What is your time really worth? It is a day-to-day trade-off. We are constantly confronted with opportunities to save time by paying more money, and vice versa. Should you send out your laundry? Take the faster, more expensive flight or train? Do additional freelancing or consulting work? Now, more than ever, with the creation of TaskRabbit and virtual concierge services, there are opportunities to outsource every task for a fee. (The Wall Street Journal)

The MBA job market is booming. A July survey of 92 business schools found 70% of respondents saw an increase in on-campus recruiting for full-time jobs, and 60% reported an increase in full-time job posts (off-campus). Business schools also are optimistic about internship hiring, with 60% of respondents citing a surge in campus recruiting for internships and 70% seeing an increase in job posts. (BusinessBecause)

It’s become part of the conventional wisdom. The internet and globalization have combined to render almost every company vulnerable to greater competition than ever. Barriers to entry are withering, innovations are easily copied, and disruption is everywhere. To take an extreme example, Rita McGrath told strategists in an HBR article to just give up on sustainable advantage altogether and work on gaining only temporary boosts. (Harvard Business Review)

If you take a stroll around Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta and peek into people’s offices, you’ll notice that some of the walls are festooned with silver-embossed blue ribbons. Charles Miller, for one, has more than 20 of them, along with several other awards, all from Toastmasters International. Coke started an in-house Toastmasters club way back in 1972. But Miller, who is manager of financial systems and accounting, got involved just three years ago. "I thought I was a pretty good communicator when I went in," he says. "But it turned out there was a lot to learn." (Fortune)

If you thought your test-taking days ended when you left school, think again. Recent research shows that about 76% of organizations with more than 100 employees rely on assessment tools such as aptitude and personality tests for external hiring. That figure is expected to climb to 88% over the next few years. We’re not talking just about screening for junior recruits. The more senior the role, the more likely the employer is to use assessments to identify candidates with the right traits and abilities. Global estimates suggest that tests are used for 72% of middle management positions and up to 80% of senior roles, compared with 59% of entry-level positions. So even if you’ve never taken an assessment, chances are you’ll have to in your next job search. (Harvard Business Review)

Now that career-minded Millennials make up 50 percent of our workplace, it's safe to assume (like every other generation to enter the work force) they'll want to earn promotions as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we're hearing across the board that a lot of Millennial workers aren't promotion material, citing a lack of drive and professionalism. However, the real problem lies in a lack of Millennial understanding of the power of perception. In my experience, simple insights are all Millennials need to turn things around. (Inc.)

Beginning in college, years before she planned to have children, Yi Gu began strategizing about how to have a career that was flexible enough to fit in family responsibilities. She knew that arrangement wasn’t realistic in her first two jobs: banking, in which she worked very long hours, or consulting, in which she traveled often. Instead, she saw those as preparation for the more flexible job she took last year at age 31, in strategy at a major pharmacy company. She became pregnant soon after. (The New York Times)

Farmers turned village community centers into makeshift trading floors. Young workers quit low-paying jobs to play the market full time. Retirees started investment clubs, counseling one another on stock picks. China fell under the spell of the stock market over the last year, as millions of factory owners, university students, wheat growers and other investors jumped at a chance to strike it rich. (The New York Times)

Greece has taken a crucial step towards a bailout after its parliament passed a crucial second set of reforms. The passage of the measures means that negotiations on an €86bn European Union bailout can begin. The reforms include changes to Greek banking and an overhaul of the judiciary system. (BBC News)

"China Depth, Global Breadth" resonates with executive MBA Programs and positions global leaders in education. The epicenter of excellence in business management and research within Asia, the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) is the best business school in China. The CEIBS MBA program is ranked #11 in the world by the Financial Times. The National Black MBA Association® (NBMBAA®) has partnered with CEIBS to develop a unique positioning in offering truly world-class business management education to top NBMBAA members through the CEIBS intensive five-day Pre-MBA Boot Camp in Shanghai. The NBMBAA / CEIBS landmark partnership demonstrates the NBMBAA’s ongoing commitment to establish Black business leaders in the global marketplace by offering CEIBS funded scholarships for their top members who desire to explore programs outside the U.S. and keep up with the trend of globalization.

Hurtling into Shanghai at more than 200 miles per hour on a bullet train to attend a pre-MBA boot camp at a leading Chinese business school gave international participants a striking welcome to China’s breathtaking ascendance. And for the boot campers–prospective applicants and students from Asia, the U.S., Latin America, and Europe–the first lecture was a revelation of just how different China is. (Poets & Quants)

The 68 participants in China Europe International Business School’s 2015 Shanghai boot camp came from all over: the U.S., Canada, Guatemala, Peru, Jamaica, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Bhutan, Mongolia, and China. For five days they sat in on lectures with some of CEIBS’ most popular professors, visited Shanghai offices of multinational companies McKinsey, Henkel, Morningside, and Fosan, and engaged in career development and recreational activities in their off-time. Some of the participants had already decided to pursue an MBA, others were still considering it. All had an interest in Asia, and some had experience there. Some were determined to work in the region, others hadn’t considered it until attending the boot camp. (Poets & Quants)

Rates Increase August 17! Register Now for The National Black MBA Association® 37th Annual Conference and Exposition 

Celebrating 45 years of Black professional development and executive leadership, The National Black MBA Association® (NBMBAA®), the nation's premier organization for Black business professionals, today announced early bird registration is open for  the upcoming NBMBAA® 37th Annual Conference and Exposition at the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL where more than 9,000 attendees are anticipated to convene for networking, leadership development, and career opportunities.

