These are the best states to live in if youre a working dad

These are the best states to live in if youre a working dadThese are the best states to live in if youre a working dadThere are more fathers in America who are catching up to working mothers and are taking an active role in their childs life,according to the Pew Research Center. And when youre both a parent and a provider, you must learn how to tightly balanceyour careerand the needs of your child.This search for work-life balance is applyingto more and more dads. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 93% of dads in 2017 who have childrenyounger than 18 are employed. But 52% of working dads said it is difficult for them to balance work and family life.WalletHubs new study on the best and worst places for working dads to live wants to make this search a little easier. Using 22 metrics working dads would be interested in - including unemployment rates for working dads, mens life expectancies, childcare costs- analystsevaluated all 50 states and the District of Columbia.While Wal letHubs study on the best places for working momsfound Vermont to be the best state for motherhood, the study onworking fatherhoodcame to a different conclusion using overlapping but also distinct metrics for dads.Heres what they found.Connecticut is the best stateThe best state for working dads overall is Connecticut, followed by Minnesota and Vermont.Connecticut ranked high in all of the categories eighth in economic and social wellbeing, fourth in work-life balance, and sixth in childcare. When it came tothe percentage of children 18 years and under who are living in poverty with their fathers, Connecticut had the third lowest number.Connecticutalso offers a good work-life balance, with the 5th best parental-leave policy, according to the National Partnership for Women Families score, WalletHub analyst, Jill Gonzalez, told Ladders. It has some the 3rd best school systems in the country and the 6th most pediatricians at 17.5 per 100,000 residents.And if Dads wanted to live to see their children grow old, they improved their chances by moving to this New England state. According to Gonzalez, Connecticut had the highest male life expectancy in the U.S. at almost 79 years.Mississippi is the worst stateMeanwhile, wherever Connecticut did well, Mississippi did poorly. It ranked 45th in the economic wellbeing category judgingunemployment rates and family income- but where it really failed was in the health metrics, where the stateranked last.Out of all the areasranked, Mississippi had the lowest childcare costs but it also had the lowest life expectancy for men.Males in Mississippi have the second highest heart disease mortality rate at 269 per 100,000 men, as well as the second highest number of colon and rectal cancer cases at 60 for every 100,000 men,Gonzalez said. Therefore, its not surprising that according to the Social Science Research Council, Mississippi has a male life expectancy of just 71.9 years, the lowest in the country.Being a good father means b eing present, physically and mentally, for childrens milestones. Based on WalletHubs metrics, the best place to do that is Connecticut.

Advertising Basics

Advertising BasicsAdvertising Basics

How LinkedIn Can Hurt Your Job Search

How LinkedIn Can Hurt Your Job SearchHow LinkedIn Can Hurt Your Job Search12If youre like many job seekers, you probably have a LinkedIn profile. And if youre like most, you try to keep it updated with new information about yourself in an effort to catch the attention of a hiring manager or prospective employer. You might also follow companies that you want to work for on LinkedIn. But did you know that by modifying your LinkedIn profile, or following companies of interest, you might actually hurt your job search? Heres why.When you make a change (in fact, any change) to the profile field directly underneath your name (the space LinkedIn calls your Professional Headline), LinkedIn will send out a message to your professional network encouraging them to congratulate you. The reason why is that LinkedIns algorithm views the edit as a new job or title (even if it isnt) and will blast a Congratulate message to your network. In fact, if your contacts are on LinkedIn, their activity feed w ill also prompt them to Say congrats on the new job, too.And when you follow a company on LinkedIn, it automatically tells your network youve done so. In their LinkedIn Pulse feed, theyll see that Joe Smith is now following X Company.Why These Features of LinkedIn Can Hurt Your Job SearchThis can be especially problematic for job seekers for a variety of reasons. For one, it makes it seem like youve been recently hired for a new job. On the other hand, it can draw attention to the fact that youre updating your LinkedIn profile- which might tip off your current employer to your job search activities.For example, lets say that youre studying to get a new degree. If you want to add your education or new workplace skills to your profiles headline, this can activate the congratulate email. Or, if you are looking for a freelance job and update your profile to remove your previous freelance job, LinkedIn will still congratulate youand invite others to do so as well.How to Stop LinkedIns Ac tivity BroadcastsDoes this mean that you can never update your LinkedIn profile? Of course not, but be careful what you write and where you write it on your profile. After all, you dont want to be congratulated on a job that you dont have or be potentially passed over by a hiring manager who erroneously assumes that youre gainfully employed.Right now, the only remedy for this issue is to shut off all your activity broadcasts while you update your profile or job search. You can do this by hovering over your photo in the upper right corner of the page, going to Privacy Settings, and then choosing Turn on/off your activity broadcasts.When youre ready to let your network know of an actual success (like finding a perfect part-time job within your industry, for example), you should then turn your activity broadcast back on. The thing is that youll have to remember to do this each time. Otherwise, you might receive lots of congratulatory emails- or suspicious looks from your current emplo yer- and have a lot of explaining to do.LinkedIn Can Hurt Your Job Search, but It Can Also Help- A LotLinkedIn is still a wonderful resource for creating new contacts, finding a network of like-minded industry professionals, and making connections with potential employers. If you remember to take control over your profile, you can safely post all of your job search successes- and relish all of the well-deserved congratulatory emails youll get.Readers, have you ever had this situation happen to you on LinkedIn? Let us know about your experiences in the comments section below