The Boston Career Coach

They know your salary history

2009-04-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

I spoke today to a client who is probably about to get an offer after a very good interview. They're calling his references. BUT...he's concerned that since they know his salary history (he had to fill out their standard application for the face to face meeting) that they'll cave because he's too expensive in this recessionary economy.

He wanted my advice on how he could let them know they could have him cheaper without looking desperate. Well, if they're calling his references, they can't be so dumb to have ignored the application with his last salary. All he has to do is trust that if he gets an offer, either they'll meet or beat his last salary or if they want to offer him less, they will. The last thing to do is interfere when the ball is already rolling in your direction.

The desperation of fear can pervade the thinking of so many in the job market. Make no assumptions unless you have hard evidence. There are many strong companies who know they have to pay for true talent. If you're one of them, relax until you're back in the hot seat.

Keith Keller - Career Coach, BLOG TALK RADIO Presenter & Online Job Search Specialist

2009-03-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

Well, here is an unabashed plug for my friends, Keith Keller and his partner Annemarie Cross in Australia. His broadcasts are at 8 AM from Melbourne Australia's time zone and 6 PM eastern time in the US, Sunday evenings (Monday mornings in his part of the world).

It's called Career Communique Radio and they talk about finding real meaning and purpose in your work. They interviewed me live in Boston from Australia and he got emails back from other Bostonians.

To listen to next week's show, go to www.careercommuniqueradio.com.

You might even understand their speech. It's charming and not at all hard. They're good people with good advice.

The Hydra of a Good Job Campaign

2009-03-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

A hydra is a water animal that if cut into pieces, each section regenerates into a whole new animal. Humans are like hydras. How?

There is so much time and talent wasted on going only the direct route to job finding that we lose sight of the whole animal we are. We see ourselves as "cogs" to be plugged in somewhere to keep paying the bills, to keep the wheels spinning. Even worse is that the old job title, the skilled function we've practiced for so many years becomes our identity. Now it's serious.

Today more than ever we are invited to have portfolio careers. And it's about time. We're living longer and like hydras, there are whole parts of us that can be pressed into service, and the benefits are way beyond imaginable. We don't quite have to reinvent ourselves, just our personal marketing. The talent has always been there.

Most of us were born with multiple gifts, but pushed into silos, funnels of productivity to meet the needs of an adult life. What we haven't noticed is how those external needs change and how much we have to offer, all stuffed into our subconscious, to meet those needs. This economic disaster is a great awakening. We don't have to stuff our natural gifts. We have to use them to pay the bills.

No Practice Interviews

2009-03-26T17:29:00.000-07:00

I've heard people say many times over the years: I'm not interested in this job, but I'll take the interview just for the practice.

Why the charade? Interviews are serious face time between people. Scoring an actual interview with a hiring manager is a feather in your cap. Keep it real. If the commute for you would be 75 miles each way and you know you'd burn out in six months, don't fool yourself or tease the interviewer with your game. There's no such thing as a practice interview (except with a career coach). People see right through it and if they don't and make you an offer, you've wasted their time. The employment relationship is one of trust, or it certainly can be that way if you want it.

Don't practice with real interviews. Know what you want; it's easier to sell yourself when you're sincere.

Taking what you don't want

2009-03-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

Don't do that! One of my candidates was thrilled to have an interview at a company only a few miles from his home, and the telephone screening had gone quite well, and the hiring manager was anxious to meet him, and he even had signaled my friend was highly qualified and could be a good fit.

But.... something else happened. The actual interview. The hiring manager would not shake his hand. He was a nice guy, but maybe he had a germ thing! Then my friend found out there had been high turnover in the area for which he could be hired. Then there were the hours: this is a 24/7 shop and there's a need to be on call. Remember Hillary's 3 AM commercial? My friend might not be that cool.

This talented candidate was disappointed with this interview. He's also afraid to turn down an offer if it comes in, but when he considers all the bombs that dropped during the interview, it doesn't look at all like a good fit.

Recession or not: don't grab at hell just for the dollar. At least put off a decision while you cultivate other potential offers. My friend knows he could be miserable and he and I both know that fear of scarcity is behind his rationalizing an acceptance. You're still you. Do all that you can to be authentic to your basic values and to your well being.

