What's most important to you in a job—high pay, good benefits, long-term security, and a pleasant work environment? Or maybe you're the type who thrives on travel, adventure, and a tough new challenge every day. Whatever you're looking for in a job, this book helps you find it. This almanac describes hundreds of jobs—from air traffic controller, civil engineer, and travel agent to court reporter, actuary, and advertising account executive—and rates them according to a wide range of important criteria, letting you match your talents, needs, goals, and desires with the job that's right for you. Profiles 250 white-collar and blue-collar jobs and careers Provides an indispensable resource for recent grads, career-changers, and those returning to the work force

Offering expert guidance on developing the all-important cover letter, this book starts with the basic elements and then shows how to customize cover letters for specific situations like responding to a want ad, contacting an executive search company, or networking. Includes over 75 example cover letters culled from successful job searches in a variety of areas.

From the editors of the Wall Street Journal's Career Journal .com, this up-to-the minute almanac rates the 250 best and worst jobs, ranked by such factors as current salary and future prospects, stress risks, safety and security, enviromental conditions, physical demands, career outlooks, travel opportunities, and special perks.

In his best-selling Irrational Exuberance, Robert Shiller cautioned that society's obsession with the stock market was fueling the volatility that has since made a roller coaster of the financial system. Less noted was Shiller's admonition that our infatuation with the stock market distracts us from more durable economic prospects. These lie in the hidden potential of real assets, such as income from our livelihoods and homes. But these ''ordinary riches,'' so fundamental to our well-being, are increasingly exposed to the pervasive risks of a rapidly changing global economy. This compelling and important new book presents a fresh vision for hedging risk and securing our economic future. Shiller describes six fundamental ideas for using modern information technology and advanced financial theory to temper basic risks that have been ignored by risk management institutions--risks to the value of our jobs and our homes, to the vitality of our communities, and to the very stability of national economies. Informed by a comprehensive risk information database, this new financial order would include global markets for trading risks and exploiting myriad new financial opportunities, from inequality insurance to intergenerational social security. Just as developments in insuring risks to life, health, and catastrophe have given us a quality of life unimaginable a century ago, so Shiller's plan for securing crucial assets promises to substantially enrich our condition. Once again providing an enormous service, Shiller gives us a powerful means to convert our ordinary riches into a level of economic security, equity, and growth never before seen. And once again, what Robert Shiller says should be read and heeded by anyone with a stake in the economy.