As an expert in talent and career management, executive coaching, and diversity in the workplace, Ginny integrated her executive recruiter experience with her own unique approach to managing her career. The result is the must-read book titled Career Mapping: Charting Your Course in the New World of Work.

I’m so impressed with Career Mapping that I’ve been recommending it to all my friends and family who want a fresh approach in managing their career and possible career paths. Below is my interview Ginny Clark, who was gracious enough to share her advice on how we can prepare for our next career reinvention or find our dream job.

Smart Lemming: Career Mapping is one of the best career management books I have ever read. Your point of view is inspiring, especially when you shared your own career track. Everyone who reads this book will feel validated that they haven’t had a “meandering” career. A job seeker’s disparate jobs and responsibilities were actually bridges to their future dream job. If you had to pick one mission critical thing a job seeker can do in pursuing their dream job, what would it be?

Ginny Clarke: Know the power of choice.  Educate yourself on the possibilities and choose two or three industries, functions, roles and many more possible companies to consider at any given point in your career.

Develop a rationale for why they interest you and build a case for a prospective employer as to why you have the competencies (though not necessarily the experience) to be chosen to perform the job. Oops, that was more than one thing wasn’t it?

SL: Yes, but sage advice for people looking to change industries. Your career mapping tool is invaluable for a job seeker. Based on your career coaching experience, do job seekers at each level (Entry level, Mid-level, Executive level, Encore level, and Detour level) face similar challenges as they brainstorm their career path? Or is there one level that’s a little more challenging such as those job seekers at the Detour route level?

GC: I would say “Detour” is probably the most challenging. Mind you, Detour can occur at all of the other levels.  I define Detour as someone who has been unemployed for more than a year, is returning to the workforce after care giving (children, parents, etc.), military service, an entrepreneurial venture or other activity that might have “derailed” them or shaken their confidence. The challenge and the opportunity is in knitting together the seemingly disparate parts of your past into something that makes sense for you in the future.  Only you can do that.

SL: The social compact between employer and worker has changed. Over the course of my career, workers can no longer rely on working at one or two companies, and then retire. On top of that, the Great Recession hits and all bets are off. Workers became even more disposable than ever as companies struggled to survive. How can your “free agent” approach help workers achieve their career goals?

GC: Being a free agent means workers always have in mind what they want for themselves and are not at the mercy of any one employer, or the economy for that matter.  A free agency mindset allows a worker to know their worth and not take things personally.  They realize they are in control of their professional destiny, have clarity of direction, and exude confidence.

SL: Your career mapping process is simple, yet elegant. Is your career mapping process and template a result of the shortcomings you saw in candidates you encountered when you were an executive recruiter? Or is it a result from your career brainstorming process when you decided to change careers?

GC:  Thank you; it is both.  I’ve learned that I am a systems thinker.  I studied linguistics and accounting and have always appreciated the order and the structure of systems, whether language, numbers or processes.  I enjoyed the rigor and structure of the executive search process.  While not complex, it is a process that is not well understood. I integrated the search methodology with the instinctive moves that I made as I explored opportunities in my own career.

SL: I think it’s great that you recommend StrengthsFinder 2.0 for people who want to identify themes in traits and tendencies that will help them define their competencies for their career map. What other advice would you give job seekers, who feel they have gaps in their work experience or skill set?

GC: Don’t apologize for the gaps. Anticipate the questions and be prepared by having plotted your work history, determined some of your aspirational roles and analyzed the gaps to know which you can fill and which you can’t.  Know the difference between competency and experience and be prepared to articulate your competencies to a prospective employer, even if you don’t have the experience.

SL: Personal branding has been all the rage over the past few years. However, I appreciate your personal branding framework because it’s comprised of four elements: Authenticity, reputation, image, and value. I’m constantly worried that younger workers think personal branding is only about their image. What personal branding advice would you give younger job seekers?

GC: So glad you see the difference. I dismissed the early references to personal branding as superficial, like the packaging of cereal.  My view is if you don’t have quality ingredients, a process that yields a competitive product, visibility and promotions that emphasize the usefulness and uniqueness of the product, you won’t be desirable.  Younger job seekers are often authentic, but might not appreciate their visibility through their activity on-line.  They tend not to be as aware of their image when it comes to dress, language, grammar, writing and social protocols.  Honoring some of these conventions isn’t “old school,” but how business is done and will likely continue to be done even in this casual, conceptual age we are in.

SL: Your book can be used for three different aspects of our work lives like finding our next gig, dream job, or career reinvention. What’s the most common goal that your clients are trying to accomplish? Next job, dream job, or career reinvention? Something else?

GC: I would say many are going for the career reinvention, which includes possibly staying in your current job, but redefining it on your own terms.  It can mean having clarity about what you want next and not settling for less.  It can mean learning how to tell people what you want – not ask-and always reassessing where you are in your journey and when it is time to move to the next thing.  This is exercising the power of choice, once again.

SL: When consulting with your clients, where do people experience the most problems? Preparing their career map, identifying their competencies, or preparing to network?

GC: Most people have more problems identifying their competencies.  These are the core, portable elements of who you are. We tend to just look at what we’ve done and not dissect the granular aspects of what you know how to do, how exactly you do it, and how it relates to what you want to do.

SL: What has the response been to your book? Anything about the response that has surprised you?

GC: The response has been quite positive.  I feared that people would look at many of the aspects of the book, many of which are not new (networking, resume writing, etc.) and not see the nuanced theme of discipline and choice that integrate them all. I am gratified that people can see themselves in the book and feel validated and worthy to pursue their dreams.

SL: There are so many networking and resume books on the market, but your advice in Career Mapping is probably the best advice I’ve ever read. Thank you for including it in your book! What are you working on now?

GC: I am working on building out my consulting and coaching business. My corporate clients are finding the mapping process appealing as a tool that engages their employees.  As for the coaching, I can’t do it one-on-one, so creating virtual products and services to be a substitute for me.  Those will be in the form of webinars, DVD’s. CD’s, and events that people can purchase to  build that free agency muscle themselves.  I am also working on an app so people can create their own maps on devices because it is a process you should do a couple of times a year. I want to be in the media as a voice to inspire and direct people on their journeys, so I’m exploring TV and radio.  And yes, thinking about the next book.  Much to do.

Additional Resources

• Career Mapping book website
• Career Mapping blog
• Center for High Performance
• Smart Lemming Library Career Mapping book review
• Smart Lemming Library StrengthsFinder 2.0 book review

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Switching careers is a difficult process at any stage of your life, but it becomes even more difficult as a person approaches the age of 40. There are several reasons that may prevent a person from actually leaving a job that, in different circumstances; they would normally leave, such as age discrimination, lack of education opportunities, and monetary limitations.

Yet I have seen many people successfully change their professions mid career, and achieve their goals by using the following these tips:

1. Take an Inventory of Your Skills

This is the easiest way to begin the process. Write a large “T” in the center of a piece of paper. To the left of the “T,” jot down all your skills and jobs you have relished doing. On the right side, write down the skills and jobs you have disliked. Think not only about your previous employment, but also any recreational activities and voluntary work you have done as well.

Here are a few examples of ideas that may help you generate your own list: the people you work with, recreational activities, managing other people, technical aspects such as working in mechanics or science-based fields, working in sales, manual labor, and geographical aspects. Try to be as specific as possible with each idea you write down.

2. Research Other Career Ideas

There are many free tools that can help determine which profession corresponds best with your abilities the most. Often these are simple short career aptitude tests that ask you about your likes, dislikes, and skills, which will generate a report telling you all the careers that match your profile. You can find these online, or at any college career counseling center, or your local workforce center. Such places often have career counselors that will sit down with you and go over your career assessment results with you.

Read through the classified advertisements. Think of the firms in your local community that you would find a pleasure to work for, or even own. Write them down and append them to the list of professions that you will look into.

Another option is working from your own home. Starting a simple sideline business can be fun. What starts as a little extra income can turn into a full time adventure.

Research all the professions that appeal to you and try to understand what the day to day role will involve. Then picture yourself performing those tasks, and ask yourself whether you would enjoy doing them. You may find it enjoyable to do the job daily, but you may also find it may quickly become tedious and boring soon after you began and once you settled down.

3. Picture Yourself Doing Your Dream Job

It’s imperative to have an idea in your head of the sort of career you want; specifically, your dream job. Be as precise as you can, including the location and the salary you would like, and the type of work environment you want (e.g. an office, outdoors, etc.), and the sort of people you would like as colleagues.

Illustrate each and every aspect of your ideal job in your head. Then write it down so you can edit as you please, since your ideas may change while you’re deciding exactly what it is you’d like to do. Writing things down helps your ideas gel and solidifies your plans.

Having a good idea of the sort of career you want will help you to get it quicker, since it will help you narrow down your search amongst an otherwise inundating overload of options.

4. Pick a Profession You Will Get Pleasure From

To succeed at your new profession, your full dedication and devotion is required. And if you take pleasure from the work you do, you will be able to spend more time doing it. This in turn will help you succeed in your new second career, and thus increase your income and your financial situation.

It’s better to do what you like to be doing, and not what others think you should be doing. Make money doing what interests you and life will become a lot more enjoyable.

5. Create a Plan of Action

With your research done, now you can spend some time to create a plan of what to do. Assess what improvements you need to make: better qualifications or education, more money to invest in your venture, a better resume, assistance from family, or a go-between job. Write all these ideas down, and then implement them one step at a time.

6. Consider Monetary and Other Requirements

If you are struggling financially in your current occupation, remember many firms have alternative career opportunities internally. Find out more information from your current employer’s Human Resources department. Furthermore, consider the possibility of government grants and programs to help your career & educational development. The government has set up a lot of these programs to aid those seeking to better their circumstances and to encourage economic growth in several sectors. Inquire at your local One Stop Center or local Workforce Center for information on what you are eligible for. Many grants are available only to people specifically over the age of 35, 40, or 50.

