World News Gathered & Syndicated

Amid the economy’s many ailments, some good news has remained mostly off the radar: The at-home work force is growing, and it is encompassing new occupations ranging from radiology and nursing to auditing and teaching.

The bad news: Fierce competition means your odds of landing one of these jobs are poor. And if you succeed, you will probably take a pay cut.

For companies, home-based employees, independent contractors and freelancers are helping cut costs and improve customer service. Full-time, home-based freelancers and independent contractors in the U.S. are expected to increase by 200,000 workers to 11 million by the end of 2009, says Ray Boggs, a vice president of IDC, Framingham, Mass., a market-research firm; he sees another 200,000-worker increase in 2010.

While that is a mere blip on the radar in an economy that has been losing nearly that many jobs in a month, the trend means a lot to the individuals who are benefiting from it. They are avoiding dreaded commutes, doing volunteer work, pursuing college degrees or caring for family. And they are performing increasingly complex tasks from home, from reading MRIs to helping clients search for Bigfoot, the mythic wilderness monster.

“We are seeing a general broadening of the work-at-home landscape,” says Christine Durst, chief executive of a work-at-home Web site and co-author of a new guidebook on the topic.

Applicants are stacking up by the hundreds of thousands, however. Based on my survey of a dozen companies that use home workers, your odds of actually landing one of these positions range from about 25-to-1 to 300-to-1.

ARO Contact Center, Kansas City, Mo., which employs just 200 home auditors and sales and customer-service workers, gets 1,000 resumes a week, says Michael Amigoni, chief operating officer. West Corp., Omaha, with 14,000 active agents handling customer-service and other calls, hires only 0.5% to 1% of its 4,500 weekly applicants. And Alpine Access, Denver, with 2,800 home customer-service, sales and tech-support agents, hires about only 2% of the 100,000 people who apply each year.

“It takes a lot of luck to get these positions,” says Tammie Deweever, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a home customer-service agent for LiveOps, Santa Clara, Calif. “You have to be good at what you do.” Ms. Deweever has a college degree in marketing and worked as a mortgage broker before joining LiveOps last January. For her, job flexibility means being able to be home for her children, 17, 15 and 8; she often works split shifts around their needs, answering calls from TV viewers wanting to buy products from juicers to jeans.

Many skilled at-home professionals and managers earn less than a corporate salary. Less-skilled customer-service or sales work usually pays about $8 to $15 an hour, ranging as high as $25 or more with incentives or premiums. Some companies pay by the minute or hour spent on the phone, while others pay by the shift. The jobs vary by company from full-time employee positions with benefits to part-time independent contractor positions.

And applicants must be wary of scam artists. Ms. Durst, Woodstock, Conn., who screens work-at-home pitches for her Web site, RatRaceRebellion.com, says she is finding only one legitimate job among every 60 pitches she examines. In 2006, the odds weren’t quite as bad: She was finding one legitimate job for every 31 pitches vetted.

Many victims of work-at-home fraud have sent money, only to receive worthless products or leads, or nothing at all, in return; others who disclose too much personal information have fallen victim to theft from credit-card or checking accounts.

But those who win the work-at-home lottery reap diverse benefits. Intent on avoiding a long commute, Heather Hedden, a Raleigh, N.C., marketing specialist, spent a year looking for her current spot, as a home-based concierge for VIPdesk, Alexandria, Va. The position was worth the wait, she says. She enjoys using her research skills to help clients find theater or sports tickets, vintage wines or travel services. When a client asked for help looking for Bigfoot, she found an outfitter with a track record of taking like-minded customers on hikes through areas of reported sightings, she says.

After 19 years in private practice, radiologist Steven Brick, Potomac, Md., began working from home for Virtual Radiologic, Eden Prairie, Minn. The setup confers both the freedom to focus on his work, without distractions, and the flexibility to serve as a volunteer at the National Zoo answering visitors’ questions, he says. Virtual Radiologic’s radiologists, who work as independent contractors reading X-rays and other images for hospitals and other medical clients, have increased to 140 from 34 in 2004, a spokeswoman says.

Home-based work enables newlywed Stacey Anderson, 30, Ballston Spa, N.Y., to tackle numerous roles. Since landing a customer-service post last summer as a contractor for VIPdesk, Ms. Anderson has been able to bend her work hours around her husband’s rotating shifts on his job. In addition, she squeezes in a full-time course load as a college student.

Such intangible incentives are drawing skilled, experienced people. Mark Frei, a senior vice president of West, says 80% of West’s home agents have some college education, compared with 30% of those who work in office-based call centers.

Vanessa Torres, 35, San Antonio, Texas, had a bachelor’s degree in business and 16 years’ management experience before signing on last January as a home agent for West. She likes controlling her hours, and works only when her two young children are in school, she says.

Expansion of home-based work is likely to continue. Among the 12 companies I contacted, all were planning to recruit more home workers. Lionbridge Technologies, Waltham, Mass., a provider of multilingual services including translation and product testing, is taking on new freelancers to assess “search relevance”—that is, to ensure Internet searches yield items suitable to particular locales, a spokeswoman says.

Alpine Access, Denver, is recruiting 500 more home agents and expects to add 2,000 in 2010, says Chief Executive Christopher Carrington. LiveOps, with 20,000 home agents for retailing, insurance and other companies, added about 4,000 agents in the past two months. Arise Virtual Solutions, Miramar, Fla., with a home-agent pool of 9,800, is seeking 3,000 agents for the peak holiday and cruise seasons, a spokeswoman says. Michael DeSalles, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting firm, sees home agents growing by at least 30% a year.

Sites which link clients with skilled freelancers also are seeing a surge in demand for virtual workers with a widening range of professional and technical skills; oDesk.com‘s monthly postings, including graphic design, software, administrative and other projects, rose to 28,000 in the past 30 days, three times year-earlier levels. Monthly hiring on Elance.com is up more than 40% from a year ago.

As more companies allow people to work from anywhere via the Internet, says a spokeswoman for Lionbridge, “we are convinced that this is the new model of work.”

—E-mail sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com.

By JOE LIGHT

There were 124,000 fewer job vacancies posted online in April than in March, the first dip since 2010, according to research organization The Conference Board Inc.

The 4.3 million jobs posted online in April still beat February’s 4.2 million online job ads and far exceeded November’s 3.7 million jobs posted online.

However, the April drop might suggest that hiring will slow during the summer, as employers take time to absorb recent new hires, said Conference Board economist June Shelp. Changes in the number of ads posted tend to precede actual hiring by two to three months during upturns, she said.

