John Vespasian asked:


Forget about enthusiasm and motivation. Do not waste your time trying to impress people who do not care for you. Most of the career advice that you will hear comes from ancient times that, actually, never existed. Make a commitment to discard inherited nonsense. It is time to rebuild your strategy according to reality.

Pick up a pen and piece of paper and write down the names of unsuccessful persons you know. Chances are that your list will be quite long. Look at the names and ask yourself some hard questions. Recall their individual circumstances, assess their challenges, and question their excuses.

Some men and women in your list will be intelligent and educated. From those, a few might deserve being recognized as brilliant. Others will be highly motivated and enthusiastic. How come that they are not progressing in life? The primary reason of their failure might be their belief in false ideas, such as overwork and career planning.

Let me put forward some controversial truths. These are the kind of statements that you might have heard before but that you were too quick to discard. Reality can be disrupting, but you will benefit from acknowledging facts as they are. You might want to sit down before you read this:

1.- MANY MARKETS ARE CLOSED. Ignore the propaganda and examine the facts with a cool head. If you are trying to enter a market dominated by highly entrenched players, the undertaking might require too much effort to be worth it. People might preach openness and fairness to the gallery, while their actions show that outsiders are not welcome. Stay away from those markets. You have better things to do with your life.

2.- SOME PROFESSIONS OFFER LITTLE OPPORTUNITY. College counsellors usually possess good statistics about the employment market. On that basis, they can tell students about the earnings that they can expect on their initial job should they choose, for instance, to become embalmers. The problem with this sort of advice lies in its short-term focus. Instead, go and talk to someone who works in your field of interest and ask how fast people can move upwards from their initial position. If the answer is unconvincing, stay away. There are plenty of professions whose markets are growing. Why on earth would you want to enlist in a losing legion?

3.- THINKING LOCAL IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER. National economies and international trade are likely to transform the face of our cities in the next twenty years. Currencies fluctuate and importers might become exporters. Present territories of immigration might give rise to waves of emigration. Things are going to change massively in the next decades and nobody is quite sure how cards will be reshuffled. In this environment, thinking locally might bury your professional chances. Spread your risks and boost your career. Learn a foreign language and stay mobile.

Advertisements for jobs and training programmes always fail to tell you the ultimate truth: nobody cares about your career as much as yourself. Employers who cheer you up with empty motivational talk frequently turn out to be exploitative. When it comes to your professional future, as for everything else, you will be much better off if you remain sceptic and think for yourself.

JOHN VESPASIAN writes about rational living. He has resided in New York, Madrid, Paris, and Munich. His stories reflect the values of entrepreneurship, tolerance, and self-reliance. See John Vespasian’s blog about rational living.

http://johnvespasian.blogspot.com/

Jane Wintringham asked:


Tip number 1

“Never marry a miner”

That advice was from a most unlikely source and was totally unsolicited. I started my legal career in Pontefract, a close-knit mining community which, in the 1970’s, was recovering from the trauma of the miners’ strike. As an articled clerk, I was regularly dispatched to Leeds for County Court directions hearings. Appearing before the Senior Registrar with some trepidation, he suddenly fixed his beady eye on me, demanded to know which firm I represented and then barked to my consternation “Never marry a miner!”

Tip number 2

“Would I want to “marry” any of the partners?”

I was advised by a senior partner to view potential partnership similar to marriage – if not worse!

To think seriously before committing my career and finances to such a motley and fickle crew! Given the current financial situation, partnership may appear even less attractive!

Tip number 3

“Always have an escape route”

It pays to have a preplanned escape route – even if you never use it. Fate can deal a most unexpected and unwanted hand. Flexibility is the key to success.

The advice came from an seasoned professional who survived the ups and downs in the law by always knowing that he had his life jacket safely packed should he need to jump ship or in the event of being pushed overboard!

Tip number 4

“Spend a little and save a little”

Always try to have something saved for rainy days. The perceived wisdom is 6 months salary.

Tip Number 5

“Be true to yourself – never do anything to risk your integrity”

There will be a time in every professional’s life when you are tempted to bend the rules.

Stand firm, recognize the situation for what it is – a test.

Tip Number 6

“Know what you want and how to get it”

- Speaks for itself!

Tip Number 7

“Never be too proud or too frightened to ask for help”

Wrestling with a perfectionist streak (and a macho culture in some law firms) means that we sometimes feel unable to ask for help when we should. I know from bitter experiences, when I started my “legal wobble”, the dangers that stress and not speaking up loud enough can have – with dire consequences to my health and career.

