There are contracts for many things; home ownership, buying a car, opening a bank account, etc. Employment contracts are extremely important to the safety and stability of your career. There are many companies that still do not have new hires sign a written contract. The reason for this…? – Many employers like to have the flexibility to be able to fire whomever they believe is not performing efficiently without being bound by a contract.

Although many people believe that an offer letter is a good enough form of a contract since it usually states your salary and certain aspects of your job, this is not a binding contract and has many loop holes. It also does not cover ALL the aspects regarding your employment at the company.

Employment Contracts Work For Everyone Involved
Signing a contract is not just beneficial for the employee but also for the company that they are employed by. A contract makes sure that all the terms and conditions of your employment are what you thought they would be. By signing your employment contract, you and your employer are in agreement with the correct terms. Make sure you are to read your contract carefully so as to not overlook anything you may disagree with. A good contract ensures that promises made by the company to you will be kept.

What Should Your Employment Contract Include?

* The position you are being offered at that you have accepted (this may also be what some of your daily tasks will include).

* The salary (or compensation) that you have agreed upon with your employer.

* How long you will be employed for or if your employment is “at will” (this means you can quit at any time or be fired at any time that is not illegal).

* Other things that should be included are with regards to how much sick and vacation time you will receive, what paid holidays you get off, etc.

* There may be other terms/conditions that your employer may include…make sure to review all of these!

Who Signs the Contract?
Both you and your employer should sign the contract after you have reviewed it to make sure everything is correct. Afterwards, make sure you keep a copy of your contract in a safe place in case any problems arise regarding your employment (this should be done with any important paper work).

Employment contracts are important to make any disputes or controversies run more smoothly. You don’t want to get caught in a nasty legal battle with your employer in case anything regarding your employment changes. An employment contract helps to smooth out many wrinkles that can occur with your career since your income is such an important part of your life.

Most importantly, make sure to review the entire contract before signing! Although you may trust your employer and think everything is correct, you want to be sure that you are not signing to anything that you may not agree to in the long-run.

If any changes are to be made to your contract, there must be a re-negotiation between yourself and your employer and a new (revised) contract must be signed.

Check out our Career Groups on Geezeo to look for any other questions that you may need answering!

Photo: Dave Wicks

Who wants to be a millionaire? Just about everybody. But only a small percentage of people ever get there. You’ll find out why in Seth Godin’s book ‘The Dip’, a fabulous read for entrepreneurs and intrapeneurs. ‘The Dip’ is written from a business perspective but the concepts Godin writes about can be applied to any area of your life to help you stay motivated and focused on your goals. A Dip can occur in business, relationships, a fitness routine, a diet, school, your career, and your finances.

The Dip is the place we all reach when our project, job, or relationship stops being fun and we can no longer coast forward on the energy of enthusiasm. The Dip is when it’s time to dig deep and work through the pain or boredom so we can reach the goals we’ve set for ourselves. The Dip is the point in time we are most likely to quit the journey. Although, according to Godin, quitting is a good thing if we learn to quit the right things at the right time.

He also talks about the dreaded Cul-de-sac. You’re in a Cul-de-sac when you work very hard only to end up in the same place again and again.

So what kinds of Dips do we face when trying to reach our financial goals? What’s the difference between those who beat the Dip and those who end up in a financial Cul-de-sac? And when is it a good idea to quit your current strategy when it comes to managing your money?

Clearly for most Americans living within our means is hard. If it was easy then the national savings rate would be high and 60% of us wouldn’t have credit card debt. Putting together a plan to save money and get out of debt can feel exciting and empowering in the beginning. Once reality sinks in though, reaching your goal can feel like chipping away at a glacier with an ice pick. That feeling of overwhelm is what makes us vulnerable to giving up. In fact there are whole industries built around telling you to spend more than you’ve earned. We’ve been very conditioned to think that whatever our problem, spending is the answer.

