Happy Birthday to Jennifer

She may be absent from the blog for a while, but the reason this blog even exists is Jennifer and it's her birthday today. So join me in wishing her a very happy birthday! She puts a smile on all of our faces so hopefully today, she's all smiles as well. And she's a great boss. In her honor, we have 4 great links for you:

First, we head out of the United States for David Duarte's best Out of Office messages (H/T Wendy). Now by "best" I don't mean best for your employees to use at work...I mean best as in funniest. Let's hope that you've never e-mailed an employee and had any of these bounce back at you in your Outlook inbox.

FoundValue has 10 jobs that they promise are better than yours. Are they right in that assumption that these are dream jobs compared to the ones you currently hold?

Yahoo! hotjobs and Forbes have the worst words to say at work. I caught myself saying to someone "I'll try to get back to you sometime soon," and quickly reversed that course of action after reading that list.

Lastly, Yahoo! News has the story of how much people will pay...to work for free! On Monday, we'll look at an article from the New York Times which debates if that's legal or not (the working for free as part of a internship part...not the ridiculous auctioning)

Back From Vegas With Great Links

Just got back from a quick vacation in Las Vegas with a picture from the top of THEhotel at Mandalay Bay from my Blackberry (to the right) and some great links (below):

-Yahoo! HotJobs starts us out with some truth about resume lies and some advice to people looking for jobs about how to make the truth sound better (H/T Wendy). There is some good advice in here for Human Resources about how to treat resumes and how other people define "embellishment".

-This is not something for Texans to be proud of from WFAA:

In one of the largest civil rights investigations ever undertaken in Texas, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission declared that at least 100 African-Americans worked in a hostile environment and were subjected to racial graffiti, nooses, and symbols of hate while employed by Turner Industries in Paris, Texas.

-Harvard Business Review asks if all employees are knowledge workers? One bolded point from the article: "Perhaps the single greatest lesson from Japanese auto manufacturers is that all employees are ultimately knowledge workers and that the role of the firm is to both encourage and support problem-solving by all employees."

-Lastly, Simply Hired Blog has the winners of their Dream Job Contest. I like the most creative: "Rainbow Chaser and Pot of Gold Location Expert, also skilled in the identification of Silver Linings"

What I’m Hearing…Take a Vacation, Get a New Career

Learning vacations are one of the hottest trends in time off. Instead of sitting poolside for a week, participants in learning vacations try their hand at a variety of activities, running the gamut from archaeology to yoga.

Vocationvacation.com takes the adult learning experience a step further by allowing participants to get a preview of what it’s like to have that “dream job.” Want to test drive being an alpaca rancher? How about a sword maker? Or a country music singer? Here’s your opportunity to try something new in a relatively risk free environment. According to vocationvacation.com, 20% of participants switched their careers as a result of their experiences.

I’ve always been a fan of learning new things, so the idea of a “working vacation” appeals to me. Reading about vocationvacation.com got me thinking about 2 broader possibilities for the HR space:

1. What can we as HR professionals offer through the vocationvacation.com process to others who might think of our organization as a dream job?

2. How can we capture the excitement a learning vacation offers in our own organizations? Mentoring is a start as we look to even broader experiences.

Given the choices on vocationvacation.com, it’s a tossup between Forensics and Meteorology for me. Something to think about for starting that second career after retirement.