With the NBA playoffs in full gear, a lot of people wonder how they can get a NBA related job. While it’s not easy getting such a job, one exciting field that many don’t consider is refereeing. Becoming an NBA referee is a difficult task, but it’s possible if you have the dedication and the willingness to pay your dues.

The first thing you want to do if you want to become a basketball ref is to go to a referee school. There are a number of camps and clinics that provide beginner, intermediate and expert tips. ProBasketballRefs.com and Officiating.com are two very good resources if you are looking for camps or clinics in your area.

Once you learn the ropes, you will likely have to start at the bottom of the ladder. Many professional refs started out by refereeing rec leagues and church leagues – and oftentimes for little or no pay. Once you get comfortable with your refereeing skills, you can begin to climb the ladder.

The most difficult aspect of becoming a professional basketball ref is the dedication required. It usually takes years to climb up one step on the ladder. For example, if you are a ref in a rec league, it’ll likely take you a couple years to go to the high school level. Once you are at the high school level, it’ll take even more years before you move up to the college level. However, if you stay dedicated and you remain willing to learn your craft, there’s really no limit to what you can achieve on the basketball court as a referee.

And make sure you don’t take bets on games or you’ll end up like Tim Donaghy.

During the summer months, there are a lot of people looking for seasonal jobs. While a lot of these people are students who are off for the summer, there are a lot of other groups who look for seasonal work at that time of year. For example, educators who are off for the summer could look to make some extra cash. Retirees are also well represented during the summer months because there are a lot of seasonal jobs available that don’t require a long-tern commitment.

What are the best summer jobs? There are a lot of different fields that are hiring during the summer but not all gigs are created equally. The aspects to look for in a good summer job are a job that offers good flexibility, a low amount of stress and good pay.

One place to look for work is at hotels or resorts. During summer months, a lot of people are vacationing. That means hotels and resorts need to hire extra people to accommodate. Another place to look is amusement parks and water parks. Like hotels and resorts, amusement parks and water parks need seasonal workers to fill in during the summer months.

If you want a job where you are in control, consider starting your own lawn care business. You can charge people in your neighborhood to cut their grass and take care of their lawn. In the warm summer months, people are more open to paying for professional yard work. Additionally, you can open your own childcare operation that is specifically geared towards the summer months when kids are out of school.

The great thing about seasonal summer jobs is that if you don’t like the job, you can always move on and look for something better.

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Now isn’t a good time to be looking for jobs on Wall Street. If you have a Wall Street job, you’re probably worried about the status of your job. With the struggling economy of the United States, Wall Street has become a harder place to survive.

The main problem for Wall Street is people currently don’t have a lot of extra money for investment purposes. A few years ago, a family could dabble in the stock market and save money for a rainy day. Today, a lot of those same families have to spend every incoming penny just to stay afloat. To compound the affects of the struggling economy, rising energy costs and gas prices have put a pinch on a majority of families in the United States.

Wall Street related companies are making job cuts to try to make up for less business coming their way. This week Morgan Stanley got rid of 1,500 employees – most of the eliminated jobs were in the fields of asset management businesses, investment banking and trading.

Another company, Lehman Brothers, is expected to cut approximately 1,500 employees on Monday. After this latest round of cuts, Lehman Brothers would have eliminated about 6,500 jobs in the last year. Rumors also have JPMorgan Chase looking to make major job cuts.

If you are interested in working on Wall Street, you should wait until the economy turns around. Almost every economist believes that the economy will stabilize and recover at some point, which might even be in the not too distant future.

A recent report by Forbes found some interesting trends in the hourly job market. While some hourly jobs can end up paying quite well, there are some hourly jobs that aren’t so hot at the moment.

According to the report, the highest paying hourly job is a sales representative. Sales reps make about $28 per hour. Though the pay is good, a lot of sales rep say that the stress level is high, which results in a lot of turnover in this industry.

Other hourly jobs that pay well are administrative assistants, auto technicians and customer service representatives.

Those three professions average anywhere from $15 to $20. Many variables go into exactly how much someone should expect to earn in these lines of work, including experience and the state the job is in.

The most sought after hourly jobs are restaurant jobs. Being a waiter is a job that many people look into, however this line of work is famous for having an extremely high turnover rate.

What are the worst hourly jobs at the moment? With the down turn in the economy, construction workers and retail workers are losing jobs left and right. Since less and less people have disposable income, people aren’t building as much as they used to and they also aren’t shopping as much. Now isn’t the time to look for jobs in the construction field or the retail field.

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Recent studies show that the city of San Francisco added 10,000 new jobs in 2007 – many of which were high-paying technology jobs. San Francisco is quickly becoming one of the most technologically advanced places in the United States and many companies are opening offices within the city.

Among the companies that have recently added jobs in San Francisco are Yahoo and Google, which are arguably the two biggest and most powerful internet-based companies. Yahoo and Google opened offices in San Francisco to tap into the extremely savvy population of potential workers that call the city home.

