Stress is a condition of anxiety that occurs when a person responds to certain factors, including home life and work. The American Psychological Association (APA) found in a 2004 study that by far the number one stress factor was money. Another stress factor is lack of time.

Symptoms of stress include poor sleep habits, irritability, nervousness, and headaches. Stress can cause illness or make illness worse, and contribute to depression or other mental illness.

To deal with stress, people can resort to practices that might provide temporary relief but don’t deal with the problem, including overindulging of non-nutritious food, shouting inappropriately in anger, or taking medications to quell feelings. Stress also contributes to absenteeism at work, a detrimental situation for both the employee and the employer.

To reduce your stress and anger, the APA recommends several techniques for dealing with stress. The key factor is to develop supportive relationships. Other stress-reducing activities they recommend:

• Make realistic plans that you can fit within available time. Don’t take on more thanyou can handle. Say no to requests for your free time.
• Create a budget that reduces impulse buying.
• Think positively. Research shows that positive thinking produces life satisfaction, optimism, and self-esteem. Break your bad habit of thinking negatively of yourself and your life, home, and work situations.
• Get enough sleep (if possible).
• Eat healthy foods.
• Get regular exercise (yoga and walking are great).
• Get support. Confide in a friend or someone you can trust. Join a support group. Start a journal or read a book that has the advice you seek.

If you want to succeed in your job search, brush up on your manners. That advice stems from a recent Vault (www.vault.com) survey, which reported that 59% of hiring managers say job candidates’ manners aren’t what they used to be.

The biggest affront was inappropriate dress – 87% of hiring managers reported experiencing this situation.

Other interview mistakes by job candidates, as reported by hiring managers:

• using profanity (43%)
• using a cell phone in the middle of the interview (26%)
• bringing a child to the interview (19%)

Hiring managers also said that job seekers ate their lunch during the interview, cried, picked their nose, or showed up drunk.

Clearly, hiring managers frown upon such actions during interviews. A person really needs to make a good first impression.

I’ve interviewed job candidates who repeatedly yawned during the interview, as if I wasn’t interesting enough to hold their attention. Maybe I wasn’t, but the point is that a job seeker should at least pretend to be interested if they truly want the job.

What amazes me about the results of the Vault survey is that good manners during an interview, including dressing apprpropriately, should be common sense. Now, an excellent candidate may be able to overcome a sweat suit during an interview, but why take the chance?

I was fortunate to grow up bilingual. My parents immigrated to the United States from Poland, landing in Chicago, home of the second-largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. Knowing the Polish language gave me a great opportunity in my career to work abroad.

Knowing a second language is a good career move, especially if it’s a language in demand, such as Chinese, Spanish, or Arabic. There are more tools than ever to help you learn, too.

Now there’s a social networking website that helps you learn another language. It’s called MyHappyPlanet, and it lets users sign up for free and then practice a language through written or spoken means. What’s different about this type of language learning is the interaction. It was easy to sign up for the site and it was well-organized for finding people with the language skills you are seeking.

Other language-learning social networking sites are described in this Boston Globe article.

According to the McKinsey Quarterly (www.mckinseyquarterly.com), executives in North America and Asia are least likely worldwide to say their companies will hire over the next six months.

Thirty-three percent of North American executive respondents said their companies will increase their workforce over the next six months; however, 40 percent said their workforce levels will not change, while 27 percent say their workforce will decrease. As recently as the fourth quarter of 2007, only 17 percent of North American executives said their workforce would decrease.

The bottom line is that many business and government representatives feel the U.S. economy is facing a rough patch for most of 2008, and that outlook spells bad news for workers, despite the stimulus checks coming our way in a few months.

New research shows that the differences between generations at work are small when it comes to employee engagement.

Sirota Survey Intelligence (www.sirota.com), an attitude research company, conducted a study of cross-generational attitudes of more than 300,000 workers in over 50 organizations. The generations surveyed were from Generation Y (27 and younger) to Traditionalists (63 and older).

“Our research dispels the myths about younger employees being more disengaged from their jobs. It also refutes the contention that Generation X employees (ages 28-42) are the most cynical of age groups,” said Douglas Klein, President of Sirota Survey Intelligence.

