Career Blog

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Why Women May Be Better Leaders

The issue of the glass ceiling has been with us for sometime now, yet relatively little progress is being made in North America, when it comes to senior executive positions and boards of directors, compared to other countries, where significant progress is being made in gender diversity. At the same time, there is increasing evidence that women actually make better leaders, and are more suited to the style of leadership needed today in organizations. What is the evidence to support the contention that women are better leaders? Kellie A. McElhaney and Sanaz Mobasseri of the Haas School of Business at…

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Why Second Best May Be Better Than Trying To Be Superstar

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Want to be successful in your career and life? Just follow the example of the superstars of business, celebrities, professional athletes and entertainers. Emulate the habits of Tiger Woods (before his personal crisis), Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Lance Armstrong or Sir Richard Branson. Or at the organizational level, just follow the examples of Apple, GE or Google. That’s what we are told by thousands of books, movies, seminars, consultants and self-help gurus, exhorting people to follow the same steps, habits and secrets of the super successful, and they too will achieve the same outstanding results. The problem with this kind…

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Cut Out The Middle Step

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Four years ago, at a bookstore event, a woman asked a question about a career strategy she was hatching. Her goal was to become a global director for the multinational company for which she worked. Her question was about her next move to attain an interim position that would get her to her goal. Immediately, I realized she did not want that interim step but it was what she thought was necessary to get what she wanted.

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Write Your Own Ticket for Job Search Results

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When you write fiction and allow your imagination to take over, you are wiping out linear, logical thinking and tapping into your intuition, also known as your super conscious. (vs. subconscious) When we approach a strategy linearly and it does not work out, we have a hard time tapping into a new, creative approach and tend to get stuck repeating the approach that is not working over and over again.

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Money and Career Change: Will You Let It Stop You?

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The number one reason that people do not follow their heart when it comes to the work they would most love to do is money. There are mortgages and educations to pay for and practical wins out over ideal most of the time. What if that conventional wisdom was false? What if the pull of what you really wanted to do was so strong, that the force of your desire creates a vacuum that brings money into the fold as well?

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CEO’s and Managers Use This for Greater Focus

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It has been proven by science that greater focus and clarity are gained when there’s a calm mind. Science has also proven that a human is more productive and less aggravated when they have more inner calm. Healthcare costs have been proven to decrease for companies when there are programs and products offered to help with inner peace and conflict.

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What Does Your Mentor Look Like?

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Have you ever had a mentor that has made so much of a difference in your life either personally or professionally that you are forever grateful to that person? Someone that cared, took an interest or believed in you? If your answer is yes, then you know exactly where I am coming from. If the answer is no….go find that person now. Okay, that might be easier said than done.

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Don’t Blow The Interview; Manager Pet Peeves

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The other day a job seeker named Bill came to my workshop carrying a newspaper article from the Boston Herald titled: “Be prepared for [the] unexpected at [the] job interview.” I had two reactions as he handed me the cut-out article with certain sentences underlined with red ink. My first reaction was to say, “Wow, people still read newspapers?” My other reaction was to thank him for the article. I was grateful for the article Bill brought me because much of what was written confirmed what I tell job seekers about the interview process. Not what questions to predict; not how…

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Why I Don’t Recommend Job Fairs

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I just went to a job fair recently. I took a couple of my clients and we discovered job fairs aren’t what they used to be. In the ‘old days’ they actually interviewed candidates at the job fair. Today, they just say ‘go to our website’. They don’t collect resumes, they don’t take your name, and in this case, no one even had the courtesy to stand up and greet candidates – some were even eating lunch. Why is this all important? Because it says to me that they feel the candidates are not worth their time. If they see the job fair as a waste of their time, then by extension they see participants as a waste of time. It won’t be too long before employers will begin to see job fairs as a waste of their time and money, just like job boards.

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Don’t Sell Yourself Short

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Someone once said to me, “Don’t sell yourself short.” It was one of those little slap-in-the-face epiphanies.

In the context of job hunting, it is very good advice to not sell yourself short. Job hunting is indeed a sales campaign. You need to know the features and benefits of the product you are selling, namely You. You need to be able to communicate your strengths to others, and relate your capabilities to the needs of hiring managers you will meet.

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While You’re Getting Bitter I’m Getting Better

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There’s a club out there I like to call the bitter club. It’s got a lot of members and is growing stronger every day. Their mission? To look around and see what everybody else has that they don’t have, blame everything else for their circumstances, and create a colossal list of excuses why their path to success is blocked by all those other pesky people taking all the opportunities.

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Transaction Networking

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I was discussing networking with a client and I told him to stop networking. Well, I told him to stop networking ineffectively. He thought, like most job seekers, that he should go to job fairs and job seekers networking events. I told him: “You didn’t go to those events when you were employed, then why are you doing it now? Unemployed go to those events, not people who have jobs. How will you ever find employed people there?”

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Don’t Talk About Your Skills

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A client recently had a breakthrough moment I wanted to share with you.

He was, like most job seekers, struggling with people not responding back to his applications online. Also, they weren’t responding to him when he’d drop by and hand his resume. All he got was the website, which is of little help when trying to make a connection.

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The Black Hole of Job Search

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Most people think this is where your resume goes when you apply for a job. While that’s true, I’m actually referring to the black hole most people become when they become job seekers.I see so many people ‘become’ job seekers.

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