On the Job by Anita Bruzzese How to Survive Working for a Jerk

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese How to Survive Working for a Jerk I used to have a boss I detested so much I used to envision her falling down a manhole -- not to kill her, but just injure her enough to put her in the hospital long enough for me to find another job.After I interviewed Kathi Elster and Katherine Crowley for my Gannett column, I realized I wasn't alone in feeling so desperate when it comes to a bad boss. Here's the column:There is probably nothing that impacts the quality of a job like a boss. Get a good manager, and you like going to work every day. Have a bad boss, and you dont even want to get out of bed in the morning.If youve ever had a bad boss, you often dream of how to get out working for a jerk, ranging from winning the lottery to getting a better job somewhere else. But in this job market? Youre feeling a bit desperate.People who are employed right now and work for a bad boss know they cant immediately leave, because they know jobs are hard to come by, says Kathi Elster, a business strategist and consultant. Its frustrating and depressing for them.Elster spends a lot of time listening to people gripe about their bosses, along with her partner in K Squared Enterprises in New York, psychotherapist Katherine Crowley. They recently put together some strategies for helping employees manage their boss called Working for You Isnt Working for Me, (Portfolio, $25.95).The fact is, you need to manage the relationship, Crowley says. People often feel they dont have power, and feel victimized. But you do have power in this relationship.Adds Elster: The key is to manage yourself to minimize your bosss behavior on you.In the book, Elster and Crowley say there are four keys to improving a bad boss relationship:1. Detect. You first must identify exactly what it is that drives you bonkers in a bad boss, such as verbal attacks or unwarranted criticism. Once you can detect it, the authors say, you can correct it.2. Detach. By learning to see the boss for who he is, and educating yourself on how not to react so strongly to the annoying behavior, then youll be able to eliminate the stress a bad boss brings to all areas of your life.3. Depersonalize. No matter how miserable a boss may make you, youre not the first person to go through this and you must realize its not about you, the authors say. By understanding the bosss behavior existed long before you arrived on the scene and that one of the reasons it is so upsetting to you is because its triggering your worst fears, then you can learn to view the behavior more objectively.4. Deal: This involves creating a customized plan so that when the boss acts out, you can defend yourself and take a more objective and constructive approach to your job and career, they say.Crowley says that the bad economy may be triggering even more bad boss behavior, as the stress only emphasizes poor management skills. In other words, the over-controlling or checked out boss may become even more so, increasing worker tension.The authors note that employees typically will try to cope with bad boss behavior with tactics that dont work such as: avoiding the boss at all costs; sulking; becoming full of self-doubt; obsessing about how to handle the boss; wishing for the bosss demise; gloating over the bosss behavior; bad-mouthing the boss; confronting an annoying manager; retaliating; or giving the boss the silent treatment.But employees need to understand that unless they take steps to resolve problems with a boss in a more constructive way, they may continue to have problems no matter where they work, Crowley says.People tend to attract recurring situations unless they learn to resolve them, Crowley says. Sometimes bad boss behavior feels familiar its like youre drawn to that kind of person.Elster notes that employees should also learn to take back their power in a difficult situation by taking care of themselves physically. She recommends coping with the stress by exercising, eating right, spending time with supportive family and friends, doing enjo yable activities and learning relaxation breathing for tough times.How do you deal with a bad boss?Social Bookmarking

