By DAVID REILLY

It’s a case of when, not if. At least, that is the market’s thinking on the Federal Reserve again buying more bonds to boost the economy.

But the unanswered question remains: Having failed so far to significantly reduce unemployment through previous extraordinary actions, can or should the Fed continue trying?

Certainly, revised economic projections released by the Fed following its two-day meeting, as well as comments from Chairman Ben Bernanke, seemed to lay the groundwork for further easing. The Fed now expects unemployment to be between 7.8% and 8.2% in 2013, compared with a forecast in June of 7% to 7.5%. It also released 2014 projections, which showed joblessness at 6.8% to 7.7%. Meanwhile, economic growth in 2012 is likely to come in between 2.5% to 2.9%, a far cry from the 3.3% to 3.7% expected in June.

So while inflation looks to be under control, things are “very unsatisfactory in terms of the rate of growth and unemployment,” Mr. Bernanke said. He also said that given that the moribund housing sector is “a big reason the economy is not recovering more quickly,” purchases of mortgage securities are a viable option for the Fed.

This prompted many to ask why the Fed didn’t just pull the trigger now. Indeed, Wednesday’s Fed statement saw one dove, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, dissent over a lack of such action.

But there were good reasons for the Fed to hold its fire. The economy is growing, albeit not at a rate the Fed would like, and deflation isn’t an imminent risk. As recently as August, the Fed took the unprecedented move of saying it would keep short-term interest rates zero-bound until mid-2013; in September it moved to bring down long-term rates by shifting its holdings of Treasurys to longer-dated securities. So it was time for a pause, to see what impact those unconventional moves have.

The Fed may have also wanted to keep its powder dry as it waits to see how Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis plays out. And as it watches the possibility that deficit battles in the U.S. could lead to spending cuts that act as economic drags.

A bigger reason for hesitancy may be that the Fed is uncertain as to how much extreme monetary policy can directly influence unemployment. True, the Fed’s prior actions appear to have staved off the threat of deflation and helped arrest the collapse of the housing market.

But even as the Fed has expanded its balance sheet to about $2.8 trillion through purchases of mortgage bonds and Treasurys, unemployment has remained stuck above 9%. And while the Fed has helped through its latest actions to bring mortgage rates down to about 4%, this isn’t yet proving a tonic for housing.

So for now, wait-and-see is warranted. Though the Fed’s trigger finger will remain itchy, especially if stock markets again swoon.

The U.S. Department of Labor issued one of its better jobs reports this morning, showing job growth in September was better than what economists expected, and revising upward its zero growth August numbers. The monthly employment report also showed improvement in hourly earnings large enough to offset the loss in August.

American non-farm payrolls grew by 103,000 jobs last month and by 57,000 jobs in August. The Labor Department also revised up its July jobs numbers from 85,000 to 127,000. Economists predicted September’s number would come in closer to 60,000.

Certainly a positive, the numbers weren’t enough to make a dent in the ranks of the unemployed, leaving the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent. It has hovered there since April.

A big part of the September increase in the jobs count was due to the return to work of some 45,000 Verizon employees who were on strike in August. Even so, the jobs report showed the private sector added 92,000 after accounting for the returning strikers.

Job growth was strongest in healthcare, which added 44,000 positions; construction grew by 26,000; and, retailers added 13,600. The professional and technical category increased by 48,000 jobs, fueled largely by increases in IT, management, accounting, and technical services. Staffing and related services added almost 24,000 jobs.

Government was the biggest loser as it has been for months, shedding 34,000 jobs in September, while manufacturing cut 13,000 positions.

The report showed little appetite in the private sector for aggressive hiring. Since April, the Labor Department pointed out, monthly job growth has averaged 72,000 positions. In the seven months prior, the average was 161,000.

“Given the complete lack of clarity as to what the economic outlook will be and the uncertainty about what’s going on in Europe and the political paralysis in Washington,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief economist at the Economic Outlook Group, “there is not much of an economic justification for employers to suddenly ramp up hiring.”

The indices included in the chart accompanying this post all point to tepid improvement. The Monster Employment Index is up over last year, but only by 7 percent. And it has barely budged since April.

According to the Labor Department, there are 14 million Americans out of work. A year ago, 14.7 million were out of work. Another 9.3 million are underemployed, working part-time jobs because they can’t find other work. That was a jump of 450,000 since August. A year ago in September, there were 9.5 million underemployed workers.

