If you’re looking for a town where there’s major job opportunities you should check out Fishers, Indiana, or Round Rock, Texas.

Money Magazine just released its list of top small cities to live in and these two have the highest job-growth rates among the top ten.

Fishers and Round Rock are indeed small towns, with populations of 61,800 and 92,300 respectively, but if you don’t mind that it’s an option.

I’m pointing out some U.S. cities to consider right now because my column this week on MSNBC.com is about how many readers have been asking me about job opportunities abroad. Making a move overseas is a difficult proposition so maybe many of you may want to consider something in the good old USA before you start taking French lessons.

Whether you make the move abroad, or stay closer to home, here’s a great resource list from Quint Careers if you’re even considering relocating.

Someone asked me this weekend if I had a wanderlust problem because I’ve moved a lot and had many, many jobs. New York, Delaware, Florida. UPI, Women’s Wear Daily, St. Petersburg Times, etc. It never really seemed like a lot to me, but this guy seemed to think I had trouble staying in one place.

I guess I’m not tied to one place, never have been. I could pack up and move my family overseas tomorrow and be happy as a clam. That’s just how I’ve always been.

You have to make the best of your life where ever you are. That’s how I was brought up. Maybe it’s because my parents felt forced to leave their homeland, Istanbul, Turkey. Maybe they just drummed into my head how no matter where you’re forced to go you make the best of it. They did.

I know, right now, a lot of people may be making moves across country, or to other lands, because they feel compelled to do so in this economy. You have to do what’s right for your economic health and your family. I’m here to tell you it can be great experience if you make the most of it. Go out and make friends, get to know the area, participate in community events. You make it great. Great doesn’t just happen.

I interviewed Bernd Beetz, the chief executive officer of Coty Inc., a fragrance and cosmetics producer, a while back for the New York Times, and he was one of those constant travelers, changing careers and countries often in his career.

He shared a great story with me about moving around from country to country when he was with Proctor & Gamble starting out on the management track and how he learned to adapt.

Here’s an excerpt from the story I wrote:

My career has been very international, and in some ways my father influenced that as well. I started in Germany with Proctor & Gamble, then moved to Paris, then Geneva, then Rome, then Milan, then Istanbul, then briefly in Cincinnati, then to Frankfort. I stayed in most places about two and a half years and was mainly the general manager.

At the end of the 1980s, I was brought in to help our Turkish operations. Procter & Gamble had bought one of the biggest local companies making detergent, toothpaste, shampoos. It was called Mintax. At the time, Turkey was called the Vietnam of Procter & Gamble because the operations were in a downspin. I was in my early 40s and Turkey was a totally different experience. The workforce, suppliers, unions. It was a country where the government changed the rules every other week. The initial team couldn’t control the situation, inflation was 80, 90 percent, and turnover was high. The plant looked not anything close to standard, which we had in the U.S. or Western Europe. It was obvious a lot of things needed to be done.

I immediately realized it was the way they produced, it was the way of thinking. There was a huge workforce, about 3,000 from Mintax, and the work was very manual, not very structured. They were basically living day by day.

The workers and management received me with open arms. First of all, I became part of them. Soccer is big in Turkey so I played soccer on what was the Mintax soccer team. I got close to their habits and got close to them outside, the managers, workers on the floor. I went to their homes for dinner. You go to their homes, take your shoes off, have tea. Most of the time they cooked in front of me and I saw how the meals were prepared. You got to know the whole family; the whole clan comes around. I became very visible.

Is it as easy as joining a soccer team? Maybe not. But we can all adapt if we put our hearts into it.

Bon Voyage.

Since I wrote my book, “From the Sandbox to the Corner Office”, I’m often asked — What makes successful CEOs and entrepreneurs different from the rest of us?

I’ve already talked a lot about how many of these overachievers were spanked as children. That seemed to get those most interest from the mass media.

But Jennifer Remling wanted to get beyond that. She started a project called “Carve Your Own Road” and has been traveling around the country trying to understand the entrepreneurial spirit. Her book on her journey comes out next year.

She asked me recently to do a webinar for her website, and the main theme was what successful people seem to have in common when it comes to their career approach.

