The Career Diva posts that got the most people reading in 2012 were all about the stupid things employers do.

Here are the top ten posts of the year:

Turns out many of you are upset about performance reviews, and you have good reason to be. The experts say such reviews are arbitrary and utterly useless.

And quite a few of you agreed some human resource departments can be clueless, especially when it comes to employee benefits such as family and medical leave.

Another workplace problem that gets under everyone’s skin is the rise in employers trying to get under your skin and find out how healthy, or unhealthy workers are.

A disturbing trend during 2012 was the growing number of employees holding multiple jobs.

It turns out if you’re a tough white woman or tough black man you can’t get a break.

What got job seekers angry this past year was the endless amount of interviews hiring managers think they need to decide on a candidate.

And women are still facing the perpetual problem of not supporting each other. Who cares how much Kelly Clarkson weighs? Quite a few of us, it turns out.

Employers are still asking job candidates how old they are, and they’re not always breaking the law when they do it.

My standing desk is still my back’s savoir, and a popular topic for many of you.

And finally, the Diva post that got the most readers reading was actually about a story I didn’t write. Lesson for 2013, don’t believe everything you read, especially work-at-home success stories.

Happy New Years everyone!! Looking forward to hearing from you all in the new year with your job/career questions. (careerdiva@verizon.net)

Some workers have a breaking point; and some a weakness.

The number of American workers holding more than one job climbed yet again last month to 7.1 million from 6.8 million in February of 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With so many good-paying jobs not being replaced, some workers are finding they need more than one job to make ends meet — or at least keep up their standard of living, said Ellen Ernst Kossek, a human resource professor at Michigan State University’s School of Labor & Industrial Relations.

One devastating result of grinding too many stones may be the rising rate of drug use — including amphetamines, which are stimulates, and cocaine. (more…)

The unemployment numbers for February came out today and many were happy to see we added 227,000 jobs last month and the jobless rate didn’t go up, staying at 8.3 percent.

Well, realistically the economy only created 182,000 real jobs. Why do I say “real”? Because 45,000 of those 227,000 jobs came from temp jobs.

There may be some people out there would don’t mind holding temporary positions, but most folks are looking for permanent gigs.

Many of you have long been searching for a permanent gig with good pay, benefits and a little job security but companies are loathed to offer that.

“It’s cheaper to hire contingent workers, but also more flexible for employers,” Bill Kahnweiler, associate professor and human resource expert at Georgia State University’s Department of Public Management and Policy, told me a while back about the growing practice.

It may be easier for employers, but not on the average working stiffs who want to be permanent working stiffs. Also, some employers may be thwarting the law by keeping on temps and freelancers that are actually full-time employees under the law. (more…)

I’ve written endless stories about how tough hiring managers and HR folks have become when it comes to job applicants. They don’t want smokers, fatsos, people with bad credit, excons, and too old or too young workers. And forget about landing a job if you’re unemployed.

I know all this makes you grumpy, but you’ve got to get happy, and fast.

A job requirement that seems to be showing up in more help wanted ads lately is — NICE. Yes, employers are now looking for nice people to fill their ranks.

The TED conference company is seeking a production editor for its offices in New York and in addition to needing “Comfort with HTML” and “an ability to listen deeply and critically”, you better not be a jerk. (more…)

Snap out of it!

The employment report this morning showed a slight dip in the jobless rate to 8.3 percent, and a solid number of new jobs, 243,000 created in January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That’s great news for people who are out there pounding the pavement trying to find work. But the jobs’ data showed there’s a big group of jobless folks who may not even care.

The number of discouraged workers topped 1 million in January from 993,000 in the same month last year. Those figures are worse than what supposedly was the job-market bottom in 2009 when only 778,000 of your were discouraged. And it’s way more than ten years ago, right after Sept. 11, when 369,000 of you were job disheartened.

The BLS definition of a discouraged is: “persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.” And the numbers paint a sad picture of how the Great Recession has beaten many of you down. (more…)

I wrote a story for MSNBC.com this week about Newt Gingrich’s daughter working as a janitor when she was 13, an age that the Department of Labor says is illegal to hold such a job.

The Republican presidential candidate had mentioned his daughter’s first job as part of his talking points on how poor kids in schools can take the jobs from adult janitors as a way to learn a better work ethic. As for child labor laws, he’s called them “stupid”.

I spoke to Gingrich’s daughter Jackie Gingrich Cushman about the janitorial job she held in the early 1980s at a local church, and she told me she was very proud of the gig. And, she said, she hoped she was working legally at the time.

“Cleaning bathrooms taught me a lot,” Cushman said, adding that she worked many menial jobs, including being a rollerblading waitress for the Sonic Drive-In chain in high school. Such experiences, she added, helped her value hard work and “appreciate and value the people that do the work as well.”

Before the story ran, I emailed Gingrich’s press team to find out if they knew Cushman’s job may have been illegal and his press secretary R.C. Hammond wrote: “Can they work as a clerk in the library?” I figured maybe he didn’t understand my question and emailed back: “I was specifically referring to Gingrich’s comment that his daughter worked a janitorial job at age 13.”

I didn’t get a reply back before we published the story late Wednesday night, but today I got another email from Hammond: (more…)

The jobless figures from the Department of Labor this morning offered some hope. The overall unemployment rate dipped to 8.5 percent, the lowest level since 2009.

What wasn’t hopeful was growth in the number of people holding multiple jobs.

It’s one of the stark realities of today’s job market. Good-paying jobs are being lost, and many aren’t being replaced. As a result, some workers are finding they need more than one job to make ends meet — or at least keep up their standard of living, said Ellen Ernst Kossek, a human resource professor at Michigan State University’s School of Labor & Industrial Relations.

More than 7 million Americans are working two or more jobs today, up from 6.8 million in 2010, and 6 million in 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (more…)

The one question I get asked often is when to bring up salary requirements during the interview process.

Some hiring managers I’ve talked to over the years have told me they don’t like when money is the first thing out of a job candidate’s mouth. But sometimes a job seeker just needs to know right away so they’re not wasting everyone’s time. It’s a fair thing to want to know and that’s exactly the dilemma of one of my long-time readers HikingStick.

If you missed it, check out his recent post on how he’s handling job loss.

I promised to update you all as he went through the job-search process so below is his latest installment, including his when-to-ask-about-pay problem. He expects to make less money than he did at his old job, but he needs a gig that will pay the bills, and can’t afford to lose unemployment if they pay is too low.

I’d love to hear from HR folks and hiring managers about what he should do to deal with this. Comment below, or email me at careerdiva@verizon.net. (Check out the great input on when to ask from HR experts at the end of this post.) (more…)

Those of you who have read this blog over the years, might be familiar with a constant commentator and part time sage, HikingStick.

Well, HikingStick is actually Andrew James Riemer and he lost his job last month because the company decided to outsource the IT department where he worked.

I was devastated when I heard the news, but HikingStick was a rock.

Here’s the email he sent after he joined the ranks of the jobless titled: “Well, I got the axe…”: (more…)

Being altruistic and civically-minded could be good for your career and the overall economy.

“States and localities with more civic engagement in 2006 saw less growth in unemployment between 2006 and 2010,” according to a report by the National Conference on Citizenship titled “Civic Health and Unemployment: Can Engagement Strengthen the Economy?”

In addition, the study reported, “strong positive correlations were found between civic engagement and resilience against unemployment.”

The five types of engagement include: (more…)