6. In a downward economy, am I better off as a specialist or a generalist?

Near people would likely vote generalist: If yous don't know where your side by side gig will come from, meliorate not to be typecast. Non and so fast, argues Ezra Zuckerman, professor of strategic management at MIT'southward Sloan School.

Zuckerman and his colleagues did a three-year study of the film manufacture to meet if typecasting — a term that elicits howls of ache from actors — could work to one'due south advantage. The event: For most actors, being identified with a genre helps maintain a human foot-hold in a tough industry. (In the written report, less than one-tertiary of actors who got a moving picture credit constitute any further movie piece of work over the side by side 3 years.)

So what does that hateful if you're the Sly Stallone of enterprise software? "You take to fit into a category that intermediaries like headhunters understand," says Zuckerman. "If yous beginning off every bit a generalist and try to avoid typecasting, you may non get to play in the commencement place."

That said, your all-time bet for standing out is to demonstrate a neighboring set of skills that may be rare for someone in your category (think Jim Carrey in The Truman Evidence). Then, one time you land the job, you tin leverage those skills into a position with more range. Linda Tischler

7. There's less piece of work to become done, so how can I spend less fourth dimension at the part?

Ane of the nifty mysteries of the downturn is how seemingly every company complains that there'south not enough business organization to go around, yet most of us still feel overworked and overwhelmed. Here's a 4-footstep guide to using the downturn as an opportunity to slow downwards.

Stride one: Admit to yourself, "I am not indispensable." Repeat over and over. About people don't want to admit this. About people are wrong.

Step two: Take a vacation. If y'all're not used to vacations, outset with a four-mean solar day weekend. Plan it months in accelerate, and share your intentions with your boss and colleagues. That style, a concluding-infinitesimal crunch won't easily derail your getaway.

Footstep iii: Get out more. "I cut dorsum a few years agone," says Robert Drago, professor of labor studies at Pennsylvania State Academy and a longtime advocate of a federally mandated shorter workweek. "It was the nearly hard thing I had e'er done. Showtime, I had to forcefulness myself not to recall almost work all the fourth dimension. The easiest way to practise that is to go involved in another organized action — something outside of piece of work that actually requires you to exist there at a certain time. For me, it was coaching soccer. Information technology could be getting involved in a church activity or taking a grade — anything that requires a physical delivery with existent demands."

Step iv: Restructure your piece of work. This is the toughest step of all, not just because most people are wedded to self-imposed overtime, simply considering many bosses demand it. "You would have to make it financially worthwhile for your employer," Drago says. "Employers save money when people work longer hours," because the alternative is hiring more employees and paying more in benefits.

Ane option is to present your dominate with a programme for a job share, which, in many cases, tin be gratis to the employer. Another, more drastic, possibility: Quit the job and refashion yourself as a consultant. Your hours will be your own. More than or less. Keith H. Hammonds

viii. Is this a terrible fourth dimension to leave a job you don't love?

We were hoping for a counterintuitive answer to this 1 — you know, some rah-rah exhortation that you shouldn't permit a slow economy ho-hum your ambitions. So nosotros sought the advice of the irre-pressible Jeff Taylor, founder and chairman of Monster, the recruiting Web site.

But even the high-energy, pro-change Taylor cautions a get-boring approach. No matter how much actress piece of work has been dumped on your desk or how grim things seem at your visitor, at present may non be the ideal time to start shopping for that new interview suit.

"You lot could sit around and focus on how your chore feels like it has hit a expressionless end," he says. "Or you could await at this equally an amazing fourth dimension to double down at your company."

Double downwardly? "Look, your company has a lot fewer employees," Taylor says. (Monster, for example, had to cutting 25% of its staff during the past twelvemonth.) "There hasn't been a amend fourth dimension to push your career forward within your company and take on additional responsibility." Merely Taylor says that you won't see that opportunity if yous're focusing on how bad things are relative to the glory days of the late 1990s.

There'south no question that at that place are lots of unhappy people in the part these days. In polls of its Web-site visitors, Monster found that 73% of people say that their work has taken a turn for the worse in the past yr. But 14% say that their work has improved.

At the aforementioned time, "people who still have a job tend to forget that they're the lucky ones," Taylor says. "They don't realize that there are people in Silicon Valley and on Route 128 who are sitting around, networking at meetings, or volunteering at companies only for the experience. Maybe they're getting some stock options in return, but no pay." In that light, having suffered through a salary freeze or a round of pay cuts at your company doesn't seem so cruel.

If yous do decide to stay, that doesn't mean that your function has to stay the aforementioned. It's time to volunteer for the job forces and teams that volition exist credited with reinvigorating your company.

"At most companies, there are some incredibly interesting projects happening in the midst of a downturn," Taylor says. "Those are the projects that will change the company'southward direction and position it to be successful again. Those are the projects that yous want to lead or become involved with. And if you take the energy to look for a job, why not try applying that energy within your company instead?"