In addition, 2.5 million are out of work and want a job, but didn’t fit the criteria to be counted as officially unemployed. That number is virtually unchanged since September 2010.

Said John Challenger, CEO of the global outplacement firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, “The alternative measure of unemployment, which takes into account people who have stopped looking for work, but still want a job, as well as those working part-time because full-time work is unavailable, increased to 16.5 percent. That figure has been on the rise from a recent low of 15.8 percent in May. ”

Even the 4-cent-an-hour increase in average hourly payrolls, better than a decrease to be sure, just covers the 4-cent hourly decrease reported for August. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.9 percent, the Labor Department reported.

By JOSEPH WALKER
The application process for millions of job hunters will soon be simplified — as long as they’re on LinkedIn, that is.

Yesterday, the professional networking site announced a partnership with Taleo, the country’s largest job applicant tracking system provider, to allow job seekers to auto-fill basic biographical and professional history information from their LinkedIn profile into online job applications.

Taleo powers the careers pages of about 5,000 companies, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and United Airlines. Job seekers applying with those companies will soon see that they can use their LinkedIn information to fill out job applications. Applicants already have the option of auto-filling information from the Taleo “Universal Profile” service. Users will still be able to manually fill in their data, or upload their resumes on Taleo-powered sites.

The LinkedIn option will be available with the next updated version of Taleo’s enterprise software on September 23. Each company will have the option of displaying the LinkedIn tool and Taleo expects a high percentage of them to do so, said Karl Ederle, the company’s vice president of product strategy.

“We want to make it easier for candidates to apply for jobs and remove the friction in the process,” Ederle said. “We realize that now people are digitizing their profiles, and LinkedIn has critical mass.”

As of August 4th, LinkedIn says it has 120 million users.

Taleo currently has 26% of market share by revenue in the applicant tracking system sector, according to research from Bersin & Associates, a human resources consulting firm. The company’s software also analyzes the data it collects from applicants, and ranks the applicants based on their qualifications. Competitors Oracle and Kenexa have 11% and 7% of the market, respectively. According to LinkedIn’s site, Kenexa has a similar partnership with the professional networking company.

“This is going to change the way people apply for jobs,” said Katherine Jones, an analyst at Bersin. “It takes hours, in some cases, to go through these applications online and it’s usually pretty painful. This is much faster and more economical.”

LinkedIn launched a similar feature with its “Apply with LinkedIn” widget in July. Companies like Netflix and LivingSocial have adopted the widget, which is free. The button on Taleo career sites won’t be branded as “Apply with LinkedIn,” but will be effectively the same, Ederle said.

LinkedIn declined to describe the financial terms of the agreement.

By RUTH MANTELL

And you thought vandalizing your high school’s drama club room wouldn’t haunt you in adulthood.

As it turns out, your childhood misdeeds, along with whether you care about someone else’s bad day and how much you read, may have an impact on how a prospective employer views you.

To get a read on applicants, more employers are using pre-hire assessments, which can check personality, cognitive ability and competency, among other areas. About 56% of companies are using some sort of assessment tool as part of the hiring process this year, up from 48% in 2010, according to Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based research firm.

Proponents say assessments are a relatively low-cost tool to increase the odds of finding a good match. “Culture fit is an absolutely critical determinant of longer-term fit, and not easy to discern in an interview,” says Jay Gaines, chief executive of Jay Gaines & Co., a New York executive search firm. “There are some short psychological tests that might provide reinforcement and support to observations we might make on candidates.”

While senior-level workers may face in-depth assessments, workers at any level should be prepared to face an assessment. For instance, since August 2010, all applicants to Bethlehem, Pa.-based St. Luke’s Hospital & Health Network have been taking an assessment that aims to pinpoint, among other things, an applicant’s attitude about customer service.

Here’s what job seekers should know about personality assessments and other hiring screens.

Honesty is the best policy. It might be tempting to fudge assessment answers to sound perkier, more honest or more diligent than you really are. But some assessments contain scales to detect such misrepresentations.

“When people try to fake, they try to fake in very characteristic ways, and it’s really easy to tell when someone is trying to game the test,” says Robert Hogan, president of Hogan Assessment Systems, a Tulsa, Okla.-based personality assessment and consulting firm.

Job applicants taking assessments may try to predict what the company is looking for and develop a profile they think fits the bill for a good candidate. Others may check the box on the positive end of the scale for every question — a pattern that employers may look for.

