By Jeremy Derksen

The radio crackles through a swirling white deluge: “Thirty seconds.” Those are two words warning avalanche techs that a charge is about to be detonated. It’s routine procedure for ski resort avalanche control, but the risks would make most of us nervous.

“We’ve got unstable weather, remote locations…the destructive forces of nature. And on top of that, we’re handling explosives,” says Troy Leahey, an avalanche forecaster at Revelstoke Mountain Resort in British Columbia. “Risk is a combination of probability, consequence and timing. We mitigate that as much as we can, but working in the industry for a while we become comfortable with the risks.” An element of personal, along with professional, risk not only comes with Leahey’s job – recognizing how to work with it makes him good at what he does.

Most of us won’t face the physical challenges or life-threatening conditions Leahey faces, but taking professional risks can be a good thing. Our instinct is to avoid risk. After all, too much risk could jeopardize your job, pension and house. Widespread corporate risk has undone financial institutions and rocked the global economy

But avoiding risk is impossible and, it turns out, unwise. Without it, business stagnates, careers stall. “Risk aversion can prevent us from looking at opportunities as they arise,” says Michael Ungar, a sociology professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax. “As a result, we may jump too late rather than anticipate change.”

Why is shopping for shoes more fun for some people than shopping for groceries? Pscyhologists and economists have found that some purchasing decisions can buy a little slice of happiness. As Elizabeth Dunn, a University of British Columbia psychology professor told the Boston Globe, “Just because money doesn’t buy happiness doesn’t mean money cannot buy happiness. People just might be using it wrong.” The money that is.

In “Happiness: A Buyer’s Guide,” the Globe made the analogy that treating a friend (or colleague) to lunch will make you happier than buying a new outfit. “Splurging on a vacation,” the story continued, “makes us happy in a way that splurging on a car may not.”

A friend of mine once described a similar sentiment. “I prefer to buy experiences, not products.” (She’s a salesperson with a background in marketing, by the way.) Marketers have long picked up on this, selling the more complex, shiftier commodity of an experience for a premium. If you can make someone feel like they’re doing something good by upgrading the experience, all the better. And if you can hook they by giving them a taste of the experience – hence the neologism “trysuming” – your product, er, experience, is golden.

Happiness is everywhere these days. On mugs from Dollarama, in books (such as the new Happiness Project) and on the web (e.g. We Feel Fine). There are happy companies, happy cities and even a Happy Job Search. Tara Hunt, a Canadian social media expert working in San Francisco is even working on a book about happiness as a business model. And that’s not even getting into the niceness movement. As Slate blogger and Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin puts it, “Making people happy make people happy.” Now if only happiness grew on trees. U

This is the age of endless internships, job offers that evaporate just as you get ready to sign the contract, and constantly shifting networks. Finding a new opportunity is no longer about simply applying to a posting or only about meeting one key person (though it doesn’t hurt). Which means that job seekers need to bone up on their math skills and combine two or more strategies to make a move.

Black Bird Tees resume T-shirts, via Cool Blog

Twitter + LinkedIn

HOW IT ADDS UP Establish your personal brand on Twitter, tweeting about the industry you want to enter, then drive people to LinkedIn for the hard facts about your education and work experience. Also seek out the Twitter-based search engines like Twitter Job Search, a beta site that lets you refine your search by such parameters as location, salary, job description and tweet frequency. From our browse it looks good for people working in advertising, sales and management. Sample positions: Sales rep at Molson Canada in Toronto and finance clerk at Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Bonus: Looking international? Check out the nifty Google-powered Job Map widget.

+ How to Find a Job on Twitter, Mashable

+ LinkedIn: The secret to the online business network’s success, the Telegraph

Mentorship + Internships

HOW IT ADDS UP Finding a position is about who you know. But it’s also about what who you know knows. Follow? A mentor has made mistakes so you don’t have to. Pair that with an internship (or two) and you can bank work experience and a reference.

+ Deloitte Women’s Initiative for Leadership Learning, Alberta Venture

+ What to Look for in an Internship, Santa Clara University

Education + Volunteering

HOW IT ADDS UP School isn’t just for credit; it’s an opportunity to discover areas you’re interested in (and will likely succeed at) and make connections that take you beyond graduation. Volunteering in your area of education opens up your network, shows commitment to your field and might lead to your next job. One person from Ontario that we spoke with volunteered in a national organization with members across Canada, which put her in touch with her future boss, an entrepreneur in Western Canada looking for a second-in-command. U

+ LifeHappens: School, Unlimited

+ Online Education, Unlimited

At a showing of recently discovered films by the late Vancouver artist Kate Craig, I ran into a gang of girls who worked for Lululemon. I should have known. The screening, followed by a dance party, enforced a strict dress code of pink and leopard print all night. Lululemon design assistant Niamh McManus still managed to stand out from the crowd, hoisting a giant leopard print shoe that doubled as a seat over her shoulder.

