Ever have one of those days? You know the type: All of the sudden it’s time for lunch but you never would have known because your breakfast is still sitting idle at your desk. Meanwhile, you’re wearing your coffee (yeah, spilled again), and the deadline at 1 p.m. is quickly approaching…

Well, our friends at Brazen Careerist outlined a few ways to manage chaos on the job.

1. Prioritize. Yes, this entails planning ahead even during the most chaotic of times. Vishnu Subramaniam writes in the piece, “Not all tasks are created the same. You must determine what your ultimate goal and objective is for the day. Is your job to advocate for a policy, improve turnout for a community event or sell a product or service?”

Once an objective has been identified, it should be crystal clear as to what you should work on first. Looming deadline? Time to work on it first. Read more

As the job market picks up, here’s more good news: Nearly half of the employers in a recent survey said they would pay recent graduates between $30,000 and 49,999 this year.

According to the CareerBuilder poll, 25 percent reported they would pay a recent grad $50,000 or more! Although three out of four said they aren’t flexible with salary, the remaining 25 percent said yes, they would consider bumping up a starting salary during negotiations. Read more

As a footnote to Friday’s labor report, Simply Hired, a technology company that operates a job search engine, echoed the job growth with their own set of statistics. Last month openings on their site were up 6.2 percent month over month and 40.9 percent year-over-year.

To drill down even more for media folks, their representative informed us there are 25,036 job openings in media. This is up by six percent from March and almost 30 percent year-over-year.

As for the cities with the most available jobs, that would be New York City (2,745 jobs), Los Angeles (1,479 jobs), and Chicago (1,150). The numbers represent the media industry as a whole and unfortunately, don’t specify the medium within media itself. Read more

Meeting someone with the right connections to give you a shot at an interview can be both exciting and nerve-racking. For the latest Mediabistro feature, industry professionals explain how any job seeker can win over a prospective employer on the fly.

Tip No. 2: Start with the Relationship, Not the Resume

Remember, networking is about creating a connection, not making a hard sell. “Focus first on building the relationship with the executive. It’s important to make a connection before asking for anything,” said Kent Lee, career consultant for Yahoo! and CEO of Perfect Resume. “This can be done by simply asking questions that show a general interest and enthusiasm in the executive’s company.”

Read more in Networking 102: How to Turn a Chance Meeting Into a Career Opportunity

– Nick Braun

In case you haven’t heard of the General Release and Agreement, we’re here to give you some insight.

Here’s the deal: Let’s say you get laid off and an employer gives you documentation for your signature in exchange for severance. Essentially, the document indicates you’ll waive your rights to sue the company and that you won’t say anything negative about it. Read more

WhenYahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer nixed the company’s telecommuting policy, it snagged headlines and created dialogue around working remotely. Well, her new policy regarding parenting is turning heads, too.

Mayer chose not to take a lengthy maternity leave last fall after giving birth to her son, but according to a piece in The Wall Street Journal, she’s generously extending her company’s parenting policies.

Yahoo! is now going to offer up to 16 weeks of paid leave for new mothers which is about twice the length of time from the previous policy. They’re also adding a paid paternity leave which will cover eight weeks of paid leave for new fathers and mothers encompassing having children through adoption, foster care or surrogacy.

There’s more: New parents will receive money to spend on household expenses to the tune of $500. And get this — employees who get new pets get perks, too like dog collars with the company logo. Read more

Are you the type of person who looks at a glass and thinks it’s half full or half empty?

We’re the half full types and thus, today’s job report is actually a good thing. The economy added 165,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.5 percent nationally.

Here’s the kicker: According to a piece on ABC News, economists apparently thought the report was going to show adding 153,000 jobs last month with a stagnant unemployment rate.

As such, today’s report was better than expected! We’re not the only optimistic ones.

Kevin Dunning, U.S. Analyst for The Economist Intelligence Unit, told the site, “This is encouraging because it suggests that previously discouraged workers are returning to the jobs market on the back of better prospects now.”

