Tag Archives: career advice

is it better to be busy or have nothing to do?

Being busy or taking it easy at work. It’s a tough choice sometimes. I know that many people think it would be easier to sit in one place all day and do nothing. But it’s not. Another question is whether it would be better to be busy in short spurts, or better to be busy almost all the time. I’ve had my experience doing both as a consultant, and the answer is clear to me.

There’s nothing worse than having nothing to do. Nothing. I didn’t think that when I was younger, but doing anything was always better than having a full day with nothing to do. Doing nothing all day isn’t fun, even if you are still getting paid for it. I have learned, through sad experience, doing nothing – no matter what the pay – is not worth it. Much of a professional life is made up of boredom and ennui. In fact, the main goal, at least in my opinion, of a professional life is to avoid such boredom and ennui.

If you are busy at your job count yourself lucky. If you are busy at your job, and enjoy your job, then count yourself doubly lucky. It’s everything to both enjoy your job and be busy doing it. Most Americans are one, or the other…or neither. The worst, of course, is to be neither busy nor to enjoy your job. This is, sadly, the fate of most corporate workers.

I’m lucky. I’ve done enough consulting work that I am able to select the types of projects that I want to do. Not everyone is like this. Many people have to accept jobs that either do not engage them, or do not keep them busy enough. I was like this earlier in my career, of course. But now I value this ability to stay busy more than almost any other aspect of a job. If the client can keep me busy for the better part of the day, I can absorb myself in my work and do a good job. But if a client tells me, well, we’ll have something to do for you next week, but for now just wait - well, it’s hard to stay motivated, and in fact I’ll likely end up reading the newspaper. And since hippies don’t like the news, I don’t want to end up doing that, either.

I know it’s popular in blogger circles to talk about finding your passion. I know it’s a good idea, and I have like to think I can do the same. But the simple truth is that sometimes busyness can substitute for passion. Sometimes simply staying busy for the best part of the work day can be an adequate substitute for enjoying what you do. Of course if you’re making widgets, and you have to spend eight hours a day twisting a widget head on to a widget body, it’s not fun. But if you have a job that is marginally satisfying, and you can work hard at it all day long, that job is probably more satisfying than the more interesting job which does not keep you busy.

It’s counterintuitive … I know. You’d like to think that you need passion to continue working with fervor. But you don’t. Often, it’s enough to simply be working hard at something you tolerate. I can’t say that I love my client work. But when they keep me busy, it’s enough. The work’s moderately interesting, and frankly I don’t have enough time to sit around and think about what I’d rather be doing. Maybe I’d rather be building sand castles, or working on the next Great American novel, but the simple fact is I’m doing a good job and staying focused on the task and… getting paid.

So tried thinking about that the next time that you are looking for a new job. Focus on jobs that allow you to stay busy. Obviously, you should focus on jobs that utilize your skills and your abilities to the best possible advantage. But past that, you also need to find a job that allows you to stay busy. Trust me, in the long run you will be much happier.

I don’t want to leave this job in a coffin

coffin (2)

This post was inspired by a great post over at Money Smart Life called Life’s Too Short for a Crappy Job; I left a comment there, but I felt like I should repost and expand what I talked about there. I’ve been a victim of the keep-your-job-at-any-cost mentality. This is what happened to me.

I vividly remember about 12 years ago working at a consulting firm I hated. The hours were ridiculous. During the busiest part of the year 80-90 per week was standard. I broke the magic 100 one time; I’ll save you the math and point out that’s 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. In at 8 or 9 am, out at 11 pm or so.. The pay was pathetic (on an hourly basis less than minimum wage, since I didn’t get overtime). I worked so much that my girlfriend at the time dumped me after one too many cancelled dates. And worst of all, my hatred for the job and exhaustion started to cause me to make mistakes, which made me work even longer hours to fix them. But worse problems loomed.

In the story at Money Smart Life, a few of the people sticking out their terrible jobs develop tooth-grinding conditions that require dental care and maybe even surgery. And here’s what killed me about that: someone develops a teeth-grinding condition and doesn’t realize their job is killing them? They complain about their job, they suffer terrible illnesses, and don’t DO something about it? Like quit, right away?

I thought “that’s ridiculous” and then I remembered that close to the end of my awful consulting job I developed an ulcer and threw up blood a few times…. and didn’t quit. I was throwing up before and after work and thought it was just because I was stressed. Think about that and wonder why I’m not crazy. Or why I am.

What finally made me quit was this: I was getting ready to go to work one morning. I had a cold and was feeling a bit woozy, but it was a big meeting. As I put on my tie, I fell down on the floor and passed out for a few minutes. When I got up, I STILL went to work (not the hospital). I waited until after the meeting to go to my doctor, who informed me that I didn’t have a cold - I had pneumonia AND bronchitis. And that I would probably be dead in six months if I didn’t address my health.

Really - he said that. Dead in six months. He wasn’t kidding. He said it in a very doctor-ish tone, so I knew he was serious.

