Job Openings from Tuesdays with Transitioners

Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, organizer of Tuesdays with Transitioners posted these job listings recently. Join Tuesdays with Transitioners Meetup group to receive these job listings directly via Meetup.com and email.

Job Listings from Tuesdays with Transitioners – June 16, 2013

• District Sales Manager (Los Angeles)
• Java Developer, Contract (San Diego)
• Executive Assistant to Director
• USC Credit Union is Seeking Marketing Coordinator
• USC Credit Union is Seeking an Indirect Auto Lending Manager
• Sr. Accountant- Large High Tech based Company (Orange County, CA)
• Senior Accountant (Newport Beach, CA)
• Part-time Market Research Manager role
• Curriculum Development -Christian Institute on Disability
• Accounts Payable Specialist, Joni and Friends
• Part-time Fundraiser Position

Link to Tuesdays with Transitioners for details on all these positions and past listings

** Find more jobs on the Career Opportunities Job Board from SimplyHired.com

Job Listings from Tuesdays with Transitioners – June 16, 2013 is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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When you are addressing problems in your work and your career, I usually recommend taking a soft approach. No matter how severe the problem, a few gentle words can often smooth the waters and get people back on track. That said, there will come a time in your career when you simply have to tell it like it is. While it does call for a certain amount of tact, this isn’t a time for sugar-coating the message. If you have tried resolving the problem with more subtle methods, then it might be time to sit down with the person and deliver a bit of unvarnished truth.

While you might think it necessary to have these tough conversations only with those who work for you, you will often need to have them with your peers. These conversations can be more difficult, due to the different nature of your relationship, but they are just as important. If you cannot resolve a situation with a co-worker by talking it out, you may need to get your manager involved. This may have consequences far outside your control, though. It is better for both of you to work out your differences alone, rather than risk the annoyance of your boss.

The first rule of engagement in a situation like this is tact and decorum. Even though you are delivering bad news, you don’t need to be obnoxious about it. Bullying, threatening behavior will only further charge the atmosphere and usually results in dramatic scenes that do almost nothing to solve the problem. No matter how angry the other person may get, or how abusive, you need to remain as calm and respectful as possible. You job is to communicate the nature of the problem and what needs to be done to correct it, not belittle the person.

That said, the time for “beating around the bush” is over. You need to come to your point quickly and directly. You need to lay out real world examples of the problem that clearly illustrate what you mean. State them quickly and directly and then ask the person if they understand the issues you have presented. Some defensiveness is to be expected, but sometimes, feeling trapped, people can lash out at you, the company and everyone around them. It is up to you to keep the conversation on track, though. Don’t allow yourself to be pulled into discussions that aren’t directly involved in the problem at hand. Remember, your goal is to make this the last conversation you need have about this problem. Stay focused and see it through.

In the past, I might have recommended you use language such as, “I feel…” when presenting your issues. Since subtler methods have failed to address this problem in the past, though, I would caution against it here. They give the other person the opportunity to dismiss your concerns as personal, rather than professional. They will see you as the problem, not the situation you are trying to correct.

In some cases, your own actions might have played a part in the creation of the problem. If so, clearly admit that. If you don’t bring it up, the other person surely will. That said, don’t take the entire burden on yourself. Perhaps your directions for a particular project were not clear in the beginning, then this was a failure on your part. If the other person continued to not perform their duties, though, even after multiple clarifications then the failure also lies with them.

The final, and most important, point to remember is that you cannot ignore problems, simply hoping they will go away. That is probably what brought you to have a discussion in the first place. When you ignore problems, they fester and grow until you are forced to deal with them in a supercharged environment of anger and spite. No matter how difficult it might be to address a problem now, I can guarantee you that it will only be more difficult should you wait.

From today forward, make a commitment to yourself and others to address problems and issues earlier and more directly. I can only imagine the amount of hours, dollars and tears that might be saved if we only took that commitment to heart. Today, not tomorrow, is always the best time to tell it like it is.

***

Archive: Tell it like it is — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Jobs Available – Listings of all types at Jobs.WelchWrite.com – Search by keyword and location is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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It never occurred to me that leaving my computer consulting business would be such a dramatic change. Sure, I have quit jobs in the past, but closing your consulting business or transitioning it into a new business as I am, is unlike quitting any single job. You find yourself quitting each and every client individually which is like quitting 100 or more jobs, one after the other in a process that can take months, or even, years. There is no easy way to do it. 

Throughout this process, you will experience many emotions. You may be fearful about your new direction, but your clients will also be fearful and maybe even angry that you will no longer be available. Some will have come to rely deeply on you and your skills and will be unsure if some other consultant can provide them the level of service they expect and desire. No one really likes change and being forced to change can cause a lot of stress. This stress can cause them to lash out. Be aware of this and be ready to help your clients through the process. That said, don’t postpone or stop your transition. Once you have decided to move forward in your career, it is very important that you continue with the process. You have to do what you think best for yourself and your career.

