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In the Driver's Seat

Category Archives: Self-Employment

Let Me Interview You About Your Interesting Career

Career Interviews

Do you do work that you find deeply engaging? Are you proud of what you do and want to share it with others? If so, I’d like to interview you for my new career series, every Thursday, called “What Do You Do and How Did You Get Your Start?” I’ll be interviewing a …
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Look Ahead in Your Job Hunt, Not Behind You

Look Ahead

In a tough economy, I often hear job-seekers worry about “the competition” – with so many people looking for jobs, it’s harder to be the chosen one. I believe that your biggest competition is yourself—the fear that goes on inside your head, the lack of confidence that stops you from doing your best …
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Don’t Freelance Too Early in Your Career

Man Freelancing

I read a post citing research claiming that only 27% of Millenials prefer to work full-time than to freelance. Now granted, this survey was conducted by Elance, a freelancers’ website, but even so, that figure disturbed me. According to the author, the desire to freelance is fueled by the lack of job security …
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You may have heard me wax poetic about LinkedIn, which I think is a fantastic—and underused tool—for career developers, as well as job seekers. But there’s one area where Facebook has it beat, and that’s when it comes to wanting to connect with a specific group of people on a particular topic. I …
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What’s Your Advice?

I’m in the advice business, so I spend a lot of time offering my opinion on all variety of topics. I realize that I’ve come to believe in certain guiding rules over the years, which have come to me from all over, and I thought I would share them with you. Dear Reader, …
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The Loneliness of the Hard-Working Blogger

I feel I’ve been remiss in not contributing to my own blog since I started blogging for The Examiner. http://www.examiner.com/x-3845-NY-Career-Change-Examiner I’ve been hard at work, blogging away,  because I thought it would help my career. So as soon as my application was accepted I started poring over the material on how to promote my …
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Talent and Confessions

Tonight I took my daughter to see the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic, a guilty pleasure if there ever was one. Apart from being an abomination in its portrayal of women–picture rabid, shopping women, stampeding and punching each other at sample sales as they compete for merchandise–the movie told an appealing truth. The …
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That Confidence Thing

I was having a talk with a friend the other day–she’s a professor who regularly writes and speaks at industry conferences. This is an important part of her work since it impacts her credibility as well as her ability to get tenure at her university. She was lamenting that, although she knows and …
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Tough Times Are a Litmus Test for Whether You’re in the Right Career

You don’t need me to tell you that the business climate is very uncertain, to say the least. However, if you still have a job, it’s likely that you’re busier than ever. After all, there are plenty of clients needing hand-holding and persuading, plenty of bosses needing you to do a lot of …
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Pinching Herself

I had lunch with a colleague yesterday, a woman named Suzanne Zemke, whom I met through coaching. Having worked in big corporations for most of her career, Suzanne was given the “gift” of a layoff several months ago. Instead of going back to the same type of job with the requisite steady paycheck, …
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