10. Hipsters Flood Urban Outfitters:

9. Housewives Gone Wild:

8. Wal-Mart Shoppers Battle Over Picture Frames:

7. Hoards of Angels Await Victoria’s Secret:

6. Mob Rush Aborted at Best Buy!:

5. Unbelievably Long Line At Target:

4. Conversely, Occupy Protesters Conduct a Mass Boycott:

3. Shoppers Storm Wal-Mart:

2. Woman Pepper Sprays a Crowd of 20:

1. Shoplifter Brutalized by Police:

Can’t you just feel the holiday cheer?!

If you’ve been a long time reading of this site , you’re hopefully either beginning your ascent of the career ladder or adjusting to your new (and hopefully better paying) job. If you haven’t, you’re probably feeling like all of this seems like a heck of a lot of work. Well I have great news for either group: you can still make a major improvement to your salary.

This final step is all about increasing your salary’s buying power. You can change how much you make by changing the way you spend it. I’ll explain with a few examples based on various financial goals:

More savings – Let’s say you make $50,000 each year (after taxes) and live a lifestyle that costs $40,000. Let’s say you want to increase your salary because you want to be able to save $20,000 per year. If you’re having trouble finding ways to increase your earnings, you can still achieve your goals by decreasing your spending. Cutting $10,000 from your annual expenditures will have the same effect as earning an additional $10,000. You’ll reach your goal either way!

More extravagance – Now let’s say your only goal is to live a flashy lifestyle. You make $100,000 per year (after taxes) and you already spend all $100,000 of it (or worse, you’re spending beyond your means). You can increase your buying power by making a list of your desired lifestyle’s absolute essentials, and then cutting the rest to the bare minimum. You can still drive the 2012 Mercedes if you skip Starbucks every morning, join a cheaper gym, and cut your eating out in half.

Budget Control – I know what you’re thinking: “This step is just a cheap trick to make me feel like I’m earning more.” In a way you’re right, that’s exactly what it is. All too often, people adjust their spending habits to exactly match their income. Be aware of where your money goes and spend based on your priorities. All too often, people fall into the habit of spending money simply because it’s there.

Don’t fall into the status trap – If you do get a raise, what’s the first thing you would do? Move into a nicer apartment? Lease a shiny new sports car? Treat yourself to a brand new wardrobe? Each of these choices would be a money sink, and you won’t be retaining a single dollar of your income. So often, people follow their 20% raises with a 20% increase in lifestyle cost. Here’s the question: weren’t you getting by on what you made before? Couldn’t you keep on spending what you did? Treat yourself a little, but keep your priorities in line.

Isn’t life in the office fun? Sometimes a little anonymous tip is the best, and funniest, way to make your point. Enjoy!

I love this one:

Note: Due to excessive bandwidth costs we’ve had to remove most of the images but you can see the rest of them here.

• Penelope wrote a creative article about trust in business for Generation X (Brazen Careerist)
• Chrissy made a fantastic post about 5 ways to ensure that you’ll hate your career (Career Realism)
• Dan wrote a good post about resume mistakes to avoid (Career Copilot)

We’ll keep you up to date when we find more.  Have a great weekend!

Here are some great lessons from the video:

• Occupational therapists guide mentally or physically challenged people to self-sufficiency by teaching them new skills or or helping them modify old ones.
• The goal is to help patients develop, recover, or maintain daily living and work skills.
• This career requires strong analytical skills and creativity to developing innovative treatments for changing challenges.
• Occupational therapists need to be caring, supportive, and enthusiastic about working with people in need.
• The career can be emotional and physically demanding, but the help you’ll be giving others is immeasurable.

Becoming an occupational therapist will allow you to work closely with people in need to make a real difference in their lives. If you’d like to learn more about this extremely rewarding career, visit the Occupational Therapist Job Description section of our site.

Here are some great lessons from the video:

• A recruiters job is to interview guide good people through the hiring process and keep them happy once they’re on the job.
• Commonly known as human resources specialists, they are experts in employee compensation or benefits.
• They also design and administer programs to help employees improve their skills, knowledge, and job satisfaction.
• An understanding of state and federal laws regarding payroll, affirmative action, harassment, complaints, and compliance w disability issues is a prerequisite.
• Some HR specialists mediate disputes and negotiate with labor unions.
• Others deal with international human relations for a companies foreign operations
• The best jobs go to those with bachelors or masters degree in personnel relations fields.
• Of course, excellent people skills are essential.