Breaking the bonds

Much like stopping smoking or trying to diet, going “cold turkey” is often the only way to move forward with large changes. Sure you’ll have to finish projects for some clients and start referring clients to someone new, but breaking from your existing business is a slow and arduous process. As I said earlier, it is not like you can hand in your resignation and be done. You have to “resign” from all your clients, both large and small. On some days, it might feel like the process may never end, but I can assure it does. It just takes some time.

For both your benefit, and the benefit of your clients, establish a schedule that allows you to transition out of your consulting role in several clearly defined steps. First, announce your transition to existing clients. Lay out your timeline for transition and provide any referrals that you can. Referrals are important, as many clients will quickly transition to that person or business, freeing up time to focus on your transition. More importantly, explain that — starting immediately — you will no longer be taking on any new clients. It is better to stop that flow immediately.

Next, give your clients a firm date when you will no longer be available to them. Your clients need to clearly understand that they need to find a new consultant, or in-house staffer, sooner instead of later. You need to be focusing on your new role, not servicing your original clients. As mentioned above, some clients will transition immediately, wish you the best in your new career and move on. Others will drag their feet and continue to call on your for support. This is probably inevitable, but in the worst cases, there will come a time when you will have to stop returning their calls. Do everything you can to move on.

Just stop

Finally, when the time comes, you need to stop. It can be tempting to keep working for some clients. You may want the extra money or you might simply want to help those clients who haven’t made the transition yet. All these can be worthwhile reasons, It can also slow your transition to your new role – taking your time and attention from where it is needed most. Don’t fall into this trap. If necessary, think of these consulting clients like past jobs. You wouldn’t continue working for your old employer in a typical job situation, so you shouldn’t continue working for old clients.

Hopefully, your transition will be easy, but in some cases it can be immensely difficult. People may be angry at you for “leaving them in the lurch” and feel abandoned by you. You may be fearful over your own transition and the challenge of finding new clients, learning new skills, building your cash flow and more. Still, as with any life change, you must do what you consider best for you. If you truly believe that you’re doing what is most important for you, then you’ll need to ignore the recriminations of others. Those who want to see you be successful in life will understand and support your decisions. Those that don’t understand your need to to change jobs often won’t be dissuaded. No amount of argument or discussion will convince them of the importance of your change. The best you can do, after preparing them as much as you can, is walk away from these clients and onto the next step in your career.

***

Transitioning out of consulting can feel like quitting 100 Jobs — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Join me next week for a discussion on Social Media and Your Career.

Back by popular demand, Douglas will continue with his “Year of Self-Preservation” theme by focusing on “Social Media Self Preservation” – how to take advantage of social media without losing your mind!

There is a way to make the best use of social media without falling into the traps of lost privacy, burnout, or feeling as though all your time is taken up with it.

Douglas will discuss how to use it to your advantage, what are the best networks, how you can best “be found”, reserving your name, and who to include in your community, among others.

Balance in your social media sharing is the key to longevity and optimizing it so that you are promoting yourself to the fullest. Douglas will point the way!

Douglas will also talk about how you can get involved with CareerCamp SCV, Saturday, July 13, 2013 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita.

Event: Douglas speaks on “Social Media and Your Career” at Tuesdays with Transitioners – June 18, 2013 at Noon is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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If there is one lesson you can take away from nearly every Career Opportunities column, it is the fact that there is always a better way. I don’t care how entrenched the problem, there is a way to solve it that will make your working world a better place to be. You shouldn’t simply have to “live with it.” Granted, the more difficult the problem the more dramatic the solution will need to be. Having the courage to address the problem is where we often fail, though. We forget that there is a better way and struggle on for months or years.

Too often, long term problems exist because everyone in a company has collectively agreed to ignore them. These problems are the proverbial “elephant in the room” that everyone pretends isn’t there. It is amazing the mental gyrations we can perform to ignore a problem that is staring us right in the face. Maybe your company accountant is allowed to overrule any expenditure or your office manager treats the company as their own personal fiefdom, intimidating workers and executives alike. While people might grumble privately about the problem, no one seems to have the wherewithal, the courage, the guts to deal with the problem, even though it is crippling the company. I understand how stressful it can be to address a deeply entrenched problem like this, but by failing to deal with the problem, you risk sacrificing your entire company to the whim of one person.

