Interviews are a time for us to express our qualifications. Show our personality. Demonstrate interest in the role and company. Yet, it’s also a great time for us to determine if we want to work for this company. Nearly every interview will wrap up with “Do you have...
When we are in a job search, we are trying to get the attention of many. The AI bot that scans our resume. The recruiter. The HR leader. The hiring manager. Leadership. Potential Peers. Teams that might work for us. What each of them “need” from our resume and...
When searching for a job, the cover letter is often your introduction. The first impression. The demonstration of your personality. The reason why you are the perfect fit. The document that sets you apart. Often, we can be overwhelmed by this step in the application...
This week, a post by Cal Newport caught my attention. Titled “Easy is Overrated”, he highlights a challenge in the publishing world. Manuscripts are arriving at a faster pace, but the content is more difficult to understand. AI is being used more. Readability is going...
AI is here. And while none of us knows exactly where it is going, I think it’s important to keep learning enough to understand what the technology can do and imagine what it might enable. Over the past three years, my own use of AI has continued to evolve. I started...
In high school and college, guidance counselors are there for support. They help us choose classes. Navigate transitions. Talk through stress. Find internships. And plan for the future. Then we graduate. And the role disappears. At work, we’re on your own. Managers...
Can you tell me a bit about yourself? This is a question we can hear in many situations. Meeting someone new. Becoming a guest on a podcast. An interview for a new job. We might know the question will be asked. We think it’s an easy one. So, we don’t prepare in the...
I recently listened to an older episode of the Daily Creative podcast with Todd Henry. The episode was an interview with Mo Bunnell titled after his book Give to Grow. A foundational message was that doing the work is different than winning the work. Our actions when...
Careers are an interesting thing. We all have moments where choices are made. We select one path over another. We find ourselves in roles we didn’t plan on. We go through a lifequake with a company downsizing. We start to understand what we enjoy doing… and what we...
When losing a job, there is one path in clear view. Get a new job. This path is full of resume updates, cover letters, and applications. Then, the bumpy next steps can arise. Rejections. Ghosting. Resulting in self-doubt. Which leads to resume “tweaking”, more cover...
Gartner published an article on The Future of Leadership with AI that included the chart below. The perspective in the article was interesting as it linked to the evolution of middle management. That said, I was intrigued by the chart at the individual employee level....
We’ve been calling ourselves knowledge workers for decades. It sounds impressive. Professional. Essential. But many of us would say our days don’t feel like deep, intellectual work. They feel like endless meetings. Inboxes overflowing. Constant notifications. And...
A Harvard Business Review article gave an overview of 4 job change “quests”. They linked the quests to “why people quit their job”. However, I’m thinking they also apply to job changes. Here are the 4 Quests: Get Out – Employees want to get out of their current...
What to Do When You’re Tired of Selling Yourself? You’ve rewritten your resume ten times…and that’s just this week. You’ve posted on LinkedIn to engage and show your strengths…regularly. You’ve answered “Tell me about yourself” more times than you care to count. And...
This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about my daily writing habit. I spend the first 30 minutes of my day (every day) writing about professional development and/or marketing, brainstorming ideas, or digging into frameworks that have been forming in my mind. Some of the...
When we are considering another job, there may be a lot on our mind. We may want a promotion. A higher salary. A change. All these things could be great. And they will feel great when they happen. We are picked. We are in a better financial situation. Learning new...
When you lose a job, it doesn’t just affect our calendar or our paycheck. It affects our emotions. Our mindset. And our sense of self. Some days, it feels like a tidal wave. Other days, just a low hum in the background. We start to wonder if this is normal. The...
Do you feel like you are living your best life? 12 years ago, I didn’t. My kids were getting older. Time was opening up. Yet, I was so used to being busy, all I felt was a void. There is comfort in busy-ness. For many, including myself, it came from doing things for...
If we work for a company or ourselves, we have a job (or jobs) we do to make money. These are the activities that we are paid to do. Likely, none of our job or project descriptions include “attend meetings” or “respond to email”. Yet, large chunks of our day can be...
When we talk about work, we use words like jobs and chores. Typically, jobs are paid, and chores are unpaid activities for maintaining our homes. Within jobs and chores, we have duties, tasks and assignments. The tasks are ongoing work. Duties imply work are obligated...
We all want to be picked. To be on the team. Get the job. Go on the date. Win the award. The list goes on and on. The feeling we get when we are picked is hard to describe. Yet, at the core, it validates that we matter. We are “right”. We meet the need that someone is...