So what are your tips for success? What pieces of advice have you received good or bad?

I would love to hear them please email them to me at jane@leadingwomenlawyers.co.uk

Paul Megan asked:


Here’s some astute alternative business career advice you won’t get from your boss.

Are you sitting at your desk dreamily imagining yourself on a South Seas vacation? Or maybe on a rollicking holiday with the family? Or maybe you would just prefer to stay home and watch some DVDs.

Wanting to take some time off should not make you feel guilty. In fact, in her new business career advice book, “Time Off for Good Behavior,” Mary Lou Quinlan writes that seven out of 10 people fantasize about leaving work for a few months.

What’s more, she has some good alternative business career advice that taking a break can help you feel less burned out. It can help you organize your life goals. Most people don’t realize that taking time off-guilt free-isn’t as difficult as it might seem.

So don’t feel like you’re condemned to remaining chained to your desk. Here are six alternative business career advice options you can check out:

1. Make a plan. Think about why you want time off. Do you just need a few days to relax? Or are you looking to completely re-assess your career?

2. Figure out how much time off you’ll need to come back fully refreshed.

3. Count your days off. Figure out how many vacation days you have. Add in any remaining sick or personal days.

4. Check out company policy. You may be eligible for a sabbatical with full or partial pay. Or you may have the option of re-entering the company after an unpaid leave.

5. Talk to your employer. If the company doesn’t have a policy or doesn’t spell out the details of flexible time off, now is the time to find out what the company can offer you.

6. Negotiate for what you need.

The point of this alternative business career advice is that you shouldn’t be afraid to take some needed time off. It may be just what you need to get your life back in focus and prioritize what really important.

Furthermore, if you are a valued employee, your boss expects you to come forward with recommendations that show how the company will benefit from your time off.

Taking the time to spell out your ideas in a way that shows both concern and awareness of your expectations can result in a mutually advantageous arrangement.

Amit Kale asked:


Considered to be one of the most prestigious degrees around the world, Masters in Business Administration (MBA) is a post-graduate degree awarded to those who learn and master the skills of managing a business. As it is related to any business and not just a specific field, it attracts students from varied backgrounds.

In an MBA program, students study various applications of management principles, which are sure to be helpful in real life business situations. More than half of the MBA course concentrates on general management applicable to any business. The other part is a specialization in an area of one’s choice.

Primarily one can specialize in the following areas in MBA:

1. Marketing

2. Finance

3. Human Resources

4. Information Technology

5. Operations

Now, what really makes MBA special…

1. Money: For many MBA aspirants, joining the course is nothing but an investment. They simply calculate the ROI before hand and then decide to join any college. In these cases, the main reason to join MBA is the pay package you are likely to get.

2. Education: It’s not just a matter of money; you can also see a drastic change in your own personality. You can feel the difference once you complete your MBA. You will get to learn a lot. Of course it depends on how serious you are while you are doing your MBA and from where you are doing it.

3. Launch pad for a great career: People say that there is no shortcut for success, but I think that MBA is a shortcut for your career. Simply put, a graduate with half decade of experience will hardly be given as much preference as a person with an MBA degree.

Now, let me list reasons why you really must opt for a course of this sort. But before I go on to list reasons of my own, here are a few I managed to accumulate from a sizable group of students who are pro-MBA. Some good, some not so good, here are they nevertheless:

 I want to pursue MBA because my dad asked me to do so  I want a very good salary and I am told that I will get one once I finish MBA  Just because everyone is doing, I am also interested to join  I think there is a huge demand for people with MBA in the market  I have nothing to do so thought to finish my MBA  For the sake of an additional degree.  I am too young to go for a job so I want to do MBA and then look for a job The Return On Investment (ROI) which I will get on MBA is higher when compared to the other degrees

There really will be many more reasons, but reasons such as these aren’t really enough. One should really understand what difference an MBA degree can make in one’s career path and personality.

What recruiters look in an MBA grad?

If you are applying for a job on your MBA degree, then you must understand what exactly companies expect from MBA grads. The main reason why companies recruit MBA grads is to maximize their profitability with minimum resource utilization. Be it any specialization, an MBA grad is expected to use his management skills which he/she has learned in college and fine tune the business.