New Energy, Passion

2009-03-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

I have a candidate who worked for 23 years with a Fortune 500 company and loved the corporate culture there, which has always been notoriously nurturing, but she hated her job. Downsized and free at last, she wants to purchase and open a franchise. She came to one word for her newfound enthusiasm: passion.

Joseph Campbell, the anthropologist guru, is well-known for his advice to "follow your bliss". As a career counselor, I have struggled with that notion throughout my own career. I always counseled people to follow their bliss/do what you love and the money will follow. But rarely did anyone believe it was possible. You had to earn a living, and that meant find a job that pays enough to make ends meet or provide even a luxury or two. Being happy, passionate about the work itself was pure luck.

But we're in a new economy, and if the spirit of the entrepreneur isn't alive today, it never will have an opening like this one, at least not for a very long time. The way out of dreadful work and working your passion is to nurture that intuitive longing, perform due diligence on getting the facts, and then budget yourself well enough to confirm you have a fiscally responsible business mentality. Then take the leap. This difficult downturn may be your uptick.

Losers and Gainers

2009-03-04T16:39:00.000-08:00

We hear about big companies laying off hundreds, but what we don't hear about is those same companies are hiring. They are even hiring back some of the people they just laid off. Why go through this rigmarole?

Sometimes it's just the numbers: take a sweep and figure out what you need after you see the holes in your workforce. I spoke with a woman today who interviewed with her former boss for a position that's new in her old company, the one that let her go just six weeks ago. Now some have told me this happens when companies want to hire reliable people they already know, but it's all about relocation. They'll take you back but you have to get out of Dodge. Who knows?

I also spoke with someone today who was laid off from a company that a man I talked with yesterday was just hired by. And he's getting a six figure income.

The job market is about flow. There are losers and gainers (people aren't losers or gainers; the jobs are lost and gained). Keep that in mind. The economy is in terrific flux, but there are plenty of solvent companies ( maybe not some of the banks) and there is a stimulus that has some high focus, so don't believe that companies who are laying off aren't capable of hiring. They still are, even in this economy.

Who's too old?

2009-02-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite candidates in my coaching work told one on himself the other day: "it's my age that will stop me". He's 64 and will be eligible for Medicare this coming June. The funny thing is that he admits he looks five or ten years younger, he's healthy and fit, and ordinarily does not feel old. So why did he say this now? It's Medicare. He let the word trigger an image he actually doesn't subscribe to.

What words are pulling you down? "The economy is going to get worse before it gets better". Then: "Nobody's hiring now". Well, the first sentence is probably true. But that doesn't mean your economy. Where do you live? What companies will benefit from the stimulus and do you know of any in your area? Do you want to know? What have you always wanted to do with your life? Have you sat down and done a thorough spending plan to get you through the coming months (year?)? Are you networking, seriously networking? Have you looked at your values and noticed where you may have overlooked them in the past few years while working yourself to the bone?

Age is not an excuse. I fear far more for the young. It's not too late to get going.

It's gonna get better

2009-02-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

Oh boy, before we boil in our own oil fretting away the ongoing and upcoming course of our economy, let's look at how it's going to get better. Remember, I like to address the long-term here.

I just heard that the cell phone network providers are going to stop selling us these annual or biannual contracts and let us have it pay as you go. That's a good idea.! I'm about to turn over every one of my credit cards and live by my debit Visa all by itself.

This means there alway has to be enough money in there for me to spend, and that even means for business. Fortunately my business demands little capital, but still, some months it will mean more trips to bulky-ville shopping at Costco in order to have enough cash for my online advertising. Now that's what I call budgeting. What else good is coming? Post it!

Face Your Fear

2009-02-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

No time has ever been more ripe to invent, to create, to take risks, to see things differently deliberately. There is so much uncertainty, so much fear, that only a few brave souls are willing to release their fear of the future, of their attachment to the job they just lost, or of the the job they hate, but believe they might be losing.

I talk to people around the country every day who are beginning to understand that networking is not a dirty manipulative game, but simply trusting others to open up and talk, to find out how to give, and discover how to ask for help.

One woman has dared to make herself uncomfortable by joining Toastmasters to face the discomfort of public speaking. This will pay off; she's stretching, learning, turning away from fear and into growth. It may or may not lead to a new job, but it will help make a new woman of her, and this way of skill building is almost free.

