Career Opportunities

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Here is an exercise for you all. It may sound odd, but I think it will open your mind to some aspects of your career that have been long ignored. This week, if you are working and receiving a paycheck, don’t just deposit it in the bank. I want you to see it in cold, hard cash. I want you to hold the fruits of your labors in your hands. I want you to look at it, touch it, smell it. You can put it all back in the bank when you are done, but for one week out of the year I want you to take a look at your earnings and what they mean to you, your family and your life.

Despite the convenience of modern forms of payment, there is something to be said for the days when you lined up at the paymasters desk and received cash payment directly into your hand. As we have found with other forms of our digital lifestyles there is still the need for interaction with the physical world. We can talk with friends online for hours, but still want to go down to the pub for pint now and then. We can read endless articles online, but still find joy in curling up with good book. We can look at albums of pictures from around the world, but still need to travel to see it for ourselves, touch the sand and see the sights.

So, I hope you indulge my whims this week and hold a stack of cash in your hands, be they Dollars, Pounds, Euros or Baht. You will find this physical connection will bring many thoughts to your mind beyond money. Thoughts that can and should be thought, but are too frequently ignored.

First, think about abundance. Think of everything this money can do for you and your family. Think of some recent purchases and how much of this cash would have been spent on them. Would you have been more or less likely to make the purchase if you had to pay cash for it? Just like when we receive a paper paycheck, our purchasing decisions can be badly distorted when using checks and credit cards. There is something physical about turning over little pieces of paper, paper we earned with our hard labor, in exchange for goods and services. As a sub-exercise, try paying cash for everything you buy during a week and see how it changes your thoughts on money.

Second, take your stack of cash and look at each bill. Now, think hard — did you earn each and every one of these bills, or was it merely given to you? Is this cash an accurate reflection of your work? Do you consider it too little — or too much? This is your week’s labor in physical form — the bricks of the career and financial wall you build each week. How does it stack up against your memory of the week? How much harder would you be willing to work to make more? What would you do and where would you go to have the stack of cash more accurately reflect your work? Is this stack, figuratively dirty or clean money? Does your work contain tasks that bother you ethically or are you making people’s lives better or easier?

Sometimes having a simple physical symbol can energize your thinking. Looking at a stack of cash begs any number of questions about you, your career and your life. It is impossible to ignore, sitting there on the table, running it through your fingers. Thoughts come to mind unbidden and you would be foolish to ignore them.

If you engage in my little exercise, tell me some of the thoughts that crossed your mind. Please add a comment on the Career Opportunities blog or join the discussion on the Career Opportunities Community Site. I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

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Revised Post

A collection of career items I found interesting this week.

• Career Camp LA (Los Angeles) FREE! – March 13, 2010

OnlineCareers.net has included my CareerTips Twitter Account in their blog post, 100 Twitter Feeds to Help you Land a Job Right Out of School.

Whether you’re about to graduate from a traditional college or finishing up at an online school, you’re probably thinking about how you’re going to get a job once you graduate. The job market is not what it used to be, and you’ll need a full arsenal of tools to find the right position for you. Here, we’ve collected 100 Twitter feeds that can help you in your post-graduation job search.

Get the entire list here – 100 Twitter Feeds to Help you Land a Job Right Out of School

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A collection of career items I found interesting this week.

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I was interviewed by George and Mary-Lynn from BiggSuccess.com the other day. Here are the results of that interview.

Career Success with New Media

We were happy to visit with Douglas E. Welch today on The Bigg Success Show today. Douglas is an expert on building the career you deserve and spreading the word about your talents using social media. Among other things, he’s the host of two great blogs and podcasts: Career Opportunities and Careers in New Media. Here’s a recap of the conversation:

Read Douglas talk with George & Mary-Lyn on The Bigg Success Show! with complete text transcript.

Listen to Douglas talk with George & Mary-Lyn on The Bigg Success Show!

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“Conversation is the heart of any career. If you aren’t talking with people — really talking deeply — you aren’t growing.”

Follow @careertips on Twitter for more tips and career information.

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From Twitter user and Zillow Employee GeoffONeil.

GeoffONeil Zillow is hiring in #Seattle. Email developer, sales, CS. Check out our job listings page: http://j.mp/54Zt2b

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If no one cares about your work, why are you doing it?
By Douglas E. Welch

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“Oh, no one will care” is a common refrain I often hear when someone isn’t doing their work, or only doing the bare minimum to get by. Some people have come to feel that the only reason they work at all is to take home a paycheck. It’s all busywork with no real purpose. I can tell you, though, that in most cases people do care how you do your work and you will eventually suffer the consequences of performing it badly. Secondly, if you truly believe that no one cares about your work, then you need to ask yourself an even more important question — why are you still doing it?

When we are in the depths of a bad job, it can feel like no one cares. Your boss doesn’t care about anything but the number of claims processed, the number of sales closed, the number of phone calls completed. There is no sense of quality at all. It is only quantity. A focus like this means that many people will do anything they can to keep their numbers up. They will even do things to others that they would be appalled to have done to themselves. When quality is no longer a concern, there is no level to which behavior can fall.

The fact is, though, there are often a lot of people who care about your work and its quality. Irate customers calling about a late or wrong order — members of the public who need your services — even fellow employees of your company who need the information you have. You need to remember these people, and how much they care, no matter what your management might think. You need to do this for your own self-preservation. If you truly think that no one cares, you are in the danger zone. When you stop caring, the end of your job, and maybe even your career, isn’t far off.

This situation takes us directly to the second question mentioned above. If you think no one cares about your work, then why are you still doing it? Some of you will claim that it is the only job you can get, the only way of supporting your family, the only thing you could find in this horrible job market. I understand that this might be true in some cases, but I also believe that it is true much less often than we think. Too often we use this as an excuse to stop trying — an excuse to stop doing the hard work required to build a truly great career.

Of course, the most dangerous part of doing work that no one cares about is that someone might eventually figure out that no cares. It is so much better for you to figure this out first, rather than waiting for others to figure it out for you. Remember, you want to direct your career, not be pushed from one job to another.

If you have the feeling that no one cares about your work — or even if you have hard proof — that should be more than enough of a sign that it is time to stop doing work that no one needs done. Find a career that makes a difference to you and the world.

Support Career Opportunities:

iTunes Review | Career-Op Community Site | Podcast Alley

Reader/Listener Line @ 818-804-5049

Revised Post

A collection of career items I found interesting this week.

• Jennifer Oliver O’Connell added an event – February 18, 2010