We’ve all had them. Jobs we did just for the money. Maybe you took it thinking it might grow on you — and, for a lucky few, it did. Or figured you could parlay it into something you really wanted to do. In no time, even if you didn’t hate the work, you found it was boring or unrewarding, and you were going through the motions.

Contrast that with your dream job. You found it exciting, fun, and stimulating, and hopefully still do. Mondays are something to look forward to. The days rarely drag.

Now think, where did you do your best work? In what job were you most productive, most creative, and made the biggest contribution? No matter how conscientious you are; no matter your work ethic, it’s only human nature that we do the best job when we love what we do.

Employers know that people who love their job, are most likely to be their top performers, which is why they want to hire people who are passionate about the work. It doesn’t mean you enthusiastically embrace every last task; after all, how many people really enjoy filling out weekly reports? Nor does it mean that jobs won’t sometimes surprise you into a new career.

An employer who hires someone who already knows they like the work, cares about it and will find it rewarding and stimulating, that employer knows they are already ahead.

Is it realistic, though, to expect everyone to ignore the demands of adulthood to follow a dream? Hollywood is full of aspiring actors and actresses. Few earn a living  that way. Most eventually move on, discovering the world is full of other jobs and other careers.

Marc Cenedella, CEO of The Ladders and a career recruiter, blogged about doing what you care about. “I know it’s not a choice everybody can make, but I do believe it’s one everybody should,” he wrote, “Do what you love.”

Just a few days old, now, his post has gotten well over 100 comments, some agreeing, but many saying, in essence, “Nice thought, but not necessary.”  As one poster put it: “I think people are happier or more fulfilled when their career goals align with a personal interest or passion of some sort.

“Therefore, maybe the message is not exactly ‘Follow Your Dreams’… but rather: ‘Can you align your career goals with a personal interest or passion?’”

To that, Cenedella said, “It’s about applying your passion in your work. Unrealistic goals are unrealistic even if you’re passionate about them.”

Who hasn’t thought of launching a startup?

With the business press awash in articles about startups fetching valuations in the millions, not to mention the behemoths like Facebook being priced in the billions, it’s a wonder everyone isn’t tinkering in a garage.

What we rarely hear about though, are the failures. Incontrovertible data is hard to come by, but those who study business success say the failure rate for startups can be as high as 95%. If merely surviving for five years is your measure of success, the odds are about 50-50.

No wonder, then, that so many of the online ventures are captained by 2o- or 30-year-olds. It’s easier to risk everything when there’s not all that much in the first place.

If the prospect of seeing your dreams turn into nightmares hasn’t dissuaded you, then before you go quitting your day job spend a weekend considering 11 questions.  These aren’t the detailed business plan questions you can find in a thousand places online. Those come later and take longer.

Think of this as more of a feasibility exercise. That’s what Richard Sellers, chairman emeritus of the 2,000 member Marketing Executives Networking Group, calls it. “Doing a feasibility study will help you determine whether your new business idea is worth pursuing,” he says.

First on the list: “What do you want to achieve by starting your business?”

This isn’t just one of those big picture, deep thought questions, although you are encouraged to think through the lifestyle choices and the societal implications. What the question is aiming for are specifics like: How much money do you want to earn? How much do you need to earn? Are you looking for an out from an 8-to-5 workday?

The other 10 questions are equally as direct, yet equally broad enough to get you thinking about the cents and sense of it all. It’s a reality check, put together by a group of SCORE consultants. (SCORE is a non-profit mentoring and advisory group for small businesses.)

The idea is to get you thinking about all the things too many impulsive entrepreneurs skip by. An idea, no matter how brilliant everyone tells you it is, is still, just an idea. Execution is everything, as every one of the sharks in the tank tell those hopeful entrepreneurs every week.

In fact that’s not a bad idea. Watch a few episodes of Shark Tank. Then answer the 11 questions. You may find yourself happy to go back to work — for someone else — when Monday morning rolls around.

You’ve built your network, developed a brand, and polished your resume. You’re ready to conquer the job market. But hold on there, says Allison & Taylor, the professional reference-checking firm. Your references are a valuable part of your marketing program, so don’t overlook them.

