Where the Jobs Are (WSJ)

Friday, April 15, 2011

APRIL 15, 2011
Mobile App Talent Pool Is Shallow
Companies Scramble for Engineers Who Can Write Software for Smartphones

By JOE LIGHT

This year, magazine publisher Hearst Corp. intends to add five software engineers to its mobile development staff. Social-networking company Ning Inc. plans to nearly double its mobile development team. And Web start-up Where Inc. is on track to double its mobile staff this year after quadrupling it in 2010.

The problem: The talent pool isn't growing nearly that fast.

Mobile applications have boomed. Above, an attendee at the International CTIA Wireless conference last month tested a Galaxy Tab.
."The demand is constant," said Dan Gilmartin, Where's vice president of marketing. "Every company is looking for these people."
The intense competition for mobile engineers, which affects large companies and fast-growing start-ups alike, is emerging as a key bottleneck as companies scramble to capitalize on the fast growth of smartphones and other mobile devices.

Mobile applications have boomed, working their way deeply into fields like retail, media, videogames and marketing. Market research firm Gartner Inc. expects revenue from Apple Inc.'s App Store, Google Inc.'s Android Market and other stores where mobile applications are sold to nearly triple to $15 billion this year.

The technologies are so new— Apple's app store launched in 2008 —that few software engineers have mobile development experience, which requires new coding skills compared to a desktop computer.

That's forcing companies to increase wages, retrain software engineers, outsource work to third-party developers and set up offshore development labs to meet demand.

In the last year, the number of online job listings with the keyword "iPhone" in the text has nearly tripled, while the number with "Android" has more than quadrupled, according to listings search engine Indeed Inc.

.The number of mobile development jobs offered on Elance.com, a freelancer website, doubled between the first quarters of last year and this year, twice as fast as growth on the site as a whole.

"Almost all of our companies are looking for Android and iPhone developers," said Bijan Sabet, a general partner at Spark Capital, a Boston venture capital firm, whose portfolio includes Twitter Inc., Tumblr and OnSwipe.

Ning, a Silicon Valley start-up, plans to almost double its mobile development staff to 17 to work on a hybrid instant-message and social network it launched in February, said Chief Executive Jason Rosenthal.

To attract developers around the country, the 95-person company has run recruitment drives on more than a dozen college campuses and it also holds technology seminars that are open to the public.

If a software engineer doesn't have mobile experience, the company has sometimes been willing to spend several weeks training the engineer to work on mobile platforms, Mr. Rosenthal said.

Given the mismatch between supply and demand, many companies say they have no choice but to retrain software engineers in the art of mobile development. In the last year, Major League Baseball's Internet company MLB.com nearly doubled the number of mobile engineers it has to 19, said MLB.com CEO Bob Bowman.

"If we can find an excellent engineer, we hire him," said Mr. Bowman. "You can't always wait for mobile experience, because you might be waiting a long time."

The mismatch has put upward pressure on wages. According to an October survey by tech job board Dice.com, about 31% of companies reported that average pay among mobile software designers and engineers increased at a higher rate than normal, mostly because of heightening competition for talent.

The Dice survey said the average mobile salary last fall was about $76,000, but several companies said they pay experienced mobile developers anywhere from $90,000 to $150,000 a year.

Hearst Magazines launched an "app lab" this past September to coordinate mobile development across publications. In the last two months, the company hired two mobile developers, bringing its Web and mobile development staff to 15, said Debra Robinson, the company's chief information officer.

Ms. Robinson said competition for developers has forced the company to pay mobile engineers with little experience the same salaries as it would pay engineers with as many as 10 years of experience. In the next year, she expects the company to add another five or six developers.

"There was not much competition when we started, but that's changed now," said Ms. Robinson, adding that the company now has to compete against high-tech companies like Google Inc. talent.

Other start-ups are investing heavily in offshore development. Last summer, Boston-based Where, which runs a mobile ad network and location-based recommendation service, opened a development center in Croatia to supplement its 18-person U.S. mobile engineering staff. The center now employs seven mobile engineers.

That should make it easier to meet Where's 2011 goal of doubling its mobile development team to 60 people, said Where's Mr. Gilmartin. The Croatian employees are paid more than Croatians at other local companies, but less than their U.S. counterparts.

Outsourcing some mobile development work has emerged as another strategy for addressing the shortage. That's been a boon for software development agencies such as 360mind and Pivotal Labs, which has done work for Twitter and Groupon Inc. The staff at 360mind, a 20-person mobile development shop, doubled last year, and is likely to double again this year, said CEO Nick Dalton.

After struggling to recruit Android developers, location-based social network start-up Gowalla Inc. hired Pivotal Labs to build its Android client. Gowalla also farmed out development for its Windows 7 app.

Scott Raymond, Gowalla's chief technology officer, said working with contractors takes more time and involvement but is necessary in today's speedy app market.

"It just takes a really long time to find people to hire internally and we need to move fast," he said.

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

Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

When to Sell an Investment (from the Dolans)

Know When to Fold 'Em!
by Ken Dolan November 21, 2007 02:37 PM

We know that deciding whether or not to sell an investment can be agonizing. Selling too late or too soon is one of the biggest sources of investor regret. But to be a truly successful investor over the long term, you must not only know when to buy, you must know when to sell.

Use these guidelines to decide when it's time to take your money off the table.

1. SELL when the investment has produced the gain you hoped for. In other words, take your profits to the bank. Set a target gain on the day you buy an investment and stick to it. It's easy to become attached to a winner, hoping it will keep going up. Having a target will help take the emotion out of your decision.

2. SELL if you're losing sleep over an investment. If you're up nights worrying that you'll lose some profits if the market goes down, or worrying about whether your investment will ever go up, it's time to sell. It's just not worth it. There are plenty of other opportunities that will let you sleep well at night.

3. SELL if there is a change in circumstances - for you or the investment. Maybe there's been a change in your life. Perhaps your ability to handle investment risk has changed due to job loss or because you are getting closer to retirement.

Or perhaps the company has a management shake-up, or a mutual fund changes portfolio managers. Should you automatically sell? No, but you should monitor your investment closely for three to six months and be prepared to sell if the investment's performance is negatively affected.

4. SELL when you make a mistake. Nobody picks a winner every time. Making mistakes is part of investing. Don't let your money languish in a bad investment. Cut your losses and use that money to take advantage of other opportunities.