Contrary to what many people think, you can successfully have a career change after 40. It’s brave, adventurous, and totally possible! Explore alternate opportunities, look at what you enjoy doing the most, make a plan of action, and then set up a career founded on what you enjoy.

Switching careers at 40 can reinvigorate your outlook on life. So begin the process today, and don’t be afraid to ask your family and those around you for support in your new venture.

Recommended Reading from the Smart Lemming Library

• The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife
• Getting Unstuck: A Guide to Discovering Your Next Career Path
• Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career
• The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention: Essential Survival Skills for Any Economy

About the Author

Sera Filson is a writer, health enthusiast, and proud mother who’s currently pursuing a B.A. in Business Management. When she’s not writing, exercising, or studying, she enjoys reading about body contouring and being a fan of Sono Bello on LinkedIn and Sono Bello on Indeed.com.

Roadmap/Agenda for Episode 12

The Smart Lemming Rundown (Episode 12) continues on the series called “The Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development” in Phase 1 called “Assessing Your Career.”

Understanding that workers are protected by federal law, what do you do when you experience bias or prejudice from coworkers or your boss?

As a worker, if you’re a person that belongs to “protected class,” you cannot be targeted for harassment or discrimination. A “protected class” is a term used in U.S. anti-discrimination law, describing ten federally protected classes which are the following: race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, disability, veteran, or genetic information.

As an employer or manager, creating diversity in the workplace is not the same as avoiding discriminatory practices. How can managers prevent discrimination and promote diversity? How should employers manage diversity-related issues at work?

This week’s podcast provides an overview of protected classes in the workplace, ranging from the workers point of view to the managers point of view.

Learn how you can create your own courses for your self-study to get ahead in your job and career. Also, learn the four action items you can take to start your Smart Lemming Curriculum today.

In the Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development series, I discuss each phase, so you can create a shortcut to your career success.

Additional Resources

• Smart Lemming Book Review: Good Is Not Enough: And Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals by Keith R. Wyche
• Smart Lemming Book Review: The Diversity Code by Michelle T. Johnson
• Smart Lemming Book Review: Diversity of Organizations by Myrtle P. Bell
• Smart Lemming Book Review: Making Diversity Work by Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd
• Smart Lemming Book Review: Off-Ramps and On-Ramps by Sylvia Ann Hewitt
• Smart Lemming Book Review: Through the Labyrinth by Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carlie
• Smart Lemming Book Review: None of Us is as Good as All of Us by Patricia Sowell Harris
• Smart Lemming Book Review: Managing the Older Employee by Casey Hawley
• Smart Lemming Book Review: Perfectly Able by Lighthouse International

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Roadmap/Agenda for Episode 11

The Smart Lemming Rundown (Episode 11) continues on the series called “The Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development” in Phase 1 called “Assessing Your Career.”

In this podcast, I discuss the ten core competencies or skill set areas for career success, which are the following:

1. Business life
2. Career & Self-Development
3. Productivity and organization
4. Management
5. Marketing and Sales Management
6. Leadership
7. Strategy
8. Small Business or Entrepreneurship
9. Work Tools Mastery
10. Tools and templates

With the ten core competencies, I’m proposing that you think of career development like attending college and graduate school. These fields of study have their own “courses” that you should learn as part of your self-directed study at each of the seven career stages.

Learn how you can create your own courses for your self-study to get ahead in your job and career. Also, learn the four action items you can take to start your Smart Lemming Curriculum today.

In the Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development series, I discuss each phase, so you can create a shortcut to your career success.

Additional Resources

Recommended Resources

• How to Write a Needs Assessment and 100-Day Plan (90-day plan): Free Templates Available for Download
• Case Complete for use cases and requirements management
• eFax, an internet fax to email services
• Business cases/cost-benefit analysis by Solutionmatrix.com

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Roadmap/Agenda for Episode 10

The Smart Lemming Rundown (Episode 10) continues on the series called “The Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development” in Phase 1, which is formerly known as “Planning Your Career, ” but now I’m officially calling it: “Assessing your Career.” The updated career development program can be seen in the image below.

I elaborate on organizational roles and goals at each career stage:

Discover the three key decision points that you’ll encounter as you grow from new worker to senior worker. Learn which discipline will the be gift that keeps on giving throughout your work life.

In the Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development series, I discuss each phase, so you can create a shortcut to your career success. I also provide a bonus tip for aspiring VPs. Hint: Don’t become a leader that Robert Sutton write about in his book The No Asshole Rule.

Additional Resources

• Smart Lemming Library book review: Steve Jobs book titles
• Smart Lemming Library book review: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs
• Smart Lemming Library book review: 10 Simple Secret’s of the World’s Greatest Communicators
• Smart Lemming Library book review: Business Model Generation
• Smart Lemming Library book review: Art of the Start

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Roadmap/Agenda for Episode 9

The Smart Lemming Rundown (Episode 9) continues on the series called “The Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development” in Phase 1 called “Planning Your Career” at Step 2 called “Assessing your Career.”

Lori elaborates on the sixten traits that workers should have each of the seven career stages, ranging from new worker to VP or entrepreneur.

Learn why each attribute or traits are building blocks for subsequent career stages. Learn action items you can take today to find satisfaction in your job and career.

In the Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development series, I discuss each phase, so you can create a shortcut to your career success.

Additional Resources

• Smart Lemming Library book review: Achieving Excellence by Robert Heller
• Smart Lemming Library book review: On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis
• Smart Lemming Library book review: The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength by Kahnweiler

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Roadmap/Agenda for Episode 8

The Smart Lemming Rundown (Episode Eight) continues on the series called The Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development in Phase 1 called “Planning Your Career” at Step 2 called “Assessing your Career.” Lori elaborates on the fifteen areas of focus for each of the seven career stages.

Learn why each area of focus are building blocks for subsequent career stages. Learn action items you can take today to find satisfaction in your job and career.

In the Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development series, I discuss each phase, so you can create a shortcut to your career success.

Additional Resources

• Smart Lemming Library book review: On Leadership by Warren Bennis
• Smart Lemming Library book review: Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
• Smart Lemming Library book reviews of book titles on Amazon.com

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Roadmap/Agenda for Episode 7

Today, I’m continuing  my series on The Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development. I’m still in Phase 1 called Planning Your Career, at Step 2: Assessing your Career, by answering the following three questions:

• What’s involved in assessing one’s career?
• What are the seven career stages? And why is your career a lot like college and graduate school?
• How does it affect your career development and career management planning?

In the Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development series, I discuss each phase, so you can create a shortcut to your career success.

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Roadmap/Agenda for Episode 6

To help overcome these problems: Today, I’m continuing  my series on The Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development Phase 1 called Planning Your Career, Step 1 by answering the following questions:

1. What is career development and management?
2. What’s the role of these two ideas?
3. What does it take to be successful in your current job and career?

In the Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development series, I discuss each phase, so you can create a shortcut to your career success.

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This week I return to podcasting by discussing my Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development framework.

The Three Phases of Career Development

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• New knowledge worker: New college grad entering work force
• Advanced knowledge worker: One or two years into career
• Intermediate knowledge worker: Three or four years into career
• Senior knowledge worker: Established worker in charge of teams or functional areas
• Director: Department head
• Vice president: Executive in charge of a specific department(s)
• Entrepreneur: A person pursuing a new venture or business idea

New Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 12 Steps to a Great Networking Conversation
• Need to build up your confidence? How to Unleash Your Confidence
• What It Takes To Win At The Entry level: Absorbing And Embracing Adversity

Career Management

• How to find a mentor and increase your odds of career success
• Where Are All the Great Entry-Level Jobs Hiding?

Intermediate Knowledge Worker

Career Management

• Scheduling a Meeting the Right Way

Management

• BNET podcast: Avoiding a Charlie Sheen Moment
• Top 6 Product Manager Job Interview Tips
• Trying to Create a Personal Brand? Unless You’re Steve Jobs, Stop

Senior Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• Harvard Business video: The Art of Purposeful Storytelling

Management

• Google Wants to Build a Better Boss
• Here’s Why Your Product Needs To Be 10x Better Than The Competition To Win
• Manager Tools podcast: How To Assign Work Tasks – Part 2

Senior Knowledge Worker

Leadership and Management

• Why Is Executing Strategy So Difficult – And What Can Be Done About It
• 6 Easy and Free Ways to Earn Employee Loyalty

Vice President

• 7 Business Lessons From the NPR Meltdown
• Top Five Reasons Why Strategic Initiatives Fail

Entrepreneurs

• Failure is Great for the Entrepreneur’s Resume
• LUCKY OR SMART? Secrets To An Entrepreneurial Life

All Career Stages

Business Life

• 10 Ways Improve Your Memory & Boost Brainpower
• 18 Ways To Stay Focused At Work
• How to be a Good Listener
• How to Make Virtual Conferencing Work: 10 Steps
• Must-read book for your kids! The 7 Children’s Book MBA
• Seven Steps To Better Brainstorming
• The Best Productivity Apps For Your Shiny, New iPad
• Top 10 Things You Should Never Say at Work
• Ultimate Productivity Tool: A Snooze Button For Your Inbox
• What Your Human Resources Department Will Do This Year
• Why It Pays To Be An Optimist

Career Management

• 10 Tips for Staying Positive in a Long Job Search
• 11 Ways To Completely Reinvent Yourself
• The Lattice That Has Replaced The Corporate Ladder
• Video: How to Future-Proof Your Career

Women in Business

• Obama Speaks Out for Female Fair Pay
• Office Politics for Strong Women: How to Be Assertive and Liked

Business Life

• How to be a Good Listener
• Seven Steps To Better Brainstorming
• The Best Productivity Apps For Your Shiny, New iPad
• Top 10 Things You Should Never Say at Work
• Ultimate Productivity Tool: A Snooze Button For Your Inbox
• Why It Pays To Be An Optimist

Career Management

• 11 Ways To Completely Reinvent Yourself
• The Lattice That Has Replaced The Corporate Ladder
• Video: How to Future-Proof Your Career

Entrepreneurs

• LUCKY OR SMART? Secrets To An Entrepreneurial Life

Management

• 6 Easy and Free Ways to Earn Employee Loyalty
• Scheduling a Meeting the Right Way

Women in Business

• Office Politics for Strong Women: How to Be Assertive and Liked

Based on today’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources:

Business Life

• 18 Ways To Stay Focused At Work
• Must-read book for your kids! The 7 Childrens’ Book MBA
• Need to build up your confidence? How to Unleash Your Confidence
• What It Takes To Win At The Entry level: Absorbing And Embracing Adversity

Career Management

• 10 Tips for Staying Positive in a Long Job Search
• BNET podcast: Avoiding a Charlie Sheen Moment
• How to find a mentor and increase your odds of career success
• Trying to Create a Personal Brand? Unless You’re Steve Jobs, Stop
• Where Are All the Great Entry-Level Jobs Hiding?

