Many people have set up goals for the new year; have you? But there is a big difference between setting up the goals and actually achieving them. In order to get from the planning to the reality, business consultant Alexandra Samuel has formulated a list of steps to take using an Excel spreadsheet. She uses the spreadsheet to assess all of her ongoing endeavors and to pare away everything that is extraneous to achieving her goals.

The first step in the process, Samuel says, is to write down your most important goals for the year, or any time period you want to work with. She recommends having no more than three major goals here, and to put them at the top of your spreadsheet in large letters, so that they jump out at you.

Then, add all of the activities you are currently involved in or expect to be involved in. Put them all in one column, one activity per row. Some may be a lot more significant than others, and that’s OK. This part of the process may take a little time, so you don’t need to be in a big hurry to get it done, she says. Look at your list and realize that you are not going to get to the things that really matter – those three big things at the top of the spreadsheet – if you try to do everything on your list.

Sort your activities into related areas, and then label how important they are and how urgent they are, Samuel says. She uses different colors to categorize her tasks. Then try to determine which of these tasks can help you get to one of your major goals, and which tasks you can farm out to others. In order to do this, you may have to schedule meetings with others to work this out, and explain the situation

Then, get rid of the tasks you don’t plan on doing at all.

Then take another look at your list. Is it manageable, or is there still more on it that you cannot reasonably do and still chase your big goals? Look again to see if there is anything that you can cut or delegate – it may be tough, but better to admit that you cannot get to these things rather than have your truly important goals get lost in the shuffle.

If one of your New Year’s Resolutions was to find a new position, put THAT at the top of your spreadsheet and then contact a recruiter at Bayside Solutions. We have many positions for IT and other professionals at companies throughout the Bay Area.

The engineering profession, like so many others, took a hit during the 2007-2009 recession, but many engineering specialties will have been bouncing back and will continue to do so in 2012.

What’s Hot
Aerospace, biomedical, computer hardware and mechanical engineering are among the specialties that have been adding engineering jobs in recent years.

Companies are showing interest in college graduates of engineering programs. “Out of 70 employers that came to our fall 2011 campus job fair, 25 were specifically looking for engineering students,” says Bill McCarthy, associate director of the career development center at Binghamton University in New York.

Those firms were hiring for positions in computer hardware, mechanical, industrial, materials and electrical engineering.

The upshot for qualified engineering job seekers in 2012? If you knock on doors in the right industry sector, you’ll be in demand.

Auto Industry Comeback Creates Engineering Jobs

The Detroit automakers and their business partners are beginning to get credit for improving their products, and engineers are being hired to further that effort.

“The in-demand engineering jobs are in mechatronics, LED lighting and lithium-ion batteries,” says Jim Bazner, global vice president of human capital solutions at MSX International, a managed service provider specializing in auto industry talent.

Competition is fierce to hire the few individuals with a background in both mechanical and electronic engineering, according to Julie Lustig, recruiting manager at MSX. “Folks with this experience can work for a lot of different organizations,” she says.

Despite Strapped Governments, Civil Engineering Shows Bright Spots

Recovery Act money is on the wane, but civil construction projects are creating work for engineers on projects that can’t wait any longer. “We’re projecting that we will be hiring about 30 engineers as program design managers, project managers and construction managers as well as civil engineers,” says John Robak, COO of Greeley and Hansen, an environmental engineering firm based in Chicago.

“New funding opportunities in green design, particularly for sustainable infrastructure facilities, will also support growth in 2012,” he says.

Unconventional Engineering Career Opportunities

Engineers will also find novel niches of opportunity in 2012. “We’ll probably hire two to three more engineers in 2012, with advanced degrees and experience, mostly mechanical engineers, because they can work across areas,” says Jeff Richard, president of CED Investigative Technologies, a forensic engineering and accident reconstruction firm in Shelton, Connecticut.

Richard’s firm looks for engineers who can communicate: His employees might be called on to introduce concepts to clients who don’t understand the technology, or to get in front of a jury.

Relocation May Be Less Than You’re Hoping For

Engineers will be on the move in 2012, some on less favorable terms than they might like. Many companies don’t even give their current employees help with moving expenses if their jobs are relocated.

And new entrants to the field may not find jobs in the engineering hot spots of San Diego, Seattle or Chicago. “Young grads might need to go to Detroit or Texas or Fargo [North Dakota] for a few years to accumulate technical skills,” says Paul Kostek, a former president of IEEE-USA.

