It’s about 300 BC and a gladiator named Spartacus, or Sparty for short, is looking for a new gig because the arena in his town faced a fall off in attendance and had to cut back on staffing. Another gladiator known as Geta-man who lives in a nearby town still has his job but is looking for a new coliseum that offers better pay and benefits.

They both apply for a position at an arena in Rome and the hiring manager Tootus has a difficult decision to make. Both men have the same qualifications and kill-to-loss ratio, and they both passed the anti-personality tests with flying colors. In the end, Tootus decides to go with Geta-man because Sparty is unemployed. Even though he knows Sparty had no control over his employment circumstances, he just feels better with the guy who still has a job.

Since the beginning of time, people have been inclined to wonder, “why are you jobless?” I offer this example because the New York Times did a story this week about how employers are actively weeding out unemployed candidates and tons of media outlets picked up the story like is was something new. I did a column on this in February and a blog post over a year ago, and even then it wasn’t new.

It’s just one of the harsh realities of the job market, and I know most of you already knew this. One piece of career advice that almost everyone has heard before is “don’t quit your job until you have a job.” Why? It’s just easier to find a position when your employed.

I know, if you get laid off you can’t help it, but don’t expect to get equal treatment with the employed. There are states trying to fight this, including New Jersey, which recently passed a provision against the practice. But Jamie D. Prenkert, attorney and associate professor of business law at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, said with the exception of a few states that have added employment status to the list of protected classifications, employment laws do not make a preference for the currently employed or recently employed unlawful – unless that preference disproportionately affects one of the protected classifications, like age or race, which can become difficult to prove.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “It’s nearly impossible to prove disparate impact discrimination without access to applicant flow data or similar statistics and it’s difficult to gather such information when the long-term unemployed are not applying because these ads specifically exclude them.”

In the end, it’s a sword all you unemployed gladiators will have to bear.

So, I’m digging back into my advice bin and offering you this one key strategy: Don’t look so jobless. (more…)

We were at a friends house over the weekend for a BBQ and after a day of drinking and playing volleyball in their pool I made what turned out to be a dumb request. I asked for a cup of coffee.

The couple looked at my husband and me like we were crazy and proudly announced, “we don’t drink coffee.”

I asked, “you don’t have any in your house?”

“No, we don’t even buy it,” the wife chimed in.

Feeling I was bordering on being rude, I decided to drop the matter. But I sat there in silence wondering how any adult could survive without coffee. I get bypassing it on the weekend, but what about during your workweek? The couple were both hard workers. “How the heck did they get through a day?” I thought to myself. Was I the only one who desperately needed it to survive the daily grind?

Clearly the expected battle of coffees between Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds and Starbucks shows many of you out there are also in my boat; and statistics show many of you may be worse off than me. (more…)

I often ask successful professionals about their first jobs. Rarely does anyone tell me they loved, or really enjoyed those initial gigs.

Why? Because it’s rare to walk out of school and into the perfect job, one that’s fun and fullfilling. That’s just how the real world works. Believe it or not, you may actually hate that first job and spend more time learning and paying dues than sitting back in a rocking chair saying, “wow, my job is so great.”

That may be a bit of a disappointment to many younger workers. One study found that enjoyment at work is the top priority for students. (more…)

The jobs news this week has been pretty bad and I know it’s gotten many of you down.

A key gauge of future economic strength grew at an anemic rate, according to The Conference Board; and mass layoffs are in vogue again.

This from MSNBC.com yesterday:

Layoffs are rising as companies dig in amid a slew of worries: stalled debt ceiling talks in Washington; a looming financial crisis in Europe; and signs the recovery is going nowhere. The Labor Department said Thursday that applications for unemployment benefits rose by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 418,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dipped to 421,250. It was the third straight week that applications have risen.

It’s understandable if you’re feeling a bit gloomy, especially if you’re out of work. But it might be time to tune out the bad headlines and snap out of it, or else job gloom will end up leading to career doom. (more…)

I’m usually the last one to blame motherhood for anything, but there’s a compelling argument in a science journal this week that points the finger at motherhood for the dearth of female scientists, specifically when we decide to become mothers.

