Writer, editor, dog lover
Congratulations: You’re awesome at what you do. But don’t prolong the celebration. To continue to learn, sharpen your skills, and advance in your career, you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone and tackle new ground. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself on the equivalent of a hamster wheel.
“Risks are a fundamental part of career progression,” says Denver-based career coach Jennifer DeWall. “If you never take risks, you won’t reach your full potential.”
Click here to read the full story.
Email etiquette is a delicate art, and one that’s important to master, considering the average worker spends 28% of their day checking email, a McKinsey & Company study found. But, when you use poor judgment in an email to your boss, co-worker, or client, you’ve created a digital record of your mistake that could come back to bite you.
As Jacqueline Whitmore, etiquette expert and founder of the Protocol School of Palm Beach, puts it: “An email is a permanent document that can be held against you.”
Another reason why the stakes are high: “Emails can be forwarded to anyone; they can even be posted on the Internet for the public to see,” warns executive coach Anne Marie Segal.
Click here to read the full story.
In an ideal world, your pay would keep going up and up until the day you retire. Don’t count on it: Raises can be harder to come by late in your career, especially when you’re already making a good living.
Among college-educated workers, pay growth tends to top out at age 40 for women, early 50s for men, according to the salary research site PayScale.
Click here to read the full story.
It’s that time of year again—time to set those New Year goals. At this point, though, you know the drill: You set a goal (no more carbs!), stick to it for a month (if you’re lucky), and then revert to your old habits. In fact, US News & World Report found that roughly 80% of resolutions fail by the second week of February, so the odds are against you.
This doesn’t mean you’re doomed to fail, but it does mean you need to be realistic. Your sights must be set on targets that are within your reach. Beware biting off more than you can chew.
Click here to read the full story.
Picking up new skills as an adult 
can be tricky, especially when your energy and free time is precious. But prowess in different areas is not all created equal. Investing in certain abilities can get you big rewards for relatively little effort. MONEY interviewed dozens of experts in different fields to find out which skills, tricks, and workarounds are most financially worthwhile.
Click here to read the full story.
Right after you celebrate that well-earned 
promotion, reality hits: You’re now the boss of people who had been your peers. “When you become a supervisor, the relationship structurally changes, whether you like it or not,” says Good Boss, Bad Boss author
Robert Sutton, a Stanford University professor who studies organizational behavior.
Going forward, your work will be judged on your ability to lead people with whom you used to consort and complain. If that’s not enough pressure, you’re now at risk of being the one complained about. Make the transition seamless with these steps.
Click here to read the full story.
The top reason people quit their jobs,
according to a recent Gallup poll? A bad immediate supervisor. Bully for those who can—and want to—find another position elsewhere, but if you otherwise like the job or need it as a steppingstone, you’ll have to learn to live with that subpar superior. The right coping strategy depends on what kind of lousy your leader is.
Click here to read the full story.
No two words inspire more dread 
in managers and employees alike than these: performance reviews. Rather than letting your annual checkup get you down, though, consider the upside. This is one of the few times of the year you get to chat with your boss about your career. And with a bit of strategizing, you can set the stage for a big raise or promotion in the year to come.
Click here to read more.
Today’s retirees face a unique set
of financial challenges, including how to achieve financial stability in a low-yield environment, in an age in which greater life expectancy slowly drains one’s finances. Retirees are also more likely to be less dependent than their parents on fixed pensions, and more reliant on less secure 401(k)s, which are vulnerable to the whims of the stock market.
Such conditions are sending many retirees back to the workplace. A recent study by Merrill Lynch found that from 2006 to 2011, the number of workers age 55 and older increased by more than 4 million, while every other age group lost jobs. By 2018, 24 percent of the American workforce will be older than age 55, up from 18 percent in 2008 – making them the largest cohort of workers in the labor pool.
The employment outlook for today’s retirees is bright: Roughly 48 percent of employers surveyed by CareerBuilder.com in February said they plan to hire workers age 50-plus this year.
To find grade-A employment after retirement, however, you’ll need a bulletproof resume, savvy interview skills, and a way to demonstrate that your age doesn’t limit your worth. Click here for tips on how to find a successful encore career.
Daniel Bortz 