VITALS: Niamh McManus, design assistant, Vancouver

Tell me about your job as a design assistant at Lululemon.
I work on the Run line. The line’s lead designer comes up with the direction for the season and I pull images and help create a theme. The lead designer then looks at all that trend info and decides what the direction is. Then we start production, and make samples and detailed technical drawings. After that, we collaborate with technical designers, pattern makers and product developers to create the final product.

Is working in fashion as competitive or glamorous as it seems?
There are a lot of people who want to be in the industry because of that perceived glamour. It’s hard for me to say because I was handed a good opportunity right out of school. Everyone works long days. It can’t be a nine-to-five job because you care – and that consumes your life. But I try not to think about the harder aspects of my job. One of my fears of working in fashion is the relentless pace. At the same time, you still have to squeeze creativity out. Creativity is delicate. I’m paranoid that if I’m not gentle with it, then one day it will just leave.

Getting hired out of school? That still happens?
I know a lot of people who have had a harder time than me. What I’m learning now is that design is only the tip of the iceberg in apparel. There’s not much room in fashion for designers compared to all the other people you need to create a product. For instance, there’s 17 of us on the design team at Lululemon. On the production side there’s around 60. I always thought during design school that starting my own line was my goal, but I think that I couldn’t be as successful if I had my own business straight out of school. There’s just too much to learn. U

Laura Trethewey is riding the train from Toronto to Vancouver and meeting regular Canadians along the way for our Job Training series. Every city she stops in she’ll ask one regular person about what they do for a living. Unlimited is posting the conversations on our interactive map.

At the Strathcona Farmers’ Market off Edmonton’s Whyte Avenue, I meet two volunteers from CJSR 88.5 FM, which is the University of Alberta’s campus radio station. After a mere 24 hours in Edmonton, I’ve heard a few people praise the station for its diverse programming and alternative news coverage. I was sure there was a brain running the show, and it turns out to belong to news director Samantha Power. Volunteers at the farmers’ market slip me her card.

VITALS: Samantha Power, news director, CJSR Radio, Edmonton

What does a radio news director do?
The station has a mandate to report on alternative, under-represented, marginalized and local communities. I train the news volunteers to do all the reporting, editing and production work themselves. I ensure that we’re covering a wide variety of issues: environmental, queer, feminist, arts, culture and politics. I also work with campus stations across the country and exchange local stories with them. On Fridays, I co-host a heavy metal music program and a news round up.

Do newbies expect to just grab a mic and start talking?
People sometimes come through the door and don’t understand that our volunteers create the whole story from beginning to end. They listen to the CBC and think “Yeah, I can do that,” but don’t realize that there may be five people working on one piece. A bigger challenge is training people in proper research skills and story collection. I feel a lot of responsibility to the community to report stories that represent what’s happening. And I feel responsibility to the volunteers, too. I want them to feel empowered covering that story.

How did you snag the only paying job at CJSR?
I’ll graduate next April with a BA. in political science and creative writing. I’ve always had a full-time job while I was getting my degree, so I can only do one course per semester. That’s put a real delay on my studies; I started in 2001. I volunteered for CJSR for five years and, during that time, I was also the vice-president, external relations and then the president for the student union. I got to know a lot of union organizers and political groups in the community; now I can direct volunteer reporters to the right reps.

What do you want to accomplish before you leave the CJSR’s World Domination Headquarters (aka the  Students’ Union Building) for good?
One goal is to set research guidelines for the news department. Community radio stations are often the last bastion of independent reporting, and 2010 is going to be an important year for Canada with the G8 Summit and the Winter Olympics. I don’t think community stations should ever try to compete with mainstream media – they should stick with their communities – but there will be huge opportunities for alternative reporting in the coming year. U

Laura Trethewey is riding the train from Toronto to Vancouver and meeting regular Canadians along the way for our Job Training series. Every city she stops in she’ll ask one regular person about what they do for a living. Unlimited is posting the conversations on our interactive map.

You look for stars. You look for the makeup of artists who can have long lasting careers and who could be headliners. – Clive Davis

The man who launched the careers of Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin, Patti Smith and Sean “Puffy” Combs could teach us all something about recruiting. He would probably concede, however, that finding great talent – whether you run a record label or a small business – isn’t what it used to be. Recruiting evolves, and fast. A decade ago, most companies posted ads in the newspaper, that soon-to-be-relic of a simpler time. Since then, a little thing called the internet (not to mention its social media offshoots) has changed the field of recruiting as much as it has changed the music industry. Predicting the future of recruitment is as difficult as predicting new ways that Kanye West can embarrass himself, but there are a few areas that job seekers and employers should watch in 2010.