The White House hopes to drive $4 billion into building retrofits and create tens of thousands of new jobs—if private partners can deliver on their promises.

Can the Obama administration spur $4 billion in building energy efficiency retrofits without being able to get the money out of a deadlocked Congress? Apparently we’ll have the next two years or so to find out.

After months of working with former president Bill Clinton and a lot of private-sector and government partners, the White House says that more than 60 organizations have pledged to spend $2 billion to retrofit about 1.6 billion square feet of commercial and industrial property in the next 24 months.

The White House simultaneously announced a commitment to move forward with $2 billion in federal building “performance-based contracting” projects over the next 24 months. Because private investors and companies will pay for efficiency upgrades at government buildings, then pay themselves out of the energy savings, those projects can go forward without new federal spending.

Together, that $4 billion in projected commitments could add up to tens of thousands of jobs. Consider it a major new market opportunity for the building energy efficiency sector—and a major new challenge in making private-sector economics work in the absence of direct taxpayer support.

Also consider it a thorn in the side of the Obama administration—because they have been unable to get Congress to act on many of the proposals in its Better Buildings Initiative launched last February. The Department of Energy initiative laid out a laundry list of building energy efficiency initiatives, all aimed at making the nation’s commercial buildings 20 percent more energy efficient by 2020.

Part of that plan was the ‘Better Buildings Challenge,’ launched in late June 2011 at the Clinton Global Initiative. 14 initial private sector and local government partners pledged to spend $500 million to retrofit buildings totaling about 300 million square feet.

That included big public-private partnerships in Seattle, Los Angeles and Atlanta, as well as buy-in by USAA Real Estate Company, Best Buy and other corporate partners. Partners including Citi, Hudson Clean Energy Partners, Metrus Energy, Transcend Equity and Renewable Funding agreed to provide at least $525 million in project funding. San Francisco-based startup Serious Energy promised to execute $100 million in energy efficiency upgrades for customers as part of the initiative.

The $4 billion challenge is the latest move the Obama administration has made as part of its “We Can’t Wait” campaign to bypass a deadlocked Congress and spur job creation, even as the President pushes lawmakers to pass a $447 billion jobs bill.

The Political Economy Research Institute projected in June that the entire Better Buildings Initiative could create up to 114,000 jobs if implemented in full. Much of that would have to come via legislation, which seems increasingly unlikely, at least this year.

The big question is whether the economics of building energy retrofits are developed to the point where they can support a $4 billion boost in business without loan guarantees or other federal supports.

What’s wrong with the traditional pharmaceutical drug development process? Why is it so expensive and inefficient? Critics of the industry blame thinning drug pipelines, escalating development costs and a lack of innovation. Many pharma company executives blame increased regulatory scrutiny, burgeoning labor costs and downward drug pricing pressures due to the generic drug market.

A new theory suggests that big pharma’s current woes stem from flawed business practices that the industry has followed for the past 60 years.

From 1950 to 2008, the FDA approved 1,222 new drugs and biologics. Over the same period, the annual investment into new drug R&D dramatically increased — growing at an average compounded rate of 12.3% per year to roughly $50 billion per year. Despite this massive R&D investment, the number of new drugs approved each year over the past 50 years has remained fairly constant: averaging 25 to 30 per year.

Therefore, spending more money on R&D initiatives did not help to improve innovation or drug development productivity in the life sciences industry.

Today’s pharmaceutical industry faces several major financial and business challenges.

• Longer R&D cycles and increasing regulatory scrutiny are causing R&D costs to spiral out of control.
• The impending patent expiry of many blockbuster drugs threatens to cut total drug sales revenues by as much as 41% by 2015.
• By the end of 2012, 20% of big pharma’s current sale revenues will be susceptible to generic drug encroachment.
• Generic prescription drugs are predicted to take a bigger chunk out of total global pharmaceutical sales by 2014.
• Healthcare reform legislation and downward pricing pressures imposed by insurance companies and third-party payors are driving down drug reimbursement costs and squeezing the margins of many branded prescription drugs.

Drug makers have attempted to control costs through job cuts, corporate restructuring and M&As. Over the past four years alone, the world’s 10 largest pharmaceutical companies have eliminated over 200,000 jobs. During the same period, M&A activity has skyrocketed as big pharma companies rush to bolster their biotechnology product offerings. While both strategies are likely to help to control costs and boost company stock prices in the short term, neither is likely to help to improve productivity or spark innovation.