"How do I know when it's time to move on?" you ask. It's easier than you think. If it's a mutual fund, check your fund's performance figures against others in its group (for example, check your tax-free bond fund against other tax-free bond funds.) If your fund performs more than 20% below the average for two consecutive quarters, consider selling. If it's an individual stock you're concerned about, you know you've made a mistake if there's bad news about that specific company or the entire industry.

These reasons to sell may sound very basic and, to tell you the truth, they are. But you'd be amazed at the number of investors who skip the basics in search of more complicated strategies. That goes against one of the investment rules we live by: Don't make investing too difficult ... it doesn't have to be!
And, of course, don't forget Warren Buffet's mantra: Rule #1 is Don't Lose Money. Rule #2 is Don't Forget Rule #1!

Your Safety Net: Disability Insurance (from WSJ)

Just in Case: The Skinny on Buying Disability Insurance

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS
Disability-insurance benefits from the workplace and the government are getting harder to come by—and that's putting more pressure on consumers to purchase their own coverage in case a medical condition keeps them from working.

But disability insurance can be confusing. Policies may include conditions that make it tough for people filing claims to actually qualify for the benefits. And some policies may limit payouts for certain diagnoses, particularly mental illness. To protect themselves, consumers considering buying disability coverage need to read the fine print.

The percentage of companies that paid all or part of the cost of workers' private long-term disability insurance fell to 48% last year, from 59% in 2002, according to LIMRA, an association of financial-services and insurance companies. Many employers are "taking a step back in terms of what they pay and putting the onus on employees" to purchase richer benefits if they choose, says Michael Bailey, a principal at Mercer, a consulting unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos.

Vetting a Policy
If you are thinking about purchasing disability coverage, here are some things to check:

Details of what it pays: If it's a percentage of your income, does that include just your base salary, or other things like commissions?Portability: If it's being purchased through your employer, can you keep it if you leave?What triggers the benefit: Do you have to be unable to do any job comparable to your own?Limits on payouts: For long-term policies, are benefits for certain conditions, like mental illness, capped?

Here are some online sources of information:

Social Security Administration: www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10029.html
Council for Disability Awareness: www.disabilitycanhappen.org
Consumer Federation of America: Go to www.consumerfed.org, click on Publications, then Brochures, and scroll down.

At the same time, disability claims are pouring in to the Social Security Administration, and that's resulting in bigger backlogs. The agency expects claims to jump to 3.3 million in the current fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, from 2.6 million two years earlier. That's led to a greater number of cases pending—about 794,000 this month, up from about 557,000 in late 2008.

"With the number of cases rising and the number of claims awaiting a decision," the waiting time for claims to be processed could tick upward, an agency spokesman said. He attributed the increase in claims largely to out-of-work people scrambling to make up for lost income.

What that means is that consumers should understand what benefits they might currently be able to access, and consider purchasing additional coverage to make up any shortfall.

Government Safety Net
Start by understanding what the government can provide. Social Security is only available to those with a condition that is either expected to leave them unable to work for at least a year, or is terminal. For those who do qualify—around 36% on average on the first application, though more win benefits after appealing—the payout averages just 40% of their predisability income. For high earners, the share will be smaller.

Tom Klett, a consultant with Towers Watson & Co., says qualified applicants should count on waiting three to five months or longer to get Social Security disability benefits. And with the number of applicants growing, "if you're depending on that [benefit], you've got problems," he says. Consumers should also check if theirs is one of the few states that provide some additional disability benefits.

Buy a Policy at Work
Figure out what your employer provides. If it pays all, or even a share, of the premiums for disability insurance, that's your best option. If this is the case, make sure you have both short-term coverage, which tends to last for a few months, and long-term, which often only starts paying after a set time period, often 90 to 180 days.
Watch for a possible gap between them, since some employers' short-term policies may not stretch to when the long-term ones kick in.

Even if your employer makes disability a voluntary benefit, with the premium coming out of your paycheck, it's likely to be a better deal than purchasing an individual policy on your own. Still, particularly if you are young and healthy, you might want to check with an insurance agent.

Keep in mind that if you are buying a policy through your employer, you might be able to pay the premiums from your paycheck on a pretax basis. But this will mean you will owe taxes on the payouts you receive after filing a claim. You should also check whether you will be able to keep the coverage if you leave that company.

Ilene Sturrock, 46 years old, of Los Angeles bought a short-term disability policy in 1998, through her job as an office manager. She kept paying the $56-a-month premiums, even though she left that employer years ago and is currently out of work. She's used the benefits several times, including an eight-week break for surgery four years ago, and a three-month gap in 2007 when she broke her foot. "It pays off in the long run," she says.

If you are buying an individual long-term disability policy, the initial premiums will be set based on factors including your age, health status and occupation, according to insurer Unum Group. You may have the option of a level premium, which won't change over the life of the policy, or premiums that could rise at a fixed rate. If you're joining your employer's group disability policy, the premiums will be adjusted based on the claims history of the entire group.

A growing number of employers offer basic disability coverage and let workers buy more. But you'll have to figure out how rich a benefit you need. Long-term disability insurance will generally pay a percentage of your predisability income—60% is common—and it may not include extras such as bonuses. Also, be aware that most private disability policies require you to apply for Social Security benefits, and then subtract the government payout from what the insurer pays, a move called an "offset."

Plan for Health-Care Costs
In figuring out your likely expenses during a period of disability, keep in mind that if you are out of work for an extended period, you may lose your job, and have to start paying for health coverage. Though disabled people who receive Social Security benefits can qualify for Medicare, there is a two-year lag before the federal health coverage kicks in.

Another key thing to check is under what circumstances the disability insurance benefit will pay out. It's better if the money is triggered when you can't do your current job, says Andrew Imparato, chief executive of the American Association of People with Disabilities. But some policies say that if you can do any comparable job, you aren't truly disabled.

Write to Anna Wilde Mathews at anna.mathews@wsj.com

Where the Jobs Will Be (WSJ)

Landing a Job of the Future Takes a Two-Track Mind
Career Experts Say Positions in Growing Fields Will Require an In-Demand Degree Coupled With Skills in Emerging Trends


By DIANA MIDDLETON

If you're gearing up for a job search now as an undergraduate or returning student, there are several bright spots where new jobs and promising career paths are expected to emerge in the next few years.