“Sometimes companies will put in a kind of nonsense question to make sure people are paying attention,” says John Hausknecht, associate professor of human-resource studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

Tests don’t have the final say. “Bombing” a personality assessment won’t necessarily lose you a job, experts say.

“For companies that manage their staffing system well, personality tests are going to be a small part of the process,” Mr. Hausknecht says. With assessments, “there is no one magic bullet that works for all people and all jobs. Personality tests might be combined with an interview, plus some kind of a work sample.”

Dana Landis, vice president for global search assessment with executive search firm Korn/Ferry International, says the firm has assessed almost 700,000 applicants over about 10 years. Rather than taking negative assessment results at face value, Korn/Ferry uses results to dig deeper, she says.

“We don’t want to ignore the results, but we also take them in context,” Ms. Landis says. “We often try to circle back to the candidate to ask follow-up questions.”

Assessment results generally don’t come into play until there is a short list of candidates. “When you get down to the last three, they tend to be really impressive, present well, have excellent track records,” Ms. Landis says. “But one of those people is a better fit than the others, and it’s at that point that we need the extra information.”

Charles Wardell, chief executive of Oak Brook, Ill.-based Witt/Kieffer, which specializes in executive searches for health education and nonprofits, says he treats assessments as another reference. “If you do very well on tests, I consider it a very good reference,” he says. “And if you don’t do well, I look at it as OK, not everybody gets 10 great references.”

They help applicants, too. While companies pay for assessment tests, applicants can reap some benefits.

“A personality assessment is like a two-way interview for the individual,” says Michael Anderson, senior research scientist at CPP, a Mountain View, Calif.-based provider of assessment tools. “If you feel you have to stretch your answers on an assessment, then maybe it’s not the position that’s best suited for you.” For example, while being conscientious might be helpful for most jobs, being extroverted may be predictive of success only for certain positions, he says.

Michael McDaniel, a human-resources and organizational-behavior professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, says applicants see certain tests as “fair” if they include questions that clearly relate to the job. He says these tests have “pretty good acceptance by applicants and are easier to explain to management.”

But Mr. McDaniel adds that “for those who have been out of school for a while, the thought of taking a test can make one anxious. No one likes the idea of being evaluated and being found not to be good enough.”

Accustomed to Updates, New Generation of Workers Craves Regular Feedback

By RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN

The status-update era is changing the annual performance review.

With many younger workers used to instant feedback—from text messages to Facebook and Twitter updates—annual reviews seem too few and far between. So companies are adopting quarterly, weekly or even daily feedback sessions.

Not surprisingly, Facebook Inc. exemplifies the trend. The social network’s 2,000 employees are encouraged to solicit and give small nuggets of feedback regularly, after meetings, presentations and projects. “You don’t have to schedule time with someone. It’s a 45-second conversation—’How did that go? What could be done better?” says Lori Goler, the Palo Alto, Calif., social-networking company’s vice president of human resources. More formal reviews happen twice a year.

For most companies, employee reviews are still an annual rite of passage. Some 51% of companies conduct formal performance reviews annually, while 41% of firms do semi-annual appraisals, according to a 2011 survey of 500 companies by the Corporate Executive Board Co., a research and advisory firm.

And increasing frequency may not make much of a difference if the performance appraisals are ineffective to begin with, say some. One academic review of more than 600 employee-feedback studies found that two-thirds of appraisals had zero or even negative effects on employee performance after the feedback was given. “Why is doing something stupid more often better than doing something stupid once a year?” asks Samuel A. Culbert, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles and the co-author of the book “Get Rid of the Performance Review!”

Some firms have found that the traditional once-a-year review is so flooded with information—appraising past performance, setting future goals, discussing pay—that workers have trouble absorbing it all, and instead dwell on criticism without really hearing constructive ways they can improve.

When Grasshopper LLC, was founded in 2003, the company conducted annual reviews. “We very quickly realized that it was impossible and foolish to sum up an entire year of someone’s work in one meeting,” says David Hauser, Grasshopper’s co-founder and chief technology officer. The Needham, Mass., company, which provides virtual phone systems, then moved to quarterly reviews, but found that employees would spend anywhere from four to eight hours at the end of each quarter preparing and writing their reviews, which seemed like a waste of time.