The following are some of the qualities which recruiters look for in an MBA grad:

Fast Learner: MBA grads are expected to be very fast learners. It is not necessary that one will get a job in the field of his choice. For most MBA grads, the role and industry they join as soon as they complete their degree is a complete new world. But the two years education behind them is sure to give them enough understanding about the general management in any business. The key lies in quickly understanding the business and industry to produce maximum output.

Resource Management: Once you join an organization you are expected to utilize the resources effectively. The mantra is ‘minimum resources and maximum output’. One must have the ability to utilize the resources well. The subordinates are also resources of the company; one should also have the ability to manage people.

Business Development: Be it any specialization (HR, Finance, Marketing) MBA grads are always expected to be working towards the growth of the company as a whole. If you are an MBA grad hired by a company and you are not contributing much for the growth of the company, then there will not be any difference between a normal graduate and an MBA. So your presence should always be felt in the organization.

Ready to Accept New Challenges: Every organization prefers a person who readily accepts challenges. For a fresher, it is very much important to understand his role in the organization. As soon as the training period ends, the entire focus comes on performance. The more successfully you complete challenging tasks, the more you are valued in the organization.

These were some of the major things recruiters look for in an MBA grad, so if you are joining an MBA course make sure you concentrate on all these things and work on these lines to get an edge over others.

Sharon Alexander asked:


ou have graduated from college or university, the hard work begins, and for a lot of graduates, this can be a challenging time, especially with a worldwide recession, and lots of competition to contend with.

You have finally calmed down from the helter skelter of your graduation and the party afterwards. Your relatives are asking you what you are going to do now that you have graduated and you are still waiting to hear back from a couple of job interviews.

Although you are not totally sure that you have given an employer the best impression you are confident that you will have the job of your dreams. Your friends and relatives want to give you career advice but much of it seems unrealistic.

Now is not the time to worry that something is wrong or that you have done something wrong. When you begin your first career search it can be a bit daunting and a little scary but this is because you are acquiring a new skill that you didn’t know you had.

To get you started on that job search here are a few tips:

Tip 1: You don’t have to do this alone. When you are looking for your first job it is a good idea to talk to as many people as you can about the jobs they have open and how your skills meet their openings. Do some job interviews but also do information interviews where you are just looking for information. This can gain you more career advice than you ever imagined.

Tip 2: Dress like you already have the job. Students who dress for success and wear the clothes for the job they want will always come out on top. You want to dress in the way you imagine the top level job you want will require. Present yourself in the best light by dressing professionally no matter what the job you are interviewing for and someone will notice.

Tip 3: Get experience if you don’t get your job right away. If you don’t find the job the first time, look for ways to get experience. Hopefully you found a career that you liked in college and you are leaving with some experience. If this is not the truth, then now is the time to get the experience you need for the job that you want. Take a part-time job in the field or do some volunteer work.

Tip 4: Check with your recruiting office for career advice. Most colleges have recruiting offices and they help their students get jobs. Check out the job boards because these will be jobs that are friendly to new graduates. Ask your recruiting office about opportunities for paid internships because these can be a way to get started in your chosen profession quickly.

Tip 5: Be flexible – This is probably the best career advice we can give you because first jobs are usually made for those people who will step into a lesser job in order to get to the job they want. Don’t be afraid to do this and keep your eyes and ears open for more opportunity. The final career advice we have for you is to be as relaxed as possible when you go in for the interview.

IC asked:


Having friends you can share your ideas and goals in life with is something very nice, some say that taking advice from older people who have lived through certain situations is the very essence of wisdom however, do you know where to draw the line and stop taking advice from someone else in order to make your own decisions? In order to answer this question we must first have a clear concept of our personality, are you easy to influence? Do you set your goals based on your own desires? How strong is your will and how many things you think you can endure before you reach your goal? — let’s analyze each of these questions.

Easy to influence:

It may surprise you but many people are easy to influence an unconsciously those who are being influenced by the exterior ideas will eventually end up imitating them, if you don’t think this is possible all you need to think about is that millions upon millions of people who start smoking or consuming drugs just because of social pressures in fact, teenagers are the easiest people to influence which is why there are several TV campaigns which target them in order to keep them from falling in the destructive path of drugs, alcohol and violence.

Those who are easy to influence will end up following career decisions others have made for them in other words, if a popular person decides to study business then all of his or her followers will end up signing up to a business class, it sounds pathetic but it happens. Don’t let yourself become a follower be a leader.