Technology, health care and education will continue to be hot job sectors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' outlook for job growth between 2008 and 2018. But those and other fields will yield new opportunities, and even some tried-and-true fields will bring some new jobs that will combine a variety of skill sets.



The degrees employers say they'll most look for include finance, engineering and computer science, says Andrea Koncz, employment-information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. But to land the jobs that will see some of the most growth, job seekers will need to branch out and pick up secondary skills or combine hard science study with softer skills, career experts say, which many students already are doing. "Students are positioned well for future employment, particularly in specialized fields," Ms. Koncz says.

Career experts say the key to securing jobs in growing fields will be coupling an in-demand degree with expertise in emerging trends. For example, communications pros will have to master social media and the analytics that come with it; nursing students will have to learn about risk management and electronic records; and techies will need to keep up with the latest in Web marketing, user-experience design and other Web-related skills.

Technology Twists

More than two million new technology-related jobs are expected to be created by 2018, according to the BLS. Jobs that are expected to grow faster than average include computer-network administrators, data-communications analysts and Web developers. Recruiters anticipate that data-loss prevention, information technology, online security and risk management will also show strong growth.

The Next Finance Hiring Hot Spots
A computer-science degree and a working knowledge of data security are critical to landing these jobs. Common areas of undergraduate study for these fields include some of the usual suspects, such as computer science, information science and management-information systems.

But those might not be enough. That's because not all of those jobs will be purely techie in nature. David Foote, chief executive officer of IT research firm Foote Partners, advises current computer-science students to couple their degrees with studies in marketing, accounting or finance. "Before, people widely believed that all you needed to have were deep, nerdy skills," Mr. Foote says. "But companies are looking for people with multiple skill sets who can move fluidly with marketing or operations."

Social media has opened the door to the growth of new kinds of jobs. As companies turn to sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to promote their brands, capture new customers and even post job openings, they will need to hire people skilled in harnessing these tools, Mr. Foote says. In most cases, these duties will be folded into a marketing position, although large companies such as Coca-Cola Co. are creating entire teams devoted exclusively to social media.

Similarly, employment for public-relations positions should increase 24% by 2018. Job titles—like interactive creative director—will reflect the duality of the required skill sets.

Back to School
Students will have to study strategy to maximize relationships between third-party content providers and their company's Web team. Other key skills will be search-engine optimization to maximize Web traffic and marketing analytics to decipher the company's target demographic, says Donna Farrugia, executive director of Creative Group, a marketing and advertising staffing agency in Menlo Park, Calif.

Many universities and community colleges are offering certification programs focused on burgeoning sectors. For example, the University of California at Los Angeles's extension program offers a certificate in information design.

That, program, like similar certificate studies at other schools, aims to give students an edge in Web site search optimization—a major attraction for Web-based companies who want to boost user traffic, says Cathy Sandeen, dean of UCLA's extension program.

User-experience design—a sort of architecture for information that Web viewers see—is another emerging field. Jobs there include experience specialists and product designers at firms ranging from computer-game companies to e-commerce Web sites.

Ms. Sandeen says the school will offer a certificate program for user-experience design as well, at a cost of about $3,000 to $5,000. The program will run one to two years, depending on a student's schedule, and will couple product design with consumer psychology and behavior.

"Our students [will] learn to think like anthropologists, evaluating how easy it is to utilize the products," she says.

Not surprisingly, green technology, including solar and wind energy and green construction, are also booming areas. Engineers who can mastermind high-voltage electric grids, for example, will have a great advantage over other job applicants, says Greg Netland, who oversees recruiting for the U.S., Latin America and Canada for Sapphire Technologies, an IT staffing firm in Woburn, Mass. that is a division of Randstad.

"Global sustainability will become more important to employers," Mr. Netland says. "It cuts costs, making experts in the field highly attractive to employers."

Jobs in alternative-energy systems, including wind and solar energy, will require a variety of skills: engineers to design systems, consultants who will audit companies' existing energy needs, and those who will install and maintain the systems.

Financial Opportunities
Despite the slashing of positions seen in the financial sector during the economic crisis, recruiters also expect thousands of new jobs to be created in the compliance field, says Dawn Fay, district New York/New Jersey president of Robert Half International.

Ms. Fay counsels job seekers to look at the misdeeds of the past year or two to identify where new jobs will bloom in the financial sector. "It was a year of Ponzi schemes and banking meltdowns," she says. "Be strategic and position yourself as someone who can mitigate those risks."

That makes risk management an emerging specialty with strong growth in jobs expected. Those on track to be financial analysts can get additional certification in risk management through organizations like the Risk Management Association or the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

"Risk management was a mainstay in financial companies, but I believe it will be present in every Fortune 500 company," says Jeff Joerres, chairman and chief executive officer at staffing firm Manpower Inc.

Hospital Upgrades
Health care is expected to continue to see a surge in hiring, with more than four million new openings estimated by 2018, according to the BLS. Hiring for physical and occupational therapists will likely be strongest. But new specialties are popping up, particularly in case management, says Brad Ellis, a partner with Kaye Bassman International, an executive-search firm based in Plano, Texas.

Case managers do everything from managing the flow of information between practitioner and insurance company to mitigating risk to the hospital.

"If you're a licensed nurse, for example, getting a certificate in risk management from the state board of health would make you extremely competitive," Mr. Ellis says.

Harris Miller, president of the Career College Association in Washington, D.C., says IT will be increasingly important in the quest to drive down health-care costs, too. Students specializing in nursing informatics, which combines general nursing with computer and information sciences, at the master's degree level will swap a clipboard for a smart phone to manage patient data. Schools like Vanderbilt University are offering nursing informatics degrees via distance learning, and certification is offered through American Nurses Credentialing Center, based in Silver Springs, Md.

The strong push toward making medical records and information more accessible through computerized record-keeping means opportunity, Mr. Miller says. "This is going to require people who are skilled in the hardware and software of nursing informatics."

Write to Diana Middleton at diana.middleton@wsj.com

Financial Security for Women (AARP)

Women More Likely to Face a Life Crisis, Financial Hardship
August 13, 2009

Two-thirds of women between the ages of 40 and 79 have encountered a life crisis, be it a long-term unemployment, divorce, death of a spouse or a major illness or disability of someone in their household, AARP found. And with this, they encounter financial and emotional hardship.

AARP encourages women undergoing such stress to seek out counseling, and the organization itself offers free life crisis action plans and phone consultations.

