By Vickie Elmer for Glassdoor.com

Guest blogger Vickie Elmer regularly contributes articles on careers and small business to the Washington Post. She has collected a slew of journalism awards, large and  small. Her career and workplace articles also have appeared in Fortune, Parents, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, the Financial Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday and many more.

1. “How much company property (office supplies, etc.) is it OK to take home per month?”
The responses to this question show that only a few are taking home office supplies in large amounts — it’s perhaps interesting that slightly more people would not limit the amount they take (4 percent) than see somewhere between $26 and $75 as an acceptable range. Here are the results:

• 0 dollars’ worth: Even a paperclip is stealing. 66%
• 1-10 dollars’ worth: A few pens get taken by accident: it’s acceptable and even expected. 26%
• 11-25 dollars’ worth: A few paper towels here, a few sticky notes there: it’s a perk of working. 3%
• 26-75 dollars’ worth: I’ve never even bought my own stapler. 1%
• 75 dollars’ worth and higher: If it’s not nailed down, it’s up for grabs. 4%

Total respondents: 4,515

2. “If you had proof that a work friend was promoted because he or she was having a secret affair with a manager, would you report it to HR?”
When it comes to the course of romance-based workplace favoritism, it’s an even split: half of the respondents say they would turn in a wrongly promoted friend no matter what, while for the other half the issue is more subjective. Here are the results:

• Yes: That’s just not fair, friend or not. 50%
• No: Friendship is more important than playing by the rules. 18%
• Maybe: It depends on whether the promotion affects my career path. 32%

Total respondents: 2,400

3. “If you knew a colleague had embezzled a small amount of money, what would you do?”
When it comes to money, our coworkers are less forgiving of transgressions than when we’re talking about love. Here are the results:

• Report him or her, because stealing is wrong. 70%
• Report him or her, because I wouldn’t want to be perceived as an accomplice. 15%
• Do nothing, because it’s none of my concern. 7%
• Do nothing, because I don’t want to be a snitch. 3%
• It depends on whether I like the colleague. 5%

Total respondents: 3,827

What do you think? Is stealing a few pens from work acceptable? Is it wrong to be a workplace “snitch”? Share your thoughts in the Comments section — and if you have ideas for future Monster polls, please let us know. 

New York, May 4, 2012

April 2012 Index Highlights:

Monster Employment Index U.S. holds relatively steady with prior-year level, growing one percent year-over-year.

Index rises two percent month-over-month, a more modest pace than usually recorded at this time of the year.

Transportation and warehousing continues to outpace all industries, while retail trade weakens, now recording single-digit annual growth at six percent.

Arts, entertainment, and recreation, educational services, utilities, and public administration decline on annual basis.

All metro markets tracked by the Index continue to exhibit positive annual growth.

The Monster Employment Index U.S. is a monthly gauge of U.S. online job posting activity based on a real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career Web sites and online job listings. The Index does not reflect the trend of any one advertiser or source, but is an aggregate measure of the change in job listings across the industry.

Occupation Year-Over-Year Trends: Annual online demand for workers rose in 17 of 23 occupational categories in April.

• Transportation and Material Moving (up 28 percent) registered the highest annual growth in April.
• Computer and Mathematical (up seven percent) continued to remain positive, with high demand for computer specialists year-over-year.
• Education, Training and Library (down nine percent) recorded the slowest annual growth as the Education services sector continued to decelerate in April.

To obtain a full copy of the Monster Employment Index U.S. report for April 2012, and to access current individual data charts for each of the 28 metro markets tracked, please visit http://about-monster.com/employment-index. Data for the month of May will be released on June 1, 2012.

By Charles Purdy, Monster.com Senior Editor

Around this time of year, you see a lot of news reports and articles about young people and summer jobs — if you’re in school and planning your summer work experience, I hope you’re well into your job search: summer is right around the corner.

When I’ve talked about summer jobs for young people, I divide the jobs into three “goal categories” — since few summer jobs will help you achieve all three goals, focusing on one or two will help you narrow your search.

1. Income Focus
You need money — whether it’s to pay for school or to pay for new wardrobe, your primary concern for the summer is income. If that’s the case, you’ll likely want to turn to typical summer-job industries, such as food service or hospitality. But consider other ways to earn money — for instance, if you have basic office skills, signing up with a temp agency might make sense. Or if you have other marketable skills (such as Web design or carpentry), you may want to hang out a shingle as an entrepreneur — which leads us to our next goal category:

2. Freedom Focus
You want free time this summer — whether you’ve got a lot of fun stuff planned or you’ve got summer classes, you need to set your own hours. If that’s the case, you’ll likely want to consider being your own boss. You may consider some typical self-employment avenues for young people, such as babysitting or lawn care. But also consider your other skills and interests (from photography to finance), especially if they relate to your longer-term career goals — which leads us to our next goal category:

3. Future Focus
If you have the luxury of not being bound by a need for cash or a need for time this summer, you’ll want to consider your career goals and how you can use your time this summer to advance toward them. For many students, this means unpaid (or low-paid) internships — work with your school’s career center to find these kinds of opportunities, and visit Monster College’s Internship page. This may also mean working on your own projects — for instance, if you’re planning to be a journalist, you can spend the summer blogging even if you don’t get an internship at a newspaper.