The Blockbuster Drug Business Model – No Longer Viable
The blockbuster drug business model is no longer viable or sustainable in today’s marketplace. There is general agreement among most industry analysts that big pharma companies must change to remain productive and relevant. These changes include:

• improved R&D productivity
• a continuation of drastic cost-cutting measures
• a strategy to rapidly garner market share in emerging markets.

While some analysts contend that conventional M&A strategies can address these issues, there is a growing consensus that fundamental changes to big pharma’s business model are necessary to ensure its survival.

Open Innovation
Historically, the life sciences industry has operated by using a “closed innovation” business model, which is mainly driven and protected by patents and IP, and product development is frequently done internally and secretly without much input from external sources.

An open innovation model — such as those used by software developers and information technology companies — is nimble and flexible and relies on both internal and external resources for product development and commercialization. Otherwise known as “crowdsourcing,” this business model leverages the collective external expertise of a network of contributors (the “crowd”) to help develop products that originated as internal ideas.

While most of crowdsourcing’s better-known successes have been realized in the software industry, like Linux software and the Google Android operating system, the possibility of applying it to pharmaceutical R&D is gaining support. Over the past few years, several big pharma companies have begun to apply the crowdsourcing concept to early drug discovery and development.

A Novel Idea: Crowdsourcing Clinical Drug Development
Most of big pharma’s experiments with open innovation have focused on drug discovery, most likely because it’s the least regulated part of the drug commercialization process. But, although substantial financial investment is required for discovery research and preclinical drug development, the most expensive part of the process is usually human clinical trials. And human clinical trial costs are rising, mainly because of regulatory agencies’ increased emphasis on drug safety.

Challenges
There is no question that open innovation drug discovery models are gaining traction at several major pharmaceutical companies. However, wholesale adoption or “buy in” of the open innovation model by the pharmaceutical industry faces several major challenges:

• the open innovation model would likely elevate the regulatory requirements associated with drug development because of the increased number and diversity of contributors to the process.
• implementation of the model would require careful design, ongoing and regular contact with regulators
• a large investment and commitment of overhead in project management and information technology support would be required.
• how will patents and other intellectual property generated during the open innovation process be handled and managed? Who will own the patents?
• Open innovation will require an unusually complex reward system for contributors that include fees for service, fees for success, and milestone and royalty payments
• As big pharma companies continue to become increasingly risk-averse, it isn’t clear what percentage of risk they will be willing to assume in open innovation drug development projects.

Although the economy is growing, it’s doing so very sluggishly, with unemployment  still hovering around nine percent. For every job available, there are about four unemployed people, according to statistics.

The news focuses relentlessly on layoffs and the long-term unemployed. As unemployment remains high, people become anxious about job security and the stability of their employer. It appears as if the job market has crashed and burned, that no one out there is hiring. Reading the headlines, it is easy to believe this myth, but it is exactly that, a myth. Companies are still hiring. In fact, some human resource consultants say the number of job offers made during a recession remains about the same as in a more healthy economy. Even in a recession, innovation and entrepreneurship are still at work, and companies are working to bring new products and services to market.

But, reading the doom and gloom in the headlines sometimes makes people feel that it’s not even worth the effort because the economy is so bad. But this is not true. The job market still exists; it has just become more selective. People who are valued for their skills, experience and accomplishments will have little trouble finding a job, and can get a job offer in a relatively short period of time.

Those in the worst position during a recession, however, are the long-term unemployed. They stand little chance of getting a job offer during a recession. They might even have trouble gaining employment in a growing economy, because there is little value placed on their skills and competencies.

The economy doesn’t stop during a recession, it just slows down, and the same thing happens in the job market – it slows down. Companies make more effort to avoid risk, and so hiring decisions tend to take longer. But, eventually, hiring managers reach a decision – they must, because they need to continue their operations so that they can serve their customers.

So, if you are a job candidate, you can be pretty sure there is a company out there that needs your help; you just need to be smart and savvy in your job search. Network, persevere and look for the companies that are attempting to start new projects.

Working on short- and long-term temporary assignments with Bayside Solutions in San Francisco can be a great way for someone to keep skills current and learn new ones. Contact a recruiter today to learn more about the different type of assignments we have available.