Beating the Dip financially means keeping your mind focused on a larger goal and avoiding behaviors that will put you in the Cul-de-sac. Have you ever rewarded yourself for saving with a new gadget or expensive shoes? Think it’s alright to charge a few things here and there since your balances are low again? If you answered yes to either then you might be on your way to a house in the Cul-de-sac. Assuming of course you can afford one.

Did you make a bad investment or a dumb move with your credit? Have the courage to face that and quit before it costs you too much. According to Godin, quitting when you’re on the wrong path allows you to free up time and money for finding the right path. If you know you’ve landed in a Cul-de-sac then quitting is absolutely vital. The critical lesson of the book however is recognizing when you’re in a Dip and not letting the pressure cause you to quit something of value. If you can keep the big picture in mind and not be distracted by temptation or ego then you can eventually achieve your goals, financial and otherwise.

Being a Geezeo user already gives you an edge over those who haven’t chosen to make their money a priority. We’ve got free tools and a whole community of people to help you get through your Dip. And we’ll all be here to applaud you on your first million so don’t quit!

Commit to your financial goals! Declare and share on the Geezeo goals page.

After having several second round interviews lately, I have decided that I stress out way too much! I am interviewing for Marketing jobs, so possibly this is different to Finance or other concentrations/industries…but I really feel as though I stress too much! Many times during interviews, I go in there thinking ‘oh man, these people are just gonna grill me!’…but really, that is never the case (at least in my experience). Interviews that I have been in are always more like conversations — not just hammering you with questions!

Here’s a list of the top 5 things I have learned lately:

1. Don’t over analyze things – After attending a second round interview in Dallas this past Thursday, I was sitting in a room with a bunch of other candidates. And FOR ONCE I wasn’t the most stressed out person in the room. Somehow (and don’t ask me how because this was an analytical interview where I had to analyze spreadsheets, etc.) I had been able to calm myself down and not freak myself out. But one girl was overanalyzing everything possible to the point that she was almost in tears! This isn’t necessary! I promise usually the people that interview you are EXTREMELY nice and laid back (once again, at least thats what I have experienced). Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not saying that they don’t take the interview seriously, but most aren’t trying to screw you up!

2. Don’t memorize your answers — I know there are the basic questions that people always ask; “what is the biggest risk you have taken?” ~ “What is your biggest weakness and strength?” The list goes on and on! But, memorized answers sound just like that…rehersed and not natural! You don’t want this to be the case. Although you should prepare, you really want them to think that you can think on your toes and come up with answers without the memorization part.

3. Dress the part — Although a job you are interviewing for may be a ‘business casual’ work environment…it is much better to overdress than to underdress! You want to make a good impression and look as professional as you can! If you feel you are WAY too overdressed, at least you could always take off your suit jacket. This impression is important, the company wants to be sure that you will be able to represent them well!

4. Know your resume — Most of the interviews I have been in, the questions come right from your resume! Although you may think you know your resume, just make sure to review it the night before. I know many people who had made their resume 6 months ago and have just forgotten what they said on there. It’s so simple and quick and will just refresh your memory!

5. Bring Band-Aids! — This is mainly for the girls, but I’m really not kidding! If you have a long day in heels and aren’t sure how much you will be walking/moving around at the interviews, just make sure to have Band-Aids! At least for me this became true lately and I was so happy that I had thrown a few in my bag! Better to be safe than sorry is for sure…you don’t want to be in pain all day long!

Just remember, they have chosen you because they think you are good enough for an interview just from your resume! A single piece of paper got you there, now you have to prove yourself! Relax, breathe, prepare/research and just remember…they thought you were good enough, now you have to believe it too!

Before you can make money, you need a job right? I have found that interviews are one of the most stressful and frustrating processes that you have to go through. I am currently looking for a job for when I graduate in May, and I constantly find myself stressing about an upcoming interview that the company has not even offered me yet.

So, I was online looking for ways to either improve my interviewing skills, or to make sure I do the right thing during my interview and don’t have the chance to mess up! I found this article at YoungMoney and found it really interesting. The article tells me “10 Ways to Blow the Interview” and I thought that this is definately what I need. It offers some great advice on how to avoid making the simple mistakes that many people make.