Risk. Risk. Risk. That’s basically the overriding theme I’ve found when interviewing top executives and heavy weight entrepreneurs.

They weren’t afraid to take risks, even though they often had butterflies in their stomachs when it came to making career leaps.

Here’s a link to the webinar

One of the key discussion points was about asking for help. Yes. Many of these successful men and women asked for a lot of help on their climb to the top. The majority talked about the mentors they were lucky enough to be mentored by along the way. And I’m not talking about formalized mentoring programs that are now so prevalent in Corporate America. These were organically grown relationships.

A CEO for a major bank told me she used to pull up her chair to her manager’s desk and watch him work, asking him questions along the way. The CEO of a major retailer told me he stopped his retail idol in a fancy restaurant to introduce himself, and ended up in a long-term mentoring relationship with him.

It’s all about taking risks and learning from people that are smarter than you. Pretty simple.

There are lots of women studying to become doctors. And tons wanting to be lawyers. But, for some reason, women are not breaking down the doors of MBA programs dying to enroll.

Based on recent data, women made up nearly 50 percent of enrollment at law and medical schools, but only 27 percent of the pie in MBA programs.

Now, I want to preface this whole blog post by saying I’m not advocating women run out and get MBAs. I have written in the past about how an MBA isn’t always a guaranteed ticket to career success. But I think it is curious that more women are not pursuing this higher business degree, and in turn not ending up in the upper echelon of the business world, or the corporate world for that matter.

So what the heck is going on? Why aren’t more women pursuing an MBA?

I spoke with Elissa Ellis Sangster, executive director of the Forté Foundation, a group that promotes MBA and other forms of business education for women, and she had an earful to say about the matter.

“Young women really don’t understand what options there are in business,” she explains. It’s not all about Wall Street, she says, there are tons of options for savvy women who hold an MBA in their hands, everything from working for non profits to entrepreneurship.

The people in women’s “influencer set” - including family, friends, career counselors - tend not to steer females toward business, especially women who are initially all about liberal arts in college.

“For women,” she adds, “there’s a disconnect between the nurture idea and wanting to do something good, and the message they get from business. They see negative imagery out there. They see it as not contributing to society.”

HELLO GALS OUT THERE!!

Is anyone paying attention to the news? There’s a mortgage crisis going on in this country that was perpetuated by people in the business world, Wall Streeters and bankers, and, they were mainly men at the helm of this. I’m not bashing men here, it’s just the reality of who runs these organizations.

Tell me this mortgage mess has not impacted society profoundly.

OK, sorry, got off track a bit. Back to Ellis Sangster.

While she says an MBA or a career in business isn’t all about money, it is also all about money.

And what’s wrong with that? Money isn’t dirty. It can be used for great good if we want it to. But we won’t have any say in it being used for great good if we’re not in the business driver’s seat with men.

How come we think it’s odd for women to want money or to have control over money? This goes to the heart of why women are still making 75 cents on the dollar compared to men and why our numbers are dwindling in the corner office.

Look, an MBA is no guarantee that you’ll make it to the top, and Ellis Sangster agrees with that, but it will give you a boost of confidence in the workplace and it will shut up some of those lunkheads in the business world that already think you have a strike against you because you don’t have a penis.

I don’t want to sound cynical here, but there still is bias in the workplace and every female executive I’ve interviewed has experienced it. When you walk in the door of a new organization or a new division, an MBA will definitely give you that little boost of credibility because naysayers will at least know you committed yourself in some way to the business cause.

To help women think a bit harder about MBAs and business, the Forte Foundation holds forums with successful female MBA holders around the country, and they’ve also started going to campuses to talk to young girls about careers in business.

Parents also need to get involved and talk to their daughters about all types of careers without excluding the potential of a job in business, advises Ellis Sangster.

Interestingly enough, she often gets calls from dads wanting information on how their daughters can pursue an MBA. But the moms never call, she says.

Man, we have a long way to go.

There’s this insane idea that women can do it all on their own.

You know what I’m talking about moms out there. You keep piling on the responsibilities at work and at home and then you wonder what the “F” is going on.

