Posts filed under 'miscellaneous career advice'
This is going to be short. It’s a simple concept. The trick is in the execution.
Your career sweet spot, the place where you get the most personal satisfaction and the most material success (position, promotion, cash money) lies at the intersection of the answers to two questions:
A) What do you like doing?
B) What are your most marketable skills?
Simple, right? Coming up with the answers to those questions and finding the common ground is often one of the challenges for my career consulting clients. BUT once they are able to get a clear picture of the common ground, it creates first a sense of relief and then a direction for forward movement.
So before you make a career move or set to work on polishing your resume, do this little exercise and see what you discover. It may surprise you.
Photo courtesy of jimmiehomeschoolmom.
February 25th, 2010
(This post originally appeared on Your Industry Insider on January 17th.)
Say what you will… She’s sometimes abrasive, sometimes obscene, and sometimes downright mean, but comedienne Kathy Griffin has made a well-above-D list entertainment career out of billing herself as stuck on the D-list. But what does Kathy Griffith have to teach us about being successful in entertainment?
As luck would have it, not only do we have articles about Kathy and interviews with her, not to mention her book and many DVDs, we can actually watch her in “real life” (as much as reality TV is “real life”). As regular readers of YII know, we believe there’s always plenty to learn by tuning in to reality TV.
Here are six lessons from Kathy’s career we can take with us on our own journeys:
1. She remained true to herself. Watching Kathy on her Bravo TV show, “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List,” interacting with her family and friends, her staff, her publishers, her fans, and the public at large, you can see her act is no act. She really is obsessed with celebrities (the more troubled the better), defensive at times, potty-mouthed, and deeply devoted to the gay men at the core of her fan base (not to mention the ones she is actually friends with). How can your career be a reflection of your true self?
2. She found her people. Speaking of gay men… Before the rest of the world discovered her, gay men were showing up at Kathy’s gigs. Loyal followers are hard to come by when you are a struggling comedienne so she recognized them, as a niche audience and as kindred spirits, and sought out opportunities to perform for them. Her audience has grown enormously both inside and outside the gay community, but she will always appreciate them filling the seats at her gigs and keeping food on her table in the early years. Where are your people?
3. She networked well. Kathy wants to meet everyone who she can learn from and who can help her advance her career. And she is not afraid to reach out. She knows that paying a sincere compliment is a good way to start and asking people for the secrets of their success, being humble and a good listener, is the key to getting good information out of a busy professional. Who have you reached out to lately?
4. She worked smart (not to mention hard). Whenever Kathy has a new challenge, whether it is performing in front of a different audience than her usual crowd (the military, the Apollo Theater crowd) or breaking into a new area (publishing), she goes on a research mission, talking to whoever she can who might give her insight she can use (her own industry insiders, if you will). Whose wisdom can you tap for your next step?
5. She failed. Oh, Kathy. She’s been kicked off more talk shows than most celebrities have appeared on. She’s bombed in front of 1000s of people. She was booed off the stage at the Apollo Theater. And yet…
6. She never gave up. In any entertainment career (in any career period), there will always be moments of failure and even some periods when it seems like nothing is going right. But then you vow to fight another day, strategize, redouble your efforts, try yet again for success.
And like Kathy, if you stay true to yourself and find your people and network and work smart and never give up, you may just find yourself graduating from the D-list to the C-list, and maybe even beyond that.
Who’s your reality TV role model (or anti-role model)? Comments welcome…
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February 4th, 2010
Okay, so the “before” picture is YOU now. You weigh 344 pounds.
Not literally, but in terms of where you are in your life (unhappy, overworked and/or underpaid, overweight, financially underwater, single, bored) and where you want to be (happy, well-worked and well-paid, fit, financially flush, coupled, stimulated).
How do you get from 344 pounds to 215 pounds (and below)?
You ask Tyler Weeks, the guy in the picture.
This is what Tyler wrote when he determined that he wanted to lose weight, that he had to lose weight (right before he bought the scale that could accommodate his frame and before he started his website, www.344pounds.com).
My name is Tyler, I’m 23 years old, 6 feet and 2 inches tall, and I don’t know how much I weigh; I don’t own a scale that has the structural integrity to weigh me (most scales have a 300lb limit). I am considered by the American government’s health standards to be morbidly obese.
My weight is literally off any Body Mass Index (BMI) chart I can find.
I started my new healthy lifestyle today. A life where I can take my shirt off at the beach. A life where I’m free to sit in a normal chair without it squeaking for its poor little life. A life where I can walk down my driveway without being winded. A life where I can see my daughter marry her high school sweetheart.
A life where I’m not extremely obese.
Now you might not be “morbidly obese” in terms of the distance from where you are to where you want to be, but there are always areas where forward movement could be made (otherwise, why are you reading this blog, right?).
Here are some of the keys to Tyler’s success:
1. He made a firm and specific decision. See above for the firmness. The number of pounds he wanted to lose came shortly thereafter.
