Blog

As Americans struggle with high unemployment, many are searching for new opportunities while others continue to seek meaningful jobs that "make a difference" to their careers, families and country.In response to these challenging times, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is launching a new initiative focused on civilian career opportunities available worldwide with DoD. The public awareness campaign, dubbed "Making a Difference", spotlights civilian employees in several career positions available now: Medical Professionals, Language Specialists, and Engineering & Science. These are 21st century careers that provide meaningful work supporting our military and the country.The DoD initiative highlights job opportunities at all levels of the labor market, from entry level to top executives. The campaign is designed to provide a hopeful, realistic avenue to career success for any American willing to work hard, learn new skills and become part of the DoD civilian career team.To see … [Read more...] about Civilian Jobs That Make a Difference

There are so many amazing books out there about careers. If I sat down and read all day, every day, I’d still never catch up on all of the ones out there. When you happen onto a book by chance, you never know what you’re going to end up with. Chance is exactly how I describe ending up with a copy of The High Achiever’s Secret Codebook: The Unwritten Rules for Success at Work by Sandra Naiman. A good friend and career coach, Miriam Salpeter, had a contest on her multiple blogs sometime earlier this year. I entered and was quite delighted a few weeks later when I received my prize in the mail.   In the first section of the book, Ms. Naiman writes a section describing the book’s target audience.   This book is not just for people who have stumbled in their careers and don’t know why—those passed over for promotions, left out of the loop, or maybe even fired. This book is for successful, talented, young professionals who appear to be rising … [Read more...] about The High Achiever’s Secret Codebook

If you’re like me, you can still fondly recall the first time you saw The Wizard of Oz. It was a masterpiece in its own time, and it is still seen by pretty much every child ever since. When someone mentions a scarecrow, a witch, or red slippers, your mind may drift back to the comforts of that old classic. However, you probably don’t want to follow the pattern of the Wizard of Oz in your career. Traveling Companions In the movie, Dorothy had a slew of traveling companions to “help” her on her way. They included a brainless dunce, a heartless brute, and a spineless wimp. In fact, the one with the least faults was Toto! If you surround yourself with brainless, heartless, and spineless people, then you’re going to have trouble succeeding. Find someone with courage, compassion, and competence to mentor you, and you won’t be attacked by flying monkeys. I promise. Yellow Brick Road The Munchkins pointed Dorothy along the Yellow Brick Road early on as a … [Read more...] about The Wizard of Oz and Your Career Do Not Mix

As a teacher, my wife has to complete a yearly “structured interview” for her job. This structured interview requires her to describe objectives and goals for the long and short term. Another requirement is to assess the students’ strengths and weaknesses and determine how to best provide instruction for those students that need it. I have been thinking that the structured interview process is a fantastic one to force managers to prove their mettle.   Many managers are lazy. Yep, I said it. We all know that there are some amazing ones out there, but there are still plenty of lazy managers to give the rest a bad name. It’s so easy to take a performance review template and mark “meets expectations” on every blank. To do a real evaluation takes courage and leadership, because you’re bound to make someone upset or angry with a truthful performance review. Think about how your performance review would be different if these sorts of questions … [Read more...] about Managing With Courage

The internal dialogue: Whether we're talking to other people in our heads or talking to ourselves, all of us conduct our own personal conversations--that no one else ever hears. (Some of us do it more than others.)Thinking conversations through before they happen can be a useful tool in your workplace arsenal, but it is important to use the tactic sparingly. If not, you open yourself up to a whole world of hurt.Next time you find yourself carrying on dialogue in your own head where you are speaking for your fellow office workers, here's what you can do to validate or reject the thoughts... Read more of Andrew G.R.'s post at US News & World Report. … [Read more...] about Common Work Error: Thinking For Other People

The stench was horrendous. As everyone walked through the office door, they couldn't help but comment."Ewwwwww, what is that?"After searching for dead animals and rummaging through garbage cans, we finally found the culprit: the refrigerator. Specifically, someone's two-week-old Chinese leftovers.In typical corporate fashion, a call was placed to the janitorial department to take care of the problem. One day and several sprays of Windex later, the cleaners deemed the problem solved.Guess what happened the following week...The smell returned.Now I'm a fairly patient person but I do reach a point where I don't look back and take matters into my own hands.The next day I arrived at work 30 minutes early with a bucket and heavy-duty cleaning supplies in tow. I rolled up my shirt sleeves and made the fridge look - and smell - as good as new.As my officemates began to trickle in they all took notice of the fridge.Word began to spread that I had taken care of the problem. Most people were … [Read more...] about The Day I Cleaned the Refrigerator at Work