Career Advice Top Ten
This one comes from my good friend Joyce Maroney at Kronos. I had the pleasure of working with Joyce for over 5 years during a great time we spent at a start-up software company in Boston. We’ve both moved on, but Joyce is still someone I highly respect. I’ve learned much from her over the years, I hope you’ll be able to add something from her top ten to your top ten. Happy New Year!
As this is the time of year that many people start making their New Year’s resolutions - personal and professional - I thought I’d share some of the best career management tips I know. Some of these I learned from others and some I learned the hard way. In any case, here goes:
- Do whatever Irene tells you to do and don’t embarrass me. This one comes courtesy of my father. My first job was doing the payroll, manually, at his codfish processing plant in Witless Bay, Newfoundland. Irene was the long time office manager who knew how to make things happen. Getting to know the Irenes everywhere I’ve worked since has saved me time and embarrassment.
- Speak up. This one applies when you have a good idea and/or when you know that something just isn’t right. Organizations rise and fall on the quality and openness of communications between people.
- Assertions absent data are just your opinion. This is a corollary to #2. If you want to promote your idea, you need to be able to substantiate its merit with objective data.
- The workplace is different for women. Even as organizations have welcomed women into the workforce in the last 30 years, the realities of childbearing and rearing can still throw them for a loop when it comes to contemplating alternative career paths and flexible work options. The world has come a long way since 1985 - when my then employer asked me to sign a letter committing that I wouldn’t get pregnant. See this article in yesterday’s New York Times regarding what organizations are doing to provide more flexibility for workers.
- The company’s money is the company’s money. In the interest of encouraging employees to be frugal, companies often exhort them to “treat the company’s money like it’s your own”. This seems to confuse some people - whose behavior can lead you to believe that they must live like sultans from Dubai on their own time. Don’t waste company resources and don’t play games with your expenses. If you need a history lesson on this one, think Enron.
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Casual Dress Friday: What’s your New Years resolution?
It’s that time of year again. As we close out all that was 2007 and look ahead to 2008, it’s time for a resolution or two. But first a little history.According to Wikipedia, New Years originally was observed on March 15 in the old Roman Calendar, New Year’s Day first came to be fixed at January 1 in 153 BC, when the two Roman consuls, after whom - in the Roman calendar - years were named and numbered, began to be chosen on that date, for military reasons. However in AD 525, Dionysius Exiguus set the start of the Julian calendar at March 25 to commemorate the Annunciation of Jesus; a variety of Christian feast dates were used throughout the Middle Ages to mark the New Year, while calendars often continued to display the months in columns running from January to December in the Roman fashion.
Most countries in Western Europe officially adopted January 1 as New Year’s Day somewhat before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. This is sometimes called Circumcision Style, because this was the date of the Feast of the Circumcision, being the eighth day counting from 25 December.
So what’s your resolution? For me, like many of you, I’ll be trying to lose a few pounds and I’ve got a couple business ventures that I’m going to launch. So wish me luck. What about you? What are your resolutions this year?
Until next time…
[tags] new years, resolutions
Build a better resume
In today’s cyber recruiting world, the days of pretty stationary, funky fonts, and other tactics to get your resume noticed are long gone. Much like the way search engines like Google retrieve your search results, most recruiters use similar technology to help identify the best qualified candidates. What does that mean to you? Well, if you’re in the market for a new job, and your resume isn’t crafted properly, a recruiter may never see it.
In the new year, I’ll be launching a simple, yet powerful resume building tool. It’s designed to take your skills, knowledge and abilities and format them to make you stand out from the crowd. The tool, called Resume Navigator uses a simple step by step process to craft a powerful resume for a fraction of the prices charged by professional resume writers. If you’d like more information, drop me a line at scott@careerwaymark.com.Until next time…
[tags] resume writer, search engines, recruiter tools
