Career Center Blog | How a positive mindset can trump the best skill set

In a struggling economy, many people looking for work make the mistake of focusing solely on a new job instead of managing their careers. I know from personal experience that when a steady income is suddenly cut off, it becomes

Career Center Blog | 'Not Working' reflects the adaptability of today's workforce

A woman finds out she is being laid off from her bank job via email attachment after 22 years of service. A man shows up one morning at his office to find a padlock on the front door and all

Career Center Blog | Black cloud over 'green jobs' report has silver lining

Through the dark days of the Great Recession, there was a faint ray of hope for recovery, and it was colored green. Many progressive leaders, from the Obama administration to the Seattle city government, had pinned their hopes on the

Career Center Blog | Advantage employee: Worker confidence on the rise

Seattle's current run of consecutive outstandingly beautiful weekends is not the only sunny news to hit the Puget Sound region in recent weeks. As the afternoons grow longer and the temperatures get warmer, there appears to be a gradual and

Career Center Blog | Sharing the layoff burden with good government

As much I hate to remind you, we're only a few weeks into our official presidential election year, and we still have more than seven months left to withstand the overheated rhetoric about "job creators," no-tax pledges and Etch-A-Sketch gaffes.

Career Center Blog | Seattle Job Sector Survey observations, part 2

This week, I'm bringing you the second installment of the topic I kicked off last week: namely, a breakdown of some of the interesting results unearthed by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in its recent Job Sector Survey. If

Career Center Blog | The Seattle job scene: hard facts and armchair observations

While all of us have a vested interest in paying attention to the health of our local economy, I personally find most economic and labor reports painfully difficult to read. The other day, however, I stumbled across a recent report

Career Center Blog | Spring forward: Add some momentum to your networking

The future got a little brighter over the last couple of weeks -- and I'm not just talking about the added hour of twilight we just received yesterday from Daylight Saving Time. In spite of all the negative rhetoric surrounding

Career Center Blog | Holiday gift list: New confidence, new job

This is a week of making lists (checked twice, of course) and looking forward to a new year of possibilities. We seem to be doing well with the gift list, according to the latest figures for retail sales and other

Career Center Blog | 2012 advice: Hold your ground on benefits

The Great Recession has been over, technically, for more than two years now, but everyone knows that it's "over" only in the minds of economists. In the real working world, where talented, qualified job seekers often take a year or

Career Center Blog | Where should federal dollars be spent for worker training?

Much of the debate in the Other Washington these days is about what the federal government can or cannot do to help boost the economy. The debate is crucially important for the country, but it rarely has much impact at

Career Center Blog | Helping businesses help themselves to create jobs

There's no denying that this has been a tough month for the idea that government can provide assistance in creating new jobs. In spite of a substantial rebound on Wall Street following the Great Recession, the unemployment rate still stands

Career Center Blog | Underemployed and returning to the networking trenches

One of the key tenets of my Hire Ground advice to job seekers has always been to remain positive. Grumbling and negativity can spread like a plague and lead to desperation, which is deadly to any serious employment search. That

Career Center Blog | McGinn initiatives may give Seattle job creation a nudge

A year and a half into Mike McGinn's term as mayor of Seattle, he hasn't made a lot of friends. His continued opposition to the downtown tunnel project, his tough stance on downtown parking and his environmental activism have made

Career Center Blog | Turnaround coming for 'boomerang' generation?

For the last few years, the long-running joke about recent college grads was that they were first of the new "boomerang generation" -- well-educated young adults who had earned six-figure educations but were landing right back where they started at

Career Center Blog | Manufacturing, warehousing recovers but demands patience

In the darkest days of the Great Recession, it seemed as if manufacturing in the Puget Sound region was in its death throes. The economy also devastated the container trade at the Port of Seattle, leading to more job stagnation

Career Center Blog | Let employers know how innovative you are

For much of the last couple of years, the economy has slowly climbed out of the deep hole of the Great Recession and returned many corporate balance sheets into the black. However, most of the multitudes who were laid off

Career Center Blog | A little government help for job growth

It's undoubtedly tough out there finding a job these days. It's equally tough to be a public official in a state or local government trying to allocate a dwindling amount of dollars for crucial economic development programs. According to a

Career Center Blog | Knowing when to shift gears in your job search

As the economy continues to stagnate, it has become an almost too-convenient excuse for people to give up on their job searches. Employment experts often say that unemployment rates don't reflect the true number of people who have been searching

Career Center Blog | Networking for the miracle comeback win

If there's one thing Americans can agree upon -- especially after the recently expired decade of divisiveness -- it's that everyone loves an underdog. To surmount impossible odds and beat an overconfident opponent is a theme that is practically spliced

Career Center Blog | Temp, trade hires may lead job revival in 2011

This week, as greater Seattle gears up for the last-minute shopping binge, most job seekers are pretty much already on holiday from their usual full-time "jobs" of looking for work. With hiring managers either planning holiday parties, on early vacation

Career Center Blog | Confidence still rising for 2011 job growth

All relationships -- even the ones that seem destined for long-term commitment -- have their bumpy days, where everything seems to fall apart. Friday was one of those days for the on-again/off-again romance between private-sector employers and the nation's workforce.