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How to deal with major change.
I received a high emotion email from a client, one who is considering retiring from her career of over 25 years. She expressed feeling very anxious about what her future would look like. This was my reply: “You are thinking about leaving a life routine you’ve been used to for more than three decades, without having yet put together a possible plan for what your new life routine might look like. Change is very uncomfortable. Human beings are, for the most part, drawn to certainty in our lives. We want to know where our food will come from, our shelter, our relationships, and our...
read moreCooking Up Job Experiments!
A friend loaned me her copy of Julie & Julia. I’d seen the movie years ago, yet reading the book reminded me of the delight and value that can come from diving into a career experiment. A career experiment is a short-term, low-risk experience that exposes the experimenter to an aspect of a profession that intrigues them. Career experiments can help with career planning, and, in author Julie Powell’s case, to satisfy a craving. Powell had been fascinated with cooking and Julia Child for years. If you’re familiar with the story, you’ll recall that Powell challenged herself to cook all of...
read moreLinkedIn: Focus on Your Strengths
Having worked with hundreds of clients to improve their profiles, expand their networks, and leverage their connections, I have noticed that many people are nervous talking about their strengths. When we reach the summary section, skills section, or experience descriptions, many clients immediately cringe from my suggestion of expanding the verbiage to include more strengths. Generally speaking, individuals fall into two camps: they either say they “don’t want to brag” or they “don’t have any strengths.” For those who don’t want to brag, my response is fairly simple: it isn’t bragging, it’s...
read moreKick Your Job Search into High Gear
If you are like many people, then performing a job search can start to wear on you very quickly. In my own job searches, I became fatigued after about 3 weeks—I would apply to job ads online incessantly, and then become disheartened when I didn’t hear anything. Struggling to land even an interview can be very discouraging, and can lead to you ceasing to apply altogether. Rather than letting your job search get bogged down, try the steps I’ve included below. Sometimes, to land that interview and find your next opportunity, you just have to change the way you do things to get more leverage out...
read moreMore than Just Words: Keywords
The advent of job seeking on the internet has led to both great and terrible things for job seekers. Jobs are now easier to search for, and geographic location no longer limits networking to your immediate area. On the other hand, however, it has become harder for job seekers to stand out in the job search, in part because of the implementation of programs known as “ATS” or Applicant Tracking Systems. These systems scan through applicant resumes and cover letters, ranking them based on keyword saturation. The higher the count of keywords in your resume, the more likely it will be pushed...
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