The New Scientist magazine published an opinion piece by two British female scientists Seirian Sumner and Nathalie Pettorelli that looks at “The high cost of being a woman in science” and details the top reasons why there are so few women and “what can we do to stop the loss of women from science?”

Alas, you working moms aren’t going to like what they deem the top reason:

“The first gender stumbling block is that men and women differ starkly in reproductive terms.” (more…)

Social media is a great thing and employers know it. That’s why so many companies are using services such as Twitter and Facebook to get the message out about their products and services; and also getting their own employees to tweet and post comments in an effort to promote their wares.

A reader recently wrote me that he uploaded something personal on his company Facebook page by mistake. He ended up deleting it immediately, but wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t caught his error.

What would have happened? That’s the big question. Employees are sort of in the dark on this because so many employers don’t even have policies regarding social media use. A new study of multi-national employers found that (more…)

Automation did not kill the supermarket worker.

Who would have thought it. Instead of those pesky self-checkout lanes replacing every supermarket employee in America, the workers are raging against the machines.

Well, not quite the workers. Albertson’s, a major grocer, has announced it’s getting rid of self-checkout lanes in 100 of its 200-plus stores.

This from MSNBC:

“We just want the opportunity to talk to customers more,” Albertsons spokeswoman Christine Wilcox said. “That’s the driving motivation.”

What!? Talk to customers more. Since when do corporations care about that? Clearly there must be something else driving this business decision.

One tech writer thinks we’re all too dumb to handle the scanning machines.

Jack Loftus writes in Gizmodo:

Major grocery chains like Albertson’s are eliminating self-checkout aisles at their various locations because management claims they’re too impersonal. What a crock. That’s a polite way of saying some people are simply ill-equipped to use them efficiently.

I don’t know where Loftus shops, but I’ve seen a bunch of really old guys and gals scanning their Ensure and Polygrip at the supermarkets I frequent with little trouble working the supposedly mysterious technology. Maybe they’re not going very fast, but they’re doing just fine.

That said, I always bypass the self-checkout lanes because I like to interact with people and I hate the fact that the machines may be replacing a real worker.

What ever the reason for getting rid of the lanes, it seems Albertson’s is making a good call if it brings back some jobs, no? Well, even that’s up for debate. (more…)

Twitter is all abuzz this morning over the naming of former Spice girl Victoria Beckham and soccer star David Beckham’s new daughter.

David Beckham proudly posted her name on his Facebook page today — Harper Seven Beckham.

I am so proud and excited to announce the birth of our daughter Harper Seven Beckham. She weighed a healthy 7lbs 10oz and arrived at 7.55 this morning, here in LA. Victoria is doing really well and her brothers are delighted to have a baby sister xx

As you can imagine, the Beckhams’ choice got all the comedians out in the Twitterverse:

“Did they give birth to a robot?” wrote @Wolfrum.

And @djplastician wrote: “Am I the only person who thinks Harper Seven sounds like a level on Call Of Duty?”

All kidding aside, it got me wondering about how a name impacts a person throughout their life, especially when they go out and try to find a job. Based on research done on this exact topic, it looks like Harper Seven won’t have a leg up because of her name, and it may even hold her back. (more…)

The one thing I hear over and over again from women struggling to climb the ladder of success is they have trouble tooting their own horns.

Well gals, if you don’t toot or get someone to toot for you no one will hear you.

There are two great examples of women who’ve unabashedly taken out big trumpets recently and it may be a good idea to follow their playbook a bit: Christine Lagarde, the French foreign minister, and Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor.

Lagarde just got the job of head honcho at the International Monetary Fund, the first woman to hold that position, after lobbying for it like a relentless heavy weight in the ring; and Warren is vying to become the head honcho of the nation’s new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She’s gotten consumer groups and Democratic political heavy weights to lobby for her.

You can call these women pushy, but that’s a good thing. (more…)