It took that to make me quit. And I was single and didn’t have a mortgage or car payments or anything that really tied me to that job, other than the idea that this was MY JOB (in all caps). I had destiny, and the Protestant work ethic, and I would NOT QUIT (again, in all caps). There was no reason I couldn’t quit, though, except that I was career driven. I’m not in that line of work anymore, by the way. What a waste.

I look back on it and wish I could go back and punch myself in the head and tell myself “life’s too short for a crappy job.” Completely true. Well worth remembering here, close to the start of a new year. If you’re having health problems because you hate your job that much – don’t kid yourself. It’s not you… it’s the job. Quit.

Photo is Some rights reserved by longhorndave

crappy jobs, Wal-Mart and links

florida sky

This week I came across a couple of articles that I had something to say about, and a couple I simply enjoyed for reading pleasure – plus a bunch of others that might be useful to you or that just caught my attention for one reason or another.

I’ve gotta say…

Two articles are going to prompt a few comments from me. First came Life’s Too Short for a Crappy Job. I wrote a fairly lengthy comment at the end of this post, so hop over there to read it, but the gist of my comment (and the post) was this: do not kill yourself for a job. Work hard, sacrifice, fine. Endanger your health, your sanity, or your mental stability? Never. Times are tough – I’m having a terrible time with my consulting business – but don’t assume that a job that is going to hurt you in the short term, or the long term, is something you need to pursue.

The other article was “Wal-Mart Saves You Money Even if You Never Shop There.” Well, of course it does. It depresses local communities so buying power is lower. It uses near-serf labor from developing countries for many of its goods. It doesn’t respect unions, or help with health care costs like most major corporations. It’s a bargain. I’ve come all the way from being a Wal-Mart shareholder – I made a lot of money off their stock in the 80s and 90s – to refusing to shop there. Companies like these simply can’t be the future of American capitalism. Don’t shop there for the holidays. At least shop at their marginally more responsible big-box competitors like Costco and Target (and of those two, Costco is far better).

And then a few more comments…

Using a Health Savings Account to Lower Your Medical and Health Insurance Costs: Health care costs are on the rise. Learn how a Health Savings Account can help you save money.

Should I Use a Debit Card or Credit Card? Frugal Dad examines the pros and cons of both credit cards and debit cards.

I’m switching to e-bills and e-statements: No more paper for this guy!

Best Small Business Credit Cards - Have a small business? Consider one of these cards to help provide the cash flow flexibility to meet the needs of your growing small business. Provide purchase protection and earn rewards too.

6 Things To Consider When Moving For A Job. Moving for a job can be a bad thing, or a great thing. Make certain you make that decision with your eyes wide open.

What Is Peer to Peer (Person to Person) Lending? - A description of what peer to peer lending is and how it works. Best Military Movies Giveaway. Share your favorite military movies and enter to Win $100 in Amazon Gift Cards!

And lastly, the grab bag:

6 things to study for the well-rounded mind

smart-drug

What are the best subjects to learn for business - and life - success? If anyone sat down to identify the perfect secondary (and maybe college) education, I doubt they would come up with today’s average American curriculum. While there are plenty of courses in basic skills (reading, writing, mathematics, and so on) many other just as critical basic skills are overlooked (personal finance, homemaking, health/physical education). What are some of the critical components missing from our national curriculum?

From my own personal experience, I can suggest a few, but there are probably many more you can think of easily. I could also bash a few courses I took, but an argument can always be made for “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.” I believe that sincerely. I have never, for example, “used” A Tale of Two Cities in my day-to-day life, but I’m glad I was forced to read it, stuck with it and finished it. Experiences like that created a love of reading for me. Other subjects I guess can be chalked up to “generally good to know although not terribly useful.” For me this included subjects like biology and mythology (one semester of “English” was actually spent studying mythology, which apparently means “Greek mythology” since we didn’t study anything else (not even the excellent D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths). While those subjects were sometimes interesting, I didn’t learn much from either except that I don’t like biology and that you shouldn’t steal fire from the gods.

Here are a few subjects that are very useful, and why:

1. Typing. Out of all of the courses I’ve taken in my life, this one has made the most profound difference in my daily life. I took a typing course in high school, back when it meant learning to pound out “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” 500 times on a MANUAL typewriter. However, the experience taught me how to type, and very, very well, which means I can blaze away typing even while carrying on a conversation or reading something else. I doubt I have to explain to anyone who uses a computer why lightning-fast typing speed is useful.

2. Speech. I took a public speaking class that changed my life. Before that class, like everyone, I was nervous about speaking. After it, I was still nervous, but I learned that it was a temporary nervousness and that anything was possible. We had to give speeches to groups, recite monologues, debate, take questions and almost any type of “speaking in front of a crowd” activity you can think of. To this day I am relaxed and confident speaking to any group; I have addressed 2000 people or 10 board directors or 1 interviewer with equal calm.