Number #1: The Recovery

Thanks to the recession, prepare for the biggest movement of resources in recent memory. The latest economic forecasts suggest that Canada’s recovery, unlike the recovery in the U.S., will not be “jobless.” The sheer mass of unemployed, under-employed and others who have parked themselves in their current jobs to wait out the tough times mean that 2010 will still be an employer’s market.

That said, some companies will have turnover at levels they have never seen, let alone prepared for. The depth and scope of job cuts during the last 18 months means that the spike in turnover will be higher than other recent downturns. Forecasting when the turnover will peak is difficult, which means that employers should look at how to retain key staff – the ones holding the company together – so they have their strongest employee base when the recession is truly over. The good people are the first to move when times are tough.

Number #2: Look Long, Look Hard

Just because a recession is over doesn’t mean companies are going to spend more money to find people. Unlike the lavish spending in the early 2000s, access to capital will be tight – and the capital that is available will go toward projects that generate direct revenue. Some sectors such as healthcare and law enforcement require specific, highly trained workers, and companies in these areas will continue to recruit heavily. Most industries still don’t recognize recruiting as an integral long-term strategy to generate revenue, and this is unfortunate. Job seekers, therefore, will need to be able to prove their value upfront.

Number #3: Outsource This

As companies forego the overhead cost of rebuilding anaemic HR departments, the broader trend toward outsourcing and “projectization” will affect recruiting. Job seekers should look to third-party and virtual recruiters for opportunities, not just directly to potential employers.

Number #4: Social Media Rules

Just because you’re sick of hearing about social media doesn’t mean you can ignore it. Twitter has already become a great way to find positions. The traditional post-and-pray tactic – post the job and hope the right person finds it – is more and more replaced by the prey-and-sell method of headhunters. Recruiters have recognized the power new online tools give them to reach a wider talent pool of candidates who are not actively looking. In 2010, more employers will catch on to social media’s greatest contribution: building relationships with candidates. Job seekers, meanwhile, will need to make it part of their search strategy. Some fields such as marketing and communications, for instance, may require you to master social media platforms to position yourself as an expert in your field.

Number #5: It’s Not Just Who You Know

Posting positions will still be an efficient way of finding interesting candidates. There is no significant difference between posting a job opening on an online board now and posting it in a newspaper or employment office a decade ago. While general online job boards may become extinct, niche job boards aren’t going anywhere.

Number #6: Next-Generation Management

Like job seekers, the next step for recruiters is to adapt to new tools. These new tools will need to include ways to track not only candidates who have are actively seeking work and have, but potential candidates who may not even know they are being targeted. Recruiters will need to become part-time sleuthes, often working with little upfront information about people who aren’t actively looking for a new job.

Number #7: Mobile Recruiting

The final trend is more of a shot-in-the-dark: recruiters will be trying to reach more and more Gen X and Yers and the oldest of the Digital Generation where they live: on their smartphones. Who knows when – or if – companies will eventually accept job applications from your iPhone.

Monty Python Job Interview

After a few weeks into my first job at a Big Federal Government Agency after I graduated from university, I was bewildered by many aspects of office-tower life. The most confounding problem, the one that seemed to exist for no reason other than to Make My Life Feel Like Crap, was the powerful rumour mill. I tried to get my work done, keep my head down, make a Good Impression, but was distracted by a slippery, hungry nest of vipers. Specifically, vipers drawing on the blood of gossip that flowed in, around and over the flimsy walls of our cubicles, sparing no one.

Psssst, June who works in accounting is pregnant again and the boss is pissed off about the timing. Brian? He only has that job because someone else got sick and there was no one else to appoint. Who’s the mystery creep-o, the person using the colour printer after hours to run off porn photos? The silent collective finger of the Mill pointed at a middle manager. Then there was the worst speculation: Who has slept with the boss? One woman, who was confrontational and largely disliked, became the target – which to the Mill neatly explained why she wasn’t fired.

One day I’d had enough with this venomous gossip. I went for drinks after work with two office friends whose “what the hell?” glances and shared eye-rolls during meetings told me they were also fed up. A martini-fuelled pact emerged that night: we wouldn’t talk trash about each other or anyone else at the office. We decided to see what would happen if we Just Said No. It went like this: Someone tells me something about you that bothers me, I promise to talk about it with you instead of behind your back. Someone baits me with trash, I blankly say “Huh?” – as if I don’t know what they’re talking about. This wasn’t about being dumb. It was about playing dumb. That ignorant “huh” means that I don’t care. Find someone else to talk to, snake-mouth.

