Bob Sutton (@work_matters) tweeted this the other day: Perhaps companies ought to stop using “IC” or “Individual Contributor.” It seems to absolve such employees from helping others I retweeted it and we had some back-and-forth about what to call people i organizations. Let’s eliminate these words for people who are not managers: Individual Contributor: There […]
I gave a webinar this past week to the BU Career Connection. We had a great turnout. I have posted my slides: Eight Traps (and Tips) of Networking When Job Searching. The slides are based on Manage Your Job Search. Since I published the book and have given talks about it, I have discovered more
If you’ve been working for a while, you have a number of people who could be references for you: colleagues, project managers, managers. All of these are people who know what you’ve done. So, how do you choose references? Make sure your reference can talk on the phone. If you select someone who hates talking
I’ve been a reference for many peers, previous employees, previous managers, and even clients. It’s almost always my pleasure. But sometimes? Not so much. I’d been managing a relatively junior employee who wasn’t quite clear on the concept of coming into work on time. He didn’t like deadlines—even the ones he gave himself. He was a
I gave a talk at a networking group recently about Manage Your Job Search. When the members checked in at the beginning they gave themselves points for their activity the week before. They only got one point for applying for a job. They got 15 points for going on an informational interview, and 15 points
When I speak to job hunters, they often think they can get a job doing what they studied, or what they have done, or they way they have always searched. “But the last three times I looked, I looked exactly this way.” “This is what I studied in school. I should be able to find
I will be at Agile 2014 next week. So will about 1800 other people. I bet some of you are looking for new jobs. Would you like an Open Jam session about looking for a new job? I can conduct a timeboxed, up to one-hour session about Manage Your Job Search. If you only want
My client in Part 1, where we talked about streamlining your analysis, was also having trouble finding people. He needed to hire two developers. He just “knew” there was a boom in Boston, and could not hire more people. Well, considering I had just been at a SPIN meeting the night before and met people
Did you see Recruiting Animal’s review of Manage Your Job Search? It’s terrific. One of the things I like best about his review is that he talks about each section of the book and explains what he likes about each section. In his review, he has a great tip on how to introduce yourself. Go
Here’s another job search trap: you think you can network by going to professional group meetings, mashups, informational lunches, and other kinds of what I call “background networking.” You need to do this kind of networking to expand you network. But it won’t get you a job. It will keep you unemployed. You need to