Setting your own goals:

An easy way to avoid being influenced by someone else’s opinion is to set your own goals, take some time to decide where you want to be in line in what will make you happy, don’t take into account what other people are doing, set yourself for success by doing your own research and making a good decision accordingly.

Having a strong will and enduring the path:

After you have decided what you want to do with your life it is now time to take action in order to make things happen, don’t look left or right always focus on what you have in front of you and do everything it takes to overcome the many obstacles that will come your way, cheer yourself up and never consider quitting even if the going gets tough.

Mike Sandiford asked:


Every graduate who takes free career advice from a friend or family member needs to look beyond the advice to determine motivations. Your graduation from university will be accompanied by dozens of loved ones and colleagues offering free career advice without solicitation. Your desire to be polite to every career advisor should not lead to an acceptance of free career advice without some analysis. There are multiple criteria you can apply to career advice to determine the tips that are best for your young career.

The professional background of an advice provider is important as you consider free career advice. A lawyer offering advice on specific areas of legal studies to pursue in postgraduate education is a valuable resource. A retired police officer who provides tips on success in IT sales may not offer the best advice available. You should ask what an advisor does for a living to place free career advice into context.

The substance of free career advice may not be effective if the presentation style of your advisor is unorthodox. This advice does not need to be provided through a PowerPoint presentation but it should be provided with a certain sense of decorum. You should not take free career advice from an individual who is promoting a specific company, criticising a specific company and using inappropriate language during their advice. The quality of free career advice is only as good as the person presenting the advice.

The best free career advice comes from an experienced professional with anecdotes to back up his suggestions. Your recent graduation from a university should leave research and methodology courses fresh in your mind. You would not draw assumptions in philosophy, biology and other fields without sufficient evidence. You should apply this same standard to free career advice.

In contrast, the worst career advice comes from people who think that one-size-fits-all platitudes help in every situation. A relative who says that the secret to any job lies in a single characteristic or action cannot be regarded as a trustworthy source of career advice. There are few professions where one piece of advice is sufficient to guiding a professional toward profit and happiness. Your quest for advice on building a successful career should take into account multiple points of view. These tips can help you develop relationships with trusted advisors who can offer help throughout your career.

Integrity Career Transitions asked:


When the going gets tough, the tough get…creative. With over 11 million people in the country now out of work and the unemployment rate up to over 9%, competition in the job market is getting hotter than ever.

Gone are the days when waiting for job advertisements to come up or visiting your local employment agency were enough. Jobseekers these days are having to be proactive in their campaign, and more than ever they are having to make sure that they stand out from the competition – or eliminate it altogether.

So, what is the answer? Does a guy or a gal have to don a clown costume or run amok with a pitchfork to get noticed these days? In short, no. There is an easier, and a more legal way, and it is called branding.

Branding is a marketing term which is all about deliberately and consciously creating an image that ‘customers’ can form an emotional attachment to. It is what gives them that warm, fuzzy feeling when they think about a particular product or service or company, and when it comes to the moment of choice, it is what ‘pre-sells’ one commodity over another. In the same way that BMW conjures up images of sleek style and remarkable performance, branding makes your name synonymous with the job that you want and the skills and qualities that a prospective employer needs.

Make no mistake, you have a brand image already, whether you realize it or not – it just might not be one that you are comfortable with. Put yourself in a prospective employer’s shoes – but do it honestly. What would you think of you? Do you see a guy who always does a good job and does it on time, or someone with a ‘can’t do’ attitude who is lacking in motivation? If it is the latter, then maybe now is the time to re-invent yourself.

Honest self-analysis is one of the keys to successful personal branding, and you can make a start on this by taking a good, hard look at your strengths and weaknesses. List your skills, qualifications and experience. Hone in on your positive personality traits. Consider the areas where there may be weaknesses, things that you can address and improve upon. Keep an image in the back of your mind of the person that you want a prospective employer to see when you walk in through the door, and make yourself that person.

Branding is not about eliminating the fun things, the quirkiness, from your personality. It is about recognizing and capitalizing on your marketable qualities, and about growing those qualities to make you even more desirable within the job market. It is about making a personal promise to a potential employer that will make him feel reassured and confident.

When you have a clearer idea of what it is that you want to project to the outside world, verbalize it. Create your own branding statement – a short, succinct statement that sums up what you are best at and what your unique promise of value to an employer is. This is not merely a job title, but a statement that sums up your skills, your abilities and your uniqueness.