There were about three unemployed workers for every opening online in March, according to The Conference Board.

That measure of job market competitiveness is a big improvement from the five workers who pursued each opening in May 2009, at the end of the recession, but still off the two-per-opening rate from before the recession.

Even though overall employment is bouncing back, some low-skill industries are highly competitive.

Competition among workers in food preparation, for example, which spiked dramatically during the recession to about 14 jobseekers per opening, remains high even as it approaches pre-recession levels.

In March, there were about eight jobseekers whose last job was in food preparation for every opening in the same occupation.

Even if the job market in food preparation, which includes dishwashers and cooks, returned to its pre-recession level, there would still be more than six workers pursuing every job, Ms. Shelp noted.

“Restaurants are being hit by soaring food costs and higher gas and energy prices,” said Bruce Grindy, chief economist with the National Restaurant Association. “Most existing restaurants will try to bump up employee hours before hiring.”

Most of the job growth in the restaurant industry, he said, has come from new restaurants rather than from expansions at existing locations.

On the other hand, the number of jobseekers per opening in computer and math jobs which includes statisticians and computer programmers, at about 0.21, is practically identical to the 0.19 unemployed workers per opening that field had in December 2007, when the recession began.

“The recession didn’t treat everybody equally,” said Ms. Shelp.

Write to Joe Light at Joe.Light@wsj.com

Welcome to the executive suite. But beware: Your smallest acts can cause big consequences.

Consider Linda Parker Hudson, promoted last fall to run the U.S. arm of BAE Systems PLC, a global defense giant.

She told her top lieutenants that she expected “rapid responses” to email around the clock. To her surprise, several started sleeping beside their beeping BlackBerry so they could answer her 3 a.m. messages right away.

Ms. Hudson says she repeatedly reassured these colleagues that they could sleep at night and tried to lessen her nocturnal BlackBerry use. But “it was probably a few months before we all got used to each other,” she concedes.

BAE Systems

Linda Parker Hudson of BAE Systems

Ms. Hudson experienced “executive amplification,” a widespread phenomenon that can significantly affect your career. When you land a senior post, staffers constantly will scrutinize — and possibly misconstrue – your deeds, dress and words.

Yet power makes you “less aware that your behavior matters,” cautions Adam Galinsky, a professor of organizational behavior at Northwestern University’s business school. “That can be a career killer by demoralizing your troops.” Even lack of eye contact with them as you walk down the hall conveys your disapproval, risking alienation.

Amplification also can work to your advantage because effective, small moves often improve employee motivation. You must recognize that “leadership is a role, and you are always on,” says Gary Bradt, an executive coach in Summerfield, N.C. “Make sure you send the messages that you want to send.”

Ms. Hudson first saw the downside of the amplifier effect when she became the first female division president for General Dynamics Corp. in 1999. During her first week, she wore a new scarf tied in a fancy bow. The next day, she ran into more than a dozen women there wearing scarves tied the same way.

Being watched so closely frightened Ms. Hudson. “I wasn’t accustomed to being the center of attention,” the 60-year-old executive recalls. “I felt like I was up on a billboard.”

She soon found herself closely scrutinized again. Touring a division factory months later, Ms. Hudson noticed flyers posted everywhere. They displayed her photo and list of leadership expectations from a recent management team speech.

Thanks to the unanticipated flyers, Ms. Hudson says she realized that amplification represents a potentially positive tool. “You can change employee behavior by subtle changes in your behavior,” she explains.

Anton Rabie, president and co-chief executive of Spin Master Ltd., a toy maker, uses a minor symbolic gesture to amplify his deep commitment to taking risks. He mounts failed Spin Master products and misguided mock-ups on a wall of his Toronto office.

“Each one has a lesson that we should remember,” observes Mr. Rabie, who launched the manufacturer with two classmates in 1994. Staffers viewing his flop-filled wall know “it’s okay to make mistakes,” he continues. “It’s like walking the talk.”

You may also reap benefits from executive amplification by seeking frequent feedback – and making needed corrections. Easier said than done, however.

“As you rise in the ranks, people stop telling you what they should tell you,” notes Richard A. Davis, a partner at RHR International, an executive-coaching firm, and author of the new book. “The Intangibles of Leadership.”

He advocates creating a personal board of directors to help identify your blind spots. “They have to know you and the people around you,” but work elsewhere than your employer, Dr. Davis recommends.

A performance review known as 360-degree feedback persuaded a newly promoted executive at a multinational apparel concern to alter her misinterpreted appearance, according to Rosemarie Fiorilli, a New York executive coach who advised her this year. The 360-degree process involves anonymous input from peers, subordinates and superiors.

The executive wore designer duds, including luxury-brand jewelry, at a workplace that favors business casual dress, Ms. Fiorilli says.

During 360-degree interviews, co-workers said, “She’s trying to be better than us,” the coach recollects. “She was the only one who didn’t know this was bothering people.”

Ms. Fiorilli says she warned the executive that the amplified impact of her luxurious look was hurting her group’s cohesiveness. The woman “toned it down immediately,” the coach adds. “Her boss said other people had noticed and remarked favorably.”

An associate’s frank feedback taught Tim Rice a different amplification lesson. While chief operating officer of Moses Cone Health System in Greensboro, N.C., he visited a friend seated in a chair two days after she underwent open-heart surgery at one of its five hospitals.

Mr. Rice teased her nurse for leaving the woman “in this chair all day long” because the patient looked tired. His joke devastated the nurse, “and she cried afterward,” the nursing director told Mr. Rice.

He later apologized to the nurse and in front of nearly 150 colleagues, praised the nursing director’s candor. Actually, “I was really afraid to come tell you,” she replied.

Mr. Rice says he concluded that his high-level title intimidated subordinates, and he should avoid sarcasm “because everything we do is amplified.” He took charge of Moses Cone in 2004. But “I am probably not as open and free and goofy as I have been in the past.”

At the same time, Mr. Rice regularly encourages his team members to suggest ways that he might lead the health-care system better. “I always say, ‘Who is going to tell the CEO that his fly is unzipped?”’

Write to Joann S. Lublin at joann.lublin@wsj.com

By DENNIS NISHI

Full name: James Balog

Age: 57

Hometown: Watchung, N.J.