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In April 1977, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak rented a booth at the formative industry conference for the personal computer, the First West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. They were there to launch Apple's first breakthrough machine, the Apple II. What few people know today is that only a few rows away at the same show, two women from Southern California were busy launching an innovative machine of their own. (Fast Company)

Tech companies already own Silicon Valley, but new lobbying disclosure documents reveal just how much weight they throw around Washington as well. In the second quarter of 2015, Google spent a whopping $4.62 million on lobbying efforts. (Wired)

It's exciting to begin a new venture, but before you do so, stop and take a breath. Skipping over the basics of starting a business will cost you time and money. Many entrepreneurs don't think about the differences between being employed and self-employed. One of the biggest differences is that all that unpleasant administrative and accounting work that your boss's accountant used to handle - well, now it's all on you. (Inc.)

Armed with a new set of perspectives, skills and motivations, the millennial generation is gearing up to take the modern business world by storm. In fact, people between the ages of 18 and 31 this year have recently surpassed Gen X to comprise the largest share of the U.S. workforce. Contrary to popular belief, Gen Yers are some of the most productive people around, priding themselves on working smarter, not harder – far from the lazy, self-absorbed bunch older generations often peg them as. (Fortune)

Are you doing okay or just getting by? A new survey of 6,000 Americans finds that a quarter of people say they're living comfortably, 40 percent say they're doing okay and another 24 percent say they're doing okay. (Infographic) (Money Magazine)

There's a firesale on raw materials like copper, aluminum, gold and oil, raising concerns about the health of the global economy. The CRB raw industrials spot price index is now at its lowest level since November 2009. The Bloomberg Commodities Index touched levels unseen since June 2002. Just this week, crude oil prices retreated to $50 a barrel, while gold tumbled below $1,100 an ounce to five-year lows. And mining stocks like Newmont Mining (NEM), Barrick Gold (ABX) and Coeur Mining (CDE) are down 20% to 25% this month alone. What's going on? (CNN/Money)

The answer depends on a whole bunch of factors, including your age, your sex, the level of interest rates and the investment returns you earn, how long you would like the income to last and how much assurance you want that it will last that long. And I'm doing my best to keep the list short. Here's an example. Let's say that you're a 65-year-old man and that you'd like to turn your $1 million nest egg into monthly payments that are guaranteed to last the rest of your life. Well, to achieve that goal you could buy an immediate annuity with your $1 million and, based on today's payout rates, you would get roughly $5,660 a month for the rest of your life. (CNN/Money)

Chris Davis, a 28-year-old videographer and graphic designer, had been working hard to pay off his student-loans when he and his girlfriend Monique Seitz got engaged. "We got closer to picking a wedding day," Davis recalls, "and Monique jokingly said ‘We're not getting married until you figure out your loans.’" Though Davis and Seitz both had some debt, Davis had significantly more. (The Atlantic)

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At Zappos, this means traditional corporate hierarchy is gone. Managers no longer exist. The company’s 1,500 employees define their own jobs. Anyone can set the agenda for a meeting. To prevent anarchy, processes are strictly enforced. At the June meeting, a trained facilitator, in this case a young bearded man wearing a blue baseball hat, followed the Holacratic method by asking attendees to "get here, get present, get now," and encouraged everyone in the room to briefly check in. (The New York Times)

After months of testing and tweaking, the e-commerce start-up Jet.com opened its digital storefront on Tuesday, marking the official kickoff of the company's ambitious effort to battle Amazon and Wal-Mart for budget-conscious customers. Jet is taking a new approach to pricing. Its algorithm doesn't simply look at the price of each individual item in your online shopping cart. It looks at all the items you want to buy, as well as your Zip code, to determine which retailer or warehouse can ship that unique combination of items to you the cheapest. Shoppers can only buy things on Jet if they've signed up for a $49-per-year membership. (The Washington Post)

"I have some news," David Lee told his team member Mark Brown. David was the president of the U.S. division of the Korean conglomerate Hanguk Industries, where Mark, a vice president of technology, reported to him. "Good news?" Mark asked. "That depends, I guess," David said, looking a little tentative. "They want you for the Seoul job. You’ll be getting the official e-mail from HR soon." (Harvard Business Review)

If a company wants to generate the most revenue from its resources, it should put its most experienced leaders in charge of those resources. Sounds logical, right? After all, who else would best know how to use them? But a new study on Hollywood producers in the Strategic Management Journal reminds us that it’s not that simple. Academics have been writing about the Resource-Based View (RBV) – a theory of how companies can gain competitive advantage from their unique and valuable resources – since the 1980s, though the idea has been around for longer. (Harvard Business Review)

Evolving technology and heated competition between the airlines have changed the game when it comes to how you should book your flights – that is if you want to save time and prevent hassles. Here are five new rules for booking flights. (MarketWatch)