Maximize Your Career in Your Current Organization
From a University of Washington Professional and Continuing Education webinar: Prospective clients sometimes ask me how I have the credibility to coach senior executives in industries I know nothing about. Challenging question, right? So I have a choice here: I can answer in a way that risks sounding defensive, talking about my experience and my degrees. I like to do something really unexpected instead.
I like to talk about knots.
How to Network When You’re Not Networking
From a University of Washington Professional and Continuing Education webinar: It can be useful to think of networking in terms of the classic journalistic Who, What, Where, When, Why and How, although I’m going to mix up the order and start with Why. Why do you need to even bother with this networking thing? We’re going to talk about something I call the “career lifecycle” – which sounds awful, doesn’t it? I think you’ll find it reassuring, actually.
Apples to oranges
Deciding between two job offers, each with lots of pros and cons, can be like comparing apples to oranges. Try plotting the different factors on a grid to help simplify the decision. Here’s an example that illustrates how to do this. A coaching client had a tough choice: two very, very different job offers and […]
Write like a girl
“Write like a girl,” I told my career coaching client. My client, a scientist with several years of postdoctoral research experience, was applying for a faculty position at a prestigious university. We were working through drafts of her cover letter. The first draft of her letter was good: well written, well organized, coherent and clear. […]
When to quit
Quit or persevere? As a career coach, that’s one of the hardest questions I work on with my clients: Should they walk away from a difficult situation or grit it out? A coaching client called me, outrage in her voice. She had been passed over for a promotion. Another client described a belittling work environment, […]
Don’t wing it
Jack Reacher has some good career advice. He’s the formidable, former military police investigator who wanders around causing — and solving — all kinds of trouble in a reassuringly formulaic fiction series by Lee Child. In the latest book, “Blue Moon,” Reacher starts a turf war between rival gangs, among other plot complexities. “Suppose what you […]
Where’s your old mojo?
A coaching client wanted to talk about confidence. A senior vice president, she wonders where the younger, tougher version of herself has gone. “I used to be so badass,” she told me. “I need to regain my confidence.” This is a common theme in my office: accomplished middle-aged professionals talking about an ebbing of confidence. […]
The worry list
A coaching client walked into my office and started down a rabbit hole of worries. He had just been promoted to a vice president role at a large company and was a little, well, freaked out. “Hang on,” I interrupted, overwhelmed myself by his stress and worry. “You keep a worry list, right?” He looked […]
Drop the pronouns
A career coaching client and I were working on an email to a recruiter outlining her salary requirements. We passed a draft back and forth until we were both satisfied. “Proposal looks good,” I replied to the last draft. “Short, direct, no pronouns, no waffling.” As a career coach, my relationship with pronouns has evolved (my 10th […]
You’re not old!
A coaching client told me she was old. “Some young up-and-comer got the job,” said this 44-year-old marketing professional with 20 years’ experience in her field. I paused, trying to figure out where to start. “Hang on,” I said. “I have to yell at you.” She wasn’t actually even a client yet. We were on […]