3. Personal finance. I didn’t ever take a personal finance course, and I wish I had. Everything I learned about finance before college came from my parents, my grandparents about money, part 1 | brip blap or my own reading. A course that taught me things they weren’t as familiar with or not as proficient with - real estate dealings come to mind - would have been a great learning experience for me. That having been said, I’m sure personal finance would use textbooks sponsored by Capital One and tout the benefit of home equity loans to consolidate credit card debt.

4. Physical education. As a varsity athlete I was exempt from physical education, but I wish I hadn’t been. Learning to do some very basic “normal” training would have been helpful. I focused all of my energy on preparation for one sport (tennis) rather than general fitness. This had disastrous results later in life.

5. Homemaking. Don’t laugh. I think learning how to cook could save this country billions in health care costs. Imagine if people could actually prepare healthy food at home. My mother is a terrific cook, and I never had any motivation throughout high school to learn how to cook. I went straight from there to a fraternity house where meals were provided. When I finally started living on my own, my gourmet best was frozen pizza…

6. Civics. I took a civics course, but it was ridiculous. My wife, who is an immigrant, was required to undergo detailed testing before she obtained US citizenship on the Constitution, US history and civic life. Now, it may not be necessary for everyone in this country to know how many Congressmen there are or how many Supreme Court justices there are (although they should) but everyone should know the Bill of Rights and their civic duties (jury duty and so on).

Optional Bonus #7: A foreign language. Now, many people might disagree with me on this suggestion, and of course many people feel a certain nationalistic need to defend English as “America’s language” or French as “Belgium’s language” or whatever. I don’t really think most people need to become fluent in a foreign language, and I’ve been a great proponent of the world agreeing on a true lingua franca – a second language everyone would learn. As of today, that language might be English – it’s fairly easy to learn and already quite widespread. But 100 years from now it might be Portuguese, or Spanish. Who knows, who cares. The point is that foreign languages open up your mind. Studying a foreign language helps you understand that different people think differently. That’s invaluable, in my opinion. My life so far has taken a vastly different direction than it might have thanks to my study of foreign languages – especially Russian. You can see why by reading an old post of mine, “boosting your career with an overseas stint“.

You could go on, but these are some basic courses that would make a big difference in the US population. They are not taught often enough, and it’s a shame they aren’t. I am amazed to this day when I see people hunt-and-peck on the keyboard - not because I blame them, but because that’s not a basic required course for graduation from high school today. The same goes for the other 5 subjects up there. It’s hard to say when they will be required - or if they ever will be - but we can hope.

average career salaries

If I could travel back in time and give myself a little bit of career advice, I’d spend some time talking to young Steve about earnings over a lifetime of work, or average career salaries. The median elementary school teacher salary in the US, for example, makes about $51,000 a year. The median attorney salary is closer to $91,000. The median auditor is closer to $58,000. Here is the difference, though: a median is just a median, meaning that half of the people with that profession make more than that figure, and half make less.

The school teacher population is going to be made up of a lot of teachers making between $40,000 and $51,000 a year – maybe younger teachers, or lower-cost-of-living areas. The other half might make $51,000 to $70,000 or so. There might be a few outliers in expensive areas – New York or San Francisco – but there will not be teachers making $450,000 a year. The system is not designed to allow anyone to escape into a significantly higher pay bracket (and we’re talking about teachers, not teachers who become administrators – that’s a different job).

That’s a real difference from some other professions. Take the Big 4 firms – Ernst & Young, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG. An auditor in a Big 4 firm probably makes less than a schoolteacher to begin with (particularly on an hourly basis). These lower-level auditors make up the majority of the employees of the firm. For every partner, there might be five managers, each of whom might oversee ten staff (for example). So 6 of every 56 people are managers or above, and only 1 in 56 are partners (I made up those ratios, but based on my experience that’s a fair guess). So the median’s lowered to account for the huge number of lower-level staff.

But in an environment like that, the chance for exceptional rewards for exceptional performance exists. Now, if you’ve worked in a corporate environment or read my last post on stupidification, you know that exceptional performance is not always the requirement for getting rewarded. Sometimes it’s being the CFO’s nephew. But as compared to the teachers above, there is a chance that earnings can grow far, far beyond their starting levels. A teacher can’t, even if they win an award as the greatest teacher in their state. An outstanding diplomat can’t break out of the government pay grades.

What all of this means is that not only do you have to consider the starting salary for your career, but you have to look at what the possibilities for exceptional earnings are. I know earnings are not everything. Many people can also fall into the trap of believing that they will be the exceptional performer, but in a bottom-heavy organization far more people will quit or be fired than will make partner or executive.

