Displaying All Posts from March, 2010

Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?

I hate this question. I hate when I hear it at an interview, and I hate thinking about it when I’m staring into space, pretending to think about work. It’s a ridiculous question. Anyone who has a clear sense of where their career will be in five years either has a government job or carries an assault rifle to work (soldier, pirate, gangster, etc.).

I feel we’ve strayed off topic. The point is, it is impossible to accurately predict how your career will play out, what choices will present themselves, and what random twists of fate will guide you to this promotion or that investment. So let’s not waste time seriously thinking about this question. Click Here to Read Article …

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Cut the Corporate Speak

Do your eyes glaze over with the vacant stare of a dairy cow when reading most company websites, brochures, case studies, and white papers? Once I interviewed with a company whose tag line was Trust. Value. Integrity. It took me forever to figure out what their business was. After scouring their site and search engines, I deduced they were loan origination technology developers. Can you imagine what this does to potential business? Their website was jargon-jammed with corporate speak and communicated nothing.  The powers-that-be who insist on cliché, jargon and words with no marketplace meaning undermine their own profit potential and branding power. As E.B. White wrote in  The Elements of Style, these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. Let’s take a look at a few of the offenders.

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Memo:Random #24


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Grow Tall & Stand Out in Your Company

While watching BBC’s Planet Earth the other day, I drew a strong comparison between plants and humans.

In areas with dense foliage, plants are in a constant race to grow taller than each other in order to gain their share of available light. The tallest plants leave the others behind to die as they blanket the forest floor with shadows.

Just as plants compete with each other for light, you’ll have to stand the tallest if you want to thrive in your company.

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How to Provide Placation While You Vacation

As I write this, I’m on vacation…hanging out with my family and getting a much-deserved rest. Taking a vacation is extremely important in maintaining a strong work ethic for the rest of the year. I know many workplaces allow for employees to take pay in lieu of time off—I would advise against doing this. Your body and mind need the rest. Depriving them of that only saps your energy further and sets yourself for missed opportunities and letdowns. Take the time off…you deserve it.

That said, you can put yourself in a great position to “take care of business” while you’re pretty far removed it. It’s not terribly taxing to do, either. It just requires planning and setting up the right boundaries for you, your employer and your family in order to make sure you can do it both guilt-free and without sacrificing a ton of your hard-earned time.

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6 Surefire Ways to Fail at Your Next Interview

In my long tenure of working, I have interviewed at a lot of companies and I have interviewed a lot of candidates for jobs at my own place of work. As well as looking at what you should do when it comes to interviewing for a job, looking at ways that you can fail at your next interview can be an educational experience. This article will give you some pointers on foolproof ways to fail at your next job interview.

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