Of course, you should always keep an center on the chore market — in case that perfect position does materialize somewhere else. And property on to what you've got doesn't forbid y'all from firing off a ré sumé now and then. Advises Taylor: "For about people, now is not a wonderful fourth dimension to wait for a chore. Your outset idea ought to exist, "How tin can I make my situation meliorate?" Scott Kirsner

ix. My skills experience obsolete in this environment. How can I update them quickly?

Skills, shmills. If yous desire to compete these days, update your Rolodex, insists Colleen Aylward, president and hall monitor (her preferred title) at Devon James Associates, a Seattle-based recruiting firm. The technology companies that hire her want high-bear on contacts who will generate revenue, boost funding, or open doors in overseas markets — starting today. Aylward fifty-fifty recommends that job candidates add together a list of "strategic relationships" to their ré sumé .

That's not to say that at that place aren't any skills worth acquiring. Web blueprint, building cool apps, and online marketing take been ushered offstage, along with MC Hammer and Ally McBeal. In a decade that could be dubbed the Uh-Ohs, problem solving is male monarch. "Companies accept problems: 'Our product is no longer competitive.' Or, 'We take to streamline operations because we grew too big,' " Aylward says. "They desire someone who has solved that specific problem earlier." Hiring for potential is out. Hiring for expertise is in.

More than upgrades to consider: speaking ane or more foreign languages, preferably German, Japanese, or Spanish. It's no longer preferred that you practise business organization abroad; information technology's expected. Some other invaluable skill is the ability to integrate systems (technical equally well equally man). In the wake of so many mergers, companies are trying to sort out incompatibilities and eliminate redundancies.

As for the skills that served global hit-and-run deal makers so well a few years ago, many of them matter less in a world where international partners often approach their American counterparts more cautiously because of the precarious state of the economy. "Companies used to value the hotshots who fabricated the deals," says Aylward. "Just at present they value the employees who tin can continue clients happy, so that their clients don't go to the competition." Chuck Salter

10. Do online job boards work?

Despite all the promise of Cyberspace job hunting, a tiny proportion of jobs are filled online. Forrester Inquiry found that even at the peak of the tech boom, just 4% of task hunters institute employment through online boards. (Help-wanted ads scored a 23% success rate that aforementioned twelvemonth.) "Job boards are a research tool, not a matchmaking service," says Margaret Riley Dikel of the Riley Guide (www.rileyguide.com), 1 of the Internet'south longest-running listings of online employment resources. "Boards are all-time used to survey who's hiring in what fields. Otherwise, they should be pretty far down on a job seeker'southward to-do listing."

Ane smart tactic is to use the Web to collect data on the handful of companies that you want to work for. As in all things Web related, the more than targeted the search, the better the yield. Start at your preferred company's domicile page, or run an advanced Google search on links to the visitor's site. For example, Dikel ran a quick search of pages linking to Pixar, the producer of reckoner-animated hit movies. In less than a infinitesimal, she discovered two pages that signal the way toward connecting with Pixar insiders: Ane page was a list of former students from Florida State University's computer-science department who are now working at Pixar; the other was an announcement that a Pixar executive would be speaking at an upcoming 3-D flick festival. Ultimately, a personal contact at the visitor that you want to work for is more powerful than all of the CareerBuilders and Monsters combined. Bill Breen

11. How do I stay out of harm's manner?

In Panama, we would movement large groups of POWs at night, because there was a dusk-to-dawn curfew in result. It'southward nighttime, and yous see these muzzle flashes in the window — pockets of people trying to pick united states of america off. You had to be prepared for potshots: the "for whom it may concern" bullet. All it takes is one.

In some situations, you can dodge bullets. The communication "Keep your head downwardly and continue moving" really works. Information technology's difficult to hit somebody who'due south moving from street to street. The shooter has to conceptualize where you're going. Y'all don't want to striking the panic button and just open fire. We were in Panamanian neighborhoods with lots of high rises, and you tin can't but plow your automatic weapon on a building. If yous practice, you'll have to evacuate the edifice and assistance those people. Meanwhile, your POWs are untying each other. In an instant, you've made the situation worse.

You want to get out of impairment's way — turn down an alley for cover — because you're responsible for your soldiers and the POWs. If someone meets you with overwhelming firepower, that'southward one matter. Otherwise, y'all want to suppress the enemy. While it's happening, you never actually think, "Okay, nosotros could dice here." Adrenaline and instincts take over, and you lot don't think virtually the danger until later on.

The most fearful state of affairs isn't the actual firefight. That's what you've trained for. It's the silence earlier the bullets commencement flight. Information technology's deafening. You're thinking, "I know the bad guys are here, but where are they?" Once they fire, you can bring in the postal service, because they only gave up their positions.

Y'all create your own luck through grooming and training. You want to exist in the all-time physical shape and as warning as you tin can be, so you tin can adapt to the enemy's tactics. Information technology reminds me of one of the commanders in Republic of iraq who said, "We won this battle back at Camp Lejeune six months agone."

The troops always complain about having to keep their vests and helmets on when goose egg's happening. Merely if you don't practise it every time, information technology won't be habit. You lot'll lower your guard, and that'south when you're most vulnerable. Y'all need to have a healthy paranoia: Never underestimate the situation yous're in.