Career Opportunities

Bullying is such an embedded part of most officesl that it seems almost impossible to get it out. I think it would be a rare person who hasn’t experienced workplace bullying by the peers or managers at some point.

The only way to remove it, though, is to stand up to it, but in an environment where everyone is already scared for their job, it is almost impossible.

While leaving a job may resolve the problem for the individual, those they leave behind and those that follow them into the company are bound to suffer the same treatment

Via Jason ON on his Google+ Profile

When bullies go to work: The hidden epidemic of workplace mistreatment affects over a third of workers — and is hurting us all

BY MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS 

My friend Dennis* remembers the exact moment he knew he’d had enough. Enough of the “nonstop nagging and ostracizing and accusing” that had become his weekday routine. He was standing on the platform of the subway station at Union Square, leaning out toward the tracks to see if the train was approaching. “And I thought, if I don’t pull back, if I stay here like this, so many problems will be solved.”

Dennis’ tormenter? Not a schoolyard thug shaking him down for lunch money, but a high-ranking executive in one of the largest financial institutions in the country. When the mean kids of your childhood grow up, they don’t all evolve into self-aware, contrite adults. Sometimes, they just move from the playground to the corner office.

Read the entire article

We have just finalized the date and location for CareerCampLA 2012 — our 3rd CareerCamp for LA and out 6th CareerCamp overall.

CareerCampLA 2012

Friday, April 20, 2012

9am – Noon

Los Angeles Southwest College
1600 West Imperial Hwy
Los Angeles, CA 90044

Register Now!

I think I can assume that nearly all of us have faced a bad boss in the past. The good bosses I have had stand out because they were/are so rare.

Sadly, most of the methods listed in this article are fraught with career danger. That is NOT how it should be. You should not have to risk your job to try and make your work — and your company — better.

Each time we let something like this pass, we only make it worse for the next person. The average worker has so little power to effect change without risking their career though. It shouldn’t be that way, but most companies aren’t interested in solving the problem — only in making it go away and firing the worker that complains is often the easiest way.

Situations like this make me wonder how some companies stay in business at all. Imagine how productive they might be if they could resolve some of these issues.

Your Boss Is Bad For You: Why Bad Bosses Infect Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them

Those of us who have had to deal with annoying or aggravating bosses know how it’s tough to shake it off at the end of the day, but a new study explains why it’s so hard, and why so many of us suck at it and wind up bringing our stress home—where it doesn’t just hurt you: It hurts your family, your friends, and your other relationships. Let’s look at the study and talk about some ways you can learn to check your bad boss at the office door when you leave work.

Read the entire article from Lifehacker.com

Mitch Krayton of Krayton Seminars (and co-chair of CareerCampSCV and others)  shared this Forbes article with me today. I would definitely put some credence to these 3 rules.

Yes, there might be other specific issue involved in a particular job, but if you can’t get beyond these 3 rules then I don’t think you’ll get the job.

Forbes: Top Executive Recruiters Agree There Are Only Three True Job Interview Questions

[…]

The only three true job interview questions are:

1.  Can you do the job?

2.  Will you love the job?

3.  Can we tolerate working with you?

[…]

Cornerstone International Group CEO, Bill Guy emphasizes the changing nature of motivation,

…younger employees do not wish to get paid merely for working hard—just the reverse: they will work hard because they enjoy their environment and the challenges associated with their work…. Executives who embrace this new management style are attracting and retaining better employees.

Read the entire article for more great information

Last week I wrote a column about lifetime learning. It seems to be gaining attention in the general world and I think that is a great thing. I saw a blog post today that highlighted some great resources but then mentioned how their own children, 3-4-years-old couldn’t really benefit from these resources.

Yes, that can! The best way that children, even very young children, can benefit from lifetime learning is by watching YOU! Children are sponges that soak up everything around you — your speech patterns, your attitudes, your likes and dislikes. even if you don’t realize it, children are also closely observing what you find important. When they see you learning — in its many forms — it establishes a norm in their minds. They begin to see that learning is something you always do. They see learning as something everyone does, no matter what their age. They see that learning isn’t simply something that happens in grade school or university.