Has Your Network Aged Out and Abandoned You [Updated] - Career Pivot

Has Your Network Aged Out and Abandoned You [Updated] - Career Pivot Has Your Network Aged Out? Copyright: dolgachov / 123RF Stock Photo I am hearing over and over again about how people’s networks have “aged out”. I was working on a brand story with one of the members of the new Career Pivot community (look to hear a lot more about this in the coming weeks) who told me that new positions always came to her. She never needed to look because her mentors and other leaders were always looking out for her. What has happened to her in her 60s is her network has aged out. The people who had her back for so many years have either retired, are not in a position of power, or are in the same boat she is in â€" underemployed or unemployed. This post was originally published in October of 2017 and was updated in January of 2020. When she was telling me the story of her career, it was pretty obvious that she did nothing to cultivate or care for the network. Rather, it was always there for her and she never paid attention to it. On the other hand, she is mentoring a lot of young professionals and her connection to them is strong; but they are not nearly as influentialas the people who had mentored her over the years. Her network has aged out and left her abandoned. Has Your Network Has Retired or Aged Out? I had a similar discussion with a gentleman who is now in his late 60s. He was forced into retirement and has since formed a consulting group with 5 or 6 of his former colleagues. Throughout his career, opportunities just came to him through his network. He never really needed to find work and hedid little to cultivate his network or even grow his network. He did not see the need to grow his network as it was feeding him and his family just fine. That was until he hit his 60s â€" and his network either retired, became unemployed, was downsized, or passed away. His contacts within his industry greatly diminished. It did not help that he was on the manufacturing side of the business, which had been shipped offshore for cost savings. He now needs to reinvigorate his network but this is not something he is comfortable doing. At the same time, he is not social media savvy. Listen to the most recent episode His network has aged out and left him abandoned. Strategically Examine Your Network For those of us in the 2nd half of life, our next job will come through a relationship. That relationship may be an existing one, a dormant one that you will reinvigorate (weak ties), or a new relationship. Youshould carefully examine your existing relationships or network. How many are of a similar age? How many are much older? Will they still be around to assist you in 10 years? Zero in on those who are connectors.Connectors are those people who know lots of people and enjoy making connections. If you were let go from your job today, who could you depend on to help you? Will those same people be in a position to help you in 10-15 years? If not, you need to replace them NOW! You want to examine your network NOW to see how much of it will age out. Industry Shifting? How stable is the industry where you are currently working? If you are in a shrinking or dying industry now is the time to make the shift. I want you to look at your industry through two different lenses. Automation, AI or Robots â€" Is your industry and skill set replaceable and vulnerable to automation? Creative Destruction â€" Will creative destruction either eliminate or greatly shrink your industry. Automation, AI or robots will continue to break down and eliminate jobs. I recently had a client interview with a company that will be using deep learning to replace thousands of service personnel. The chatbot they were developing will be able to answer 95% of all customer service questions. Creative destruction is accelerating. Think of the industries that have been affected by the creation of the iPhone just 10 years ago. Just imagine what drones will be able to do in 10 years and what jobs and industries will be eliminated. Are You Age Segregating Your Network? When I interviewed Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, we discussed how we naturally age segregate ourselves. We tend to hang out with people who look, taste and smell like ourselves. When our network is shrinking we need to network with people who are younger than ourselves. I gave a presentation at Launch Pad Job Club last March on the topic of Ageism. I discussed how as we age we need to expand our network to younger demographics. Afterward, a gentleman came up to me and told me that he had volunteered for the Beto O’Rourke for Senate campaign. He volunteered with hundreds of young Millenials and was totally impressed with their intellect and passion. This is a natural example of networking outside of your comfort zone. The odds of you working for a younger manager is highly likely. Check out my interview with John Tarnoff when we discussed this topic in the podcast episode called â€" John Tarnoff Teaches How to Work for a Millennial [Podcast] Our society naturally drives us to age segregate. As your network ages out you will have to form new contacts that will be significantly younger than yourself. Next Steps Once you have examined your network and industry, you will want to create a plan to replace and/or augment your existing network. If you need to shift to a different industry, who do you need to develop relationships with? How are you going to garner street cred within that new industry? If you’re in a stable industry, who are the ‘up and coming’ individuals that you need to develop relationships with NOW â€" such that your network will not age out? If you are in your 50s today and plan to work until 70 or beyond (yes, that is a large percentage of the 50 somethings) you need to plan on your network to age out. I am now into my 60s and many of the people I worked with at IBM in the 1980s and 1990s are no longer in the workforce. Many of the people who I worked with after the dot-com bust are still working but are no longer in a position of power or influence. My network has aged out. Has your network aged out? What areyou going to do about it? Marc Miller Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons above. Like What You Read? Get Career Pivot Insights! Check out the Repurpose Your Career Podcast Do You Need Help With ...