“No one escapes the financial implications of a life crisis, but they are particularly acute for women,” noted Richard “Mac” Hisey, president of AARP Financial. "The demographic considerations are obvious: women outlive men, so they experience more life crises and deal with the consequences longer. But women also tend to be the caregivers. That means women are frequently dealing with the human and logistical consequences of a life crisis, leaving little time and energy for the financial considerations."
AARP found in a survey that 46% of women who had experienced the death of a spouse said it had a very significant impact on their finances, as opposed to only 17% of men. Among women who experienced long-term job loss, 66% said it had a very significant impact on their finances, as opposed to 49% of men.

“The findings relative to long-term job loss are particularly troublesome, given the state of the economy and the impact of job loss on women,” Hisey said.

In the case of divorce, 74% of women reduced their expenses, but only 59% of men did. Fifty-nine percent of women sold their home, as opposed to 44% of men, and 42% began working or took on a second job, compared to 21% of men.
Consequently, 61% of women said they are worried about the financial future, while only 52% of men have such worries. Fifty-two percent of women have less than $50,000 saved for retirement, while 28% of men have such low savings.
"The road to long-term financial security is already a difficult one for many women, and detours can emerge at any point along the way," Hisey said. "That's why planning for a life crisis and minimizing its financial impact are so important for achieving long-term financial security."

Green Jobs (So Fla Business Journal)

Tuesday, August 11, 2009, 2:14pm EDT
CareerBuilder launches green jobs site

South Florida Business Journal


CareerBuilder has created a Web site for environmentally conscious job seekers.

Goinggreenjobs.com allows employers to post their open green positions by full-time and part-time status, skill sets, job titles and categories, and geographic location.


Green jobs growth outpaced other job classifications by nearly 250 percent over the last decade, growing 9.1 percent between 1998 and 2007 compared with 3.7 percent for the overall job market, according to Pew Charitable Trusts.

“The focus on green jobs continues to increase year over year as job seekers look for more environmentally conscious career paths and employers make changes to protect the environment,” said Jason Ferrara, VP of corporate marketing at Chicago-based CareerBuilder.com, in a release. “One-in-ten employers say they have added green jobs in the last 12 months.”

The site also features information on green job fairs and events, green workplace news and information, and advice on how to find jobs.

Job seekers can post up to five different versions of their résumé to increase their visibility to potential employers in a variety of environmental areas.

Using the Science of Happiness at Work (CNN)

6 ways to be happier at work
This is no time to wallow in negativity. New brain science reveals why staying positive is your best defense against career stagnation.
By Anne Fisher, contributor
Last Updated: August 3, 2009: 10:58 AM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- With widespread job cuts and a recession to deal with, it's not easy to maintain a positive outlook at work these days. But being upbeat, despite the stress, could actually help you thrive during a downturn.
"Most people make the mistake of thinking that success leads to happiness. In fact, our brains work precisely the other way around," says Shawn Achor, head of Aspirant, a consulting firm that advises clients like Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), American Express (AXP, Fortune 500), Credit Suisse (CS), and UBS (UBS) on how to keep morale and productivity up in these extraordinarily difficult times.

A positive approach to the daily grind, he adds, "gives rise to resilience, energy, and the ability to influence other people -- all things that create success."So if you want to come through this downturn with flying colors -- and maybe even a promotion or a raise -- you need to think positive.Achor, who is also resident psychology tutor at Harvard, has done 5 years of research into "positive psychology," otherwise known as the formal academic study of happiness. The field itself has only been around 15 years, but it's made some interesting findings



Among them: "The two most important predictors of success are, first, whether we believe our behavior matters, that is, whether we think we can make a real difference -- and many people lose that belief in hard times, because so much is out of their control," Achor says. "And second, how do you manage stress? Does it paralyze you, or does it move you forward to action?"

Want to train your brain to stay upbeat? Here are six ways to get started:
1. Practice looking for the good. Achor cites studies showing that people who keep a daily "gratitude list" become happier and more successful over time. "For the next 21 days, every night before you go to sleep, think about three things you're grateful for. Say them out loud," Achor suggests. "If you try to make at least one of them work-related, you're training your brain to let go of the daily hassles and notice the good things about your job" - including, of course, having one in the first place.

2. Have some fun. "Many people think the words 'work' and 'fun' are mutually exclusive," Achor notes. But research shows that bursts of lightheartedness, whether from a smile shared with a colleague or a funny clip on YouTube, actually cause people to think more clearly and creatively.

"It turns out that, when we're happy, our neurons fire faster and more efficiently," Achor says. Even when you're working flat-out, use something you enjoy - photos of your last vacation, or reading a blog you get a kick out of - as a reward along the way, he suggests.

3. Brighten your office space. Everything around you affects your frame of mind. "Certain environmental cues can trigger your reflexive brain into needless panic, while others can prime you for creative thinking or calm reflection," Achor notes. "The good news is that you have the power to control much of this input. Surround your desk with pictures and objects that lead you toward positive thoughts. Your mood and your brain will thank you."

4. Keep a journal. If you find yourself worrying about bad news, a scary rumor, or a stressful deadline, take three minutes to write down how you're feeling. "Neuroscientists have discovered that verbalizing negative thoughts can act like a wet blanket on a fire of negative emotions," Achor explains. "The simple act of putting emotions into words immediately decreases their magnitude." So dust off that old diary, or open up a Word document, and try it. Just make sure no one else sees it.
5. Invest in people. "Smart people do stupid things during times of stress, like shutting down their social networks to focus on work," Achor observes. "But in working with companies around the world, I've found that the greatest predictor of success during stress and challenge is the quality and quantity of your relationships."

Decades of research have shown that close ties to family and friends are among the biggest contributors to happiness, and may even help people live longer. "Now more than ever, take the time to strengthen those connections in your life," urges Achor. "You can start small by reaching out to just one person a day."
6. Think of work as a series of sprints, not a marathon. You know what happens when you've been sitting at your desk too long: Your muscles tense up, your eyes glaze over, and your energy lags. What you may not realize, Achor says, is that after two hours of continuous work, your brain function actually slows and your body starts to rapidly accumulate stress and strain.

"So try to split up your workday into short sprints of 90 to 120 minutes each, with a 5-minute break in between," Achor says. "Walk down the hall or around the block, call a friend, listen to a calming piece of music, do some stretching exercises, or eat a high-protein 100- to 200-calorie snack. Not only will you feel less run-down and worn out, but you'll see a jump in your concentration and productivity."



