Age bias, jobless bashing and killer desk chairs got the most attention from CareerDiva readers in 2010.

It was a bumpy year as far as the job market was concerned and the workplace news was sometimes hard to digest. Thanks for going through it all with me and thanks for reading. Let’s hope 2011 is the best year for all our careers!

Here are links to the 15 most popular CareerDiva post from 2010 in no particular order:

1. Apple’s ‘iPad’ points to dearth of women in IT

2. “Overqualified,” aka too “old,” for the job.

3. Women are not bitchy, until we’re bitchy.

4. Jobless aren’t watching “Housewives,” sipping Dom.

5. Salary history question: To disclose or not to disclose?

6. How not to look so jobless.

7. Houston, We Have a Problem: NASA hopes nerdy girls will oBLIGE.

8. Do men want to screw women, or give them power?

9. Senate says: Women are worth less.

10. You’re still fat and the boss isn’t happy.

11. Death to the desk chair.

12. The obit Elizabeth Edwards didn’t want.

13. Rich folks and the jobless they leave behind.

14. Is your vagina holding you back?

15. Merits of not following your career dreams.

Two minutes to breast-feed is more than enough time. And it’s okay to nurse while you’re sitting on a toilet in your office bathroom.

I know five minutes and a toilet is not ideal when it comes to breast-feeding, but what if your employer decided it was? That’s just what might happen if working gals don’t speak up.

Lots of women have been complaining for a long time that they should be allowed to breast-feed at work in order to make their transition back into the workplace easier. Well, your time has come.

Obama’s health care reform act included the “Nursing Mothers Law” that finally mandates nursing at work, and now the Department of Labor is asking for input from the public as it crafts its guidelines. This is your chance breast-feeding advocates to make sure your voices heard. (more…)

The federal government has made no secret of its distaste for credit checks in the employment process, and now they’re taking out the big guns to fight the practice.

It’s bad enough that many of you have had to search for work for months, deplete your savings, and maybe miss a few bill payments, or lose your home or car; but then some employers would deny you a job because your credit was lousy. That’s just adding insult to injury. And, in some cases, such background checks can be discriminatory, impacting one group or groups who may have more problems with credit than others. It’s gotten many job seekers I’ve spoken with hot under the job-hunting collar.

Well, those folks have a friend at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Jacqueline Berrien. She became chair of the agency in April and she told me a while back that one of her top priorities was to smackdown such bogus background checks. Yesterday she took her first major shot. (more…)

Remember that young kid who lied to get into Harvard and was all over the news earlier this year? Adam Wheeler pleaded guilty and was sentenced last week but he got less fanfare than his story sparked in May.

There was a tiny news brief on page A25 of the New York Times on Friday, much less ink than Wheeler’s story go when news of his master deception broke.

A man who authorities said falsified his academic record to get into Harvard University pleaded guilty Thursday to larceny, identity fraud and other charges. Adam Wheeler, 24, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, 10 years of probation and $45,000 in restitution. According to the sentence, Mr. Wheeler will serve only 30 days in prison. In May, Mr. Wheeler was charged after forging his transcripts and receiving more than $50,000 in scholarships and grants from Harvard. Mr. Wheeler applied to the university as a transfer student, sending fabricated records from M.I.T. and Philips Academy. In reality, Mr. Wheeler attended a public high school in Delaware and Bowdoin College.

That’s it. Not even a photo of the guy. But alas, that’s how things work in the media folks. One day people are wondering who’ll play you in the movie about your life and the next you’re yesterday’s news. And that’s just how life works when it comes to the many milestones you make in your life, whether they’re fake accomplishments or real ones.

Wheeler was hoping a Harvard education would set him up for life, and why would you blame the guy for thinking that. That’s what our society tells kids all the time. But in reality what sets people up for life is following their dreams, their passions. Trust me. I hear from tons of people in their middle careers, some with lots of money and a big house, who aren’t happy and are looking for something, something they just can’t put their finger on. (more…)

I’m confident I stand with most Americans when it comes to hoping our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq come home soon. But their return also worries me.

There are about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, and despite the end of war in Iraq, more than 50,000 soldiers still occupy that country. If they all came back today we’d have an employment crisis on our hands. Today there are more than 200,000 veterans who recently returned and can’t find work, according the the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and the jobless rate for Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans’ is 10 percent, compared to 9.8 percent among the civilian population. Among young male veterans it’s even higher:

For many young returning vets, the military was the first real job they had so it makes sense that it would be harder for them to find work. And many older vets who thought their jobs would be waiting for them when they returned were hit with a harsh reality — a pink slip.

“I think that there is the potential for some upside in 2011 hiring, but overall the trend remains very poor for veterans when directly compared with their civilian counterparts,” said Chad Storlie, author of “Combat Leader to Corporate Leader: 20 Lessons to Advance Your Civilian Career.” (more…)

Is your boss watching what you wear?

Should you care?

Check out my MSNBC.com column on how Corporate America is ratcheting up the fashion police.

UBS, a Swiss bank, recently released dressing and grooming guidelines for its staff. Seriously, the rules are so specific that they even mandate how long male employees can keep their fingernails and when female workers should put on perfume.

This from the Christian Science Monitor today:

The regulations designate a 1.5 millimeter maximum fingernail length for men, suggests that female bankers wear makeup and put on perfume directly after showering and not after lunch, advocates that shoes be changed daily to bring greater levels of “peace and serenity,” and mandates employee underwear that is skin-toned and “always made of superior quality textiles.”

“Superior quality” underwear and perfume are pricey items but alas there was nothing said about giving employees some extra cash to handle the new rules.

I bet many of you are wondering if an employer in the Good Old USA can force such appearance restrictions on workers. (more…)

When I’ve Googled “writing a resume” in the past, some of the first few “great” resume examples that have come up included a host of buzz words such as “problem solver” and “trouble shooter.” I suspected these words were probably on most of the resumes out there.

I was right. LinkedIn just released the top ten most overused buzz words of all time. Well, the top ten words that show up most often on LinkedIn profiles.

“We have the unique ability to uncover interesting workplace trends in our data given the high volume of people with profiles on LinkedIn,” said DJ Patil, LinkedIn’s Chief Data Scientist.

Here’s is LinkedIn’s list: (more…)

It’s déjà screw you working women all over again.

Yet another year and yet more crummy statistics on women and the corner office.

You probably can write this post yourselves given how many times you’ve heard this.

The number of women in corporate boardroom, in the big executive offices, and among the top earners at corporations is little changed from last year and is still pathetic, according to data out today from Catalyst. (more…)

Oh great digital prophet, tell us what the future will bring.

Lately it seems like everyone believes the young, rich, Internet entrepreneurs will help bring about world peace and provide a chicken in every pot. I just listened to an interview with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason done by Matt Lauer from the Today Show and it was quite nauseating.

Mason’s cyber coupon company reportedly turned down $6 billion to be bought by Internet giant Google, and everyone is freaking out over why anyone would say ‘no’ to a mountain of money. The media has also become obsessed with the kooky and confident 30-year old Mason; their latest in a string of young cyber entrepreneur love fests, most notably Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg.

There’s already been a movie made about Zuckerberg. By contrast, one of the first feature films about Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company in 1903, “Ford: The Man and the Machine,” wasn’t made until 1987. It’s unclear if Facebook will even be around that long. But I guess we don’t always care about staying power. It’s all about the influential of the moment.

Lauer actually asked Mason how he, as the latest anointed digital pioneer, was going to use his “clout.” (more…)