As you probably know, LinkedIn keeps changing–sometimes it seems as if that happens every time you turn around. However, that’s no excuse for letting yourself get so far behind the curve that your profile brands you as hopelessly out of touch. 10 Amateurish LinkedIn Blunders According to a Forbes.com article by personal branding guru William Arruda, there are “10 LinkedIn Blunders That Make You Look Like an Amateur.” The fi...

Unless you’re one of those rare individuals who’s perfectly happy chugging along in his or her comfortable groove indefinitely, the thought of career advancement has probably crossed your mind a time or two. In fact, I encourage clients to keep career advancement in play as an ongoing situation, although it doesn’t necessarily have to be top-of-mind every moment. What Career Advancement Means to You Just as “succes...

All of us as human beings have biases. Some people just have more or stronger ones than others. That’s not always a problem. However, if you’re engaged in an active job search or planning one, biased interviewers can definitely pose a huge problem. Ways in Which Biased Interviewers Can Hurt You An article by Greg Moran on RecruitingTrends.com, “Three Tips for Managing Biases that Destroy the Interview Process,” poi...

Heads up, confidential job seekers! Your search might have become a lot less confidential than you thought, if you unintentionally selected having a “Job Seeker Badge” (briefcase icon) as part of your LinkedIn profile. What is a Job Seeker Badge? According to LinkedIn’s Help feature, here’s the basic answer: How do I show that I am looking for a job? A Job Seeker Badge (briefcase) can be displayed next to your name on your...

It used to be that we said, “The first person who mentions a number [for salary] loses.” Is that still true today? Not according to Liz Ryan, whose article on Forbes titled “How to Negotiate A Job Offer” labels that advice as old-school thinking–true maybe as recently as 1995 but not anymore. As Ryan says, “For the most part, job offers today are surprising on the low side, if they’re surprising at all. Once a lowball offer...

Wouldn’t life be great if your job searches were never touched by fear or failure? You would proceed with total confidence from start to finish and have a desirable outcome every time. Right–and I’m the Queen of Sheba! And what about fear of failure? Sounds like a double-whammy, doesn’t it? Realism in the Job Search I’ve never met anyone who could honestly say he or she had never experienced fear or failure...

Probably most of us want to achieve success in our chosen career. That’s a normal part of human nature, and there’s nothing wrong with it. However, if career success at any price is your motivator, you might be barreling along in the wrong direction. After all, you don’t get to go back and do your life over if you mess it up the first time and finish without making a major change in direction. You and Ebeneezer Scrooge If...

What does it take to be a true organization leader…one whose business leadership makes a clear difference in the operations and outcomes of a company or other organization? And do you have what it takes? Leader versus Manager Managers play a major role at many levels in an organization; however, I think it’s important to note that there are differences between being a manager and being a leader. Not all managers ar...

Is there such a thing as mistake-free career management and job search? In a perfect world, maybe; however, you probably don’t live in a perfect world, so the odds are that you’ll make a mistake here and there throughout your career. That said, you can certainly make a concerted effort to avoid mistakes that have a devastating (or even somewhat disrupting) effect on your professional career progress. Two Mistakes to Av...

What separates a domestic job search from an international one? Basically it’s understanding what employers are looking for when they hire for jobs overseas. Executives considering an international position need to think about their long-term career goals and determine if an international assignment would help them achieve those goals. Whether looking for a temporary overseas assignment with your current company or looking...