Negotiation
How to Negotiate: A Research-Backed Guide for Everyday Life
How to negotiate rent, prices, fees and deadlines in 7 steps, from knowing your walk-away point to opening offers, fair trades and when to just pay.
Editor-in-Chief and Careers Editor
Jacob Amani
Articles
Career Growth, Promotion & Salary
Job Hopping vs. Staying Put: What the Evidence Says About Pay and Growth
In August 2026, US job switchers' median pay rose 5.0% a year before inflation vs 3.6% for stayers. When job hopping pays, its costs, how recruiters see it.
Job Search, Resume & Interviews
Applicant Tracking Systems: Facts, Myths, and What Actually Gets Read
An applicant tracking system files, parses, filters and ranks applications. Where the 75 percent rejection myth began, and what really screens you out.
Remote & Hybrid Work
Return-to-Office Mandates: What the Research Says About Productivity and Retention
Studies find no clear gain in firm performance after return to office mandates; a 2024 trial found two home days a week cut resignations by a third.
Career Change & Future-Proof Skills
Transferable Skills Explained: What They Are and How to Find Yours
Transferable skills are skills you can use across jobs. The US O*NET database lists 25 of them. How to find yours, and why the job you aim for matters.
Networking & Personal Branding
How to Find a Mentor: A Step-by-Step Guide
How to find a mentor in 5 steps: know what you need, look where you already work, let it grow, use programs well and build several advisers.
Emotional Intelligence & Workplace Relationships
Conflict Resolution at Work: A Step-by-Step Guide
Six steps for settling a conflict with a colleague. In a 2025 Acas survey, 44% of working-age adults in Great Britain had conflict at work in the past year.
Public Speaking & Presentations
Filler Words: Why We Say "Um" and How to Cut Back
Filler words are normal: in one study, people made about 6 slips per 100 words, most often fillers like um. What they signal, when they hurt, how to cut back.
Communication Skills
How to Give Constructive Feedback Using the SBI Model (With Examples)
The SBI feedback model in 3 steps (situation, behavior, impact), with examples for praise and correction, and the next step it leaves out.
Communication Skills
Active Listening Explained: What It Is and How to Practice It
Active listening, from its 1957 origin to the experiments: what it is, what feeling heard does for a speaker, and five steps to practice it at work.
Job Search, Resume & Interviews
The STAR Method Explained: How to Structure Behavioral Answers
STAR, which DDI says it introduced in 1974, mirrors how structured interviews are rated. What each letter means and how to build an answer a rater can score.
Career Growth, Promotion & Salary
How to Ask for a Raise: A Step-by-Step Guide
US wages and salaries rose 3.2% in the year to June 2026. How to ask for a raise in six steps, from checking pay data to naming a figure and handling a no.
Public Speaking & Presentations
Body Language for Presenters: What to Do With Your Hands
Gestures gave listeners a moderate boost in understanding in a 2019 meta-analysis of 83 samples. Where to rest your hands, what to show and what to skip.
Emotional Intelligence & Workplace Relationships
Signs of a Toxic Workplace: A Checklist
Five research-backed signs of a toxic workplace, plus a checklist. Over 1 in 5 workers in a 2022 ILO survey reported violence or harassment at work.
Networking & Personal Branding
How to Reconnect With Someone You Haven't Spoken to in Years
How to reconnect with someone in 5 steps: why your message is likely more welcome than you expect, what to write first and how to turn one reply into a tie.
Career Change & Future-Proof Skills
Will AI Take My Job? How to Read the Research Without Panicking
Will AI take my job? Exposure studies count tasks AI could speed up, not lost jobs. The ILO's 2025 index: 1 in 4 workers exposed, about 3% highly.
Remote & Hybrid Work
Asynchronous Communication Explained: Working Together Without Being Online Together
Asynchronous communication means replies can wait. Remote work shifted over 61,000 US Microsoft staff toward it, a study estimated. When to write or talk.
Career Change & Future-Proof Skills
Career Change at 30: What's Easier and What's Harder Than You Think
A career change at 30: US data show job moves are still common from 25 to 34, but pay built on years in your old field mostly stays behind.
Remote & Hybrid Work
Proximity Bias Explained: Why Out of Sight Can Mean Out of Mind
Proximity bias favors the people a manager sees. In a Chinese trial published in 2015, home workers were promoted less for equal performance. Here is why.
Networking & Personal Branding
How to Write an Elevator Pitch About Yourself (With Examples)
How to write an elevator pitch in 5 steps, with 4 example pitches, and why recruiters in a 2015 study rated a pitch higher heard than read.
Emotional Intelligence & Workplace Relationships
Empathy at Work: What It Is and What It Isn't
Empathy at work means understanding and sharing what a colleague feels. A review of 43 definitions shows how it differs from sympathy and compassion.
Public Speaking & Presentations
Slide Design for Non-Designers: The Basic Principles
Slide design for non-designers: 6 principles from learning research, from cutting decoration to labeling charts directly, and where the evidence is thin.
Communication Skills
How to Write a Professional Email: Structure, Length, and Tone
How to write a professional email: the request first, only the detail the reader needs, a courteous tone, and what a review of 62 work-email papers found.
Job Search, Resume & Interviews
How to Prepare for a Job Interview: A Complete Checklist
A 5-step job interview preparation checklist drawn from coaching studies, US federal hiring guidance and US and British rules on interview questions.
Career Growth, Promotion & Salary
How to Be More Visible at Work Without Bragging
A 2003 meta-analysis of 31 studies found self-promotion did little for performance ratings or pay. What works better for visibility at work, and why.
Job Search, Resume & Interviews
How to Write a Cover Letter That Gets Read
Cover letters are barely studied. What a 2025 study of 183 co-op students, a US audit experiment and hiring research suggest about writing one.
Remote & Hybrid Work
Remote, Hybrid, and Distributed Work: What the Terms Actually Mean
Remote vs hybrid work, defined. In the year to August 2026, 26% of US full-time employees were hybrid and 12% fully remote. Why surveys count differently.
Career Change & Future-Proof Skills
Should You Change Careers? A Decision Guide
Should you change careers? A 6-step way to decide, what a study of over 20,000 coin tosses found, and why no one officially counts career changes.
Networking & Personal Branding
Why Networking Works: Granovetter's Weak Ties Explained
In Granovetter's job study, over 4 in 5 who found work via a contact saw that person only occasionally or rarely. Why weak ties work and when strong ties win.
Emotional Intelligence & Workplace Relationships
What Is Emotional Intelligence? A Clear Guide to a Fuzzy Term
Emotional intelligence names two ideas; in a 2010 meta-analysis, ability EI tests explained an extra 0.2% of job-performance variance beyond IQ and personality.
Public Speaking & Presentations
Public Speaking for Beginners: A Realistic Starting Plan
Public speaking for beginners: a 6-step plan and its evidence, from small repeated talks to the myth that people fear speaking more than death.
Communication Skills
What Are Communication Skills? A Plain-English Guide to the Core Set
Communication skills explained: the core six, the two tests they are judged on, and why email senders in a 2005 study expected 78 percent accuracy but got 56.
Job Search, Resume & Interviews
How to Start a Job Search: A Step-by-Step Plan
How to start a job search in 7 steps, built on a 2014 meta-analysis of 47 job search programs, a LinkedIn experiment and US labor data.
Career Growth, Promotion & Salary
How Careers Actually Grow: What the Research Says About Getting Ahead
What moves a career forward? A meta-analysis of 140 articles found pay, promotions and satisfaction have partly different predictors, so start by choosing one.