No matter what your goal is or what your summer job turns out to be, keep that future focus by doing a job you can be proud of (so you’ll gain not only experience but also contacts and references).

For more tips on summer jobs, check out these articles:

• Teens: Prepare for a Successful Summer with the Right Job
• Ten Job-Search Mistakes of New College Grads
• A Winning Job Search Strategy

And have a great summer!

An Interview with Recruitment Expert Corey Harlock

Corey Harlock has spent more than 20 years at the executive management level in the hotel and restaurant sectors, in Australia, the Cayman Islands, and Canada, where he now lives. He has served as a multi-unit food and beverage manager for one of Canada’s leading boutique hotel companies, and as a general manager for a major full-service restaurant company.

Harlock says that after joining an executive recruitment firm in 2006, he started to notice an obvious gap between candidates and clients. Through his work with them, he created a custom interview technique that he says “challenges people to look at their careers in a different way.” since then, Harlock has taught aspects of his system, which he calls the Skills to Achieve Program, at post-secondary institutions and English as a Second Language (ESL) schools. We recently interviewed Harlock about the Skills to Achieve program and the modern job search:

Monster: What piece of commonly accepted job-search “wisdom” do you believe is actually really bad advice?

Corey Harlock: Many people out there that are trying to help — their intentions are good, but they are hurting your chances of getting hired. A lot of these people are teaching the same thing.

Oh yeah — I always like to add my disclaimer at this point: If you dislike or fear change, you won’t like what I have to say. I teach a very different approach to getting hired. I guess that is the difference — I don’t want people to be experts at looking for a job; I want them to be experts at getting hired for one.

When you read a job ad, it will tell you exactly what a hiring manager wants to see in your resume and in what order to put it. For example, if the job ad starts by saying applicants “must have” a certain degree or diploma or “must have” a certain level of education, then that should be the first thing that goes on your resume. It is the only thing a hiring manager is looking for when they look at your resume for the first time. If the job ad says that a degree of education is “preferred,” or doesn’t mention education at all, then they are looking for experience first. That little piece of information tells you what goes at the top of your first page, in the “prime real estate.”

Often, people overlook the importance of where they put their education on their resume. What you need to consider is there are many jobs out there that require a degree of education. Many companies even have internal policies that allow them to hire only people who have a university degree. For instance, many companies require their sales people to have a degree — in anything, as long as it is a degree. You can have ten years of sales experience, but if the job ad says “must have” degree or diploma, they won’t call you for an interview. They can’t.

My point is, if you know that they are only looking for your education in the very first screening, why would you make them look for it? Give them what they are asking for; it helps you get hired and not eliminated.

Monster: What is the primary thing that most job seekers need to change about the way they’re trying to find work?

Harlock: What I teach is one-third insider information, one-third job-search psychology, and one-third strategy. There are going to be situations where, strategically, the most effective thing to do is follow the hiring manager’s lead and give them what they ask for; other times, the best thing to do is to take the lead. The most important thing is that you are completely aware of the process and why you’re doing what you’re doing — and controlling the process whenever control is offered or left on the table.

The single biggest thing everyone can change right now is to go through the hiring process to actually get hired! It sounds crazy, I know, but too many people out there advise a crazy strategy of “trying to not get eliminated” instead of trying to get hired. So how do you do that? The answer is simple. Make it all about you. Not the hiring manager, you. Start shifting from what a hiring manager wants to see on your resume to what you want a hiring manager to see on your resume.

This can be tricky to understand as well. The job ad will tell you what order to put your information in, but you will create very strategic job summaries and information on your resume that will point hiring managers in the direction you want them to go. You also need to shift from what a hiring manager wants to hear in an interview to what you want the hiring manager to hear in an interview. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you were to going into an interview for a job in Sales and Marketing. These types of jobs are never a 50-50 split. This kind of job is usually a marketing job with a little sales, or a sales job with some marketing.

So, we are sitting in the interview, and the hiring manager asks, “So what is your strength, sales or marketing?”

Trying to not get eliminated answer #1 sounds like this: “Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”

That is playing safe at its worst and only increases your chances of getting eliminated. Hiring managers are looking for experts, not generalists — this answer makes you a generalist.