Venture capital firms have invested nearly $20 billion into hundreds of green technology startups over the past five years, according to Greentech Media, a San-Francisco based research and media company.

What kinds of companies are getting this funding? Many of them are trying to tap into alternative sources of energy including solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass and fuel cells. Most are pursuing somewhat similar technologies, such as photovoltaic cells in solar, turbines in wind and hydroelectric.

There is a handful of companies, however, that is taking a different approach to green technology and alternative energy. Here are five innovators that are developing even newer ways to capture and store energy, light up the world and power vehicles.

New Energy Technologies
New Energy Technologies has two interesting projects under development: Motion Power and Solar Window.

Motion Power aims to harness lost inertia from braking cars at places like toll booths, drive-through windows and traffic lights. The Motion Power device sits on the road in the braking area. As a car passes over the device, it pushes down mechanical treadles, allowing the device to help slow down the car’s momentum and simultaneously harvest some of its kinetic energy. The company calls this process an “external regenerative brake” that can convert wasted energy –normally turned into brake heat — into electricity that can be used to power road signs, street lights and emergency power storage systems.

New Energy’s Solar Window technology is putting a new twist on solar energy. Still in development, it involves spraying ordinary glass with solar cells that can turn windows into small-scale energy producers. While many photovoltaic cells require metal to help conduct energy, New Energy’s prototype uses transparent compounds to serve the same function. Unlike most solar films, which require high temperatures to be applied, the spray can be used at room temperature.

Lilliputian Systems
Lilliputian Systems, as the name implies, wants to use tiny technology to make big changes in consumer electronics such as phones and laptops. Born in MIT’s Microsystems Technology Lab, Lilliputian Systems hopes to replace lithium-ion batteries with miniature fuel cells. The cells will be powered by butane and sit on a chip to power a device. The device will then produce electricity by converting the butane into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. When the two are exposed to air and electrolytes, it turns into electricity, which will keep gadgets powered indefinitely. The process’ byproducts are water vapor and carbon dioxide. The company claims the fuel cells are safe, and has convinced the Federal Aviation Administration to approve the use of Lilliputian fuel cells on airplanes.

Beacon Power
Beacon Power is focused on energy storage, not energy production. They are working to improve existing battery technologies by using flywheels to store energy for later use. Flywheels are like mechanical batteries, turning electricity into kinetic energy that keeps a wheel spinning inside a vacuum chamber until the energy is needed again. When this happens, the flywheel spins more slowly and electricity flows back out of the device. The company says its flywheel chambers can be used for years with minimal maintenance and, unlike batteries, their storage capacity remains stable over time.

The U.S. Department of Energy has funded Beacon and says the company’s flywheels are up to ten times faster at responding to grid frequency changes than energy sources powered by fossil fuels.

Topanga Technologies
Topanga is working on developing high-efficiency lighting whose color quality, output and longevity are better than those of LEDs, halogens and fluorescents. The company produces plasma lights in warm, cool and white temperatures and sells to cities, large companies and building managers. Each lamp has an estimated lifespan of about 50,000 hours, or about 10 years. This is equal to the lifespan of most LEDs, and significantly higher than CFLs’ 12,000-hour and halogen’s 3,000-hour lifespans. By Topanga’s estimates, most fixtures pay for themselves in savings within three years and require very little maintenance.

Xtreme Green
Xtreme Green makes electric sports vehicles, including motorcycles, scooters and ATVs, and they are developing electric watercraft like jet skis. As environmental concerns about emissions grow, more lakes and wildlife areas no longer permit gas engines on the water. Xtreme Green’s watercraft will run on lithium batteries that will provide two hours of power. The company also produces curb-jumping three-wheeled patrol vehicles and motorcycles for police forces.

Xtreme Green’s eco-vehicles are designed with proprietary energy management systems and electric propulsion systems, giving them the power and ability of gas-powered engines, but without the particulate pollution, noise pollution or carbon footprint.

Is the solar industry as much of a success as it seems? Is it contributing to the energy supply in the United States? Does it have a promising future, or is it a bubble industry inflated by government subsidies and bandwagon investors?

Recent published reports can shed some light on these questions.

How Does the U.S. Solar Industry Stack Up?

The U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says that the U.S. market share of worldwide solar installations has fluctuated between five and seven percent since 2005.