So consider average career earnings, and then think about whether you are willing to be the exceptional performer. If you aren’t, maybe the average career earnings aren’t that critical. If you don’t plan to excel, a career where everyone can be expected to be compensated within a narrow range is fine. If you do plan to excel, make sure it’s in a profession where that excellence might result in reward. That’s not to denigrate teaching or praise public accounting. I realized early on in my career in public accounting I wouldn’t be a partner; I didn’t have the drive to be an exceptional auditor. So I joined the lower level of the median salaries and might have been happier – and done better over the course of my first 10-15 years of working – had I done a job search and chosen a different career path, with a narrower bank of average career salaries.

Note: I haven’t read Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? yet, but I gather that’s what that book is all about – the idea of making yourself into an “artist,” which Godin believes makes you deeply committed to becoming indispensible to your organization. Maybe I should read it…

networking is not about quid-pro-quo

rome

Quid-pro-quo means “something for something” and in a capitalist society we’re trained to think about this rule governing almost all transactions, both commerce and personal. Just as we expect to hand over $1 for a pack of gum, the guy selling the gum expects to receive that $1. Most people say “I love you” with the expectation that it will be returned with “I love you, too.” Very few transactions escape the quid-pro-quo “law”: maybe doing things for your children, or working overtime for your employer (but even there, you might argue you’re hoping to keep your job in exchange for unpaid work).

But networking isn’t (exactly) like that. You can’t expect someone to return something of equal or greater value every time you help someone through networking. If someone puts you in touch with a new client that generates six figures of income for you, do you owe that person a six-figure client? Do you owe them anything? No, you don’t, but you do owe someone something. At the risk of sounding like I’m using a movie to establish my point, you have to pay it forward.

If all networks operated on a quid-pro-quo basis, many people would find large networks a full-time job. The advantages to helping out newer members of an industry or smaller businesses would be minimal, because you couldn’t count on them to return your help quickly or easily. That’s not how a network should work, though. You’ll often read in career advice books/blogs/columns that you should give help in a network (or on Twitter or whatever the social media darling of the day is) without expecting an automatic equal return of the favor. That’s true to a point: you should give help without expecting a return of the favor from that person, but you do have every right to expect a return of the favor from the network as a whole. It may not be immediate - and it certainly may not be obvious - but that return over time has to occur to make the network worthwhile.

Look at how you help people in your network, be it social, professional, educational - whatever. If you aren’t receiving at least equal value back out of your network compared to what you put in, your network is broken. There will always be those who take more than they give, but on whole the network has to provide more value to you than you put into it. If it doesn’t, get out.

Of course value can be companionship or fun, not something as quantifiable as clients or services. But value has to be there. If you find yourself putting more of yourself into any of your networks - and I’m including ‘social media’ such as Facebook or Twitter as well as traditional networks like professional associations, churches or friends - then maybe you should consider finding a new way to spend your time and effort. If it doesn’t make you money, then it should be fun. If it doesn’t make you money and it’s not fun, why are you doing it? There are many other activities you could be doing that make you money or let you have fun instead. Go do them.

photo by ** Maurice **

how to make yourself an expert

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I know I’ve said this before, but I’ve never had any debt in my life other than a mortgage and a one-time, ill-advised car loan that I paid off three years early. I have taken advantage of “0% down until 2011” types of offers, but I’ve always taken the money needed to pay for the item, set it aside and treated it as if it was already spent. I just don’t do debt.

Would you seek advice from a guy who’s been skinny his whole life - about dieting? I guess you might. Plenty of people are “experts” in things they’ve never experienced. It’s not a prerequisite for dieticians to be a formerly obese person. Conversely, a formerly obese person might not be the best person to ask about dieting. For all you know, they got a gastric band and lost weight without ever learning self-discipline.

Would you take ‘get out of debt’ advice from someone who’s never been in debt? Or career advice from someone who’s always been a career coach and never actually held down a job? Can someone actually be a high school guidance counselor if they’ve never been anything but a high school guidance counselor?

I’d like to think I’m an expert in quite a few things. The guys on CNBC and writing at the Wall Street Journal might also like you to think they are experts. Maybe they are. Maybe I am. I have never taken a course in personal finance. Maybe they haven’t, either. Certification helps - CPA, JD, etc. - but often we assume people are experts because of the way they talk, or dress or because other people tell us they are. But let’s assume we’re talking about “real” experts - people who do understand a particular subject.

Why are experts smarter than we are? They aren’t. They spent more time on a subject, studied more, worked harder or even just experienced something sooner than we did. I can give advice on getting out of debt but I’ve never done it myself. I can talk about the procedures anyone needs to take to get out of debt: stop incurring new debt, spend less than you earn, start paying down the debts and then (optionally) learn how to earn more. Can I talk about the psychology of ‘getting out of debt?’ Freezing the credit cards or cutting them up seems almost childish to me, but I realize that to many people it’s a moment of victory, of success. Someone who’s been thin all their lives might look at my advice on weight loss and think “sheesh, why didn’t he just put down the damn Doritos before he got so fat?” It’s not that easy.