What are you doing to face your fears and stare them down? That's why I write a blog no one reads: to face my cynicism and to learn to write better.

whew! finally I can do what I've dreamed of

2009-02-19T04:59:00.000-08:00

This week I've spoken to two very strong, capable, professional women, recently "downsized" after twenty plus years in Fortune 100 companies and both came to a similar conclusion, but they told me like it was a secret. One wants to become a licensed practical nurse and the other wants to get her real estate license and work for herself.

Both know about the money issue, and both are prepared to deal with it for the sake of getting off the merry-go-round. Let's face it, the merry- go-round may be merrily coming to a grinding halt and everyone will have to get off.

Now dumping the grind is not new. And we've all been told only one in five new businesses survive five years. But that's old news. We're in an economy now that demands out of the box thinking (the box has collapsed). It also demands new ways of looking at our former comfortable consumption. I cannot tell these women what to do but I can applaud their independent thinking. Is creativity and work satisfaction finally on the table?

Grinding Up an Elephant to Produce a Hamburger

2009-02-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

My husband coined this phrase a few years ago, when he was working as a consultant to businesses that are now struggling to stay alive, but were then (merely) wasting away their personnel, shredding their talents and energies, to get to the bottom line.

Today I talk daily to some of these same good souls who labored in a system they hated and are now holding on to a short severance, an unemployment check that may last till the end of 2009, thanks to the stimulus, and a new lease on life. This doesn't mean they're not scared, but they're open to the truth.

One woman yesterday was panicking because her husband wanted to know her Plan B. Her plan A is to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning a franchise. Plan B as the corporate grind is so far out of the picture she can taste it. Another woman today, same big industry, wants to get her real estate license and be on her own (finally). "I'll never go back. My closest friends know how miserable I was for at least the past five years."

We're in for a painful transition, but many of us with the courage to face the truth about the wasteful use of our time to produce so little of any merit will come out ahead. You have one life. Use it well.

Conventional Thinking is Dead or Dying

2009-02-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing I would encourage everyone to do: get off the couch whether unemployed right now or just fearful of the axe that may be coming, and sit with like minded people, friends and people you just click with, and brainstorm everything you care about that needs improvement, re-invention, re-thinking. Let it all blow out and get it on the table. Beware of saying anything cynical: we've all been there far too long.

Tom Friedman in the New York Times today has an article about two young American graduate students in India, who formed a partnership with an Indian entrepreneur woman and are testing a solar powered car. Yes, it's a developmental piece, but innovation and venture capital will open up: it has to, or we all go down really fast. We will come out of this and we will be poorer (and more sensible) before we stabilize, but we will leave a better world for our children and their children. If we can elect a black president, we can re-invent our economy. We can better educate our youth, work against global warming, take better care of each other as full, deserving human beings. Now is the time to put it all on the table; conventional thinking put us in a trance. This is the wake up call we've been waiting for.

Turn and Learn

2009-02-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

What it will take from here on out is to be able to turn and learn. I speak to people every day who are enrolling in training programs, investing in more education, pressing themselves to advance their computer skills---anything and everything they can do to make up for the lack of career development they missed in the workaholic economy we've been living under for so long.

One woman today told me that when she interviewed three years ago she was still working for her mega-bank and the interviewer told her she was too intense. Now laid off for two months from that bank, she has a different spirit, more relaxed, less wound up in the "machinery" of big business and perhaps ready to be comfortable with a smaller business and working with people in a more relaxed atmosphere.

We need to be able to turn away from what we were doing that wasn't working in terms of our lives and our health, and re-examine our priorities. Maybe a little less money and a lot more play time is in order. It may be what we get, whether or not we even want it.

It's a social revolution

2009-01-31T05:08:00.000-08:00

It's all about trust

2009-01-30T19:24:00.001-08:00

If trust is what we've lost in the banking industry, Wall Street moguls and their bonuses, and how the TARP funds are managed, trust is what we must restore in each other and this is how we will rebuild our economy.

Build trust from the bottom up. If you have a choice to hire someone whose reliability and professionalism you can check out on Angie's List versus the nice brother-in-law of your next door neighbor, I suggest Angie over Mrs. Puddlewump, even if you love her toy poodle.

