Career Advice

The option to opt out of work for a while, even if available, might come with a high price tag. Polls show 3 out of 4 Canadians are stressed. No shock there. Job uncertainty, money worries, health issues. They’re the biggest blood pressure raisers. Can make you want to chuck it all for a while. PGA golfers ain’t immune. Don’t let the lavish prize money fool you. With crushing expectations and public glare, even leaderboarders flee on a Tiger Woods time-out occasionally.

A quick look at who’s been hiring in the retail sector. Canucks are on a shopping spree! Retail sales average $50 billion+ monthly cross Canada. There are nearly 2,000,000 people with jobs in this sector. From Retail to Etail, Monster.ca’s got the postings you want. See who’s been hiring and what they’re looking for from you. Our Top Hirers Here are the retailers who posted the most jobs with us in July 2018. 1. Loblaw Companies Ltd 2. PETsMART 3. Hudson's Bay Company 4. IKEA 5. Home Depot 6. LIDS 7. Luxottica 8. Gap Inc. 9. 7-Eleven 10. Best Buy

Zapping your comfort zone to grow is fine. Just make sure you don’t cross the line. Want to commit career hari-kari, sans gut-ripping wound? Not a problem. Vocational self-immolation comes in lots of tasty flavours. Claim a fake degree on the resume. Blackmail your boss with incriminating photos. Keep ignoring the employer’s chain of command. No ceremonial dagger needed for these kinds of risks. They’ll pierce your progress just as sharply.

Marshalling your online following to foot your bills while transitioning is possible. But it’s probably not worth the effort. Hunting for a job when money’s tight is a pimp slap. It’s soul-wrenching enough to feel unmoored from your work identity. Add penny pinching and fear of going broke. Yeppers, job searching’s a hoot when wolves are at the door. How cool would it be to get financed on top of EI – without taking loans from granny, or from some skeeze at the pool hall? No vig to pay or debts to square. Use any bucks that trickle in to help defray living costs.

Seems like everyone wants to add “disrupter” to their resume. Measuring up’s no cakewalk. 77 million dollars over seven years. That’s the payday for John Tavares, Toronto Maple Leaf’s newest wonder boy. For a team that last won a Stanley Cup when Canada turned 100 (1967, over half a century ago!), disruption doesn’t come cheap. Your salary’s a pittance in comparison. Still, you fancy yourself a game changer too. Shaking things up. Stickhandling past dumbfounded defenders of “That’s not how we do things here.”

Pinpoint your competitive advantage, then power-drill it into the eyes of higher-ups. Your coworkers are smarter and harder working than you. Those who aren’t, sometimes go Machiavelli – backstabbing, sabotaging, swindling and kissing up. I’ve had to dive into that same swamp as an employee. I also found a legit way to make myself less disposable: find at least thing to contribute that leaves challengers begging for dregs.

Remember when Jimmy Kimmel’s "Mean Tweets" segment was an actual joke? Was it the muse for Twitter to unfold as the official platform for slander? The interpretation of free speech has taken on new meaning in the digital age.

A whole lot of us leave paid days off unused. Here are some useful tips for blowing your entire wad. We’re sadly a nation of nay-cationers. 93% of Canadians say vacations are essential to happiness, says a study. Less than half of that use their full entitlement.

The beautiful game has its own special language. See what the oddball terms mean in everyday work-speak. Hey hooligans. Lace up your boots (cleats) and cheer for football (soccer). It’s FIFA World Cup time! So whip out your vuvuzelas (noisemakers) and blow for your favourite team. Like any sport, the beautiful game has a unique jargon; Panenka, Nutmeg, Kit, Yellow card. Which, when you think about it, is kind of like office-speak: obscure words in place of common ones. Which is why we’ve devised a translator. You’ll learn lots and have a chuckle or two. Now get out there with your magic spray and play with the golden ball!