Your Career is More Important to You Than Anyone
I went to high school in an area called Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and lived with my father there during high school. Up until ninth grade I had lived in a city called Grosse Pointe, Michigan, which was about an hour long drive away. Since I had grown up in Grosse Pointe, many of my friends still lived there and I spent many of my weekends there visiting. One day I received the most amazing telephone call from a friend of mine in Grosse Pointe. A girl that I (and just about every other guy [Read more]
Common Sense : How To Exercise IT
Blanchard Yorimoto-Tashi, one of the greatest statesmen that Japan has ever produced, presents some of his precepts in his book Common Sense: How To Exercise It. To him common sense is the crown of all faculties and exercised vigilantly, it leads to progress and prosperity. He says, ”enthusiasm is as brittle as crystal, but common sense is durable as brass”. In the teachings that follow, Shogun Yorimoto-Tashi, points out that common sense is a composite product consisting of perception, memory, thought, alertness, deduction, foresight, reason, and judgment. While discussing these separately, he shows us how to acquire and develop common sense and practical sense, how to apply them in our daily lives, and how to utilize them profitably in the business world. You can make [Read more]
Garlic Olive Oil, Craigslist Massages–and Doing Your Homework
I’ve decided that I am never again going to have a masseuse come over from Craigslist. It’s just not worth it. A few weeks ago I was at a conference in Chicago. I was staying at a so-so hotel without a spa near the airport. I called the front desk to see if they had anyone they could recommend for a massage and the receptionist recommended that I find someone on Craigslist. Since I am in the career business, the only part of Craigslist I have ever spent any time on has been [Read more]
The Dangers of Getting Jobs Through Friends and Family
Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure. -Tacitus (c. 55-120 A.D.) “Oh, I already have a friend there. I’ll just contact them.” In the legal recruiting realm, this is one of the more common things we hear after informing an attorney that a certain law firm has a job opening. There is a lot you need to consider before you decide to apply to a job through a friend or relative or take a job working for a friend or relative. First, it is exceedingly rare that a friend or family member will ever be able to get you a position. The reason for [Read more]
Marketing Yourself–Who, What and How
In your career and life you need to be aware of (1) who you are marketing yourself to, (2) what you are marketing and (3) how you are marketing yourself. Each of these three things can make a major difference in the success of your job search. I have seen people who understand these three components literally:
- make tens of millions of dollars in a short time;
- get jobs when the companies were not hiring;
- easily get positions in any economic environment.
You Need to Market to the Right People. When I first started working as a legal recruiter, it was early 2000 and the market for corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley was out of control. At the time, attorneys were leaving law firms to take jobs inside of Internet companies, and were getting stock options in many cases. Some young attorneys made millions of dollars in less than a few years and because attorneys perceived there was so much opportunity inside of young tech companies they were “jumping ship”, leaving law firms as fast as they could. In response, law firms started ratcheting up salaries and hiring new corporate attorneys as fast as they could. I was a legal recruiter in Los Angeles and for the first six months or so that I was recruiting I did not place a single corporate attorney in Los Angeles. However, during this six month period I did place probably at least 20 corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley. I placed corporate attorneys from small towns and firms in New Jersey within giant Silicon Valley firms. In many cases these were people who had been out of work for months. If a corporate attorney could make it to the interview and act with a modicum of professionalism in the interview they would get the job. To say the market in Silicon Valley was incredible would be an understatement. At the same time, though, corporate attorneys were not very highly in demand in Los Angeles. Many of the corporate attorneys I was working with in Los Angeles waited weeks to get interviews, despite having stellar qualifications. The corporate attorneys simply were not having luck tracking down jobs in Los Angeles. It was the same thing in a few other cities around the United States. If you were a corporate attorney working in Los Angeles at the time, you might have become quite discouraged by the market, and thought there was something wrong with you. In reality, there was nothing wrong with the corporate attorneys–it was all about the market trends at the time. The way the market works is among the most important things you can understand about your life, and particularly your job search. You need to bring your product or service to the right market in order to succeed with it. If you put yourself in the right market you will do exceptionally well. I met a guy my age not too long ago, who attended the University of Michigan Law School. When he graduated from there he had a difficult time finding a good job with a law firm in Detroit. He took a low paying job inside of a company that was not that prestigious, because it was the only job he could get. Then, I think, he got fired and moved to the Bay Area. He was one of the first people hired at a major technology company and he got all sorts of stock options and made millions of dollars. After that he was one of the first few employees at another technology company and, in less than a year, he made over $50,000,000, when the company went public. He now spends his time traveling between multiple homes and investing in other technology companies. Do you think any of this would have happened if this person had stayed in Detroit, working his first lousy job? Of course not; he had to go to the right market, one that would make full use of his abilities and talents. It is all about where and to whom you market yourself. This morning I got a spam email about a Russian bride dating site. I [Read more]
Depression, Health, Boredom, Interesting People and Self Esteem
I remember my first encounters with the self improvement industry when I was younger. In many areas of the United States, people look at self improvement as something that is absolutely crazy. This is how the people around me viewed it when I was growing up. When I think about self improvement, however, I think about people doing things like:
- …trying to improve their mood and level of happiness,
- …trying to improve their health,
- …trying to become interested in new things,
- …trying to meet other interesting people,
- …trying to improve their self esteem.
This is for the most part what self improvement is all about–these five things mentioned above. [Read more]
Seven Reasons People Never Have the Successful Careers They Are Capable of
A lawyer told me last night that most of the other attorneys she knows are looking to do something other than practice law. Lawyers are one of the most fascinating breeds of people I know. The ones who go to the top law schools and start in jobs with the top law firms generally have been performing at a very high level for their entire lives; however, when they get out in the real world, a good proportion of these attorneys fail to have fulfilling and successful long term careers. What this has taught me is that no matter how smart we [Read more]
The Importance of Environment
I have decided that I do not like exercising in the gym in our building in Las Vegas anymore. The facility itself is very nice and new, and has excellent equipment. It is also very clean and well maintained; in fact, it is one of the nicest gyms I have ever seen. The window views of the stratosphere outside are also pretty cool. However, it is what is going on inside the gym that bothers me. Almost every time I have been to the gym I have seen men running with their shirts [Read more]
Mental Efficiency
Arnold Bennett’s Mental Efficiency and Other Hints to Men and Women is a light-hearted, yet thought-provoking collection of articles that describe mental efficiency as a state of mind. It is a roadmap that you need to follow, in order to develop strength within yourself, and to begin to make positive changes in your life. Through this book, Bennett offers techniques and secrets for sharpening your mental efficiency and organizing your life, marriage, and happiness. It is powerful, significant and meaningful, and it should open up to you an understanding of how to achieve your goals. I hope you enjoy it.
–Harrison
MENTAL EFFICIENCY AND OTHER HINTS TO MEN AND WOMEN
Arnold Bennett
THE APPEAL
The Importance of Your Sense of Self
When I was around 17 years old I was once sitting in a car with a friend of mine, waiting for another group of kids. My friend was very wealthy and by this age had already inherited several million dollars–and he was very arrogant about this. In addition, he had been raised by his parents to think very highly of himself. He seemed to believe he had done the absolute best in everything he did. Even though he was not a great student, he reasoned that this did not matter, since the best students would one [Read more]