2. He was broke it down. On his journal, he recounts using a calculator to figure out the math behind his weight loss project. “At 344 pounds, 73 inches, and living a sedentary lifestyle the calculator said I needed roughly 3,576 calories to maintain my weight of 344 pounds. If on any given day I had more than 3,576 calories, I’d gain weight. If I cut back a little and ate less than 3,576 calories, I’d lose weight.” He followed that up with figuring out what kind of calorie deficit and what kind of increased activity he needed to aim for in order to reach his goal by his deadline.
3. He created accountability. Hence, the blog.
4. He started small. He knew just a little change was all he could handle at first. For instance, instead of going to a salad with dinner, he got potato skins instead of fries. Or got a turkey burger instead of a hamburger.
5. He allowed for backsliding. In fact, he never decided to always be good about what he ate. He knew that kind of deprivation would cause him to backslide. Instead, he let himself have cheat meals, but kept an eye on how many and reigned it in when they started working against his overall goal.
6. He never declared victory (and I believe he won’t). He still has a few pounds to lose and then he’s going to focus on getting fit. It’s a mentality that successful people have, they piggyback or roll in another goal after achieving the first.
You may have a few strategies of your own, but start with applying these six, which have worked so well for Tyler, to the areas in your life where you are a little overweight – or even morbidly obese. Do not be tempted to take on some kind of rigid plan that replaces Tyler’s. Those don’t work. If they did, he would’ve lost the weight before. (He’d dieted many times before.)
If you have no emergency savings account and you have decided you must have one, figure out how much you want to accumulate by your deadline. Firm and specific, remember? Then break it down per paycheck and have that amount direct deposited into a savings account away from your normal bank account. Then figure out where you are going to take that amount out of your monthly budget… and so on. If you want a better paying job, make that a firm decision and then figure out how much better. Etc.
It worked for Tyler, it can work for you. Let us know how it’s going. And if you need help with the job transition, you know where I am.
January 22nd, 2010
I have reviewed thousands of resumes as a hiring executive (and another couple of hundred as a professional resume writer and career consultant) and worse than the occasional type-o or overly-flowerly language or some of the other resume sins I could mention (and there are many), it really all comes down to one thing:
Please don’t bore me with your resume.
That’s the least I should be able to expect. And I have known perfectly lovely and even fascinating people in my career and I have freakin’ come thisclose to dozing off while reading their resumes.
If you are even considering sending your resume out to score a new job in the next few months, please give it a critical read. If you are bored with it, it will definitely bore the poor recruiter or hiring executive you are sending it to.
Forget about all the talk about computer scanners looking for industry buzzwords on resumes being submitted for jobs. There are people reading your resume, actual human beings deciding whether you should be contacted for an interview. If they start thinking about what they are going to have for lunch while trying to get through your resume, you are in serious trouble.
You are an interesting person. Your career has had some interesting highlights. Make sure that comes across on paper.
Photo by b_heyer.
January 8th, 2010
Here’s a good question to start your year off: How do you define career satisfaction?
My career has a few pieces to it, which I think is part of my career satisfaction. I enjoy juggling several different tasks at one time and each of the “jobs” I do feeds me in a different way.
As a writer, it’s about telling the best compelling and authentic story for the goal of the assignment, whether it be a bio, a resume, a blog post, an article, a speech, or some other piece of written (or, in the case of a speech, verbal) communication. When I am doing my corporate work, it’s about solving a big problem or completing a project in a smart way. And when I am doing career consulting, I am helping my clients find the balance of between what they get the most personal satisfaction doing with where they can make the most money (along with some other factors which allow us to design and implement a strategy).
So, for me, career satisfaction boils down to storytelling, problem-solving, and helping others find their own source of career satisfaction.
What about you?
Photo courtesy of stagewhisper.
January 1st, 2010
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to stories these days. Earlier in my life, I wrote a lot of fiction. I became very adept at creating characters from scratch and then, during the rewrite phase, changing key aspects of their personalities and lives.
Now that I am a professional writer of resumes and bios, it has become apparent that the lives we lead are often dependent on the stories we tell about ourselves, first the stories about ourselves that we tell to ourselves and then the ones we tell others.
“My career has kind of been all over the place,” I was told by a client over the weekend when discussing her resume. She was apologetic.
What she didn’t know was that I hear that same thing all the time. And in most cases, as in this one, I don’t agree. “No it hasn’t. You’ve had four jobs in the past twelve years and all of them have been in the area of communications. Writing, creating presentations, giving talks…” I said as I surveyed the page.
“Oh, yeah,” the client replied after a pause, her voice betraying some relief and surprise. “I guess that’s true.”
So “I’m a flake.” or “I’m a mess.” turns into “I’m a communicator.” and, with the new resume I have written for her promoting her in that way, she can confidently go out and look for their next job. And even if she still feels like a mess sometimes, as long as the story she projects is “I’m a communicator,” she should have no problem getting hired.
What stories do you tell in your life or in your career that are holding you back?
