@replies

A Twitter update that begins with @username, appears publicly to followers and in a user's Replies tab on Twitter.

529 Savings Plan

A tax-advantaged investment vehicle designed to encourage saving for the future higher education expenses of a designated beneficiary. While most plans allow investors from out of state, there can be significant state tax advantages and other benefits, such as matching grant and scholarship opportunities, protection from creditors, and exemption from state financial aid calculations for investors who invest in 529 plans in their state of residence.

Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

When you submit a resume to most mid to large sized companies your resume will be filtered by a sophisticated HR database program called an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Long before a person lays their eyes on your well-crafted resume, the ATS will have sorted it by a variety of complex criteria as they match a job in question. Keywords play a major role in your resume finding its way to human eyes.

Baby Boom Generation

The Baby Boom generation consists of people born during the middle part of the 20th century, after WWII, who fall roughly between the ages of their mid forties to mid sixties.

Behavioral Interviews

A behavioral interview is based on open-ended questions that require more than a "yes" or "no" answer. The questions relate to how the candidate was instrumental in bringing a work situation to a successful conclusion.

Chronological Resume

A resume that shows career information by date, with the most recent first.

COGS

An accounting acronym for Cost of Goods Sold. The direct costs of the production of the goods sold by a company. It includes materials and direct labor costs, but excludes distribution and sales force costs. COGS appears on the income statement and can be deducted from revenue to calculate a company's gross margin. (Source: Investopedia.com)

Cold Company

A company that is not actively hiring.

Colocated

When two or more entities are placed close together, so as to share common facilities.

Compound Interest

Interest that accrues on the initial principal and the accumulated interest of a principal deposit, loan or debt. Compounding of interest allows a principal amount to grow at a faster rate than simple interest, which is calculated as a percentage of only the principal amount. (Source: Investopedia.com)

Contingency Recruiting

Contingency recruiting is a type of hiring practice, where outside companies screen and evaluate the best candidates for a certain position. Unlike a contract recruiter who receives a flat fee for services, contingency recruiting firms are paid upon the successful hiring of a proposed job applicant.

Creator

A practice, also known as online vetting, that is increasingly being used by potential employers and other acquaintances to research people's online presence or "internet reputation" on social network services such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, and LinkedIn. Employers may check profiles, posts, and photographs for indications that the candidate is unsuitable.

Cyber-vetting

Those who have their own blog/website and upload video, music, or other content to the web. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Double Dip Recession

Also called a W-shaped recession. Occurs when the economy has a recession, emerges from the recession with a short period of growth, but quickly falls back into recession.

Ecopreneurs

Someone who starts their own business with a sustainable, "green" angle.

Elevator Speech

A 30-second description of yourself that you can deliver with confidence to each employer when you meet them.

Employment Branding

The image of your organization as a "great place to work" in the minds of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates, clients, customers and others). (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Factoring Agent

A third party factoring agent assumes the responsibility of accounts receivable by immediately paying a portion of the money owed and then collecting the remaining balances from the customers, keeping a percentage of each final payment. A factoring agent can speed up incoming cash, relieve some accounts receivable burdens and can streamline operations.

Follow

Choosing to receive another Twitter user's updates in your personal timeline.

Functional Resume

A resume that emphasizes skills and achievements.

Green Job

"A green-collar job is one that pays family-supporting wages, that produces products for Americans and that improves the environment," says Phil Angelides, Chairman of the Apollo Coalition - a group of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to reduce foreign oil dependency, cut carbon emissions and expand opportunities for American businesses and workers. According to Angelides, many green collar jobs are a re-make of blue and white collar ones, with a connection to sustainable products, services and ideas.

Guaranteed Issue Insurance Policy

A type of health insurance policy that is issued regardless of a person's medical condition(s). There is typically no individual underwriting and therefore no medical questions on the application.

Hashtag

A hashtag (shown as a pound symbol - #) is a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to tweets on Twitter. They were created to group similar data together and therefore make it easier to search for topics.

Impressions

The number of times that a banner ad is delivered or loaded into a web browser.

Interest Rate

The rate at which interest is paid by a borrower for the use of money that they borrow from a lender.

Job Share

An alternative work option/arrangement where two people share the responsibility of one full-time job.

Key Person Insurance

Also known as key employee insurance or key man insurance. An insurance policy taken out by a business to compensate that business for financial losses that would arise from the death or extended incapacity of the member of the business specified on the policy.