Why You Need To Streamline Your Companys Recruitment Process

Why You Need To Streamline Your Companys Recruitment Process You have spent the last few years updating your IT department, moving your data and software onto the cloud, and generally transforming your business into the modern, streamlined, tech-savvy company it needs to be. And yet, you’re still hiring new recruits in the same way you always have. If this sounds like your company, then it may be time to take steps towards modernizing and streamlining your company’s recruitment process. Read on to discover how you can achieve this.   Why You Should Streamline Your Recruitment Process If you’re still interviewing potential new recruits in the same old way, you may be wasting far too much time and money on your recruitment processes.   You post the situation vacant online and receive hundreds or even thousands of replies. You then have to trawl through every single application, and the attached CVs, to find the candidates you are looking for.   Next, you have to organize initial interviews, and arrange meetings to discuss all the candidates after the interviews. After all that, you have to go through the entire process again for the second round of interviews and by the end of it, you hopefully have one candidate who fits the bill. The problem is that your interview process is so cumbersome that, not only have you taken up a disproportionate amount of time looking for the right person, but by the time you finally offer them the job, they’ve decided they’d rather work for a slightly more technologically switched-on company! So how can you do things differently? How Top Companies Recruit in 2019 If the above process sounds familiar, then you need to join the ranks of companies such as Cisco, Michelin, FedEx, Siemens, PG and many other Fortune 500 companies who have turned to highly effective recruitment software to streamline their recruitment process. A simple example of how this software can produce results and a return on investment, is when a questionnaire is used as a tool to find out the qualifications, experience, and personal qualities of candidates. The results can be funneled into the promising, and the not-so-promising candidates who can be automatically rejected. Meaning that the time spent looking through applicants can be whittled down from days, or even weeks, to just hours. After the right candidates have been found, all arrangements can be made by text messaging or chatbots, with interview times being automatically sent out to your candidates, along with links for video interviews.   Additionally, by using a centralized system, your national or international business can ensure that the qualities your company seeks in its employees are uniform throughout the entire company, no matter if the office looking for new recruits is in Los Angeles, London, or Lahore. These are just a few examples. By using recruitment software, it is possible to put your entire recruitment procedure online. This not only speeds up the process dramatically but also saves time for the people who are involved in the recruitment process.   This, of course, means that your company will also save money. In some cases, the savings can be substantial, over $1.5 million in one case. Summary To summarize, if you want to take your company’s recruitment process into the 21st century, keep up with your competitors, save wasted hours and wasted money on processes that could take you half the time and cost half as much, then it is time to look to recruitment software to streamline your operations.

Operations! are open {surgery not required}

Operations! are open {surgery not required} Do you thrive while  working alongside other like-minded creatives  who have similar goals, challenges, dreams, wishes, and favorite ice cream flavor?  (all sharing the same favorite ice cream flavor is not guaranteed, but would be amazeballs.) Want some  guaranteed personal coaching time  from yours truly each and every week, but without the one-on-one prices? Looking for  24/7 support  with above-mentioned similarly-goal-oriented, big-dreamin’, likeminded-creatives? Don’t wanna be treated like a number, ever ever ever ever ever? Then you want my Operations! Screenshot of the private Facebook page for Operation!: Creative Career Cheer, taken during our last week of sessions, Aug 2011 Don’t know what you wanna do when you grow up?  Click here. or Do you know what you wanna do, but not how it can be done?  Click here. or Are you doing what you wanna do, but it just ain’t as successful as it can be?  Click here. Thisll be the last time Im offering Operations!  in 2012, and it saves ya almost $1000 from working with me for 12 sessions one-on-one. If you wanna make the most of the rest of this year and welcome 2013 with clarity an action plan youre so gonna want in on Operations!* *Many apologies if the old theme song for the board game Operation! is now in your head. I promise its the only bad side effect of these sessions.