June 17th, 2009
It's Good to Be King
How many times do you think Denis Leary was told his dreams were too big? How many agents didn’t want to rep him, how many clubs didn’t want to book him? How many friends told him to maybe try something else? How many empty rooms he did stand-up in, how many hecklers he endured? How many pitch meetings were cancelled because the executives thought his career was over, when he knew it had just begun?
Think about that the next time you are watching his critically-acclaimed, long-running FX show, Rescue Me, or reading his best-selling book, Why We Suck. (Good job, Denis!)
April 16th, 2009
Get a notebook and pen out. We’re going to have a little fun. FUN, remember– you don’t have to actually DO anything about what you write. Just give me 45 minutes and your imagination.
In the last post, I wrote about women who had changed their careers in order to make more money. They had taken hobbies, passions, ingenious ideas, and transformed them, by blood, sweat, and tears, into lucrative new opportunities.
If you didn’t already jump over to More magazine via the link, take a moment to do so now. It’s a short article: http://www.more.com/work-money/work/reinvent-yourself-richer/
Okay, now get your pen and pad ready. First, I want you to write for 15 minutes straight writing down all of hobbies, passions, or ingenious ideas. Don’t edit yourself. If you love your cats, put down cats. If you love nothing more than browsing the Dollar Store, put down The Dollar Store. Fifteen minutes- no editing, no stopping. (Think about it- if any of the women in the More article had edited themselves, they never would’ve made the leap they made. Okay?)
When you are done, you are going to pick five to ten of your hobbies, passions, or ingenious ideas and brainstorm for at least a minute on what businesses you could create based on each one. For cats, you could put luxury cat kennel, matchmaking service for cat lovers, cat sweaters… anything that comes into your head. Two minutes on each one- again, no editing.
Okay, now that you are done, I want you to pick one of your business ideas and spend ten minutes writing a short profile of yourself like the ones you read in the article, as if it’s five years from now and you have tranformed what you wrote in your notebook into a lucrative business.
When you are done, take a moment to read it over. How do you feel? Can you get a glimpse of the life that might be waiting for you if you let yourself take the first step?
Photo by neovain.
April 1st, 2009
Continuing this week’s theme of addressing the compensation piece of the career pie, today’s topic is changing careers in order to make more money.
There are certain jobs you do because there are intangible payoffs (helping others, self-expression, etc.), not for the money. Some people choose to become teachers, social workers, or bar band musicians because of these non-monetary rewards.
There are a lot of careers where you unexpectedly reach an earning ceiling you didn’t realize was there- or didn’t consider when you were starting out.
Other times, you don’t get where you thought you would get and you hit a salary dead-end (such as the executive assistant trap which I’ll be addressing in another post soon).
And sometimes there is burnout (the intangibles stop providing the same satisfaction) or circumstances change (kids approaching college or a marriage ending) or you have an epiphany (”I am worth more than this!”) and the money-making piece becomes more important.
In the March More Magazine, there is an article called Reinvent Yourself Richer about four women who jumped their earnings by changing careers. They went from being a flight attendant to an entrepreneur, a musician to a CEO, an executive assistant to a publicist, and a psychotherapist to a real estate broker, respectively.
The thing that struck me is that each of the women profiled made their own opportunities. The entrepreneur invented a clever product and then passionately publicized it to everyone she met for the next year as she hung onto her flight attendant job during the transition.
The musician who became a CEO is the CEO of her own company. She saw a niche business need that wasn’t being addressed and created a website to fill it and her gamble paid off.
The executive assistant-turned-publicist tapped into a passion she had and repositioned herself by reworking her resume to highlight little-used skills in order to get work for a public relations firm.
The psychotherapist, going through a divorce and needing to kick up the earnings to support her kids, had a background in renovating and flipping apartments which she turned into a career by getting licensed as a real estate broker and persevering until she got her first clients and proved herself, so she could get more clients.
All of these women are making substantially more money than they were in their previous careers and they did it by using their own ingenuity and passion, and forcing a change in their lives.
Nobody reached down and gave them an opportunity. They all sweated out the transition with challenges some thought they might not have it in them to overcome. But they were all so committed to making a difference in their lives, they did what was necessary.
What untapped passions or unexplored business ideas or alterntive career paths do you have? How can you make your own opportunity and kick up your earnings in the process?
Photo courtesy of JBlaze_B.
April 1st, 2009
One of the cliche interview questions that recent grads are told to prepare for is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” When I was a recent grad, I found that type of question a puzzle, if not a trick. Though I don’t remember actually answering it, if I did, it was some lame “best guess” I presented because honestly, I had no idea where the next five years would lead me. Plus, five years seemed an eternity.
After the first few years of ones’ career and certainly when one is well into mid-career (and perhaps middle age, for that matter), I firmly believe one can and should should have an idea of where they want the next five years to take them. Creating financial, professional, and personal growth benchmarks are key for making progress in the long run and making decisions day-to-day based on overall priorities and desired direction.
So if you don’t have one, get a notebook out and start working on your five year plan and interim goals. It will be a roadmap to get where you want to go. After all, at the end of that time, wouldn’t you rather get where you intended to go than get nowhere at all?
Photo by brain_farts.
March 23rd, 2009
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