“We’re looking at some leading indicators on employment, and they’re all flashing green lights,” said Bernard Baumohl of the Economic Outlook Group, a Princeton, N.J. research firm.

Though most economists still expect a painfully high unemployment rate of about 9% at the end of this year, some think that stat masks more important signs of strength.

Economists surveyed by CNNMoney are forecasting an average of 2.5 million jobs added to the U.S. economy this year, which would be the best one-year gain in hiring since the white-hot labor market of 1999.

Of the dozen economists who responded, several of the more bullish are predicting more than 3 million jobs added — about 250,000 jobs a month. Even the most pessimistic of those surveyed, David Wyss of Standard & Poor’s, expects 1.8 million jobs to be added this year, roughly double the pace of hiring in 2010.

That wouldn’t be enough to climb out of the 8-million job crater created by the Great Recession and won’t bring down the unemployment rate by a significant amount. An improved job market could even bring a short-term rise in the jobless rate, as those discouraged from job hunting resume looking for work and are once again counted as unemployed.

But the forecasted hiring boom could get the economy back into gear and provide real relief for many Americans.

Those projecting better hiring in 2011 point to a number of factors. Among them, job openings by employers rose 17% from June to October of last year, the most recent reading available from the Labor Department, and are up by about a third compared to a year earlier.

And there has been a downward trend in newly laid-off workers filing for initial jobless claims, which fell below 400,000 in the most recent reading for the first time since the summer of 2008. That might have been distorted by the holiday season and bad weather, but the four-week average is also at a two-plus year low.

On the business front, capital expenditures — typically followed by expansion and hiring — have been on the rise.

“Forecasters generally underestimate the strength of a recovery once it is underway,” said Bill Cheney, chief economist for Manulife Asset Management. He’s forecasting 2.5 million to 3 million new jobs this year.

“Once things get moving, they feed on themselves,” he said. “There is so much pent-up demand. People have been frugal for three years. There will be a lot of new cars, a lot of new furniture, a lot of people moving out of their parents’ basement.”

A rebound in the creation of new jobs has the potential to help both the still struggling housing market and the economy as a whole. Many recent college grads or those who lost their homes or jobs have been stuck living with friends or family members. As they find work and move back out on their own, they’ll have to spend.

About 3 million fewer jobs were added over the course of the past three years compared to the annual average of first eight years of the last decade.

“Jobs feed income and income feeds more consumer spending. Consumer spending hasn’t come back in a meaningful way compared to other recoveries,” said Brett Ryan, economist with Deutsche Bank. His firm forecasts consumer spending will finish 2010 up between 1.4% to 1.7% when the final numbers are in, but that will jump to more than 3% growth next year.

Baumohl says another non-traditional employment indicator, the number of day-care workers, has been edging up for four months and is now about 2% higher than a year ago. “People need more day care when they’ve got jobs to go to,” he said.

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Interested in healthcare sales? Stay out of the drug industry and choose device companies instead. Medical device sales reps are in high demand because of higher margins and forecasts for strong growth.

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1. What exactly do you want to do in the pharmaceutical field? One of the greatest appeals to the field is that one can do basically anything within it: research, sales, marketing, business development, communication, et cetera, et cetera. Narrow down your focus to decide if you really need more training or if you already have the skills needed to break into the industry in a different capacity than you originally thought. Once you have your foot in the door, it’ll be easier to go in a different direction once you’ve gained knowledge of a different aspect of the field. 

2. Do you work well alone or want to work with others? This question is a follow-up to the previous one to help hone exactly where you would fit in best in the pharmaceutical industry. Researchers often work in small teams or alone, and if you’re looking for patient contact get into the retail side of things or go to med school. You may not even be on the same schedule as your co-workers, as many research labs have core hours set (for example: 10am-3pm) with the rest of the day up to you. This flexibility is great for some but not for others who wish for a more “office” experience. 

3. Are you willing to relocate? Many of the pharmaceutical giants are clustered on the east coast, though Proctor & Gamble and a select few others are stationed in the Mid-West. There are some field-based options, mostly in sales, across the country, but depending on what you want to do a move may be necessary. Think hard about how far away you are willing to go for your potential chosen career. 

