It’s hard to put my finger on a specific time that basic civility started to decline. I suppose we could blame the changes in the use of courtesy on many things. Technology replacing the personal touch has been one excuse, but it seems to be more than that. Is it apathy or something else? In general, people appear to be overloaded, overwhelmed and overstimulated. If that is the case, are we really living in an age whe...

You may not remember exactly when you stopped being excited about getting to work and tackling the day’s challenges. It may have started as a gentle feeling of reluctance – sleeping an extra ten minutes after the alarm went off, or choosing to stop and get a latte on the way to work, even though you were already running late. A few extra z’s helped and a double mocha frappée was a good distraction f...

Staying too long in a role can have extremely negative ramifications for a person’s mental health and marketability. If that’s so, you may be asking, what then is too long and how do you know? What can be done about it? Is it necessary to jump ship? All of these are valid questions and require careful consideration. Before taking any drastic measures, it’s probably time to reassess your own goals and have...

It’s never too early or too late to create a picture of what you want in your life. Dreaming big and imagining all the possibilities open to you is a fabulous start to shaping your life and planning your future. For many, the dreams seem clear, but achieving them remains elusive. If this describes your situation, then get moving in the right direction and make an investment that can ensure your dreams are actually rea...

A strong job market with low levels of unemployment would appear to be good news, but it can also be misleading. There may be many available jobs, but that doesn’t mean a person lacking key qualifications or relevant experience will easily secure a role in a new field or discipline. It will take more than an employer’s desperation to prompt them to hire an “unproven” resource. There is a huge diff...

It’s probably not news to anyone that candidates and employers behave differently in a hot job market than they do in a tight one. When jobs were scarce, candidates may have been victims of company ghosting (they interviewed and never heard another word from the company). With few jobs and abundant candidates, some employers didn’t think they had to bother with basic courtesies. In tough times, some people might...

Procrastination may be one of the most self-sabotaging and all-too-common behaviors leading to failure to achieve career or work-related goals. Some might say many forms of procrastination are “human nature.” Perhaps. You can Google hundreds of articles on the subject written by psychologists who tell us there is more to it than that. Regardless of the cause, the outcome is the same: your options are typically l...

Are you overloaded with communications all day, every day? I know that I am! It seems like many of us spend an inordinate amount of time reading emails and texts, and watching and listening to news clips, videos and sound bites, yet very few messages are received with the sender’s true intent. It’s startling to see how many duplicate messages from advertisers land in my inbox and how many unnecessary texts I rec...

A recent discussion prompted a deeper look into nagging and/or micromanaging. Both behaviors have negative connotations, although each may actually be necessary due to someone else’s unresponsiveness or bad behavior. So why do the naggers get the bad rap while the people who prompt it continue on as if they aren’t part of the problem? Let’s start with an analysis of one the problems. There seem to be di...

In my last post, I covered the reasons why a passive job search typically does not produce the desired or longer-term results. An effective job search begins with taking a controlled approach, which is very much the same as building a business. You need to know what you want to accomplish, who your target market is, what they need and if you can supply it (for the right price). Once you have established what you want, you c...