Archive for 'career strategy'

How To Have a Great Career

career boost celebration#1 Take Ownership

  • Your career is yours and yours alone. You have the power to create it and live it as an expression of your unique talents and energy.
  • Forget what other people think of your choices. Even though people often mean well, you will be the one putting in the hours so be selfish enough to do something you enjoy and to have fun with it!
  • Being yourself in your work gives power, creativity, and freedom. You are off track if you feel insecure or like an pretender at work.

#2 Look Inside Yourself, You Know the Answers

  • Take note when you find yourself fully engaged in a work activity. If it feels like you are in the zone, or plugged in and energized, or connected to something larger than yourself: Pay special attention.
  • Then describe it further…what are you liking about what you are doing? Is it this? Is it that? Keep asking yourself and you’ll know when you hit the answer that feels right.
  • Start general then get more specific in your description of what you like about what you are doing. For example, is it the communication or connection? Is it the performing or beautifying? Is it the helping or healing? Is it the organizing or administrating? Then add more detail by asking why.

#3 Respect the Career Development Process

  • The beauty of a great career is in the way it unfolds.
  • Enjoy the present moment. Each small step adds up until you are for sure ready for more.
  • Appreciate then forget when you felt lost or frustrated in your career. Through those times you learned more about what you DO want.

#4 Understand the Power of People

  • People can be powerful and brilliant in sharing their connections with others. Use strategy in maintaining your 150 or so top connections to tap into the power.
  • Accept that people can be dark, egotistical, and negative but this is nothing compared to an individual in harmony with self. Recognize the negative as the weaker power and stay beyond it.
  • See and applaud the strengths of others as you do for yourself. Be a builder-upper who is generous with knowledge, info, and positive energy.

#5 Be an Opportunity Bulldog

  • Take your individual strengths and mesh them into your public identity and no one can take your place.
  • Research and understand the opportunities that exist because of the challenges in your field of expertise.
  • Present a passion for being or finding the solution and be unafraid of asking for the opportunity.

Next Generation Career Coaching

  1. Skill Identification is a process that expands client’s personal skill vocabulary and effects and builds a positive change in self-confidence.
  2. Explore both old jobs and new options. “New career direction.”
  3. Development of different career options through a method/process that opens doors of opportunity that otherwise would be overlooked or discarded.
  4. Personalized training and individual attention to those things that will set you apart from all other candidates.
  5. Developing a clear self-presentation and unique marketing materials as well as learning key job searching tools.
  6. Campaign focused mainly on personal one-on- one informational contacts where the jobs are in the making. When there is a vacancy or posted opening, “client usually gets an interview.”
  7. In addition to posting a LinkedIn & Facebook profiles, all kinds of e-media are explored to build visibility and credibility in your chosen market.
  8. Three-stage controlled networking campaign. Adeptly using internet for background research to locate, and connect with “countless” contacts.
  9. Dual-approach to get interviews from employer-
identified ads: applying through personnel and
 approaching Hiring Decision Maker(s) directly.
  10. Primary interview training: Referral Interviews, which build connections to the hiring decision makers. without waiting for “openings.” These interviews also train candidates for actual job interviews.
  11. Step-by-step coaching to handling salary negotiations/questions given at the beginning of the search. Coaching at time of the offer generally increases comp package by 10% and more.
  12. Client continues to build visibility and credibility in his/her chosen field. 5-year goals established as well as the development of your network “Power Team” that has been built to advance your career now and in the future.

Not Just For Students

career_questionYou’ve noticed a potential mentor but suspect they are too busy to be a mentor? Or maybe you just don’t know how to break the ice with them. Try informational interviewing. Its not just for students or those choosing a career for the first time! Informational interviewing can help you transition to a new career field, further your network, or find a mentor.

Approach people who you suspect are too busy to be mentors and ask them for an informational interview. This is only one meeting of 30 minutes or so in duration but it has great potential for you to get excellent advice and information about the transition you are considering. It is also a way you can receive a little mentoring from several different people. Of course, be on the lookout for ways you can contribute to your interviewee’s efforts too, now or at a time in the future.

Here are the steps to make an info interview happen. Call your contact. Let them know you want to learn more about their career field and you were hoping they could help. Ask if you can schedule a time to speak with them for 30 minutes because you would like to ask them how they got into the field and about their recommendations for people considering entering the profession.

Following are some questions typically asked in an informational interview. Remember you most likely will not be able to ask them all since you want to keep the interview to only 30 minutes unless they encourage you to continue.

  • How did you get to this point in your career?
  • How did you find this job?
  • What would you do differently if you were starting over in this field?
  • Are there any professional associations you can recommend?
  • What do you read to stay up-to-date in the field?
  • What is happening in this industry?
  • What recommendations do you have for a person interested in this field?
  • Do you know others I should speak to about this career field?

Be sure to take a pen and paper for quick notes and recommendations and ask for their business card before you leave. Don’t forget to write and send a thank you note the following day.