4/23/09 Top Career Posts this Week
Every week I check dozens of “career” blogs and other online publications, looking for things that will help you find a job, get promoted, develop your skills, and keep everything in perspective and balance. Here’s the pick of the lot for this week. I’m pointing you to items about not finding your passion, not specifying salary, personal branding using social media, being overqualified, and a bad example.
From Jason Seiden: The trick is to “find what you’re passionate about” and do that, right? Wrong.
“The reality is, while some of us are made for a specific life, most of us are generalists. For generalists, our passion finds us, often in drips and drops, sourced across many different activities, until we finally see how to pull our world together in a way that makes us smile. ”
Wally’s Comment: We’ve all heard that advice to “follow your bliss” as a surefire road to success. Jason Seiden suggests that most of us might do better with another course of action.
From Business Week: The ‘Never Specify a Salary’ Myth
“Don’t believe the adage about not disclosing your salary requirements in a job interview. But it’s best to speak up in the second interview”
Wally’s Comment: Discussing salary is probably the part of the interview/hiring process that is the most uncomfortable and the one that generates the most conflicting advice. Here is some.
From Knowledge at Wharton: Advertising Yourself: Building a Personal Brand through Social Networks
“According to Jonah Berger, Wharton marketing professor, using social networking sites or a new media endeavor such as blogging can be especially useful for workers looking to reshape their career into a new kind of profile.”
Wally’s Comment: Personal branding is one of today’s hot topics. Social media are another hot topic. Together they just might make a hot, hot topic.
From the Washington Post: Landing a Job When Your Résumé’s Too Good for It
“You’ve lost your job. But you don’t immediately panic. After all, you have an undergraduate degree and perhaps an advanced degree. You either saved or more likely borrowed heavily to earn this get-out-of-unemployment-free card. So with your beefy résumé, you begin applying for jobs confident that you will land something soon paying the high five- or six-figure salary you’ve been accustomed to earning. But then you hear those dreadful words: ‘I’m sorry; you’re overqualified.’”
Wally’s Comment: There is surely no “thanks but no thanks” reason more galling than “you’re overqualified.”
From What Would Dad Say: Job Hunter
“I can work. I like to work. Maybe I didn’t work hard enough at my last job but I have learned. I skated and shouldn’t of. I know that now. My rent is due.”
Wally’s Comment: My father used to say that everyone was put here by God for a purpose. Some are to serve as horrible examples. If you’re not getting the jobs you think you should, read this wonderful post and decide if you see yourself anywhere in it. If you do, it’s time to change.