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Browse every published article connected to Dorothy Tannahill-Moran, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
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Browse every published article connected to Dorothy Tannahill-Moran, or search within this exact expert archive.
Recently, Tory Johnson, the Good Morning America career contributor, talked about how job seekers are using plastic surgery to help them get jobs. Obviously, Tory didn’t support the concept and neither do I. While I’ve conceded the point that there is age bias out there in the work place, there is also a perspective I would like to impart on my peers.
You made a decision to change careers but you’re feeling REALLY uneasy. You can’t tell if you’re coming down with the flu or if that sinking feeling is your decision. Big decisions are always kind of gut wrenching but there are some things you can do to test your situation. 1- Did you make this decision for the right reasons? Making a career decision is a big life changer and it requires some quality think time from you.
More and more business owners and job seekers are catching on to the idea and necessity of having a great, impactful Elevator Speech. After all of the thought and time creating them and practicing them, many people want to get more use out of them than simply waiting to meet someone new. Repurposing your elevator speech and extending your personal brand is a great idea. Here are some great uses for your Elevator Speech:
You know this kind of boss. What they say and how they say it leaves you completely befuddled about what they are trying to convey. To add to this, they might be yelling while delivering this completely incomprehensible tirade. Are we having fun yet?
I generally believe most people mean well, but simply execute their job poorly sometimes. Sometimes, there are BAD bosses. This series is intended to address the most common issues with a bad boss and steps you can take to reduce the impact on you both personally and professionally. The problems we face when we have a bad boss are almost too numerous to mention, but the two biggest of these issues are: 1. They can negatively impact our work performance. 2. They can make life miserabler
Disagreeing with other people, without taking a body count or courting disaster, is something most people try to avoid as much as possible. Nevertheless, we recognize that we can’t always agree with everything that comes our way – even if it comes from the boss. Many of us think that disagreement with the boss is one of those career-limiting moves to be avoided as all costs. Think again.
Among the many things that bad bosses have been known to do is to take credit for your hard work or ideas. You don’t like it when a peer does it, but with that group, you feel you might have some recourse to stifle what they’re doing. What do you do when a boss does it? The line between a legitimate ethics violation and simply representing innovation in the department can at times be hard to tell. There are some perspectives to have first before taking any action.
There was once a time when I thought “Office Politics” was tantamount to a dirty word. It was something low, underhanded and potentially unethical. If this sounds familiar, I’m here to illustrate for you that office politics isn’t this offensive behavior I once thought it was. Hopefully, I can help you jump beyond that to see how it is something for you to master, if you intend to rocket your career to the next level.
You know our type. We’re the kind of people who for whatever reason don’t really know how to start up a conversation. We’d rather hide under the table than start chatting with an unknown person or stay at home watching reruns than go to a party. We’re your awkward cousin or the kid that sat behind you in biology. Is there networking hope for us?
I’ve noticed that many people struggle to identify where the line should be between their work priorities and their life priorities some call it work-life balance. This struggle gets especially significant when a person is going through major career upheavals like switching jobs or changing careers. As an adult, we amass numerous important elements to our life like spouse, home, family, friends and an ever emerging career. When decisions need to be made affecting our career directions, we take into consideration the needs and demand of those other aspects that comprise our life.
This is the final installment in the Bad Boss Series. I think it’s important to answer once and for all: How did the bad boss get the job? You and your peers are constantly scratching your heads wondering if the boss has compromising pictures of the CEO. How else could this insane person get the job? Particularly when they have no apparent skills, much less know anything about your area. This is a good question and I’m here to provide you with some insight. This insight is intended to not only explain this life mystery, but to shed light on your own professional growth plan.
Recently, there was an article in the Portland Tribune that discussed volunteer rates, particularly as they relate to the unemployed. It was a great article with several lessons built right in.
Elevator Speeches are becoming an important item in the toolkit of most people. It doesn’t matter if you are a job seeker, business person or gainfully employed professional, you need a powerful Elevator Speech (ES) to extend and support your personal brand. What you say and how you say it are equal parts to delivering an ES that will either cause people to take notice of you or go to sleep. Here are ten tips for ensuring that you have an ES that packs a punch:
Warning! I’m about to speak in code. We like to think of ourselves as: “not interested in making big money” or “not overly ambitious” or “focused more on life than work” or what? Being lazy is something we don’t like to admit to ourselves much less our own mother (who will love us no matter what except being lazy). We will substitute other words and rationalization for our behavior. You think we can’t tell but we can. You’re lazy and second to bad body odor, no one really wants to around that even if you’re charming. OK, maybe if you’re charming but only then.
One of our biggest fears associated with our employment is facing the possibility of the ultimate rejection: getting fired. I’m not talking about being laid off. I’m talking about they don’t dig what you do or how you do it and you are given the pink slip. It can be devastating on both a personal and professional level. People I’ve spoken to who have been through this experience often find it difficult to move past it and consequently, let it form their behavior. That behavior isn’t always the kind that helps, especially the ongoing replay of the low points.