Finding an expert therefore becomes a struggle. In money, should you trust Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki or Suze Orman, very successful people who are, in part, trying to make money off their advice? Should you trust bloggers, who trudge along the same streets as you? Or CNBC reporters who entertain while they analyze? The ability to trust is different from person to person. By nature, I’m cynical and tend not to trust. By profession (auditor), I tend not to trust.

The lesson: the only expert in your own life is you. If you are lucky, you have trusted advisors without agendas who want to help you: spouses, relatives, friends, teachers or colleagues. At the end of the day, though, don’t assume that someone who isn’t in your shoes can tell you how to lose weight or succeed at work or get out of debt. Take some responsibility for making yourself into an expert.

photo by alancleaver_2000

Carnival of Careers #5

Welcome to the Carnival of Careers #5, back at brip blap for the week! There were a lot of great submissions below, and I highlighted a few as my picks. Enjoy!


Creative Commons License photo credit: Daquella manera

Editor’s Picks:

Kristie presents Bored with your job? Work overseas for the summer! posted at Norway - An American In Oslo. It’s a cool idea from someone living in a cool place…

mbhunter presents The most important thing you can do for your job posted at mbhunter. A good reminder for anyone who grumbles about their job regularly.

Mark Butler presents Why Everyone Should Experience a Sales Job posted at The Butler Project. I have done a tiny bit of selling but it’s always been business-to-business selling rather than trying to sell to individuals; Mark has a good idea why everyone should at least attempt sales.

work-life balance
Will presents Sample of How To Write A Condensed Work Week Proposal posted at Your Finish Rich Plan. This is a great starting point for trying to convince your boss to give you a condensed work week - flex time, telecommuting, job sharing, etc.

MoneyNing presents A Dollar Saved is Two Dollars Earned but Two Dollars Earned is Twenty Dollars Saved posted at Money Ning. A new look at savings and income!

career management
Silicon Valley Blogger presents Traditional Jobs For Men And Women And The Gender Divide » Money and Personal Finance Blog In Silicon Valley posted at The Digerati Life. It’s surprising to think that there are careers in which 99% of the workers are one gender, but there are quite a few.

Andrew Heath presents People Forgive Mistakes, Not Personalities posted at Rants of a Gay Lunatic. Spending time focusing on others’ mistakes makes you look petty, and nobody likes petty.

Phil for Humanity presents Everyone has a Boss posted at Phil for Humanity. Most of us even have more than a single boss. This is a fact of life that no one can escape.

The Baglady presents The Importance and Benefits Non-Profit and Public Service Jobs posted at The Baglady. This was an interesting article for me, personally, since my brother just made the leap from a corporate behemoth to a governmental job, exchanging a big salary for benefits out the wazoo. That’s not ALL the article is about, because it focuses on the positive rewards non-profit and public service jobs can give to the individual.

career advice
Carrie presents The lucky 7: Lessons in entrepreneurship, courtesy of my father posted at Our Common Cents. Entrepreneurial mindsets do teach people not to rely on the supposedly-safe paycheck, and I think that does help in their financial lives, as well.

Raymond presents My List Of The Top 5 Most Overrated Careers and Jobs posted at Money Blue Book. I can’t say I disagree with the list, but it’s missing corporate consultants!

Dereck presents How to become what you want to become, in about two days posted at I Will Not Die. The biggest obstacle to achieving your goal is usually (unfortunately) you.

Rich Leverage presents How to Work Less and Make More Money With Multiple Streams of Income posted at Rich Credit Debt Loan. About diversification of income. Diversity reduces risk. Eventually the goal is passive income covering living expenses, then working for anything other than fun is no longer necessary.

Akemi presents Successful Entrepreneurs Are Great Problem-Solvers: Laura Bennett posted at Yes to Me. I’d say that the skills successful entrepreneurs have would also make them successful employees, too!

Ted presents The Ultimate Graduation Resource List posted at CampusGrotto. A good list of career resources for new grads.

Ian Lurie presents HVAC Training: Starting a new career posted at HVAC Training. If you want to learn about an HVAC career, this is your chance to start. Right now.

job stories
Michael presents Law Student Leaves Gang Life For School Life posted at International Law News. Just once, though, I’d like to see a “lawyer leaves corporate office to lead a life of crime.” Oh wait, they don’t have to leave the corporate office for that, do they…

TheLifeLessTraveled presents How to Start Your Dream Company, Founders of Fred Flare Share Their Story posted at The Life Less Traveled. That’s a good point; don’t just think about starting a company, think about starting your DREAM company.

The Financial Blogger presents When It Doesn’t Make Sense; Don’t Be Afraid to Speak Out posted at The Financial Blogger. This is a story about a classroom situation that would apply equally in a work situation.

That’s it for this edition of the carnival! Thanks to everyone who participated and I hope you found a few interesting articles here. Remember to submit an article for the next edition which will be July 14 at Money Smart Life. I’m skipping next Monday simply since it’s going to be a busy weekend (both for me and everyone else) . If you’re interested in hosting, there are spots available in August!