Current position: Nature photographer

First job: Wilderness camp counselor in Maine

Favorite job: This one

Education: B.A. Communications and Secondary Education, Boston College; M.A. Geography with a specialty in Geomorphology, University of Colorado

Years in the industry: 32

How I got to here in 10 words or less: I did what I knew would work for me.

Adam LeWinter

James Balog’s love of mountaineering led to a new career.

After studying geography in college, James Balog embarked on a nature-photography career that merged his love of mountaineering, science and art. It is an aesthetic reflected in the work he has done for publications like the New Yorker, Smithsonian and National Geographic. He also has published seven books of photography. Mr. Balog has photographed everything from nuclear missile silos throughout the agrarian West to figure studies of chimps. His latest project, “Extreme Ice Survey,” is a time-lapse, photographic record of climate change as seen through glacial melting at 15 sites in the northern hemisphere. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: Your work often explores the relationship between humans and nature. How did this interest develop?

A: I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a transitional area that was surrounded by farmland that wasn’t being cultivated. It took me 50 years to realize that living in that border zone was key to informing my thinking in my adult life. I had to live in that duality that’s between nature and civilization in order to do what I’ve done as a photographer.

Q: Is that what led to your interest in geomorphology—and what exactly is that?

A: I was a communications major but was always interested in how the tectonics [the study of the earth's crust] worked and how the land is shaped. That’s geomorphology. I studied it as a junior and ended up going to graduate school, figuring I’d end up working with consulting companies that did environmental-impact statements.

Q: What detoured you from that career path?

A: By the time I finished my dissertation, it was clear that science was moving toward a heavy emphasis on statistics and computer modeling. I didn’t want to spend my career sitting in front of a computer screen doing mathematical models.

Q: Is that when you decided to pick up the camera?

A: I actually started writing stories. I did a bunch of spec work—mostly for small publications where I also included my photos. One of my first major paid assignments was writing for Geo magazine on oil and shale development during the Carter [administration] years. My first paid assignment for photography was shortly afterward for Smithsonian magazine; it was on avalanche control. Within a year, I was shooting for Time and Life magazines.

Q: At what point did your interests in nature and photography begin to merge and manifest in your work?

A: I started studying black and white concern photographers—guys that were photographing drug addicts and prostitutes. I realized there was nobody looking at nature [in the same way]. I thought that there was a lot to be said about the conflict between humans and nature.

Q: Your first book “Wildlife Requiem” was pretty graphic and shocked some critics. What were you trying to accomplish with that series?

A: It was a study of big-game hunting in the Rockies. They’re bloody pictures and gruesome. You look at them and think and think this guy must have been inspired by war photography. War photography had a long tradition of turning a glass eye onto horror and ugliness. I wanted to do the same here.

Q: You then started photographing portraits of animals. That seems to take a completely different tack from Requiem.

A: I was doing a job for Geographic on endangered wildlife when the idea for the book “Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife” hit. There was this magnificent rhino at the San Diego Wild Animal Park staring at me, and I thought we’ve been looking at animals the wrong way. We always look for picturesque places to photograph them that make it look like they have these idyllic lives. Looking up close made me realize that this species is almost extinct. I wanted to put them in a setting that showed the alienation of that species from nature. That led to years of pictures of animals in front of artificial backgrounds with strobe lights.

Q: Were rhinos a difficult subject to work up close with?

A: Mostly they were curious about me and all this stuff I brought into their world, which is pretty boring. We stood there eyeball to eyeball studying each other for 20 minutes and that’s when I realized, ‘This isn’t just a cabbage. There’s a mind in there that’s forming opinions, ideas.’ You can’t see any of this with a telephoto lens from far away.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for “Extreme Ice Survey”?

A: The New Yorker asked me to shoot a story on climate change in 2005, and I wound up going to Iceland to shoot a glacier. The real story wasn’t the beautiful white top. It ended up being at the terminus of the glacier where it’s dying. That idea gestated in my mind for a year and eventually turned into the “Extreme Ice Survey” in 2006.

Q: How do images of glaciers collapsing bring the idea of climate change home?

A: There were a lot of repeat photos that showed glaciers retreating over a hundred years. That’s pretty abstract. I wanted to show a shorter term time lapse that would make people think, “My god, little Emily was in first grade in April and she’s in second grade in October. I remember this. It’s happening in my life.”

Q: How much longer do you plan to keep the project going?

A: We’re almost at three years now. Four if you include the New Yorker and National Geographic story. We’ve decided to keep the cameras alive for another year or two—or until the money runs out.

Write to Dennis Nishi at cjeditor@dowjones.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A27

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

Last year, employers filled more than half of job openings with existing employees, a new study to be released Friday shows.

Internal transfers and promotions accounted for an average of 51% of all full-time positions filled in 2009, up from 39% in 2008 and 34% in 2007, reports CareerXroads, a staffing-strategy consulting firm in Kendall Park, N.J. Survey respondents included 41 companies that employ a combined 1.8 million U.S. workers. Last year these firms collectively filled 176,420 positions.

For the 49% of jobs that were filled with external recruits, referrals accounted for the most hires — 27% — and about the same number as in 2008. On average, these yielded one hire for every 15 referrals received. Meanwhile, company Web sites and job boards accounted for 22% and 13% of external hires, respectively.

What the findings indicate, says Mark Mehler, co-founder of CareerXroads, is that networking is the most effective strategy for landing employment. “Job seekers should use job board and corporate sites to find information about openings, but they should use their network to apply,” says Mark Mehler, co-founder of CareerXroads.

Among the job boards that respondents credited for netting outside talent, CareerBuilder.com came out on top, accounting for 42%, however one respondent claimed a significant portion of these. Monster.com netted 12% of external hires, while aggregate job sites, which advertise openings from multiple job boards, hooked 10%. Classifieds provider Craigslist.org accounted for 2.8% of external hires.

Survey respondents also said outside talent was found via job boards that specialize in advertising open positions in specific categories. For example, Dice.com, a job board for the technology sector, netted 0.8% of external hires, as did TheLadders.com, which lists only positions paying salaries of $100,000 or more. All other niche job sites that employers identified were collectively credited with bringing in 27% of external recruits.

Going forward, the survey found that 48% of respondents expect to increase hiring in 2010 compared with last year, while just 11% predicted they’d reduce hiring. The remainder said they expect to make no changes to their head counts.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported Thursday that there were 2.5 million job openings on the last business day of December 2009. The seasonally adjusted job openings rate increased just slightly to 1.9% from 1.8% the month prior.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

By ALEXANDRA LEVIT

Standing out in a crowded marketplace isn’t always easy. And these days, people have seen it all, which means you might only get ahead if you use a compelling and unique approach like Pat Lencioni’s to present your ideas.