It’s funny when someone comes to you with a particularly dirty piece of gossip and you listen politely, then innocently mumble, “Huh?” and turn back to your computer. First you become the object of the gossip: something is wrong with her. The first accusation lobbed at me was that I was sleeping with the boss. Right, that’s why I was given a raise and the office with a window. It had nothing to do with, you know, my work. The Mill threw the best they had at me and it bounced right off. The rumour reached my two friends, who listened to this juicy bit of trash, then each responded with a flat “Huh?”

We had disrupted the channel! Plugged the flow of information! That is the beauty of opting out of workplace gossip. It didn’t matter if these people think I had slept with the boss (I didn’t, for the record.) because our pact operated under the premise “Who cares?” And people, over time, appeared not to care. For my two friends and me, the rumours might as well have not existed. I was safe and I could work unfettered by this crap, at least with two other people.

The best part of opting out was unexpected. See, we had allies ready to take the pact. They saw what we were doing and began to say “Huh?” too. Soon the real culprits emerged. Over the next 18 months, the no-gossip movement at our office reached a critical mass, and the gossipers became increasingly marginalized. The three remaining gossips had no one to talk trash to except each other. And the rest of us were free to get on with our work. U

Before there was Joss Whedon or Judd Apatow, Hughes was serving up highly palatable anti-heroes like the Breakfast Club’s John Bender or Pretty in Pink’s Duckie — or any of Molly Ringwald’s characters (even in Breakfast Club, we found something likeable in the transformation of Claire Standish). If high school in the ’80s actually looked like Freaks and Geeks, we wished it looked more like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. (And likely cut class to make it so.)

If Michael Jackson wrote the soundtrack for many of your lives, John Hughes wrote the screenplay for mine. Before Nick Hornby wrote High Fidelity, Pretty in Pink made “record store clerk” look like the coolest job in the world (it is). He also made it look cool to be smart, marginal, and weirdly dressed.

Thanks Mr. Hughes, especially for this:

Dancers burst out of a back room in a community hall, led by a tall woman in a long gold necklace, thick gold bracelet and gold earrings. They are cheerful, and cheerfully dressed: One wears a sleeveless blue dress the colour of an Alberta sky and another has on a bubblegum pink shirt; all wear bright knee-length purple aprons. As they ululate and dance their way to the tiny stage, a singer beats on an enormous blue bucket – a makeshift drum – and they sing, “I’m comfortable. The son of King is marrying a daughter of King. The song features in most weddings of the Dinka tribe, the largest in Southern Sudan.”

Sudanese-Canadians gather at a community centre in Edmonton

The crowd of roughly 200 couldn’t be further from Sudan, but the mood in this tiny hospital-white community centre, on Edmonton’s north end, borders on euphoria. It’s all part of a Sudanese wedding ceremony, one of many social gatherings of this small but robust community. Tonight they are honouring young women who were married off in traditional Dinka weddings. As much as the event celebrates those weddings, it serves another purpose: to present a positive example for a community that has seen a rise of “baby mamas.” Making sure a younger generation honours its traditions is especially important.

Outside the hall, three siblings – 35-year-old Apiu, 34-year-old Monica and 31-year-old Nyibol Jok – stand under the yellow light from the building. They joke around in Spanish as onlookers, who are more used to hearing Arabic or English, glance over curiously. Apiu, Monica and Nyibol are only three of the seven Jok siblings who came to Canada from Sudan via Cuba. They head back into the hall to join their other brother, 29-year-old Pac – who was recently laid off from his job in the oilfields in Fort McMurray – and the baby of the family, 24-year-old Achol. (The only Joks not here are Rosa, who is 37 and lives in Regina with her husband and three children, and the oldest, Benjamin, who is 40 and a doctor. Benjamin spent most of the winter working in Sudan with development efforts.)

The DJ plays music by the popular musician Nyankol Mathiang, as people parade in front of the stage, snapping their fingers, dancing sideways and singing loudly. Achol and Apiu jump in with the other younger guests when Sean Paul’s Shake that Thing and Lil Wayne’s Lollipop comes on. Generational differences go deeper than musical preferences, of course, as families like the Joks struggle with the twin challenges of honouring their traditions while their children embrace a very different life studying, working and now raising their own families in Canada. The younger Joks’ transition from school to work, to adulthood, has been shaped as much by a generational divide widened by geography as by their own coming of age. NEXT: The Jok family’s journey to Canada…

Get out your crayons and click on the first image below to see an illustrator’s homage to the customer service industry.