Making the Most of Your Student Teaching Resume

Making the Most of Your Student Teaching ResumeWhen it comes to the importance of a good student teaching resume it's essential that you really make the most of what you've got. Of course, you may have been employed before, but this doesn't necessarily give you any great insight into how you will be able to deal with the curriculum and the teaching methods that are involved.Of course, it may even be rather limiting to the fact that you haven't applied for any teaching positions to date, but there are a number of things that you can do in order to raise your profile and gain some interest from potential employers. A teacher teaching resume is not as complex as you may initially think, and while the job description may be quite particular it is also open to quite a bit of flexibility.The most important thing to do when trying to find out if you're suitable for a new teaching position is to make sure that you start off with a strong application. The trick here is to make sure that you a re fully prepared and that you spend plenty of time researching the process in order to understand how you are going to be able to explain your abilities and qualifications clearly. This way you will be able to provide yourself with the best opportunity possible.Although it is a little bit odd to do, it is actually worth checking that your teaching experience is an ideal blend of both theory and practice. This means that you should make sure that you include your training and the practical skills that you've acquired along the way in order to highlight the difference between your experiences.There are also a number of tools that you could consider in order to make sure that you're creating a job application that stands out from the crowd. Of course, you may be a self-proclaimed expert in your field, but that does not necessarily mean that you're the best candidate for the position.In the meantime, you are going to need to make sure that you are able to document your achievements in order to prove that you're an up and coming teacher. For this reason, a number of website platforms are making it extremely easy for individuals to put their own websites online where they can upload a number of different applications and resumes.Whilst this certainly does increase the number of resumes that you are competing against, the reality is that it also makes the student teaching resume a more effective tool. If you choose to submit a number of different applications and resumes you will be able to really make the most of the limited space that the student teaching resume has to work with.

Irrelevant Experience Should You List it on a Resume (Examples)