4. Are you willing to work your way up the ladder? In the pharmaceutical field, you have to put in your time to advance. If working in the industry, expect to start off with below-average pay as compared to jobs in retail and even hospitals. The annual increases and expected career earnings are much higher than in those institutions, however, so if you’re willing to scrape by at the start of your career expect great rewards. 

5. Are you ready to work in an industry facing new issues? Globalization, mergers, changes in healthcare legislation, new government pressures — the pharmaceutical field is at an interesting point in its history. There will always be a need for pharmacists and the products they research and create, but how business is currently conducted will not be the norm for long. Outside forces such as government and other third-parties are constantly changing what it means to do business in the pharmaceutical field, so you need to think about how ready you are for when those changes come, and come in waves. 

Joseph Gustav is a guest blogger for Pounding the Pavement and a writer on vocational schools for Guide to Career Education.

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FORTUNE — Congratulations! You’ve gotten past the résumé gatekeepers and landed a job interview. But even if you’re completely prepped for your one on one, you still don’t know what to expect from your interviewer. “You have to turn that around and give them a good interview even if they didn’t ask for it,” says Bill Byham, co-founder and CEO of Development Dimensions International, a human resources consulting firm.

Byham, whose company works with Fortune 500 mainstays, is famous for developing a job-interviewing strategy called targeted selection. Its goal is to get job candidates to speak in specifics about their past, which helps predict future performance. Here he shows us how you can turn your interview into a focused and successful hour.

Know your predecessors

Interviewers hire based on the previous employee’s failures in the job. If the last person had deadline issues, you are going to hear all kinds of questions about deadlines. To be prepared, talk to people who work for your potential employer. The more you can find out about those who were in the job before, the more insight you’ll have into what’s important to the interviewer.

Liars don’t get hired

If you make something up, a good interviewer will figure it out right away. If you say, for example, “I produced this ad that got very high ratings,” a well-trained questioner will say, “Tell me what exactly you did in making this ad. Who made the decisions along the way?” They’ll find out that you didn’t come up with the basic idea. Honesty has become very important to our clients, so the interviewer will weigh negatively any suggestion that you’re covering up something.

Take advantage of the unprepared

It’s easy to get a poor interviewer off track — because he doesn’t have a track. If you go in knowing what you want to emphasize, just a bit of hinting lets you take control. It’s great to bring a visual, like your portfolio. If the conversation sputters, just bring it out. Yet be careful: If you do it with a prepared interviewer, you may seem annoying.

Poor interviewers often end by saying, “Do you have anything else to tell me, or is there anything we didn’t cover?” Ninety-nine percent of job seekers say, “No, I don’t have anything more.” But that’s a great place to bring something up. If you are prepared, you should say, “We didn’t talk about this. Is that important?”

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“This strategic acquisition strengthens Medical Action’s core capabilities in developing, manufacturing and delivering quality medical products to hospitals and healthcare institutions,” said Paul D. Meringolo, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Medical Action Industries Inc. “The addition of custom procedure trays increases the breadth and depth of our product offerings and progresses us toward our initial goal of attaining $500 million in revenues. AVID reported sales of custom procedure trays of approximately $136 million during its most recent fiscal year ended March 31, 2010 within a market segment that we estimate to be in excess of $2 billion. This transaction enhances our leadership position and relevancy within our markets and is another step forward in positioning ourselves for future growth. We also continue to invigorate our sales and marketing capabilities and are excited to execute on our strategy to increase our product offerings. We expect that the market will continue to receive excellent customer service augmented by AVID’s ability to deliver true custom solutions designed to meet the needs of healthcare providers, while enhancing clinicians’ abilities to access Medical Action’s extensive product portfolio.”

Medical Action has paid $62.5 million in cash, excluding transaction costs, for AVID. Medical Action expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011, excluding the impact of non-recurring acquisition related and integration costs. Medical Action also expects to achieve significant cost savings and efficiencies driven by the combination of the two companies’ national sales forces which will create broader sales channels, increased service coverage, and dedicated focus to clinical and patient care products.