Leadership and Management

• Top Five Reasons Why Strategic Initiatives Fail
• Why Is Executing Strategy So Difficult – And What Can Be Done About It
• What Your Human Resources Department Will Do This Year

Women in Business

• Obama Speaks Out for Female Fair Pay

Based on today’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources, based on Jonathan Fields’s seven childrens’ books list “that will teach you as much as any seven bestselling business books about what it takes to succeed in business…and life.”

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Business Life

• 10 Ways Improve Your Memory & Boost Brainpower
• 12 Steps to a Great Networking Conversation
• How to Make Virtual Conferencing Work: 10 Steps
• Harvard Business video: The Art of Purposeful Storytelling

Career Management

• Top 6 Product Manager Job Interview Tips

Entrepreneurship

• Failure is Great for the Entrepreneur’s Resume

Leadership and Management

• 7 Business Lessons From the NPR Meltdown
• Google Wants to Build a Better Boss
• Here’s Why Your Product Needs To Be 10x Better Than The Competition To Win
• How To Assign Work Tasks – Part 2

Based on today’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources:

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• New knowledge worker: New college grad entering work force
• Advanced knowledge worker: One or two years into career
• Intermediate knowledge worker: Three or four years into career
• Senior knowledge worker: Established worker in charge of teams or functional areas
• Director: Department head
• Vice president: Executive in charge of a specific department(s)
• Entrepreneur: A person pursuing a new venture or business idea

New Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 5 Smart Routes to Gain Respect in the Workplace
• Do You Have What It Takes To Intern At A Small Company?

Advanced Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 5 Mistakes You’re Probably Making When You Argue
• Swim in Office Politics Without Drowning

Career Management

• 3 Personal Branding Lessons We Can Learn from Celebrities

Senior Knowledge Worker & Director

Leadership

• Podcast: How to See the Big Picture
• Create Your Legacy as a Leader

Management

• 10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Help Your Remote Team Work Together
• 7 Remedies for a Bad Strategy Hangover
• Seven Best Books to Read for Sales

Vice President

Management

• Four Warning Signs That A New Manager Is Failing via @businessinsider
• Video: How to Set Sales Goals

Entrepreneur

• Why Companies Fail And How Their Founders Bounce Back via @businessinsider

All Career Stages

Business Life

• 4 jobs everyone should have
• Making Kids Work on Goals (And Not Just In Soccer)
• Video: Black Faces in White Places – Open Society Foundations

Based on this week’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources on entrepreneurship, business communications, and

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Business Life

• 5 Mistakes You’re Probably Making When You Argue
• Do You Have What It Takes To Intern At A Small Company?
• Making Kids Work on Goals (And Not Just In Soccer)
• Swim in Office Politics Without Drowning

Career Management

• 3 Personal Branding Lessons We Can Learn from Celebrities

Entrepreneurship

• Why Companies Fail And How Their Founders Bounce Back via @businessinsider

Leadership

• Create Your Legacy as a Leader
• Podcast: How to See the Big Picture

Management

• 10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Help Your Remote Team Work Together
• 7 Remedies for a Bad Strategy Hangover
• Seven Best Books to Read for Sales

Based on today’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources on learning from celebrities, managing virtual teams, and navigating office politics.

Business Life

• Dos And Don’ts For Your Work Computer | TalentEgg Career Incubator  via @TalentEgg
• New Research: We Are More Creative When We Help Others Than Ourselves
• Dealing With a Difficult Co-Worker 101
• 8 Ways to Stop a Coworker From Sabotaging Your Reputation
• How to Confront: 3 Traps to Avoid

Career Management

• How to Handle Terminations in an Interview
• 5 Hiring Process Myths You Need to Know
• Charlie Sheen’s guide to getting fired

Based on today’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources on productivity, time management, creativity, and Charlie Sheen:

Business Life

• RT @businessinsider 20 Must-Have Tools For Managing Any Project
• 7 Tools to Help Keep Track of Habits and Goals
• 9 Business Lessons From the Oscars
• Podcast: How To Remember Names

Career Management

• Landing Your Dream Job in a Networked World

Entrepreneur

• The Best Business Models Are 10 Words Or Less

Leadership

• Identifying Good Managers Through Leadership Competencies
• Searching for Health Care’s Entrepreneurial Spirit
• The C-Level Job for Everyone: Reducing Complexity

Management

• How to Confront: First, Prepare!
• How to Fire an Employee Who’s Like Charlie Sheen
• Research – What Top Performing Businesses Do Right
• Video: Rethinking the Idea of the Brand
  
• Bonus video: Charlie Sheen on Today Show

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Women in Business

• Sylvia Ann Hewlett: Does Female Ambition Require Sacrifice?

Based on today’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources on creating succinct business models, firing Charlie Sheens, preparing for confrontation.

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New Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 8 Tips for Catching Typos Before You Click Send

Career Management

• How to Deal With Interview Nerves
• How To Handle The “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?” Question In A Job Interview
• RT @CAREEREALISM 3 Steps to a Flawless Informational Interview
• RT @CAREEREALISM 9 Obvious Ways to Get Promoted
• RT @UndercoverRec How To Best Prepare For Your Job Interview

Advanced Knowledge Worker

Intermediate Knowledge Worker

Business Life

Leadership

Senior Knowledge Worker

Career Management

Leadership and Management

Director

Leadership

Management

Vice President

Leadership

Management

Business Life

Entrepreneurship

Leadership

Management

Women in Business

• Shocking Statistics on Women & Retirement

Recommended Reading

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Business Life

• 5 Simple Tools That Unleash Meaningful Work
• 8 Tips for Catching Typos Before You Click Send
• Book Review: The Personal MBA
• Turn Yourself into an Office Diplomat

Career Management

Entrepreneurship

• RT @businessinsider Having The Wrong Map Versus No Map At All

Management

• Management de Lance (Armstrong): How to Fit a Star Peg into a Team Whole
• RT @businessinsider Ten Tips To Taking Business Risk Without Being Reckless

Recommended Reading

Based on today’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources on severance packages, business risks and meaningful work:

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Business Life

Career Management

Management

Recommended Reading

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Assessing your career

As a worker, you must be proactive in your career and self-development. You can start by answering the following questions:

• Where are you now? Which career stage are you at?
• What roles are expected of you in your current job?
• What goals should you strive for at each stage of your career?
• How can you set the course of your career accordingly?
• How can you excel in your current job while preparing for your next career stage?

Using the “Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development,” you’ll understand the typical roles and goals at each career stage, so you can assess you skill set and knowledge areas. You can use this self awareness to customize your personal Smart Lemming curriculum for career success.

What are the roles and goals at each career stage?

Over the course of my career, I discovered seven discrete career stages ranging from New Knowledge Worker (KW) to Entrepreneur. When I was a Senior Product Manager, I committed to my own career development by understanding by mastering the elements in the following areas of focus, attributes, roles, and goals.

Focus

• Career and Self-Development skills
• Personal branding
• Next career milestone
• Integrating company values
• Becoming a candidate for promotion
• Being an established team player
• Demonstrate management skills
• Demonstrate leadership skills
• Being an expert in job class
• Committing to company goals and objectives
• Entrepreneurial, thinking beyond bureaucracy

Attributes

How are roles and goals used? How can they make a difference?

• New knowledge workers: Can understand what typical roles and goals they will play in their new job at the beginning of their career.
• Advanced KWs:  Build on their experience from their initial experience as a New KW, how to excel in their current roles, and acquire skills and knowledge for their next career stage.
• Intermediate KWs: Demonstrate leadership, management, and other business skills abilities; prepare for next career stage.
• Senior KWs: Build on leadership, management, and business skills from previous career stage; determine if advancing to the next career is stage is a personal goal. If so, then prepare for director level.
• Directors: Grow sphere of influence, continue development leadership, management, and business skills from previous career stage; and determine if entrepreneurship, startup position, or C-level position is a personal goal. If so, then prepare for VP level.
• VPs: Master leadership, management, and business skills from previous career stage; and determine if entrepreneurship, startup position, Sr. VP, or CEO is a personal goal. If so, then prepare for goal.
• Entrepreneurs: Understand the challenges facing entrepreneurs; and learn the fundamentals of small business and startups.

Roles and Goals by Career Stage Part 1

The above table list a product manager role as an example. You can easily think through your own career track in customer service, sales, or any other job function.  Regardless, you’ll still encounter all other roles across the seven career stages.

How can you benefit from understanding your roles and goals?

Workers can target their career and self-development efforts business skills such as business communications skills and knowledge areas like sales and marketing, based on their existing role and goals.

For example, early in my marketing career, I determined that I needed to understand my role as a product marketing manager, so I could perform my job duties well. After growing in my role, I determined that I wanted to be a product management role. I studied how to write requirements and use cases.

Roles and Goals by Career Stage Part 2

Leverage opportunities for on the job growth

While learning the fundamentals of product management, I looked for opportunities to observe product managers in my current job. As a result, I learned key success factors for product managers. Was I successful? Yes, I became a product manager, which became the bedrock of my career.

What results can you achieve?

