America’s smallest businesses continued to add jobs at a rapid clip last month, even as the country’s overall employment growth slowed, new private-sector data show. Small companies added 101,000 workers in November, essentially repeating the gains they posted in October, according to data collected by payroll processing firm ADP. This marks the sector’s first back-to-back months of six-figure job growth since January-February 2012. (Washington Post)

Mellody Hobson got candid about race and gender at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen conference on Tuesday night. The president of Ariel Investments explained that it was only about a decade ago that she stopped tiptoeing around who she really is. Her epiphany came when she attended the funeral of John Johnson, who started Ebony and Jet magazines. One of the eulogists got up and said, "He was unapologetically black." It stopped Hobson in her tracks. "It me so hard," she said. She realized that she had "been apologizing for who I am, about being a woman, and about being black – and it stops today." (Fortune)

At the end of the day, many people wonder where all their time went. New data-mining tools are helping employers answer that question. The causes of overload have long been suspected – email and meetings – but new techniques that analyze employees’ email headers and online calendars are helping employers pinpoint exactly which work groups impose the most on employees’ time. (The Wall Street Journal)

Has it been a while since you got a raise? Or maybe you’re hoping for a promotion at your next review? When it comes to getting ahead at work, a lot of employees say and do things that directly conflict with their goals, career experts say. "Some people try too hard and many are unaware of the results of their actions," says Neal Hartman, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. "They think they’re making a positive impression, but they’re actually doing the opposite." (Fast Company)

It’s the holiday season, and millions of people are about to get a flood of unsolicited career advice from older relatives. Most of it will be useless. You don’t need to be told that a resume should be clear, uncluttered, and typo free. (A good summary of common, deal-breaking mistakes comes from Google HR head Laszlo Bock.) But don’t obsess over format and wording, which have rapidly diminishing returns. (The Atlantic)

A few years ago, I found myself uncomfortably witnessing a painful breakup. But it wasn’t a couple struggling through a divorce; it was the unraveling of a friendship, complicated by the fact that the two people in question were also a boss and his subordinate. They were once so close that the boss, Jason (not his real name), and Martin (also not his real name), took family vacations together. Because they also frequently commuted to and from work together, the rest of us came to understand that Martin had unique access to our boss and that he was in a position of power because of it. (Harvard Business Review)

Deloitte Digital is one of the fast-growing management consulting arms that specialize in digital technology. The 440-strong group is hiring aggressively and there are opportunities for MBAs to enter the firm in a wide array of roles, as befits the nature of the operation. Consulting firms are facing technological challenges. Clients are demanding new service lines in areas of digital – such as mobile, big data and the cloud – which are redrawing the industry landscape.(Business Because)

Sam’s Club CEO Roz Brewer knows that she’s an exception that proves a still valid rule: women and minorities still face a lot of inequity in the workplace. Brewer, speaking at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, recalled that often, when she walks into a place where people don’t know who she is – namely a CEO who oversees a $57.2 billion a year wholesale club business that is a unit of Wal-Mart Stores – she still has to describe what she does because people don’t typically assume a black woman has such a high profile corporate job. (Fortune)

The economic crisis forced many European business schools to expand abroad and Asia has been the biggest beneficiary. Lured by strong growth prospects, they are surging into the cities of Hyderabad and Seoul and Beijing and Shanghai. Tapping the education markets of China and Singapore in particular has been a blessing for both business schools and their students. (Business Because)

It's not just political chaos that's creating uncertainty in Sweden, with deflation and stagnation posing a real threat to the triple-A rated economy, according to economic research consultancy Capital Economics. Sweden called its first snap election in more than half a century on Thursday after the far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party voted against the ruling coalition government's first budget. (CNBC)

Waiting until the last minute to apply to business school used to mean the candidate was disorganized, undesirable or both. That is no longer the case. Now, applying in later rounds of the M.B.A. admissions cycle might signal that a candidate is an offbeat catch. The cycle typically is divided into at least three rounds, with deadlines spaced throughout the fall, winter and spring of an academic year. Some schools have rolling admissions during the cycle or a final rolling round. (The Wall Street Journal)

In this paper, researchers had rare access to a database that tracked 5,000 ideas submitted by employees of an unidentified Asian information technology company. They found that newer workers may have a fresh perspective on the business, but it’s the longtime employees who have the primo ideas. Younger professionals come up with slightly more suggestions than veterans, but theirs are not as good as those from the people in the organization for the longest time. (Businessweek)

A team of four students in the Flexible and Professional MBA programs at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business won the recent National Black MBA Association Case Competition® sponsored by Chrysler Group LLC. Teams had to analyze and recommend a marketing positioning for Chrysler’s new crossover Jeep Renegade. Uchenna (Uche) Agharanya from Dunwoody, Stephen H. Jones from Smyrna, Osereme Osara from Atlanta, and Brandon J. Smith from Conyers bested 28 other teams who had traveled from throughout the U.S. to the competition in Atlanta. Brett Matherne of the Department of Managerial Sciences was their faculty adviser. Agharanya, Jones, Osara and Smith won a $25,000 scholarship awarded to the first-prize team. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
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Every week, it seems, there’s a new scandal about email passwords being stolen or retail customers’ data being hacked by stealthy cyber criminals. Yet such incidents represent only a teeny-tiny slice of how our online behavior is spied upon and used. In the vast majority of cases, our data is tracked and used in entirely legal ways by search engines, social media, retailers, and advertisers. Legal or not, the repercussions of such tracking – and the ads that inevitably follow – can feel like an ongoing privacy violation. (Money Magazine)