In connection with the closing of the acquisition, Michael Sahady founder and CEO of AVID, will join Medical Action’s Board of Directors. AVID’s President and Chief Operating Officer Richard Setian, will assume the role of Vice President of Sales and Marketing leading the newly formed sales organization. Meringolo added, “As a result of this transaction, Medical Action’s sales will increase by approximately 45 percent and we believe that the company will achieve a greater national presence. The custom procedure trays market segment also presents opportunities for us to increase sales of our existing product lines to current and new customers, while expanding our portfolio with additional medical devices. This will enable us to drive sales through a focused approach on promoting both our clinical and patient care products.”

Medical Action invites its stockholders and other interested parties to attend its conference call at 11:00 a.m. (ET) on August 27, 2010. You may participate in the conference call by calling (888) 868-9080 (domestic) or (973) 935-8511 (international); conference ID #94858089. The conference call will be simultaneously web cast on our website: www.medical-action.com. The complete call and discussion will be available for replay on our website beginning at 1:00 p.m. (ET) on August 27, 2010.

Medical Action is a diversified manufacturer and distributor of disposable medical devices and a leader in many of the markets where it competes. Its products are marketed primarily to acute care facilities in domestic and certain international markets. The Company has expanded its target market to include physician, dental and veterinary offices, out-patient surgery centers, long-term care facilities and laboratories. Medical Action’s products are marketed nationally by its direct sales personnel and extensive network of healthcare distributors. The Company has preferred vendor agreements with national and regional distributors, as well as sole and multi-source agreements with group purchasing organizations. Medical Action’s common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol MDCI and is included in the Russell 2000 Index.

Statements in this news release include “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The opinions, forecasts, projections, future plans or other statements other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. We can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Actual results could differ materially as a result of a variety of risks and uncertainties, including: our ability to achieve the synergies and value creation contemplated by the transaction; our ability to promptly and effectively integrate the merged businesses; and the diversion of management time on integration-related issues. Other factors that could materially affect Medical Action’s operations and actual results are discussed in Medical Action’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including, without limitation, Medical Action’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Actual results may differ materially from those expected, estimated or projected. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any of them in light of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE: Medical Action Industries Inc.

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(Money Magazine) — Think branding is only for celebrities and cola companies? Think again.

Today whatever reputation you have is spreading quickly across the Internet, thanks to Google, industry blogs, and social-networking sites. (Even failing to turn up on search engines says something about you.)

That makes it critically important to take control of your professional image, or “brand,” says William Arruda of Reach Personal Branding. Actively promoting the brand you’d like to be can help you get your name on the radar of industry leaders and advance your career. Here’s how to do it.

Determine your trademark

First, figure out how you’re perceived: Google your name, and ask former colleagues to give anonymous feedback about your strengths and weaknesses via reachcc.com/360reach. These tools can help you identify both any problems (the photo of you tipsy at JazzFest) and positive qualities to exploit (your efficiency).

Next, in 20 words or less, answer this question: “How do I want employers to view me?” Focus on what makes you unique — maybe you’re an engineer with great people skills or a marketing exec who knows accounting. Think long term. “Your brand should reflect the career you want, not the job you have,” says Dan Schawbel of Millennial Branding.

Spread the word online

Potential employers are likely to look you up online, so you want the top search hits of your name to communicate your brand. Start by making sure your LinkedIn profile plays up your brand message — use the “summary” to state it outright — and that your Facebook page doesn’t distract from it, since both show up early in searches.

You could build a website to promote yourself further. Or you might start a blog on a topic that fits with your brand identity. (But remember that an infrequently updated blog can do you more harm than good.)

Drive traffic to your site by commenting on other blogs and asking them to link back, says search-optimization expert Evan Bailyn of First Page Sage. Also, feed blog posts automatically to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Live and breathe the brand

Make sure your offline behavior is consistent with the brand you’re promoting online by taking on roles that will enhance your image among the right people. If you’re calling yourself a collaborator, volunteer for group projects.

