Looking for a new job?

Are you looking for a new job? Well now is a good time to start looking. I have always heard that companies tend to hire more in Q4 as they are trying to fill the positions that have been approved for the next year since many companys are on a calendar fiscal year.

Another reason is that people tend to travel less for business during the holidays so it is probably easier to get that interview lined up since the hiring manager will likely be around.

Now all this is not to say that you can slack on the resume. Your resume should look professional and be clear and concise. Don't try to dazzle people with a 5 page resume as most will just skip past it. In my hiring experience it is amazing how easy it is just to skip a resume just because you don't like the layout of it. I tend to look for a summary on the first page that describes the skills. Then below that a quick look into your most recent employers.

Many people say that cover letters are important. Personally, I tend to just skip them over. In my experience most cover letters tend to just be 'BS'. I don't care if you think you can do the job, I want to review what you have done and I will make that decision. If you have described your previous jobs well, then I will want more from you which means an interview.

Make sure you have salary expectations in mind. My goal is to get the best qualified candidate for the least amount of money, so tell me what you are worth. Of course I will make the final decision, but it is easier when there is a dollar amount to start at.

Those are just some basic things I look for in a candidate. If you are in the job hunting process don't be afraid to be confident and demand what you want. In my experience the people that tend to move up in the world are the ones that pave their own way.

Georgia man tries to deposit fake $1M bill

Just when I think that America as a society tends to get smarter over the years, I read this article and I start to lose hope.

Yahoo! News:Georgia man tries to deposit fake $1M bill

AIKEN, S.C. - A bank teller in Clearwater had a million reasons not to open an account for an Augusta, Ga., man Monday, authorities said. Alexander D. Smith, 31, was charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of forgery after he walked into the bank and tried to open an account by depositing a fake $1 million bill, said Aiken County Sheriff's spokesman Lt. Michael Frank.

The employee refused to open the account and called police while the man started to curse at bank workers, Frank said.

The second forgery charge came after investigators learned Smith bought several cartons of cigarettes from a nearby grocery store with a stolen check, Frank said.

The federal government has never printed a million-dollar bill, Frank said

If you ask me they should just let this guy go. He is too dumb to actually be a criminal apparently. Hey buddy, next time start with five dollar bills!!!!

Amazon MP3 Music Store Review

Since the URGE Music Store has been purchased by Rhapsody I have been looking for a new outlet to buy my music. URGE was alright, but it required a software install into Windows Media Player. URGE also used DRM (Digital Rights Management), so I could not play the songs anywhere other than my PC I downloaded them on. There might have been a way to do this by copying the licenses but I could never figure it out.

Fast forward to today. I decided that in my next music store, I wasn't going to go with a site that had DRM or that required me to install software. I have 3 pc's and a WindowsMobile Smart phone, I want to play the same song on all 4 devices easily.

After some research I decided to check out the Amazon MP3 Music Store

Bingo! I think I found what I was looking for:

• No DRM!
  
• No software to install (there is an application you can install if you want easier music management, but it is not required. You essentially just download the raw .mp3 file)
  
• Most all songs are .89 or .99
  
• Large selection of artists (They are not focused on just Pop or Rap)

I have been using the Amazon MP3 Music Store for a few weeks and am very satisfied. Also, since I buy from Amazon regularly I am not concerned with site security and know they have a good customer service team in place to help me with any issues.

This is not really a "Saving Money" post, but I have been able to save time by not having to burn a DRM song to a CD then RIP it back off just to get the song to play on other machines. Hey, didn't someone say TIME=MONEY?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I will be back on Friday with more money saving tips and free money ideas, so until then have a great holiday and DON'T BURN THAT TURKEY!!!!!!!

Cut Down on Email Spam

I have recently been using Yahoo's Mail Plus email account. Basically it is an uprade from Yahoo's Free Email account.

There are some neat features like larger attachment size, more filters, etc, but the best feature is the Disposable Email Addresses. Disposable Email Addresses are just what they sound like, email addresses that you can throw away when you want.

Say for example my email address is: [username]@yahoo.com. I don't want this to get on any spam lists otherwise I will be receiving spam forever! Yahoo Mail Plus lets you select a keyword, and then create multiple address off of it that forward mail sent to them to your main account.

For example if I choose the keyword [keyword], then I all the address I would create would have that key word as a prefix, you just choose the word after the prefix:

[keyword]-mail@yahoo.com
[keyword]-shopping@yahoo.com
[keyword]-amazon@yahoo.com
[keyword]-[....]@yahoo.com
All of the above would forward to my main account [username]@yahoo.com.

The neat thing about this is once you start seeing spam coming to one of these address, you can just delete it and no more spam. I use a disposable address for each specific account I have do I can easly filter emails and put them in their corresponding folders. You can also send outbound email with a disposable addess as your return address so that you don't have to disclose your real email address.

Currently Yahoo only charges $19,95 per year for Mail Plus, I would be willing to pay up to $100 / year for this feature since it keeps my mailbox clean. (I hope Yahoo doesn't read this!).

I can't tell you how much I love this feature and how it helps me stay organized. I don't think I will be leaving my Yahoo Mail Plus email account anytime soon!