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But are you a workaholic? Loving your job and working hard at it does not make you a workaholic. But when your job begins to consume you and becomes your main reason for being, then you need to distance yourself from the situation and take a hard look at yourself. You must strive for a balance between work and life.

How do you know if you’re a workaholic? If you find most of the following statements to be true, then please seek help.

1. Just about all my friends are co-workers.
2. Most of my conversations, whether at home or at work, revolve around work-related issues.
3. I don’t have any interest nor time for hobbies.
4. I am working more hours than I ever have in the past.
5. If I do take vacation time, I always check in with my employer regularly.
6. My family complains that I never make time for them.
7. The more I work, the more money I make, and thus the better I can provide for my family.
8. I have not taken a sick day or personal day in years – or ever.
9. I almost always take work home with me.
10. When I do spend time at home, I can usually be found in my home-office doing work.

Learn more about workaholics in this article published on Quintessential Careers: Are You – or Someone You Know – a Workaholic?
Are you a workaholic? Take the full quiz, found on Quintessential Careers here: Workaholics Quiz: Do You Focus on Work Too Much?

According to a recent poll taken by Robert Half Technology, chief information officers seemed cautious about their third quarter hiring expectations. Eight percent of executives expect to add to their IT department while 3 percent anticipate cutbacks and 88 percent plan to maintain existing levels. Additionally, 41 percent of those surveyed believe that the most in-demand skill for IT workers is UNIX.

I know you did not plan to be out of work for 18 months – no one ever expects a job hunt to last too long – but what have you been doing all this time (besides looking for a new job)? Ideally, besides looking for a new job, you have been doing some consulting or gaining some new skills and training. If you want to stay in the field, I would immediately get working on both of these areas because employers don’t want to hire anyone – especially someone in the technology field – who has been doing nothing for 18 months.

At your age, will you experience some age discrimination? It’s certainly possible, especially in the technology field, but there are numerous things you can do on your resume and in the interview to deflect some of it.

Are you too old to change careers? Not at all. In fact, there is growing evidence that the baby boomers are going to totally transform the stereotypes of older workers and the rules of career change later in life. Read the next Q&A for more on this topic.

And now as boomers move toward retirement, many experts are predicting that our current views of working and retirement will be totally revamped once these folks put their mark on this next stage in their lives.

For many, retirement will indeed no longer signal the end of working, but more so a career and lifestyle transition, where the retiree has multiple options – such as continuing to work, returning to school for additional training or education, becoming more involved in volunteer work, or simply enjoying leisure and travel possibilities – a mix of working, learning, relaxing, and trying new things.

Dr. Ken Dychtwald, author of Age Power, describes the transition between working and retiring as middlescence, which he says occurs to people sometime in their 50’s to 70’s. Middlescence is a time of growth and reinvention – and this the perfect time for you to consider a career change.

You can start planning for your next career stage by examining your likes and dislikes, and strengths and weaknesses. Start researching various “helping” careers. Conduct informational interviews. Consider talking with a career coach or other career professional. Remember to take your time.

Read more in this article published on Quintessential Careers: Working Beyond Retirement: For Money, Identity, and Purpose

I am also hearing that most recruiters, employers, etc. prefer resumes now be submitted electronically. Is this true? Maybe it's the old-fashioned marketer in me, but my tendency is to search the web for jobs and then send my resume the traditional way by mail so I can differentiate by different fonts, paper style, appearance-related factors. Could this be working against me?

If so, even when I am asked to attach my resume as a Word document, I fear that various PCs will alter formats, fonts and spacing--so it's back to the plain Jane text, or is it?

Employers want text resumes – especially electronic versions (submitted online or via email) – because they can easily deposit every resume into a massive database and then use keywords to search and find the resumes that most match their needs.

Text resumes are almost completely void of any style – and when printed, they look pretty ugly.

So, not only are resume formats changing, but so is the content. As you work on your electronic resume, you must be focused on keyword and keyword phrases for your occupation and industry. Where we often avoided industry jargon in the past, now we embrace it. Of course, accomplishments are still extremely important, but you must now also try to phrase them the way you think a hiring manager might conduct a resume database search.

One final thought, though. I always recommend – when possible – to follow-up an emailed resume with a formatted resume sent through the mail. I think job-seekers who use this combination approach have an edge over those who do not.

Dr. Randall S. Hansen is currently Webmaster of Quintessential Careers.

Dr. Hansen is an associate professor of marketing at the School of Business Administration, Stetson University. He has been a published career expert for the last 10 years and an employer and consultant with hiring/firing decisions for the past 15 years.

Through his experience as a professor of marketing, Dr. Hansen uses proven marketing techniques and applies them to job-hunting. He is currently working on such a book. Some of his work can be seen at his personal Web site.

He and Katharine Hansen co-wrote the very successful job-hunting book, Dynamic Cover Letters, published by Ten Speed Press. You can order copies from Barnes and Noble of this cover letter bible. He is also author of several career-related magazine and journal articles.

Finally, Dr. Hansen has been an employer and has firsthand experience in the hiring process. He also stays active in the field by reading magazine and journal articles and by talking with employers on a regular basis.