Is Fear a Part of Your Professional Life?
During my work with job seekers or those contemplating a job/career change, I evaluate the amount of fear that drives—or paralyzes—my clients. To some extent, all of them exhibit fear originated by some threat—or so they perceive. For a person out of a job, that feeling is not only a perception but also, unfortunately, a …
How to Choose a Career Coach
I am a practicing career coach, and at every year-end, I summarize my annual accomplishments as measured by how many people I helped and what percentage of them landed. In practicing Six Sigma principles in my career coaching, one of the ones I especially take to heart is CIP, which stands for Continuous Improvement Process. …
So Tell Me, What Are Your Weaknesses?
This is one of the most dreaded interview questions, but if you understand the reason interviewers ask it and what they’re looking to uncover, you’ll see that you can certainly prepare for it.
The question about your weaknesses comes fairly soon after the interview begins and typically after such a question as, What are your …
Are You Just Looking for a Job, or Do You have a Campaign Going?
No one needs to reiterate that today’s is a difficult job market that is unprecedented in recent times or that regrettably, many people are looking for jobs for extended amounts of time—sometimes for years! As a career coach, I often work with such people, and I notice that they have things in common: None of …
Thinking of Getting a Job?
The title of this article applies both to those who already have jobs and to others who vie for jobs. So, let’s think first about what it takes to hold on to a job versus getting a new one. At least three conditions must be met for holding on to a job: (1) You must …
If There’s No Work, What to Do Next?
Today’s weak economy has changed the psychology of hiring. During past weak economic times, companies might hire temps, and once the economy gained strength, permanent hiring ensued. We have not yet seen that pattern, and there are weak signs that it’s on its way. The situation has caused various and serious difficulties for most of …
What the Interviewer Wants to Know about You
Interviewers have a specific function to perform. They need to go through a selection process that identifies which one of the candidates called in for interviewing is the best one. But what does best mean in this context? What are the criteria involved in making this complex evaluation? After all, people are complex too, and …
Are You Like Me? – Hired!
It’s probably happened to you a hundred times: you go to a major store, hoping to find that specific item you’re after, and you have to walk away disappointed. Either the item was not available or, most likely, you were looking for something uncommon or unusual that the store didn’t have. Such a scenario often …
You Would Expect Executives to Know
In America, people are generally very busy—especially higher-ups—and many of them are good at what they’re doing. You might expect they’d continue being good at it even after losing their jobs—that is, in terms of finding the next assignment. But as a career coach who deals with them daily, I find that my expectations are …
How an Informational Interview Can Lead to a Job
The real danger hovering over the heads of some people in transition is the fact that they’re headed toward a cul-de-sac and don’t even know it. More and more articles point out that the business world is changing rapidly; new jobs are being created; and some old jobs are fading away. Regrettably, the jobs being …