What do the following people have in common? • Retired engineer • Laid off project manager • Stay at home parent • Newly graduated student • Trailing spouse to a military soldier • Injured and recovered worker • Out of work actor These people have much more in common than you probably realize. The commonality is what they are missing. All of these people are missing the many benefits we get from working. Of course, we all know that they are missing the paycheck, but there are other aspects to work that most of us take for granted, until we no longer have them.
The one thing you can count on in business is nothing ever stays the same. That goes for the boss, too. Bosses come and they go even when your job remains in place. In some businesses, they come and go so fast they feel like a hit and run. While it would be nice to have some stability, it’s not something you can count on. Moreover, you can actually use it for boosting your career.
A concept I don’t think gets talked about too much as it relates to a person’s career growth is integrity. Integrity sometimes sounds stiff and too conceptual but there are aspects to it that are so critical to your success that it bears pointing out – repeatedly.
Ranstad recently completed a nation-wide survey of employees measuring a number of aspects having to do with salary, benefit, work conditions and expectations they have for this coming year. Ranstad is the second leading global HR and Staffing firm. One outstanding figure was 43% of the people responding indicated they were looking for a promotion this year. That’s going to be a lot of people taking their spouse out to celebrate.
There is a reason for the term “short-timer”. Whether you are in the military and ready to separate or in the corporate world and ready to leave your job, it can be a struggle to keep both your body and mind on the job. We are notorious for apathy, disregard and detachment once the decision to move on has been made. In fact, some short-timers have been known to toss all work-place standards out the door. They begin showing up late, conduct long personal phone calls and have a blatantly disrespectful attitude. We’ve all seen this and sometimes we’ve even done it.
As a career coach and former High Tech manager, I’ve noticed that most people wind up in careers that are completely out of line with their college degrees or interests. When you ask people how they “chose” their careers, many of them answer with something very much like a track through the jungle. They didn’t know where they were going but moving forward was the direction they took. When I ask many college students what career they were headed towards I get two categories of answers: 1- I don’t know but I’ll figure it out 2- Something in my major (read: I don’t know).
Voluntarily changing careers can be a frightful thing for many people. It can be so frightening that it will delay or completely stop us in our tracks before we even get started. Yet, our heart yearns for something else, something more than what we have right now. Our heart knows that there is a better career and therefore, better life waiting out there for us to pursue. At the same time we are struck with fear.
Oh, I guess you did grow up. But is this the grown up you wanted to be when you were a kid? Are you happy with how your career turned out? Most of us aren’t. In fact, huge numbers of us aren’t happy at all with our careers. Despite our unhappiness with our work situation, the biggest reason we don’t change to something else is our own fear. The fear associated with a reluctance to improve our work has multiple layers to it. I recently polled several groups on Linked In and fear was their number one barrier. Here is what I heard was getting in our way: Fear of change o Discomfortr
This bad boss is sometimes known as the “helicopter boss”. They seem to have nothing better to do than to lurk over your shoulder while you’re trying to get your work done. To add insult to this, they may nit-pick and even rework what you’ve done. It leaves you wondering why they hired you in the first place, if they can spend so much time hovering over your job rather than doing their own. There are a number of potential causes for this:
What would a discussion about job seeking be without talking about the resume? The resume is the most tangible aspect to job hunting and seems to be the place everyone runs to first. Creating an effective, powerful resume is within everyone’s grasp. I’m going to focus this article not so much on a list of issues, but rather on a philosophical element that seems to be missing in the job seeker when putting together their resume. I will quickly list the most prevalent issues first, then get to the element I’m discussing. • The most common problems I see with resumes:r
Once you hear the term "midlife crisis" it conjures up an image of a pot bellied, middle aged man with a new red sports car and a young blonde babe next to him, with whom he's having an affair. There are other back stories to that image like the fact that he's bored with life and has spent the last six months embarrassing his kids with his attempts at appearing cool and dressing like them. We've all heard about these kinds of things and to some degree, we've seen bits and pieces of it with people that we know.
When you launch your job search, the ocean of possibilities for where to get started can look overwhelming. With so many job-posting sites, companies posting jobs on their own sites, Craigslist, aggregators, job fairs and press releases, there is little wonder why you can go from overwhelmed to a dead stop in less than a second.
Many people, particularly as they accumulate years of work experience, find they have a growing desire to put passion into their life and career. My observation about why this takes place is that as we grow in life experiences a lot of the excitement or “newness” diminishes. We simply have been there and done that enough that our threshold for what will rock our world continues to go up. It’s increasingly harder to get that same level of excitement. As we recognize that this element of excitement is missing, it can trigger us to go in search of something we can feel passionate about.
Sometimes terminology gets tossed around and we all nod our heads like we understand what’s being said, when we don’t. I thought I would take a few steps back and take a simplistic look at what personal change is, to ensure we’re all nodding our heads in understanding. When I speak about personal change, I’m describing something personally transformative. The personal transformation can be large or small but somehow you change a bit of who you are. Personal transformation can be driven by exte al and internal events.
