Some time ago, Wall Street Journal featured a long article about starting a business at retirement age.
The article took a cautious tone. Don’t gamble all your life savings on a business. You won’t have time to recover from a massive failure (as you would at 20 or 30). And so on.
But as the article […]

Q. My last 2 jobs I wore a lot of different hats. Now I want to go to a new city and find a new job. How do I present my varied experience?
A. First and foremost, be straightforward. List your jobs chronologically. Don’t be tempted by the siren call of the functional resume. […]

You’ve got a wonderful job, a nice place to live and lots of friends. But you realize you miss your family, who live five hundred miles away. Maybe you just retired and you want to be closer to your aging parents. Or you want to watch your grandchildren grow up. Or you want to […]

Several readers wrote following last week’s article, The Real Deal on References (see posting below for Saturday December 16).
Nona Aguilar gave me permission to use her name along with a tip she received from an HR person.
When you’re checking a reference, call when you’re pretty sure the reference will be away from his or her […]

Last Thursday we began to hear warnings, “Big storm predicted for Friday.” So Thursday afternoon I backed up my computer files, shut down the computer and stocked up on the basics. Crossing Queen Anne Avenue was like fording a small river.
Overnight the wind was really loud and rain kept coming down. But we were […]

Q. I’m changing jobs. Before leaving my current position, should I get letters of reference?
A. Probably not. In my experience, corporate employers rarely pay attention to “To Whom It May Concern” letters. They’ll prefer phone calls that aren’t recorded. When they need a letter, they’ll have their own forms and they’ll want letters […]

I can’t remember where I heard this: “What do you want?Look at what you have.”
In some way we create what we have, unless of coursewe’re living in a repressive regime or prisonlike place.
Similarly a relationship coach told me, “When I meet acouple who say they’re not happy, I say, ‘So why are youstill together? There […]