Recently a friend of mine lost it because she was so overwhelmed.

Why? Because she got home from work and no one had picked up groceries. It doesn’t seem like a tragedy? BUT IT WAS DAMN IT! That’s the whole point. Women do too much and we suck at expecting others to help out. Since she usually does most of the things around the house, plus work like a dog at her career, they expected her to do it all.

A study I recently came across shows how much we suck at this.

The survey, by staffing company Adecco USA, asked working parents a host of work-life balance questions, and I was shocked to see that men expect their firms to be doing more to help them achieve that balance. Fifty five percent of the dads polled said they thought their firms could be doing more, compared to 49 percent of moms. And 45 percent of fathers thought becoming a parent impacted there careers, versus 41 percent of mothers who thought so.

For both these questions I would have expected closer to 100 percent of working moms to answer “yes, yes, yes”.

Come on gals out there. We have to stop thinking, without us the world will stop spinning. How come moms everywhere aren’t ranting and raving about how today’s workplace does not accommodate working parents? And hello!!!! Every woman I speak with knows becoming a mom did a number on their careers in some way.

But here we are telling a pollster that it’s not that bad.

“The perception that the work/life balancing act is mainly a female struggle no longer holds up in today’s workplace,” says Rich Thompson, Vice President of Training & Development for Adecco Group North America.

Sorry Rich. I agree that men are picking up more of the slack, but alas, it still is largely a “female struggle.”

But what I find most disturbing about this survey is that women don’t expect more, not just at home, but of their employers. Maybe that’s why work-life balance perks have not become widespread in the work world, because the people that need them the most aren’t outraged or demanding enough. Maybe it will take more men struggling with this balancing act to finally transform the workplace.

For years my husband Andy has been telling me about his favorite TV show growing up, Ultraman.

I actually thought he made this character up because I had never heard of him. Turns out it never aired in New York City so I missed it, but it was big in the Philadelphia area, where my husband grew up.

Many times Andy described the character’s red suit and how he shot rays out of his hands, but, as you can imagine, this was difficult to visualize.

That is until recently, when Andy unearthed a YouTube video of his childhood hero.

Here it is:

This is the strangest and weirdest video, and the music, so corny. But when I watched this odd character on my computer screen I understood my husband better than I had before. Trust me, Ultraman says a lot about my husband and his personality.

So, I decided to ask some successful people what their favorite TV characters were growing up.

Why? Because I can. Just kidding.

I figured it might help all of us get a tiny glimpse into what has shaped motivated individuals.

OK, this is some of what I got:

“My favorite childhood show was the Jetsons because it inspired me to think about how technology might be used in the future to improve peoples’ lives. I also liked that George Jetson only worked 3 hours per day, 3 days per week, a lot less than most of us work now!”

– Dan Abelon,
 Founder of SpeedDate.com


“Pogo and his friends - because there was always a lot of wise-cracking and there never appeared to be parents around!!!”

–Charlie MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children

“My favorite show: Bozo’s Circus, the most popular show on Chicago’s WGN-TV.
Parents waited for years to get tickets to the show. I never got into the show, so I finally got tickets for my sons, wife and me 15 years ago. However, a crisis at work (Sears), kept me from attending with them. My younger son, Brad, was selected from the audience to play the “bucket game,” which he won. I was crushed on many levels. And the show was finally canceled about five years ago.”

–Ron Culp, managing director, Ketchum’s Midwest operations

“I was a young kid in South Africa, we did not have any television at all. It was the governments policy at the time not to allow television and it was only in the mid 70’s when I was about 20, that television was finally introduced. I well remember that we all sat glued to our newly bought television sets when the first broadcast was aired. It started with a single program at 8 pm every night and that was it. The program was ‘The Brady Bunch’ and that was the sum total of the programming for much of the first year. I remember watching the program with my family almost every night and it was the talk of the town, since there was no other TV programs to talk about.”

