employed

I am about to make quite a few of you feel slightly smug inside.

For all of you who happen to be reading this -- and who happen to be software engineers -- you have the best jobs in America.

This would not be my own verdict. For the idea of being a software engineer would turn my heart to molasses.

However, a company called CareerCast, which turns out to be yet another of the fine sites where one can find a lovable job, has no doubts that software engineer is where it's at.

I am grateful to the … Read more

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--It's nearly 10 a.m. in the City Council chambers here, and 43 people are waiting for their turn to speak.

These are not citizens with civic matters on their minds; divided into two lines that stretch out from either side of the podium in the center of the room, these veterans of Google, Cisco, NASA, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Microsoft, Boeing, Sun, and others, are here looking for a new lease on their professional lives.

One by one, they lean into the microphone to introduce themselves. They mention where they've worked in the past, list their skills, … Read more

It sounded like a great Friday story, especially since nothing else was lighting up the ticker. A little after five in the morning, Pacific Time, Facebook issued a statement under the imprimatur of one Erin Egan, the company's chief privacy officer for policy.

Her post put employers on notice: Demand user profile and password information to gain access to peoples' Facebook profiles or private information and you just might wind up getting socked with a sweet lawsuit.

In recent months, we've seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people'… Read more

Has an employer or potential employer ever requested access to your Facebook account? If so, Facebook itself advises you to just say no.

Responding to growing complaints from employees over the practice, Facebook made its own position quite clear in a post published today. Noting an increase in the number of such requests from employers, the social network said they undermine both the security and the privacy of the user and the user's friends.

And the practice can put employers themselves at risk.

Companies making such requests may not have the right policies or training in place to deal … Read more

I worry about the people at Facebook.

There they are working all the hours that Mark Zuckerberg sends, in the belief that they are changing the world. Or at least changing their chances of buying a mansion in Palo Alto.

There is proof, though, that they are suffering. A vast and meaningful analysis by Glassdoor, the people who collate employees' feelings about their work life, offers a view of troubled times in Data-Grabbing Central.

I am grateful to Geekwire for finding this information, which suggests that the biggest gripe at Facebook is the hours, then the work/life balance, then … Read more

There is something faintly absurd about dressing for a job interview.

You wear your best clothes--sometimes borrowed from someone you met in a bar--in order to present an entirely false picture of yourself. No, you don't usually wear Armani. No, you don't usually wear shirts with collars. Especially clean ones.

However, now that we all project ourselves through machines, we have to rethink our image. Yes, our online image.

Yesterday, there was some evidence that there might be a few more jobs in America.

One way in which employers find people quickly and cheaply is by dint of … Read more

Normally an employer who logs into your Facebook or Google+ account to peruse your private messages, photos, and wall posts would be violating federal computer hacking laws.

Unless, of course, you give them permission.

That's the legal loophole that at least some employers are using to learn more about their prospective hires. In theory, it's voluntary, but in reality, if you don't log into your account and let an interviewer poke around, you may not get the job.

Job seekers applying to Maryland's Division of Corrections have been asked during interviews to "log into their … Read more

Most IT professionals are fine human beings, especially as they often hold the workings of modern capitalists gently within their hands.

However, as in any profession, there are rogues who wish to use their skills for nefarious ends.

A story has reached me of one such gentleman. I won't betray his place of employment, save to say that it is in a large corporation in New York.

I will, though, betray his simple method of, well, amusing himself. He takes pictures of the ladies in his office with his watch. His gentlemanliness is such that he takes these pictures … Read more

The recruitment industry has its quota of questionable characters.

They prey on those desperate to improve their lots in life. They make promises they know will not ultimately be kept. It's not often, indeed, that they express themselves in words that might contain huge dollops of, well, truth.

So who cannot have vast and deep sympathy for Gary Chaplin, a recruitment executive who spoke his mind, but, sadly, spoke it a little too clearly and a little too publicly?

Chaplin, working for a British company called Stark Brooks, received an e-mail from a candidate seeking work in the banking … Read more