According to the Solar Foundation’s National Solar Jobs Census 2010, there were 16,703 solar employers in the United States in 2010. Over half of those employers were in the Western U.S. Twenty percent were in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region.

Most U.S. solar companies, about 65 percent, are involved in installation. About 50 percent are in wholesale trade and about 25 percent are in manufacturing. On the installation side of the industry, 92.1 percent of solar firms install photovoltaic (PV) systems, 50.6 percent install water-heating systems, and 21.9 percent install space-heating systems. Solar manufacturers tend to be more diversified, with only 64.6 percent making PV systems.

SEIA reports that although the U.S. solar industry imports goods such as PV equipment, polysilicon, and PV feedstock, the industry is in fact a net exporter. The country imports $3.75 billion and exports $5.63 billion, for net exports of $1.88 billion. U.S. solar installations for 2010 had a total market value of $5.96 billion.

The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) says 60 percent of U.S. PV solar installations are in California. In such western states, solar irradiation is high. Electric rates there are high as well, so EPIA believes that in those markets “PV will become competitive relatively rapidly.”

Solar’s Place in the Overall U.S. Energy Picture

In 2010, the Solar Foundation surveyed utilities that are active in solar energy. Even in those utilities, solar still makes up a small percentage of their generation profile. Nearly 70 percent said solar was less than one percent of their generation; 11.4 percent said solar was between one and two percent of their energy profile; 10.1 percent of those utilities said solar made up more than 5 percent of their generation. Over 90 percent expected their solar capacity to increase in 2011.

Solar should gain market share as it becomes cost-competitive with conventional energy sources. The Department of Energy (DOE) projects that the cost of PV energy will continue to decline and gain in market penetration over the next two decades, becoming fully competitive for utility generation between 2015 and 2020.

“Green Jobs” in the Solar Industry

One huge positive for the solar industry is that it is creating jobs in the U.S. According to the Solar Foundation, the U.S. solar industry now employs 100,237 Americans, a 6.8 percent growth since August 2010. This compares to growth of only 0.7 percent in the overall economy, and a loss of 2 percent of jobs in fossil-fuel generation.

Reliance of Solar on Government Incentives

In the United States, many states have adopted renewable portfolio standards that require electric utilities to generate certain percentages of their power from renewable sources. This is driving adoption of solar and other renewables in the U.S.

Governments provide funding for solar projects through tax credits or rate-based subsidies, offer financing support for solar purchasers and work with banks to support lending to solar-industry businesses. They also fund research and development in solar technologies.

It sometimes happens in a career that you hit a dead end, that you find yourself in a job where you see no room for advancement or change.

There are several different strategies you can use to try and address this situation. One is talking to your boss to discuss different options – taking on more responsibilities, for example. Another option is a transfer within the company. If these alternatives don’t work, your next choice might be to look for work elsewhere.

If this is the course of action you are considering, you might also want to think about contingent work. Contingent work is not often thought of as a way to boost your career. Many consider it a stop-gap measure, a way of keeping your skills fresh if you get laid off.

But, while temping doesn’t offer the security of a permanent job, and benefit plans vary, it does have advantages if you are trying to jump start your career.

By working in different companies in different jobs, you get to add to your skills, which can help you down the road in looking for a permanent job. You also get valuable experience in seeing how different organizations work. In fact, the skills you pick up doing the temporary work will make you a better candidate when you do apply for other jobs.

Another advantage of contingent work is that you get to meet people in various companies, allowing you to build up a network that might eventually help you when you look for full-time employment.

A good personal support network is helpful while going through this transition. Family and friends who are supportive can offer the stability to help balance the change in your work life.

If you’re looking to make a change, contact Bayside Solutions. We have many direct-hire, temp-to-hire and short- and long-term temporary assignments with some of San Francisco’s best firms. We look forward to hearing from you.

Next time you hear someone complaining about gaming and what a waste of time it is, tell them this story: Players of an online game recently solved a decade-long protein structure mystery.

According to the Center for Game Science, part of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, a small group of individuals living on at least three continents, who call themselves The Contenders, solved the structure of a protein that has stumped scientists for more than 10 years. How? From the comfort of their own homes, playing an online protein folding game called Foldit.

The Contenders’ solution and its validation were published in September in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology magazine.

“This is the real deal,” said biophysicist Rhiju Das of Stanford University, who was not involved in the work. “I think [this] really shows how this is a new way of doing science that is more powerful than what a handful of experts could do.”

