When the market is tight I often have job seekers tell me that they are very open to any kind of opportunity. Open to move for the right position, open to take a pay cut and open to ‘just about anything”.
The hope of course is that openness will help land a job more quickly on [...]

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Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World” ride is where guests ride passively in a half-sunken barge through a darkened canal to an endless choir of animatronic dolls singing the same verses over and over and over again. I wonder in awe at the ability of that darn song to get trapped in the subconscious. Can you hear it [...]

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I am all for college degrees. In fact I have a couple myself. But for many people, getting the college degree didn’t happen either by plan or by circumstances. Despite this they have built a good career holding the types of professional jobs even though their peers in similar positions had degrees.
How does this happen?
Simple actually. These degree-less people [...]

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I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday week.  As for me, I’m spending much of it doing my all-time favorite thing. No, not eating – which does happen to come in at a close second. I’ve been reading.  And I spent much of Christmas Day reading Kay Redfield Jamison’s book, Nothing Was the Same. And [...]

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I am in Seattle today, my old home town. I love this place with the grey skies, moss on the sidewalks and the really good restaurants tucked away on side Seattle streets with the rain dampened sound of the city and the faint sweet smell (at least to me) of low tide in the distance.
I met [...]

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I find news stories during the holidays filled who sadness and heartwarming hope. Sad stories of hardship coupled by heartwarming stories of generosity and courage.  Holidays always evoke emotion as we reflect on our priorities (hopefully not being disgusted in the process) and take stock of the past and future.
In addition to a few media pieces, [...]

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A few weeks ago, Duncan and I published an article called “How to Network Without Sounding Phony, Lame or Desperate” on the AOL/Careerbuilder site.  At last count, there were 73 responses, most of them angry, resentful, hopeless and raging. One commentator simply wrote, “Blah, blah, blah, blah.”  How’s that for effectively moving the conversation forward [...]

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The announcement by the Bureau of labor Statistics  that the Unemployment Rate is 10.2% is grim news indeed.  Of course, those in the news business who figure if bad news sells, worse news should sell even better have taken the “if you think that’s bad, look at this!” approach.  Brian Sullivan of Fox Business News [...]

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I was poking around a few of my favorite job sites this morning, and discovered that a particular company was announcing that it was hiring.  Great! So what’s the problem?  One of my dear friends had just been laid off from that very company not one month ago. Oh.  Ouch. Chances are excellent that candidates [...]

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My friend Patricia Varley is probably the only person I would call a natural networker. Her worldly possessions have been in storage for most of the last 10 years as she goes where her heart tells her to (always beautiful places: Hawaii; Aspen; Naples, FL;  San Diego; hey! Why not?). Jobs and projects fall into [...]

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