When people trust your word, your work and the company you keep, including paying customers who recommend you, they will hire you, and you will contribute to the economy--yours and everyone else's. Before we used money for exchange we bartered. The man who traded his chicken for your pair of size 12 shoes knew he could walk comfortably while you ate a good hen. The world has changed in our transactions, but not in the basics. It's all built on trust and it's up to us to rebuild it, each one of us at a time.

Portfolio careers

2009-01-29T05:24:00.000-08:00

It used to embarrass me that I had three careers, three unique careers: university teaching, wedding officiating and career counseling (the former and now out of fashion word for coaching). Today it looks like not such a bad idea, at least in theory.

We are in an economic free fall and it's directly affecting jobs and industries and functions within the tiered industries which have kept America producing lo these last fifty years or so. As an active career counselor (coach) every day I speak with people who have industry experience that will not translate back to their weak industry (bankers, for example). We work together to find all transferable skills to make them ready to cross into new industries and apply skills that could move them into the economy again. This is in effect their portfolio of applicable talent.

You and I have multiple talents and skills, hard and soft. If you haven't started looking directly at all this, start your portfolio now. If you want help, email me at eq2@att.net.

The Boston Career Coach: Time is Not Money

2009-01-19T21:36:00.000-08:00

The Boston Career Coach: Time is Not Money

Time is Not Money

2009-01-19T04:32:00.001-08:00

Many of us work in jobs where there is a quota to be reached, where the numbers must be met at the end of the day. At times these metrics diametrically oppose quality service. But our paycheck depends on the bottom line, so we overlook or bury most of the bigger issues and quietly burn out, finding our idealism and passion for the job we took waning and eventually buried.

Remedy? We must work carefully and courageously with how we think and then with what we do, and how we act. Taking the time to discuss one snafu in the system, to offer a large idea that could deliver better quality and ultimately reach the bottom line, would revitalize our passion and un-bury the slowly developing rage that leaves us going home every day exhausted and burned out from the treadmill of the bottom line. Find your voice and use it. If your immediate boss can't hear you, go above her. American businesses need yours and my voice more than ever.

We Launched The Boston Career Coach

2009-01-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

We finally put it up, the new website announcing our career coaching and performance coaching programs for the Boston area. We're excited to get it advertised and to keep adding programs as we grow our services.

Next to come is a "flex res" product, the flexible resume that is updated for every single job target. It's an affordable service and most importantly, it's a flexible product, a worthwhile exercise. Precise customizing is more important now than ever before and cover letters don't do the whole job; the resume itself has to be focused as well, not just by industry, not just by function, but by every single job.

We should have this up within a week or two. Meanwhile, I hope to hear from you soon. URL is www.thebostoncareercoach.com.

Eckhart Tolle: "I'm Unemployed!"

2009-01-05T20:46:00.001-08:00

Tolle is quoted from his latest book on the ways we can detach from suffering.

He describes a man who's lost his money in the stock market and who states: "I'm ruined". Tolle suggests there's another way to say it: "I have 50 cents left in my bank account." The latter means there's a fact I can face, a quantifiable reality I can begin to take action to change. But in the first statement we have a story, a narrative of disaster. These are tempting kinds of narratives, as they go around continuously in every circle of conversation, picked up from a wide variety of news sources and other fictions.

Think about it for a job seeker in a down economy: "I'm unemployed." This implies a permanent state or at least a stagnant one. In fact if you're looking for new work, you are indeed employed in a project. You are even probably funding it yourself with your unemployment and savings. How different is it to say: "I'm talking to a variety of people about new job prospects." The unemployed statement is passive stagnation and the job prospects statement is active self-assertion.

This way of speaking can actually change the feeling. For starters, it's true. Try it on. We need a constant renewal of confidence, and how we speak (about ourselves and others) matters.

Creativity Kills Fear

2009-01-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

Want to get ahead of the oncoming fear game? It's not oncoming for you; it's ongoing?

Well, here's some out of the box thinking: every day do three things to combat fear of job loss, of work stagnation, or of a business drought.