According to a new study by Workfolio, more than half of the hiring managers surveyed are more impressed by a personal Web site than other branding tools.

As pointed out by a post on U.S. News & World Report, Charles Pooley, the founder and CEO of Workfolio indicated a few things are musts to include on a personal site: Your interests, a photo, your career results and achievements and a short bio.

As for social media, you can include links to platforms you’re active with but try to only include ones that are relevant to the job.

Lindsay Olson wrote in the piece, “You can also show off your expertise by including blog posts on topics that relate to the field you work in, or want to work in. Even if you don’t have a ton of job experience, well-written and well-informed copy can go a long way in impressing a potential employer.” Read more

Last night at the New York Public Library’s Yorkville branch, authors Jennifer Weiner, Sarah Pekkanen and Elizabeth LaBan spoke candidly about their new books (The Next Best Thing, The Best of Us and The Tragedy Paper, respectively), their writing and revision process and advice regarding whether or not people should write for free.

For starters, they talked about the writing process. “I like to write in coffee shops,” said Weiner who’s active on Twitter, especially during The Bachelor. “I like to be around noise and have people around me. That’s my process: Coffee shops.”

As for LaBan, who has a background in journalism like Weiner and Pekkanen, she prefers commotion as well. “I can write with a lot of distractions.”

Pekkanen agreed. When she pens a novel, there are “notebooks everywhere.” In fact, she’s been known to bring her laptop to Chuck E. Cheese!

Fitting it in when you can is particularly critical if you’re juggling a day job. As for their take on how to balance writing a book while working another gig that consumes a lot of time and energy? “Do it when you can,” Pekkanen advised.

“If you’re going to be a writer, nothing is going to stop you,” added Weiner. “There is a story inside you and only you can tell it. You’re going to have to, you’ll explode!”

Rage also helps, joked Weiner when she recalled writing in the late 1990′s. “I had just been dumped so I had rage to fuel me. Rage is great!” Plus, there weren’t very good TV shows around 1998-ish so she wrote a lot on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights – not on Thursdays because Friends, Seinfeld and ER were on, she confessed.

Switching gears to revisions, one audience member asked about the aftermath of writing your first draft. Weiner suggested finding people you trust who’ll be honest with you but getting distance from it helps as well. In fact, the bestselling author recalled putting a manuscript she wrote in a box for six weeks, taking it out and then perusing it as a reader asking herself, “Will I like this? If I bought this would I want to read it?”

“Get some distance,” she advised. “Put it physically out of sight and put it away….Anything can be made better.”

And then ask people you trust for their honest input. LaBan incorporated the same advice and asked for other sets of eyeballs to read her work — including Weiner’s! LaBan turned to her quipped, “Well, I asked you to read it.”

And what if you’re not quite at that stage yet? As in, still typing away. “For fiction, you gotta finish,” mentioned Weiner. “Agents are busy and they’re not going to take you on unless they know you can bring it.”

You may already have a full plate if you’re active on social media and blogging away, too. That said, what were there thoughts about people considering writing for free?

It depends on the individual but Weiner indicated people should size up their own situation and ask themselves, ”What is this going to cost me and then ask, ‘What are the benefits?’ You have to do what’s right for you, not only where you are now but always with an eye of where to go next.”

As an intern, maybe you fetched your share of coffee for colleagues but this story is quite unusual…

Our friends at AOL Jobs mentioned the Weather Channel interns are involved with a simulated tornado on camera as part of “Tornado Week.” No worries though, the @TornadoWeek Twitter feed indicated, “No interns were harmed in the making of this in office tornado.”

Aspiring employees take turns sitting in an office with electric fans. Get this — as they get more and more tweets, the tornado becomes stronger and stronger. They’re still doing their work at their desks, huddled in hoodies and continue with a business as usual mindset.