Career Pointers

Let me start by saying that I’m writing this blog on November 3, 2020 – election day. What triggered me to start writing this morning, was an article headline I read in an email. I subscribe to a multitude of business and HR related publications and will refrain from using the exact name of the publication, but you get the idea. Anyway, the headline read something to the effect that tomorrow, the day after today’s election, according to more than 65% of the population surveyed, would be the worst day of their lives. Let that sink in a moment….

If you haven’t been on the job market for a while or are contemplating a change in career, you need to know about informational interviewing. An informational interview is an opportunity created to interview someone for information about their career and/or company. This practice is not new but is becoming increasingly popular with job seekers and career changers. Here are some things you should know about and “how tos” if you’re interested in trying this out for yourself.

What’s your biggest work-related fear or nightmare? The prevalence of virtual meetings has likely made some of them come true – not wearing pants to a meeting and being seen, forgetting where you are and doing God knows what on camera, etc.? These are things that can obviously traumatize you (possibly others too). Can you live this stuff down and go on? Have you ever experienced trauma related to your job or career? If you haven’t yet, consider yourself lucky. If you think it won’t happen to you, think again…it can happen to anyone and when it does, the impact can take some time to fade.

Sunday, October 4^th is the official beginning of ”Getting Organized Week”, which is the first full week of every October. Did you know that? I really didn’t until just recently (it’s amazing what you can find doing Google searches!) Anyway, I’ve been doing some cleaning out and reorganizing of cabinets and closets here and there, so the thought of a week entirely devoted to getting organized sounds like a great idea. See, I start plenty of projects and organize certain things, but keeping the momentum up to finish everything just doesn’t ever seem to happen. I need a game plan and a schedule with a deadline – a project plan.