Trying to not get eliminated answer #2 goes something like this: “I love to sell. I was born to sell. My strength is sales.”

The hiring manager follows up and says, “What about marketing?”

You would reply, “Oh, I love to market too. I was born to market. I am definitely strong at marketing.”

You know and the hiring manager knows that you are just trying to tell them what they want to hear and not get eliminated — right?

Here is an example of how you would answer this question if you were telling a hiring manager what you wanted them to hear:

“I am passionate about sales. In my current company I have been salesperson of the year three of the past four years, and I have beaten my projections by at least 10% every year.”

The hiring manager follows up with, “What about marketing?”

You might say, “I can do marketing, in fact I am a very good marketer and have gotten some very good results. But my passion is really sales.”

This is the part where most people look at me like I’m crazy. They think that I am telling them to eliminate themselves from the job. But that’s just not the case. We can do some simple math and see that you have actually just dramatically increased your chances of getting hired.

Think about it. Answers #1 and #2 give you a 0% chance of getting hired.

Answer #2 gives you a very good chance.

If it is a marketing job with some sales, you probably won’t get considered — and that’s OK because you don’t want a marketing job.

But if it is a sales job with some marketing, you are still in the game.

What I didn’t mention is that there are two very strange side effects of using this method.

One: Not only will you increase the number of job offers you get, but they will be jobs you love.

Two: You will always know why you didn’t get the job — because you told them what you wanted them to hear and obviously they couldn’t give you what you wanted. No more wondering, “Why didn’t they call? I thought I aced the interview and told them everything they wanted to hear

Monster: Say I’m suddenly unemployed and need to begin my search for a new job. What goals should I set for myself for my first week of trying to find a new job?

Harlock: This is a tricky one because I know that the common advice is to get out there and work your social networks. I am not a huge believer of that. I believe that most people, whether it’s their first week being unemployed or they have been out of work for a long time, need to step back and learn about the most important aspect of their job search — themselves.

They need to be absolutely clear about exactly what it is they love and want to do, how they want to be managed, where they are in their work cycle or their experience cycle, and most importantly why they are going to work. It’s not money — that is a result of going to work and not the reason for it.

Being razor sharp on what you require from an employer will actually help you identify the jobs you want to apply for, create a resume that will get you interviews, and then kill the interview and get job offers.

A good salesperson will tell you that, in order to sell well, you need to know the product inside and out, and you need to believe in the product.

In a job search, you’re selling you: How many people out there can say that they know their product inside and out and that they believe in their product?

Here is another piece of information many people might not know about. Hiring manages might see hundreds of resumes each day, but they remember the people who apply to every job every time. We call them stalkers. I have a database of over 14,000 people, and I know the people that apply to every job. Think about that: does it help you get hired or help you get eliminated?

So get yourself together before you go out and possibly destroy any potential opportunities because you felt a little panicked and spread our name and resume too indiscriminately.

Tina Krinsky has been the CVO (Chief Visionary Officer) of Julian Krinsky Camps & Programs (JKCP) for 35 years — under her leadership, JKCP has grown to become a multimillion dollar enterprise. She has worked with thousands of teens over the decades, becoming a leader in the “iGeneration” and “digital native” demographic, able to analyze information from all angles and to forecast teen trends.

We asked Tina Krinsky for her tips on summer jobs for teens — and here’s what she had to say:

• Know your goals. Figure out your expectations for the summer, and think bigger than babysitting. Babysitting is a worthy fall-back for earning extra cash, but if you are interested in law, for example, look into helping answer phones or filing paper work at a local law office.  This will help give you insight into the daily workings of your business of choice. You can learn about dressing professionally, socializing in an office setting, or using new technology. It’s a great time to fumble and make some mistakes as an intern, knowing your rent money is not on the line. Not ready to trade in your flip-flops? Then perhaps a start-up would be better for you.
• Communicate with your family. No matter what you have planned for the summer, start with a conversation with your parents about your expectations and theirs. Is the goal to have fun? Make money while learning valuable lessons? Prepare for college?  Explore your passion? Whatever it is, be clear. Write your goals down. If your parents want something different, you could both end up being disappointed. But think how good you will feel if you surpassed everyone’s goals!
• Remember, education is the key! While teens’ gray matter is at the max, why not learn a musical instrument, learn tennis, or improve your golf handicap and make your high school team? Keep in mind that summer internships are available for junior and seniors in high school who want to get a jump-start on gaining valuable experience in a particular field of practice such as medicine, business, or law.
• Explore new fields. Not sure about your passion? Look into summer programs that offer programs such as fashion design, architecture, science, cooking, business programs, and so on. Many summer camps and programs offer subjects not typically taught in your high school. Maybe it’s time to leave the mother ship and dip your toe into a summer pre-college experience.
• Try things you have never done before. Play a new sport, take a new class, or explore a new hobby — just try! For little risk, this can be a huge reward. You may discover something you are passionate about.
• Do what you want to do, not just what your friends are doing. We are in a world that celebrates diversity and individuality.  In turn, summer is a great time to focus on your unique personality, distinguish yourself, formulate your own opinions, and explore your individual potential.
• Look to your future college. If you are really interested in going to a particular college, see if they offer any pre-college programs. You will navigate the campus, get to know the surrounding area, eat in the dining halls, live in the dorms, and experience what it’s like to be a student there. Think how confident you will feel when you return as a freshman! Think how relieved your parents will be if you realize now that it’s not the college for you!
• Network. It’s a skill that can’t be learned too early. Treat everyone you meet as someone who could change your life. With social media, it’s easy to stay in touch — and you never know when a future college recommendation or job opportunity may came from it.
• If you lose, be careful not to lose sight of the lesson. Summer can be filled with highs and lows. First jobs, being away from home, making new friends — it all can be tough. But, if you learn from each experience, you’ll look back at a successful summer.

