Do You Have a Growth-Oriented Daily Reading Habit?

The cumulative impact of reading about personal and professional growth-oriented subjects on a daily basis is one of the surest ways to expand as a professional and a human being. This year, I increased my professional development reading commitment: frequency (daily), quantity (shooting for 30 books) and breadth (outside of my comfort zone). For me, the results have been explosive including expanded self-awareness and effectiveness, increased un…

Employee Disengagement Common - Globe & Mail Interview

I did a lead interview a few years back on employee disengagement for Canada's national newspaper, the Globe & Mail. Is your job satisfaction low? Do you feel disengaged with your work? More to the point, if you think that you have a pattern of self-sabotaging your career or feel disengaged with your job, is to analyze the situation: Is it the job or is it you?

"Certainly a cause of disengagement could be bad times -- layoffs, continuous…

Start 2019 With Smart Action: Take the Free Career Management Assessment

Are you excited about what's possible for your professional life this year? Do you have a plan to grow? We are already into February and it is very normal to lose sight of those goals or ignore the power that a new 12-month cycle brings. I'm going to guess that as the New Year rolled over, you had one of three states:

(1) excitement about continued success and growth,

(2) resolution to figure out how to fix a bad or just so-so…

Are you excited by what's possible for your professional life this year? Do you have a plan to grow? We are already into mid-January (Happy 2019 to you BTW), and it is very normal to lose sight of those goals, or ignore the power that a new 12-month cycle can bring us. I'm going to guess that as the New Year rolled over, you had one of three states:

(1) excitement about continued success and growth,

(2) resolution to figure out how to fix a bad or just so-so professional situation, or

(3) resigna…

Get Your Resume Past the ATS Robots

Ever had the experience of submitting your resume to jobs you thought were a good fit and getting zero response? Don’t assume that the hiring decision maker read your resume and rejected you (the good news). There’s a good chance your resume may not have even made it past the resume screening robots (the bad news).

Rise of the Bots

About 80% of the resume submissions I see today are submitted through software. The exceptions tend to be

(1) really senior opportunit…

Tired of not getting results from LinkedIn? There's 5 LinkedIn steps that drive your career, business and job success on LinkedIn. As a summary of a webinar I delivered this week for UBC Alumni, on “Take Your LinkedIn Presence to the Next Level” I thought I’d share the key points.

Get On-Board the LinkedIn Platform

The LinkedIn platform is growing rapidly. It has become the #1 social platform for “business” and for those who don’t “do” social. Recruitment represents the #1 revenue source for Linke…

In a previous article - Loosen-up: How to write an engaging LinkedIn post, I covered how leveraging the evolving social side of LinkedIn can aid your career growth and job / business success. I began an experiment to illustrate the effectiveness and impact of content with conversation / engagement on LinkedIn. The experiment was successful and I wanted to share my LinkedIn post experiment results with you to help you better leverage LinkedIn.

I wrote a text post, which LinkedIn initially distri…

Engagement is Key

There’s a sea-change occurring on LinkedIn and if you’ve been active in the last months, you’ve already noticed it. Activity is becoming more social, more personal and less “buttoned-down.” If you want traction, you need to loosen-up. Let’s walk through the reasoning and ideas on how to become more engaging on LinkedIn. Don’t get me wrong. LinkedIn is a business platform. What’s happening though is as a result of (1) feature additions / changes, (2) the way the LinkedIn traffic …

There Is No Perfect Path

One of the major roadblocks to career growth, is operating on the assumption or belief that there is a perfect career, one magic job or profession that someone should be in, and that if it could be identified, would be the solution to everything. Or, it's the dream job at a Google or Tesla, so far from where they are currently as to be like a Mount Everest to their basic hiking capabilities.

So, in the absence of finding the perfect career (aka right answer), people stay p…

There's more to career growth than aspirations and goals. These four key career growth questions provide a grounded foundation for pursuing those professional goals. I had an excellent intake meeting this week with a Career Growth Program member, someone fully embedded in one company and his leadership role. He had enrolled in the program not because he intends to move jobs but rather with a view to having more influence over what happens in his 50's and beyond. The thought process of our intake…