Name the fear (ex: business is slow and I may be fired, or I may lose the business I own)
Create a vision (I will be performing at my peak and help what business we have)
Do one thing to improve yourself, your performance, or to validate the good work of others. Do it, no matter how small or routine. Do it.

We are in a phase of not only economic recovery, but also of true reinvention. That's the good news. If all the stimulus packages from Washington are meant to create consumer confidence, one thing each of us can do for ourselves is create personal confidence.

Why is this so important? Because without confidence we stagnate. We atrophy. We shrivel up and fear eats away at us from the inside out. I'm not speaking of normal healthy fear: see a doctor when you have a persistent cough. I'm talking about the daily news, the large layoffs, the gloom and doom thrown at us day in and day out.

Every act based on the best possible picture is creative. Each creative act lifts human energy. Enlivened human energy begets confidence, even in the face of no certainty as to outcome. Fear kills creativity. It's time to turn that on its head.

Trust Your Gut

2009-01-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

After an intense speed networking session about three weeks ago, I made a phone date with a recruiter and a coffee date with a writer. It made perfect sense to speak with the recruiter, but the writer? He was so interesting on the phone in those five allotted minutes, I said yes to meeting up with him. I pulled another friend in and we all three met this afternoon for a little over an hour. In the process of rambling through many facets of our varied combined talents, (he kept speaking of trust building), I started to understand how relationship building is always about letting yourself go where your instincts lead you. And even if this meeting had proved less productive, it was a good idea to take the internet meeting to the next level, meet in person and begin to test the water.

Sooner or later we have to face our own demons. The person looking at you is as human as you and I are and is interesting if we bother to find out. Anyone building a career must always learn that it is who you know, not what you know, that advances your prospects. Or, what you know is only worthwhile when you let the right people in on your magic.

As corporations get smaller or consolidate more, people need effective networking more than ever. I've known this long before the internet and speed "everything" was invented, but I'm still learning more everyday, and I trust my gut.

Linked In as a superb marketing tool

2008-12-30T13:42:00.000-08:00

It would have been such a blessing during the pre-Internet days to have such an excellent tool for connecting to people. But just because it's good does not make it easy, nor does it protect us from being highly selective in making connections.

Even behind the protective guise of the Internet, we still have to say "no" to people we don't know or wish we didn't, and we still have to keep it more professional than personal. What you can say on Facebook is not the the same.

Linked In has a wide menu of options to get the word out that you know what you're talking about in your field and you're open to discussions with others of like mind. As a blog reader and writer, I like to read comments, mostly political, until they get mean or silly. But when you post a query or idea on LI, you'll usually hear only from people who take you seriously and have an informed idea to pitch back to you.

I'm no expert, but every day I learn more about Linked In and it keeps getting better.

Hope and the 2009 job prospects

2008-12-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

There is much fear, and justifiably so, of the coming wave of layoffs across America in the first and second quarters we are looking to now. I keep telling my candidates: stay open, be flexible, keep learning something new, something that stretches you, keep connecting to other people, even if you don't know why or how they might help you. See first how you might help them.

I was doing my Christmas reading today and came upon this quote form Henri J, M. Louwen's book: With Open Hands. It says what I want to say but way better:

I see hope as an attitude where everything stays open before me. Not that I don't think of my future in those moments, but I think of it in an entirely different way. Daring to stay open to whatever will come to me today, tomorrow, two months from now or a year from now---that is hope. To go fearlessly into things without knowing how they'll turn out, to keep on going, even when something doesn't work the first time, to have trust in whatever you're doing---that is living with hope.

I have been on the brink of failure so many times now, I can't count. Change itself is the death of the old and the birth of the new, but perhaps we wait too long on death and fail to see the birth. Or we fail to anticipate the coming birth. This anticipation is the cradle of hope, not the blind helpless state, but the energy that supplies the little individual to see opportunity and run with it, for the greater good. That is living with hope.

Money and Ethics

2008-12-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

I had a long and intimate discussion this morning with one of my career coaching clients. He had 27 years in the banking industry and moved up the line to middle management. His bank once had a culture that stuck close to the customer. But along came some kind of crunch and then a few years ago there was a merger, and the culture of the bigger fish financial business swallowed the bank's culture and everything changed (not overnight, but gradually, like the boiling frog).