Carnival of Careers #1

Welcome to the June 2, 2008 edition of carnival of careers! This is the inaugural edition, and the first of many to come! Considering all of the articles are about work and jobs and careers, I thought I’d add in a few pictures and facts about some of the most popular beach/seaside destinations in the world.

First, the editor’s picks:

squawkfox presents How to Choose a New Career posted at squawkfox. Part of a five-part series, this article can help you kick-start your career planning.

Erek Ostrowski presents Manifesting a Job You Actually Want (Step Two) posted at Verve Coaching. The second step in manifesting a job you actually want is to create a conversation �for� what you want in a job (here’s the first step).


Creative Commons License photo credit: adpowers

Cancun, Mexico: There are about 140 hotels in Canc�n with more than 24,000 rooms and 380 restaurants. Four million visitors arrive each year in an average of 190 flights daily. The Hotel Zone of Cancun is shaped like a 7 with bridges on each end connecting to the mainland. Hotels on the vertical or long side of the 7 tend to have rougher beaches and beach erosion can be a problem. Resorts on the horizontal or short end of the seven tend to have more gentle surf because the waves here are blocked by the island of Isla Mujeres which lies just off shore. The Hotel Zone offers a broad range of accommodations, ranging from relatively inexpensive motel-style facilities in the older section closest to the mainland, to high-priced luxury hotels in the later sections. (read more)

general

Sheila Danzig presents Start Your Nursing Career Today posted at Degree Talk Blog.

Praveen presents 10 Businesses You Can Run in Your Pajamas posted at My Simple Trading System.

David Cassell presents A Better Way To Destroy The GMAT posted at selectcoursesblog.com.

Skyler Reep presents I Will “Lose” Your R�sum� posted at Skyler Reep’s Blog: “I am an interviewer. I receive hundreds of r�sum�s per year, and I make dozens of interviews. With this qualification in mind, believe me when I tell you everything you have heard about writing a r�sum� is wrong.”


Creative Commons License photo credit: antonellomusina

St. Thomas. Part of the island looks very much like the countryside of France, with cattle grazing in green fields. And west of downtown there even is a place called Frenchtown. Whether you stop atop a mountain or along the shore, be sure to sample one of our tropical drinks made with the exotic island alcohol, rum (pronounced “room”).

career advice

Metaliphe presents Are you overworked and underpaid but love your job? posted at Chandra Unplugged - No nonsense, Straight-up blogging from a Life Coach: Learn how to create the job you love and get paid well for what you love to do.”

Sagar presents Twitter for Librarians: The Ultimate Guide posted at College@Home.

deepali presents man is by nature a political animal posted at Paradigm Shifted.

Writers Coin presents Degrees are Important, but not THAT Important posted at The Writer’s Coin: “Education degrees can open doors, but not using your skills wisely can shut them”


career finance

Jim presents Introducing the College Grad Money Guide posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.


Creative Commons License photo credit: Mispahn

South Beach is the section of Miami Beach, Florida that encompasses the southernmost 23 blocks of an island separating the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. This area was the first section of Miami Beach to be developed, starting in the 1910s, thanks to the development efforts of Carl G. Fisher, the Lummus Brothers, John S. Collins, and others. The area has gone through numerous man-made and natural changes over the years, including a booming regional economy, increased tourism, and the 1926 hurricane that destroyed much of the area. (read more)

career management

Anna Farmery presents Why are you searching for perfection? posted at The Engaging Brand.

Andy presents Results from 2008 IT Salary Survey posted at Saving to Invest.

Cash Money Life presents No, I Won�t Accept Your Counter Offer posted at Cash Money Life,: why accepting a counter-offer might not be the best idea.

Alan K Rudi presents Critical Thinking Skills for Success in Business and Life posted at Successful Business Leadership.

Dorian Wales presents How to Fortify Your Job: 10 valuable (and challenging) Tips posted at The Personal Financier: 10 invaluable skills which are even more crucial today.

Jessica Donnovan presents Business Ethics - Speaking Up or Keeping Silent? posted at Sensible Self-Improvement.

Danogo presents Exploring Medical Animation As A Career posted at Danogo.com - Discover. Inspiring . Media, saying, “Even artistic types can have a career in the medical field”


Creative Commons License photo credit: tiarescott

Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The island had a population of 178,133 inhabitants according to the August 2007 census.[1] This makes it the most populated island of French Polynesia, with 68.6% of the total population. The capital is Papeete, on the northwest coast. Tahiti has also been historically known as O’tahiti. (read more)

work-life balance

Alvaro Fernandez presents Brain Health Business Grows With Research and Demand posted at SharpBrains, saying, “An in-depth look into the “brain training” field and future directions.”

David B. Bohl presents Secrets of Successful Managers on How to Budget Your Time posted at Slow Down Fast Today!: What do Jim Donald, Susan Lyne, and Bill Gates have in common?