– Anthony Viderqauz, CEO of California Closets

“As a very teeny girl I always loved Wonder Woman. I’m not sure if it’s because as a child of Holocaust Survivors I loved that a woman could take on the evil Nazis, or if it was because Lynda Carter was such a mellow superhero- and always so well accessorized (I even mention that in my book!) Seriously, I joke about finding your superpowers but I think that I learned a lot from Wonder Woman about how to be a woman in business.
-Wonder Woman worked in a male dominated industry, and while most people underestimated her, she was always the one to save the day
-Wonder Woman understood the notion of sisterhood being powerful (um, guess she’d have had to coming from an island of women) and yet she was gracious and always appreciative of the strength of others
-She started out as a privileged princess and yet was able to carve out her niche in the professional world (with the career available to her during that era)
-Her superpowers very much reflected the intuition and skills attributed to women, only to the nth degree.”

–Rachel Weingarten, president of GTK Marketing Group and author of “Career and Corporate Cool”

Our role models do say something about us, acknowledges psychologist and career coach Debra Condren, who is also the author of “Ambition is Not a Dirty Word.” “But it’s just one piece,” she adds.

Since many of the business leaders today are in their 40s and 50s and grew up on shows like Superman and Wonder Woman, it will be interesting to see what the next few generations, brought up on Barney and Hanna Montana, bring to the world of business.

No matter who we connect with, these characters may be a good way of getting back to our “inner child,” explains Nancy D. O’Reilly, a clinical psychologist and founder of womenspeak.com. She suggests going back and remembering your childhood hero and even hanging a picture up to motivate you in your life today.

“We would all like to think of ourselves as either possessing or wishing to possess certain characteristics we see in these characters,” she explains.

Hmm. Where does that leave me?, I asked O’Reilly. I identified with Bugs Bunny.

“Bugs Bunny is cute and funny,” she answers, “but he can kind of be a pain in the butt.”

OK, I’ve revealed too much.

What was your favorite TV show character or superhero?

“Disgruntled.” That’s the label supporters of President Bush have put on former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, whose new book exposes alleged dirty deeds by Bush and top White House officials.

The woman who holds McClellan’s position now, Dana Perino, was quoted saying the dreaded word, “disgruntled.”

One thing you learn early on when you enter the workforce is to be careful when dogging your former employer. This has been a piece of career advice that has been handed down from generation to generation.

McClellan probably isn’t worried about his future employability given his book is number one on Amazon today, but for the rest of us who can’t make a killing by writing a tell-all book, we need to think twice before we bitch about a past boss.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t expose illegal behavior, especially if someone can get hurt. But in this case, waiting until years after you leave a company to expose such behavior is unethical on your part as well. I’ve written before how employee themselves have to stand up for injustices they see, even if it means sacrificing your job. (If McClellan’s allegations are true, that Bush used propaganda to prop up an unjust war, then it seems he had a hand in the tragedy. No?)

But complaining about a former employer, especially to hiring managers that are interviewing you leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

I know, we’re human, and want to get things off our our chests, but restrain the urge to purge.

There’s a disturbing trend out there of people taking less money than they should when they are offered a job.

I know, the media, including me, spend our days writing endless stories about how bad the economy is. These stories may feed your fear that no one will want to hire you during tough times so when you get an offer you’re so happy you’ll take what ever the hiring manager gives you. But don’t get duped people!

According to a survey by Jobfox the median salaries for certain jobs actually dipped.

“While the value of the dollars is shrinking, many job seekers - including in-demand technology specialists - must accept new positions at lower salaries than they did just a month ago, according to findings in the Jobfox Top 25 Most Wanted U.S. Job Candidates: May 2008 rankings.”

Jobfox’s May rankings of the professions in highest demand among employers found that some median salary ranges being asked for by job seekers dipped $10,000, compared to a month ago. Median salary ranges demanded by job seekers fell for workers seeking jobs in:

Software Design/Development, with a median salary range of $95,000 to $105,000 in April to $85,000 to $95,000 in May.

Product Management, with the median salary range falling to $85,000 to $95,000 in May.

Networking/System Administration, dipping to $65,000 to $75,000 in May.

Finance, shrinking to $65,000 to $75,000.

Government Contracts Administration, settling for $55,000 to $65,000.