Over a period of five to seven years the culture moved from customer-focused to bottom line focused, and guess what happened? The bank got into big trouble and is one of those involved in the current bailout. Heads are rolling and even the severance at this bank will disappear for everyone who leaves after December 31, 2008. Meanwhile the bonuses are still distributed. What's wrong with this picture? What's the ethical basis when good hard-working people with 20 plus years lose their six month severance, but other bottom line players get a 5MM bonus?

Until we as a nation get closer to the inherent value of work itself, until corporations follow those mission statements developed fifteen years ago and act like the words have meaning, until we wake up and look around to see how everything we do has repercussions, often in far off countries, we will continue to see the loss of our middle class and a rise in poverty, the likes of which most of us living have not seen. The inherent value of good work deserves to be rewarded. There are definitely jobs that have become obsolete, but there are also robbers (still) at the top who have mismanaged other people's money and swept away good middle income jobs in a game that fills the executive coffers and leaves many Americans struggling from paycheck to paycheck. The reckoning is coming and every one of us will feel the pain of this readjustment. But it's less economic in its full picture and more about ethical, fair standards and the courage to reward work itself over leveraging paper to reflect money that was never there to begin with.

Blitztime

2008-12-19T05:16:00.000-08:00

Since I last posted I went to a networking event on the phone and online. You can enroll yourself by going to www.blitztime.com, and it's free. You create a profile, much like you do in Linked In, but not that extensive (it's not necessary for this). You then go through the scheduled events list and sign up. There are at least thirty to fifty a month and they are geographically centered. This means you are networking with locals. My group was Boston Speed Networking. There were 39 people on the call and I spoke to 13.

This is how it works: there are ninety minutes scheduled. You dial in and bring up the website at the designated time. When the event begins, you are moved around randomly every five minutes. A clock ticks in the right corner of the screen allowing you to see how much you have to say (both of you). When the five minutes is up, you are automatically pulled away from that person and wait thirty seconds for the screen to change (you see that person's profile so you immediately get an idea who they are). You can exchange numbers or tips or ideas with anyone, even those with whom you have little in common. At the end of the ninety minutes, everyone's name you were matched against comes up and you can send an email. I sent seven and received close to the same amount, but not necessarily the same people. I have two follow-up appointments, one with a recruiter and the other with a writer.

Why is this good networking? You can do it from home. You are forced to connect to people. You cannot waste any time warming up: you are there for a purpose, and you quickly get to the point. You have an obligatory departure so you don't have to walk away and feel guilty. You can see the person if they posted a picture and you get all their information in front of you, not just a name tag with a company name. But the big prize is this: you have an immediate chance to follow up. You don't go home from the event and look at the business card and enter it into your address book and then wonder when you'll contact that person or why you wanted to in the first place.

This is VERY GOOD business. Try it.

Restructuring and the Little Individual

2008-12-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

Senator Chris Dodd spoke Sunday about the need for strategic reorganization and restructuring, not only of the Big Three auto behemoths in Detroit, but also for the ancillary organizations that supply and service the industry.

It got me thinking: that's what we need to do as individuals, especially those reinventing themselves for the job market when their current employment comes to a halt. Now more than ever we cannot be stuck with the old job titles and the business as usual set of skills. We need to upgrade our skills, get another set under our belts, learn the language of Web 2.0 and use the tools of better connecting to people and the opportunities they provide, if we only know how to ask.

One of my clients admitted today:" I thought I knew a lot about networking, but I'm finding out I didn't even know I already had a Linked In account. I just didn't know how to use it". I know people who swear by Linked In and get interviews with recruiters and hiring managers and I know others with 100 connections who let them sit there, without attention.

Linked In is one avenue and there are others, but just staying with that one, there are books to read, blogs to follow, and chat rooms on how to make it work for you. Part of restructuring is rethinking how you connect to change and to opportunity. It all starts with people and with good advice. And it helps to think in new pradigms, including how to make new friends and keep the old.

Learn To Lead

2008-12-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

Leadership is a skill many misunderstand. We come to think of it as something that people with outgoing, aggressive personalities do easily and well, and ultimately these blessed individuals will succeed as leaders throughout their lives. We believe that leaders are born, not made.