A few of the “Ways to Blow the Interview” they provide are:

You Arrive Late to an Interview — I’ve got this one covered. I am known for always being on time (and often early). But many people don’t take this seriously enough! Arriving 20 minutes early is MUCH better than 5 minutes late. Give yourself time to find the building the interview is in if you aren’t familiar with the area and also the floor that they are located on. You don’t want to stress yourself out with arriving late before the interview even begins!

You Don’t Ask Questions — Companies want to know that you are interested in them! Even if you have researched their company online and think you know enough about them, ask questions anyway! This lets the interviewer know that you are interested in working there and are willing to learn what they are all about.

You Trash Talk Your Former Employee – Don’t put the blame on other people and don’t make it seem like you left your job for wrong reasons! Make sure that the answers to the questions come off positive and not negative.

You Don’t Thank the Interviewer — This is huge! The person who interviewed you will look at you in a different light if you send them a thank you card. It’s important to them to know that you appreciated them meeting with you. At the end of every interview ask for their business card to make sure that you have all the follow up information that you need.

I thought all 10 of the “flaws” in the artcile were great. Be sure to check out the full article to know everything they have to offer! Not only does it give you ideas of what you do wrong, it also suggests what these flaws mean to the interviewer when they hear or see them. A job search is a really difficult and frustrating process…so you want to make sure that you are doing all you can once you get to the interview itself.

How much Coca-Cola do you drink? What is it worth to you in para-money?

I didn’t think I drank all that much until I started saving my “Coke Points”. You may know how this and similar programs work. You purchase something (airline tickets, drugstore items) — in this case diet Coke — and earn “points”. These points are redeemable for items and services.

In the book “Revolutionary Wealth” by Alvin and Heidi Toffler, arrangements such as these create a kind of secondary currency called “para-money”. Unlike regular money (which is fungible, meaning it can be spent on anything), para-money can only be spent on certain things.

About once a week I go to the deli downstairs and grab a Coke. I wouldn’t call this a heavy-use activity but my “Coke Points” are now plentiful enough for me to “buy” a few album’s worth of music. Yikes! What’s all that corn syrup and artificial-ness doing to my body?

This past week I’ve been traveling. I haven’t saved any “Coke Points” although I’ve had a few sodas.

Meanwhile, I had an interesting discussion with another artist. We were talking about bartering. We were talking about the assumption many people make that we would gladly accept X goods/services in exchange for our work. In fact, specifically we were talking about how people quickly assume we will make such trades yet would never think to ask (or assume it was even proper to ask!) other professionals to “trade”. I was saying that from my experiences bartering rarely works to both parties satisfaction. As a result, I’ve mostly stopped this practice.

But that got me thinking about “Coke Points”. Could a para-money system be developed for the arts that would be fair? I tried this once with Millionaire Artist Money (MAM). That didn’t really go anywhere, but it got me thinking again of alternative money systems.

Alternative money systems are great… except, of course, they don’t include the cold hard cash required for living. I can’t redeem my “Coke Points” for student loans! (Note to Coke: great idea!)

(Created the above graphic titled “Gates of Coke”…you decide what it means!)

This morning I got a call to return to a contract position at an ad agency where I worked last summer. I said no.

I used to believe that only creative types were aboard the Good Ship Freelance. From time to time we’d sail into port and work, and the rest of the time we were at sea. (Sometimes seasick, and sometimes flat out lost at sea…)

Financially, this lifestyle requires a different mindset and approach.

Now I am convinced that in the coming years everyone will in effect be a freelancer/entrepreneur/intrapreneur. What does this mean for you? Are you prepared to embrace the changes in the workforce? How will it impact you financially?

Here are 3 tips I’ve learned, and they aren’t the typical financial advice. Rather, some coping mechanisms. The choices you make will impact your financial comfort both short term and long-term.

1. Invest in your reputation first. In a mobile workforce you must aggressively build and protect your reputation. Your reputation is the greatest sales tool you have to differentiate yourself amongst your peers. Problem? You don’t control your reputation.

