We’ve all heard the unemployment numbers, and we know that the job market in the States is a trial by fire for even the most accomplished professionals. And, according to President Obama, things are likely to get worse before they begin to get better. 

International unemployment rates are also expected to rise as part of a struggling global economy, but American workers may still have better luck finding jobs overseas. Many Americans are already outsourcing themselves to countries where they can afford to live on the strength of the dollar, where they can find satisfying work, and where they can reap the benefits of living in another culture. 

For decades, college students have been taking a year abroad to increase their understanding of the world, not to mention their joy at being a part of it. But why should this wonderful experience be limited to the beer-pong-in-the-hostel crowd? If you find yourself hurting for work, and ready to pack it all in, why not pack up and head abroad? 

Get by on a Smile …
 … and an open mind. College students are encouraged to take a year abroad because doing so advertises to potential employees that these young people possess a skill set that will make them successful anywhere in the world. Yes, it helps if you know the language, but you’ll learn that by being immersed in it once you’re there. What you’ll really need, both in and outside the good ol’ U.S. of A, are strong social skills that include the ability to work effectively with others and embrace diversity, and enough flexibility and adaptability to keep you thinking on your feet. 

They don’t teach this stuff in any classroom, which is why foreign travel has become a de facto resume requirement for the twenty-something set. Going abroad hones problem-solving and creativity, but also exposes the brain to new possibilities and scenarios. Remember that you’re competing with these recent college grads in the job market, so consider your time outside the U.S. as 21st century professional development; it’s what will keep you in the game, especially when the other players are twenty-somethings. 

If You’re Looking for a Career Move …
If, for whatever reason you’re considering a permanent move, but you don’t want to interrupt your career track to go abroad, there are ways to take your job with you. You might not have the exact job you have right now, and it might take a couple of years of planning, but it is doable to accomplish your career goals overseas, especially if you’re in particularly international fields like business or communications. 

The first step is to do your research. Are jobs in your field outsourced? Do you know which companies send workers abroad? Investigate trade publications for leads and chase them down. That way, when you propose a move to your boss, you’ll be armed with information. 

Also remember that certain areas in the United States outsource more jobs to specific areas. Debra Peters-Behrens, a career counselor at the University of California in Santa Barbara, encourages those who want to work abroad to build a strong starting point stateside. If you want to work in the Asian Pacific Rim, for example, you’ll have a better chance of doing so from Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco. For Latin America, consider relocating to Miami, Houston, or San Diego. And major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. do business all over the world. Sure, this is a little more complicated than simply packing your bag and jetting off, but it will really strengthen your chances of finding a steady job overseas. 

If You Just Need a Break …
Of course, you may not be able to find a job in the States as a starting point—that was the whole point of going abroad, right? If you need to get away fast, and make money doing it, you’ve got options. Again, take a lesson from the undergrads; there are plenty of opportunities to get them abroad for a year or so and keep them in cheap, local wine. Why not you, too? 

If you like kids, or if you’re not that into striking out totally on your own, consider finding a position as an au pair. Au pairs (literally, “living on equal terms”) are usually single women (sometimes men) between the ages of eighteen and thirty (or older!), who want a chance to study a foreign culture and language while living cheaply with an overseas family. Au pairs typically work in France, especially Paris, but they’re in huge demand all over the globe, thanks to parents who want their kids to learn English at a young age. The cons: you may have to put up with difficult kids, and you’re on call 24/7. The pros: the immersion will have you speaking fluently in no time, and living with a family will do a lot to combat the ex-pat loneliness. 

Teaching English abroad is also a great way to see the world, and there are tons of opportunities to do so with minimal training. Most programs require only a bachelor’s degree in any major, although candidates with TEFL or TESOL experience are usually allowed more flexibility in choosing their destination, and are paid more, too. The Peace Corps and Fulbright programs are also options, although you don’t need to be a part of these organizations to go abroad. The great thing about most teach-abroad programs is that they’ll usually take care of visa issues for you and offer you plenty of support while you’re out of the States. This is a better option for those who don’t have a particular destination in mind, however, since you can’t always have control over where in the world the program places you. (The greatest demand for English teachers is in Asia and Eastern Europe.) 

