The art of everyday communications should be every executive’s number one priority. Every statement and every communication must contain the elements connected to company success, including its values, motivation, goals and objectives. However, successful communication is not just about idea, it’s also about how it is said. These eight steps will help you turn communication…    Continue reading

Writing a resume without a specific job in mind is like jumping off a diving board without knowing how deep the water is. Your chance of success is small and you could even hurt yourself. We all know that a resume is the primary tool for marketing your skills, knowledge, and experience to prospective employers….    Continue reading

They don’t teach this in management school, but learning how to build and maintain friendships in the workplace is a skill that can take you a long way in your career. Just ask the founders of Google and Yahoo! But then again, when friends ‘break-up’ at work, whether it’s a legal partnership, two chefs at…    Continue reading

Are you unfulfilled in your job? You are not alone. One-half of US employees are dissatisfied with their jobs, up from two-fifths 10 years ago. Perhaps it’s time to move on. But where? And will you be successful in your new job? Or would it be a case of “out of the frying pan into…    Continue reading

Corporate interviews have become endurance tests, a common way of simulating how candidates will respond if hired. Job candidates sitting on the hot seat can expect to hear the same questions posed four to seven times in a single afternoon. While job seekers are judged on every little detail, feeling pressure not to make mistakes, paradoxically, interviewers often…    Continue reading

When meeting locals or expatriates in Singapore you are most likely to ask:  How long have you been in Singapore?  What brought you here? Of course, you hear a lot of answers like, “I was sent by my company.”  However, the answers are becoming more varied since Asia, for the past several years, is the…    Continue reading

Who Moved my Job? is a short story about globalization and the migration of work throughout the world. I’ve written several more formal books on the subject, and my next book is entitled Talking Outsourcing so you can guess what that’s about, but I wanted to try exploring some ideas of migration by using a…    Continue reading

Americans have a funny way of dealing with our lack of global business experience – we typically import the expertise. Alexis de Bretteville, CEO of the Americas at Michael Page International in New York is a case in point.  The European born executive, who heads up the Americas region for one of the world’s largest…    Continue reading

In the book Executive Stamina: How to Optimize Time, Energy and Productivity to Achieve Peak Performance, authors Marty and Joshua Seldman make the case that by “optimizing your effectiveness,” you can enjoy a “long, balanced and successful career.” The book might also be called Get Your Act Together, Dude! Marty, the father, is an executive…    Continue reading

Have you noticed any similarities between your dating experiences and your job searches? What these two puzzle parts have in common is a quest for better relationships. Granted, for some of us, both of these personal quests are fraught with frustration. But in Shawn Graham’s book Courting Your Career, he spins the metaphor in amusing…    Continue reading

Disabled workers are known to fly under the radar of unemployment statistics and recruiters. But in a fast-growing job market, companies may be eager to explore new ways to tap their talents. There’s no issue on the supply-side. New studies show that disability payments are increasing at “an accelerating pace,” with a 51 percent rise…    Continue reading

We recognize the signs. A young employee shows up late at work or for meetings, misses assignments or takes sick days when they’re on top of their game. As a boss your first instinct is to rattle their cage. But what will that accomplish? Employers fret about holding onto Gen Y workers who may be…    Continue reading

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term work/life balance?  Perhaps it’s the time you leave the office? Or maybe it’s the total number of hours you have worked in a week? Or is the time your colleagues leave the office compared to you? Have you ever asked yourself whether…    Continue reading

Have you been distressed lately about the economy, your job or your boss? If so, you wouldn’t be alone. When times are toughest, most of us tend to wait out the storm rather than seek out other, perhaps even riskier opportunities. In his new book, Bulletproof Your Job, author Stephen Viscusi says that your “primary…    Continue reading

Foreign assignments often seem exotic and enticing, especially to workers who have studied the local language and customs. But despite everyone’s good intentions these critical career moves often fizzle out, resulting in an expensive setback for the employer and a career-hiccup or worse for the employee. One problem is the vast majority of overseas assignment…    Continue reading

In the wake of an economic tsunami that has caused organizations to reduce staff at all levels, the market today is awash with out-of-work executives competing for dwindling job opportunities. Even among the companies that are hiring, the pressure is on to keep costs down. The current “cash-is-king” posture of most companies makes it difficult…    Continue reading

How much do you know about the corporate culture of a prospective employer? Until you work there, you’re in the dark, right? By reputation, a manufacturing company might be known as a meat grinder or a large law firm as a cold and unfriendly place. Yet how much of this reputation is true and how…    Continue reading

Everyone knows a bully. It’s the schoolyard tyrant who swoops in on a target, pushing him around while spewing threats and belittling him in front of others. But childhood isn’t where it stops – it’s also on display in the workplace.”Workplace bullying” is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of a person through verbal abuse, behavior that’s threatening,…    Continue reading

Most professionals find their day fractured by interruptions. What you need is a bulletproof chunk of your workday. You need a Quick 10. Shave off ten minutes — say, from 11:00 a.m. to 11:10 a.m. — with no interruptions allowed. Period. No phone calls. No visitors. No e-mails. Establish this pattern over the course of…    Continue reading

There are endless reasons to build a strong network of professional contacts. But perhaps none is more compelling in 2009 than the goal of establishing a career safety net. In a recession jobs are last to get hit, yet are the slowest part of business spending to recover. This is the time to develop or…    Continue reading