First Published: August 3, 2009: 9:59 AM ET




Links referenced within this article

Anne Fisher
http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/03/news/economy/happy.fortune/mailto:Anne.Fisher@turner.com

Aspirant
http://www.aspirantworld.com

Successful Career Change Advice (from Investors.com)

Investors.com - Lessons From Job Shifts

Shared via AddThis



Lessons From Job Shifts

By Adelia Cellini Linecker
Posted 06/03/2009 05:05 PM ET


Gone are the days when you spent your entire career with one company. Today's work force expects and seeks career changes. The lure of opportunities pushes people to accept challenges and turn them into learning experiences.
Career changes offer chances to land skills, says Kathryn Hall, whose career took her from lawyer to ambassador to winemaker.

Here's what you can learn:

• Assets count. "There are skills that you learn in one venue and they help you in the next setting," Hall told IBD.

Drawing from her experience as a lawyer, Hall tweaked her negotiating skills to suit her needs as U.S. ambassador to Austria. "I had a personal role, a business management role and a policy role," she said of her 1997-2001 tenure in Vienna. "A good negotiator understands the person you negotiate with. You need to know where they are coming from and know their culture."

• Challenges spur growth. New positions mean adjustments. Hall moved from a private law practice to the public arena when she ran for assistant city attorney in Berkeley, Calif., in the early 1970s.

The campaign taught her resilience. "Running for office is really like having psychoanalysis in front of millions of people," Hall said. "The challenge was learning to adapt to criticism and to recognize that it's not personal."

• Dreams change. Most people are destined for various work, says Pamela Skillings, author of "Escape From Corporate America."

"If you're like most people, you have a complex collection of interests, talents and priorities," she wrote. "At the same time, as you grow and evolve and your life circumstances change, your criteria for what makes a true calling may also change."

Changing jobs makes you more flexible to explore new areas.

• Confidence builds. While the first transition might cause anxiety, subsequent changes get easier.

"Have confidence that the most important skills for your new job are skills you have likely developed in your prior career, such as discipline, judgment, time management and interpersonal skills," Hall said.

• Open minds thrive. Don't let experience block growth. A career change can teach you to accept different ways of doing things.

"Be ready to learn new skills, and don't be hesitant to admit what you don't understand," Hall said.

• Research is key. Be smart about where you make the leap. Changing careers into a dead end will prove costly and demoralizing. "Look to growing industries like green products and services or health care," Hall said. "Don't wait for the business world to go back to normal. It won't. We are facing a widespread recalibration throughout the private sector. Look for new normals."

• Passion is a guide. This is a tough time to make career changes, Hall says. If you do something you love, you'll be so much better at it and you'll be a happier person.

Pick a career that you love or a job that leads to that career because "that's where your talents are," said Hall, owner of Hall Wines and who returned to the family business of running vineyards in Mendocino, Calif. "I always knew that someday I'd return to the business of winemaking, because it has been a part of my life ever since I can remember."



© 2009 Investor's Business Daily, Inc. All rights reserved. Investor's Business Daily, IBD and CAN SLIM and their corresponding logos are registered

Work from Home that's Not a Scam (WSJ)

CAREERS MAY 6, 2009 Negotiating the Freelance Economy
Article
By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

In April 2008, Rebecca Haden lost her job when the small store she managed went out of business. A year later, she's working as many as 40 hours a week and earning much more than she did before -- even though she still doesn't have a job. Her formula? Freelancing her Web skills.

Ms. Haden, of Fayetteville, Ark., is among a growing number of professionals who are making ends meet by working on a project-by-project contract basis. Even as permanent- and temp-job opportunities are shrinking, the amount of contract work to be found on freelance-jobs sites is expanding. What's more, it's moving beyond computer-programming and graphic-design gigs for small employers to include listings from larger companies and assignments in fields such as accounting, law, engineering and sales.

Between January and March, employers posted 70,500 of these work-for-hire positions on Elance.com and 43,000 on Odesk.com, which represents increases of 35% and 105%, respectively, from the same period in 2008. Sologig.com, which lists remote and on-site freelance jobs, says its average monthly postings have more than doubled to around 13,500 per month in the past year. In March, there were 750 jobs listed on VirtualAssistants.com, versus 400 in March 2008.

Rebecca Haden has landed a steady supply of project-based work, in part by using freelance-job site Odesk.
At the same time, the number of U.S. workers employed by temporary-help-services firms in March fell 27% to 1.8 million from the same month in 2008, according to the Labor Department.

As the recession takes hold, more employers are using freelance workers to avoid the expenses associated with hiring permanent staff, says Fabio Rosati, chief executive officer of Mountain View, Calif.-based Elance. "The power of online work is that it's immediate, cost-effective and flexible," he says.

Indeed, freelance workers are often cheaper and more flexible than temp workers, whose jobs, though short-term, tend to be full-time, subject to temp-agency fees, and bound by agency restrictions, such as limits on the permanent hiring of temps.

Mr-SEO.com, an online marketing firm with eight employees, began using freelance help a year ago to handle tasks in Web-site development, administrative services and copywriting. The five-year-old Seattle-based company hired 17 freelancers through Odesk.com for projects that lasted as little as a few days or as long as eight months and counting. "It gives us the flexibility to expand our work force depending on client demand," says Greg Gaskill, the company's president.

Like many workers who turn to freelance positions, Ms. Haden, a 51-year-old mother of four, didn't plan to take on piecemeal work after her layoff. At first, she approached a local Internet company about a permanent job doing Web optimization -- a technique for boosting a site's search-engine rankings. It was a skill she had learned while overseeing her former employer's online store and blog. The firm wasn't hiring, but it offered her a short freelance assignment. She accepted.

Ms. Haden, who holds a master's degree in linguistics, wrote about the experience for a popular blog on Web optimization. "People started approaching me with work pretty soon after that," she says.

'I Just Do the Fun Stuff'
One gig she landed introduced her to Odesk, which, like some other contract-job sites, can monitor freelancers' work. Since then, Ms. Haden says she's landed a steady supply of Web-optimization assignments through Odesk, as well as through her personal Web site and blog. Most months, she earns more than double her previous income. Ms. Haden says the work has been fulfilling, and she has put her permanent-job search on hold indefinitely. "I get to pick and choose what I do now," she says. "And I just do the fun stuff."

