Yesterday was a rough day at work.  We had to let 550 people go… Yuck.  For those that haven’t experienced this type of environment, take it from me… It sucks.  A lot of us had heard rumors that “cuts will be coming Tuesday morning.”  But none of us knew what to expect.  These RIFs (Reduction In Force) [...]

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you know that I’m in the middle of a large decision: Do I start an MBA or not? One of my favorite things about my blog is getting advice from people I know and look up to… So here are a few of my thoughts: Principal pays up [...]

Since college I’ve had three major transitions in my life.  Going to college.  Studying abroad.  Getting a job. Transitioning to college was great.  Social interactions were easy for one reason:  we were all in the same situation. It was everyone’s first time being on their own and being in a new world that no one [...]

I spent last Tuesday night at a career fair in Madison.  Personally, I’ve always thought career fairs are entirely worthless. But after being on the other side of them, I realized that they’re only mostly worthless… I was expressing this opinion to a co-worker of mine and she said, “Well at least it’s a great [...]

What’s the biggest asset companies have? Not equipment… or buildings… or land… Their biggest asset is human capital. Human capital – The set of skills which an employee acquires on the job, through training and experience, and which increase that employee’s value in the marketplace. It’s hard to build your human capital when employees are [...]

Here is the dilemma: Every day at work I have the opportunity to promote myself to a lot of people. The question is… Should I be using the company I work for to promote my personal online brand? More specifically, should I include links to my blog in the signature of all my emails? What [...]

Today is day four of a six day business camp I’ve been facilitaing.  There are 14 of us industry advisors who help high school  students throughout the week. Basically, on Sunday night, students have 30 minutes to create a product from trash… As the week continues, we help the students dive deeper into what their [...]

Face it. There ARE dumb questions. And you shouldn’t ask them. Questions can do two things: They can build your credibility or they can take away from your credibility. Ever been at a meeting where someone asked a question about something that was supposed to be reviewed ahead of time? That automatically ruins the pace [...]

You think your entitled to a great job.  You don’t want to pay your dues. I think these are two of the biggest misconceptions of our generation. Last week I participated in a training for Assistant VPs. One of the topics was “Millennials in the Workforce” and, as usual, these topics came up. Personally, I [...]

Traditional job searching means are done. Through. Finito. No more. Sites like Monster.com, Careerbuilder, and the newspaper classifieds are awesome if you’re looking for a job in telemarketing, sales, or network marketing… But if you’re looking for something more than that, you’ll probably hear about it elsewhere. Isn’t job searching a crazy process when you [...]