Several years ago, Mr. Lencioni, 44 years old, of Lafayette, Calif., was a Bain & Co. consultant who loved writing screenplays and fiction pieces on the side. He didn’t move to Hollywood or New York City to pursue his passion.

Instead, Mr. Lencioni stayed where he was—in the business world—and used his talent to break out of the typical management-consultant mold. He began writing business books that read like novels and featured real characters to which textbook- and theory-fatigued readers could relate. In “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” for example, the fictional DecisionTech’s new CEO, Kathryn, must unite a fractured executive team.

Many say Mr. Lencioni’s parables have sold over 2.5 million copies because they attract people who need to be better managers but don’t want to read a traditional business book to do it. “The plot-driven approach makes people want to read to the end,” says Mr. Lencioni. “Readers are also more comfortable passing the books on to friends because they personally enjoyed them and were able to learn without a lot of effort.”

So, how do you infuse your day with creativity if it’s not your natural strong suit?

First, block out some time on your calendar to think about it. When you set aside time to do something, you elevate its importance in your mind.

Practice clearing your head of all of your everyday concerns, turn on some music, and let your mind wander. If you’re having trouble letting go, ask one of your artistic friends what she does to get in the right frame of mind and try adapting that technique to make it your own.

It also helps to look at your life and business from a different perspective. In providing career advice during this recession, for instance, I often pretended I was the person I needed to reach—a reader who was out of work. I asked myself, “What information do I need right now, and how would I best like to receive it?”

If your daily reading consists of one paper or online publication and Google news, you might try expanding your horizons.

In particular, today’s literary fiction and narrative nonfiction books are often worded so eloquently that they can’t help but inspire you to express yourself in a more creative way.

If you read before going to sleep, be sure to keep a pen and a notebook by your bed to jot down ideas that come to you in the middle of the night.

You might also want to start carrying a pad and pencil with you when you commute or travel. Inevitably you’ll overhear or see something that provokes an interesting train of thought.

Mr. Lencioni suggests forcing yourself into an uncomfortable situation to get your mind going—like doing manual labor if you’re a high-ranking executive, for example.

Sometimes just getting out of your comfort zone can spark creative ideas. “And finally,” he says, “you have to be willing to throw stupid ideas out [there], or ideas that no one believes in but you.”

Recognize that creativity doesn’t understand deadlines. Because you can’t depend on a terrific idea to show up at a certain point, you might try to build in long timelines for projects that require creative zeal and try not to put a lot of pressure on yourself.

“My best insights don’t usually show up when I’m sitting at my computer waiting for them,” says Mr. Lencioni. “I’ll usually be jogging or in the shower, or out in the public where my creative mind is stimulated by watching others.”

Once you’ve begun to think more creatively, look for ways to apply this change at work, from suggesting new projects to discussing projects in a new way.

— Alexandra Levit is a business and workplace author and speaker.

Write to Alexandra Levit at reinvent@wsj.com

By KRISTEN MCNAMARA

After three rounds of interviews for a sales position with Prudential Insurance Co. of America, Patricia Rosa received a letter in February saying her job application was denied based on information from a background check she authorized the company to conduct. The only blemish on her record, she says: Poor credit that built up since she lost her job two years ago.

Unemployed and in debt, Ms. Rosa is among a growing number of job hunters who find their financial past interfering with their professional futures.

Concerned about rising rates of employee theft and fiduciary issues, more employers are conducting credit background checks on applicants for some positions. Companies say the financial information can offer insight into a candidate’s level of responsibility. But people whose previously solid credit has been damaged by the economic downturn say they are victims of circumstances beyond their control.

Ms. Rosa believes her credit woes lost her the opportunity at Prudential. A company spokeswoman said Prudential doesn’t comment on specific job applicants but that each candidate authorizes the company to conduct a background check, which may or may not include a credit check.

A 49-year-old single mother of three, Ms. Rosa fell behind on her mortgage and other bills a handful of months after losing her job as a New York City office manager for a mortgage company in early 2008. “My house is in foreclosure,” the Nyack, N.Y., resident says. Ms. Rosa is now searching for positions outside financial services, believing other industries will be more tolerant of her debt.

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act gives employers the right to conduct background checks on current and potential employees through third-party companies, with the individual’s approval. Some 47% of employers say they check the credit history of applicants for certain positions, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management of more than 430 organizations in late 2009. That’s up from 42% of employers in 2006. Just 25% of employers in 1998 said they regularly or sometimes checked applicants’ credit histories.

Companies typically look back over a period of years for patterns in applicants’ behavior, says Mike Aitken, the professional group’s director of government affairs. “It’s a longer-term snapshot to see if that’s indicative of fiscal responsibility,” he says.

The vast majority of employers who conduct credit background checks do so for jobs with fiduciary or financial responsibility, such as accounting, budgeting or those involving cash or sensitive credit-card information. Nearly half the respondents also consider the credit of candidates for senior executive positions.

Lawsuits or other judgments outstanding, or multiple accounts in debt collection, were the types of credit information most likely to keep an organization from extending a job offer, according to the survey.

Legend Financial Advisors Inc., which has about 20 full-time employees, conducts a background check that includes credit for all new job finalists, says Diane Pearson, a financial adviser at the firm.

The Pittsburgh wealth-management firm had its first encounter with a candidate’s poor credit last year, she says. A college student applying for a summer internship had a history of unpaid bills and bounced checks. The firm decided to bypass the candidate. If he had been a candidate for a full-time position, “we may have spent more time and energy” examining the circumstances, Ms. Pearson says.

Knowing what is on your credit report and offering an explanation for debt caused by a specific event could keep negative information from derailing your employment chances.

First, be sure you understand what employers can see on a credit check and make sure you understand your report so you can explain any problem areas. Employers receive a credit report, not credit score, from consumer reporting companies. A report includes debt, bill-paying history, number and types of accounts, how long you’ve had them, and whether you’ve been sued or have filed for bankruptcy, among other factors. Information can go back seven years—or 10 for bankruptcies. Credit scores, on the other hand, are used by lenders to help determine if you are financially worthy of a loan.

Certain factors that could hurt your credit score, such as a recently reduced credit-card limit, would be unlikely to hurt your job prospects. Employers focus on issues like collections and defaults, says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com Inc.

