Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
Monday Night Football’s game was a Green Bay Packers blowout over the Minnesota Vikings (45 – 7.) Like most of Packer Nation, I enjoyed watching the team do their jobs so expertly. It got me thinking: What if you were as good at your job as Aaron Rodgers and his teammates? You might be the defending Super Bowl champion of your profession. Here are some lessons you can take from the Green Bay Packers.
According to Hourly Careers (www.hourlycareers.com) one in five Americans plan to take on a second job during the 2011 holiday season, while 12percent said they already had one according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive.
Hourly careers also cites a 2011 survey of 1,000 hiring managers and found that…
51% of hiring managers will be hiring for seasonal jobs this this year – up 8 points since 2008.
Each hiring manager, on average, expects to hire 4.1 seasonal workers – a 5 percent increase over last year’s 3.9 workers and a 32 percent improvement from a low point in 2009
That presents opportunities if you’re in the market for work or taking on a second job. Here are some of the jobs that post openings during this season:
On November 10, 2011, Microsoft announced the Elevate America Veterans Initiative in partnership with the Department of Labor, which will provide additional support to veterans in their transition to the civilian workforce. Here in Northeast Florida, one of just four regions in the country to receive the grant, Microsoft will offer 2,000 technology training and certification packages to local U.S. military veterans and spouses over a two year period. The technology training and certification will be available at intermediate and advanced levels and delivered through e-learning. This partnership is an extension of the overall Microsoft Elevate America Veterans Initiative which makes a national investment of $12 million in cash, product and related support for U.S. veterans.
My friend has updated her profile on LinkedIn and explained to me that the system is encouraging her to include recommendations from others. However, she is happy where she works and is not actively seeking employment elsewhere. She did not want to [incorrectly] signal her current employer that she is trolling for new opportunities, and was concerned what type of impression is generated when someone on LinkedIn includes recommendations from others.
Jena Ellis of online emba.com has developed a great list of must-see TED talks on subjects relating to the recession. She writes: “TED Talks have become a go-to resource for finding thoughtful discussion on global issues from some of the world’s biggest and best thinkers. One issue that has been at the forefront of many … Continue reading 12 Must-See TED Talks on the Recession
Tali Sharot write The Optimism Bias, a book on why humans almost always view the future as hopeful and sunny. She has studied hundreds of subjects, young and old, and found that no matter the odds, we always believe that tomorrow will be better. We’re apparently hard wired that way. “We hugely underestimate the likelihood of divorce, cancer and unemployment,” she writes. “”We expect to be healthier than the average person and more successful than [our] peers.”
“Your experience of life expands with the more energy you have.” If you’ve been in an extended job search, you probably have experienced days when your physical and psychic energy was very low. Kelly provides some useful insights into the kinds of energy you experience and how to manage the flow of your energy.
We all spend an enormous amount of energy trying to figure out what’s coming next – trying to know what the outcome of a situation will be. It’s the impulse to read the last chapter of a novel when the suspense gets to be too much. Once you know how it ends, you can relax and enjoy the story. And possibly pick up on more clues along the way, noticing details you might have missed if you didn’t know the identity of the killer.
What are you afraid of? Chances are, whatever it is, it’s holding you back from your next career step. And it may be deeply held, a holdover from childhood. If so, maybe you can let it go now that you’re all grown up.
One of the most important things you can do for your career is to keep your boss in the loop. He wants to be informed of your progress and be able to report up to his boss, if need be. How can you do that without overwhelming him with details? The well-written Executive Summary is an art form that will pay big dividends if you can master it.