If You Need to Be Reminded That You Don’t Have It so Bad …
Frankly, you’re not going to make a mint by going abroad. You may have better luck finding a job and covering your basic expenses there than here, but unless you’re being sent over as an executive in a million-dollar company, living outside the United States is more about having a priceless experience than chasing cash. Why not help others as you gain your new, worldly perspective? Not only will you rack up those karma points, but you’ll remind yourself that, even if the job market is hard for you, other people in the world have things much harder.

Though there are many eco- and volun-tourism groups that wealthy travelers pay big bucks to arm themselves with dinner party stories about feeding cows in Guatemala, there are also plenty of reputable organizations, like Volunteer Abroad, that will provide you with room and board while you work. Several even offer you the possibility of deferring your student loans while with them (assuming you still have student loans). These programs vary from the summer work-camp style, for which you should apply in March through May, to the longer-term commitment of the Peace Corps and its fellows, for which you’ll need six to nine months to get through the application process. They require a little more planning and a lot more work, but in terms of having a structure and purpose abroad, as well as a chance to make a difference, overseas volunteer programs are the way to go. 

Build Your Resume, Build Your Life
Even if the whole recession thing blows over in a few months, going abroad now will give you a huge boost when employers do start hiring again. Not only will you have a resume greater than the Wall of China, but you’ll have gained a new outlook on why you’re even working in the first place. Regardless of whether you spend your time abroad harvesting organic produce in a third-world country or cutting the crusts off of little Maurice and Gigi’s croques monsieurs, you’ll still see far more of the world than you ever would from an unemployment office.

By Divine Caroline  writer Molly Mann.

At this point, we’ve all felt the effects of the recession. If you’re not one of the 14.8 million unemployed Americans, you at least know someone who is—and maybe you’re even romantically involved or live with that person. What to do if a partner loses his job? Read on for a significant other’s recession-survival guide.

What’s Mine Is Yours, Kinda

Yes, you want to support your partner during what is undoubtedly an emotionally fraught time, but your first priority has to be protecting your shared assets. And since he’s probably not thinking so clearly at the moment, this task unfortunately falls to you. Laura Lewis, author of Laid Off Now What?!? (The Recession Edition), provides a to-do list for handling the pink-slip aftermath.

First, your partner needs to get all the details of his severance package in writing. In particular, you want to know whether you are entitled to a COBRA health insurance plan. This will save you a lot of money and protect you—if you and he are married and you are a beneficiary of his plan—if you encounter any emergencies while your significant other is out of work.

Then he needs to hoof it to your state unemployment office (or Web site) and file immediately. Requirements vary from state to state, but he won’t be able to start collecting until he files an initial claim.

While he’s doing that, cancel all your automatic payments on joint accounts. You need to prioritize your spending, and you just may not be able to pay everything on time for the next few months. Besides, you don’t want any surprises when you look at your bank statements.

Once you’ve accomplished these tasks, sit down together and come up with an austerity budget for the period during which your partner will be out of work. Prioritize necessities (rent, food, utilities, etc.), determine what you can put off for the time being (bills that don’t have to be paid right now; maintenance projects that can wait a little longer), and cut out waste (new clothes you don’t need; trips that will have to wait until next year). Then make copies of this budget, post it all over your home, and stick to it.

The Recession Depression

This is what life is like when you have a job and your spouse or boyfriend doesn’t: You wake up every morning, take a shower, and head to work. He sits around all day in his underwear, eating Corn Pops, watching SpongeBob, and feeling sorry for himself. When you come home, tired and stressed out from your day, you resent him for getting to lie around doing nothing, and he feels guilty and emasculated.

It’s really a second honeymoon.

Prepare yourself for the above scenario. Encourage your guy to be proactive in his job search, but don’t push him too much, as you don’t want to send the message that you think he’s just lazy. A grieving process follows losing a job, just as there does in any loss, and your partner may need some time to think about things before moving forward.

