Careers

Is Contract Work REALLY Self-Employment?

By Kevin M

I’ve been writing a good bit in the past few weeks about the virtues of self-employment, based heavily on my own experience in turning this blog into a primary income generating venture. I believe that being self-employed may now be the new preferred way to “creating a career”, as opposed to the more traditional route of jumping on the corporate ladder—mainly since the ladder no longer seems to exist.

Today I want to take a look at contracting, since it’s become an increasingly common path into self-employment. For the record, I’ve done a good bit of contract work over the past few years so I won’t be talking (OK, writing…) hypothetically. And I still do take on contract work under the right circumstances.

OK, so you enter a contract arrangement—they have you sign a thick contract filled with rich legalese, they aren’t going to withhold taxes, you’ll be issued a 1099 at the end of the year (instead of a W2) and you’ll be required to file a Schedule C—Income from Self-employment, on your income tax returns. Wow, you’re self-employed now, right?

Not necessarily. And maybe not at all.

Many contract arrangements have nothing to do with self-employment. They’re mostly watered down jobs that have close to zero chance of ever being converted into entrepreneurship of any kind. They can be a trap if you take them on, thinking it’ll make you self-employed. No only will you not be self-employed, but you’ll be only minimally employed at that. It’s important to know when a contract arrangement really is a form of self-employment and when it’s something else.
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The Future of the American Job Market…is Technical

Guest Post

The single defining factor of the 21st century job market will be automation. Technology is driving us to a point where human hands and minds are no longer needed for a wide variety of relatively simple tasks.

Once upon a time your average high school graduate could find steady work in a factory. Those days have been mostly over for years, and for the last several decades the once-optional college degree has become the key to finding work. But as we enter a new century, it’s becoming abundantly clear that a degree itself is not enough. Ambiguous higher education simply doesn’t cut it anymore in a world where automation is cheaper than paying someone a salary.

Higher education needs to be specific—and technical

Higher education was once merely a metric for judging someone’s ability to stick to something, at least for the most part. It’s different now – those two-to-ten years spent in school better have been used to study something that made you something of a computer yourself, a finely-tuned workhorse that can perform at something very specific very well. The reason being is that when it comes to the automation of labor, the most simple and easy-to-replicate jobs have been the ones that computers and machines have replaced.
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Attend Schools Online to Become a Better Career Counselor

By Jessica Wagner

Many schools online offer a liberal arts degree preparing graduates to later become career counselors. Career counseling could not only save others financially, but help them live the financial lives they have always dreamed of living.

Unfortunately, several traditional colleges today either offer limited career counseling services or none at all to their post-grads. This leaves grads searching for employment on their own through various online search engines.

Every job hunter’s dilemma

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5 RISKS to getting a College Education

By Kevin M

You read that first word right—RISKS—as in something to lose! Historically risk is not a word normally associated with a college education, but this isn’t history—it’s the big, bad now and the rules have changed.

Not only is the cost of a college education much higher than it’s ever been (and rising relentlessly), but the ways people are paying for it are farther out there on the danger scale. And the jobs that once reliably awaited students upon graduation don’t seem to be there in either number or compensation. To paraphrase a well worn cliché, this ain’t your father’s college education.

The college game is changing. A number of factors have developed that have turned the one time ticket to the good life into a high risk proposition. I’ve identified five and you could probably cite a few others.

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What Happened to the 40 Hour Work Week?

By Kevin M

Does anyone work a 40 hour work week anymore? You know, the comfortable, predictable “9 to 5” that we often complained about during more certain times? Apparently fewer employees than ever still have this luxury, and if current trends continue, fewer still will have it in the future.

An article by Seth Fiegerman on Yahoo Finance earlier this month, The End of the 40-Hour Work Week confirms these changes in work schedules and the forces behind them:

“Higher-level workers are increasingly being asked to put in 50 hours or more a week…while lower income workers are often forced to work fewer hours but at jobs with irregular schedules, according to a comprehensive report from the Center for American Progress…Driving these changes…are companies turning lower-level full-time jobs into part-time employment to cut costs, savings that come at the expense of workers — and their families — losing the traditional schedules and financial benefits that come with full-time employment.”