Fortunately, my curiosity and commitment to become a director and VP paid off. I achieved my career goals because I read key business books that helped me develop my core competencies in the following areas:

• Understand career and self-development skills
• Productivity and organization
• Management
• Marketing and sales
• Leadership
• Strategy
• Small business and entrepreneurship
• Work tools mastery

While your experience with the “Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development” will be different from mine, you can benefit from having breadth and depth in areas that are relevant to your career goals. You can become an expert in your existing job by learning how to plan for your next job and career stage. All you have to do is know where to start by assessing your career stage while also identifying your roles and goals.

You’ll be prepared for your journey, whether it’s a promotion up the career ladder or move into entrepreneurship.

In this series, I will help you through each of these career development phases, so you can create a shortcut to your career success. Click here for previous entries.

Business Life

Career Management

Leadership and Management

Recommended Reading

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Below are the latest book releases on Amazon with their respective product descriptions. These titles are timely for individuals, who are managing their career, becoming a new boss, or transforming their company’s culture.

1. Being the Boss

You never dreamed being the boss would be so hard. You’re caught in a web of conflicting expectations from subordinates, your supervisor, peers, and customers.

You’re not alone. As Linda Hill and Kent Lineback reveal in Being the Boss, becoming an effective manager is a painful, difficult journey. It’s trial and error, endless effort, and slowly acquired personal insight. Many managers never complete the journey. At best, they just learn to get by. At worst, they become terrible bosses. This new book explains how to avoid that fate, by mastering three imperatives:

• Manage yourself: Learn that management isn’t about getting things done yourself. It’s about accomplishing things through others.
• Manage a network: Understand how power and influence work in your organization and build a network of mutually beneficial relationships to navigate your company’s complex political environment.
• Manage a team: Forge a high-performing “we” out of all the “I”s who report to you.

2. 6 Habits of Highly Successful Managers

6 Habits of Highly Successful Managers gives business owners and managers what they so desperately need: a clear, focused, laser-sharp tactical manual of what they need to know right now to make their organization a success.

The authors’ presentation of their six commonsense habits creates a systematic framework useful to managers, entrepreneurs, and executives, providing them with:

• Clear hard-hitting content that is easy to understand
• Numerous real-company anecdotes that bring the concepts to life
• The building blocks, neither faddish nor outdated, of a successful business
• A means of creating a company culture of achievement and accountability
• Detailed guidance on how to execute the key concepts, with a focus on goals

3. Driving Excellence: Transform Your Organization’s Culture – And Achieve Revolutionary Results

Driving Excellence tells the inspiring story of one man who, with no formal business training, turned an entire industry on its head. Mark Aesch proves that we really can run government like a business, and provide value to taxpayers and shareholders alike.

When Aesch took over the Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority in 2004, it was operating with a 27.7-million-dollar deficit, and was poised to raise fares, lay off employees, and slash service. Under Aesch’ s leadership, those deficits have been eradicated and replaced with multimillion-dollar surpluses; reliance on taxpayer subsidies has been reduced; demand for service has increased at rates three times the national average; and in an unprecedented move, the fare at the Authority’ s two largest subsidiaries were actually reduced.

In Driving Excellence, Aesch shows readers how to create a culture built around selflessness rather than ego, and get employees invested in saving the company. In describing the transition from an ailing business to one that enjoys stunning success— lower fares, multi-million surpluses, and the highest ridership and customer satisfaction levels in twenty years— Aesch offers powerful principles that any organization can implement to achieve exceptional results.

4. From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership

Practical advice for making the shift to your first leadership position.  The number of people who will become first-time supervisors will likely grow in the next 10 years, as Baby Boomers retire. Perhaps the most challenging leadership experience anyone will face isn’t one at the top, but their first promotion to leadership. They must deal with the change and uncertainty that comes with a new job, requiring new skills, and they’ve been promoted from peer to leader.

While the From Bud to Boss addresses the needs of any manager, supervisor, or leader, it pulls from the best leadership and management thinking, and puts the focus on the difficulties that new leaders experience.

• Includes practical information for new managers who must supervise friends and former peers
• Authors are expert consultants who work with leaders at all levels
• Shows how to adopt the mindset of a leader, including: communicating change, giving feedback, coaching employees, leading productive teams, and achieving goals

This much-needed book can help new leaders get beyond the stress and fear to focus on becoming the most effective leader they can be-starting right now.

5. Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty

Since the first edition of Managing the Unexpected was published in 2001, the unexpected has become a growing part of our everyday lives. The unexpected is often dramatic, as with hurricanes or terrorist attacks. But the unexpected can also come in more subtle forms, such as a small organizational lapse that leads to a major blunder, or an unexamined assumption that costs lives in a crisis. Why are some organizations better able than others to maintain function and structure in the face of unanticipated change?

Managing the Unexpected answer this question by pointing to high reliability organizations (HROs), such as emergency rooms in hospitals, flight operations of aircraft carriers, and firefighting units, as models to follow. These organizations have developed ways of acting and styles of learning that enable them to manage the unexpected better than other organizations. Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of the groundbreaking book Managing the Unexpected uses HROs as a template for any institution that wants to better organize for high reliability.

6. Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required for the Practice of Great Leadership

Often, when leaders experience trouble, they look to blame an outside source or expect a small tweak to right their ship. But many times they’ve actually lost their grip on the very basic foundation of leadership. The business environment may change, but no management trend can displace the core laws, proven over centuries, of excellent leadership. Unusually Excellent is an essential resource for leaders that brings these fundamentals together in a new and comprehensive way. This book will help leaders at any level keep their focus on the bedrock principles that will make them extraordinary.

• Thoroughly practical, day-to-day primer for achieving and maintaining their highest level of leadership, for today and for a lifetime
• The author’s Harvard Business Review articles are among the most highly read in the magazine’s history
• Written for all leaders who need to develop and renew their leadership skills

Using a sports analogy, the author breaks the work of leaders into three parts: pregame: a matter of character; game day: a matter of competence; and postgame: a matter of consequence.

7. Winning at Leadership: How to Become an Effective Leader

With heart, candor and wisdom, Sal Monastero here delivers invaluable guidance that parents, teachers, coaches, leaders, and managers at every level in all walks of life can apply to their own betterment and to the well-being and affirmation of their colleagues and teammates.” — David M. Darst, CFA Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

“Sal creates a compelling path to leadership excellence. His 37 years of field leadership experience provides readers with real-life stories of what to and what not to do as a leader. Sal’s personal experiences allow readers to significantly accelerate their own leadership journey.’” — Gerald Herbison, MSM, ChFC®, CASL®, CFP®, CLF® Director, CLF® Program Assistant Professor, Management Studies The American College

Many of us are not born natural leaders but most of us can develop leadership traits that allow us to successfully handle complex issues on a daily basis. In Winning at Leadership, a former Wall Street executive teaches both experienced and novice managers the communications skills, personal values, and problem-solving abilities he learned and implemented during the nearly four decades he effectively led an organization in a competitive and challenging marketplace.

• New knowledge worker: New college grad entering work force
• Advanced knowledge worker: One or two years into career
• Intermediate knowledge worker: Three or four years into career
• Senior knowledge worker: Established worker in charge of teams or functional areas
• Director: Department head
• Vice president: Executive in charge of a specific department(s)
• Entrepreneur: A person pursuing a new venture or business idea

New Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 9 Techniques to Delivering a Speech with Confidence
• Awkward moment at work? How to Deal with Inappropriate Humor | HRM Today
• Career Tips from Annoying Office Mates
• How to Recover From a Blow to Your Reputation
• Love is a Battlefield (and Other Reasons to Avoid an Office Romance)
• PayScale Index: What is an Index Anyway?
• Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them

Career Management

• Is Facebook Helping–or Hurting–Your Job Search?
• Podcast: The Eight Minute Rule- when to arrive at an interview
• RT @PongoResume Made a Mistake at Work, It’s the Recovery That Matters
• The Job Hunter’s Career Checkup for Graduating Seniors

Advanced Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 10 Tips For Resigning From Your Job On Excellent Terms
• 5 Strategies That Make It Easier to Say “No”
• 5 Tips to help you build a better relationship with your boss
• 9 Things You Should Never Do When Traveling with Your Boss
• Map Out a 90-Day Strategy with Your Pals
• RT @businessinsider 5 Ways To Take On More Responsibility At Work

Career Management

• 10 Things To Ask Your Boss For Instead Of A Raise
• 4 Tips for Creating Your Career Success by Becoming More Resilient
• 5 Reasons to Commit to Exercise for Career Success
• RT @CAREEREALISM How to Quantify Your Accomplishments
• Seven Networking Event No-Nos
• Stop Job Hopping: How to Find Long-lasting Career Fulfillment

Intermediate Knowledge Worker

Leadership

• 10 Business and Leadership Lessons – From Machiavelli
• HBR Ideacast video: Common barriers that stop people from becoming leaders

Management

• How to Talk About Your Competitors (Without Throwing Them Under the Bus)
• Write a Great Sales Message in 10 Minutes or Less

Senior Knowledge Worker

Management

• Beckwith’s new book teaches us how comsumers “unthink”
• How to Recognize and Praise Remote Team Members
• Managers Are Overrated, According to Study
• RT @HarvardBiz A Quirky Way of Innovating

Director

Career Management

• Knowing When to Resign

Leadership

• Don’t Let Your Managers Fail, Share The Law | HRM Today
• Michael Porter on Strategy Execution
• RT @forbes Promoted From Within — Thoughts For Google’s New CEO Larry Page

Management

• 5 Principles of Sales Success
• RT @businessinsider Improving Sales: The Excuse Department Is Closed
• RT @HarvardBiz Making Sure Your Employees Succeed
• Templates: Balanced Scorecards And Useful SWOT Worksheets
• Why Good Strategies Fail

Vice President

Leadership and Management

• Executive Talent Retention: How to Recruiter-Proof Your Company
• Not for Free: Revenue Strategies for a New World – Is Your Business Model Out of Date?