Now, every two weeks, managers and employees of the 50-person company meet one-on-one for 30 to 40 minutes to discuss issues big (“I want new job responsibilities”) or small (“Can I move my desk?”). They also discuss performance during the previous two weeks and set goals for the next period.

“Instead of these big scary meetings, there are frequent meetings with much less pressure,” says Mr. Hauser. Mistakes have been caught more quickly and tensions have decreased between employees and managers, he says.

The downside is that the biweekly meetings are time-intensive for managers, but Mr. Hauser says that being in regular communication with reports is part of a manager’s job.

Mike Morris, Grasshopper’s vice president of customer acquisition and retention, says he blocks out every other Wednesday afternoon to hold feedback meetings with his six direct reports.

At first, he says, employees were worried that the biweekly meetings would be punitive, but he stresses that they are really about providing feedback and setting goals. “I do think it took a little bit of adjustment,” says Mr. Morris. “There really isn’t anything in those discussions that comes out of left field. As a manager, I’ve tried hard to make sure that it becomes much more of a regular conversation, as opposed to a scary review.”

New software programs are also making it easier for workers and their managers to share instant praise and criticism.

Facebook uses Rypple, a program that resembles the social-networking site and allows workers to give each other real-time feedback (“stop interrupting customers” or “great presentation at the last meeting”). Users can “like” co-workers’ activities, solicit reactions to their work or reward colleagues with virtual “badges,” says Daniel Debow, co-CEO of Rypple, a Toronto-based firm. Twice a year, Facebook managers pull summaries of the feedback to discuss performance, pay and promotions, says Ms. Goler.

Some managers, though, think that even the annual review is too much. Paul Purcell, chairman, president and chief executive of Robert W. Baird & Co., a Milwaukee financial-services firm, says that for his 12 direct reports, he does formal reviews every two years. Most of the company does reviews annually. Doing reviews more often is “redundant,” he says. “You’re spending too much time filling out paperwork.”

By DENNIS NISHI

After working a full day at the stables of her horse transport and training business, Melissa Weiser heads to BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse.

But the 40-year-old from Los Angeles isn’t grabbing a drink with friends. She works evenings as a waitress to make up for the dip in her business and to get health insurance.

“I can be pretty exhausted by the end of the day,” she says, “but I manage by micromanaging every moment because I know I need to do both jobs well.” Ms. Weiser is one of 7.3 million Americans that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says hold more than one job simultaneously.

Although moonlighting sounds like a good way to earn extra income or make up for pay cuts, career experts say workers should think twice before taking on a second job. The additional load can increase job stress, lead to burnout and potentially jeopardize your day job. So it’s important to plan carefully and factor in time and expenses like commuting and child care.

Employees should review their employment agreement and handbook for rules about taking on a second job. Many companies have non-compete policies that prohibit working for competitors or require employees to get approval of outside work to ensure there’s no conflict of interest.

Salaried employees should also consider their “duty of loyalty,” a legal obligation to act in the interest of the employer, says Debra Katz, lead partner at Katz, Marshall & Banks, a Washington, D.C., law firm that specializes in employment law. You don’t want to give employers the impression that you’re always tired, late for work and less committed. “It gives employers grounds to say that your work is suffering and this can affect your employment status, pay and promotions,” she says.

Even if disclosure isn’t required, Ms. Katz advises being forthright about the second job to avoid future problems. Plus, an understanding boss can help make your juggle easier.

But be sure to keep the two jobs separate. Don’t work on outside projects while on company time, and don’t use any company resources for outside work. Both actions can get you sacked.

There also are tax considerations. “An increase in combined pay may put you into a higher tax bracket, but it will only be a percentage of what you make so you’ll almost always be better off financially,” says Robert Wilson, a certified public accountant and investment adviser at Wealthcare Capital Management in Richmond, Va. He recommends consulting a financial planner, who might, for instance, suggest that you claim fewer exemptions on the second job or request that an additional 2.5% to 5% of your gross pay be withheld for taxes.

Finally, don’t sacrifice adequate sleep or a healthy diet since you’re putting more demand on your body.

By SARAH MAX
Most weekday mornings David Herbert, 44, is out the door by 4:15 a.m., hoping to get a jump on the 74-mile slog from his home southwest of Olympia, Wash. to downtown Seattle.

Rather than fight traffic the entire way, the information technology manager drives 45 miles to Tacoma, boards the 5:35 a.m. train for the one-hour ride to King Street Station then takes a bus for the final 20 minutes of his commute to the office.

