Category: Assessment

Posted on

[Anatomy of Success] The Perfect Job (or Career) Hunt

The winners in this month’s women’s and men’s U.S. collegiate basketball “March Madness” tournaments will show us how to hit the sweet spot of three qualities that every job hunter or career considerer (try saying that word fast) should target as they think about their job hunt, or  career switch.

On the subject of careers, I’ll be one of three speakers on a panel this upcoming Thursday morning, March 25th in Oakland sponsored by the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Financial Executives International.… Read the rest

Posted on

[Coaching Tips] How To Be Paid Well

Forget drugs, embezzlement, investment banking, or racketeering. The real answer to how to get paid well can be found in last Sunday’s New York Times.

On a conceptual basis you get paid well when there is a high market price paid for your work. Part supply and demand, part value equation (cost/effectiveness = value ), pay in part is what you do, how well you do, and who you do it with.… Read the rest

Posted on

[The Job Interview] The Trouble with Men

I’m a guy, my son’s a guy, and I inherently like guys (and women too): so take this post not as a bash at males, but rather one of those 80% rules (e.g. applies 80% of the time, misses and is off the remainder 20% of the time) that hopefully informs what you do with the information.

Here’s the trouble: men are overconfident.… Read the rest

Posted on

[The Hiring Hunt] What’s The One Sure Quality Employers Want?

A recent post for would-be Chief Financial Officers on this site gives a great overview of what sort of attributes financial types who aspire to be CFOs should have.

But what about the rest of us non-CFO types? What’s the one sure thing employers want from employees and candidates?

First a caveat – the “take this with a grain of salt” advice: if you ask 100 career coaches you’ll get 100 different answers about THE skill to have.… Read the rest

Posted on

[Dept. of Bad Advice] Your Brand is Not – Repeat Not – Your Elevator Pitch

I could blame my grumpy reaction to this last set of rainy days in San Francisco, but I won’t. Instead I’ll attribute to the type of “nice graphics first, let’s think about what it means later” approach that pops up every once and a while. And a case of bad career advice.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers is running something called Personal Brand Week. Their web page has a cute set of five name tags, conveniently corresponding to the five days of a traditional workweek and arranged in ascending order, foundations first.… Read the rest

Posted on

[Cherry Tree Chronicles] How to Tell the Truth – and Why You Should

We live in a world of spin: from embellished resumes to downright lies, people seem to have forgotten truth with their honesty manners. It’s hard to know if it’s always been this way, or if it’s changed over time. Certainly George Washington, whose birthday was celebrated last week as a US Federal holiday, would be appalled. George, as the legend goes, was the young man who voluntarily told his father that he had chopped down a cherry tree rather than lie about it.… Read the rest