Entrepreneur

• RT @HarvardBiz How to Pick a Co-Founder

Women in Business

• Video: Arianna Huffington, AOL’s Influencer
• A Guide to Arianna Huffington’s Rise to Power

All Career Stages

Business Life

• 10 Ways to Improve Your Mental Focus
• Does Your Work Wife Get a Valentine? Some Co-Workers Want to Acknowledge a Deep—Yet Platonic—Bond
• Overwhelmed? 6 Ways to Make Sure Stress Doesn’t Hold Back Your Business
• Redesigned Thinking for Diverse Brains!
• RT @michaelhyatt How Introverts and Extroverts Can Benefit from One Another
• RT @HarvardBiz When Skill and Luck Meet Complexity
• Seven Secrets for Maximizing Your Concentration Skills
• Too Little Sleep: The New Performance Killer
• Vault’s 2011 Office Romance Survey Results
• Video: I’m finally reading Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. Love it! Perfect for work, but especially life in general.

Career Management

• 5 Reasons Your LinkedIn Profile Isn’t Working
• 7 tech tools to make your job search easier
• Facebook Firing Case Is Settled
• Finally aggregated all my Smart Lemming diagrams in one place. Check out the gallery and feel free to use.
• Not Getting the Jobs You Want? Let Rejection Be Your Guide
• Podcast: BEST OF – Guerrilla Job Hunting Secrets
• Salary Negotiations: The Initial Offer and Your Response
• U.S. Workers More Confident and Ready for Change
• Unemployment and Taxes: Do You Know What’s Deductible?

Business Life

• Awkward moment at work? How to Deal with Inappropriate Humor | HRM Today
• PayScale Index: What is an Index Anyway?
• Redesigned Thinking for Diverse Brains!
• Too Little Sleep: The New Performance Killer

Career Management

• 5 Reasons to Commit to Exercise for Career Success
• Seven Networking Event No-Nos
• The Job Hunter’s Career Checkup for Graduating Seniors
• Finally aggregated all my Smart Lemming diagrams in one place. Check out the gallery and feel free to use.

Leadership and Management

• 10 Business and Leadership Lessons – From Machiavelli
• RT @forbes Promoted From Within — Thoughts For Google’s New CEO Larry Page
• Not for Free: Revenue Strategies for a New World – Is Your Business Model Out of Date?

Recommended Reading

Based on today’s tweets, I recommend the following business books as additional resources on business models and networking:

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Business Life

• Does Your Work Wife Get a Valentine? Some Co-Workers Want to Acknowledge a Deep—Yet Platonic—Bond
• RT @HarvardBiz When Skill and Luck Meet Complexity

Career Management

• Facebook Firing Case Is Settled
• Podcast: The Eight Minute Rule- when to arrive at an interview
• RT @CAREEREALISM How to Quantify Your Accomplishments
• RT @PongoResume Made a Mistake at Work, It’s the Recovery That Matters
• Stop Job Hopping: How to Find Long-lasting Career Fulfillment

Leadership and Management

• Michael Porter on Strategy Execution
• 5 Principles of Sales Success
• Beckwith’s new book teaches us how comsumers “unthink”
• Executive Talent Retention: How to Recruiter-Proof Your Company
• Templates: Balanced Scorecards And Useful SWOT Worksheets

Recommended Reading

Based on today’s tweets, I’m recommending the following business books as additional resources on execution:

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Business Life

• Overwhelmed? 6 Ways to Make Sure Stress Doesn’t Hold Back Your Business
• RT @businessinsider 5 Ways To Take On More Responsibility At Work
• RT @michaelhyatt How Introverts and Extroverts Can Benefit from One Another
• Video: I’m finally reading Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. Love it! Perfect for work, but especially life in general.

Shawn Achor, Part 1: The Science of Happiness and Potential

Career Management

• 5 Reasons Your LinkedIn Profile Isn’t Working
• 7 tech tools to make your job search easier
• Knowing When to Resign

Entrepreneurship

• RT @HarvardBiz How to Pick a Co-Founder

Management

• 5 Tips to help you build a better relationship with your boss
• How to Recognize and Praise Remote Team Members
• How to Talk About Your Competitors (Without Throwing Them Under the Bus)
• Managers Are Overrated, According to Study
• RT @businessinsider Improving Sales: The Excuse Department Is Closed

Recommended Reading

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Learning Lemming

I didn’t know how to do any of these things when I first entered the workforce after receiving my MHA degree. My high school, college, and graduate school experiences didn’t teach me to how manage my career.

From 1994 to 2006, I realized that I had to develop additional skills to succeed in the workplace and to secure my next career goal.

Newbie in the Workforce

In my first job, I wasn’t prepared for my position as a product marketing manager, because I didn’t fully understand fundamental things like business etiquette, meeting management, email communications, organizational skills, or project management.

Fortunately, I quickly learned to develop my own curriculum, so I could reach my potential at this career stage.

Career Stage Focus and Attributes

Because I was so happy to land a job, I didn’t realize that I needed to manage my career. I figured out that my career would occur in several stages, with each stage having its unique focus and key attributes. I was strongly influenced by Robert Heller’s approach to achieving excellence. Heller argues that we must demonstrate key attributes as workers.

For example, as a new knowledge worker (KW), I learned that my focus was to:

• Career & Self Development skills: Understand how to manage my career and develop my skill set and knowledge areas
• Personal branding: Learn what personal branding is and why it’s important; figure out what my existing personal brand was and how I wanted to refine it
• Next career milestone: Identify what I wanted to do next after my first job
• Integrating company values: Understand my new employer’s culture and values and learn how to adapt to my new work environment by emulating their values

My attributes as a new KW were:

• Self Management: Possess organizational and time management skills to be effective in my job
• Work Ethics and Values: Demonstrate positive work ethics and values that were a fit for my career choice
• Vision: Have a vision of my career and what my career path or paths could look like

The Seven Typical Career Stages

Over the past twelve years, I encountered seven distinct career stages, with each stage having a different a focus with varying attributes. I found each career stage was similar to my experiences in college and graduate school. Below is a summary of these parallels:

• New worker = freshman year: My first job in the workforce required me to learn the fundamentals of being a worker and meeting job requirements.
• Advanced KW = sophomore year: My second job built on the fundamental skills and knowledge areas I learned as a new KW.
• Intermediate KW = junior year: My third year and/or job expanded my leadership and management skills as I emerged as an expert in my area of responsibility.
• Senior KW = senior year: My forth year and/or job emphasized being an expert, being a team leader and having responsibility for a function in the company.
• Director = first year graduate student: My first director role required new skills of me such as change management, performance management, or creating new product offerings.
• Vice president = 2^nd year graduate student: Being a VP rolled up all these work experiences and customized curriculums that I had created for myself at each career stage. I applied my experience, tools, and templates creatively to each new application or business situation.
• Entrepreneur = Optional: Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. I found new challenges and new skills were required for this career stage.

The tables above reflect the seven career stages and their respective focus and attributes.

What should your focus be at each career stage?

Based on my experience, I have identified fifteen things that we focus on across the seven career stages:

• Career & Self Development skills
• Personal branding
• Next career milestone
• Integrating company values
• Becoming a candidate for promotion
• Being an established team player
• Demonstrate management skills
• Demonstrate leadership skills
• Being an expert in job class
• Committing to company goals and objectives
• Entrepreneurial, thinking beyond bureaucracy
• Expert at execution, implementation
• Achieves results
• Living company goals
• Become an entrepreneur

What attributes should you demonstrate at each career stage?

I also discovered there were thirteen attributes that are critical at different career stages.

• Self Management
• Work Ethics and Values
• Vision
• Confidence
• Ability to take risks
• Drive and energy
• Self-awareness and criticism
• Initiative
• Values
• Self-promotion
• Visibility
• Accountability
• Thought leader

Assessing your career as part of your career development

How can you benefit from my lessons learned? Identify the career stage you are at, review the focus and attributes for the respective career stage, and figure out how you start managing your career with these two things in mind.

Are you new in the workforce? You should be focused on learning career and self development skills, understanding personal branding, identifying your next career milestone, integrating your company values, becoming a candidate for promotion, and being an established team player.

If you’re goal is to become a VP, then you should demonstrate entrepreneurial thinking; become expert at execution and implementation; know how to achieves results; and live the company goals.

In this The Smart Lemming Guide to Career Development series, I will help you through each of these career development phases, so you can create a shortcut to your career success. Click here for previous entries.

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P.S. Thank you Christina for the term “Learning Lemming!”

Business Life

• Love is a Battlefield (and Other Reasons to Avoid an Office Romance)
• Vault’s 2011 Office Romance Survey Results

Career Management

• Is Facebook Helping–or Hurting–Your Job Search?
• U.S. Workers More Confident and Ready for Change
• Podcast: BEST OF – Guerrilla Job Hunting Secrets
• Salary Negotiations: The Initial Offer and Your Response
• Not Getting the Jobs You Want? Let Rejection Be Your Guide
• Unemployment and Taxes: Do You Know What’s Deductible?