Once you have done this, put your branding statement absolutely everywhere – on your business cards, website, blog, Facebook account and anywhere else you can think of. Make your brand part of every offline and online interaction that you have. Research the market and the industry you want to be in, identify potential employers and network your way into the job you want. With a strong brand that not only promises, but delivers, your reputation will precede you and open the doors to that inner sanctum, the ‘hidden’ market.

Created your brand already? What is your promise of value to a potential employer or your killer branding statement?

Madisen Harper writes:

I’ve never been one who loves ’serving customers’, I’m a far greater fan of being on the receiving end of good service. So when I received a request from one of my team members to return a phone call from a man who wanted to speak to “someone in charge”, I had a feeling I may need to brush up on my ‘how to deal with difficult customer’ skills.

When I called the customer he asked me if I had read the email. Of course, I had to clarify which of the thousands of emails sent to and from our company each day he was referring to and he identified a recent piece of marketing correspondence.

Once I had it front of me, he demanded, “Well, can you see a problem with it?” When I said “No” he huffed and referred me to a sentence that had the words “employee’s time”. He confidently advised me that there shouldn’t be an apostrophe.

Initially I was dumbstruck that somebody would waste their time ringing up about an apostrophe, but once I regained my speech I politely advised him that I believed the wording was correct. It was the time belonging to the employee and therefore the apostrophe indicated a possessive noun.

Twenty minutes later there was no reasoning, no other issues and no winning. He accused me of not being able to see the error as it was an “Americanization of grammar”, I didn’t realize America had its own apostrophe system. When I told him I wasn’t from the U.S. he accused, “You’ve got an American accent!”

The conversation continued its decline and he asked that the situation be escalated to the CEO as he, incorrectly, believed that an apostrophe was not supposed to be in an email.

Temporarily falling into little girl mode I thought, ‘I’m going to get into trouble’, which I thankfully realized was ridiculous.

I hung up feeling extremely frustrated. It was like being bound and gagged, as I believed I wasn’t able to express myself because I was representing a company that I was consulting for and didn’t own. What I really wanted to say was, “I’m going to end this conversation as we’re not getting anywhere. I’m sorry if you believe the grammar is incorrect, but it’s not, so let’s agree to disagree and not waste any more of each other’s time. Goodbye.”

This guy was nothing compared to previous customer conversations I experienced when owning a plus-size fashion business with my best friend, Ivana. We held fashion parades throughout the city and one day I received a phone call from a woman complaining about one of our models. “I can’t believe you let a size 26 woman on the catwalk. I was embarrassed for her as she strutted her stuff, looking so confident. She was obese and had rolls of fat. I’m her size and I’d never look that happy and confident wearing clothes.”

How do you respond to that? She was obviously displacing her insecurities onto our confident model and Ivana handled it perfectly, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but we’re often commended for using beautiful women who represent all body sizes”.

It was overhearing Ivana’s response that I learned “sorry” wasn’t an apology, but a statement of understanding the complainer’s feelings.

Fortunately, Ivana had extensive experience in customer service ranging from: clients who loved her work as a web designer until they received the bill, to her stint as a customer service representative at a health care company where she took a call from a lady complaining how painful it was to remove her sanitary pad, the cause? Let’s just say, she wasn’t facing the adhesive side towards her underpants. Or, how about the diabetic who complained that a sugar substitute she used to bake a cake caused her blood sugar levels to skyrocket. When they asked how many slices she ate, she admitted to eating the entire cake. She obviously forgot about the carbohydrate component.

As I gladly escalated the apostrophe issue to the CEO’s secretary it got me thinking, is it OK to accept unreasonable behavior from a customer because you don’t want to jeopardize the reputation of the firm you work for?

If customers have legitimate complaints they have a right to be assertive, but not aggressive or rude. I felt trapped because I wasn’t clear on the company’s policy for handling these situations, so in reality, I probably tolerated a lot more than was necessary.

Does your company have a policy that outlines when it’s OK to say, “Enough is enough” and you know your actions will be supported?

What about those in front-line positions, who may frequently deal with unreasonable people, you’ve got to ask, “How does this affect me psychologically and how can I avoid getting fired when protecting myself against clients I really want to tell to take a hike?”

Maltreatment should not be tolerated by organizations, so if there’s no complaints handling policy, ask for one to be created that is fair to both the customer and employee. Remember, we may be workers, but we’re not whipping boys (or girls)!

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