Not so. Leadership is available to anyone at any time. It can be developed and cultivated and leadership opportunities are all around us.

Leadership comes from patience, listening to others and using a dollop of courage when an action or the right word is clear to you. Leadership is innovative, collegial, cooperative, imaginative, trustworthy, inclusive, and raises the highest standards against itself. Leadership is humble but not fearful, confident but not arrogant, intelligent but not effete.

Leadership is a quality to cultivate for the new economy, and on a daily basis. How? Every day do one thing that makes you uncomfortable (learn one more piece of Excel or change your gym routine and start lifting weights instead of zoning out on the treadmill). Pick up the phone and make that call you've been putting off. Leadership is courageous, lively action and it begets its own good energy. Others will follow because this energy is infectious.

And leadership is competitive in the job market. It has an aura, a certain attractive quality that complements your ordinary skill set. It's an intangible that might just make the critical difference in your next interview. And it will keep your good job around longer. When money is scarce and fear is in the air, leadership is what pulls everyone through.

Speed Networking

2008-11-26T16:06:00.000-08:00

One of my clients gave me a hot tip recently, so I went to try it out. He found it through Linkedin: it's called speed networking and you can get there from www.blitztime.com. You go in and register, view the networking telephone events in your geographic area, view the other people signed up (you create your profile first and you can say as much or as little as you want), and then enroll yourself --FREE--for a ninety minute slot on a specific date.

You have five minutes to introduce yourself to the next randomly selected person and then you stop. The whole event is 90 minutes so you can meet eighteen people in your scheduled event. If you get a "hit" connection, all the better. My client met up with a recruiter in his field on the second five minutes he was there. They scheduled a formal phone interview right after that first quick meeting.

I signed up for December 16 in Boston. I'll keep you posted, but meanwhile, check out the website and decide for yourself.

Money and Motive

2008-11-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

Why do we work? This morning I read a very good piece on on experiment about CEO pay and how it ties in to actual corporate performance. It doesn't: it's actually counter-productive to higher performance. This researcher went to India to conduct his first test. He offered money incentives for delivering results. The groups were divided into three and each was offered the same work for a different bonus. The high bonus offer was $50, equivalent to six months pay for an Indian middle level worker and the low bonus offer was 50 cents, an equivalent in India to a day's wage. The winners were all in the 50 cent group and the losers were the $50.

He took the experiment to a group of seniors at MIT and offered $60, $300, and $600, respectively. When it was purely mechanical performance the $600 group won, but at the cognitive level they failed. The $60 group won in that category. Then when they were asked to perform their work under public scrutiny, the $600 group failed. The private work of the $60 group made them the front-runners.

What does it say, other than the obvious, that CEO pay at a level 450 times the lowest employee of the firm should be punishable by death when the company fails? Perhaps this small experiment indicates we work for something more than money, that we strive to achieve less under pressure and more for the pure satisfaction of achievement as its own inherent reward.

People need money and are definitely happier when rewarded with a fair wage, but exorbitant bonuses just put us to sleep, make us take our eyes off the ball and get just a little too comfortable.

We are living in uncomfortable times in the wake of our ailing world economy. We mustn't recover too quickly, lest we lose the opportunity to know what it means to wake up and keep our eyes on the ball. It doesn't take a rich CEO to have a clear head and a cool moral fiber. We are all in this together now, so let's keep our eyes wide open!

Time Well-Spent

2008-11-16T06:33:00.000-08:00

One aspect of the new new economy that I've considered lately is how to spend my time and even how I might suggest others could do the same. With looming increases in layoffs (December is the highest month traditionally), and now scary news threatening so many of us in many industry sectors and geographic regions, we have to think differently about the use of our time.

With a new administration coming in we have a resurgence of hope, but hope is hard to hold onto when fear and anxiety take over. How then to keep the twin monsters at bay? Paul Krugman and Thomas L. Friedman (both contributors to the New York Times) have exhorted us to spend, not in a foolish way, but as a way of keeping the flow of money going. Wal-Mart is the only retail company having an upturn (easy to understand).