If you have an interest in ensuring others’ job satisfaction and fairness in the workplace, this could be the career for you. To learn more about this stable career choice, visit the Recruiter section of our site.

Here are some great lessons from the video:

• Registered nurses play a crucial role in the physical and emotional state of the sick, injured, and handicapped.
• Nursing is a position of great responsibility. The well being of patients must constantly observed and evaluated.
• If a patient’s condition changes, an RN must make quick decisions about what medicines to administer and what to tell the physicians.
• You should be compassionate and have a strong desire to help others.
• You must have the willingness to educate people on good health and hygiene.
• RN’s must be able to deal with emergency situations and long hours which remaining focused on the task at hand.
• RN’s work in hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes.
• If you follow strict safety precautions, the benefits and rewards of nursing far outweigh the risks.

If you’d like to work in a fast paced environment where every day is different, this could be your calling. To learn more about this important, rewarding career choice, visit the Registered Nurse section of our site.

10: Learn to make an entrance

9: Enlist in Santa Claus Boot Camp

8: Call out the TSA

7: Invent a new reindeer

6: Beat up a shoplifter

5: Ask congress for a $25 billion bailout

4: Flip out on the North Pole (featuring Weird Al)

3: Mingle and ‘jingle’

2: Have Wikileaks release your Naughty List

1: Survive a Jack Bauer interrogation

BONUS: What NOT to do: Everyone, meet drunk Santa

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

]]> http://www.jobdescriptions.net/top-10-funny-santa-videos/feed/ 1 http://www.jobdescriptions.net/career-spotlight-actuary-video/ http://www.jobdescriptions.net/career-spotlight-actuary-video/#comments Fri, 17 Dec 2010 22:28:02 +0000 Sierra Miller http://www.jobdescriptions.net/?p=917 Continue reading →]]> Are you looking for an extremely well paying job that requires intense study, statistical analysis, and analytical skills? As an Actuary, you’ll be working with numbers to predict future economic circumstances:

Here are some great lessons from the video:

• Actuaries are a rare breed of problem solver in the business world, as there are under 20,000 at work in North America.
• They are in high demand in the financial securities and insurance industries because of their abilities to put a price tag on probabilities.
• Mathematical models are used to project future risks and improve financial decision.
• They typically enter the field with specialized math skills in statistics, calculus, and probability, but also require sharp analytical, project management, finance, and economics skills.
• In add to being good with numbers, they must be able to translate their conclusions to clients and coworkers.
• On the job training can last over a decade as you pass 8 required exams to become fully accredited. This can be very time consuming, as 400 hours of study are recommended for each exam.
• The field is growing as multi national firms and government organizations call on actuaries to create projections for economic events.
• All this work pays off, as salaries are usually well over six figures.

As an actuary, you’ll be involved in intellectually stimulating projects everyday to help businesses predict future financial conditions. To learn more about this very challenging career, visit the Actuary Job Description section of our site.

]]> http://www.jobdescriptions.net/career-spotlight-actuary-video/feed/ 0 http://www.jobdescriptions.net/career-spotlight-physician-video/ http://www.jobdescriptions.net/career-spotlight-physician-video/#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 06:07:08 +0000 Sierra Miller http://www.jobdescriptions.net/?p=857 Continue reading →]]> Are you looking for satisfying and high paying career in the medical industry?  Consider becoming a Physician.  Watch as Catherine Stallworth, M.D., a physician for over 15 years, describes her profession:

Here are some great lessons from the video:

• Becoming a physician requires 4 years of undergraduate college and 4 years of medical training.
• Physicians strive to maximize their patients’ mental, physical, and spiritual well being.
• Her role in the hospital is to listen to her patients needs and use surgeries or medications to treat their illnesses.
• Her daily routine consists of making rounds, getting updates with her patients, making adjustments to their medications, and tending to their daily needs.
• Physicians work on a preventative basis to keep problems from happening rather than fixing things after the fact.

If you’re interested in a hands on career that will better others’ lives, this may be just the job for you.  To learn more, visit the Physician and Surgeon Job Description section of our site.

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