Over the last month, I have been an advisor in a Media Bistro Job Search Boot Camp. I have received some version of this question many times: “How do we present a terrific background for a profession we’re trying to get into, as opposed to a terrific background for a profession we’re trying to leave?” Career changes are a process. They involve quite a lot of reflection, research, and a comprehensive assessment of what is important to you. When you come to a point when you’re ready to act upon a career change, the resumé is traditionally the tool you use to make your first impression. Representing your skills and experience on a resumé in a career change situation becomes an art as well as a science. If you’ve devoted serious time to the first part of the process—reflection, assessment—then this part of the process should come more easily. If it doesn’t, take a few steps back and consider again the skills and experience you can take with you.             ... Read more

How do you pursue multiple avenues at the same time and keep it all straight on paper?  The question I received this week from one of the job search bootcampers was How do I effectively highlight my work experience … without looking like I am all over the place?” Guy has had more than six years of accounting experience, and has spent two and a half years working part-time in television production. He’s still interested in pursuing both avenues, but ultimately wants to focus on production. So, how do you do it?  Very carefully of course {Smile}. Resumés and careers are not the same as they were 10 or 15 years ago. Today, there is a concept of “slash careers,” as documented in a great book by Marci Alboher called One Person/Multiple Careers.  And you need to have multiple versions of your resumé.  You may be pursuing more than one career, either out of necessity or out of an abundance of interests and opportunity. In this economy, I encourage people to embrace the idea of multiple streams of income. Chef/journalist. Designer/teacher. Accountant/production assistant.                 ... Read more

Often C-level executives are so accustomed to being on the “hiring” side of the table, that their perspectives are skewed when they are sitting in the job seeker’s seat.  The following eight points are very important to most recruiters and hiring managers.  These points are broken down into three parts – the critical issues, relative questions and what the answers verify. A candidate’s answers are weighted in each section and, based on final score, could move you forward in the interviewing process or not... ... Read more

Reid Hoffman, cofounder and chairman of LinkedIn and Ben Casnocha just published a book entitled “The Start-up of YOU: adapt to the future, invest in yourself and transform your career.” This book is about accelerating your career in today’s competitive world. In this blog I am sharing the book’s key points that will benefit executives. The key is to manage your career like a start-up business. Invest in yourself, build professional networks, take intelligent risks, and make uncertainty and volatility work to your advantage. What a concept! Excerpt from Chapter 2: Develop a Competitive Advantage... ... Read more

“I really HATE my job!” This is a phrase I hear almost every day as a career consultant who works with individuals in career transition. For example, when Elizabeth came to see me, she was 52 years old and had been working since her teens, and almost 30 years as a public servant sitting in front of a computer all day as an information analyst. Her job required her to process about 90 email messages a day, plus 120 pages of info from the Internet, plus another 20 “alert” messages from subscriber-based services. She estimated only 10 of these 200+ messages were truly relevant to her job. She felt “stuck’ in her cubicle reading all day. She wasn’t the only one suffering from information overload. Of the 10 analysts employed in her section, 5 were on long-term stress leave... ... Read more

It’s a pretty typical interview process. They love you and have offered you a job. Ready to accept the offer? There are 3 fundamental questions anchored in the critical element of a “good fit” at the new job that will tell you whether you have a fighting chance to succeed, and whether or not you should take the job on that basis. They revolve around these areas: cultural fit, technical expertise, and interpersonal relationships. Where these three spheres intersect and overlap is the “perfect” job; miss out on one, two, or even three and you may have paid hell on earth. Here are the thee big questions for which you should find answers:                 ... Read more

“Flying under the radar” doesn’t mean you are captain of a stealth plane sneaking in and out of dangerous territory – or does it? Depends on what you identify as dangerous territory. Executives have to be particularly careful when conducting a job search while employed. How do you maintain “privacy” when you are posting resumes online and with recruiters, updating your LinkedIn profile and creating a Visual CV that could easily be Googled and found by your boss? ... Read more

Who can improve on What Color Is Your Parachute, the all-time best-seller in the careers field? Who other than the cofounder/chairman of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman. From his lofty seat at the top of the top professional network in the world - through which daily flow valuable job postings, job searches, candidate searches, and networking requests - Reid has a unique vantage point for observing the life cycle of careers in 2012. Along with his co-writer Ben Casnocha, he brings into question the idea that each of us has a specific calling that requires only that we discern the color of our particular parachute to know what we should do with our life. This prevailing cultural myth is challenged, and rightly so in my opinion, by Reid's particular insight into the way most people's careers actually develop. Reid says that careers develop according to the interaction of your assets, your aspirations, and market realities. And that where we end up can be very different from where we started. He also says that often you can perceive an inner logic to the journey. (This may be more where we see Richard Bolles ideas than anywhere else.)           ... Read more

Kimberley Green describes her former career as a Litigation Paralegal like that of movie legend Erin Brockovich without the million dollar bonus. Her life was intense and fast paced and for 12 years she enjoyed the legal field working in Indianapolis, where Kim was born and raised, and later in Atlanta.  Seven years ago, life changed in many unexpected ways when Kim gave birth to her daughter, Isabella. ... Read more

Most of the people I work with already have a job but they want to change careers. They often say to me, “I’d like to have job joy, but I have these fears.” What are they afraid of, exactly? Usually, it’s the fear of negative consequences, i.e. if I quit my current job, even though I hate it, I will lose my regular paycheck, my comfortable lifestyle, and end up on the streets homeless and impoverished. No one should quit a job until they have an accurate or reliable picture of specific jobs in specific work settings that suits them. That’s the first step in any career transition. So, what exactly is there to be afraid of in putting together that picture? ... Read more