At his desk by 7:00 a.m., Mr. Herbert works a full eight-hour day before leaving to catch the 3:15 p.m. train to Tacoma. By the time he pulls back in his driveway around 6 p.m. he’ll have been in transit more than five hours – and that’s on a good day.

More than 3.2 million workers in the U.S., or about 2.4% of the nation’s workforce, travel more than 90 minutes to work each way, according to the latest data available from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. (According to the Bureau, any commute over one hour is considered extreme.)

Although the average commute hasn’t changed much in the past five years, in certain pockets, such as parts of Southern California and the New York metro area, the number of people with extreme commutes has increased, says Kate Lister, of the San Diego-based Telework Research Network.

“It used to be when you looked at Census data and saw that someone lived in Los Angeles and worked in San Francisco you assumed it was a mistake,” says Alan Pisarski, author of Commuting in America. “These days you cannot be sure.”

The economy, no doubt, is a big factor behind increased commutes: In many instances workers will go just about anywhere for a job, especially when selling the house and relocating isn’t an option for homeowners hamstrung by underwater mortgages.

Another factor is lifestyle. Employees who are working longer or returning to the workforce after retirement, suffer long commutes for the sake of kids who are well-established in schools or the desire to stay put in the family home.

Take James Walbridge. With his family firmly established in Lincoln, Neb., he flies across two times zones at least twice a month to get from his home to his office in San Francisco’s trendy South of Market district.

The president of Tekton Architecture and Artisan Builders Corporation moved to Lincoln in 2003 after meeting his future wife at a conference and “showing up on her doorstep.” The plan was to go back to San Francisco, but Lincoln grew on Mr. Walbridge. Eight years later the office is still six hours and a world away.

“When I’m in San Fran, I’m type A and in Nebraska I’m type B,” says Mr. Walbridge, who stays in a small studio in his San Francisco office and works 16-hour days for two weeks at a stretch. He’s often in good company. The firm’s other two architects commute to the office from Oregon and Washington about every two weeks. “We’re a very tightly run organization, but we’re flexible about how we’ve accommodated employees’ life choices,” he says.

Lifestyle choices aside, long commutes take their toll emotionally and physically. According to a 2010 Gallup Poll, long commutes are associated with health problems, such as high cholesterol, and recurring neck and back pain, as well as higher stress levels. What’s more, a study out earlier this year from Sweden’s Umeå University, showed that long commutes – 45 minutes or more – take their toll on marriage too, increasing the risk of divorce by a full 40%.

“This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life,” says Jill Pollack, who flies 3,000 miles between her home in West Hartford, Conn. and Vancouver about three times a month, eight months out of the year for her role as host of HGTV Canada’s makeover show “Consumed.”

While the time spent away from her husband and 3-year-old son takes the biggest toll, Ms. Pollack also doesn’t like to fly. “It dries your hair and your skin, and you’re surrounded by a bunch of sick people.”

Still, many road warriors argue that the benefits of living where they do outweigh the toll of the commute.

Mr. Herbert has no plans to change jobs or his address. “I live on two acres across the street from a federal wildlife reserve and the schools here are good,” says the father of four. “No matter where I work, I’ll always live here.”

By JOE LIGHT

More companies are trying to tap Facebook Inc.’s 750-million-plus user base to find new employees, threatening traditional job boards and competing with LinkedIn Corp., which has dominated the online professional networking arena.

Facebook’s use as a job-recruitment tool remains small, but its appeal may be growing. Some recruiters say they have all but eliminated their spending on job boards, which can charge a few hundred dollars per job posting, depending on volume. Others note that while LinkedIn contains a more comprehensive résumé database, candidates tend to value referrals from their connections on Facebook more.

The majority of social-media traffic to Waste Management Inc.’s careers website comes from Facebook, beating out LinkedIn, said Jenny DeVaughn, manager of social media and employment branding. The Houston-based environmental services company is currently trying to fill 1,500 positions—from software developers to garbage truck drivers.

In addition to posting jobs and videos of current employees on its Facebook page, the company has recruiters and other employees find user groups and join discussions.

When asked for comment, LinkedIn referred to its chief executive’s remarks from last week’s conference call to discuss earnings. During the call , CEO Jeff Weiner said users tell the company they want to keep their personal and professional networks separate.