Jobfox’ CEO Rob McGovern says, “Overall, workers remain confident, both about current employment and about their abilities to find new jobs. However, like businesses, workers realize that the economy is a bit bumpy and they may have to slightly lower their salary expectations to land the jobs they want.”

Well, I’m hear to tell you — DON’T DO IT!!

This is exactly what companies want, workers who are running scared prepared to take any amount of money; prepared to take cuts in benefits; time off, hand over your first born.

Companies that have a budget to hire have enough money to pay you what you’re worth. I’m not saying be greedy. Figure out what the job should pay and jive that with your experience and what you bring to the table. Then ask for what you know is fair. Get information before you got into the negotiation. Hear me? I’m rhyming here. Emily Dickinson would be proud — GET INFORMATION BEFORE YOU GO INTO THE NEGOTIATION.

Folks, CEOs are not lowering their asking price, and salary reductions for their pay would actually make a big difference.

This is not time for workers to be running scared. And making a decision to take less money, while it may not seem like a big deal on the surface, will come back to haunt you.

“It hurts your self-confidence and lowers the money you can make in the future. Or, in other words, there is catch up to do,” says career coach Deborah Brown-Volkman. “The goal in your career is to go forward, not backward.”

Let’s be realistic here. There are different scenarios and you have to decide what’s best for you. That means actually investigating the financial footing of the company you want to work for.

If the company you’re applying to is in bankruptcy and your only goal in working there is to get the experience on your resume, then maybe, you should sell yourself off at a bargain basement price. I have known CEOs that took a step back in their careers, went to work for a dying company with no money, and felt it paid off.

If the company has solid financials and maybe took a bit of a hit on the stock price lately, but they’re hiring and growing certain business segments, then you want to make top dollar for the position you seek. If you have the top credentials of course. If not, gauge what someone like you, with your experience should be making.

One of the big problems for women, and potentially why we’re still paid less than our male counterparts, is at some point they accept lower salaries than men. And then, they never catch up, and the chasm gets wider and wider. Why? Because women typically are afraid to ask for more money, and heftier raises. So they get more and more screwed as time goes by.

So, accept the most money you can get out of the gate. Or you’ll end up like that horse from the Kentucky Derby, Eight Belles — coming in second when it comes to salary but ending up breaking your legs when the hiring race is over.

Most of us have humdrum careers compared to celebrities.

So, we don’t face the types of choices they have to every day.

No one has asked me to pose half naked in Vanity Fair. I did pose naked many years ago for a good friend who was a photographer, but hardly anyone saw those pictures, except for a few perverts at her photo show in New Jersey who ended up following me around all night.

And what would have happened if those photos did end up on the nightly news. I probably would have ended up struggling just as I did, working for one crummy publication after the other, trying to make enough money to eat something other than Ramen noodles and make a name for myself in journalism.

Now I’m not saying I’m not hot. It’s just that when Eve, the lowly reporter for a trade publication, which I was back then, takes her clothes off it’s just not going to have the same impact as a young kid billionaire from a Disney show.

So why did Miley Cyrus strip down for Vanity Fair?

According to a Newsday blog called “The TV Zone”, the Hannah Montana show is actually losing some of its luster.

“Ratings for the all of the show’s daily airings among kids, ages 2 to 11 slid 6 percent from the first quarter to the fourth quarter of 2007, while said ratings plummeted 16 percent from the first quarter of ‘08 to the second quarter of this year. I repeat: Sixteen percent. For the money demographic, ‘tweens from 9 to 14, the decline was sharper: 19 percent over that period.”

The blog authors’ surmise, the “Show’s in decline and Miley needs to figure out her second act.”

These guys are brilliant. She’s a performer folks, an actress, a singer. It’s all about getting your face, voice and butt out there or you die.

I’m scratching my head as to why everyone is so upset, especially parents who let their kids watch that dumb show. (OK, my daughter has watched it. So sue me.)

The show is about a little girl that lives a double life. One as a normal kid and one as a rock star.

A rock star! Last I heard rock stars are pretty raunchy. Come on parents out there.

Suddenly it’s: “we hate Miley.”

Give the gal a break.