The best way to strike a balance between being encouraging and being pushy is to remind your partner of all his best qualities that will help him find a new job. Any time he starts to get down on himself or has door after door slammed in his face, say something like, “Honey, I know the job market is tough right now, but I think your ability to lead a group really sets you apart.” (You should use whatever quality is most appropriate to your guy.) Including specific examples, like accomplishments from his previous jobs, or your shared experiences, makes this approach even more effective in boosting his self-esteem.

Also be prepared for the feelings of depression, worthlessness, and confusion that come with being laid off. He’ll be really prickly to be around, and you may not be able to help him past a certain point. If you find this is the case, suggest he see a therapist. You can contact your local hospital for help finding a mental-health specialist who will work with your insurance plan (or lack of one).

Stand by Your Man

These are hard times, but you and your partner can get through it with plenty of patience and perseverance on both sides. Make sure you have your financial ducks in a row, then support your man both emotionally and otherwise as he goes about searching for a new job. And don’t forget the big celebration when he comes home to tell you that he’ll finally be bringing home a paycheck again.

By Divine Caroline writer Molly Mann

During a phone conversation with a friend the other day, I uttered the phrase “I’ll shoot you an email tomorrow.” Shoot you an email? Who am I, a yuppie stockbroker from the early ’90s? Somehow, though I’m not technically a part of the corporate world, its ridiculous lingo has entered my vocabulary (albeit ten years behind everyone else). 

But “shoot” is where it ends, because most corporate jargon baffles me. Only in that world would phrases like “drill down” and “going granular” replace plain English. There are many confusing aspects of the business world, but with slang like this, it’s a wonder anything gets accomplished at all. 

1. Back-of-the-envelope: calculations made haphazardly or informally. “Jim’s giving me back-of-the-envelope numbers, but I need concrete, exact figures.” 

2. Bio break: a bathroom visit during business hours. “Sorry I’m late, guys. I had to take a bio break.” 

3. Bleeding-edge: a concept or trend that’s so innovative and new, it goes beyond being cutting-edge. “This idea’s so bleeding-edge, the other guys won’t be talking about it until next year.” 

4. Desk dive: the awkward bend to retrieve something that’s fallen or been placed underneath one’s desk. “When Jill dropped the almond under her desk, she sighed, adjusted her shirt and pants, and had to desk dive to retrieve it.” 

5. Disintermediate: to take out the middleman. “There are too many people involved in this project, so let’s disintermediate a few of them to make work flow more smoothly.” 

6. Drink from the fire hose: to take in too much information at once. “Sally drank from the fire hose with all those reports she read last night, so she can’t remember a thing.” 

7. Drill down: to examine carefully. “After lunch, let’s drill down on this case and figure out what’s going on.” 

8. Eat the frog: to finish a job you’ve been putting off because it’s annoying and/or frustrating. “I’ve been avoiding these TPS reports all week, but it’s time to eat the frog and get them off my desk.” 

9. Eating your own dog food: to test out your own products to understand their public reception. “Once employees ate their own dog food, they understood that it was time to go back to the drawing board.” 

10. Feature creep: adding on so many features to a product during its development stage that it becomes a jumbled mess. “The software started out great, but programmers feature-creeped, and now it’s full of bugs.” 

11. Going granular: going into extreme detail about a situation or product. “Ted, I don’t understand what you’re presenting. Can you go granular about it?” 

12. Hard stop: the predetermined end point of a meeting. “Jill has an appointment at two, so let’s make one thirty the hard stop.” 

13. Low-hanging fruit: goals that are attained effortlessly, or problems with clear, easy solutions. “Getting customers is easy at this point; they’re low-hanging fruit.” 

14. Monday morning quarterback: someone who passes judgment or gives a negative critique after something goes awry. “Phil claimed to disagree with my pitch only after the boss’s negative reaction. He’s such a Monday morning quarterback.” 

15. Out of pocket: a way of telling people you’ll be out of the office and/or unavailable for emails or phone calls. “Shoot out an office-wide email that says he’ll be out of pocket in Tahiti for the next week.” 

16. Pencil-whip: to fill out forms or submit reports with intentionally incorrect information. “Jan pencil-whipped all her tax information last year, so the IRS is all over her now.” 