You might be tempted not to sign a waiver allowing for a potential employer to conduct a background and credit check. But refusing is likely a deal breaker, career counselors say. Employers will assume you are hiding a serious problem, and in today’s job market, they won’t have trouble finding a more forthcoming candidate. Most employers don’t seek permission for a background check until they’ve narrowed down the pool of candidates to a group of finalists, or have made an offer contingent on such a check, the SHRM data show.

“You really need to explain your circumstances,” says Tammy Kabell, of Career Resume Consulting, based outside Kansas City, Mo.

Sandy Gross, founder of Pinetum Partners, an executive search firm in Greenwich, Conn., focused on financial services, also suggests explaining the circumstances surrounding the negative information that will turn up and the steps you took to address the situation before employers run a check. “No one likes a surprise,” Ms. Gross says.

Critics of the credit checks say they create a vicious cycle that prevents those who most need jobs from getting them. Lawmakers are pushing for change. U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D., Tenn.) has proposed a bill to prohibit the use of credit checks during the hiring or firing process, with certain exceptions. And some states have passed or proposed laws to restrict employers’ use of credit checks.

Consumers can request one free credit report each year from each of the three nationwide credit-reporting companies—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion—through AnnualCreditReport.com. You are also entitled to a free report in certain situations, including if you are unemployed and plan to look for a job within 60 days, or if a company says it didn’t hire you because of your credit history.

If you find mistakes, alert the credit-reporting bureaus and creditors in writing. The process takes time, so review your history at least a month or two before you expect employers, or lenders, to request it, says Experian vice president, Michele Bodda.

Write to Kristen McNamara at kristen.mcnamara@dowjones.com

A new Conference Board study shows that only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their work — the lowest level recorded in the 22 years this report has existed.

Courtesy Alexandra Levit

Even if you’re one who has kept your job amidst massive layoffs and record high unemployment, you may still dread going to work every day and long to improve your situation.

One way to renew your motivation and quell boredom is to take on new responsibilities. When twenty-six year-old Rebecca Thorman of Madison, Wis. began her position as a social media manager for Alice.com, a household shopping website, she employed this strategy. “I pressed for and scheduled a six-month review, and for that meeting I put together a list of my accomplishments and the new tasks I wanted to work on,” she says. “I also included a budget, complete with data and charts, which showed how expanding my role would save the company money.”

Ms. Thorman is now in charge of a good portion of Alice.com’s marketing initiatives, and she says the additional work keeps her interested and challenged. “Because the additional responsibility has increased my breadth of skills and knowledge, if something should happen I’m ready to jump on the next opportunity.”

Show Off Your Potential

J.T. O’Donnell, a career strategist and blogger at Careerealism.com says taking on new responsibilities “allows you to learn and grow and add valuable experience to your resume.” What’s more, she says if you want managers to see you as someone with potential, you need to prove that you have a predisposition toward advancing your career.

The best way to gain access to meatier assignments is to be prepared and proactive. Spend a few weeks considering your strengths and how you can apply them to problems your organization is currently facing. For instance, if your company was recently criticized for poor customer service and you are the person in your group who communicates seamlessly with multiple departments, you might volunteer to spearhead a multi-disciplinary task force to address the grievances. Refine your ideas and think through their implementation, then arrange a sit-down with your manager.

Tread Carefully

Beware of asking for an expanded role simply because you think you should, or because you’re after a more impressive title or higher pay. “I know plenty of people who lost their jobs or got demoted after a failed attempt at added responsibility,” says Ms. O’Donnell. “You don’t want to be assigned something you can’t handle. It’s better to explore options with your mentors and managers and ask for their feedback on your direction.”

Once the reins are in your hands, resist the temptation to gallop off unsupervised. Instead, put a process in place through which you can regularly receive feedback and course corrections. Regular interaction with your manager and other senior executives will ensure that you don’t feel overwhelmed by your new responsibilities and that you’re completing them to the best of your ability, which will result in increased on-the-job satisfaction.

Write to Alexandra Levit at reinvent@wsj.com

By ALEXANDRA LEVIT

A few years ago, experts would tell you that if you didn’t have a blog, your career would self-destruct. So, millions started them, even if writing a compelling post each day was their version of waterboarding.

Then, there was a backlash. The same experts said the blogosphere was too crowded and you should only be out there if you are a CEO or have already proven that thousands of people want to read your ideas.

So what’s the current story? To blog or not to blog to further your reinvention efforts?

Chris Brogan, the president of New Marketing Labs, has been blogging since 1998 — when it was still called journaling. Today, 25,000 people subscribe to ChrisBrogan.com to get his thoughts on everything from dynamic online communities to children’s books.

Become an Expert

Mr. Brogan began his career in telecommunications, and, over a period of several years, leveraged his blog to transform himself into an expert in online community building and business strategy. “I evolved my blog from writing about everything that was in my head to zeroing in on what my readers need,” he says. “I allow people to come in, pick up my material, and walk away and make it their own.”

The advantages of using a blog to jump-start your career, says Mr. Brogan, are many. “Blogging is flexible and gives you the freedom to set your own agenda and publishing schedule,” he says. “It’s also the Trojan horse into many large companies, because executive-level readers see my posts and get an immediate taste of the value I can bring to their businesses.”

Blogging isn’t for everyone, though. For some, the prospect of drafting original content two or more times a week is undesirable or impractical. And for those who excel at the spoken word rather than the written word, there are better avenues, such as YouTube.

Even people who love to write should understand what they want the blog to achieve in terms of their professional development. “Not having a focus will dilute your authority and distract people,” says Darren Rowse, who runs ProBlogger.net, a site that helps writers add income streams to their blogs.

Explore the Blogosphere

Before you begin the process of using a blog to establish yourself in a new industry, check out the community that already exists there. “Learn the culture and the etiquette,” says Mr. Rowse. “Look carefully at the other blogs and assess the holes. What are the topics that no one is currently covering? What niche can you fill by being yourself and sharing your expertise?”

When I started blogging in 2006, I networked with other bloggers by commenting on their posts and linking out to their sites. It helped me gain traction for my blog, and it also provided critical insights and information about my new career as a business-advice writer.

Over all, I think blogging forces reinventers to clarify their ideas, build a body of knowledge in a new area and carefully consider their long-term career goals. It’s also a valuable way to measure success.

“You can determine if you’re really engaging people by looking at traffic, subscribers and comments,” says Mr. Rowse.