Keyword

Word(s) chosen by a user to find items within a database. In this case, a user would enter one or more words that are related to a job, industry, education level or company in order to get a search result with relevant jobs.

Keyword Searchable Resume Database

Allows users to perform a search with a tool to find items within a database. In this case, those items are resumes. When the user types one or more keywords into the tool and clicks "submit," a search result comes back. The search result provides all of the resumes that contain those keywords.

LOC

A line of credit (LOC) is an arrangement between a financial institution and a customer that establishes a maximum loan balance that the bank will permit the borrower to maintain. The borrower can draw down on the line of credit at any time, as long as he or she does not exceed the limit. Advantages: the money is there when you need it and interest is not usually charged on the part of the line of credit that is unused. (Source: Investopedia.com)

LinkedIn

Launched in 2003, LinkedIn.com has become the premier online networking site for professionals around the globe. LinkedIn provides easy, and mostly free, access to a wide variety of information about individuals and companies at the click of a mouse.

Locationless Job

A job that doesn't require you to stay in one location. Examples: sales, telecommuting positions, home health care jobs, construction work, jobs that require constant travel, jobs that enable you to work from home, etc.

LTE

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a standard for the wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals.

Mentoring Program

A program within a business that pairs new employees or interns with a senior sponsor or advisor in the same company. A mentoring program can be formal or informal, depending upon how the organization arranges it.

Odd Job

Unrelated or unspecified work, typically of a temporary nature.

Onboarding

Beyond orientation, onboarding describes the process of helping new employees become productive members of an organization, making the most of their "honeymoon" period. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Online Confidential Resume

A resume stored in an online database that omits contact and employer information to keep one's job search anonymous.

PageRank

PageRank is Google's proprietary link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weight to each indexed page on the web with the purpose to measure its relevant importance.

Personal Brand

The process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. While previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Principal

The original amount of a debt or investment on which interest is calculated.

Professional Organization

Usually a non-profit organization seeking to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession, and the public interest. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Project Planning

Project planning is part of project management, which relates to the use of schedules, such as Gantt charts, to plan and subsequently report progress within the project environment. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

QR Code

Abbreviated from Quick Response code. A type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) designed to be read by smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded may be text, a URL, or other data. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Real Time

Any updates in "real time" take effect immediately, showing up-to-the minute information.

Remote Workers

Remote workers perform the majority of their work from home or a satellite office. Many remote workers attend office meetings and/or work on-site on a regular or semi-regular basis.

Resume Tweet

A tweet that briefly describes your background, skills and career preference in 140 characters or less.

Retained Recruiter

Retained recruiters are "put on retainer," typically for a portion of the final fee they will earn if and when they complete the search successfully. High-end executive search firms get a retainer (up-front fee) to perform a specific search for a corporate officer or other senior executive position.

Retweet

When another Twitter user shares some or all of your Twitter post with their own Twitter followers or contacts.

RSS

Acronym for Real Simple Syndication. A family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works - such as blog entries, news headlines, audio and video - in a standardized format. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

SG&A

An accounting acronym for Selling, General and Administrative expenses.

Skills Assessments

Valid tests that are performed by a job candidate or employee to determine if that person has the appropriate skills for a job. Skills assessments can combine multiple subjects and skill levels as needed and are often administered via computer.

Social Media

Websites that allow users to upload/share web content easily for free or little cost.

Staff Up

The act of hiring and building up a team to its full potential and capacity.

Tax-deferred Account

A tax-deferred account allows you to postpone, or defer, paying taxes on earnings from the account.

TeamWisdom Philosophy

TeamWisdom, coined by author Christopher M. Avery, refers to all the individual mental skills and behaviors that lead to highly responsible and productive relationships at work.

Total Compensation

Earnings plus the cost of other benefits for labor.

Tweet

A brief Twitter post of 140 characters or less.

Tweetup

An event where Twitter users meet up in person to network and socialize.

Twitterers

People with Twitter accounts who use Twitter on a regular basis.

Web 2.0

Refers to the second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies. (Source: Wikipedia.org)

Wellness Program

Depending upon the organization, an employee wellness program can include fitness, recreation, social activities and programs to enhance physical, intellectual and spiritual development, benefiting the overall health of employees.