Irrelevant Experience Should You List it on a Resume (Examples) Spread the loveThe modern workforce is more mobile than ever before. While there was a time when most employees remained with an employer for decades, today’s workers may have multiple jobs throughout their career. In many cases, that can lead to the type of diverse work history that can make it difficult for you to know which jobs to include on a resume. For example, what do you do with job roles that don’t have any relevance to the position you’re seeking? In this post, we’ll examine irrelevant experience and whether it needs to be listed on your resume.Two Schools of Thought on Irrelevant ExperienceAs with most things in life, there is diversity of thought on this question. As a rule, most resume experts will advise job-seekers to focus on relevant information. However, that approach raises an important question: how do you decide which information is truly relevant?The first school of thought on this topic says that your resume needs to be as lean as possible. To accompli sh that goal, you should only list information that clearly showcases your value as a potential employee.When it comes to irrelevant experience on a resume, most of these experts would say to omit those details. Their reason is simple: they believe that information about irrelevant experience will cloud the issue and detract from your core message.In short, this theory suggests irrelevant experience includes any jobs or skills that don’t directly relate to the job you’re seeking.The other school of thought believes that there is always value in positive experience and skills. This is true even in cases in which seemingly irrelevant experience has no bearing on your ability to effectively perform a desired job role.(Remember that you only need to include the last 10-15 years of experience on a resume. We wrote a good post here on how far back a resume should go.)  Which View is Correct? Does Irrelevant Experience on a Resume Matter?The truth is that both views are correct in thei r own ways. Yes, it is vital to create a lean and mean resume that emphasizes core qualifications and your value as an employee. So, no â€" you don’t want to include irrelevant information that distracts from your message. At the same time, however, it is important to properly define “irrelevant.”By combining both of those schools of thought, we can reach an entirely different conclusion.That conclusion, however, requires us to reevaluate our assumptions about how we determine relevancy. The fact is that any experience or skill that demonstrates your abilities and value can be relevant. Why? It’s simple: because today’s employers are not just looking for drones to fulfill highly-targeted tasks. They’re looking for competent, accomplished team members to help achieve the company’s goals.Defining Irrelevant Experience on a ResumeOnce we realize that there is no such thing as inherently irrelevant experience, the solution to this dilemma becomes clear. Chances are that mo st of your jobs have involved some type of useful skill or skills. And even if those skills are not directly applicable to the job you’re seeking, they are still part of your employment repertoire. Isn’t that something that most employers would like to know about?We wrote a good post here on the skills to include on a resume.  Your job is to examine your previous roles and identify the core skills that you utilized.For Example:Lets say youre targeting an accounting position and have a lot of sales experience. You want to highlight the skills from your sales positions that would be relevant to accounting.Did you use Excel? Did you handle collections? Did you perform calculations or analyze data? These could all be relevant to accounting.Yes, some of them may seem to be irrelevant at first glance, but odds are that they help to present you as a more well-rounded and capable employee.Many of them will likely be soft skills that are rarely mentioned in job posting descriptions. In t he end, though, their addition may be the thing that ensures that you beat out your rival applicants for that all-important job interview.Once you have identified those skills, you can create a separate section in your resume. Document those skills in that section, and label it Relevant Experience or Relevant Skills. Include both applicable and non-applicable skills within this section, to paint a more complete picture of your overall competency and qualifications.The thing to remember is that the work environment is constantly evolving. Many of today’s companies are looking for quality people with a broad range of skills. Fortunately, your diverse employment background and seemingly irrelevant experience are more of an asset than you might think. So, be bold and include that information in your resume, to properly showcase your true potential value as a prospective employee. Irrelevant Experience Should You List it on a Resume (Examples) Spread the loveThe modern workforce is more mobile than ever before. While there was a time when most employees remained with an employer for decades, today’s workers may have multiple jobs throughout their career. In many cases, that can lead to the type of diverse work history that can make it difficult for you to know which jobs to include on a resume. For example, what do you do with job roles that don’t have any relevance to the position you’re seeking? In this post, we’ll examine irrelevant experience and whether it needs to be listed on your resume.Two Schools of Thought on Irrelevant ExperienceAs with most things in life, there is diversity of thought on this question. As a rule, most resume experts will advise job-seekers to focus on relevant information. However, that approach raises an important question: how do you decide which information is truly relevant?The first school of thought on this topic says that your resume needs to be as lean as possible. To accompli sh that goal, you should only list information that clearly showcases your value as a potential employee.When it comes to irrelevant experience on a resume, most of these experts would say to omit those details. Their reason is simple: they believe that information about irrelevant experience will cloud the issue and detract from your core message.In short, this theory suggests irrelevant experience includes any jobs or skills that don’t directly relate to the job you’re seeking.The other school of thought believes that there is always value in positive experience and skills. This is true even in cases in which seemingly irrelevant experience has no bearing on your ability to effectively perform a desired job role.(Remember that you only need to include the last 10-15 years of experience on a resume. We wrote a good post here on how far back a resume should go.)  Which View is Correct? Does Irrelevant Experience on a Resume Matter?The truth is that both views are correct in thei r own ways. Yes, it is vital to create a lean and mean resume that emphasizes core qualifications and your value as an employee. So, no â€" you don’t want to include irrelevant information that distracts from your message. At the same time, however, it is important to properly define “irrelevant.”By combining both of those schools of thought, we can reach an entirely different conclusion.That conclusion, however, requires us to reevaluate our assumptions about how we determine relevancy. The fact is that any experience or skill that demonstrates your abilities and value can be relevant. Why? It’s simple: because today’s employers are not just looking for drones to fulfill highly-targeted tasks. They’re looking for competent, accomplished team members to help achieve the company’s goals.Defining Irrelevant Experience on a ResumeOnce we realize that there is no such thing as inherently irrelevant experience, the solution to this dilemma becomes clear. Chances are that mo st of your jobs have involved some type of useful skill or skills. And even if those skills are not directly applicable to the job you’re seeking, they are still part of your employment repertoire. Isn’t that something that most employers would like to know about?We wrote a good post here on the skills to include on a resume.  Your job is to examine your previous roles and identify the core skills that you utilized.For Example:Lets say youre targeting an accounting position and have a lot of sales experience. You want to highlight the skills from your sales positions that would be relevant to accounting.Did you use Excel? Did you handle collections? Did you perform calculations or analyze data? These could all be relevant to accounting.Yes, some of them may seem to be irrelevant at first glance, but odds are that they help to present you as a more well-rounded and capable employee.Many of them will likely be soft skills that are rarely mentioned in job posting descriptions. In t he end, though, their addition may be the thing that ensures that you beat out your rival applicants for that all-important job interview.Once you have identified those skills, you can create a separate section in your resume. Document those skills in that section, and label it Relevant Experience or Relevant Skills. Include both applicable and non-applicable skills within this section, to paint a more complete picture of your overall competency and qualifications.The thing to remember is that the work environment is constantly evolving. Many of today’s companies are looking for quality people with a broad range of skills. Fortunately, your diverse employment background and seemingly irrelevant experience are more of an asset than you might think. So, be bold and include that information in your resume, to properly showcase your true potential value as a prospective employee.