The protein in question was a retroviral protease of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, which causes an AIDS-like disease in monkeys. Over the last decade, many researchers tried various methods to determine the protein’s structure but were unsuccessful. “This viral protein…has really evaded the efforts of expert crystallographers and the very best automated tools,” Das said.

Then one scientist, Mariusz Jaskolski of A. Mickiewicz University in Poland and the Polish Academy of Sciences, turned to an online game called Foldit. Foldit, an extension to the Rosetta@home program, was designed by computer scientists at the Center for Game Science so that home computers around the world could do complex calculations on protein structures. According to UW computation biologist David Baker, while the program ran, users would see a screen saver of the computations. Before long, he began to get emails from users who noticed that the program wasn’t always accurate. They had noticed that the protein, when folding up its helix, was going left when it should have been going right.

Foldit allows users to alter the course of Rosetta calculations, and try to solve protein structures on their own. The goal is to fold up the protein so it has the lowest energy, just as molecules tend to do in real life. Because some Foldit users had demonstrated their potential to solve real protein-folding problems, Jaskolski and Baker decided to put the gamers to the test to see if they could solve the enigma of this particular viral protease.

About 600 players from 41 teams submitted more than 1.25 million solutions. Narrowing those down to 5,000, Jaskolski and colleagues subjected them to a computational technique called molecular replacement (MR), which tests the models against X-ray crystallography data. For MR to work, the proposed structure has to be very close to accurate, in which case the MR calculations can help perfect the details. But previous attempts at MR for this protein had failed because the protein models were too far off the mark.

But The Contenders’ proposed protein structure was a winner. “When we took [their] model, it was a beautiful fit to the X-ray data so we knew [they] had solved it,” Baker said. “We were just totally blown away. This is the first time that a long-standing scientific problem has been solved by Foldit players, or to my knowledge, any scientific gaming participants.”

“It’s kind of an unprecedented case of using computing non-specialists to solve a longstanding scientific problem,” said Alexander Wlodawer, chief of the Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory at the National Cancer Institute.

The next step might be to provide Foldit users with experimental validation as they play the game, said Das. In this case, the players simply kept tweaking the structure until it produced a low energy score, but they didn’t get any experimental feedback until the very end.

“What if the players do have access to experimental data?” Das asked. “Can they interpret it in the same way that scientists do? Can we turn 10,000 or 100,000 into citizen scientists into real scientists who are developing hypotheses and then doing experiments and then refining their hypotheses?”

If so, Foldit users may not only be able to solve protein structures, but actually refine the rules of the game itself and help scientists reach the ultimate goal of understanding structure directly from a protein’s amino acid sequence.

You have been laid off from your job and are looking for another one. The employment picture is a rather bleak one, as you have no doubt found out. You had a very good salary at your old job, and you are willing to take a pay cut to find something else, which you tell employers.

But that doesn’t seem to help much. The conventional wisdom among some employers is that if you were making more in your previous position than they are willing to offer for this one, you won’t be around that long because you will be looking for greener pastures. They will assume that you are overqualified for the job.

How do you handle a situation like this?

One way to blunt the problem is by focusing on your skills and experience and how much they can help the company. If you can provide the expertise they need, if you can help them solve the problems they have, the company might not be so focused on salary.

Another way around this problem is to work through a staffing agency, taking a position as a contingent or contract worker. This will help you on several levels. First, you will be employed by the staffing agency, not by the company where you will be working. All salary and benefits issues are with the agency, which will not be so concerned with past salary history. Second, you will get a foot in the door at a company, and if you perform well, you may get a job offer that way.

You also can try avoiding talk of past salary altogether. It may be tough to do, but it’s always worth a try. What you could do is research what the salary range is for the job you are applying for, and focus on that if you get the chance to interview.  Be sure to focus on a salary range, rather than pinning yourself down to a specific figure.

Finally, if company officials are still convinced that a previous high salary is a disqualification because it means a worker will soon move on, you should let hiring managers know your circumstances have changed and that you understand you may not be able to command the type of salary  With the high unemployment rate, and many workers underemployed, people are just glad to have jobs, and are much more likely to hang on to them.

Produce positive results in your career by bringing your résumé to a Bayside Solutions recruiter. We can help you contact some of the mover and shakers at some of the Bay Area’s finest employers. Give us a call today!