Their findings? The workers in all these generations are about the same as far as their engagement in their jobs and their attitude toward work. Actually, the Traditionalists (63 and older) are the most engaged but the other generations are not far behind. Their recommendations? Don’t overlook the Traditionalists as employees. “They consistently have higher employee engagement levels than other employees with comparable tenure,” said Klein.

I’m glad Sirota has published this research. It confirms my own suspicions that the whole pandering to different generations and accepting bad behavior because that’s the way it is with this group of people is a complete waste of resources. We’re not all that different when it comes to work.

I remember with fondness my years working in Washington, D.C. at the Commerce Department. Armed with a master’s in public administration, I was fortunate enough to gain a position through the Presidential Management Fellows program. Regardless of how you get there, a career in the govenment, whether federal, state or local, can be satisfying and enriching.

And now, you can enjoy the benefits of public service too. With many retirements looming, the federal government is gearing up for a huge hiring quest, with the largest agencies expecting to fill 193,000 “mission critical” jobs, and many other clerical and support positions as well. The jobs are available throughout the country. The government is looking for entry level college graduates as well as experienced boomers. You can find information about their needs here.

To help job seekers looking for professional public service jobs, a new job search site was created just for this purpose. Called PublicServiceCareers.org, the site lists positions in government (federal, state, local), nonprofits, NGO’s, consulting, contracting and academia.

Contrary to conventional reporting, younger workers care more about financial security than any other career concern, according to Robert Half Technology.

In fact, 33 percent of Generation Y worker surveyed said that compensation and benefits were their primary career concern, followed by finding and keeping a job (26 percent). Only in third place was career satisfaction (23 percent).

Who is this generation? They are the U.S. cohort born between 1976 and 2001, numbering about 76 million. Their reputation is also huge, with numerous writers claiming this generation has many more differences than others, and employers had better listen up.

Turns out they’re not that different after all.

Managers have spent years reading about Generation Y workers and their desire above all to have interesting work. Generation Y grew up seeing their parents fired from jobs. The lesson they learned was that job loyalty was worthless. Money wasn’t as important as relationships. They wanted work-life balance and the ability to grow personally and professionally while at work.

Well, who doesn’t?

I don’t think Generation Y is that different than anyone else. Now that they are growing up, they seem to be showing the same needs as other generations who came before them.

Furthermore, while Millenials grew up with computers, most professional and skilled workers use computers today. Technology has changed the workplace and everyone’s definition of work with it.  Name me a generation that doesn’t want work-life balance, or personal growth, or focusing on what’s useful, or knowing they’re making a valuable contribution to the workplace and society.

The lesson for managers is to be leary about people hawking advice about differences in generations. Yes, there are differences, but think about whether they are that significant. What is more important are the factors that affect all of us. 

 In case you’re thinking the imminent recession has everyone worried about job security, Robert Half conducted its survey in the second quarter of 2007, when the economy still looked rosy.

The job outlook for 2008 looked pretty good when we were still in 2007. Now, however, recession is raising its ugly head amidst news that the U.S. labor market has weakened. Are there any jobs that are recession-proof? 

Of course, jobs in low-wage, labor-intensive industries will continue to grow. Such jobs can be found in food service, retail and the bottom rung of the health care industry.  

For the professional, however, some other industries continue to show growth: 

Health care will continue to generate new jobs. According to Health Guide USA,  “seven of the twenty fastest growing occupations are health care related. Job opportunities should be good in all employment settings.” And indeed, health care jobs increased in January 2008. 

Professional and business services jobs did not grow in January (and business support services actually lost jobs) but the outlook for these jobs continues to be strong. There is a wide variety of these jobs, including accounting, computer service, company management, consulting, engineering, legal services, scientific research, and so forth. 

Not so Rosy 

Financial services, especially in the credit and mortgage fields, had a bit of a downturn in January, not unexpectedly. Those jobs fell by 111,000 since October 2006. Construction and manufacturing jobs also decreased in January.  

Should you worry about a recession and job loss?  The New York Times just reported that government figures show the economy lost 63,000 jobs in February.