Just Stuff

The bill passed by both houses of Congress to extend the payroll tax cut will do more than put an extra few bucks per week in the average American’s pocket.

The bill, which President Obama has indicated he would sign, also expands a worksharing program that allows workers whose hours have been reduced to apply for unemployment benefits to make up for those reduced hours. Since the previous system favored layoffs, this provision is expected to keep more people on the job.

The bill will also allow states to set up unemployment insurance programs for freelancers and give more money to training programs.

It also extends, sort of, the length someone can be on unemployment, to between 40 and 73 weeks.

As Forbes blogger Kelly Phillips Erb says, “under the old old law, benefits were extended to as much as 99 weeks. Under the old new law, benefits were not extended. Now, under the new new law, they are extended with stipulations.” States with higher unemployment rates can extend unemployment benefits longer.

Create a clear, strategic approach to the way you use Facebook to market your business in our new Facebook Marketing Boot Camp. The online conference and workshop starts April 24. Learn more.

Gimmicky interview questions (the “How many ping pong balls would fit in a school bus?” sort of thing) are super popular at companies like Google, Yelp, and more. But as this post from mental_floss shows, trick questions like this didn’t get their start with the tech boom.

No, Thomas Edison was also an asker of trick interview questions.

“To test the mental mettle of incoming job seekers, he administered to each a series of 150 questions, tailored to the position for which they were applying. Some were specific to the industry, while others were mysterious.” Out of 500 young men who took the test, only 35 got 90 percent or higher. According to Mental_Floss, some popular magazines started releasing “Edison pop quizzes” based on the questions he asked (Edison wouldn’t release his list to the press, so disgruntled test-takers leaked the questions they remembered).

Edison was a dropout but managed to self-educate himself, and according to some historians, had a chip on his shoulder about college-educated “‘sperts” ever since, so perhaps his test was devised as a subtle means of payback. Or perhaps it was the only way he could get through the applications of people begging to work in his lab. Five hundred applications for 35 slots is not nearly as big of an applicant-to-opening ratio as we have these days, but it’s a lot for one man to deal with.

Journalism jobs:
Harris Tactical Group, the publisher of Tactical Weapons, Special Weapons, Combat Handguns and more, is looking for a copy editor. Attention to detail and ability to prioritize is a must, experience and enthusiasm for guns is helpful.

interviewer/videographer (Washington, DC)
editorial director (New York, NY)
reporter (Washington, DC)
Marketing/PR jobs:
web content editor (Plantation, FL)
beauty writer (San Francisco, CA)
social media manager (Los Angeles, CA or virtual)
PR manager (Indianapolis, IN)
Graphic design/art jobs:
graphic designer (Brooklyn, NY)
Publishing jobs:
contracts assistant (New York, NY)
Other jobs:
business analyst (Henderson, NV)

Every day we scour major job boards, including, but not limited to Mediabistro.com’s listings, to find the best media jobs out there. We screen out duplicates and scams so you know you’re only receiving the top choices.

As of the time of this posting, there were 1496 jobs on our board.

Here’s a pair of columns from WaPo workplace advice columnist Karla Miller. The first features a letter from a woman who thinks her manager is out to get her (and other ambitious women), and the second comes from a manager whose young, ambitious female report is a nightmare.

The young letter-writer in the first instance says that her manager is “running off” other women based on “minutae” and “has now set her sights on me.”

Not a great situation to be in, but the interesting thing is, the LW didn’t mention having attempted to talk to her boss about the way she was feeling attacked.

In the second letter, a relatively new manager finds herself being second-guessed by a young, ambitious woman. “Her communication style is very up-front and borderline rude. I didn’t speak to supervisors that way when I was her age,” says the new supe.

What’s missing: the LW’s attempts at communicating with her report. In fact, she says she’s ” stopped responding to e-mails in which I feel I have to justify any decision to her.”

The advice in both cases is similar: talk. The young’in should say this to her boss: “I was surprised and disappointed at being taken off the Hudsucker project because my last review was so positive. What do you need to see from me to show you I’m ready for more challenging projects?”

And the manager should try (perhaps a more polite version of) the following: “I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but my decisions are based on years of experience. I welcome respectful dissent, but you should start from the assumption that I have a reason for doing things my way.”

But seriously. Start by talking before writing to a workplace advice columnist, that’s our advice.

Letters Of Note is such a great blog you should be reading it even when the letters are not about media people. But yesterday’s letter is from advertising great David Ogilvy and in it, Ogilvy explains how he works.

It begins:

Dear Mr. Calt:

On March 22nd you wrote to me asking for some notes on my work habits as a copywriter. They are appalling, as you are about to see:

Ogilvy describes being completely ruined by distractions at the office and instead, going home to write with research material, an outline, and other background material. He talks about growling at his wife (“worse since I gave up smoking,” he adds), being terrified of failure, and his if-all-else-fails solution of drinking half a bottle of rum and listening to Handel records. He then calls himself “a lousy copywriter, but a good editor.”

In other words, just your usual creative genius. Though with an exceptionally good alcohol tolerance.

Jobseekers may be more able to find a little “wiggle room” in job offers, a new survey from Robert Half reports.

The staffing firm asked 1600 CFOs from US and Canadian companies with 20 or more employees how willing they would be to negotiate salaries with top job candidates, compared to twelve months ago.

