June 2016

Business, the business that matters to us on a personal level – that related to finding and interviewing for a job, is conducted by direct communication, there is no substitute. But in order to do so, you’ve got to identify who to speak with and then you must establish contact. Anyone who’s read my blog knows what I think of woefully inadequate online pseudo-activities, so much of which never involves speaking with a real person and is largely a waste of time. Increasingly, those activities are about as productive as seeking wealth by purchasing a lottery ticket and crossing your fingers. In my experienced opinion, until such time as you can speak with a decision maker, nothing real can happen. Email has become the initiating step and pre-requisite protocol. Even if you can establish contact by phone email is the next

This short article/blog entry will elicit two distinctly different reactions: some will wince and accuse me of being hard-hearted and, yet, others will see the common sense logic in my perspective and nod in full agreement. No one is entitled to a job per se. Entitlement results in lethargy and mediocrity or, put more bluntly, laziness and a lack of appreciation for what one has. More appropriately, we are and should be entitled to the opportunity of being fairly considered and evaluated according to our abilities, talents, experience and accomplishments. All of us have experienced employees in our daily lives who make us wonder how they can possibly keep their jobs as a result of bad attitudes, lethargy, poor customer service and a general unwillingness to do any more than what is absolutely required of them. In some cases there are those

With each passing year I find more and more people are losing their skills to communicate to not much more than a basic level, incapable of purposeful interaction and, above all, unwilling to take initiative to do the things that can help them to advance their own goals. For some reason they’ve become afraid, yes afraid, to do more than the bare minimum required of them in different aspects of their lives, but none so obvious as their own inability to help themselves when they must find a job. Ironic isn’t it, with more tools available than ever people do less and less; it’s turned upside-down. Most people obediently send their resumes down a virtual black hole to no one in particular about something they saw posted. They do nothing and wait to be called on. Then, when they do get

When you find yourself having to interview for a job, you’ll have a limited window of time within which you need to make the most of the event. The first interview should be about their learning more about you beyond your resume and you should learn more about the job beyond the woefully basic job post you likely responded to.   A typical first face-to-face interview is generally brief, sometimes as short as 30 minutes, and occasionally longer but rarely more than an hour. Regardless, time is limited and finite -- if you want to get all you can from the meeting. I remember when my daughter was a competitive swimmer and it wasn’t so much about the others in the pool as it was a race against the clock. Well, this is no different. I have witnessed many persons aimlessly squander precious