Posts tagged 'miscellaneous career advice'
As the 2008 Summer Games draw to a close, I am reminded why good sports stories are always so compelling.
When I started watching football with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, he knew how to hook me. “That guy broke his back two years ago and they said he’d never walk again,” he’d tell me pointing to the beefy linebacker running onto the field on TV. “That guy was in the Canadian league and they took him as a third string quarterback,” he’d say about the now-champion NFL player. He showed me that it wasn’t just about scores and stats. It was about human beings challenging themselves physically, mentally and even spiritually, as is the case with all athletes who take to the field, court, pool, track, etc. and reach for an elite level.
So in the last two weeks, the come-from-behind, overcoming-the-odds, feeling-the-pain-and-doing-it-anyway stories have been filling the airwaves and I’ve been noticing that the population of bikers and runners on the streets in my neighborhood has gone up. But I’ve also been thinking, as I know a lot of people are, about how I challenge myself- Am I in the best condition I can be in? Do I try my very hardest to reach my goals? Do I believe in my ability to make it happen against all odds, to win my own version of the gold?
Of course, we are also seeing a lot of stories of those who came up short in competition in Beijing, but still there they are. They have reached athlete’s mecca, they have made the journey, and even if they didn’t reach the podium, they fought with everything they had. They inspire us with their sacrifice, with not giving up even when gold is clearly out of reach.
David Neville, for instance, lunged at the finish line in the men’s 400m finals and with that split-second act, he beat the fourth place finisher by a split-second to take home bronze. Is bronze better than fourth place? You bet it is. And even better, he knows that he left nothing on the track. He has the bruised and skinned knees to prove it and, in the years to come, long after the wounds have healed, he’ll have the medal to prove it, too.
When was the last time you lunged to reach your goal? Why not try it now and see what happens?
August 23rd, 2008
Or, if you prefer, “Yahoo” yourself.
Do you have an online presence? Is it the presence you wish to have?
If you have no online presence, you don’t exist. Well, to be fair, you do exist, of course, but you don’t exist to anyone who hears your name and wants to know more about you. They’re not going to call your mom, are they?
Start with LinkedIn and go from there. Create a profile. It won’t take that long, but it should be as thorough as possible and reflect the you who you want to present to the outside world. If that’s all you do, fine. You now exist.
But what if you do an online search for yourself and it’s not reflective of the you who you want to present to the world? Even your private pages, such as those on Facebook and Myspace, can sometimes be viewed by people you have not made friends with.
I was once doing a search for an executive assistant and I saw on someone’s myspace page where they described themselves as moody and seemed rather committed to staying that way. That person’s resume was in the garbage in about ten seconds.
So clean up your act or get an act if you don’t have one, and if there are things online that you cannot get taken down (party photos of you posted by other people, poorly thought-out or obscene comments made to blogs, etc.), your only option is to start adding content that shows you in the best light. Professional profiles, well thought-out comments to other people’s blogs, even articles about topics you are passionate about posted to websites can push the bad stuff down the page on a search of your name.
And if you don’t have the time, the skills, or the inclination to get an online presence that gives you a professional leg up, you always have the option to hire someone to do it for you, to write your profiles, your blog comments, your articles. As someone who has ghostwritten online content, I know you wouldn’t be the first and it would be worth it.
August 22nd, 2008
I’ve had a couple of conversations this week that have gotten me thinking about the way we undervalue ourselves and how that gets us stuck in positions that aren’t utilizing or rewarding us properly.
This is not new thinking for me, of course. A lot of what I do when advising clients is convincing them of their worth in the marketplace and the variety of their marketable skills. And when I do a resume rewrite or create a bio, even for an accomplished and seemingly-confident professional, they often marvel at the way I present them, as if to say, “Is this really me?”
“Yes. That’s you,” I insist. I’m not making things up here.
So yesterday a former client called to update me on herself and a couple of people she referred to me. One referral was a recent college grad whose resume I’d rewrtten. He was getting all kinds of calls for interviews now and was very happy. That was very gratifying, but not surprising. He’d had great paying jobs and prestigious internships during college. He’d clearly been thinking about his career path when he sought them out. All he’d needed from me was to present him and his experience in the best light possible for the specific position he was seeking.
But my former client went on to tell me both she and a frustrated co-worker she’d referred to me had both gotten promotions and raises, from different branches of their company, after my consulting/coaching sessions with them.
Now these are both intelligent, confident, capable professional women and I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t stand for comparable treatment in other areas of their lives. And yet they were underpaid, overworked and sorely undervalued in their positions and each felt trapped, not sure they could do better. That’s where I came in. I helped them see their worth.
After our work together, one of them was offered a promotion and a (big) raise without seeking it out. She had been ready to leave. She’d had me rewrite her resume and had started putting feelers out. The other one didn’t want to leave. She liked what she was doing there so she made a last-ditch stand, sure that they wouldn’t give her what she wanted. But she got it.
The other conversation this week that got me on this topic was with a friend who is making a move out of a toxic work environment after enduring it for a long time. “It’s like you’re finally leaving a really bad boyfriend,” her sister told her, relieved. This friend is nervous, relieved, excited. But she is looking forward to something better. And I’m sure she’ll find it.
Are you ready for something better? What do you have to give up in order to get it?
August 16th, 2008