17. Prairie dogging: the occurrence of heads popping up over cubicle dividers to check out something of interest going on nearby. “Everyone in the office prairie-dogged when someone walked by with a tray of cookies.” 

18. Rightsizing: a more polite way to say “laying off” or “firing.” “The company’s dealing with a huge profit loss right now, so rightsizing a few people’s the only way to stay afloat.” 

19. Skin in the game: to have money invested in something, usually business ventures. “If you want to make money in the stock market, you’ve got to put more skin in the game.” 

20. Stakeholdering: when someone tries to solicit support or endorsements for a new idea or project he or she’s come up with. “There goes Melissa, stakeholdering for her commercial storyboard, when all of us already said we like Adam’s better.” 

You’d think corporate jargon was created to minimize extra conversation and waste less time, but I can’t see how anyone can understand these terms without an initial explanation. It seems to me we’d all benefit from disintermediating these excess phrases; after all, going granular like this only leads to drinking fire water … or was that hosing down a fire? All this slang’s clearly too much for me to take. Time for a bio break!

By Divine Caroline writer Vicki Santillano

Women don’t necessarily want to work less. They just want more control over their hours.

That’s what career coach Nancy Collamer told me, and I think she’s right. DivineCaroline has profiled many career women for a regular feature called “My Gig.” A handful, mostly women working for themselves, have found that sought-after flexibility.

For wallpaper installer Elizabeth Johnson, flexibility means she has time to be an artist and take long vacations when the travel bug bites. For Jasmin Zorlu, a milliner, it means sleeping late occasionally. Children’s clothing designer Stephanie Scarpulla says one of the best things about her job is picking her daughters up from school every day at 3 p.m.

Meet these three woman and a few more with flexible jobs—and find out how they made it where they are.

Hat Designer: Jasmin Zorlu

Writer: Denise Vega

Self-employed Attorney: Kate Lyon

Wallpaper Installer: Elizabeth Johnson

Wedding Photographer: Andi Hatch

Children’s Clothing Designer: Stephanie Scarpulla

Author Caroline Wilbert is the Career and Money Editor at DivineCaroline.com.

The way that Ingraham attacked Meghan McCain isn’t pretty. It reinforces stereotypes that we wish didn’t exist and it distracts us from the real problem—that women today face real obstacles to attaining positions of power in all walks of life. Women should treat each other as compatriots, not just competition. As Tanenbaum says, “Competition between women serves only the status quo. And the status quo keeps us from gaining more power over our lives, our work, and our relationships.”

By Allison Ford, Divine Caroline  Staff Writer

I used to dread Sunday nights. Starting around 7 pm, I would begin to get a headache, an upset stomach, just a general disease emotionally, spiritually, and physically. My symptoms weren’t a result of something I ate or a side effect of any medication, they were a response to thinking about what I was going to have to face on Monday morning: a job that drained my spirit.

What awful job was I facing Monday through Friday? I was a fifth grade teacher. And I was a good teacher—I liked teaching, I liked helping people learn, I enjoyed seeing people grow in confidence and knowledge, and I loved being in the role of change agent. But with all the things I loved related to being a teacher—there were too many things on the flip side that just didn’t line up with my true values, desired work style, and passion. I felt stifled, with no opportunities to grow as I needed. At the end of the school year, I decided that I would not return to teaching. It was both a hard and easy decision at the same time. On one hand I knew that I couldn’t successfully live another year like doing the same thing. On the other hand, I considered how much time and money I had invested on the education and certification process. I had even relocated to a new state to begin my teaching career.

Since then, I have found myself at that crossroad a few more times, trying to decide whether to stay or go. Each decision required lots of careful reflection and exploration as to what my next move should be. As a coach, I have clients that find themselves at the same crossroad regardless of age, experience or income. In most cases they know it is time for a change—they just ignore the signs, choosing instead to struggle with depression, low self-esteem, self-pitying attitudes, and to employ unhealthy coping strategies. If you are at a crossroad, trying to validate the urge you feel to make a change, here are five signs to look for:

This article was originally published on Divine Caroline.