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job jumper tip #1: create a WIDD file

jobjumper1

A neighbor commented to Bubelah that she visited a career coach to help concoct a resume after being laid off. She worked for a major financial institution that decided to layoff thousands of workers after some poor decisions by senior management (who, of course, did not lay themselves off).

Having worked for this company for her entire career, she had never prepared a resume again after being hired 15 years ago. I was shocked to hear this. My experience has been radically different. I have worked in four different cities and two countries for five different companies. For two of those companies, I made major changes in the department I worked for, necessitating a whole new interview process. As a consultant now, I “interview” for a new client on average once every six months. I do nothing but polish up my resume.

So as a confirmed job jumper myself, I decided to devote the next few Wednesdays to advice for the “job jumper” - someone who willingly jumps from position to position (I’m shifting the link roundups to Fridays). You don’t even need to change companies. My definition of a jumper is someone who needs to interview before working in a position, either internally or externally. How is this different from a job hopper? A job hopper implies (to me, at least) a more casual, laid back approach - just switching jobs for the sake of switching. A job jumper is making a definitive, forceful push for a reason.

These tips will be useful for anyone who is considering a change in their current “job” - even if they are self-employed. My intention is to make each tip simple, as well, because I have come across a lot of dense career advice. Advice you can’t easily use is the worst kind of brain clutter.

So…

Tip 1: Keep a “what I done did” (WIDD) document.

I have a Word document that started out as a Word 2.0 file back in the mid-90s. I think the first time I saved it, it went on a floppy disk. The old school, 5 1/4 inch floppies that were really floppy. This document - I call it my WIDD file - has been a lifesaver over the years. I work in a “project” style job (except for one year in corporate financial reporting). A “project-centric” job means that I have projects that begin and end - I don’t do the same thing month after month. I go to Client XYZ, perform consulting/auditing/accounting/etc., give them a report and move on. Sometimes this takes months and months. Sometimes I do it in one or two days. At one point I managed eight different projects running concurrently (with a staff of 25). The point is that in 15 years I have probably averaged 50+ projects per year.

I kept a written record of what I did at all of them.

This is critical for a jumper. You need to keep a record of what you actually did, not what your duties were. This is different than keeping a resume. When I jump to a new position, I don’t list every project I managed. I do, however, hunt through my WIDD file to see if I can find a skill or experience that is relevant to the position I want to get. I could never keep all of this information in my head, or in a resume. If I keep it in a file that’s easy to search, I can quickly and easily tailor my “bare bones” chronological resume to highlight some clever “hit points.”

You don’t have to keep a long description. Do make sure you hit the high points. For my audit work, I might highlight which parts of their financial statements I personally audited, or difficult accounting issues I had to decide with the client. Two or three bullets usually suffice.

Try and keep a WIDD file. It takes one or two minutes per week to update and the next time you need to prepare a resume, you’ll be able to highlight specific, relevant experience rather than giving a potential employer the same dull, drab resume with generic skills that you give everyone else.

Check out the rest of the job jumper tips:

8 steps to a six figure career

I have a job making well over six figures. I am not bragging but I’m not going to be overly humble about it, either, because I put my blood and tears into getting there. I spent 6 years in college obtaining two degrees (and starting a PhD). I spent most of my twenties working like a maniac in the professional accounting sweatshop industry, also known as the Big 4.

I was horrifically underpaid on an hourly basis - I was working 80 hour weeks when I was making $35,000 per year. I roughly estimate my earnings at the time to have been about $12 per hour. That’s not shabby - it’s probably a working wage in many parts of America - but it’s not exactly what you’d hope for if you have an advanced degree in accounting.

There was a payoff, though. The payoff came in three parts. One: I laid the foundation in my first 10 years for my current position. I view it as retirement in small. I worked hard and was “frugal” with my wage to earn a better “retirement” post-Big 4. I only have the “senior expert consulting” tag now because of the effort I put out for the previous 14 years.

Two, I got to see the world on my companies’ tabs. I traveled from 1996 to 2004 to every single corner of the globe. Some employers flew me coach, some business - I stayed in fleabag hotels in third-world countries but I also stayed in opulent palatial hotels and even in country estates and former palaces. I had to work like a maniac (meeting at 9 am in Frankfurt! meeting at 3 pm in Paris! report due by 2 am European time that night!) but I also got to sip martinis at the nicest lounges on four continents without spending any of my own money.

Three, I learned what the real secrets are to success as a corporate cog. Again, no pride in saying this, just observing what floated and what sank as I slowly, slowly floated. So from that, here are my eight tips to set yourself on the road to a six figure career.