Leadership and Management

• Don’t Let Your Managers Fail, Share The Law | HRM Today
• Write a Great Sales Message in 10 Minutes or Less
• RT @HarvardBiz A Quirky Way of Innovating
• Why Good Strategies Fail
• RT @HarvardBiz Making Sure Your Employees Succeed

Women in Business

• Video: Arianna Huffington, AOL’s Influencer
• A Guide to Arianna Huffington’s Rise to Power

Recommended Reading

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Business Life

• Top 20 Reasons Presentations Suck and How To Fix Them
• How to Recover From a Blow to Your Reputation
• 9 Techniques to Delivering a Speech with Confidence
• Career Tips from Annoying Office Mates
• 10 Tips For Resigning From Your Job On Excellent Terms
• Map Out a 90-Day Strategy with Your Pals
• 5 Strategies That Make It Easier to Say “No”
• 9 Things You Should Never Do When Traveling with Your Boss
• Seven Secrets for Maximizing Your Concentration Skills
• 10 Ways to Improve Your Mental Focus

Career Management

• 10 Things To Ask Your Boss For Instead Of A Raise
• 4 Tips for Creating Your Career Success by Becoming More Resilient

Leadership

• HBR Ideacast video: Common barriers that stop people from becoming leaders

Recommended Reading

• New knowledge worker: New college grad entering work force
• Advanced knowledge worker: One or two years into career
• Intermediate knowledge worker: Three or four years into career
• Senior knowledge worker: Established worker in charge of teams or functional areas
• Director: Department head
• Vice president: Executive in charge of a specific department(s)
• Entrepreneur: A person pursuing a new venture or business idea

New Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 5 Ways to Cope With Criticism at Work
• A New Model For Personal Branding: Variety
• Have You Been Given an “Invisible Promotion?”
• How to learn self confidence
• PGA Rookie Etiquette 101: Don’t Call Out Tiger. Ever

Career Management

• “Applying for Internships – Round Two” via @sweetcareers
• 5 Biggest Job Application Mistakes
• Non-College Grads Need Better Job Advice
• Tips for career-minded twentysomethings in government via @ohmygov
• Top 5 Habits for Career Success at Entry Level

Advanced Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 10 Strategies to Take Your Job From Blah to Ahhh
• How to Relieve Boredom at Work
• How to Work For (or With) a Perfectionist
• RT @HarvardBiz Is Your Calendar Managing You?
• What’s Your UBS – Unique Brand Style?

Career Management

• Clarify Your Personal Career Values
• Hiring managers are not going to connect the dots for you
• How to Get a Job Before It’s Posted
• RT @Keppie_Careers How to find a job — stop competing and start excelling

Intermediate Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Working Across Multiple Time Zones
• Salary Negotiation Tips from the Kellogg School of Management
• Team Player Vs. Self-Starter

Career Management

• Does your career portfolio destroy your brand?
• RT @HarvardBiz Demystifying Mentoring
• RT @HarvardBiz How to Recover from a Personal WikiLeaks
• Seven-Habits-to-Advance-Your-Sales-and-Marketing-Career
• What 10 Career Tips Would You Give to Your Children?

Leadership

• Carmine Gallo Podcast: How to Think Like Steve Jobs
• Four Winning Lessons from the Super Bowl

Management

• Study Six Discipline’s video library on strategy execution, business coaching, leadership development, innovation
• The Four People You Don’t Want in Your Meetings

Senior Knowledge Worker

Career Management

• How to show 40 years experience on a two page resume

Management

• 5 Great Books for Remote Teams
• Manager Tools podcast: Boss Meeting Prep – No Surprises

Strategy

• To Be A Great Innovator, Start By Changing Your Perspective

Director

Leadership

• How to Pass the Leadership Baton
• RT @sreardon Strategy is important, but strategy with execution is better

Management

• Don’t Be Afraid to Promote Diversity
• The “Rotten Apple” Effect Happens in Herds of Cows Too
• To Be a Better Boss, Know Your Default Settings
• Why the Overqualified Should Not Be Disqualified for the Job

Entrepreneurs

• Startups: Four Ways To Keep Burn Rates Low
• What Steve Jobs and Bruce Springsteen Can Teach Entrepreneurs
• Should You Really Be A Startup Entrepreneur?

All Career Stages

Business Life

• 10 Ways to Be Happier and Healthier at Work via @Careerbright
• 5 Lessons That Professor Failure Taught Me About Success
• 6 Ways to Detach Yourself from Your Work
• 7 Tips To Tackle Naysayers in Your Life
• Are You a Control Freak? 4 Ways to Relinquish Control to Improve Relationships
• Branding in a Personal World
• Dealing With Unemployment Depression
• Finally! Number of US Jobs Increases
• Get It Done Guy’s podcast: Overcoming Insomnia
• Paralyzed by too much to do? How to get moving again after we feel overwhelmed
• RT @HarvardBiz Get Your Goals Back on Track
• Scientifically-Proven Ways to Be Happier
• There’s a very big difference between being self-aware and selfish
• The Winner’s Brain: Eight Strategies Great Minds Use to Achieve Success
• Tips for people embarking on an office romance
• Your Parents’ Career Path vs. Yours – How Things Have Changed

Career Management

• 25 Habits to Break if You Want a Job via @careersherpa
• Executive Coach Tip: Take Advantage of 5-Minute Windows
• New Job or New Career: Planning Your Next Move in a Tough Economy
• Take a hands-on approach to ensure career success by using the Smart Lemming Guide career development

Leadership and Management

• Harvard’s Overhaul Part of a Push to Alter Elite B-School Culture
• Video: Former President Clinton Slams Bachmann’s SOTU Response, complete video, click here.

Women in Business

• The Advice For Any Woman Who Wants To Found A Startup
• Women more cautious about social media and the workplace
• ‘What Not to Wear’s Stacy London Helps You Dress for Less Stress at Work
• Why So Many Top Women Don’t Make It To Executive Leadership
• Women Benefit More from Coffee Breaks

Recommended Reading

Business Life

• 10 Strategies to Take Your Job From Blah to Ahhh
• 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Working Across Multiple Time Zones
• How to Relieve Boredom at Work
• Scientifically-Proven Ways to Be Happier
• Team Player Vs. Self-Starter
• What’s Your UBS – Unique Brand Style?

Career Management

• Clarify Your Personal Career Values
• What 10 Career Tips Would You Give to Your Children?
• Executive Coach Tip: Take Advantage of 5-Minute Windows

Leadership and Management

• Video: Former President Clinton Slams Bachmann’s SOTU Response, complete video, click here.
• Harvard’s Overhaul Part of a Push to Alter Elite B-School Culture
• To Be a Better Boss, Know Your Default Settings

Women in Business

• Women Benefit More from Coffee Breaks

Recommended Reading

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Business Life

• 10 Ways to Be Happier and Healthier at Work via @Careerbright
• PGA Rookie Etiquette 101: Don’t Call Out Tiger. Ever
• RT @HarvardBiz Get Your Goals Back on Track
• Salary Negotiation Tips from the Kellogg School of Management
• There’s a very big difference between being self-aware and selfish

Career Management

• Take a hands-on approach to ensure career success by using the Smart Lemming Guide career development
• 25 Habits to Break if You Want a Job via @careersherpa
• 5 Biggest Job Application Mistakes
• Does your career portfolio destroy your brand?

Leadership and Management

• Carmine Gallo Podcast: How to Think Like Steve Jobs
• 5 Great Books for Remote Teams
• Don’t Be Afraid to Promote Diversity
• The “Rotten Apple” Effect Happens in Herds of Cows Too
• Why the Overqualified Should Not Be Disqualified for the Job

Women in Business

• ‘What Not to Wear’s Stacy London Helps You Dress for Less Stress at Work

Recommended Reading

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The 2011 job market

Employers look for proven ability by cherry picking the employed rather than take a chance on the long-term unemployed. After the Great Recession, the United States experienced a jobless recovery that lasted a past year and a half. The job market will most likely not return to its 2008 levels, creating greater challenges for workers. Hopeful candidates must be proactive in managing their careers to remain competitive in increasingly more competitive job market with “more than 10 million Americans are out of work.”

Why should you be proactive in career development?

Workers and job candidates must take a hands-on approach to ensure career success by creating a customized learning experience that adds value to their work experience, knowledge areas, and skill set.

What does it take to be successful in one’s job? As a worker or job candidate, you must:

• Have the skill set and knowledge to do your job requirements.
• Know how to get the core competencies that you lack.
• Plan for their next promotion, position, or career stage.

How can employees customize their career development based on their current career stage? By doing the following:

• Identify core competencies, e.g., career and self-development skills, productivity and organization, management, leadership, sales and marketing, leadership, strategy, work tools and templates, they possess.
• Identify gaps in their skill set and core competencies.
• Schedule a 90-day action plan for their customized career-stage curriculum.

Smart Lemming characteristics

Workers or prospective workers should also take the lead in developing and emulating characteristics in these areas:

• Career focus
• Attributes
• Career stage roles
• Goals

How can you effectively manage your career?

Over the course of my career, I have learned invaluable career lessons that helped me achieve my goals by following this approach to career development. After graduate school, I entered the job market as a product marketing manager, eventually becoming a vice president and entrepreneur. I attribute my career successes to proactively planning and managing my career in three phases:

• Phase 1: Planning my career.
• Phase 2: Applying my Smart Lemming curriculum approach to career development.
• Phase 3: Executing curriculum with a 90-day action plans.

In this on-going series, I will help you through each of these phases, so you can create a shortcut to your career success.

Recommended Reading

Business Life

• 5 Ways to Cope With Criticism at Work
• Dealing With Unemployment Depression
• Finally! Number of US Jobs Increases
• Have You Been Given an “Invisible Promotion?”
• How to Work For (or With) a Perfectionist
• RT @HarvardBiz Is Your Calendar Managing You?

Career Management

• “Applying for Internships – Round Two” via @sweetcareers
• How to show 40 years experience on a two page resume
• New Job or New Career: Planning Your Next Move in a Tough Economy
• RT @HarvardBiz Demystifying Mentoring
• RT @HarvardBiz How to Recover from a Personal WikiLeaks
• RT @Keppie_Careers How to find a job — stop competing and start excelling
• Seven-Habits-to-Advance-Your-Sales-and-Marketing-Career
• Tips for career-minded twentysomethings in government via @ohmygov

Leadership and Management

• RT @sreardon Strategy is important, but strategy with execution is better
• Study Six Discipline’s video library on strategy execution, business coaching, leadership development, innovation

Recommended Reading

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Business Life

• A New Model For Personal Branding: Variety
• Branding in a Personal World
• Get It Done Guy’s podcast: Overcoming Insomnia
• How to learn self confidence
• Tips for people embarking on an office romance

Career Management

• Hiring managers are not going to connect the dots for you
• How to Get a Job Before It’s Posted
• Non-College Grads Need Better Job Advice
• Top 5 Habits for Career Success at Entry Level

Entrepreneurship

• Should You Really Be A Startup Entrepreneur?

