CNBC Make It

In his seven years of recruiting experience, Jermaine L. Murray has placed candidates at major companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft. And he can tell you that it’s not just what you say in an interview that will get you a job — but how you make the interviewer feel. Hiring managers will talk to you and many other candidates just a few times before quickly needing to make a decision. So they often have to rely on their gut. Murray always reminds people to be mindful of the image they project, because that’s what hiring managers will remember. Here are seven interview phrases that destroy your chances of landing a job, and what to say instead, according to Murray.

The FIRE community has grown to include a wide array of definitions as people have found different paths to financial independence. But FIRE pinoneer Sam Dogen takes particular umbrage with one form of FIRE known as “Coast FIRE,” a state of financial independence in which retirement savers say they no longer have to invest based on projections of future portfolio growth. Here's why.

Janet Blaser, who relocated to Mexico in 2006, recently moved from Mazatlán to San Antonio Tlayacapan. She discovered a charming 2-bedroom yellow house with a yard for $460 a month in rent. In her new home, Blaser says everything she needs is within reach — and that she’s found peace and tranquility. Take a look inside.

Mark Cuban once pictured himself running a major corporation — until he started his first job out of college. After Cuban graduated from Indiana University in 1981, he was hired at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, he said on Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” podcast. He liked the job almost immediately, feeling comfortable enough to send business articles to the bank’s CEO and start a “rookie club,” where a group of new employees would invite senior executives out for drinks and networking, he said. He felt confident he was building important relationships. Then, his boss unkindly told him to knock it off. “I start to cry ... because he’s just yelling at me nonstop,” Cuban said. “I didn’t look at it as just a [9-to-5] job ... My only mission was to help my company make more money. My peers and bosses didn’t quite see [my strategy] that way.” The experience “sealed” something he probably already knew, Cuban told CNBC Make It via email: If he wanted to run a company, he’d likely have to build his own.

Winston Alfieri and Troy Bonde were just 20 and 21 when they came up with the idea for Sauz, which is now available at retailers around the country.

If you’re in your 20s and new to investing, opening a Roth individual retirement account is a great place to start. It’s a “no-brainer” for “anyone in their 20s,” says Eustache Clerveaux, a certified financial planner and senior analyst at Hudson Financial Group. That’s because Roth IRAs offer several distinct benefits that make them appealing to younger investors, particularly those who don’t earn a lot of money early in their careers. Here’s a look at five key advantages.

If you're feeling super exhausted at the end of the workweek, don't spend your weekend on chores and more tasks. Pretend you're on vacation, says an expert.

When Domonique Brown was little, she and her dad could only buy greeting cards featuring Black people at a single Hallmark store in Upland, California. Now, the 30-year-old is the founder of DomoINK, which creates Black-centric greeting cards that line the shelves of Targets around the country. DomoINK made $333,600 in gross profits last year — an average of $27,800 per month — according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Her business, still a side hustle, outearns her 9-to-5 job: She’s a full-time graphic designer with a $90,000 annual salary, she says. Here's how she says you can replicate here success.

Denzel Washington is Hollywood royalty, but the two-time Academy Award winning actor can still recall what it was like to think that his acting career might slip away from him. In an interview with British Vogue while promoting “Gladiator II”, Washington and costar Paul Mescal were asked when they felt like they had “made it” in their careers. The 28-year-old Mescal said that he felt he had made it the first time he was paid to be in a play. Washington, however, was brought back to the contents of his pantry at the start of his career. “I remember keeping cans of food,” he says. “Whenever I stopped hoarding cans of food, I knew I made it.” The 69-year-old “Training Day” star said that when he was younger, he was hyper-focused on working and on what others wanted to see from him. These days, he’s better able to have a life off of the big screen.

Helen Zhao was 28 years old when she landed her dream video producer job at CNBC. She says she would throw off the covers every morning, excited to dive into the work she felt she was born to do. She flew through the days, but often woke up in the dead of the night with a creeping sense of dread. Zhao imagined time racing by at warp speed until she suddenly woke up at age 80, regretting that she lived to work, instead of working to live. After all, she'd spent most of her adult life focused on the future. Burned out and chronically anxious, Zhao lost her ability to live in the present. So she quit my job at 32, bought a one-way ticket to Peru, and spent a year and a half — and $34,000 — exploring 18 countries across South America and Asia. Every day was a “choose your own adventure,” involving choices good and bad. She learned lessons the hard way about balancing preparation, productivity and play.