Her parents threw her into the work world, a pretty tough work world, at a pretty young age. She really has little choice now but to make sure the gravy train keeps rolling.

Let’s use a different example here. Think of yourselves, adults out there. When you start a career, even if you don’t really like it you get to a point where the money is good so you hang on. Sometimes we even do unethical things, or at least unsavory things, so we don’t rock the job boat.

This girl hasn’t even had the luxury of experience behind her, or parents with sense; yet we point fingers at her. At least most of us grownups know better.

Come on. Tell me you guys wouldn’t take your clothes off if it meant keeping your gig and the promise of riches.

This will probably be the first generation that constantly apologizes for growing old.

Lately, it seems, quite a few Baby Boomers have been whining about the youngsters in the workplace that don’t respect them, and how employers are brushing them aside for the hipster Gen Ys.

I just got this letter from Linda N., a reader of my MSNBC.com column:

I am too young to retire and it seems too old (60) to be employed. I have a degree in Legal Studies and would prefer to be employed. But seeking employment in various fields, has been a challenge.

Our nation USA appears to be partial to youthfulness.

Is there any company that are more forgiving towards Baby Boomer?

What’s happened to this generation that once had a “screw you” establishment mentality? So many seem to be curling up in a ball waiting to be kicked in the ass by Corporate America.

We don’t like who we are. We don’t like the way we look. We’re spending more money than any generation on facelifts, hair dyes and youth-enhancing drugs…Viagra anyone?

What ever happened to the precious gift of knowledge that only comes with age? My parents generation never tried to be like their children, or their children’s children. They were proud of who they were and knew we were all looking up to them.

Look, I’m not stupid. I know there’s age discrimination in the workplace, along with a host of other biases. But no one likes a worker with his or her tail between their legs.

You need to stand up proud if you’re going to demand respect.

Women especially need to heed this advice. Forget about the myth that men age with dignity and women just shrivel up. That’s a line Madison Avenue wants you to believe so you can open up that expensive pocketbook you got from T.J. Maxx and give them all your money for phony youth serums.

There is nothing I like more than a women who walks around an office with confidence, proud of her gray hair and the wisdom she has that she knows no one else can match.

Linda N., there are companies in Corporate America that want confident women and men who can do the job. You chose the companies you’d like to work for and show them your background, your experience, and let hiring managers know what you can do to help their business.

And this should be your mentality — “Let’s see which company will be lucky enough to get me.”

How many times do I have to say it…network, network, network.

Networking is how you find a job today folks. You’re in trouble if you’re just sending out resumes and waiting for a reply. (OK, maybe a tiny group of you out there have landed a job recently by doing this, but it’s not the norm.)

Everyone else needs to take out their socialization hat and start shaking some hands, real and virtual hands.

A recent study adds fuel to the Internet social/professional networking fire for job seekers.

Staffing company Robert Half International surveyed 150 top dogs at large companies and found 62 percent of those polled believe sites like LinkedIn will be a useful tool for them in the next three years, and 35 percent said social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace will also be a resource for them.

Executives were asked, “Which of the following technology tools do you believe will be most useful in your firm’s recruiting efforts in the next three years?”:

· Professional networking sites: 62%
· Social networking sites: 35%
· Video resumes: 20%
· Second Life: 7%
· None of these: 15%
· Other/don’t know: 10%

“Maintaining and developing professional contacts has always been a vital job search strategy, and networking websites are another vehicle for doing so,” said Max Messmer, Robert Half International’s CEO and author of Job Hunting For Dummies®, 2nd Edition. “Networking sites can be used to identify new career opportunities, create online profiles that highlight one’s skills and experience, and build a roster of business contacts over time.”

I know quite a few people that have yet to join any of these sites and I always tell them, “do it now!”

I know, there are some issues with these sites. They have technological glitches, and often you get tons off useless emails, or dumb trivia games your friends want you to play. But it’s time to join the cyber networking party already.

I’ve written before about how hiring managers want a known entity these days, especially during tough economic times. They want a recommendation, or at least some sort of connection to you. What better way that finding someone they know in your LinkedIn or Facebook contact list?