Tristan Walker, founder and CEO of Walker & Company Brands on how to avoid becoming a workaholic by eliminating email and saving time for yourself, your business and your family. (Fortune)

For three years, Erin Maynard ran a store called The Geeky Cauldron out of her home in Phoenix. She sold jewelry on the online artisan marketplace Etsy inspired by themes from popular books, films and TV shows: think vampires and wizards. For the most part, it made her decent income, but month-to-month sales were a roller coaster. Some months, sales topped $5,000. Other months, they barely cracked $1,000. That is, until she got in on one of the hottest – but dullest-sounding – trends in retailing. (Ozy)>/i>

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Business schools are competing for a new set of bragging rights. As M.B.A.s show more interest in creating companies rather than working for them, schools are stepping up their efforts to track startups founded by alumni. Attempts to measure graduates’ success in venture funding and market valuation are at an early stage. But faculty and administrators say the metric could someday be as central to schools’ marketing as job placement and salary figures are today. (The Wall Street Journal)

With the pace of new-business formation on the wane in America, the country faces a crucial question: Can it maintain a dynamic marketplace for new ideas? Or will the game-changing inventions that fueled much of its economic growth in the 20th century become just a cherished memory? (Harvard Business Review)

Of all the filling stations in all the U.S., $2 gasoline showed up at Oklahoma City’s first. Why? Three words: Location, location and taxes. About 70 miles away, in Cushing, Oklahoma, lie the nation’s biggest stockpiles of oil, just a short pipeline ride away from the state’s refiners. Neighboring Texas, home to the most fuel-making capacity in the U.S., also feeds the market. And it doesn’t hurt that the state has the fourth-lowest fuel taxes in the country. (Bloomberg)

I remember this particular conversation well because Pam made a comment that has stuck with me ever since. Pam drove a well-used minivan. During our conversation, she mentioned wanting a new car, but then said, "We can’t afford it right now. It’s just not in the budget." At the time, I didn’t know many successful people who would say out loud, "We can’t afford it." After all, what did she mean they couldn’t afford a new car? (The New York Times)

A retail store is a sum of subtle, careful spatial decisions: Essentials such as toilet paper or milk are at the back of the store, where shoppers can’t access them without first encountering higher-margin products, such as clothing or toys. Stores are set up to be navigated clockwise, so right-handed shoppers can easily push a cart and grasp at shelved items with their dominant arm. Many stores are lightly perfumed, because pleasant scents have been shown to make people more impulsive. (The Atlantic)

Tribune Publishing, owner of newspaper institutions like The Los Angeles Times, created a near riot in its newsrooms this month when it abruptly announced a major change to vacation and sick day policies for most employees beginning in the new year: no more separate vacation, sick and personal days. Under its new discretionary time-off policy, it would be up to each employee and supervisor to agree on almost all time off.

After sifting through almost 40GB of leaked internal data, one thing is clear: Sony Pictures appears to have suffered the most embarrassing and all-encompassing hack of internal corporate data ever made public. The data dump, which was reviewed extensively by BuzzFeed News, includes employee criminal background checks, salary negotiations, and doctors’ letters explaining the medical rationale for leaves of absence. There are spreadsheets containing the salaries of 6,800 global employees, along with Social Security numbers for 3,500 U.S. staff. (BuzzFeed)

In each generation, an elite few entrepreneurs skyrocket to almost unimaginable heights. Among that already select group, an even more exceptional group emerges: those whose business success affects society in such a way that they become forever ingrained in the public consciousness. Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and now Mark Zuckerberg are a few examples of this top-tier, ultra-successful group. As self-made billionaires, they certainly experienced success, but they went on to become household names and forever cemented a place in history thanks to their innovation and ingenuity. A young woman named Elizabeth Holmes is rapidly working her way toward this status. (Inc.)

Reality is already catching up with the post-midterm dream of a bipartisan Kumbaya in Washington. With one notable exception, not much is going to get done – unless you count posturing for the 2016 presidential contest as an accomplishment. That said, the race for the White House will have its own clarifying effect on both political parties, especially the GOP, still mid-reinvention. (Fortune)

The House passed a bill Wednesday evening that would retroactively extend for one year a slew of tax breaks that expired at the end of 2013. Their estimated cost: $42 billion. Put that next to Uncle Sam's $3.65 trillion annual budget, and it's not exactly a back breaker. Nor is it a huge chunk of the more than $1 trillion in tax breaks taken annually by individuals and businesses. (CNN/Money)

We can be quick to judge others in the workplace – bosses, coworkers, even ourselves – based on our ideas of personality. But our preconceived notions about personality aren't just wrong, they can be downright dangerous to our health and relationships, says psychologist Brian Little, author of a new book on the science of personality Me, Myself, and Us. (Fast Company)

If you're not naturally a charismatic speaker, it's time to start bridging that gap. And if you are, you should start paying attention. The rest of the pack is catching up. Scientists are starting to codify the vocal qualities that resonate most with different audiences, leading to takeaways that can benefit any entrepreneur – from inspiring the ranks to pitching to investors and clients. Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Lee Hotz spoke to a number of researchers, including Dr. Rosario Signorello, an acoustic scientist at UCLA, who researched charisma by analyzing almost 70 vocal qualities of public speakers around the world. (Inc.)

Humans are social creatures. That’s why research increasingly finds that spending money on other people makes us happier than spending it on ourselves.Gifts are a way of strengthening social bonds. While giving shouldn’t primarily be about your own happiness, it’s not a bad side effect. People give more when they feel better about it. How should you give? (Fast Company)