QUIZ Whats Your Monday Morning Pump Up Song - Work It Daily

QUIZ What’s Your Monday Morning ‘Pump Up’ Song - Work It Daily It’s Monday morning and you’re in your car, headed to work. Some of us are ready for the day ahead, others are not. QUIZ: Who Is Your Celebrity Role Model? Either way, all of us have certain “pump me up” songs that we turn on when we need a workday boost. So, what’s your Monday morning “pump up” song? Take this quiz to find out! 1. What do you do on Sunday nights? (a) Go over my to-do list for the next day (b) Enjoy time with family and friends (c) Recover from a wild Saturday night (d) Get stressed out and depressed   2. What’s the first thing you do on Monday morning? (a) Check your email (b) Open the curtains and let the sunshine in (c) Make a huge pot of coffee (d) Consider calling in sick 3. Your song comes on the radio on your way to work, you: (a) Turn it up (b) Start singing at the top of your lungs (c) Throw out some fist pumps and drum on the dashboard (d) Think about your plans for the weekend   4. When you get to work, you: (a) B-line it to your office â€" you’ve got work to do! (b) Happily stroll through the office and say “Good morning” to everyone (c) Fill up your coffee cup (d) Go on Facebook and look at photos from the weekend   5. At lunch, you can be found: (a) At your desk, working â€" duh! (b) Enjoying your lunch outside with co-workers (c) Napping in the breakroom (d) Anywhere but the office   6. In your weekly meeting, you’re: (a) Taking notes and contributing new ideas (b) Distracted and/or distracting your co-workers (c) Zoning out (d) Texting RESULTS Mostly As: Taking Care Of Business by Bachmanâ€"Turner Overdrive You get up with the sun, check your work emails, and get in the work zone. You’re always on top of things on Monday morning. You take care of business! We know you’ve got lots of work to do, but don’t forget to take a break! Here’s why it’s important. Mostly Bs: Happy by Pharrell Williams You wake up happy and excited for your day. You’re not necessarily focused on work. You look at Mondays as fresh beginnings. It’s gonna be a good day! Need help focusing on work? Here are some great pointers. Mostly Cs: Let’s Get It Started by the Black Eyed Peas Getting out of bed on Monday morning can be the hardest part of your week sometimes. You need a little motivation (and an extra coffee â€" or two). Nothing a little car dancing can’t cure, though! Need some inspiration to get moving? Check out this article. Mostly Ds: Working For The Weekend by Loverboy Mondays are an uber drag for you. In fact, you get the Monday Morning Blues on Sunday night â€" just thinking about it gets your stress levels going. On Mondays, you just need a reminder that the weekend is only a few days away. Dread going to work? Reclaim your career happiness! Here’s how. Related Posts QUIZ: What Type Of Employee Are You? QUIZ: Should You Quit Your Job? QUIZ: Do You Have Social Media Career Power?   Photo Credit: Shutterstock Have you joined our career growth club?Join Us Today!