Indeed, Jeff Vijungco, vice president of world-wide talent acquisition for Adobe Systems Inc., said that in focus groups, prospective job candidates were sharply averse to being contacted through Facebook for jobs.

“The antibodies kicked in pretty quickly. They thought it was very invasive,” he said. The company posts job openings on its Facebook page, but Mr. Vijungco said they have had more success finding employees through LinkedIn.

Facebook hires account for less than 1% of the total hires companies are making, according to Jobs2Web, which helps companies track the sources of candidates and hires.

But if current growth trends continue, Facebook could rival traditional job boards in 2012, said Jobs2Web analytics manager Phil Schrader.

Matt Mund, Monster.com’s vice president of product management, acknowledged that Facebook as a recruiting platform is growing rapidly. The company, which hosts a job board and other recruiter services, launched its own Facebook app, dubbed BeKnown, in June, and the application now has nearly 800,000 monthly users, according to AppData.com, a market research group. Over the next couple of weeks, the company plans to launch a program where companies can offer employees cash rewards for making referrals through the app.

“While I wish every company used Monster, social is a solution that many people are using,” he said.

As the number of job postings overall has bounced back from the depths of the recession, Monster’s core job postings businesses have benefited. Revenue in the second quarter at Monster Worldwide Inc. rose 25% to $270 million from the prior year.

LinkedIn’s revenue from company recruiters is also growing rapidly. In the second quarter, the company’s hiring solutions segment—which among other things helps recruiters search through their profile database for candidates—grew 170% to $58.6 million from the same quarter a year earlier.

Still, Facebook is making a dent. VMware Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif., cloud-computing company, hired its first full-time recruiter dedicated to working on social networks in November and is building a team of recruiters who will focus on social platforms. The company, which is hiring for about 1,200 positions, has cut back on the number of jobs it posts to job boards, said Will Staney, talent acquisition Web strategy manager.

While VMware still relies on LinkedIn to recruit higher-level executive talent, Mr. Staney said that Facebook users tend to spend more time on the service and are easier to reach than LinkedIn users. Since February, the number of monthly active users on its Facebook page more than tripled to 11,000, he said.

Beginning next week, the company also plans to pilot a new Facebook application that will allow them to search for candidates on BranchOut Inc.’s Facebook app which, similar to BeKnown, builds a professional networking layer on top of Facebook and has more than 2.6 million monthly users, according to AppData.com.

Candidates have been 50% more likely to apply to positions they found through Facebook than through other means, said Mr. Staney. “[Job boards] just blast it out. This is much more efficient and targeted,” he said.

While Silicon Valley start-ups race to outdo each other with increasingly generous and creative perks, more established companies in less popular locales are finding it tough to attract tech talent. High salaries and increased bonuses aren’t enough. The pressure is on to compete on fringe benefits.

“Hiring developers is the bane of my existence; it’s a tight market,” says Christa Foley, recruiting manager for Henderson, Nev.-based Zappos.com. “Vegas just doesn’t compete.” When recruiting, Ms. Foley’s team plays up the monthly computer programming events, themed mini-parades at product launches, an on-site free life coach and lack of dress code.

No longer a start-up—the shoe retailer was founded 10 years ago and employs 1,300 people—Zappos feels threatened by the latest tech hiring wave in the Bay Area and Seattle. “We’ve started targeting more Midwest [and] East Coast to try to attract folks just because there is so much opportunity” on the West Coast, says Ms. Foley.

The company has about 100 open technical positions ranging from IT to project management to mobile development and three full-time “technical recruiters,” Ms. Foley says. Last year it took up to six months to fill a technical opening whereas now it takes up to eight months, she says.

While unemployment remains high in the U.S. and most companies remain reluctant to hire, it’s a different world for tech professionals, including software developers, engineers and telecommunications specialists. According to a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics “demand for these workers will increase as organizations continue to upgrade their information technology capacity and incorporate the newest technologies.” Employers competing for these in-demand workers must figure out ways to stay appealing.

In Cary, N.C., SAS Institute Inc. offers a full roster of perks: racquetball courts, car detailing, even a subsidized summer camp for employees’ children. “The bottom line is we have under 4% turnover in an industry that’s seen closer to 20%,” says Jenn Man, vice president of human resources at the 35-year-old software maker. The company is less interested in offering employees the kinds of “cool” extras making headlines at a lot of start-ups and banking more on making its pitch as a family-friendly place to work.