Family Money
Take This Dream and Crunch It

Many other laid-off professionals appear to be taking up freelancing, either as a new career or as a way to weather the downturn. Freelance-job sites say membership among individuals, which is free in many cases, has risen sharply. For example, Guru.com has nearly 878,000 freelance members today, up from around 760,000 a year ago.

Freelance-job sites also say they're seeing more midsize and large employers posting assignments, and the jobs have expanded into more business functions, such as finance, manufacturing and law. For example, roughly 1,700 new jobs were added to the sales and marketing category on Elance in March, a 50% increase from a year ago. That's led to new types of contract workers, too.

Last month, Lynn Welch became one of those new freelancers when she began a 96-hour home-based consulting stint for Axsys Technologies Inc., a large, publicly traded manufacturer of infrared technologies based in Rocky Hill, Conn. She was laid off in March from a senior marketing position at a midsize technology firm and says her Axsys contract is one of four freelance assignments she's landed either through networking or Guru. She's so far earned roughly $10,000 from freelance gigs in online marketing.

Pitfalls of Contract Work
Despite her successes, Ms. Welch, who is 40 and lives in a Washington, D.C., suburb, says she still deals with some of the pitfalls that come with contract work. For example, she says she once spent several hours researching and explaining how she'd handle a potential project, but didn't get the gig. "Some [employers] want to pick your brain and have no intention of paying you," she says. Now Ms. Welch is more cautious about sharing information with employers before a contract is signed. "If they're asking for a lot of details, that's a warning sign," she says.

Sites like Odesk, Guru and Elance guarantee payment after jobs are completed in return for commissions of about 6% to 10% of freelancers' fees. But many other sites hold individuals fully responsible for billing clients and collecting payments.

There are other downsides to freelancing, from the lack of health coverage and paid time off to the need to make your own retirement contributions. Striking out on your own also requires regularly searching for and vetting potential new assignments, while ensuring that you complete on time the ones you've already secured. Furthermore, you may need to invest in equipment such as computer software and a business phone line.

Carving Out a Niche
Should you decide to take up contract work, there are ways to help ensure the process goes smoothly. First, make sure to be very specific about your skills and expertise when you fill out a profile on a freelance job site, says Kate Lister, author of "Undress for Success: The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home." Doing so will help you stand out from the competition. "You want to carve out a niche," she says.

To figure out how much to charge for your work, research the rates that experienced freelancers demand for similar services, suggests Ms. Lister. The information can usually be found in members' profiles on freelance job sites. "Look at their portfolios and ask yourself, could I produce that level of work? Could I do much better than that?" she says. After settling on a figure, Ms. Lister suggests starting out at a slightly lower rate to build a track record.

Another option is to offer to work for just a few hours at first to prove yourself, suggests Gower Idrees, founder of RareBrain Capital LP, a consulting firm specializing in high-growth businesses in The Woodlands, Texas. Since early 2007, Mr. Idrees has hired about 1,500 freelancers from Guru -- including former big-company executives, many as consultants. "I've used them in every way possible," he says.

Mr. Idrees recommends discussing potential projects with hiring managers over the phone whenever possible, rather than using email, in order to build trust and negotiate a fair pay rate. That way, a potential freelancer "can educate [the company] on what the challenges really are," he explains. Sometimes, he says, employers aren't aware just how many hours a project will require.

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



Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D1

7 Costly Mistakes When Leaving a Job (Marketwatch)

Seven costly mistakes workers make when they leave a job
By Robert Powell, MarketWatch

Last update: 6:35 p.m. EDT March 11, 2009BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- There's many a slip twixt cup and lip. Most people, conventional wisdom might suggest, would roll their entire 401(k) over to an IRA after they leave their employer. But according to data released last week, many workers only roll a portion of their retirement funds into an IRA.
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, those with $50,000 or more in their 401(k) roll over on average 72.4% of their balance after leaving their employer while those with $1,000 to $2,499 in their 401(k) plan roll over on average just 19.5%.

There are plenty of reasons why someone might roll just a portion over to an IRA. But the consequences, in all but a few cases, can be severe. Uncle Sam will tax the distribution at ordinary income rates, plus assess a 10% penalty.
And that, say experts, is just one of seven easily avoided mistakes workers make after they part ways with their employer:
1. Failing to roll
The first big mistake is, of course, not doing a rollover at all, according to Beverly DeVeny, the IRA Technical Consultant at Ed Slott and Co. If you don't do a rollover, you'll be taxed. Plus, you'll fall even further behind in your attempt to build a nest egg.
2. Forgetting a direct rollover
DeVeny says plan participants should take direct rollovers in order to avoid the 20% withholding rules. "But, if withholding has been done, you do have 60 days to replace the withheld amount with personal funds and thus roll over the entire plan balance," she said. Make sure you talk to your HR or employee benefit department about your rollover before transferring any money.
3. Failing to account for plan loans
If you borrowed money from your 401(k) and there's an outstanding balance on your loan when you leave your employer, beware of this scenario playing out. In some cases, your employer will deduct the loan from the total distribution. You can, of course, replace the "paid off" amount with funds from other accounts and then roll over the entire balance.
But if you don't replace the "paid off" amount, Uncle Sam will view the amount of the loan as a taxable distribution. "If the funds are not rolled over, the participant will owe income tax on the loan balance that was paid off," said DeVeny.
Given what's happened to the market of late, there's another worst-case scenario for which there is seemingly no precedent. If a plan balance is no longer large enough to pay off a plan loan it might be time to call in an attorney or two.
4. Leaving money on the table
"Whether you have a 401(k), 403(b), or 457(b), be sure any profit-sharing and matching has been credited to your account before leaving your employer," said Aaron Skloff, a certified financial planner with Skloff Financial Group. This is especially true if you have the ability to time your departure from your employer. According to Skloff, profit-sharing and matching contributions typically aren't made on the same schedule as employee contributions.
What's more, consider your vesting schedule. It would be a big mistake to leave before all the money owed you hits your account or before the anniversary date on your vesting schedule. "You don't want to be a creditor of your former employer," said Skloff.
5. Failing to consider net unrealized appreciation options
In some cases, you might own company stock in your 401(k). And, as hard to believe as it may sound, that stock might be trading above the price you paid, or your cost basis. If that's true for you, consider taking advantage of the net unrealized appreciation rules, said Skloff.
Instead of rolling your entire 401(k) balance over to an IRA, roll everything but your company stock into an IRA. You would then distribute the stock to a taxable account and pay ordinary income tax on the cost basis of the stock. Then later on, if you sell the stock above the cost basis, you would pay a capital gains tax on the appreciated value -- the difference between the sale price and basis.
The rules can be tricky so be sure to consult with a qualified professional before trying this at home.
6. Eschewing a Roth conversion
It's not so much a mistake to avoid as it is a strategy. Yes, the new buzz phrase of the day is something called "tax diversification." You want to have the ability to withdraw money from accounts that provide you with the greatest after-tax amount of money. That means having a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA. So, for instance, if you don't have a Roth IRA, now might be the time to consider it. Consider doing a Roth conversion with all or some of the money in your 401(k), especially, DeVeny said, if there are after-tax dollars in the plan.
7. Other mistakes to avoid
Make sure you open all your mail. "If the plan sends you a check (either by accident or because you requested it), you only have 60 days to roll it over to another tax-deferred account, said DeVeny.
Make sure all your paperwork is in order, said Skloff. In some cases missing the employer's signature on this or that form could result in big tax problems.


