A report by Indeed reveals 77% of job applicants have been ghosted by potential employers since the start of the pandemic, with 10% experiencing ghosting even after receiving a verbal offer. In addition, 28% of job seekers said they'd ghosted an employer last year, up from 18% in 2019, with the most common reasons for doing so being offered another position or deciding the role isn't right.

It can be difficult to read a boss, especially one that seems to have good intentions but gives harsh feedback or dictates. "If you treat them like the enemy, they're likely to feel like the enemy, and that's not a good construct for resolving anything. Instead, think about how you would treat your boss if they were a beloved relative," writes management consultant Liz Kislik.

The key to keep distractions to a minimum while working from home is to treat the day like you are in the office, and it helps to clean up physical messes in the home before or after work -- but not during work, suggests time management coach Elizabeth Grace Saunders. "For other tasks that take longer but are not true emergencies, set boundaries around when you are available for longer conversations or to help with bigger items before or after your work hours," she writes.

The ability to build alliances, work in teams and resolve conflict are among top skills employers seek, and they all rely on empathy, writes Irina Filonova, a member of the Graduate Career Consortium and a career coach at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. In this commentary, Filonova says the ability to understand someone else's state of mind and put yourself in their shoes can help in your career and job searches, and she explains why empathy is crucial and how to develop it.

A "professional employer organization" offers smaller or growing companies an opportunity to outsource all HR functions to external experts, writes HRPlus Group's Bryan Otte. Otte reviews the pros and cons of PEOs, and offers advice on how to choose the right partner.

These rankings take into account factors like job creation, wage growth and other innovation industry metrics, so the fallout from the pandemic has definitely jumbled up the rankings a bit. Case in point: San Francisco topped last year's ranking for large cities, but fell all the way out of the Top 20 this year. The No. 1 large city might surprise you (even though it was ranked No. 2 last year).

When late-night funny man Stephen Colbert issued his hilarious challenge to academia to liven up the way mathematics is taught, Isaac Elishakoff, Ph.D., from Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering and Computer Science decided to respond. After accepting the "truthiness" of Colbert's assertion about the seemingly evilness of mathematics, Elishakoff modernized the way he taught subjects like complex differential mathematical equations.