How Do You Keep Life From Passing You By?

It’s a common refrain; one that even ended up as a question for the digerati at Quora.

Just how do you keep life, like a river, from passing you by?

There are signals everywhere that you must do more to keep your head above water; even more if you want to “pull ahead.”

A recent Fortune magazine article chronicled the life of a young exec who had her “home” in San Francisco, lived mostly in an apartment near her work in Menlo Park when she wasn’t spending her considerable time on the road.… Read the rest

Coaching Tips: How to Dress for Success

John Molloy’s 1980’s classic Dress for Success spawned a generation of workplace climbers who fashioned their work wardrobe around his advice. While 30 years later his advice lingers: some of it unfortunately  (e.g. yellow power tie, or manlike power suits for women ) and some of his advice that is spot on. The gist of Molloy’s advice? If you want to be more effective in the workplace, think about what you wear.… Read the rest

Is a Job Still A “Job”

Where communications abilities takes us a host of other trends and patterns follow.

For better or worse it’s given us a world where you can be tethered to work by iPhone or computer, and share information via short text bursts and immediate access And as this week’s Wall Street Journal chronicles in “Why E-Mail No Longer Rules“, changes in the nature of communication have changed how we fundamentally think of a host of related relationships – such as jobs.Read the rest

[Through the Glass Door] “Don’t Leave Before You Leave”

Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg offers some gems of advice on her work/life philosophy in the September 23, 2009 issue of Fortune to people in general and women in specific.

Sandberg writes “But after watching talented woman after talented woman pass up opportunities, I realized that too many women make the mistake of leaving before they leave. Here is what is happens: An ambitious, successful woman starts considering having children.Read the rest

[Land of Spin] The Job Hunt: TwitterShouldHireMe.com and Other Tricks of the Trade

Fortune Magazine’s April 13, 2009 edition has an article on Jamie Varon, who built a website called TwitterShouldHireMe.com as part of her job hunt campaign to get – guess who – to hire her. She also writes a blog called “intersected ."  Her Twitter job campaign site apparently has spawned a host of imitators (googleshouldhireme.com, Facebookshoulehireme.com, etc.). [Update: Varon has also just launched a new blog site called "Shatterbox – The Way of Standing Out and Changing the World."Read the rest

[New Rules] Fortune Magazine’s “How to Find a Job” – What’s Working Now

This week’s April 13, 2009 Fortune Magazine (on newsstands now, online in around 10 days) identifies tactics that they believe work in the current job market. Many will sound familiar from readers of the nine-part  “Choose Me” Hire Me! series from the Life Back West blog.

Here are some of the job hunting actions Fortune identified that work:

  • Be thorough and methodical
  • Work your Rolodex
  • Target your search
  • Do your homework
  • Get the word out
  • (Be creative and) Get noticed and get your foot in the door
  • Build your network
  • Offer people intelligence on the competition
  • Fine tune your resume (include metrics and stats)

All of these ideas are really helpful and I think complement the type of know yourself, know your message, and build your network approached advocated by experts such as Richard Nelson Bolles .Read the rest