Even the best references can seem ordinary if they don’t actively sell you. HR departments will typically limit what they say to verification of the essentials: name, rank, and employment dates. Sometimes ending salary. And very occasionally, a reference checker may be told if you are eligible for rehire.

Consider HR mostly for verification of what you’ve said on your resume, job app or in an interview. A real reference is someone who knows you; knows your abilities, and will champion you to the caller. That’s not going to happen in HR, where corporate policies get made and enforced. Instead, or in addition, “provide references that can actually speak to your abilities,” counsels Allison & Taylor.

Here’s where you need to invest some effort. You want to make sure you talk with your reference long before you put them on your list. You want to make sure, of course, that what you think they’ll say is indeed what they will say. Once you’ve verified that, it’s a good idea to remind them of your accomplishments, and the special projects you worked, and the results you got. It’s easy for busy people to forget things, especially if it’s been a while since you two worked together.

If you’re on LinkedIn or other business networking site, suggest that they review what’s there. It may jog their memory, or, you may find they don’t recall things quite the same way you do. Better to amend your profile now, before you start interviewing.

This is as helpful to the recruiter as it is to you, since it provides a clearer — and honest — picture of your abilities, and may even fill in some details you overlooked. You  may need to prompt your reference into volunteering information, particularly if they’re not accustomed to reference checks, or if they lean toward the laconic.

Depending on the position, it can be completely appropriate to use co-workers, customers, subordinates, even suppliers as references. As workplaces grow ever more virtual, the people who best know your work may be other members of your team. Use them, but follow the same guidelines: ask permission; review your accomplishments; let them know who may call, and; follow-up with a thank you.

It’s also wise to have multiple references. People go on vacation, get sick, or leave without telling you. So be prepared with alternatives in case your recruiter is unable to reach someone. If you are job searching in more than one field, having different references who can talk to your expertise in specific areas only makes sense.

As you reach out to prospective references, brief them on your job search. They become part of your network and may even be just the referral that leads to your next job.

Talking with a recruiter doesn’t always mean you’re looking for a job. While recruiters aren’t a substitute for a career coach, talking with one can help you gain insights about your career, and industry trends. It can also be an opportunity for you to help a talented friend who is looking for a new job. So, even if you aren’t looking for a change yourself, or if you are, here are five reasons to talk with a recruiter the next time one calls. RecruitingBlogs

Here’s an unexpected finding about job interviews that makes sense once it’s explained. Narcissists do better in interviews than the rest of us.

How can it be that a trait most of us consider obnoxious can actually improve the chances of someone acing an interview?

Simple, says Peter Harms, assistant professor of management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a co-author of a study being published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Most of us are entirely too modest about our accomplishments. While we might start off promoting ourselves and talking about our accomplishments, as interviewers begin to ask questions, we tend to ease off on our self-promotion.

Narcissists, on the other hand, not only stand their ground, they escalate their efforts.

“When feeling challenged, they tend to double down,” Harms said. “It’s as if they say ‘Oh, you’re going to challenge me? Then I’m not just great, I’m fantastic.’ And in this setting, it tended to work.”

In the first of the two-part study, 72 volunteers were put through a simulated job interview by expert interviewers. Those identified as narcissistic, increased their efforts to look better when challenged by the interviewer. Others, backed down.

Then, in part two, recorded interviews of candidates were reviewed and rated by evaluators. The 222 raters were consistent in awarding more positive evaluations to the self-promoters. The more quickly and longer they spoke, and those who smiled, gestured, and complimented others got the better ratings.

Those who were equally qualified for the job )a variety of positions were used), but who were more modest about their achievements scored lower.

“This shows that what is getting (narcissists) the win is the delivery,” Harms said. “These results show just how hard it is to effectively interview, and how fallible we can be when making interview judgments. We don’t necessarily want to hire narcissists, but might end up doing so because they come off as being self-confident and capable.”

There is a fine line between self-confidence and narcissism. Knowing where it is is not always easy, but hiring a narcissist can have disappointing, even disastrous consequences.