International expert? Join a committee in your trade association that deals with issues abroad. “It’s not about making your brand famous,” says Arruda. “It’s about making it selectively famous among the people who need to know about you.”

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A tight job market might have taken away some jobseekers’ leverage in a salary negotiation, but that doesn’t mean they should roll over and accept the first offer, says New York-based executive coach Rabia de Lande Long. To get the top compensation possible—without putting a sour taste in your potential employer’s mouth—take these steps.

1. Do your research.

It used to be hard to find out what your coworkers and other professionals in your industry get paid. But now, several resources have attempted to opened that black box, says Ms. de Lande Long. Salary.com and Payscale.com give salary ranges to expect based on a job seeker’s position, location, and experience. Employees at the actual company you’re applying to might have also posted their salaries at GlassDoor.com.

2. Don’t give out the first number.

You’ll be pressured to do this through the application process. “What’s your salary requirement?” “What salary range are you looking for?” “What do you get paid now?”

Whatever you do, never give out the first number, says Ms. de Lande Long. If your answer is too high, you might not make it to the next stage. Too low, and an employer will either think you’re not qualified or desperate. So, if possible, write “NA” on applications.

If you’re pressured to say how much you make during the interview process, try giving your “total compensation,” which many large employers will break out for you on the company’s internal human resources website. If your current employer doesn’t do that, just spell out your salary, benefits, bonuses, and anything else your current employer offers, says Decatur, Ga. career coach Walter Akana. If the new company doesn’t offer some of similar benefits, the HR manager will know that your new salary would have to be bumped up to reflect that, he says.

If the interviewer still presses for a required salary, try giving a range of $15,000 rather than a specific number, Mr. Akana says.The low amount should be the minimum you’d be happy with and the high amount should be what would make you happy.

3. Don’t lie.

“It’s so easy to get someone in HR to verify a salary, even if they’re not supposed to,” says Ms. de Lande Long. Even if you make it to a job offer, the false salary could come out during a background check, which could result in an outright retraction of the offer or at least upset an employee’s new boss. “And from that point onward, you might face trouble in negotiations not just with your new employer, but with everyone in your industry who has heard. Word gets around,” says Ms. de Lande Long.

4. Don’t take the first offer.

Most employers expect candidates to try to negotiate. So they leave room in the first offer for a raise, says Mr. Akana. If possible, try to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the hiring manager rather than someone in human resources. The hiring manager is more likely to be flexible, says Mr. Akana. ”

Say that you’re flattered to have an offer and really want to join the team, but that there are a couple specific items that you’re sure you could resolve if you put your heads together,” says Mr. Akana. Despite the pressure on salaries during the downturn, a good rule of thumb is to ask for a 10% higher salary, says Ms. de Lande Long.

If the hiring manager says budget restrictions keep him from going as high as you’d like, it might be that the position is “graded” to be within a certain salary band by HR, says Mr. Akana. It’s worth asking if the boss can ask the appropriate person for the job to be re-graded. The worst he can say is no.

5. Once that’s locked in, go for other benefits.

Despite what you might have heard, many benefit packages aren’t flexible, says Ms. de Lande Long. So, while it’s worth asking, it might be difficult to modify the health plan. Your success in getting more vacation days depends on the employer, says Ms. de Lande Long.

Your potential boss might be hesitant to give you more days if it will make other employees think they’re being treated unfairly. Instead, focus on things that are easy for the employer to provide, such as a work-from-home arrangement for one day a week, if the employer has made such arrangements in the past, says Mr. Akana.

If you still feel your package is too low, ask if it can be reviewed again in six months. “That way, you can show them that you’re worth the money,” he says.

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George M. Steinbrenner III
1930-2010

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As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of our Lives.” My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car, and off we’d go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.

At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage — figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”

I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.” That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, “Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.

Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans — plodding as we are — will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life. In the coming years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications. I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton — all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.

How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?

I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles — something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world — was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice.

Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!

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