As an example, my son finds it quite normal to visit the library on a nearly weekly basis. My wife and I are big readers and he has gone to the library with us since he was born. He has friends who never visit the library, or only do so when absolutely necessary for schoolwork. It wasn’t that we conciously  modeled this behavior, but model it we did.

You can and should be the same with lifetime learning. Show your children interesting videos, articles and, eventually, books. Show them that experiments are something that are just done in a companies lab. Teach them that every moment of every day can teach us something, if we only pay attention.

No matter how young your children — and I say the younger you start the better — show them that lifetime learning is an integral part of your life and theirs. This simple step could have enormous benefits to them as they grow older. Someone who is constantly learning has great advantage to those who don’t. Beyond the personal benefits, lifetime learning has the potential to create a society of amazing citizens, all dedicated to learning and then putting that learning to use through great creations, organizations and projects.

Photo: My son, Joseph, watching the scientists dig at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, CA

I am thinking about a regularly scheduled G+ Hangout office hour to discuss career issues, questions and trends.

Would you be interested in such a thing? I am trying to gauge the interest before blocking out the time each week.

I am thinking of scheduling them for 6pm PST Tuesday, as this is a time I am required to be in my office. I figured I might as well try to make it as productive a time as possible.

Add your comments and thoughts here. I am ready to start as soon as tomorrow night.

I have a lot of interests, as most of you already know. Therefore, I have a lot of different blogs, events,  and groups in my portfolio of online engagements. I also try to make myself available wherever people want to converse. This means that each of my interests usually has multiple presences on the Internet.

Here is a list of almost all of the ways you can talk with me and learn about what is happening in my life and work. You don’t need to, nor should you, try to subscribe to all of them. That would only lead to you seeing multiple copies of the same information. Rather, pick and choose whatever ways you would like to consume my “content.”

If you are a heavy Facbeook user, you might want to join my pages there. Is Google+ catching your fancy? I have a home over there, too. Maybe email is your thing? No problem, almost all of my content can be emailed directly to your Inbox. My goal is to make my content available in whatever way makes the most sense to you. It also means you can contact me and converse with me on your favorite online services.

This list is also broken down by interest. If you want to see everything I post and share, the first section is where you can find it. This will contain information from all my areas of interest including events, careers, gardening, technology and my organizations. Maybe, though, you are only interested in my gardening information. You can narrow your reading to my gardening blog or Facebook page. The same applies for careers, technology and my organizations. Select whatever is most interesting, and valuable, to you.

Thank you for supporting me, my blogs and podcasts and my organization of the years! I look forward to talking with you — and sharing more with you — in 2012.

• All my interests and personal information
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In case you haven’t heard it elsewhere  – on the Career Opportunities blog, in the Twitter Feed or Facebook Page — I am here to announce the release of my latest career ebook, Cultivating Your Career Reputations.

Listen to the audio promo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This 11,000 word book is available for immediate download in the Amazon Kindle bookstore. Kindle books can be read on almost any device including Windows and Macintosh computers, iPhone, iPads and Android tablets and phones using the FREE Kindle Reader software.

Here is an example from the introduction of Cultivating Your Career Reputations.

“While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.”

Sections include:

• A Reputation for Fairness
• A Reputation for Honesty
• A Reputation for Trustworthiness
• A Reputation for Decision-making
• A Reputation for Empathy
• A Reputation for Helpfulness
• A Reputation for Compromise
• A Reputation for Clarity
• A Reputation for the Big Picture…and the small
• A Reputation for Balancing Work and Self
• A Reputation for Creativity and Innovation

Buy the book, or download a sample, today!

Other Kindle Books by Douglas include:

• Social Media Self Preservation
• The High-Tech Career Handbook

Pssst! – Career-Op listeners and readers…This book just became available in the Kindle Store. Check it out before everyone else finds out! — Douglas

While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.

Join the Career Opportunities Mailing List for notification of the release