But my focus is on time. If we have anything to face now that could help, it is a renewed awareness, and perhaps a deliberate focus on how we use our time, how we spend it. I spend my time somewhat newly. For example, my awareness of the economic impact, as well as the ecological impact, of how I use and abuse energy has changed. I work from my home office mostly and I have lately turned the thermostat lower and put on layers even while at the peak of my productivity during the day. It is not yet winter, but the layers are going to increase. This has a double benefit: lower fuel costs (save money) and better ecology overall.

I call more friends on weekends and evenings. Boom times are over and my vision has opened: love is irreplaceable; money is not in the forefront. It's in the background, there as a threat as it always has been, but the work against fear demands a different outlook. Hope can be sustained over time when we reach out to others, even on a good day. Know hope and use time well as the precious gift that it is.

No Pity Party

2008-11-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

If you're actively seeking new work right now, remember be FLEXIBLE! Look at your most recent job and examine carefully what transferable skills you have. These include your soft skills: your ability to multi-task, to synthesize ideas, to coordinate divergent groups or individuals into moving the action, and into advancing the decision-making.

All of these skills are sought-after and much in demand. AND they transfer to almost any function and across all industries. If you are unemployed and it's getting you down (understandable), use this time, especially in this interregnum in Washington and in this holiday season, to introspect about your gifts, your soft skills. You have them; you maybe just haven't thought about them in awhile. And soft is hardly the right word. It's your people skills. people matter to people in the workforce. Why else can some people ask for a challenging task to be done and get others on board? If your people skills are weak, strengthen them. Use this time to develop a better you and avoid the pity party.

Be Prepared for December

2008-11-12T04:52:00.000-08:00

The AP reports this morning that December is the biggest month (twofold statistically) for layoffs in American businesses. Executives and senior management scramble to deliver a profit for end of year and layoffs happen now. So, if you are in the mix of the bad news, and more of you will be this year because...need I remind you of what we're all talking about?

The reverse news (I won't say good yet) is that in the first quarter of 2009 there will also be other shifts going on, adjustments to how companies spend and hiring. No one can make much sense of it but some companies hire right after a layoff and it's not all cheaper labor. It's when they see what they need and have to fill that need.

It will be a leaner holiday season, without a doubt, but it's not the end of the world.

Learn Spanish

2008-11-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

Want to open up numerous career opportunities? learn Spanish and get very good at speaking it. I have a counseling client ( a professional in HR) who is a native speaker (Mexican American) and he has an abundance of opportunities both as a professional in the Southern border to Mexico with mega-companies, and as an online teacher with various universities who run business courses with Spanish speaking customers in Mexico and Latin America. Now, you may not master this language as well as a native speaker, but you can get close if you work at it.

It's time to open up your education, not just in the hallowed halls, but in the small, practical ways we all have access to.

Manager of Freelancers

2008-11-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

I just read a great idea for a new job in the new economy. This came form Seth Godin on his blog. Seth is a wonderful writer and an enlightened and courageous thinker. When I return to links, I'll get you there. Meanwhile Google Seth Godin and read his entry on the top three jobs to have right now. Yes, Community Organizer is up there at the top. Duh! I wonder where he got that one?

Should I be scared?

2008-11-03T13:04:00.000-08:00

I talk to hundreds of people every month around the country who have varying dgress of success and failure in their job search. A few are lucky enough to be ready for retirement and didn't lose it all in the recent Wall Street meltdown. Others have a couple of months severance, live in a relatively prosperous parts of the country (Texas and North Carolina) and don't seem to be aware of the economic nightmare we're in right now.

But if you're aware and getting scared, don't. It doesn't help; it doesn't change anything. One thing for sure: change is on the way and change is never comfortable, at least until it shakes out it's flaws and comes to rest in full form, useful and practical and maybe even fun.

But this won't happen without creative, open-minded, opportunistic people who keep themselves open to these changes and how they affect others and where the opportunities are to make a decent living. And that's where the big change will come. We must stop thinking about getting rich. It may be a long time before we know what it will look like. But a decent living, including savings (safe and conservative savings) is on the way if we keep ourselves open to it. We will probably learn to build smaller houses and build them closer to each other. We will learn how to save, even if it's small amounts at a time. We will learn how to take better care of our resources. Our environmental resources are limited and so our our everyday living resources. We will learn how to be more alive by living better lives, by looking ourselves in the mirror and finding ourselves able to be at peace with what's reflected back.