There are two components to getting off to a great start on a new job: what to avoid and what to accomplish. This post explains both components. First, there are four ways to blow it. They form the acronym LAST: […]
Whether you love shoes or not, you’ve got to admire the job that Tony Hsieh and the rest of the Zappos gang has done. I got a chance to interview Tony during the book tour for his new tome. in our interview he explains the keys to happiness in life and business while being Asian-American. [...]
Do you have employees who confuse job titles with job missions? Then scoot on over to the American Express Open Forum and read "How to Change a Job Title Into a Mission." Learn more about leadership.
Over at the American Express Open Forum, I provided a list of my favorite applications. Check out the list if you want to see what makes me tick.
Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon, authors of I Hate People!, have figured out a quick way to interview job candidates. The solution is easy: watch how they cross the street. I’m a “wader,” by the way.
Many so-called experts are trying to fill young people with fear about what they should post in their Facebook accounts. They make the case the school admissions staff and company recruiters are going to check your Facebook page and ding you for the stupid things you did. (Who among us has not done something stupid [...]
Have you ever wondered about who you’re interviewing for a position, buying something from on Craigslist, dating (or, even worse, who your kids are dating)? You can do a Google search, but there are many people with same name. I discuss a service that enables you to enter a person’s email address and find his [...]
Glenn Kelman is the CEO of Redfin, an online real estate brokerage firm. Prior to joining Redfin, he was a co-founder of Plumtree Software, a publicly traded company that created the enterprise portal software market. Prior to starting Plumtree, Mr. Kelman worked as one of the first employees at Stanford Technology Group, a startup that [...]
Searching for a job can suck if you constrain yourself to the typical tools such as online jobs boards, trade publications, CraigsList, and networking with only your close friends. In these kinds of times, you need to use all the weapons that you can, and one that many people don’t—or at least don’t use to [...]
Check out this great video of Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point) discussing the shortcomings of today's hiring practices. He cites examples of professional sports that conduct "combines" where teams measure the performances of prospects in the hopes of drafting the future stars. Guess what: this method doesn't work. Jobs--of all types--are more complex, and the [...]
Pamela Skillings is the founder of Skillful Communications, a career and communications consulting firm in New York. Previously, Pamela spent more than twelve years as a marketing executive for companies including MasterCard International, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup. She recently published a book called Escape from Corporate America: A Practical Guide to Creating the Career of [...]
Any article that starts off by advising you to tell potential employees that working at your company is a stepping stone to great jobs in other companies is okay by me. Penelope Trunk does this in "Memo to Human Resources: New Ways to Get Great Candidates." Her recommendations include: Tell people where they'll go next. [...]
After reading my posting about how to get a job on Craigslist, my buddy Danny Kay sent me a link to illustrate what employers do wrong. I was amazed by the example that he sent me from the New York edition of Craigslist: We seek a talented, highly motivated & resourceful individual skilled/experienced in web [...]
I recently ran a help-wanted ad on Craigslist. The position was a photo-editor job for a site that I dare not mention because some people will complain that I promote it too often. Here’s what I learned a lot from this experience—much of which you may apply to a job search if you respond to [...]
Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He is the author or co-author of twelve books.Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Stanford. He began his career at the business school at the University [...]
I liked Penelope Trunk's interview so much that I asked her for more material. Here's her list of the nine biggest workplace myths: You’ll be happier if you have a job you like. The correlation between your happiness and your job is overrated. The most important factors, by far, are your optimism levels and your [...]
Penelope Trunk is the author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. She is a career columnist at the Boston Globe and Yahoo Finance. Her syndicated column has run in more than 200 publications. Earlier, she was a software executive, and then she founded two companies. She has been through an IPO, an acquisition [...]
My source at LinkedIn, Kay Luo, tells me that my profile is in the 99.99th percentile of profiles viewed. She insisted that I should make it good—or at least suck less. So I enlisted her and LinkedIn’s designer, Mike Lin, to do an “extreme makeover” of my profile. This is what was wrong with my [...]
I added a “Recent Jobs” section to the sidebar on the right side of this blog—I know: monetization is so “Web 1.0.” :-) If you want to advertise a position in this jobs board, it’s only $49 for thirty days (this is an introductory special). I have a highly-qualified readership of people with entrepreneurial, evangelistic, [...]
Stephanie Tate is the university relations manager for Yahoo!. (This is not her picture; it’s a stock photo from iStockphoto.) She took a look at my cover email and resume and critiqued them. Just to prove that I’m not easily embarrassed—and to provide the most value to my readers, here’s what she said: I’ll pretend [...]