Please send your career questions to reinvent@wsj.com. Alexandra Levit will answer some in the paper and online at WSJ.com/Careers.

By JOE WALKER

New college graduates may be entering the worst job market in decades, but there are still some majors that pay off—and all of them are in the applied sciences.

A new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers finds that eight of the top 10 best-paid majors are in engineering, with petroleum engineering topping off the list at $86,220.See Table.

“Petroleum engineering has been at the top for the last three years,” said Edwin Koc, director of strategic and foundation research at NACE. “The oil industry for the last couple of years has been a bit more active and a bit better off than some of the other sectors. Texas had a better employment picture than other locations, and a lot of the [petroleum engineering job] offers came out of Texas schools.”

Computer science was the fourth most lucrative degree, with graduates starting at $61,205 on average. The average salary for computer science majors has increased by at least 5% each year since 2007, said Mr. Koc.

The other non-engineering major in the top ten is information sciences and systems, with an average starting salary of $54,038. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, this field will add 155,800 jobs between 2008 and 2018, an increase of 53.4%, the second fastest growing career in the data the BLS offers and well above the average job growth for all professions of 10.1%

The BLS projects biomedical engineering jobs to increase by an astounding 72%–the top-growing field–from 16,000 in 2008 to 27,600 in 2018. The NACE survey did not record enough offers for jobs in this field to include it in the top ten, but Mr. Koc said that the major commands a salary comparable to chemical engineering, $65,142.

Not only do engineering majors earn the most, but the field is expected to grow at a fast clip over the next eight years with 178,300 jobs added by 2018. The BLS report expects growth in civil engineering to be particularly large “as a greater emphasis is placed on improving the nation’s infrastructure.”

Still, even specialized, in-demand graduates like engineering majors are finding it difficult to find employment in this economy. NACE found that only 42% of engineering majors found jobs in 2009, versus 70% in 2007.

This is the first of four quarterly reports that NACE will release on the class of 2010, but so far things are not looking good for liberal arts majors, whose average starting salary has decreased 11% since last year, down from $36,445 to $32,555.

Recent college graduates have been hit hard in the current recession. Their annual unemployment rate in 2009 was 9.1%, the highest it has been since 1982.

NACE’s salary figures are based on 1,558 job offers received by college seniors at about 180 colleges and universities nationwide. Both December 2009 graduates and May 2010 graduates are included. This is the first of four quarterly reports that NACE will release on the class of 2010. A major had to have at least 20 job offers to be included in the top ten.

By JOE WALKER

Willi Wong

Omar Wasow knew that the transition from Internet executive to graduate student at the age of 35 would be a dramatic one, and so in a symbolic break from his old life, he lopped off the two feet of dreadlocks he had been growing since he was a teenager.

That was 2005, when Mr. Wasow was the executive director of BlackPlanet.com, a social networking site that he founded seven years earlier and turned into the most popular African-American Web site at the time. Previously, he had developed Web sites for the New Yorker and Consumer Reports magazines.

His hair, good looks and penchant for Italian suits helped him stand out in the New York’s Silicon Alley from the late 1990s until he left in 2005. He appeared frequently on television as a technology pundit, most famously on the Oprah Winfrey Show when he taught the talk-show host how to use the Internet in 2000. That same year, People magazine named him the “Sexiest Internet Executive.” Mr. Wasow’s business acumen and ability to translate complex ideas to a general audience earned him quasi-celebrity status and an annual six-figure income.

So it surprised many in the technology world when he decided to resign his leadership position at Community Connect Inc., BlackPlanet’s parent company (which was later sold for $38 million in 2008), and move to Cambridge, Mass., to pursue a Ph.D. in African-American studies and government at Harvard University.

His transformation began on the drive to the airport after delivering a speech at a technology conference. “I realized that just giving speeches wasn’t enough,” Mr. Wasow says. “I wanted to write prose, not just PowerPoint. I wanted to be held accountable for my ideas, not just applauded. I wanted to develop a level of mastery over some body of knowledge rather than just be a mile-wide and an inch-deep.”

Until his mid-30s, Mr. Wasow, whose father, uncle and grandfather were all professors, had rebelled against the idea of teaching and instead aimed to be a socially conscious entrepreneur.

His heroes were businesspeople with a mission, like filmmaker Spike Lee and Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop. The university was a fate to be avoided, Mr. Wasow recalls. “I knew that academics were disconnected to real-world problems,” he says. “It was this rebellious nature of, ‘I’m not in the ivory tower; I’m an activist and an entrepreneur.’”

Eventually, though, Mr. Wasow found the problems he was most concerned with—the academic-achievement gap between black and white children and the disproportionately high incarceration rate for black men—couldn’t be adequately addressed through his role as a businessman and public speaker. “The questions he wanted to answer required real research,” says Keith Darden, Mr. Wasow’s undergraduate roommate at Stanford, now a professor of political science at Yale University.

Still, going back to school was a frightening prospect. He worried that leaving his well-paid job running BlackPlanet would mean a “vow of poverty.” He hadn’t taken calculus in over a decade. The former wunderkind also didn’t look forward to being the oldest pupil in class. The biggest obstacle, though, would be finishing his bachelor’s degree. He had several incompletes when he left Stanford University and had to hand in five term papers to make up for them before he could matriculate at Harvard.

“The decision to go to grad school became a very powerful motivation to clean up this mess that I had left” at Stanford, he says.

Now in his fifth year as a doctoral candidate finishing his dissertation, Mr. Wasow, 39, has integrated into the world of academia. He has a 3.8 GPA and has received fellowships to fund his academic research from the National Science Foundation and the Institute for Humane Studies. He earns money from consulting and speaking engagements, and still occasionally appears on television and radio to discuss the impact of new devices, like the iPad—and increasingly, race and politics.

Even if he lands a professorship at an elite research university, Mr. Wasow expects his income to be halved from his Internet days, but he says he isn’t in it for the money.

“Very few people…have penetrating insights and then share them in an articulate, accessible, thoughtful manner, and Omar is one of those people,” says Henry Louis Gates Jr., Mr. Wasow’s adviser and mentor at Harvard. “His future is as bright as any graduate student I’ve ever met. He could be a public intellectual on the level of Cornel West.” 

When I was a child and my parents told me we were moving, I was terrified. I worried that I’d be an outcast at my new school, that the kids on the block would be brats and—worst of all—that I’d never see my best friend again.

That’s understandable when you’re 10. But what about when you’re an adult?

