share what I've learned in my 20+ years of starting businesses. (This is the practical stuff, not what MBAs learn.)

Help Yourself and Help Others - If you see something interesting; link to it. Odds are others will find it interesting, too. - Be interesting, but be honest. - Write what you know. - Be respectful. - And most of all, have fun!

While I do think age discrimination happens, I don't think it happens as often as people claim. It's an easy cop-out: you can blame the gray hair and crow's feet for a screwed up interview, a bad resume, or simply not being the best candidate for the job.

In today's market--yes, today, 2009--there still are not enough qualified people for the jobs that need filling. If you haven't noticed, employers are often letting go younger people in favor of keeping older ones--assuming we haven't retired in place and are still active, productive employees. They need employees who have been through downturns, know how to handle crises, and don't need a lot of hand-holding.

Yes, employers are using the current economic situation to clean house, get rid of under-performers, and fine-tune staffing. But employers are not dumb enough to fire top-performing people of any age unless there is no other choice. They simply can't afford to.

Don't panic--if you don't think your resume is getting the attention it deserves, here are three simple things you can do.

First, make sure you've incorporated appropriate industry, functional and technical keywords so your resume gets noticed by search engines. Keywords are important words and phrases (usually nouns) that describe knowledge, skills or abilities you have or need for a job. If you don't know where to start, find some position descriptions or job postings similar to the job you want. Look for industry and professional terms and acronyms and incorporate them into your resume.

Second...and I know I'm beating this one to death....have someone review your resume for grammar, typos, punctuation, phrasing and other sticky issues. Don't rely on your word processor's grammar and spell-checker, either. English has too many homonyms (there, they're, their) to be sure the software is fool-proof.

Third, make your resume visually appealing and easy to read. American resumes should be no more than 2 pages long. Go easy on the fancy features. Don't underline and don't use both bold and italics. Pick one or the other, please! Use lots of white space, and go easy on lines and borders.

I stopped publishing "Here's What I Think" last spring because I was busy blogging and setting up Working for a Living. Over the summer, I've heard from several people who've asked me when I was going to send out another HWIT, so here it is, back by popular demand.

Whether you're writing a resume or posting a job to be filled, it can be hard to find just the right word. Verbiage has gotten so inflated that it sounds like everyone is a "key player" on a "mission critical team" determined to "implement strategic plans." We facilitate, collaborate, commemorate and authenticate. We "build strong customer relationships", are "acknowledged experts" and "strong negotiators". We want employees who dedicated, loyal, hard-working people, detail oriented with an "excellent grasp of the big picture." Oh yeah, and don't forget about requiring an MBA for a secretarial position. (I kid you not.) George Carlin said it best in his commentary on modern man; if this link doesn't work, search You Tube for "George Carlin", "modern man" and turn up the sound. It's a classic.

For all the dire economic news floating around--and believe me, some of it's pretty awful--people are finding good jobs. Several Douglas Partners clients have embarked on major transitions this year and they've all been successful. Their secret: focus, focus focus.

They were very clear about their overall personal and professional goals--what they wanted to do, why they wanted to do it, and what they hoped to gain from the experience. They researched cultures, industries, companies and jobs until they became knowledgeable enough to do well in interviews. And every single one of them became an expert networker, even the people who hated it. They found other ways to make connections through Web 2.0 tools and technologies like LinkedIn and Face Book.

But here's the secret sauce: they only applied for jobs that fit their very specific criteria. Yes, money got tight and friends and family pushed them to take jobs. Panic set in for all of them, most especially for the American in China whose visa renewal depended on his employment status. Each stayed focused on their personal and professional goals, on their ideal jobs, companies and industries.

I'm tremendously proud of all of them for their successes. When I have a day where I don't seem to get anything done, I remember those three little words: focus, focus focus.