“On the whole, we find very little evidence that narcissists are more or less effective workers. But what we do know is that they can be very disruptive and destructive when dealing with other people on a regular basis. If everything else is equal, it probably is best to avoid hiring them.”

The study echoes others, including one published last summer in the  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, entitled, “Do Nice Guys—and Gals—Really Finish Last?” The conclusion was a solid yes, if by last it’s meant they don’t earn as much.

The research found men who measured below average on agreeableness earned about 18% more—or $9,772 more annually in their sample—than nicer guys. Ruder women, meanwhile, earned about 5% or $1,828 more than their agreeable counterparts.

“Nice guys are getting the shaft,” says study co-author Beth A. Livingston, an assistant professor of human resource studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

That doesn’t mean the way to get the job and the top salary is to be a mean, self-promoter. Many companies have policies and will even fire disagreeable, disrespectful disruptors.

Kathy Savitt CEO and founder of Lockers, a social commerce company, says her “no jerks and divas” policy doesn’t’ mean disagreement isn’t tolerated. Just the contrary. “We have a lot of robust debates about all kinds of things. But we do stress the notion of being respectful.”

You would never think of fiddling with your papers or phone during an interview, yet countless opportunities have been lost because candidates did just that during a phone interview.

From how quickly you answer the phone, to how you end the conversation, the recruiter or hiring manager on the other end of the line is making a judgment about whether or not you’re going to be invited for an in-person meeting.

“The phone interview will make or break your chances with a company. Take it seriously,” says Paul J. Bailo, author of The Essential Phone Interview Handbook, the only book of its kind.

A speaker at job fairs, vocational workshops, and to national groups, Bailo has been dispensing his dos and don’ts about phone interviews since launching his company, Phone Interview Pro, in 2009. Among its services is a phone skills assessment, in which job seekers are taken through a live, mock interview and their performance is evaluated by a professional recruiter.

“Today, more than ever, job candidates are screened by prospective employers via the telephone,” Bailo says. “Those who don’t pass the phone interview don’t get inside the door for a face-to-face interview with a hiring decision-maker.”

Among the examples he cites of poor phone skills, let alone just plain bad manners, is the case of a woman interviewing for a customer service manager’s position paying over $60,000. The conversation opened with her yawning, and it only got worse. In 30 minutes she yawned no less than 23 times, says Bailo, who was doing the interviewing.

In his book, Bailo likens the phone interview to a first date. “You need to impress your interviewers,” he writes, “so they will ask you out on a second date.” How likely are you to go out again with someone who yawned through your first date?

Besides offering that kind of obvious — if often ignored — advice, Bailo has plenty of other tips that make the book’s $9.99 (Kindle) price a bargain:

• Don’t answer the phone for the first few rings. A recruiter might think you’re too anxious. It could result in a lower salary offer, or no second interview.
• Use a land line and disable call waiting.
• Wait no more than 15 minutes past the agreed time for the recruiter or manager to call.
• Have “knockout” questions prepared in advance. (Samples are in the book.)
• Follow-up as you would an in-person interview.

Last week’s disappointing jobs report, showed  the U.S. economy added only 120,000 new non-farm jobs in March. That was a surprise to economists and labor analysts, nearly all of whom were expecting the number to be over 200,000.

It was the lowest job growth in five months, and the first time since November the number was below 200,000.Even the usually robust growth in temp jobs seems to have taken a breather in March. Temp jobs dipped by 7,500 during the month, the first time the Labor Department registered a decline in the category since last June.

But even with the blip, there were 8% more temp and contract jobs in March than a year ago. That’s well ahead of the overall jobs growth rate, which in a year-over-year comparison is just under 1.4%.

The government’s unadjusted numbers tell a little more positive story. The nonseasonally adjusted jobs numbers form the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the staffing industry added 29,400 jobs in March. Year-over-year, the increase in temp and contract staffing hit 8.5%.

Using the nonseasonally adjusted numbers for comparison, the U.S. economy added a total of 81,100 jobs last month.