I felt the same way all over again recently, when The Wall Street Journal moved to a different part of town.

It’s an old saw that moving is among life’s most stressful experiences. I’d always thought it was because of the mad rush to stuff everything into boxes before the movers arrived. But as my colleagues and I have learned, moves are tough even if you’re packing little more than the contents of a desk. Indeed, moving offices can be as disorienting as moving homes.

First, the decision to go is not ours. And where we work affects almost every part of the day, from our commute to what we eat. Most important, the office layout shapes some of the most significant bonds in our lives: our work relationships.

Over and over, as my Journal colleagues arrived at our new office, I heard the same themes. “I feel like a junior-high kid coming into work every day, going in the wrong direction, ending up on the wrong floor, and just generally being such a total dork,” explains one reporter.

“It felt like we were the new kids at school—the new people we saw in the café looked like the girls you disliked in high school,” says another.

“It was literally that feeling of being lost in the hall. Where’s the bathroom? Who are all these people? Did I just turn a corner and stumble into a space where I don’t belong, like where the cool kids hang out?” says an editor.

It seemed that moving our office just a few miles had hurled us back into adolescence. We wandered around in search of our friends, whined that others had nicer desks
and flocked to lunch in droves, seeking safety in numbers.

Our ’tween behavior went on for weeks. One editor admits that at the elevator banks, she still keeps her head down and moves quickly, out of fear she will run into an ex-friend who works in our new building.

It’s no coincidence that my colleagues kept referencing junior high. “That’s a big period of insecurity in our lives,” says Rudy Nydegger, professor of management and psychology at Union Graduate College in Schenectady, N.Y. “It’s halfway between being a child and being an adult.”

Tell me about it. We’re all happy to have our jobs. And our new offices are spiffy—a vast improvement over our dumpy old space. But to the child within us, the angst feels instinctive.

Humans are creatures of habit—we have favorite chairs, coffee vendors and watering holes. If we change where we work, we may have to change all our haunts. This can take us far out of our comfort zone.

That explains one reporter’s reaction: “I felt like a cat whose owners had moved to a new house,” she says. “I was sort of sniffing around, looking for comfy corners.”

Of course, a move can really shake up an office’s social structure. It rearranges the company’s informal pecking order—the one based on who has the biggest office, the choicest view, the best desk.

“In their minds, a lot of people sort out the winners and the losers,” says Mitchell Marks, a psychologist and a professor of management at San Francisco State University. “Who is closer to the action, who is farther away, and where am I in all of this?”

People are jockeying for position. “We have come up with rules on physical boundaries,” reports one of my co-workers. “My colleague and I have decided that her space includes the little two-foot counter between us. So whenever my Rolodex or my tape recorder impinges on the edge of it … I pull them back. Otherwise I would be a ‘colonizer.’ ”

Even more significantly, the move upends our support network. Research shows we form the tightest workplace bonds with people who are near us. A change in the seating chart can rearrange friendships.

Sadly, my colleagues confirm this. One says she feels her buddies have forgotten her. Another explains that he no longer knows where to find certain people, so he doesn’t think about them as often.

One reporter feels like he’s been through a divorce. He says of colleagues he once sat near: “Now, I occasionally swing by their desks and wave or say hi, but it’s not the same. I’m not privy to all the jokes or burdens people share.”

But give us time. Just like junior-high-schoolers, we are slowly making new friends.

“I seem to laugh much more in this place,” says a graphic artist, citing the new office’s open layout, which has allowed her to get to know the “outrageously funny” guy across the aisle. “My ear will seize upon phrases like ‘I don’t even have time to have sex anymore.’ It can be a welcome respite in an otherwise stressful day.”

Write to
Elizabeth Bernstein at Bonds@wsj.com

By JANE PORTER

It’s no secret that job security is a thing of the past. Taking on part-time work—especially in a creative arena you’ve always wanted to pursue—is one way to earn extra income and begin exploring new work opportunities before it becomes a necessity, says Scott Belsky, CEO and founder of Behance, a New York-based company that develops products and online tools for creative industries.

But fitting this extra work into your schedule takes planning. How to get started:

Don’t duplicate what you already do. If you’re working eight-hour days as a programmer for a company you like, taking on the same work outside your full-time job presents not only a possible source of tension for the boss, but also a way to quickly drain your passion for the work.

Instead Mr. Belsky suggests taking a stab at a different skill set than the one you use in the office. Instead, put to use skills or interests you’ve never pursued actively, says Mr. Belsky. For example, if you love to plan family events, consider taking on part-time work as a party planner; if you love illustration or photography, try your hand at free-lancing projects that let you put those skills to use.

Tell people. If you’ve got a job on the side, your first instinct may be to keep it hush-hush. But Mr. Belsky says that being open with the boss, particularly when nondisclosure policies require it, will be better for you in the long run. Make sure you emphasize that your part-time commitments won’t cut into your daily routine at the office. And get the word out about what you’re doing to friends, family and colleagues. Doing so also can help keep you on track with your side work—especially if it is a creative endeavor, says Mr. Belsky. What’s more, friends and colleagues might have ideas for you on where to find part-time gigs.

Set a schedule. Coming home from a long day at the office, it’s tempting to head straight for the sofa. Set aside time a few nights a week for your part-time work to help add structure to your schedule.

If your job has some flexibility, another way to make more time is asking the boss if you can compress your schedule and work more hours certain days, says Jessica Riester, founder of FlexWork Connection, an Orange County, Calif., recruiting and consulting firm. “If you don’t have to be chained to your desk, you can juggle more during business hours,” says Ms. Riester.

Build a brand. Like anyone looking for free-lance work, getting your name out there is an important way to drum up business. But for part-timers with less wherewithal to put toward marketing, creating a Web site with work samples or a portfolio becomes even more important in getting business going. Mr. Belsky suggests setting up a blog, joining LinkedIn groups related to your interest, and using Twitter to get your work noticed by more people. Creating a profile with free-lance job boards like Odesk.com, Guru.com and Elance.com is another way to get your name out.

Make deadlines. Give yourself until Friday to post photos online, two weeks to get a blog going, a Thursday evening to get in touch with five contacts who can help you find work. Setting short-term goals will help keep you moving when there’s no boss telling you what to do next. “We are very hard-wired for this full-time way of life and we have to force ourselves to make the time to do things that are a little unconventional on the side,” says Mr. Belsky.