Companies can also damage themselves by failing to address fundamental problems with their products or even their entire business model. In many operations, customer service and support staff spend the majority of their time fielding the same questions repeatedly. If companies truly wanted to improve their bottom line and help the company to grow, it seems that addressing these most common issues would be a great place to start. Instead, though, they ignore these most basic issues in favor of grand plans, complicated business strategies and the latest management fads. In most cases, management doesn’t even think to ask about these chronic problems. As in our other example, they simply pretend they don’t exist.

Sure, you will hear countless reasons why certain problems can’t be solved, but it is exactly this thinking that ensures problems will continue. We convince ourselves that some external force is preventing us from being the company and the person we truly want to be. The cold fact is, though, we have lost sight of our goals. We have forgotten that there is a better way. We ignore the difficult issues by focusing on those issues we think we can fix, but no matter how hard we work on these problems, the fundamental issues we are ignoring will always cause us to fail. Solve the big issues and many of the smaller issues will take care of themselves.

The most damaging problems are those where entire business models are at risk. You only have to look to the entertainment industry to see the results. In their case, refusal to face fundamental changes in their industry has led them down the path to near destruction. First, they ignored the problem of the Internet, file sharing and online distribution and now they are trying to use the legal system and legislation to prop up their old business model. Instead of addressing the problem and seeking new alternatives they will eventually be replaced by new companies that have created new business models that deal with the new realities of the entertainment industry.

For your own personal career, developing the courage and methods to face fundamental issues is a sure way to continue building your career, instead of watching it falter. While voicing your concerns might upset some people, the results you achieve will far outweigh the complaints of those determined to ignore the problems. You may need to be very creative in showing people the better way, but it is possible.

The current state of business should be a clear signal that you need to face those intractable problems of your company and your career or you could be facing the failure of both. No matter how difficult the problems may seem, you have to seek out the better way — you have to believe it exists — or you will find yourself trapped in a never-ending cycle of failure.

***

Archive: A Better Way — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Whenever people think about jobs it seems they always focus on the typical choices — doctor, lawyer, engineer, programmer, salesperson. While these are certainly some of the better known career paths in today’s world, I would challenge each of you to think outside the norm, at least a little, when contemplating your first — or next – job. You might be surprised what you find there.

Like everyone, my career thinking can get trapped in the usual ruts. Since we are surrounded with these typical job types, it can be difficult to see that there are a myriad of choices available to innovative careerists. In my own case, I recently had a moment where I remembered that not everyone works in an office (or home office) hunched over their computer.

Last Saturday, my wife, son and I took a trip to Santa Cruz Island, part of the Channel Islands National Park off the coast of Southern California. It really helped to shake up my thinking about careers, as I was reminded of many jobs that the average person doesn’t even contemplate. From the dock in Ventura Harbor to Prisoner’s Harbor on Santa Cruz Island and during our time on the island, I met many people who were living the antithesis of the 9 to 5 office career. When cocooned within our own typical careers and thoughts about work, we can forget (or ignore the fact) that these options even exist. Based on my experience, let me introduce you to a number of jobs and careers that perhaps you have never considered.

First, we encountered the staff of Island Packers, who deliver hikers, campers and workers to and from the islands via catamaran. Of course, there were office staff members who handled ticketing and other business functions, but there were also the crews on the boats who ensure a quick and safe journey. They have to handle the logistics of moving people, camping gear, kayaks and supplies to and from the boat which only has limited access to the island dock. They have to be sea and safety conscious while also focusing on customer service and making sure their visitors have an enjoyable time.

Many of these same staffers also take on the role of hike leader and naturalist once we arrived at the island. They introduced us to the unique environment of the park, warned us of hazards, and made clear the rules we needed to obey to protect the flora and fauna of the island. Some of these people were college educated in ecology, biology and other sciences and some were not, but all were personable and knowledgeable. Talking with one staffer, I heard that she had volunteered on the island for many months before deciding to pursue her career there.

Once on the island I met another collection of professionals. There were, of course, the National Park rangers who lived and worked on the island, protecting the environment, maintaining the infrastructure of campgrounds and buildings and engaging in scientific studies about the unique plants and animals that live there. In some cases, this involves tracking and tagging — with microchips and radio collars — the endangered Channel Island Fox that lives only on the Channel Islands. These rangers are joined by several different private contractors who are hired by the National Park Service to work on construction and other infrastructure projects as well as scientific studies such as population studies, geologic research projects and more.

Finally, there were the hosts of our particular trip, The Friends of the Islands Fox. This group is part of the Channel Islands Foundation non-profit and they have been working (quite successfully) for years with the National Park Service and other groups to bring the Channel Island Fox back from the brink of extinction. Staffers, including my close friend, Keri, are volunteers who visit schools with programs educating students about the Island Fox. They work with teachers and students to learn how the foxes live and how they are monitored with radio collars and microchip implants.