A June survey at IT job site Dice.com found that 65% of nearly 900 hiring managers and recruiters anticipate hiring more technology professionals in the second half of 2011 than in the preceding six months. And according to a July study by human resources consulting firm Mercer LLC, 82% of IT companies increased spot cash bonuses, up from 77% in 2010 and 42% offered “aggressive” pay increases, up from 39%.

Perks can be less of a hit to a company’s bottom line. Many high-profile perks, like sponsored group sporting events, are “actually not expensive,” says Dave Van De Voort, a partner in Mercer’s human capital consulting business. “In total, if it’s 1% of payroll, it would be surprising—the reason is that not everybody participates.”

Later this month, Chesapeake Energy Corp., an Oklahoma City-based natural gas and oil producer, plans on opening an on-site child-care facility. This is added to a list of employee perks including its fitness center and health clinic and subsidized restaurants. On Wednesdays, employees can also head to the on-site farmer’s market.

The company, which has more than 11,700 employees, increasingly finds itself touting perks to nab hires.

One challenge is getting candidates to move to Oklahoma City—not a first choice for many in-demand engineers these days. “The thought of living [in Oklahoma City] at any point in the future never crossed my mind,” says Brian Donovan, who moved from New Jersey to be an engineer at Chesapeake Energy about a year ago. “But what they offer here is heads and tails above the other companies I was looking at.”

Unlike some start-ups, which push a 24-7 work lifestyle and offer perks like on-site meals, more established companies aim to attract more family-oriented employees. Recruiters play up seemingly less appealing locales by selling their cost of living.

“We have hired people from California, and it’s been a big plus for them to come here, no doubt,” says Brad Ramsey, vice president of engineering at 10-year-old NuStar Energy LP in San Antonio. “The cost of living is so much better here than it is there and in other places.”

NuStar’s benefits are generous even within the well-paying energy sector: The petroleum and asphalt transportation and storage company has a no-layoff policy, has an all-or-none bonus policy and offers use of the corporate jet for emergencies.

“It is a competitive marketplace for sure, and as a result [technical workers] are paid very well,” says Curt Anastasio, NuStar’s chief executive and president. “We have to pay them what the market demands to get them to come here—and we do. … You can have a really good quality of life here. …San Antonio is not a backwater.”

By DENNIS NISHI

After working for more than six years as manager of digital licensing for Warner Music Group in Burbank, Calif., Michael Locke, 34, felt like he wanted more. But there wasn’t much latitude for change within his job and department.

So Mr. Locke formulated a unique way to expand his role. He offered to represent unsigned and independent-label bands through Warner and promote them as a cheaper music licensing option for film, television and commercial deals.

His boss allowed Mr. Locke to work on the venture alongside his regular job and the new business grew quickly. A year later in 2007, he submitted a written plan to create a new division called Rhino Independent and was made director. He left Warner Music Group to start his own business three years later.

Everyone can relate to hitting a wall at work. Whether it’s feeling unchallenged or underappreciated, most of the reasons people get stuck in their role can be resolved with planning. But you must understand the nature of the problem and determine whether it’s a workplace issue, such as being topped out in the company, or a psychological impasse.

Shelly Curt, 41, got stuck while managing a casino restaurant in Reno, Nev. The trained sommelier was very good at her job so she was kept in a role that she felt underutilized her talents. So Ms. Curt volunteered for extra projects that went beyond her job description, including choosing wine and dessert pairings at events. Her managers were impressed by her knowledge and created a new job for her that involves developing the menu for seven restaurants and working at special events.

Start to formalize your personal-discovery process by writing an action plan that details how you are going to make a change. The idea is to acknowledge your problems, including those that may have become too painful to address like losing confidence in your abilities, says Timothy Butler, senior fellow at the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass., and author of “Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths.”

Also have a discussion with your boss and let him or her know that you are ready for more challenges. Be ready to answer some tough questions about why you’ve been stuck. “You’re going to have to change people’s opinions about you, which isn’t an easy thing to do if you have a bad or blah reputation,” says Stephen Xavier, CEO of Cornerstone Executive Development Group, an executive coaching firm in Chapel Hill, N.C. “It may require time and persistence so stick with it. Make it a long-term plan if you have to.”

Employees that get pigeonholed may find it difficult to move out of specific roles, which is why it helps to have a prepared transition plan — with replacement suggestions — when proposing job changes to management.