Shutterstock Dear Liz, I am coming to the harsh realization that Imight have to look for a new job. I liked my job for the first two years but the past year has been difficult. Our manager Marcia quit and the General Manager of our location took over our department rather than hire someone new to manage us. I never hit it off with the GM, Jack, and now that he’s my direct supervisor, it’s very difficult.

Shutterstock The act of learning is every bit as important as what you learn. Believing that you can improve yourself and do things in the future that are beyond your current possibilities is exciting and fulfilling. Still, your time is finite, and you should dedicate yourself to learning skills that will yield the greatest benefit. There are seven skills that I believe fit the bill because they never stop paying dividends.

(Photo courtesy of Shutterstock) “Connecting you two amazing women!” my friend Karen emailed one Monday morning. I had known this email was coming because Karen had told me that her friend Stephanie was interested in connecting. As a mentor to many and an uber-networker, I never decline an introduction.

Photo by Andrea Boldizsar via Unsplash Hiring a new staff member can be a scary or stressful experience for business leaders. What if you don’t find out something important during the interview process? What if the candidate you hire isn’t a great fit? Bad hires can have disastrous and costly effects on a team. In your desire to interview your candidates thoroughly, it’s quite possible to scare them away, too.

Shutterstock The working world has changed. If you have been working for a long time, you probably remember when being invited to a job interview was a big deal. You took it seriously and the employer did, too. Nowadays you can go to a job interview and there’s no one there to meet you. They forgot you were coming, or they crossed wires. You stand around and nobody working for the employer seems particularly concerned.

Shutterstock Job-seekers are fragile, and they don’t always realize it. They can seek moral support from the wrong sources — including recruiters who are representing them to employers. I was an HR leader for a long time. I was always surprised at how readily and quickly job applicants would go “into the vault” with me.

Pexels.com On December 1, President Obama’s new overtime pay law will increase the number of employees who qualify for time-and-a-half after 40 hours a week. Any salaried employees making less than $47,476 annually must be paid overtime (the old threshold was $23,660). Some think the law may benefit hardworking, underpaid millennials. After all, two thirds of the group gaining new overtime protection are under 35. But, for the average millennial, this will change nearly nothing.

Shutterstock The definition of “hocus pocus”is “meaningless talk or activity, often designed to draw attention away from and disguise what is actually happening.” Unfortunately, this is not dissimilar to how many people understand the meaning of “focus.

Dear Liz, I am job-hunting. I got laid off in September and I didn’t have a lot of savings to tap into. I’m not panicky but I am pursuing every lead. I have also dropped my ‘asking price’ from my original salary goal of $80k/year which I earned in my last job, to $40-$50K. There are ten times as many job openings posted in the $40-$50K range as there are in my old salary range, and I need a job. However, applying for lower-level jobs hasn’t gotten me anywhere yet.

Shutterstock In the fall of 2013, I helped launch the Education Design Studio incorporated (EDSi), a private, for-profit hybrid incubator, seed-fund and design studio that operates in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania. Like many edtech incubators, EDSi has a mentoring program. The mentoring program developed out of the demonstrated need that while there were some topics that the EDSi fellows benefited from learning in a group setting (e.g.