You Are Just Fine the Way You Are

I was sitting in a sales seminar several months ago and a well known sales trainer got up and started speaking to the audience. He is considered by many to be one of the best salespeople in America, and I was hanging on his every word. The man was describing how he went into meetings in corporations to sell things, and how he always was able to close. His entire strategy was based on what he called “finding the pain.” “You need to find the pain! You need to find the pain!” he kept shouting as he paced back and [Read more]

Eliot Spitzer, Your Dark Side and Being Calm

I had a very disturbing experience several months ago and I am almost reluctant to talk about it because it was so disturbing. I am hesitant because I recognize that your natural response might be to assume I am a little aberrated for being in the situation in the first place; however, I am human and must admit that at times I do find myself in situations that are a bit odd. This was one of the stranger situations I have encountered, and it really threw me into a tailspin. For several years a friend of mine, [Read more]

You Need to Stand for Something

Today, I read a story in the Washington Post about a girl who recently resigned from West Point and is going to Yale. She resigned from West Point because she is gay and the school will kick her out if it learns that she is gay. Tired of compromising between what she believed was right and wrong, she resigned to protest the policy and be consistent with her own internal compass. When I started reading the story, I immediately thought—she’s probably transferring to Harvard or Yale. Sure enough, I was not surprised when I learned later in the article that that was where she was going. Why wasn’t I surprised? Because a school like Yale probably receives a couple of hundred transfer applications for every spot it has open (very few people drop out of Yale). In order to get one of those spots you need to stand for something. How memorable is it to have a good grade point average? Lots of people have good grades. Very few people stand for something. The people [Read more]

Charlemagne, the Roman Empire, and the Importance of Good Leadership

Over the past several years I have become fascinated with leaders and entrepreneurs and what makes them successful. The power of an entrepreneur or leader — to take an idea, unite people around it, and create a long-functioning and successful organization — is profound. When organizations are experiencing a decline, a good leader can turn things around. When a company is starting up, a good leader can make it successful. In fact, the leader of a nation can profoundly shape its outcome. I have no doubt that many large companies and other organizations have been saved by the [Read more]

How to Find Teaching Jobs, Education Jobs and School Jobs

Regardless of what you do, the odds are that you could potentially get a job teaching. If you have significant professional experience in a field (or even not that significant professional experience), you are likely qualified to teach. Education is a gigantic industry and there are a ton of potential education-related employers that you can work for.

• You can teach in public or private schools.
• You can teach in colleges or universities.
• You can teach at vocational schools.
• You can teach at for-profit educational institutions.
• You can teach inside companies (companies have jobs for “trainers”)

Going into teaching can be an excellent choice if you are interested in going in a different direction in your career. One of [Read more]

How to Choose Recruiters, Executive Search, and Recruitment Agencies (and How They Work)

When you go to most job sites, the majority of advertisements you will typically see, will be from recruiters. However, despite so many recruiter advertisements clogging job sites, recruiters are one of the most popular (and most misunderstood) ways of getting a job. It is rare to see articles that are negative about recruiters, or information that ”tells it like it is” when it comes to giving you advice on how to work with recruiters. The reason for this is largely due to the fact that the money recruiters pay to advertise on job sites and other [Read more]

Career Advice from Aristotle

Aristotle loved studying argumentation and the methods of appeal used to convince someone of a given idea. Aristotle believed that people can be persuaded by the following means:

• Ethos (an appeal to credibility)
• Pathos (an appeal to emotions)
• Logos (an appeal to logic)

Each of these three methods of appeal is useful for you in your job search. In fact, if you use each of these means of persuasion effectively in your search, you should be very successful in getting a job. Ethos involves convincing someone that you have credibility. Ethos refers to your reputation independently of what you are saying—such as your [Read more]

Working on Sundays and Concentrating on Your Work

There is a secret to success, common among most successful people out there that I have seen time and time again: Working on Sundays. When I was practicing law, the best attorneys were always in on Sundays. When I was a student in college and law school, the best students always worked on Sundays. In my professional career, a good portion of the most accomplished executives and others I have known work on Sundays. When I say ”work on Sundays” I mean that they are working the entire [Read more]

Always Interview on Fridays

When I was in college I remember going for an interview with the investment bank JP Morgan. I had no idea how I had gotten the interview but it was for something dealing with finance and statistical studies of Asian securities markets. I had gone to high school for awhile in Bangkok and thought it would be fun to have some sort of job involving Asia. I did an ”on campus interview” and a few weeks after submitting my resume they called and invited me to come speak with them for half a day in their offices in Chicago. [Read more]

How to Get Hired Where There Is Not Even an Opening

For some reason, almost every week (sometimes more than once a week) venture capitalists and private equity companies call me to talk about the various businesses I am involved in. I used to talk to them quite formally, the way average people like me talk to doctors, lawyers and bankers. I assumed (wrongly so), that I needed to be a little bit guarded, not share too much information and such. Do not ask me why I thought this way. I think it probably has something to do with the fact that when they call, they say something like the following: [Read more]

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