Get more great tips in this Wall Street Journal article, “Summer Jobs for Teens” — and keep in mind that summer jobs aren’t just for grownups! Read “How to Land a Good Summer Job,” for advice that both students and adults can benefit from. Then start your job search today!

Image: imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here’s what they had to say:

• Yes: I connect with my coworkers; my Facebook is an open book. 6%
• Yes: I connect with my coworkers, but I limit what they can see. 4%
• Sometimes: I connect selectively with coworkers that I become friends with. 24%
• No: I keep my work life and my private life separate. 39%
• No: I’m not on Facebook. 26%

(Total respondents: 1,178)

Setting aside the 26% who said they don’t use Facebook, that means about 9% of people make no distinction between coworkers and close friends — everyone sees the same posts on their Facebook page.

Most people, however, are a bit more circumspect. Again, setting aside the non-Facebookers, 53% of respondents say they keep a wall between their private and personal lives.

Which tactic is wiser? That really depends on you and what you like to post on Facebook. Monster’s BeKnown professional networking app is for people who prefer to be at least a little selective — but who also recognize that Facebook can be a very good place to do professional or semi-professional networking.

In our free ebook, Monster’s Guide to Online Networking (a great resource you can download and share with your network today), we discussed how to negotiate the gray area between friend and colleague. Here’s an excerpt:

Many people balk at the notion that they have to be “all business” on their favorite social media sites like Facebook and Twitter — they feel that these platforms should be about self-expression and free speech.

And that’s true — but it’s also true that these platforms are stages, and they put the whole world in front of you as your audience. This isn’t to say, however, that you have to turn your “performance” into a bland recitation of the news. You don’t have to be all business. But think of it this way: There are things you tell your boss, things you tell your parents, and things you tell your best friends. What you put online should fall into all three categories — because by putting something online, you are in effect doing that.

All of these people can safely hear about your hobbies, your kids’ activities, your home-improvement ventures, books you’re reading, your high Scrabble scores (earned outside of work hours!), your thoughts on your favorite TV show, and so on. They can all see photos of your vacation, your new puppy, your friends celebrating your birthday at a restaurant, and so on. Also, all of these people should be reading about your successes and activities at work—this goes back to establishing your professionalism as part of your “personal brand”

Online behavior requires that you employ a bit of restraint — like just about all activities that involve interacting with other people.

What do you think about connecting with coworkers on Facebook? Share your thoughts in the Comments section — and like Monster on Facebook, to receive daily job-search and career-advice updates.

By Charles Purdy, Monster.com Senior Editor

I’m a person who enjoys both France and lunch — so a new Slate.com article caught my eye yesterday. “Don’t Eat Lunch at Your Desk” is about the author’s preference for the French custom of taking a long, leisurely lunch break in the middle of the day (as opposed to the common practice here in the US of hurriedly wolfing down salad while hunched over a keyboard).

Sounds good — but is it realistic?

This year, we asked Monster.com  visitors about their workday lunch habits. We asked, “How would you describe your typical lunch ‘break’?” Here’s what you said:

• I eat while I work / don’t take a break     38%
• I take a 15-minute break     17%
• I take a break for at least 30–45 minutes     27%
• I take a full hour break     17%

(Total respondents: 4,982)

How do you feel about lunch? Is it a waste of time or a necessary break in the middle of the day? Share your thoughts in the Comments section.

Update: Today Slate published a counterpoint opinion piece, “I‘d Rather Eat at My Desk: Why Lunch Breaks Are Totally Overrated.” Does it change your mind?