Dear Liz, I had my annual review last month. My manager “Rachel” said “You do a great job but I can only give you a two percent raise. Your salary is already too close to mine as it is.” Up until that moment I had no idea what salary Rachel was on and I don’t care either. I didn’t know what to say.

“If you wait until you’re ready, you’ll be waiting for the rest of your life.” Early on in starting my company, people advised me that I should have more experience, more time, and more money. I didn’t. When I started my company, LearnLux, I had no money, no time, no experience, had never worked in finance, and to top it off was entering one of the oldest, most conservative, male-dominated industries as a young woman.

Can an employer teach old workers new tricks? Most Americans don’t seem to think so. Even though 69 percent of non-Millennials and 87 percent of Millennials — the bread-and-butter employees of startups — cite continued development as a workplace must-have, few feel it can be found at current employers. More than nine in 10 U.S. workers choose to leave their stomping grounds when they’re ready to change roles.

Dear Liz, Twice now in my job search I’ve been asked to supply my professional references list before I’ve met anyone from the employer organization. They say that they have to call my references before they can interview me. That seems backwards to me. In one case they said they needed my references right up front because the interview would be an out-of-town interview and they wanted to talk to my references before they spent money on my airfare and hotel.

Dear Liz, I am enjoying your columns immensely. It’s refreshing to see someone with a background in HR leadership advocating for a more human-centered approach to HR and recruiting. I had an experience recently that dovetails with your theme of self-empowerment for job-seekers and working people. I got a call from a recruiter about a Product Developer position with a firm I have been well acquainted with for years. I know several people who work there.

Could your job be done by a robot? It’s a serious question.  As big data, machine learning, AI and other technologies continue to advance at a furious pace, more and more jobs are falling into the category of those that could be automated and done by a computer or a robot. Factory workers, assembling the same widget over and over again, used to be the only ones who had to worry about robots taking over their jobs, but no longer.

Shutterstock Too often in business, people want to be nice, avoid conflict or not upset their boss or co-workers by stating their true opinions.  All that does is create problems for all involved.  You get frustrated that the business is not going in the direction you think is most logical.

A recent survey by Microsoft found that 70% of college students are most worried about landing a dream job or financial stability after graduating. And they may have good reason: 12.8% of millennials are unemployed, which is more than twice the national average. Meanwhile, two-thirds of current millennial workers want to leave their organizations by 2020 according to a 2016 Deloitte survey. Millennials are doing lots right in the job hunt.

You might be surprised how little some of America’s most dangerous professions pay. (image credit: Shutterstock) It’s dirty work, but somebody’s got to do it—often for not a lot of pay. Certain jobs on offer out there in the job market carry with them some ominous threats. You may be able to imagine some of them; positions that ask workers to take risks many might find too dangerous. Recently, jobs and careers information site, CareerCast.

A Delta employee helps travelers near the Delta check-in counter at LaGuardia Airport, August 8, after flights around the globe were grounded and delayed due to a systems outage.