Keep it simple. If creativity isn’t where your part-time pursuits take you, finding part-time work doesn’t have to be a major endeavor. It can be as simple as getting a barista gig or doing telemarketing from home, says Ms. Riester. She suggests companies like LiveOps where you can sign up for call-center slots done from home that pay up to $20 an hour.

Corrections & Amplifications

LiveOps Inc. is a company where individuals can sign up for call-center slots done from home that pay up to $20 an hour. Some versions of this article mistakenly called the company Liveopps.com where you can sign up for slots that pay around $15 an hour

Write to Jane Porter at jane.porter@wsj.com

By JOE LIGHT

A tight job market might have taken away some jobseekers’ leverage in a salary negotiation, but that doesn’t mean they should roll over and accept the first offer, says New York-based executive coach Rabia de Lande Long. To get the top compensation possible—without putting a sour taste in your potential employer’s mouth—take these steps.

1. Do your research.

It used to be hard to find out what your coworkers and other professionals in your industry get paid. But now, several resources have attempted to opened that black box, says Ms. de Lande Long. Salary.com and Payscale.com give salary ranges to expect based on a job seeker’s position, location, and experience. Employees at the actual company you’re applying to might have also posted their salaries at GlassDoor.com.

2. Don’t give out the first number.

You’ll be pressured to do this through the application process. “What’s your salary requirement?” “What salary range are you looking for?” “What do you get paid now?”

Whatever you do, never give out the first number, says Ms. de Lande Long. If your answer is too high, you might not make it to the next stage. Too low, and an employer will either think you’re not qualified or desperate. So, if possible, write “NA” on applications.

If you’re pressured to say how much you make during the interview process, try giving your “total compensation,” which many large employers will break out for you on the company’s internal human resources website. If your current employer doesn’t do that, just spell out your salary, benefits, bonuses, and anything else your current employer offers, says Decatur, Ga. career coach Walter Akana. If the new company doesn’t offer some of similar benefits, the HR manager will know that your new salary would have to be bumped up to reflect that, he says.

If the interviewer still presses for a required salary, try giving a range of $15,000 rather than a specific number, Mr. Akana says.The low amount should be the minimum you’d be happy with and the high amount should be what would make you happy.

3. Don’t lie.

“It’s so easy to get someone in HR to verify a salary, even if they’re not supposed to,” says Ms. de Lande Long. Even if you make it to a job offer, the false salary could come out during a background check, which could result in an outright retraction of the offer or at least upset an employee’s new boss. “And from that point onward, you might face trouble in negotiations not just with your new employer, but with everyone in your industry who has heard. Word gets around,” says Ms. de Lande Long.

4. Don’t take the first offer.

Most employers expect candidates to try to negotiate. So they leave room in the first offer for a raise, says Mr. Akana. If possible, try to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the hiring manager rather than someone in human resources. The hiring manager is more likely to be flexible, says Mr. Akana. “

Say that you’re flattered to have an offer and really want to join the team, but that there are a couple specific items that you’re sure you could resolve if you put your heads together,” says Mr. Akana. Despite the pressure on salaries during the downturn, a good rule of thumb is to ask for a 10% higher salary, says Ms. de Lande Long.

If the hiring manager says budget restrictions keep him from going as high as you’d like, it might be that the position is “graded” to be within a certain salary band by HR, says Mr. Akana. It’s worth asking if the boss can ask the appropriate person for the job to be re-graded. The worst he can say is no.

5. Once that’s locked in, go for other benefits.

Despite what you might have heard, many benefit packages aren’t flexible, says Ms. de Lande Long. So, while it’s worth asking, it might be difficult to modify the health plan. Your success in getting more vacation days depends on the employer, says Ms. de Lande Long.

Your potential boss might be hesitant to give you more days if it will make other employees think they’re being treated unfairly. Instead, focus on things that are easy for the employer to provide, such as a work-from-home arrangement for one day a week, if the employer has made such arrangements in the past, says Mr. Akana.

If you still feel your package is too low, ask if it can be reviewed again in six months. “That way, you can show them that you’re worth the money,” he says.

By TODDI GUTNER

Voluntary buyout packages seem to be commonplace in Corporate America during troubled times. Deciding whether to accept or reject that offer is never easy. There are a few things to consider as you decide. Most important is to realize that you have “some leverage in the negotiation process,” says Paul Gavejian, managing director of Total Compensation Solutions in Armonk, N.Y.

Determine the financial feasibility. Work with your financial adviser to help you figure out how much money you’ll need until you land another job — or whether retiring earlier than you’d planned is feasible. If you decide to take the offer, discuss with your planner how you should take it: as a lump sum, which could have steep tax implications, or in installments. Consider installments only if you have confidence in the financial health of the company.

Assess the remaining job. Ask yourself why the company is offering the buyout. “If business is really bad and the company is a sinking ship, do you really want to hang around?” says Brad Karsh, president of JobBound, a career-consulting firm in Chicago. Try to figure out what your job will be like if you stay. “Ten people might be doing the work of 20 since they won’t be replacing those who leave,” says Mr. Karsh. If you believe the thinned ranks means more opportunity, you might want to wait it out.

Know your numbers. Not everyone is offered the same terms, so ask colleagues about the packages they received. While buyouts vary, most severance packages typically offer six months to a year of salary for vice president titles and above. “Ask how the severance has been calculated,” says Alane Baranello, a managing director at Eileen Finn & Associates, an executive search firm. Standard best practice is two weeks’ pay for every year you’ve been with a company, with up to four weeks at senior levels. Make sure pay for unused vacation and sick days is included in your package.

Secure your future. Hammer out the least-restrictive noncompete agreement you can get and get clarity about the impact of the buyout on any stock options, restricted stock, or retirement accounts you have with the firm, says Mr. Gavejian. Ask to convert the company’s group life-insurance policy into an individual plan. And request a positive reference letter or recommendation to help you in your job hunt.

Consult with an attorney. Don’t sign any offer until an attorney has reviewed the terms in writing. By law, you are entitled to a certain amount of time to review the package, typically 45 days if a group of employees is affected, Ms. Baranello says. If the terms aren’t favorable, go back to the bargaining table. You have more power if your particular group is a target of trimming or if you are a high performer.

Take stock of the job market. If you aren’t ready to retire, ask yourself whether your skills are in demand, or if, conversely, the market is flooded with professionals in your field. Ask executive recruiters or people in your network how long a search in your field will take. To make the search easier, ask your employer if you can continue to have a title — like project consultant — at the company until you find a new position, advises Mr. Gavejian.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D6