“For the most part, staffing firms continued to see healthy demand in March, as was reflected by the nonseasonally adjusted BLS employment numbers,” says Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of the American Staffing Association. “In the current environment, businesses are understandably cautious about when and how to add additional flexible and permanent staff.”

Before last week’s job numbers were out, CareerBuilder offered an upbeat view of employment in the current quarter. After surveying some 2,300 HR professionals and hiring managers, CareerBuilder says 30 percent of employers plan to increase their full-time, permanent workforce. Even more — 34 percent — expect they’ll bring on more temps and contract workers.

In Q1, 37 percent of employers hired more temps, an eight point increase over the 29 percent who hired temps in Q1 last year.  The company also says 31 percent of employers report not being to find qualified employees to fill open jobs. That’s up from the 24 percent who said that last year.

But it seems that for every optimistic report, another one turns up with a cautionary note. Today’s is from The Conference Board, a business research organization, that says its employment trends index dropped in March. It’s now at 107.28, down from the revised figure of 107.47 in February. The March figure is still up over 5 percent  from the same month a year ago.

“After five months of strong growth, the ETI declined slightly in March,” said Gad Levanon, Director of Macroeconomic Research at The Conference Board. “Together with the disappointing job growth released on Friday, and only moderate improvement in economic activity in recent months, it seems that employment growth in December to February, averaging almost 250,000 a month, may not be a sustainable trend.”

It may be tea leaf reading, but looking back at least year, March’s decline in seasonally adjusted job growth and temp positions has some echoes of last year, when a May surprise signaled months of mediocre growth.

For a sector with 2.5 million workers, March’s loss of a mere 7,500 staffing jobs  might be nothing more than a statistical aberration and easily dismissed, were it not for April, May, and June of last year when staffing growth turned negative after 19 consecutive months of increases.

When growth turned up again in July, it was slower in each of the next two quarters than in last year’s first quarter, when the staffing industry added 66,100 positions. Even with the negative growth last month, staffing firms added almost 84,000 jobs in the first quarter. That’s a 27% increase over the 1st quarter of 2011.

One other data point is worth looking at, and that’s the number of workers at placement agencies. Counted in this category are employees of chauffeur services, nurse registries, employment firms, state job service offices, casting agencies, and the like.

Changes in employment here provides some indication of economic health. But deciding what the changes mean is tricky because some placement services — the government offices, for instance — added workers to assist the unemployed as the economy was tanking. That said, there is evidence that employment in this category does move in some rhythym with general economic conditions. In 2007, just before the official start of the recession, there were an average of 277,400 workers. Two years later, the average fell to 200,200 workers.

Jobs began returning early in 2010 and the growth continued in all but two months of last year. As of February, there were 240,800 workers employed in the employment placement agencies category.

When new hires fail, it’s not because they don’t have the skills or the know-how. It’s attitude, says bestselling business author Mark Murphy. Of 20,000 new hires, 46% of them failed within 18 months. The reason in almost 90% of the cases had nothing to do with their ability to do the work. “The attitudinal deficits that doomed these failed hires,” he maintains, “included a lack of coachability, low levels of emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament.” To reduce the turnover of new hires, companies are using a battery of methods to find workers with the right attitude for their culture, Murphy says. One method he doesn’t mention is temp-to-hire where employers make offers to the best of their temp workers.  Forbes

China has the most private employment agencies, reports Ciett, the International Confederation of Private Employment  Agencies. With 49,000 agencies, China has more  than the next three largest countries combined, says the Ciett research. Japan has 20,000 private employment agencies, the U.S. has 13,900 and the U.K. has 11,500. To put that in perspective, China has more than twice the population of those three countries combined, 1.35 billion to 503 million. StaffingIndustry.com

That whole brouhaha about employers demanding Facebook passwords has been overblown — and not by a little. Demanding social media access from employees and potential hires and is most definitely the exception and not the rule, says attorney Eric Meyer, a labor and employment specialist. What’s more, all the articles and recent excitement about nosy employers comes, not from dozens of examples, but two dated situations involving a city government in Montana and the Maryland Department of Corrections. And why wouldn’t employers want access to employee Facebook accounts? Because it’s probably not legal, Meyer says. TLNT