Your reputation rests solely in how other people perceive you. Therefore it becomes more critical than ever to:

* Do what you say you will do — when you said you’d do it.
* Treat everyone, every time, with respect — your work circles are smaller than you think!
* Be the kind of person people want to spend time with (and therefore, work with)
* Don’t be shy about actively crafting the image you want — the fact is, people judge you and pigeonhole you regardless. Help them put you in the right box.

2. Leverage your relationships. Most people talk about this in terms of figuring out how you can get someone else to help you out. Here’s the big secret: people are a lot more helpful when they know you’ve got their back, too. Actively help others without expecting anything in return. When you do, you store up social savings and these always have a way of paying out favorably.

3. Prepare Financially. In a topsy-turvy job environment you must be prepared. The two biggest items? Saving for the future and paying for health insurance. Everyone knows health insurance is wildly expensive if you are on your own. Investigate your options and do the best you can.

Do you work with or for a complete a**hole?

Not just someone temporarily in a bad mood. No, a real “piece of work”. A consistent, certifiable, bullying, demeaning a**hole.

How much does it cost you? How much does it cost your company? Here’s a great book to read on the topic that I am reading now: The No Asshole Rule by Robert I. Sutton. In one chapter Sutton breaks down the cost of one such employee: $160,000/year.

I’ve met a lot of ego jerk-offs working in the advertising and entertainment industries (it comes with the territory). Two in particular really stand out. One isn’t worth mentioning except to say that both sexes can demonstrate hateful behavior. The other is a pretty good story.

To set the scene: It was my first “real” job right out of college. I worked at a small advertising agency and was the youngest one on staff by about 10 years. The much-older owner of the company was abusive in every manner. For example, he would regularly include pornography in my work folder “as a joke” in addition to some other vile behavior too lengthy to mention. I put up with it because I was scared of him and scared of losing my first and only job. The breaking point was this: he shoved his hand up the front of my skirt during a client meeting. (Depending on who you ask, this was just prior to me quitting/getting fired).

There is a happy postscript, however:

One night years later and now living many states away, I had a very, very vivid dream. In it, this man came to me and asked forgiveness. He seemed sincere but in the dream I told him to go f— himself. In fact, I distinctly remember saying to him that I’d like see him burn in hell.

The next day around mid-day the phone rang. It was a friend of mine still living in the area. “Guess what?” she said with glee, “So-and-so had a massive heart attack and died last night! It’s all over the paper, do you want a clipping?!” Yes, in fact, I did want a clipping! I savored it for some time. If there is such a thing as hell, I’d like to think I had a hand in sending this a**hole to an eternal lake of fire.

But back to the initial question. What does an a**hole cost you? In purely fiscal terms?

For example: Had this not been my first job experience — would I have chosen to remain an employee (versus the freelancer/contractor I’ve since become)? And if I had stayed an employee, would my personal financial rewards now be greater? (Yes, perhaps. But it’s a choice I don’t regret).

Bottom line: if an a**hole in your life is costing you more than money and more than your self-esteem: get out! Your money is important. But so is your self-worth!

May you never encounter a true a**hole in business, and may you never become one yourself!

What are purple cows? How can they improve my finances?

Okay, in some crowds I’m the last to read the book “The Purple Cow” by Seth Godin. But until recently those crowds didn’t include me, as I (foolishly!) didn’t identify myself as a “business type”… despite, you know…. being in business.

A “purple cow” by his definition is a service or product that is so distinctive and unique that it has unfair advantage. Why? Because people want to talk about it. People pay attention to purple cows.

But it gets better. Creating/being a purple cow isn’t really optional anymore. People don’t pay attention because there is too much competing for attention. If you want to stand out and succeed, you — and your creative output — have to be visibly different, unique, and advantageous.

Have a cow, man.

