Guest Post: Five Reasons Not to Pick a Career

Just because you love Mad Men doesn’t mean you should seek out a career in advertising, or seek out a career in archaeology because you love the Indiana Jones franchise. While TV shows and movies are entertaining, they don’t necessarily offer the most accurate portrayal of what different careers are really like. (Shocking, right?)

Promotion: Past, Present, or Future Tense?

You can’t be considered for another job if you’re not good at the one you have. Performance is the baseline for being considered a high potential candidate – the price of admission. But what can you do to demonstrate potential – the future tense of being promotable?

Guest Post: Set Goals to Start your Career Right

While it’s important to commit to any job you’ve got, embrace this process of self-discovery. Sit down with HR and your manager to set regular reviews and goals, and for an introduction into the types of roles that are available at your company.

How to Build an Entourage

Entourages are about collaboration and relationships, which means that both parties are committed to helping each other. If you meet someone who seems disinterested in you or overly interested in himself, he’ll probably never make the cut from contact to entourage member – no matter how well connected he is.

Guest Post: Everything In Its Place: Creating Calm in Your Office Space

This is a guest post by Jessica Johnson Have you ever wasted an hour searching for an email or a Word document you know you saved on your computer – but it just won’t turn up? Or maybe you’ve gone to print out a file, only to discover that you’re out of ink and you … Continue reading Guest Post: Everything In Its Place: Creating Calm in Your Office Space

Are You Soloist Material? (I Hate People, Part 2)

The solution, the authors posit, is to become a soloist. If you’re lucky (and very good at what you do), the authors say, you’ll be able to distance yourself from all the time-sucking meetings and mind-numbing office protocol and simply work on interesting projects – alone, or with a small, talented group of people you don’t hate.

Guest Post: Young Graduates – 5 Ways to Start Off Strong

Leaving college and entering the world of work can be pretty intimidating if you’ve never had a full-time job before. There’s a minefield of things you might not be used to; feeling like you fit in can take some time. Complicating matters is the fact that young graduates don’t have a great reputation; the stereotype is that they have come out of college know it all and that this entitles them to their dream career. How can you come across as confident – but not over-confident?

Guest Post: Asking Someone to Be Your Mentor

As with all things in life, being successful at work is a much smoother process when you ask for guidance from someone who has already been successful. The wisdom and experience of a mentor is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to avoid making rookie mistakes while climbing the professional ladder.