Prepare for Promotion
- Prepare yourself for career advancement. Stay current in your field with trade journals, professional meetings, certification courses, college degrees, etc.
- Develop a reputation as a leader and a doer and cultivate mentors. Think of yourself as a self-employed contractor who must constantly demonstrate value to each new employer.
- Start a file to document highlights of your job performance (promotions, awards, publications, and successful projects).
- Make a list of your job experiences, transferable skills, strengths, and weaknesses.
- Seek opportunities to learn new skills, take risks, join visible project teams, and fill in the gaps (after coworkers leave, for example) to get the job done.
- Prepare a current one- or two-page resume that emphasizes your skills.
Switch Jobs with Care
- Look before you leap. When considering a new job, calculate the impact on your personal finances. Items to consider include: changes in commuting costs and time, flextime and telecommuting policies, fringe benefits offered by your current and a new employer, retirement savings plans and employer matching, pension vesting requirements, and opportunities for future advancement.
- Many career development specialists advise against changing jobs without a pay raise of 30 percent or more, especially if it involves relocation.
- If you change employers, keep your 401(k) balance tax deferred with one of three options: the former employer’s plan, a new employer’s plan, or a rollover IRA, which provides the most investment choice and control. If you’re unsure how to invest the money, consider placing it in a money market fund until you can explore your options.
Track Expenses
- Keep receipts for job-search expenses, which may be deductible. Qualified expenses include the cost of transportation to interviews, meals (50 percent) and lodging, phone calls and faxes, postage, photocopying, and employment agency fees.
- You do not have to actually change jobs to deduct qualified expenses, but you must apply for a job in your current field. Expenses for a new career or a first job, however, are not tax-deductible.
- Job-search costs are listed as miscellaneous itemized expenses, along with items such as unreimbursed business expenses and union dues.
- A deduction is allowed only for the amount of miscellaneous itemized expenses that exceed 2 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). For example, if your AGI is $40,000, miscellaneous itemized deductions, including job-search expenses, must exceed $800.