While most of the CFOs (54%) said their willingness had not changed, 27 percent were “somewhat more willing” and 11 percent were “much more willing,” with only 5 percent saying they were less willing.

“Job seekers, especially those with skills in high demand, are gaining leverage in salary discussions today,” Robert Half CEO Max Messmer said in a statement.

Robert Half concludes with seven good strategies for getting the best deal in negotiations.

They are:

• Do a reality check. Is the firm in a position to bargain? Find out before attempting any salary negotiation. If you’ve been offered a job at a newly formed startup, or a company that recently announced layoffs or weak financial results, your leverage may be limited.
• Get your figures right. Don’t enter negotiations without doing your homework. Research the latest salary trends for your city, industry and job title by reviewing compensation surveys and publications such as Robert Half’s 2012 Salary Guides and talking to colleagues and recruiters.
• Don’t jump the gun. Wait for the hiring manager to bring up salary in the discussion, and make sure you fully understand the requirements of the position before answering questions about your desired pay. Ask prospective employers what they think would be an appropriate range for the position so you can avoid giving a range that is too high or low.
• Go for your goal. If offered a salary figure that doesn’t meet your expectations, it’s OK to request additional compensation. Employers may start at the lower end of their salary range, leaving room to negotiate.
• Don’t bluff. It’s never a good move to mislead a prospective employer about your current compensation or other higher-paying job offers in an effort to get more money. Instead, reiterate the value you can bring to the firm, and be honest about your desired salary.
• Think beyond the paycheck. Be sure to look at the full picture when evaluating a job offer. A generous benefits package or opportunities to learn and grow with the company may compensate for a lower starting salary, for example.
• End on a high note. If negotiations aren’t successful and you decide to walk away from an offer, remember to do so gracefully. You never know when you might cross paths with the hiring manager again.

The Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) cut its staffers pay by 5% for five months starting last September to save $1 million. Pay should have been restored at the end of this month.

Instead, the paper is extending the pay cuts at least through April. Management will “take stock of our situation” in May, according to a memo from CEO Paul Tash obtained by Romenesko.

While this measure continues, staffers will continue to receive an extra day off per month.

Layoffs hit the Poynter-owned paper in October.

Sharon Smiley was an administrative assistant at a Chicago real estate company.

After more than 10 years with the company, she was fired. Her offense? Working through lunch.

According to Open Forum and multiple other news outlets, Smiley was told that company policy required her to take a half-hour lunch break. Smiley was, at the time, off the clock, but was sitting at her desk working on a spreadsheet.

She was then instructed to go to HR to discuss the issue and was fired for “misconduct and insubordination with the HR manager.”

That was in 2010. Now, finally, a Cook County judge has ruled that Smiley’s conduct “didn’t amount to misconduct that would disqualify her for benefits,” and she will be entitled to keep the unemployment payments that she’s been receiving. (A ruling against her would have required her to repay all the money.)

“I knew you couldn’t eat lunch at your desk,” Smiley told ABC News. “I was under the impression that because I was punched out I could do what I want.” It was the first time in ten years she had worked through lunch.

In December, after spending nearly two years working temp jobs and working for tips at a restaurant, she got a new job as a receptionist at an advertising firm.

And now she’s won her case. The crazy part? No lawyer Smiley could find would take her on as a client, so she had to represent herself. After winning her appeal, she called one of the lawyers who turned her down and left a voicemail:

“I said, ‘This is Sharon Smiley, and I just wanted to call and let you know that I did win my case, and I did it on my own.’ “

The following image was posted to Staralfur09′s tumblr earlier this week:

The caption: “Even Monster has given up on me finding a job. ”

Staralfur09, we are 99% sure that this is a glitch (though we have asked Monster PR what they think), which is why we don’t feel too terrible about giggling just a little at your moroseness. Try clearing your cookies.

Thanks to a new study from Dan Schawbel’s Millennial Branding and Identified.com we now know a little more than we did about how social media and the workplace intersects for gen Y workers.

One not so surprising finding: Most gen-Y workers seem to prefer to keep their Facebook profiles separate from their work life. Out of four million Facebook users ages 18-29, only 36% listed a job on their profile. Not all the rest are unemployed, surely, so perhaps these people “define themselves by their colleges instead of their workplaces,” as the study said.

Of those who list job titles, “owner” is the fifth most popular title. This is an entrepreneurial bunch.

The full infographic is available here, but we’ll summarize some of the most interesting findings.

-Four out of five millennials have at least one work friend, and two in five have more than 10 work friends. The average number of work friends is 16, or just 2% of an average millennial’s total friend count.
-The US Military is the largest employer of gen-y workers. The largest corporate employer of gen-y workers is Deloitte, but most millennials work for startups.

About Millennial Branding:
Millennial Branding is a full-service personal branding agency located in Boston, MA. Millennial Branding delivers online branding strategies for individuals who are looking to stand out and achieve career and business success. Millennial Branding creates strategic marketing plans, custom website designs and runs PR and social media campaigns for companies, authors and entrepreneurs.

Data and analytics provided by:
Identified.com is a data and analytics company that professionally interprets your Facebook network and provides ranking and relevance to the network with the Identified Score. Identified helps users understand how they professionally compare to others and provides Facebook recruiting solutions to social employers. See how you professionally rank against your peers with with Identified.com.