A new book is out today! Alexia Vernon has written, “Awaken Your CAREERpreneur: A Holistic Road Map to Climb From Your Calling to Your Career.” I will be reviewing it soon, but today she shared some of her top tips about building your own all-star team to support you in your career. Click to listen in!

Follow Alexia on Twitter — @GenWeCoach. You can find her book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble too!

Cool movie by Dr. Jim Bright at The Factory Podcast on chaos and careers.

I requested and received a free advance copy of the book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose. I always enjoy learning how successful people get to where they are. In this book I got to read about the journey of a successful person AND a company that was recently voted 15th on the 2010 Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” list. That person is Tony Hsieh and that company is Zappos.com.

The first part of the book is about Tony’s youth and his important  personal career development insights are highlighted along the way. He was interested in being an entrepreneur at a very young age. The first story he mentions of beginning his own business was just after his 9th birthday…and involved a worm farm!

What I found most awesome though is that he seemed to naturally check-in with himself through his school and early career and hold his own opinion of what he wanted to do as the most important one. He was able to balance that outlook with getting others to cooperate with him and he was able to build a supportive personal network.

Especially as he spoke of his college years and beyond, he focused on people he was meeting and how they got know each other’s talents. It seems Tony always kept people in mind as he continued on his journey and would get back in touch with them and bring them on board with his projects at the first opportunity.

This is basically how Zappos.com came to be. But the main reason it came to be is because Tony became aware of the importance of passion in the pursuit of happiness. He felt when he was not getting the juice he wanted from life and he stayed alert for solutions to appear…usually through his connectedness to others that he had gathered around himself.

This story of ideas, personal connections, honesty, and success of his company is compelling. The mission he is now on to spread happiness is beautiful.

You can also find the book on Amazon.com and follow the book promo tour and activities on Twitter.

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.

Here are suggestions to improve your resume. I review resumes often and these mistakes are very common but easily fixed.

• Use bullet points for easy scanning.
• Keep paragraphs to no more than two to three sentences long.
• Use the title of the job you are applying for as a resume objective.
• Use a strong summary of qualifications. This section needs to be a big picture view about the dynamic and professional person you are.
• Don’t use I’s on resumes. Instead, start sentences with action verbs.
• Use common section headers such as Professional Experience or Related Experience or Education instead of something unique.
• Use year dates for the jobs held throughout your resume…2008-Present; 2006-2007; 2004-2006.
• Use keywords relevant to the type of  job you are applying for on your resume.
• Get rid of the responsibility/job duties bullets. Instead use accomplishment statements. One way to do that is to finish the thought by telling, “which resulted in…” at the end of each bullet point.

In today’s fast-paced work environment, most people cannot expect to stay with the same company for 20 years then retire. The current environment is much more dynamic with more opportunities for multiple avenues of success. Workers now can custom design a work life in ways that were not dreamed of 25 years ago.

You can work full-time, part-time, temporary, and/or be an entrepreneur. You can work from home or commute to the office only a few days a week. You can be an independent contractor working project by project. Most importantly, you can go from one type of work arrangement to another depending on which type best meets your lifestyle goals and compliments your stage of life.

To add another interesting aspect of the world of work today, you can even return to school at various stages of your career. In fact, to be competitive in today’s workforce we all must keep participating in education as a lifelong learners more so than ever before.

Want the best of the best career development tips, short and sweet? Here is my list. You can make a big difference for yourself by putting these into practice immediately.

• Understand WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU WANT.
• Find a MENTOR AND/OR FORM ADVISORY BOARD.
• Keep a PORTFOLIO.
• Focus on LIFELONG LEARNING.
• Always keep NETWORKING.
• Spend more time tracking your ACCOMPLISHMENTS than your goals.
• Invest regular TIME AND MONEY towards your own career development.