Looking for a job can be a daunting task, even in good times. To help you organize your efforts, use this checklist. Being buttoned up is especially important if you're working and looking for a new position, because you have to stay on your game even while you're scoping out new positions. 1. Do What You Can To Keep Yourself Employed • Step up to help out; be a utility player –... Read more

Networking your way to a job opportunity takes both ingenuity and a significant time commitment. That's why so many of us get it wrong. Like many a business buzzword, "networking" is a victim of its own success. Over the years it became so enwrapped in oversimplified myths perpetrated by consultants, gurus and spin doctors, the central idea was lost. The unfortunate result is that many individuals who'd benefit if they put... Read more

That question was put to me this week by a buy-sider who’s been between jobs longer than he’d like. Ask any expert, and you’ll hear that networking is the answer – the pre-eminent tool for any and every job search. But, "Every job I ever got came from a job posting," my friend protests. How can it be reasonable, he wonders, to expect a meaningful benefit from “approaching a perfect stranger at... Read more

Which is wiser: To pursue as many potential opportunities as possible, or home in on a carefully selected circle of job openings and professional contacts, giving each significant attention from the get-go? In my opinion, it's no contest. For an experienced professional, selectivity is vital to a successful job search. Given the avalanche of highly qualified applicants now pounding the pavement, there's little sense diluting one's efforts among hundreds, even thousands,... Read more

With pay expectations ratcheting downward, jobless professionals need to consider the possibility of working for less. The key question is, "Less than what?" Commenting on a recent eFinancialCareers News story, one user wrote: "It's bad out there. I guess the only thing left is to put out resumes saying that you'll be glad to fill the role of any existing finance executive for half whatever they are being paid now." Clearly, that... Read more

Bankers are accustomed to uncertain full-year compensation. For most global institutions, however, part of this year's uncertainty reflects the challenges of unwinding an uneasy marriage with public authorities playing the unfamiliar roles of lender and equity partner. Compensation consultant Johnson Associates, in its just-released quarterly outlook, lays out the dilemma in stark terms. This past February, Congress enacted punitive strictures on TARP bankers' compensation that aim to turn Wall Street into... Read more

When Wall Street compensation roared into the policy spotlight at the turn of the year, the debate resembled a bubbling cauldron about to spill over. Although the temperature is a great deal lower today, the compensation pot continues to simmer as new ingredients get thrown in. The traditional emphasis on variable pay via the year-end bonus is likely to survive. The bonus system might even regain some lost ground, now that... Read more

Is control over social media content inexorably migrating from individuals toward the companies they work for? The past two months produced a blizzard of stories about social media's limitations and downsides. My takeaway from those stories is that the content of online venues such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter will turn increasingly corporate. For everyone who isn't a full-time entrepreneur or independent contractor, social media tools will gradually morph from extensions... Read more

On the streets of New York, spring is in the air (finally!). What about the financial job market? Comments by a Moody's economist last week raised hope that finance sector employment may be "nearing a bottom." Separately, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has embarked on his own campaign to talk up the economy. On Tuesday he said in a speech, "We have seen tentative signs that the sharp decline in economic... Read more

We've added five sample resumes to the eFinancialCareers Resume Center, including: Equity Research Analyst Fixed Income Analyst Portfolio Manager Quant Developer Senior M&A Associate The Center provides both guidance and a growing set of samples, all to help you fine tune your resume. Access it here.

Our April 1 story about unresponsive recruiters tapped into something primal. I think I've figured out what it is. Minutes after e-mailing this week's eFinancialCareers newsletter that showcased the recruiters story in the top slot, comments from users began flooding in. More than 20 arrived Wednesday afternoon alone, and the flow continued well into evening. The dominant message consisted of venting against recruiters in general - exactly what the story had... Read more

Riding the subway home from a job-search networking party at which you met more jobless-services entrepreneurs than job-seekers, you skim a free local newspaper. One page is divided into two distinct advice columns, each about coping with a layoff. The next page reviews a career consultant's latest how-to book about bouncing back from being laid off. You gaze across the aisle at an advertising panel featuring the New York State... Read more

In a scene from the 1962 film, The Manchurian Candidate, Johnny Iselin is shown seasoning his steak with ketchup from Heinz - a company long identified with the slogan "57 varieties." In the next scene Iselin informs a Senate hearing, "I am holding in my hand a list of 57 Communists who work in the Defense Department." That semi-fictional incident has parallels with a present-day tug-of-war over lists of purported... Read more

Was Joshua Persky ahead of his time? Nine months ago, the laid-off investment banker made his pitch to passers-by in midtown Manhattan wearing a poster that read, "Experienced M.I.T. Grad For Hire." His out-of-the-box tactic brought encouraging words, worldwide media attention and many a contact - but few concrete job opportunities, and no offers. Persky found a new job in October, a full four months after his week inside the... Read more

With 175 million members and counting, Facebook is so firmly entrenched in so many lives that the time has come to start asking the tough questions: What’s Facebook really for? And how can Facebook help with your career? Soumitra Dutta and Matthew Fraser are starting this conversation at The McKinsey Quarterly by taking a look at how to differentiate between the career-oriented networking of LinkedIn and the more social networking of... Read more

While Congress debates overhauling bankers' compensation, public retirement systems - a far less glamorous corner of the investment world - are being pressed to reform pay practices too. Surprisingly, these little-noticed battles within state and local organizations might actually end up helping Wall Street and the fund management business. Public-sector retirement funds are one of precious few niches where demand for investment professionals hasn't wilted amid the financial crisis. Although these... Read more

Amid the huffing and puffing over the future of banking and the careers of people who work in it, one group has been all but invisible: those of us who went into finance to do what we love. A recent acquaintance with an impressive public-sector work history sought guidance on transferring her policy and financial analysis skills to capital markets. Her request came as a surprise. Many of my professional contacts... Read more

This isn’t the easiest time to ask for a raise. In fact, it’s hard to imagine many people even thinking about it right now, unless they’ve been ignoring anything resembling the news for the past three or four months. But then, when you think about it, you realize events might put some in the uncomfortable position of having to. I think about a friend of mine whose spouse recently lost... Read more

America needs more people like Robert Rowling. Rowling is a Texas businessman who until recently served on the University of Texas Board of Regents and as volunteer board chairman of a state-controlled company that manages the university's endowment funds. Earlier this month, he resigned during a state Senate hearing at which the investment firm's chief executive was blasted for accepting a $1.05 million bonus and Rowling himself drew criticism for approving... Read more

As my nearly empty train pulled into the terminal the other night, snippets of a conversation floated my way. Over the rails' gentle rumble, one word made my ears perk up: "package." Then came a full sentence: "You can negotiate your package." I'd happened upon a friendly discussion between two women recently laid off by Citigroup, though it wouldn't be right to call them layoff "victims." Rather than aggrieved or anxious,... Read more