One Simple Tip to Immediately Improve Your Professional Communication
Be more concise. Yep, that’s it. For many years I’ve taught professional writing seminars in addition to my career speeches and workshops. In these programs, “Be more concise” is the advice I find myself dispensing more than any other. Even in our world of 140-charater tweets, 160-character texts and txt msg spk, most people make […]
Baking for Good…and a Great Career: Interview with Social Entrepreneur Emily Dubner
Emily Dubner is a 2006 college graduate and founder of Baking for Good, an online bakery that gives 15 percent of every purchase to charity. I love this concept and use Baking for Good for most of my business’s holiday and thank you gifts. (Read about one instance of the excellent responses I’ve received to […]
The #1 Way to Be a Great Employee
In one of the first jobs of my career, I had a very hands-on, micromanaging boss. She frequently double- and triple-checked that I had completed even the smallest tasks. Not surprisingly, it kind of drove me crazy. Looking back, though, I consider that job to be one of my best learning experiences in professionalism, attention […]
How to Be Great on the Job: Interview with Communications Expert Jodi Glickman
Jodi Glickman is an amazingly good communicator. She is so good, in fact, that she has built an entire business, Great on the Job, around teaching young professionals how to communicate. She also has a new book on the topic, Great on the Job: What to Say, How to Say It. The Secrets of Getting […]
Yet Another Reason to Clean Up Your Facebook Profile
Over the years I’ve written multiple posts about the importance of cleaning up your online image and, specifically, your Facebook profile. When I first wrote about this topic in 2007, I found a study by the Ponemon Institute, a privacy think tank, reporting that 35 percent of hiring managers used Google to do online background […]
Why “Grunt Work” Matters
I’ve become increasingly distressed over the years by the number of students and recent grads who complain to me that their jobs or internships contain too much “grunt work.” (Interestingly, these complaints have not slowed at all in the bad economy, when one might think any job, including one that requires some gruntage, is better […]
8 Steps to Effective Informational Interviews
One of the most frequent pieces of advice I give to young professionals is to seek out successful people and ask to conduct an informational interview with them. Essentially, an informational interview is a networking meeting where the interviewee (the successful professional) agrees to share some career advice with the interviewer (you). I conducted tons […]
Getting Started on LinkedIn: Advice for Recent Grads
In honor of LinkedIn’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to share some reminders about why the site is valuable to young professionals and how to use it effectively. As the largest and most vibrant professional social network in the world (100 million members in […]
Are You Ready to “Work on Purpose”?
In today’s changing economy and challenging job market, it can be difficult for a young professional to make choices about what type of career you’d really like to pursue. The options can seem nearly limitless, and it may feel impossible to truly consider all of the necessary factors involved in your decision-making. Furthermore, many Millennials […]
Should Your Resume Have a QR Code?
I posed this question on Twitter recently and received mixed responses from job seekers, recruiters and others. Some people said they’re already seeing QR codes on resumes (one person mentioned seeing them on professional conference badges as well), other people think the trend is too aggressive and won’t catch on and still other people replied, […]