Leadership & Management

• Four Winning Lessons from the Super Bowl
• The Four People You Don’t Want in Your Meetings

Women in Business

• The Advice For Any Woman Who Wants To Found A Startup
• Women more cautious about social media and the workplace
  

Recommended Reading

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Business Life

• 5 Lessons That Professor Failure Taught Me About Success
• 6 Ways to Detach Yourself from Your Work
• 7 Tips To Tackle Naysayers in Your Life
• Are You a Control Freak? 4 Ways to Relinquish Control to Improve Relationships
• Paralyzed by too much to do? How to get moving again after we feel overwhelmed
• The Winner’s Brain: Eight Strategies Great Minds Use to Achieve Success
• Your Parents’ Career Path vs. Yours – How Things Have Changed

Entrepreneurship

• Startups: Four Ways To Keep Burn Rates Low
• What Steve Jobs and Bruce Springsteen Can Teach Entrepreneurs

Leadership and Management

• How to Pass the Leadership Baton
• Manager Tools podcast: Boss Meeting Prep – No Surprises

Strategy

• To Be A Great Innovator, Start By Changing Your Perspective

Women in Business

• Why So Many Top Women Don’t Make It To Executive Leadership

Recommended Reading

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The Smart Lemming curates career management tweets to help you save time when you’re looking for additional career resources from  news, articles, and blog posts on business life, career management, job hunting, leadership, management, productivity, startups, and women in business.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 28:

Business Life

• 4 Tips to Improve Self-Discipline
• 5 Tips for Clearer Written Communications
• 7 Tips to Boost Your Memory
• Book recommendation: The Elements of Power
• Desk Clutter Can Cut Careers via @AOL
• HBR Podcast: The Persuasive Power of Uncertainty
• Podcast: Creating A Presentation

Career Management

• 3 tips to make it to the big leagues
• Career Going Nowhere? Ask for What You Want.
• Get Your Own Consigliere
• RT @PeterClemens How to Explore New Careers (Without Quitting your Job)
• Ten Most Flexible Jobs and What They Pay via @AOL
• Tips for Landing Internships
• Unemployment rates by state

Recommended Reading

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The Smart Lemming curates career management tweets to help you save time when you’re looking for additional career resources from  news, articles, and blog posts.  My tweets are recommended for workers who are at any of the following career stages, click here to view larger image:

• New knowledge worker: New college grad entering work force
• Advanced knowledge worker: One or two years into career
• Intermediate knowledge worker: Three or four years into career
• Senior knowledge worker: Established worker in charge of teams or functional areas
• Director: Department head
• Vice president: Executive in charge of a specific department(s)
• Entrepreneur: A person pursuing a new venture or business idea

New Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 5 Tips for Clearer Written Communications
• Computer Safety: How to Protect Your Body
• Desk Clutter Can Cut Careers via @AOL
• How to Keep from Being Overwhelmed by Your Email Inbox
• Men also look for ways to incorporate neckties in their daily wear. How to choose a necktie that  fits you.

Career Management

• 3 tips to make it to the big leagues
• A program for college students that shares tools needed to differentiate oneself from the competition
• Do Your Goals Match The Hiring Company’s (or Hiring Manager’s) Goals
• How to Write a Reference List
• Negotiating your next job offer: 4 tips to increase your starting salary
• Techniques you can use to prepare for a behavioral interview
• The Ultimate Guide to Networking
• Tips for Landing Internships
• Top 5 Online Communities for Starting Your Career
• Your job skills don’t match your job

Job Hunting

• Sound Bites Can Help You in the Phone Interview

Advanced Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 6 Ways To Improve Your Selling Skills
• Are You a Strategic Thinker? via @careersherpa
• Career Tips – How to Ensure Smooth Transition to a New Job
• HBR Podcast: The Persuasive Power of Uncertainty
• Career Tools Podcast: Creating A Presentation

Career Management

• RT @PeterClemens How to Explore New Careers (Without Quitting your Job)

Management

• The Real Secret to Managing Your Boss. And Other Power People.

Intermediate Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• 10 Things You Say That Make You Sound Like A Pompous Professional
• A 4-Step Plan To Balance Immediate Needs With Long-Term Goals
• Book recommendation: The Elements of Power
• Change: Can You Take The Heat?

Career Management

• Career Going Nowhere? Ask for What You Want
• How to Explore New Careers (Without Quitting Your Day Job)

Senior Knowledge Worker

Business Life

• Video: How to Prepare for a Difficult Conversation, Dodging Landmines

Career Management

• Get Your Own Consigliere

Management

• Creating and motivating a superior, loyal staff

Director

Business Life

• The Most Dangerous Mistakes New Executives Make

Career Management

• 7 Effective Job Search Strategies for Executive Career Transitions

Leadership

• RT @HarvardBiz On-the-Brink Disruptors: Two Years Later
• The Ever-Changing Face of Leadership

Management

• RT @HarvardBiz The Secret to Ensuring Follow-Through
• The Six Habits of a Talent Magnet

Vice President

Leadership

• The Psychology Behind Google’s CEO Change
• Ready To Run A Company? Here’s What You Need To Know

Management

• Three Tips for Managing an Olbermann

Entrepreneur

• 11 Recommendations for the Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf
• Action Trumps Everything: Review of a Must-Read Book
• From First TV to Dr. Oz – How to Get Local Media…Then National Media
• Ready To Run A Company? Here’s What You Need To Know
• Startup Suicide – Rewriting the Code

All Career Stages

Business Life

• 10 Free Government Resources for the Unemployed
• 4 Tips to Improve Self-Discipline
• 5 Practices To Boost Midday Work Productivity
• 5 Ways to Turn Your Nightmare Job into a Dream
• 7 Tips to Boost Your Memory
• An Approach to Overcoming Defensiveness
• How to Get to the Top of the Promotion List and Stay Off the Layoff List
• How to Make Any Job Better
• How to Study Effectively (Not Just for Students!)

Career Management

• Employment Outlook: What to Expect in 2011
• How the Employment Security Hierarchy helps protect your income
• How to use LinkedIn strategically
• Increase your chances of getting a job by applying for work in one of these industries: 7 Industries to Watch in 2011
• Most Americans Feel Less Confident about their Employment Status
• Ten Most Flexible Jobs and What They Pay via @AOL
• The Realities Of Job Hunting In The Electronic Age
• Unemployment rates by state
• Video: “Reclaim Your Career” on CNN is now a regular segment

Women in Business

• How Women Can Ask for and Get a (Substantial) Raise This Year, Part I
• Women in Business: Study – Coffee helps women cope with stressful meetings
• Women in business: The Real Benefit of Finding a Sponsor

Recommended Reading

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The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 27, recommending these additional resources from news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, entrepreneurship, management, and women in business.

Business Life

• 5 Practices To Boost Midday Work Productivity
• A 90-Minute Plan for Personal Effectiveness
• A 4-Step Plan To Balance Immediate Needs With Long-Term Goals
• How to Explore New Careers (Without Quitting Your Day Job)
• How to Study Effectively (Not Just for Students!)
• Increase your chances of getting a job by applying for work in one of these industries: 7 Industries to Watch in 2011
• Men also look for ways to incorporate neckties in their daily wear. How to choose a necktie that  fits you.

Career Management

• 5 Ways to Turn Your Nightmare Job into a Dream
• How to Make Any Job Better
• Negotiating your next job offer: 4 tips to increase your starting salary
  
• The Ultimate Guide to Networking

Entrepreneurship

• Startup Suicide – Rewriting the Code

Management

• The Real Secret to Managing Your Boss. And Other Power People.

Women in Business

• Women in Business: Study – Coffee helps women cope with stressful meetings

Recommended Reading

The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 26, recommending these additional resources from news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, management, and leadership:

Business Life

• 10 Free Government Resources for the Unemployed
• An Approach to Overcoming Defensiveness
• A program for college students that shares tools needed to differentiate oneself from the competition
• The Most Dangerous Mistakes New Executives Make

Career Management

• 7 Effective Job Search Strategies for Executive Career Transitions
• How to Get to the Top of the Promotion List and Stay Off the Layoff List
• How to Write a Reference List
• Your job skills don’t match your job
• Video: “Reclaim Your Career” on CNN is now a regular segment

Entrepreneurship

• From First TV to Dr. Oz – How to Get Local Media…Then National Media
• 11 Recommendations for the Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf

Women in Business

• How Women Can Ask for and Get a (Substantial) Raise This Year, Part I
• Women in business: The Real Benefit of Finding a Sponsor

Recommended Reading

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The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 25, recommending these additional resources from news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, management,  leadership, and bonus video.

Business Life

• 6 Ways To Improve Your Selling Skills
• Are You a Strategic Thinker? via @careersherpa
• How to Keep from Being Overwhelmed by Your Email Inbox
• 10 Things You Say That Make You Sound Like A Pompous Professional

Career Management

• Employment Outlook: What to Expect in 2011
• Most Americans Feel Less Confident about their Employment Status
  
• The Realities Of Job Hunting In The Electronic Age
• Do Your Goals Match The Hiring Company’s (or Hiring Manager’s) Goals
• Techniques you can use to prepare for a behavioral interview
• Top 5 Online Communities for Starting Your Career

Leadership

• RT @HarvardBiz On-the-Brink Disruptors: Two Years Later with Scott Anthony
• Video: Innovating on a Shoestring: Scott Anthony, president of Innosight, explains how to innovate when time and money are tight.

Management

• RT @HarvardBiz The Secret to Ensuring Follow-Through

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]]> http://smartlemming.com/blog/2011/01/the-smart-lemming%e2%80%99s-daily-twitter-digest-january-25-2011/feed/ 0 http://smartlemming.com/blog/2011/01/the-smart-lemmings-daily-twitter-digest-january-24-2011/ http://smartlemming.com/blog/2011/01/the-smart-lemmings-daily-twitter-digest-january-24-2011/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 03:04:01 +0000 Lori Grant http://smartlemming.com/?p=10307 Smart Lemming Tweets for January 24, 2011

The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 24, recommending these additional resources from news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, management, and leadership.

