I'm not sure how many diehard readers of my blog there are out there, but for those of you who pay close attention, you might have noticed that I waited a little longer than advertised to pull together the final installment of my recent "asking for help" series. If you missed these earlier articles, you'll find them for review here and here. And in terms of why this post took a little longer than planned [...]
Resourcefulness. Drive. Curiosity. A go-getting spirit. A willingness to ask for help. These are qualities that successful job hunters tend to have in abundance. And yet, I'll confess, I've come across quite a few "transitioning professionals" in recent weeks where these qualities were noticeably absent. Or, to be fair, perhaps I've come across quite a few individuals who would naturally possess these qualities on the job, while working, but who either a) fail to translate [...]
"Matt, I'm really struggling here. How do I explain being out of work for almost two years now? Is this stretch between jobs going to prevent me from ever getting hired again?" Over the past few years, as the economy has continued to dawdle, more professionals than you might believe have found themselves out of work for periods of a year or longer. For those who find themselves in this position, it can become something [...]
"Matt: I hate to admit it, but I'm really having a problem on the home front. I've been looking for a job for a number of months now and my spouse just won't get off my back. She constantly tells me I'm not searching hard enough or that I'm being too picky about the types of jobs I'd consider. What should I tell her? I don't think she understands how tight things are out there..." [...]
"Matt: I need some advice -- in a recent interview, I was asked to talk about the reason I went from one job to another a while back in my career, and the honest answer is that I prayed on it and God made it clear to me that I should make the move. Since I've found Seattle to be an incredibly secular town, however, I'm hesitant to engage in full disclosure around this issue. [...]
Question: "Matt, given the number of job hunters you tend to work with on a regular basis, do you see any signs that the market is getting any better as we kick off 2010?" If you held my feet to the fire, my answer would probably be yes. In the last month or two, there have been several signs (at least from my vantage point) that the job market is perking up a bit. At [...]
Question: "Matt, given the number of job hunters you tend to work with on a regular basis, do you see any signs that the market is getting any better as we kick off 2010?" If you held my feet to the fire, my answer would probably be yes. In the last month or two, there have been several signs (at least from my vantage point) that the job market is perking up a bit. At [...]
Question: "I'm thinking about making a career change and have been told I should go out and set up some informational interviews with people who already work in the field I' m targeting. I'm not sure why, exactly, these folks would want to meet with me. Any advice you can offer?" As if "normal" interviewing weren't challenging enough, many job hunters bump into the topic of informational interviewing at some point in their search efforts, [...]
"Matt: I'm getting pretty anxious to find work and have toyed with the idea of dropping my 'price' to employers in terms of the salary I'm asking for. Do you think this would help me land offers? I mean, after all, by hiring me an employer could get somebody with Director-level experience at a Management-level salary..." Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? If the labor market is a cold, calculated world that revolves around the laws [...]
"What do you love, I mean really love, about business?" It's so easy to bash the corporate world. In fact, it's become downright fashionable to complain about the greed, waste, exploitation, and ethically-challenged behavior displayed by a high-visiblity chunk of the business world these days. Each day, it seems, I'll come across yet another "corporate refugee" with an amazing tale to tell in terms of the abuses and shenanigans they've had to deal with in [...]