Archive for October, 2007

Archives for Career Advice

Until a few days ago I had never heard of Professor Randy Pausch of Carnegie Mellon University. I hadn’t heard about his trailblazing work in computer science studies - particularly in virtual reality and creating a playful way to teach computer programming to children.

But then someone sent me a link to his final lecture, which CMU recorded on September 18^th and streamed on the web. The 47-year-old Pausch, who is dying of terminal pancreatic cancer, is worth listening to - and remembering - because he has something to teach all of us about achieving our childhood dreams.

In his hour-plus long talk to an audience of 400 friends, faculty and students, Pausch liberally weaves humor, storytelling and multimedia tools to convey invaluable advice about building a career and managing relationships with bosses, co-workers, students, and family.

“We’re not going to talk about spirituality and religion,” he says. “Although I will tell you that I have experienced a deathbed conversion. I just bought a Macintosh. … Now I know I’d get 9 percent of the audience with that.”

It had been too many years since I heard a really inspirational and informative college lecture. What if you had one last lecture to give - what would you say to your friends, colleagues and loved ones?

“I don’t know how to not have fun,” he says at one point. “I’m dying and I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left.”

Archives for Biggest Employers

The Gap’s track record of hiring and failing to properly manage some of the world’s lowest cost clothing manufacturers continues to shame them.

On Sunday the UK’s Observer broke the story that in a New Delhi, India sweatshop factory run by an outsourced manufacturing firm, children as young as 10 were working up to 16 hours a day for no pay. One 10-year-old boy told reporters he was sold to the sweatshop company by his parents.

The Gap said that the “allegations are deeply upsetting.” Until recently, the Gap was well-regarded as a paragon of social responsibility, yet its mismanagement of global suppliers is a long-term problem that has damaged the firm’s reputation.

Archives for Perfect Job

In a piece called The Worst Jobs in Science, Popular Science magazine takes us places the angels at the Discovery Channel would refuse to tread. After reading this list, to which I have added sage career commentary, tell us about your worst job!

10. Orangutan-Pee Collector

Apparently an analysis of Orangutan urine is a leading indicator of their stress levels. But a follow up study is needed to determine the following: Does chasing after primates to collect their pee add to the primate’s stress level? Pee collectors understand the inherent risks. Our advice: don’t hang out in the jungle if you can’t take a little spillage.

9. NASA Ballerina
To test a robot on its ability to dance with the stars NASA hired a brave ballerina and apparently outfitted her with steel-toed slippers. Here’s where to check it out. You thought I was making this up, didn’t you?

Archives for Branding You

Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success is one of the rare career books that is often counter-intuitive in its guidance yet stays with you a little longer than expected. I was both amused and engaged by chapters entitled “Be a Sponge,” or “Assume the Job Description Was Wrong” or “When Writing Your Résumé, Don’t Be Too Honest.”  

A former professional beach volleyball player, software executive and IPO survivor, Trunk reinvented herself a few years ago as an author, blogger and career columnist for Yahoo! Finance and the Boston Globe (The Climb).

It’s not so much that Trunk advocates lying on your résumé, what she preaches is closer to spin control, though she doesn’t call it that. “If you’re too honest you sound like a psychopath,” she says. After all, a résumé is “not a list of every truth in your life. In my mind it’s absurd that people give advice that says ‘Don’t lie on your résumé’ because it’s totally useless advice. ”

Archives for Branding You

What do job seekers and astronomers have in common? Dumping your résumé into a corporate receptacle is like plunging into a black hole in cyberspace.

Okay, not always, but often enough to be a problem. In a fit of Christmastime career-ennui a few years ago I submitted my résumé to a market research company known for mapping the vendor universe and never heard from them again.

My theory about this process, never verified, was that my résumé lacked the requisite keywords such as graduate degrees. Several weeks later my follow-up phone call was never returned, nor was a follow-up e-mail. Come to think of it, though, the company’s voice-mail system couldn’t have been looking for keywords. The downstream impact on me: I journeyed from feeling admiration to humiliation in about one week.

Archives for Perfect Job

Back in the day, enterprising housewives earned “lipstick money” peddling beauty products to their neighbors. Men were relegated to lugging around brushes, Bibles and vacuum cleaners.

Flash forward to 2007. That knock on the door is your Avon man.

One of Avon’s more successful male sales reps is Bobby McKinney, a 58-year-old fire code inspector from Winter Haven, Fla. Last year the dual-careerist tallied $800,000 in sales along with his wife. They reportedly have an astonishing 170 sales reps working for them.

A beauty career is in the eye of the beholder. Consider the fact that Yankee baseball superstar Derek Jeter recently teamed up with Avon to create “Driven,” a $25 cologne, sure to be a hit with all genders. Maybe it will open doors for Avon salesmen.

Okay, I kid, but beauty is big business. Last year Avon, the global beauty and consumer products company - with nearly five million independent sales reps - earned $8.7 billion in revenue. Men can’t afford to gloss over this career path anymore.

Archives for Coaching

Carol S. Dweck, author of Mindset, the New Psychology of Success, contends that your success or failure in life, career and relationships is attributable to a fixed or growth mindset. The fixed mindset believes that your personal qualities - intelligence, personality and character - are set in stone. The growth mindset believes that your qualities can improve with effort and experience.

A fixed mindset can sidetrack your career - especially if you’re working for someone who views his or her subordinates as incapable of growing. Of course, says Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, leaders with a growth mindset are willing to admit when they are wrong and adapt to changing information.

People with a fixed mindset are:

• Inaccurate at gauging their own abilities
• Feel that their intelligence level cannot change
• Are judgmental yet misread other’s ability to grow and change