The typical work schedule has become more erratic and the neat, predictable 40 hour work week is fast fading into the dustbin of history.
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Staying Focused During the Job Search


And one college’s “Employment Pledge” to ease the transition

Guest Post by Philip Reed

Even at the best of times, mounting a job search can be intimidating and often, disheartening. With today’s unemployment numbers and still shaky economy, a job search can be downright terrifying.

It’s important that you don’t let the whole process of it overwhelm you by taking it one day, one resume, or one interview at a time. If you can remain focused on the individual tasks required you will present yourself to prospective employers in a far more confident and positive manner. The more confident that you appear; the higher your chances are for a successful interview and—ultimately—a job offer.

New college graduates

New graduates are facing a difficult road in getting that first job. If you’re just out of college, or will be in the next year or two, your major area of study will be a critical factor in both how quickly you land a job and how much you will earn.
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Why Skills are More Important than a Job

By Kevin M

Having a job is a good thing—the problem is complete reliance on it! That, unfortunately, is where most people are. The loss of a job can set a chain of financial catastrophes in motion, and even threaten the survival of a person or an entire household. Is there an answer to this dilemma? Is there a way to enjoy the benefits of a steady paycheck—preferably one with medical insurance—without being so totally dependent on your employer?

There is—the answer is skills, your skills. And not just any skills but two specific types that rise above all others: transferable skills and retail skills.

Everyone brings general skills to their work—management, administrative and organizational skills, typing, computer skills, “people skills”—we can think of them as the minimum requirements for employment.

But transferable and retail skills are much deeper. They’re skills that are in demand, easily recognizable, portable and have application across different industries and business types. When you have them, your ability to earn a living is never in doubt—even if your current job is.
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Advice for a Veteran Who Needs a Job

By John Durfee

One of the last things you worry about when coming home from serving your country in a time of war is post-service employment. Unfortunately, there is still a bit of a struggle when it comes to finding a job with ease outside of our armed forces for our veterans.

Despite incentives to hire our country’s vets, there is still about a 15% unemployment rate among returning vets out of the more than two million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. That’s unacceptable in my book. While combat training may not translate seamlessly to the civilian job market back home, there just might be more similarities than you’d think.

To begin, you will no doubt be highly suited to a career in some facet of law enforcement or security. Both physically and mentally, your training with the military has already prepared you for this and it might be something that interests you; something you can transition to quite easily. But if you’re looking to go in an entirely new direction, here are a few tips and guidelines to keep in mind:

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Why It’s SO Hard to Get a Job

By Kevin M

As if the poor economy, high taxes, too much regulation, advancing technology and globalization weren’t doing enough to torpedo the job market, there’s yet another obstacle to finding a job, one of a more personal nature and it’s having a bigger impact all the time.

It’s the background check.

Background checks now go farther and wider than they ever have, but it’s happening against the backdrop of a time when life is getting uglier and more complicated than ever for tens of millions of people.

It’s getting more difficult for a job seeker to pass a background check; in fact, at times it looks like a conspiracy. With computerization and the increased availability of data at progressively lower cost, more information is available about us than ever before. And unfortunately, economic, legal and social conditions are combining to make it more difficult than ever for the average person to pass employment muster.

Consider some of the information employers seek in background checks against the state of the world we now live in.

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Where Have All the GOOD Jobs Gone?

By Kevin M

The official unemployment rate has finally fallen below the 9% level (8.9% in February), but does that mean the job market is finally turning around?

Yahoo! News had a revealing—but disturbing—article on the state of the job market last week. In Jobs returning—but good ones not so much, Zachary Roth reports some of the deeper details behind the unemployment benchmark:

  • 49% of the new jobs created over the past year are in low wage industries, such as retail and food processing
     
  • Higher wage jobs represent only 14% of the new jobs, thought they accounted for 40% of the jobs lost during the recession
     
  • 9.6% of the workforce are working part time but want full time jobs
     
  • On the topic of wage levels, the article reported that “though productivity rose 5.2 percent from mid 2009 to the end of 2010, wages increased by just 0.3 percent. That means only 6 percent of productivity gains were shared with workers. In past recoveries, that figure has averaged 58 percent.”

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