Robert Powell has been a journalist covering personal finance issues for more than 20 years, writing and editing for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and Mutual Fund Market News.

Websites for Job Hunters - from WSJ

WALL STREET JOURNAL
TECHNOLOGY NOVEMBER 25, 2008, 8:44 A.M. ET

For the Jobless, Web Sites Offer More Options

By PUI-WING TAM

Unemployment in the U.S. has hit a 14-year high as companies cut back. That has sent masses of laid-off workers flocking to the Web in search of opportunities -- and job sites have been stepping up to meet the challenge.
New job sites with names like MarketVendorJobs.com have sprung up to take advantage of growing user interest amid the economic downturn. Established sites, such as CareerBuilder.com, have also started rolling out new features to improve the relevance of job listings for candidates and make their résumés stand out, among other things. And some sites, such as Vault.com, are providing career counseling and other new services.

Business-networking site LinkedIn last month began offering online outplacement services to companies so that laid-off workers can more easily find their next gigs. It also has introduced technology that better matches its members with appropriate jobs. Using an algorithm, the site searches words within a job posting and then matches up members who list skills that fit the job. In January, the company plans to debut a feature that makes it easier for users to notify members in their online network that they're searching for a job.
Meanwhile, Glassdoor.com, a salary-review and employee-review Web site, this month retooled its home page so that jobs listed near the users' hometown and relevant job categories immediately pop up when an individual logs on. Vault.com has created a $999 service for job seekers to get two 45-minute career-coaching sessions over the phone to help them land a new job.
But some consumers may be overwhelmed by the number of job-search sites and all their new features. Scores of career sites are competing for clicks, so users must master multiple search tools -- only to discover that sometimes there is redundancy in the listings. Career counselors advise job seekers to learn advanced search strategies on several sites so that only relevant results are displayed. They're also told to find niche sites that focus on an industry or region to further narrow their search.
Alice Ziroli, 46, began looking for new jobs online earlier this year when the pharmaceutical company she worked for shut down its local sales division. But when she trolled sites such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com, she says she found their offerings too vast.
"I didn't find them user-friendly," says Ms. Ziroli. She eventually found a job-search engine called Indeed.com, which has a simple Google-like home page and allowed her to narrowly specify her job-search criteria. Last month, Ms. Ziroli started a new $65,000-a-year job -- slightly more than what she made before -- as a sales representative for a hospice-and-health-care company just 18 miles from her Diamond Bar, Calif., home.

Adding New Features

A CareerBuilder.com spokesman says that, in this environment, the more features that a site offers the better for a job candidate. Monster says it is rolling out improvements to its site early next year with features that will make it easier to upload résumés and apply for a job online.

CareerBuilder.com and other sites are adding features to improve the relevance of online job searches.
Still, job-search sites are experiencing a dramatic spike in usage. The total number of minutes that Internet users spent on such Web sites jumped 13% in October from a year earlier, while the total number of job-site pages viewed rose 20% in the same period, according to comScore Inc., a market-research company based in Reston, Va. Overall, the number of unique visitors to job-search sites is up 12% in the past year, more than the 5% increase for the Internet as a whole.
"Engagement with these job sites is a lot higher now," says Andrew Lipsman, a comScore spokesman. "It's not just how many people are on these sites but how much time overall they're spending on them."
Job-oriented sites are capitalizing -- literally -- on the newfound interest. Glassdoor.com late last month got $6.5 million in new venture-capital funding, just four months after its June launch. LinkedIn also announced last month that it had received $22.7 million in new funding from strategic investors such as Goldman Sachs Inc. and McGraw-Hill Co.
Niche Job Sites
Some job-search sites cater to certain industries. Dice.com, for instance, is targeted at technology professionals. Its sister Web site, eFinancialCareers.com, is tailored for finance-industry workers -- an area that has been particularly hard hit. In September, eFinancialCareers.com launched an emergency toolkit that bundles tips and articles on how finance workers can network, customize their résumés and interview better in order to land a new job.
Other sites try to stand out by providing more career-improvement data and features apart from just job listings. With numbers submitted by users, Glassdoor.com offers salary data for positions at numerous companies. So based on nine submissions, individuals searching for engineering-manager positions at Google Inc. would see that total compensation for such a job might add up to $241,000, including salary and bonuses.
And some sites are now emulating features found on social-networking sites: CareerBuilder.com in February launched BrightFuse.com, where professionals can network and interact with one another. A CareerBuilder.com spokesman says BrightFuse.com will add new features next year to highlight each member's skills, such as allowing writers to upload samples of their work.
One thing career sites haven't been able to perk up for job seekers is the total number of job listings. As of earlier this month, the number of job listings on Dice.com was down 9% for the year so far, compared with the same period in 2007, says a spokeswoman, who declined to reveal underlying numbers. At Indeed.com, the number of open positions has stayed flat at about five million jobs over the past year, says Indeed.com Chief Executive Paul Forster.