While the economy is slowing job growth across the United States, that phenomenon isn’t as apparent in San Francisco. Due to San Francisco mostly relying on the steady technology field for their local economy, the city isn’t affected as much as other cities that rely on a broader array of fields.

If you are thinking about getting a job in the technology field, consider looking for jobs in San Francisco. However, keep in mind that San Francisco isn’t for everybody. While it’s true that the many high-paying jobs are available, the cost of living in San Francisco is also very high. Specifically, houses in San Francisco are notorious for being extremely expensive.

Be sure to calculate the increased cost of living if you plan to move to San Francisco for a job. The cost of living is high but depending on the specific job and the corresponding pay, it still might make sense for you to move.

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Over the last few months, Microsoft has tried to purchase ownership of Yahoo. Microsoft has wanted to acquire Yahoo to better compete with Google in the search engine industry. However, over the weekend, Yahoo turned down Microsoft’s final offer and Microsoft responded by removing their all their offers from the table.

Reportedly, Microsoft was offering $33 per share. Yahoo was holding out for $37 per share. $33 per share would have totaled approximately $50 billion. On Monday, after news that Microsoft pulled their offer, Yahoo’s stock began to dip severely. Yahoo’s stock was on the rise due to the expectation that Yahoo was going to bought by Microsoft.

The problem for Yahoo now will be employee morale. Many Yahoo employees have stock options that have become a lot less valuable in the last week. With the value dropping almost in half, there are reports of many frustrated Yahoo employees.

If you’ve ever wanted to work for Yahoo, now would be a good time to apply. Yahoo will likely be losing employees over this fiasco. And while Yahoo may have made a mistake in their dealings with Microsoft, they are still a very powerful company that has a good reputation of taking care of their employees.

Yahoo has offices around the world – from Atlanta to Bangalore to San Jose to Taipei. You can find more information about Yahoo jobs at Careers.Yahoo.com.

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As April came to an end, economists are projecting that the unemployment rate in the United States grew during the month. It is believed that the number of people who were fired or laid off is greater than the amount of new jobs that were created. Obviously, this isn’t good news for those with a job and it’s especially bad news for those looking for a job.

With the job market flooded with people out of work, it’s going to be more difficult to find jobs. Even if you find a job, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to make as much as you could have made a couple years ago.

Companies, like everyone else, are fearful of a recession. That alone will likely keep companies from spending freely.

“Businesses are getting very cautious,” Michael Gregory, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, told Bloomberg. “They’re going to wait to see consumers start coming back before you start to see hiring again. We’re in a little bit of a vicious circle.”

If you are looking for a job, you may have to lower your expectations for the time being. Accepting a job for less pay may be necessary, at least in the short term. The good news is that once the economy turns around, the job market should revert to normalcy relatively quickly.

According to an economist, the service industry and the technology industry are the two most likely job sectors to flourish in the future. The economist, Richard Berg, warned that the financial sector could face problems in the future. Berg is the CEO of the Performance Trust Company.

While a lot of the service industry is low paying jobs, that’s not always the case. You can find good paying jobs in the service industry, especially if you have the needed educational requirements and the work experience.

The technology industry requires even more extensive education. Working with computers and the internet is the wave of the future. As more and more companies move online, the demand for workers in this area will continue to grow.

Northrop Grumman Corp. was awarded a contract worth more than a billion dollars from the United States Navy to build unmanned spy planes. The company will hire workers in many cities across the United States to help in the project, including 1,700 workers in San Diego, California.

While there will be many high paying jobs in the project, the work is only guaranteed until 2014. At that point, the contract between Northrop Grumman Corp. and the Navy will expire. Over the life of the contract, the Navy hopes that around 70 unmanned spy planes can be produced.

If you would like to work on a spy plane project and you think you have the qualifications, now is the time to send in your resume. You should also make sure that the relatively short lifespan of the job would work for you. While six years of work is a long time, you may instead prefer a job that has better long-term job security.

In addition to San Diego, other cities in the United States that will be hiring workers for this project include St. Augustine, Florida and Bethpage, New York.

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If you work for United Airlines, you couldn’t have liked the news from earlier this week when UAL Corp., United Airlines’ parent company, posted a first quarter loss of more than $500 million. With the company’s market value plummeting, more than a thousand job cuts were announced.

United Airlines pointed to mounting fuel costs as one of the main reasons for the loss. In addition to cutting jobs, the airline also plans to cut the number of flights they serve on a daily basis. The job cuts and flight changes are tentatively planned to take place before the end of 2008.

The next step for United Airlines could be merging with another airline if they can’t find a way to slow their losses. In recent years, a number of airlines have either been forced to merge or close their doors. Southwest Airlines is currently the only airline that consistently turns a profit.

Are you employed by United Airlines? If so, it’d be wise to start coming up with a fallback plan. Start looking for jobs now or at least decide which fields you would be interested in joining. If you can plan in advance, you can be ready to make the transition if you get laid off.

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