Job loss isn't something anyone wants to think about. But data from the US Census Bureau indicates that a significant number of Americans see job loss or pay cuts in their future. To prepare for the possibility, discuss your position with your employer, consider job-sharing arrangements and make sure you have what you'll need to collect unemployment. Should the worst happen, avoid beating yourself up about it. Give yourself time to grieve the loss, create a routine that gives your day some structure and reach out to friends or family for support.

Viewing job interviews as a two-sided search for information not only lets the interviewer know you're interested in the organization, but it also helps you determine if a role is the right fit for you as well as your career, writes educational career developer Lauren Easterling. For example, she shares that she once asked a potential employer what the organization values in a team member, how it handles employees with diverse identities and how people in the organization treat each other.

Carla Rudder asked 10 IT professionals to name a career skill that will be in demand in 2021, with an unusual answer being videoconferencing. The "ability to interact on camera in a professional manner during an interview is of greater importance than most people ever imagined," says Andrei Kurtuy, co-founder of Novoresume.

Asking job candidates to describe a few people they know often yields a summary of the interviewee's own personality traits, whether positive or negative, research has shown. Try asking applicants to rate the collaboration, cooperation and teamwork of three people they know well, writes Jeff Haden.

Employers are considering whether they can legally require employees to receive COVID-19 vaccinations and, if so, whether doing so is the right course of action. The American Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 permit employee vaccination exemptions for certain health and religious situations, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said employers subject to those laws cannot compel workers to be vaccinated.

The gains in the US monthly jobs report Friday were only about half the anticipated numbers, and 35% of November's 10.7 million unemployed people said their jobs had been cut permanently. S&P Global chief economist Paul Gruenwald believes the economy is heading toward permanent change, with new job sectors emerging and "creative destruction" beginning.

The coronavirus pandemic has laid the foundation for increased bias among managers, but it is possible to counter biases in employee reviews by encouraging "monitoring" in performance discussions and making sure evaluation criteria is solid, write Lori Mackenzie, JoAnne Wehner and Sofia Kennedy.

The sale of Bob Dylan's catalog of songs to Universal Music Publishing Group is significant not just because of the quality and breadth of his body of work (600 copyrights spanning 60 years), but because a traditional publisher beat the private equity sector to the punch.