  1. Pick a good college major. Don’t major in English, or history, or poli sci. I’m sorry. It’s true. I love history. My dream major was either linguistics or Russian history, specifically early Soviet history (1917-1939). They still are my dream majors, for that matter. I got a major in mathematics, though. I wasn’t great at it, but I wasn’t bad, either. To this day, though, I get goggle-eyed looks from my finance colleagues when I say I don’t have an accounting degree - I have a degree in MATH! Just like that guy from A Beautiful Mind! I even studied exotica like chaos theory. No matter that I couldn’t explain any of it now - people are still impressed, which leads me to…
  2. Don’t get a job using your major. If you are accounting major #76 out of 100 in your new joiners class, you won’t stand out. If you are the only math major, you’ll stand out. Standing out early in your career is critical - if you don’t start to stand out until your 4th or 5th year, it’s too late (although keep point #8 in mind, too)!
  3. Get a graduate degree or certification. I got a master’s degree, but I just as easily could have gotten a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) or CFA or CFP or CMA, etc. etc. Again, you need something to distinguish yourself from the Bachelor’s crowd - I think my master’s has opened a lot of doors that would otherwise have remained closed. I can’t emphasize this point enough. I know there are people out there who became officers with only a high school education, or a mail-order college degree. You may even find that with the rise in online colleges, more and more people will get degrees online while they work. But at the end of the day, if you want to get into a six-figure career, it’s going to be significantly easier if you have a master’s or an MBA or a law degree or a certification of some sort.
  4. Take a ‘weird’ job. Early in my career (after about 2 years working) I volunteered to go work in Germany - but there were no openings in my company. I then proceeded to volunteer for a number of other assignments - odd ones around the US, in Europe, strange assignments like doing inspections of grain silos (yes, some clients are willing to pay accountants to verify how full silos are). All of my activity got me noticed, and I found myself winging off to Moscow with less than 3 full years’ work experience under my belt. To this day, it’s the first thing that anyone wants to talk about when they see my resume. Always. People are always full of questions, and I can throw out anecdotes that give me the appearance of being a confident self-starter because of my fearless decision. That one experience probably increased my lifetime earnings significantly, despite being (from my point of view) almost meaningless work-wise.
  5. Move to a big city early in your career. The simple fact is that in the 4 years I moved from a small town in the south to Connecticut to New York my salary increased by 200%. It was simply a cost of living adjustment, but that impressive salary growth creates an expectation in your employers. Big cities have more competition, higher costs of living and “fancier” jobs at corporate headquarters. These jobs may not be better but they usually do pay better. So think about looking at a company like United Mayflower to see your moving options.
  6. Shift jobs frequently - but not too frequently. The simple fact is that you’ll hit dead ends all the time. Sometimes they will be external (stuck working for a boss who won’t let you transfer to other departments for new opportunities) and sometimes they will be internal (you just can’t summon any enthusiasm for your current work). Use these as red flags to jump ship! You can get a reenergizing boost to your career, usually for at least a small increase in salary, by taking your expertise to another company that needs it. This also relates to #5 - it’s a lot easier to job hop in New York (hundreds of multinational corporations) than it is in Kansas City (a few). I’m not saying it’s impossible in Kansas City, but the circle of people in your profession will be smaller and eventually you’ll run out of options if you aren’t careful.
  7. Learn to sell yourself. This is an incredibly difficult thing for some people, and it’s hard to understand why. I’ll give you a quick way to get over it. Imagine something you really like: your favorite band, your favorite movie, even the bar around the corner that makes the best martini. Imagine that you’re trying to convince someone who’s indifferent to try listening to that band, or watch that movie, or try that martini. How do you do it? Can you imagine that enthusiasm in your voice, the excitement that you feel? Now take that enthusiasm and sell your favorite person: yourself! Make sure that you aren’t embarrassed to point out your strengths, or even to tell people how you are fixing your weaknesses.
  8. Learn to fly below the radar but do a good job. This advice flies in the face of a lot of career advice. I can state that at the middle management level, going down to staff, one thing and one thing only is valued - serving your master. Your master is your boss. Make your boss look good. If you make yourself look good, by extension you make your boss look bad, because you are stealing his thunder. Learn to perform solidly but quietly. Don’t dash into the CEO’s office with your hot product development idea. This may be the way to earn the CEO’s momentary interest but it will gain you a career-long dislike from your boss. If you want to have cheerleaders in your corner, stay on the sidelines. Have enthusiasm, cheer as loudly as possible, but don’t run out on the field and snatch the ball from the quarterback, your boss.

Think you can’t do it? You can! I have seen incredibly smart, personable, motivated people fail and dull, bitter people succeed. The biggest factor past the 8 steps above has always been a fervent, desperate desire to cling to the corporate bosom and keep getting that paycheck. It is amazing how quickly good people can fail when they realize they would do better following the white rabbit, and how strongly bad people will fight and scratch their way up the ladder to maintain their debt-ridden, consumer-driven lifestyle. I scratched and clawed for years to stay on the corporate treadmill, but finally realized I needed to step off. People constantly ask me what happened as if I’ve failed, but their opinion is unimportant. I took the first step to FREEDOM when I realized a six-figure salary isn’t important if it costs you your life.