Careers: Features

Remember the late '90s, when tech managers left corporate IT in droves join Internet start-ups? Some people got rich, and others got burned, but everyone agreed -- working for a start-up is a unique experience.

Recession fears have tech jobs in jeopardy. Here's how to outlast, outrun, and outsmart the competition.

If your company is headed for a fall, it's usually better to jump than to be pushed. Don't let yourself be blindsided by quickly dwindling company prospects. These eight signs are surefire indications that it is high time to update your résumé and start networking.

Jock? Geek? Artist? Underachiever? Do our high school selves predict our career paths?

If the doomsayers prove right, throngs of laid-off tech workers will soon be competing for only a handful of available jobs. Technical certifications, once thought to be the ticket to higher pay and more prestige, may be needed to simply avoid the unemployment line. The trick is to get the ones that will really help keep or land that job, since it turns out many certifications won't be all that useful.

It's not easy for IT professionals to make a wholesale switch to a different technical discipline, but it's not impossible, either. You just have to take the initiative.

Everyone knows that there's a correct way to carve poultry into parts. In fact, basic carving methods haven't changed much since the time of the Roman Empire a couple of thousand years ago. If you want to be considered a great cook, you need to learn these ancient lessons. For chickens, it usually sounds something like this:

IT leaders looking for a pat on the back for delivering much-needed technology to the business could be waiting a long time. Survey results released this week by Forrester Research show that while a majority of business executives depend on technology to do their jobs, they don't credit IT for providing those high-tech resources.

The US Department of Labor recently reported an astonishingly high unemployment rate of 6.1 percent. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 1.5 million people filed for unemployment claims from January through September 2008, the highest number since 2002. The technology sector has been no exception to this downward spiral, and it almost seems as though every other person we know is looking for work or at least "keeping their options open."

If the US president-elect moves quickly to boost basic research funding, the visa issue will be part of the debate.

We dread hearing the news that something once considered unique or innovative has turned into a commodity, where the only differentiator is price. We especially don't like it when that transformation happens in our own careers -- when a prized skill becomes so ubiquitous that it can be had for pennies on the dollar. We might as well admit that this shift has happened to another treasured asset: our ability to solve any problem by simply whipping ourselves into a coffee-drenched frenzy and working harder.