I hear countless comments from people saying they want to change careers, BUT, but, but, but. They make up some reason for not changing. Among these reasons are: I’m too old – I’ll have to take a pay cut – I don’t want to make the effort – I don’t know what I’d do. Essentially, I think it boils down to fear of change or no effort to change, probably both. There is a big portion of the workforce truly unhappy with their careers this morning as they drive to work. They don’t like their jobs, but they keep on doing the same thing day after day, year after year.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people talk about “updating their resume” when thinking about making a career change. If you are one of those people out there putting the polish on your resume’ as you are about to launch a job search for a new career- STOP. Your resume’ is not the place where you start your work on a career change. If you are simply looking for the same or similar position in another company, go ahead. There is a big difference between looking for a job and making a career change.
The buzz right now is that everyone is holding on to their current jobs with a death grip due to the grim economy. The overarching belief is that there are no jobs out there and for the ones that do exist, there are too many people applying. Let’s say some of that is true. What is also true is that there are job openings. People move, get promoted or something continues to pull people out of their jobs every day. There are jobs. Maybe not as many and maybe the competition for the ones that come available are stiff BUT there are jobs that need to be filled.
If you are past 40, a phenomenon will take place (if it hasn’t already) where you will wake up one day and wonder “What’s next?” This time of questioning has become fondly called a mid life crisis. I don’t think this mid life question needs to be a crisis, but as a society that loves to ignore ...
Too many people are simply bored with their life. The boredom can create a downward spiral. The spiral can include depression, listlessness, hopelessness and many other negative feelings. Perhaps the biggest issue for a person in this situation is a sense that they don’t know what to do and so they do nothing. I call this the “deer in the headlights” effect. When faced with life (as in your life) too many people stop in their tracks, frozen with fear of making that first step.
How would you know what the lesson is? You don’t live to tell it!? As a person focused on personal change and transition, it does strike me that this is the ultimate transition. The lesson is in the observation of the process. It’s either the pre or post death experience of those left behind ...
I recently posted a question in various Linked In groups and posed the question “What are your Career goals for 2011?” Among the many things I heard about, a common theme among the job seekers was, of course, to get a job. It didn’t stop there. We’re not just looking for a job; we’re looking for more. I’d like to discuss some of the comments people made because I think these people are on the right track. Here are some of the things we’re looking for.
The day has finally arrived. The boss has girded their loins and is now prepared to tell you – you’ve missed the mark. Your performance is bad. This is the day we all dread. We have friends who lived through this and told you hair-raising stories about deep-seated hatred and paranoia. The boss can’t stand me, the boss is out to get me and everyone “knows”. You feel like a marked person with only a short time in the job before getting the boot. You are dead man walking.r
Ahem, I would like to point out Oprah’s use of the term “Next Chapter”. Notice the similarities between that and Next Chapter: New Life (my coaching business name)? I’ve been seeing that term not only in reference to Oprah’s new TV channel but I’ve seen it on the side of busses around town and even ads in magazines. I think the ever so slight improvement in our economy has now got us thinking about that Next Chapter in our life. We are truly ready to turn the page on what and how things are going now and get on with what the Next Chapter brings.r
If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need to worry too much about bad decision making or judgment. Most of the time, people who amble through life are barely making it, and give as much “thought time” to their behavior as a cow does. Nevertheless, it’s good to occasionally think about this issue before you seriously trash your future. I would point out that there are things that don’t show up on this list, like leaving the microphone on while you discuss top secret information, simply because they are so rare.
After all the hard work and effort, you finely landed the job. The anxiety about what’s going to happen next is gone and you’re relieved that you can stop updating your resume. Now that you have a job and you’re about to start next Monday, you’re starting to feel the sheer terror of what you have just gotten yourself into. You’re questioning your ability, their stability, their likeability and every kind of “ility” there is. You are feeling like a deer in the head lights. OH MY GOSH! What are you going to do now?r
Among the challenges associated with networking is the simple act of how you start up a conversation with a stranger. Add to that challenge the fact that you might be slightly introverted where pointless conversations are like staring into the black void. Nothing comes to mind. You don’t have a relationship, no common ground, you aren’t yet even sharing a common experience – so how to you do strike up a conversation? Here are 10 conversation starters that have worked for me:
With November and the upcoming holidays in the air, the turf changes for hiring that can be either problematic for job seekers, or an opportunity. As a job seeker you will do much better during this season if you are prepared ahead of time for how the business environment is likely to change.
You’re doing the job. You’re delivering what you were supposed to. Despite all of that goodness, you don’t feel like you belong. Maybe it’s not one thing in particular or maybe it is a couple of glaring things, none of which seem monumental. You just continue to know that you don’t fit and you can’t put your finger on it. Could this be a problem with a cultural fit?