Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
Building skills on the job
Matthew Barrett, founder of Brain Trainers, is the speaker for our November 18 WorkSource Professional Network meeting. Barrett has a Masters degree in Psychology and calls himself a “personal trainer for the brain.” His lessons take cutting-edge cognitive neuroscience and turn the science into entertaining and accessible presentations for his audience. We spent some
We humans react strongly to color. Color theory is an important element of any design, and it played a part in the clothes you’re wearing right now. In this recent political season, you can bet that many stylists spent many hours helping candidates send the right message through style and color. If you can’t afford your own personal stylist, here are some general tips on color in the interview.
As you go through the personality results, you begin to see how your style has probably been a part of you since you were very young – and how little you’ve changed over time. (You can predict your four-year-old’s behavior just as accurately as your spouse’s, can’t you?)
Paul Tieger’s Do What You Are is one of the best career advice books I’ve used. The book is organized into chapters on each of the 16 personality types of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI.) Each chapter offers a list of what makes work worthwhile for that personality type. The lists work so well because they aren’t specific to any occupation. They focus on what makes your personality type tick and where you’ll find satisfying work and people who understand you. When I coach people on career transition, I suggest that they focus on these concepts rather than salary and duties. After all, you probably know what the job involves already. What you don’t know s what the team is like – and how well you’ll fit in.
We all have stressful days when everything seems to go wrong. Advance preparation can keep a bad day from becoming a disaster.
“Networking is often given a bad reputation because some people use the concept in a way that is inconsiderate, inappropriate, unprofessional, or just shortsighted.” Yup – that about covers it.
Networking is about deep connections, but it’s also about wide ones. Gladwell estimates that most of the benefit you get from your network does not come from strong connections (former bosses, personal friends, etc.) but from what he terms “weak ties.”
Brad Raney spoke to the WorkSource Professional Network on September 23. He is the author of “Improve Your VOWELS, Improve Your Career! The A,E,I,O,U’s of Finding Your Perfect Job!”
Even if you’re an extrovert, the term “networking” can make you anxious. It may be hard for you to meet new people or reconnect with those you haven’t seen for a while. If you’re unemployed, your confidence may be low; you may hate the idea of being in the position of asking for help instead of being able to offer it.
When people connect with you online, what do they see? If you’re just keeping up the basics, they see where you’ve worked and what pages you link to and keep up with. Joiner says that people will also want to see who you are connected with, and more importantly, what they have to say about you.
