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Today is Not the Day to be Humble.

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“Today is not the day to be humble”, is what I often say to people when doing a mock interview.

Are you showing the “best” you in the interview?

Interviewing is one of the areas of the job hunting process that so many people freak out about. I do lots of mock interviews with college students and mid-life career changers, and I am amazed that so few people understand WHAT an interview is. If you don’t know what it is that employers are looking for, then you won’t know what to do in one.

The goal is to find someone who adds the greatest value to the company that other employees will get along with.

With that in mind, here are six of my tips to “up” your clients’ interview game.

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The Boys In The Boat

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The Boys In The Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

by Daniel James Brown

Boys in the Boat

This book kept getting recommended to me and I finally had the chance to read. This is by far, one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I could not stop reading it. I read at night. I read it while working out on my bike. And occasionally I’d stop working and read it during the day.

It’s a true story which made it even better for me.

Here was a bunch of working class boys in Washington State, some very poor, who competed in a sport that was, and still is, more for the  affluent society. The lead boy, Joe, has a heart wrenching story which only makes you want to root for him more. Throw in that Hitler was using the Olympics to fool the world into thinking Germany was wonderful and welcoming to all, and the story just keeps getting better.

All I can say is, “Read it. You won’t regret it”.

No Regrets. Only Lessons to be Learned.

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Regrets are wasted energy.

I had a person in one of my online seminars post that she was an oncology nurse early on in her career and was often the last person people spoke to before dying. Many of them shared their regrets with her about:

  • Not taking risks in their lives
  • Not doing jobs they wanted to do
Mt. Whitney
Perspective often helps how you view things
  • Not doing the education they wanted
  • Long-held grudges

    • She had to leave nursing because this was such a depressing part of the job. But what she learned was to live a life of no regrets.

    Don’t look at your career development ever as a regret. You can’t change the past… only the future. And it’s how you deal and react to past events that are important. Most of us make the best decisions we can with the information we have at the time. Remember that when you look back on your career development.  Don’t ponder or wonder “what if…” Let it go and move forward.

    The key to regretting something is to look at it and ask yourself, “What did I learn from it?”  I really have no regrets about past decisions and mistakes because I learned something from all of them. I learned that a bachelors degree in Forestry still helps me appreciate the outdoors and to understand ecology in a different way. It was not a waste of five years…and I love the outdoors…as a hobby. So there are no regrets. What I learned by being involved on campus during that time in a variety of student activities was that my true passion was working with people and creativity. That was a good lesson.

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    Twitter confuses me

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    Twitter confuses me. But so did LinkedIn when I joined it seven years ago, but I was patient with LinkedIn and will continue to be patient with Twitter now. I am not an ‘early adopter’ of technology preferring others to lead and my experience with Twitter is no different. Let me humbly share with you my thoughts on Twitter for career practitioners after two years. My profile says I joined in February 2011 but I think I was shell-shocked the first two years.

    Jim-chessboard
    How do you fit an idea in 140 characters?

    KEY POINT #1 Be thoughtful and patient. It really is amazing how much you can share in a tweet if you think about the essence of your message.

    How can people communicate only using 140 characters? Verbosity is clearly not rewarded here in “tweet world”. I think Twitter was created by an introvert and early on attracted more introverts who found a way to cut down on the noise created by us extroverts. Twitter requires some thought on messaging and has really forced me to be a minimalist.

    “How can I say this using less characters, words, and spaces? AND still convey the message?”

    As I wrote in a recent blog, “Less is Best” http://bit.ly/peakcareers7 and Twitter challenges this thinking all the time.

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    Overcoming Obstacles. Four tips when you break your ankle or need to find a job.

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    Dear Diary,

    IMG_0764

    My lesson on overcoming obstacles is in progress. When I see anyone on crutches in the future, I will open the door for them, help them carry anything they want, carry their coffee to their office, and simply say, “I know what you’re going through”.

    We all face obstacles but breaking my ankle gave me a whole new perspective and has made me think about the many clients I work with who face their own obstacles, many much more difficult than my broken ankle.

    Here are 4 tips on helping our clients deal with their obstacles.

    LESSON 1. Ask for help and advice.

    I decided as soon as I was crutching around the house that I was going to ask for help. Even the simplest of things like opening a door were sometimes difficult for me. Five days after breaking my ankle I was presenting a pre-conference workshop at a conference in New Hampshire and knew I’d need lots of help there.

    Our clients, who are looking for work need to know when to ask for help. A good friend and former colleague was at this same conference and is ready to make her next professional move from her current position. I asked if she had told anyone here that she was looking for a new job?

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    What You’re Really Meant To Do. By Robert Steven Kaplan

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    What You’re Really Meant To Do. A Road Map for Reaching Your Unique Potential. By Robert Steven Kaplan

    Just finished this book and really liked how the author laid out his thinking. Much of his book, the second half, is about how to keep a job and advance in a job which I really liked because most books are only about how to FIND a job.

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