The days of "last hired, first fired" seem long gone. Today's downsizings seem to take a disproportionate chunk of middle aged employees out, leaving behind only the young and inexpensive.

If you're worried about those closed-door meetings your boss is having with HR, financial blog Wise Bread will increase your stress level with "You're Fired! 20 Signs a Pink Slip is Coming." »more»

"...for the past 75 years federal policy has been designed around easing folks who are past 50 out of the workforce rather than enticing them to stay in it."

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"Midlife crisis" may be many things -- depression, a reassessment, dissatisfaction, or unease -- but a key contributor can be career issues.

But like so much about midlife, there is little hard data on what happens to midcareer adults. »more»

Founding your own company is the American Dream. But being an entrepreneur requires skills and capital. For skills you take time working in a field, learning everything you can about a particular area so that you'll have a unique, sustainable and defensible competitive advantage. Only after toiling away for years developing a deep knowledge about a specific market and then refining a winning concept can you then approach the capital markets about funding your brilliant idea. For new markets, "capital markets" means venture capital. The only problem is that if you are over 40 (and possibly over 30), you're almost certain to be rejected before you can say "full-ratchet anti-dilution".

You are guilty of being too old and all of the tweaking of the business plan and/or your pro forma models won't change the fact that you are no longer in your twenties. Yes, Silicon Valley is as ageist as Hollywood movie studios or New York modeling agencies. »more»

Penelope Trunk, author of Brazen Careerist, offers up "Five Situations When You Shouldn't Change Careers." See if you can match up the situation with an excerpt of her advice, then visit her site to see if you're right »more»

Being focused on your job does not make you a workaholic nor does putting in long hours. Nor, for that matter, does occasionally missing important activities in your life because you are working. »more»

Marci Alboher sas joined the New York Times as an on-line columnist writing a regular column called "Shifting Careers" that will focus on the new face of career changes. »more»

We've all heard the expression that it's better to sleep on it. It turns out that science agrees and when it comes to understanding the "big picture" it is actually beneficial to sleep on it. »more»

Career Happiness/Satisfaction Interesting Fact of the Day:

When you hire a roofer, odds are 6-1 that the person who shows up to do the work is not a very happy person, but when you call a priest or the fire department odds are that you will get a very happy person.

And how we know so much about career happiness and satisfaction?

During the past four weeks I have taken a look at career change through the filter of history and through the filter of disintermediation, one of the most powerful forces affecting the marketplace today. In future columns I will suggest the other dominant forces or flows that are reshaping the world, what the work landscape might look like in the next ten years, and the changes that are already underway. This week, though, I thought it might be a nice break to go personal, and share my path of career change. While I have been given credibility as a future thinker, I want you, the reader, to know that I have gone down the path of career change. »more»