Business Life

• Career Tips – How to Ensure Smooth Transition to a New Job
• Change: Can You Take The Heat?
• Computer Safety: How to Protect Your Body
• Video: How to Prepare for a Difficult Conversation, Dodging Landmines

Career Management

• How to use LinkedIn strategically
• How the Employment Security Hierarchy helps protect your income

Entrepreneurship

• Action Trumps Everything: Review of a Must-Read Book
• Ready To Run A Company? Here’s What You Need To Know

Job Hunting

• Sound Bites Can Help You in the Phone Interview

Leadership

• The Ever-Changing Face of Leadership
• The Psychology Behind Google’s CEO Change

Management

• The Six Habits of a Talent Magnet
• Three Tips for Managing an Olbermann
• Creating and motivating a superior, loyal staff

Recommended Reading

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The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the tweets sent out this week, recommending these additional resources from numerous news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, job hunting, management, productivity, and women in business:

Business Life

• 2 Ways to Create Your Own Luck and Career Success
• 4 Tips on How to Beat Procrastination With a Stopwatch
• 5 Things To Practice for Effective Communication Skills
• 6 Tips for Building Strong Relationships for Career Success
• 6 Ways to Make a Really Bad Career Decision
• 7 Ways to Have a Good Relationship With Your Boss
• California Court Rules Work E-mails are Not Private
• Even top performers go through slumps. How to pull yourself out of a slump.
• Four Steps for Making Better Decisions
• Get your network back by using these 10 practical ideas to get your network started on helping you again
• Get-It-Done Guy Stever Robbins on Websites to help keep new years resolutions
• How to Create More Time in Your Week for Yourself
• Meredith has Christina. McDreamy has McSteamy. Who do you have? The Pros and Cons of Friendships in the Workplace
• Podcast: How to Set the Right Goals by using process goals rather than outcome goals
• Read this, make adjustments, and attempt change again: 8 Reasons Your New Year’s Resolution Didn’t Stick
• Received What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly as a Xmas prsent. Can’t wait to read it.
• Should you be a mentor of your boss? Check out: You? Mentor the boss? Not so crazy
• Sweat the small stuff, it can be the difference between success and failure
• Video: If you have to play politics, watch this: The Best Way to Play Office Politics
• Video: Jay-Z on failure and success. “I don’t know how to learn from success. I haven’t figured that part out.”
• What’s the best way to say farewell to your co-workers?
• When A Coworker Royally Screws Up And Makes You Look Bad
• When You Can Do the Job, BUT You Aren’t a Cultural Fit
• Why First Impressions Last, for Better or Worse

Career Management

• 10 Must Read Life Lessons from Buddha that are applicable for your career
• 6 New Career Management Books for December 2010 – January 2011
• Considering Consulting as Your New Career Move
• Five Common Mistakes When Jumping The Corporate Ship via @businessinsider
• FORTUNE’s Best Companies to Work for 2011
• I call it a rebound job, Hannah calls it a “Tweener” Job. Is it a “Tweener” Job You Need?
• Need to escape the cubicle? Career paths for work outside the office building
• Podcast: December Career Tools on creating a development plan for yourself
• RT @CAREEREALISM The Biggest Secret Obstacle to Your Career
• RT @Forbes 10 career paths that are headed for the trash pile
• To Reach Your Career Objectives, Start with Meaningful Goals. Tip: Make sure you define process goals too
• Use the Space-time Continuum, ask your future self what your future brand should be
• Why you need to invest in your career in a way to give you employment security, not merely job security

Entrepreneurs

• 20 Fast-Action Strategies That Made These Entrepreneurs Wildly Successful
• The Seven Characteristics Of A Committed Entrepreneur
• Top 10 Social Networks Entrepreneurs Must Join

Job Hunting

• 11 Analytical Jobs That Are in Serious Demand via @AOL
• 2 important tips on how to ask for LinkedIn recommendations
• Alison Doyle’s Resource Guide: Recommended Job Search iPhone Apps
• Choosing the perfect job for the short and long term
• Don’t be a deer in a headlight. What to Say When the Interviewer Asks How Much You Make
• From a Hiring Manager’s Perspective: What Are They Thinking After Your Interview?
• Modify Resume Job/Work Descriptions to Focus on Specific Accomplishments and Impact
• RT @CareerRocketeer Is a Video Resume a Good Idea?
• Talent Egg’s advice on how To Write A Resume Objective Or Not: Alternatives To The Objective
• Talking About Achievements in a Job Interview

Leadership & Management

• 7 Ways To Demolish The Competition, Courtesy Of Machiavelli
• A new leadership style? Distributed leadership.
• Attention managers: The 7 Destructive Habits of Good Companies
• Executive Coach Tip: Dealing with “Late-Comers” at Meetings
• New marketing book out by one of my favorite authors Paul Gillin: How B2B and B2C Marketing Are Different
• Podcast: HBR Ideacast on Guilty People Make Good Managers
• Rosabeth Moss Kanter on Why Blame Makes for Bad Business: Lessons from Arizona
• Strategy: How Facebook Used White Space To Crush Myspace
• Umair Haque on Competition: Stop chasing the lowest common denominators, elevate the numerators instead
• Video: How managers should give advice to employees who are dealing with complex situations in the workplace
• What would your career infographic look like? The Rise And Fall Of Yahoo: The Infographic

Women in Business

• In case you missed it: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on why we have too few women leaders
• Next Level Tips for Women Leaders: Advance your leadership capabilities by letting go of old behaviors
• Podcast: HBR’s Ideacast on The Glass Cliff Phenomenon that affect women in business
• Sylvia Ann Hewlett on why women need new role models and should take risks to build a flourishing career
• The Gender Gap: 3 obstacles stopping women from moving up the corporate ladder in greater numbers
• Wage Inequality Among Race and Gender Persist
• Working with their hearts: Women social entrepreneurs driven by impact rather than scale

Recommended Reading

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The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 21, recommending these additional resources from news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, management, and leadership:

• Video: Jay-Z on failure and success. “I don’t know how to learn from success. I haven’t figured that part out.”
• 6 Tips for Building Strong Relationships for Career Success
• Top 10 Social Networks Entrepreneurs Must Join
• Executive Coach Tip: Dealing with “Late-Comers” at Meetings
• FORTUNE’s Best Companies to Work for 2011
• Choosing the perfect job for the short and long term
• When You Can Do the Job, BUT You Aren’t a Cultural Fit
• I call it a rebound job, Hannah calls it a “Tweener” Job. Is it a “Tweener” Job You Need?
• New marketing book out by one of my favorite authors Paul Gillin: How B2B and B2C Marketing Are Different
• California Court Rules Work E-mails are Not Private
• Wage Inequality Among Race and Gender Persist
• Did You Short-Circuit Your LinkedIn Profile with Overused Words?

Oprah Presents Master Class: Jay-Z Pt.1/4

Oprah Presents Master Class: Jay-Z Pt.2/4

Oprah Presents Master Class: Jay-Z Pt.3/4

Oprah Presents Master Class: Jay-Z Pt.4/4

Recommended Reading

The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 20, recommending these additional resources from news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, management, and leadership:

• Strategy: How Facebook Used White Space To Crush Myspace
• What would your career infographic look like? The Rise And Fall Of Yahoo: The Infographic
• Received What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly as a Xmas prsent. Can’t wait to read it
• Tired off being “on” all the time? How To Go Completely Invisible On Facebook
• Is a Video Resume a Good Idea?
• RT @CareerRocketeer Is a Video Resume a Good Idea?
• Modify Resume Job/Work Descriptions to Focus on Specific Accomplishments and Impact
• From a Hiring Manager’s Perspective: What Are They Thinking After Your Interview?
• 6 Ways to Make a Really Bad Career Decision
• Why First Impressions Last, for Better or Worse
• Attention managers: The 7 Destructive Habits of Good Companies

Recommended Reading

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The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 19, recommending these additional resources from news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, management, and leadership:

• 11 Analytical Jobs That Are in Serious Demand
• Get-It-Done Guy Stever Robbins on Websites to help keep new years resolutions
• Sylvia Ann Hewlett on why women need new role models and should take risks to build a flourishing career
• When A Coworker Royally Screws Up And Makes You Look Bad
• 2 Ways to Create Your Own Luck and Career Success
• 20 Fast-Action Strategies That Made These Entrepreneurs Wildly Successful
• 4 Tips on How to Beat Procrastination With a Stopwatch
• Meredith has Christina. McDreamy has McSteamy. Who do you have? The Pros and Cons of Friendships in the Workplace
• Alison Doyle’s Resource Guide: Recommended Job Search iPhone Apps
• To Reach Your Career Objectives, Start with Meaningful Goals. Tip: Make sure you define process goals too
• Get your network back by using these 10 practical ideas to get your network started on helping you again
• Video: How managers should give advice to employees who are dealing with complex situations in the workplace

Recommended Reading

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The Smart Lemming curates the best career management tweets, helping you put all business and career management tweets into context.

Below are the list of tweets sent out on January 18, recommending these additional resources from news, articles, and posts on business life, career management, management, and leadership:

• Talent Egg’s advice on how To Write A Resume Objective Or Not: Alternatives To The Objective
• Podcast: HBR’s Ideacast on The Glass Cliff Phenomenon that affect women in business
• Podcast: HBR Ideacast on Guilty People Make Good Managers
• Umair Haque on Competition: Stop chasing the lowest common denominators, elevate the numerators instead
• A new leadership style? Distributed leadership
• Podcast: December Career Tools on creating a development plan for yourself
• The Seven Characteristics Of A Committed Entrepreneur
• 7 Ways To Demolish The Competition, Courtesy Of Machiavelli
• 7 Ways to Have a Good Relationship With Your Boss
• RT @CAREEREALISM The Biggest Secret Obstacle to Your Career
• RT @Forbes 10 career paths that are headed for the trash pile
• Rosabeth Moss Kanter on Why Blame Makes for Bad Business: Lessons from Arizona

Recommended Reading

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