This got me thinking about my own product/service offerings as a designer. If you’re a similar creative sort, ask yourself: What sets me apart? I used to think, well, my work! That’s enough! But is it? Could I be doing a better job of delivering it, or a better job of marketing myself to only a certain set of people? Or limiting myself to producing only certain creative widgets… but not have that influence their creation too much? How powerfully could that impact my finances for good?

Even as an employee, one has to distinguish oneself as a purple cow. If not, how will anyone really notice your contributions? Different IS better!

Finally, it got me thinking about what attracted me to Geezeo. (Brace yourself, this is going to sound like some a**-kissing.) What I liked about Geezeo when I found it was that it was the first financial product service that laid things out for me in a visually pleasing way. Being a bit of a snob in this department, I liked this. Moreover, they had a distinctively different attitude. IMHO, Geezeo has a purple cow: a great look and attitude….something long overdue when it comes to discussing and learning about personal finance.

So, as they say in business: the “take away” — (and I always thought this meant food):

Different is best. Your moo-ney depends on it. And I’d add, life in general is enhanced by “different”, too.

The Geezeo team is continuing to build a strong network of Brand Executives. We are represented primarily around New England, but as Geezeo gets closer to launch, we have plans to branch out nationally. Every day more resumes are submitted and more students are excited about potentially working with our innovative company and amazing team.

This week we are welcoming three more Brand Executives!

Katherine Wu

Boston University, Graduating May ‘10

Major: Business Administration

Katherine is an active member of the Student Union, American Marketing Association, Entrepreneurship Club, and is the secretary of the Academic Affairs Committee. She has also participated in various social groups in her home state of California, and worked at a financial company last summer. Katherine is full of energy and a pure pleasure to be around!

Florence Zagrunzny

Boston University, Graduating May ‘10

Major: Business Administration

Florence “Flora” is the Chief Financial Officer of BU’s Entrepreneurship Club, the Treasurer of the Russian Cultural Society, a member of the Fashion and Retail Association, and a reoccurring name on the Dean’s List. Flora has already amazed us with her enthusiasm and excitement for Geezeo with her recent trip to Florida campuses, her plans to promote the site in New York and Boston, and with her creative marketing campaigns. Wow!

Jana Zislis

Babson College (Natick, MA), Graduating May ‘08

Major: Business Management

Concentration: Marketing & Management

Jana is an extremely busy socialite on campus as a member of the Campus Activity Board (Promotions Chair ‘05-’06), Personnel Chair of the Chi Omega Fraternity, Chair on the Pan-Hellenic Association, and member of the Babson Russian Club. Jana’s extensive “real world” marketing experience coupled with her outgoing and friendly demeanor makes her a perfect fit for the Geezeo team!

Great Job Team!

We’re very excited to introduce the newest members of our team, the Brand Executives!

The Brand Executives manage and recruit a group of Brand Ambassadors, help with product and market strategy, build brand awareness on their campus, become an integral part of product/feature development, take part in promotional events on and off their campus, sponsor and plan their own Geezeo endorsed events, and are active bloggers. They are extremely important to the team, and we can’t wait to see what ideas they come up with next!

Ilana Brown

University of Rhode Island, Graduating May 2008

Majors: Human Development and Family Studies, Business Administration/Management

Ilana is very involved with student life at URI and knows many people in different organizations and groups throughout the campus. She has experience with marketing and promoting another start-up company, and has had much success building brand awareness. Ilana is a great addition to our team!

Chris Feo

University of Rhode Island, Graduating May 2008

Major: Communication Studies

Chris has previous experience in sales, marketing, promotions, and finance. Chris has been the top sales person at his previous company, and has a vast student network. Not only is he professional, but also a very fun and outgoing person who is ready to try some new and innovative marketing strategies at URI!

Hannah Waters

Boston University, Graduating May 2008

Major: Business Administration, Concentration in Marketing

Hannah is part of the American Marketing Association and has worked with various marketing techniques. She also has experience in finance and customer service. Hannah’s going to use her bubbly and outgoing personality to get the Geezeo buzz going to her large network of friends and BU students.

Welcome to the Geezeo Team!