'A Mixed Picture'

"It's very much a mixed picture" out there jobwise, says Mr. Forster. "There's a lot of weakness in certain areas, such as in the mortgage, retail, financial, construction and hospitality industries. But some areas like defense and health care are strong."
Marc Hirsch, who started looking for a new job six months ago, says many features on the job sites helped him. The Roanoke, Va., resident, who has a background as a chemist, used LinkedIn, CareerBuilder.com and Indeed.com to get job alerts sent to him and liked how many of the listings came with salary information and estimates. "There was a lot of garbage that came back" through the online searches "but some quality opportunities too," says the 52-year-old.
Ultimately, though, the job sites proved to be just a starting point for him. Through one job listing he found on a career Web site earlier this year, Mr. Hirsch got his résumé sent to General Electric Co. While the company didn't have anything suitable at the time, GE kept his name on file.
When a position as an applications engineer came open, GE contacted him and he got the post, he says.
Write to Pui-Wing Tam at pui-wing.tam@wsj.com
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

from Marketwatch - Think Twice About Compromising Your Nest Egg

ROBERT POWELL
Better think twice
Don't make these critical mistakes with your nest egg, even if times are tough
By Robert Powell, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:31 p.m. EDT July 2, 2008BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- Recession or not, these are fast becoming hard times, and hard times can lead to bad decisions.
Recently, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority warned investors to think twice before taking steps that might compromise their nest eggs, such as taking out a reverse mortgage, getting a 401(k) debit card, or cashing in life insurance policies to weather tough financial times.
"Each of these should be considered strategies of last resort," Mary Schapiro, chief executive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said last week in a speech.
"They may raise cash quickly, but each also carries long-term consequences that can undermine financial security in retirement and pose the potential for losing a significant, and sometimes irreplaceable, asset," Schapiro said. FINRA is a nongovernmental organization that oversees U.S. security firms.


According to FINRA, Americans are faced with the perfect financial storm. Rising costs of fuel and food, declines and volatility in the housing and financial markets, and an ever-tightening credit crunch have gathered to form a storm that could lead some Americans to make poor financial decisions. "But tough financial times don't necessarily justify resorting to risky ways to make ends meet," Schapiro said.
Investors could be risking their most valuable assets when they use reverse mortgages, life settlements and 401(k) debit cards to tap much-needed cash.
Retirement accounts
Don't cut back on or stop contributing your 401(k) and, even more importantly, don't cash in all or part of your 401(k). To be sure, plan providers do allow hardship withdrawals in certain situations -- if you face eviction from or foreclosure on your primary residence, for instance, or some other financial calamity. But if you are under age 59-1/2 and there is no hardship, you'll have to pay ordinary income tax on the withdrawal plus a 10% penalty tax. What's more, many employers will withhold 20% of the amount being withdrawn, so it's possible that a $20,000 withdrawal works out to less than $14,000 when all is said and done.
FINRA also warns that such withdrawals come with another cost - opportunity cost. If you're 40 years old with $40,000 in your 401(k) and it's growing at 6% percent year, excluding additional contributions that money would be worth $107,710 in 17 years. But if that same person withdraws $20,000, that remaining $20,000 would be worth just $53,855 in 17 years. In other words, a withdrawal of $20,000 now costs about $54,000 in future growth.
Worse yet, FINRA warns, creditors have access to any money taken out of a 401(k), be it a loan or hardship withdrawal, in ways they wouldn't if you left the money in a retirement account. Under the Bankruptcy Abuse Protection and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, creditors cannot touch your 401(k) balance or similar retirement savings account -- even if, as a last resort, you file for bankruptcy protection, FINRA said. Of note, balances in IRAs (Roth and traditional) are protected up to a limit of $1 million from creditors.
There are other benefits to maintaining contributions to your 401(k). Contributions reduce taxable income and lower your tax bill. Plus, 401(k) contributions often come with free money: Employers typically match a percentage of your contribution.
That said, if you really need the money from your 401(k), FINRA suggests taking out a loan rather than a withdrawal. You might be able to borrow money at a lower interest rate than a bank would offer. Plus, you won't have to pay taxes on the loan as you would with a withdrawal. Also, if your employer offers one, avoid using a 401(k) debit card, FINRA said.
Life settlements
Don't cash in your life insurance policy using something called a life settlement, FINRA warns. With a life settlement, a third party will buy your life insurance policy from you, typically for more than the cash value but less than the death benefit. According to FINRA, life settlements can be a valuable source of liquidity if you would otherwise surrender your life insurance policy or allow it to lapse, or if your life insurance needs have changed. But life settlements are not for everyone, FINRA said.
For instance, life settlements can have high transaction costs and unintended consequences. You might be unable to buy a new insurance policy, plus you could lose state or federal benefits, such as Medicaid. Also, you will have to pay taxes on the life settlement.
If you really need the money from your life insurance and you still need the coverage, FINRA suggests you borrow against your policy, or check whether you are eligible for accelerated death benefits. If you have a long-term, catastrophic, or terminal illness you might be able get a reduced benefit prior to dying.
Reverse mortgages
If you are over age 62 and have equity in your house, a reverse mortgage might sound intriguing. With a reverse mortgage, you get to convert the equity in your house to cash, plus you get to age in place, in your home. What's more, you don't have to make any interest or principal payments during the life of the loan.
But as with all things that sound too good to be true, especially something that sounds too good to be true for what could be your single largest asset and a future source of retirement income, there's a catch with reverse mortgages. For one thing, the loan costs can be steep. Also, interest is added to the principal, making reverse mortgages "rising debt" loans.
"The bottom line is that reverse mortgages are an expensive option that may prematurely deplete your home equity," FINRA said. "A reverse mortgage is a very serious decision."
Consider, for instance, some of the disadvantages FINRA outlined:
The income or lump sum you receive could impact you or your spouse's eligibility for various state and federal benefits, including Medicaid.
Depending on the laws of your state, a reverse mortgage may not enjoy the same home-equity protection that would otherwise apply against creditors, or if you have a health emergency and your spouse must liquidate assets to pay for nursing home care.
A reverse mortgage is not the right choice if you want to leave your house to your heirs.
A reverse mortgage may be right for you. But you need to evaluate a number of factors, including your health, your spouse's health, other sources of income, the reason you're tapping your home equity, when to do it, and how wisely you use your loan proceeds - before deciding whether a reverse mortgage is right or not.
What are some alternatives to a reverse mortgage? According to FINRA, you could sell your house and then downsize or rent, or take out a home equity loan, or get help from your children or local government assistance program. Any of those tactics could unlock the equity in your home without the cost of a reverse mortgage.