None of these people have what might be considered a “normal” job, even though they are using skills and knowledge that would serve them well in any position. Through either direct choice or simply serendipity they have found careers far outside the norm and flourished there. Take these people as an example of how every career need not be the same old, same old, career. You don’t have to fall into the usual job classifications, you can use your work skills, knowledge and outside interests to develop a career that other people might envy — if they know about it at all.

***

Look for jobs outside the norm — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Job Openings from Tuesdays with Transitioners

Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, organizer of Tuesdays with Transitioners posted these job listings recently. Join Tuesdays with Transitioners Meetup group to receive these job listings directly via Meetup.com and email.

Job Listings from Tuesdays with Transitioners – May 26, 2013

• Exemplis (Orange County, CA) is hiring
• Corporate Controller (Irvine)
• UTA Listings for 05-07-2013
• Part-time Sales (Retail)
• Part-time Sales (Retail) CORRECTED EMAIL
•  Electrical Engineers (Irvine/Pacific Northwest Region)
• Assistant to Executive Producer
• Administrative Assistant/Receptionist, SF Valley Rescue Mission

Link to Tuesdays with Transitioners for details on all these positions and past listings

** Find more jobs on the Career Opportunities Job Board from SimplyHired.com

Job Listings from Tuesdays with Transitioners – May 26, 2013 is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Do you really own the rights to your great new invention? How about the copyright of your latest novel? What about the first novel you wrote while you were in college? If you don’t pay close attention to patent and copyright policies of your schools and your workplace, you could be in for a very ugly surprise.

This week, while attending the monthly Geek Dinner here in Los Angeles, I met a young gentleman who developed a system for random number generation. In fact, this system was so important you may have read about him on Slashdot and other online news sources. During our conversation, an interesting fact came out. Despite the fact that he had developed this system himself, he did not own the rights to patent. He could not license the information and, in some ways, was even prevented from talking about the patent except in the vaguest terms. While he is able to exploit his discoveries in other ways, the fact is, his university owns all the rights because he was a student there at the time he developed his system.

The concept that a university could own the rights to your creative endeavors gave me food for thought. I have dealt with the copyright issues involved when I was writing while still in a corporate job, but I hadn’t thought about it lately. Since I work for myself, there is very little occasion when I fall under the typical work-for-hire stipulations that you find in many contracts. So, I sat down with the usual online resources and began investigating the policies at several well-known universities.

Who?

One of the first items I noticed is, many university policies on patent and copyright at one time only applied to the administration, faculty and staff of the university. Students, it seems, were exempted unless they were also employees of the school. Several policies though have since been amended to add both graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in the policy, as well, probably because their fellowships qualify them as being on the payroll of the university. In my basic research, though, I didn’t turn up any policy that applied to undergraduate students. So there are no worries about the university owning those bad poems you wrote freshman year.

What this policy review shows, though, is that you need to be very aware of the policies that apply to you and your work, whether in an academic forum or in a corporate workplace. While these policies are similar in many ways, individual businesses can often have stricter policies. In some cases, companies can try to declare all work produced while you are employed, both inside and outside the workplace, as work-for-hire and therefore property of the company.

What to look for?

If you have substantial creative work that is produced outside your day-to-day job, you should contact your company’s legal department and get a clear understanding of the policies that might effect you. If you are being offered a job with a company, you will want to investigate these policies before agreeing to take the position. Otherwise, you might find yourself handing over your creative rights to your new company. In fact, if you have already created a substantial invention that might be patentable, or written a copyrightable work, you may need to explicitly exclude this from any hiring agreement in order to protect yourself. If you fail to do so, you might be in for a long road of litigation in the future.

Such thoughts about patents and copyrights rarely entered the minds of most workers in the past, unless they were high-level chemists or engineers who might create entirely new concepts or materials. Today, though, it is a rare worker who doesn’t have outside interests and outside projects that might, one day, turn into a product or service worth millions of dollars. Whenever large amounts of money are involved, strict policies about who receives that money are sure to be found. Don’t be blindsided by the policies of your school or business when it comes to patents and copyright. Your future career success depends on the continued ownership of your creative works and the income they may generate. You want your work to enrich your life and expand your career, not the bottom line of your employer.

***

Archive: Does someone else own your work? — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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When we talk about careers, we often talk about your knowledge, your skills, your deep understanding of the work you do. While this is certainly important, there can be another aspect of career that is lacking in many of us. No matter how well we know our work, if we don’t also have some basic business skills it can make our career much more difficult.

Finances

What business skills do you need to succeed? First and more importantly, you need to understand money, cash flow and budgeting. If you can’t understand and manage how much cash is coming in and how much cash is going out, you will forever struggle in both your life and career. While there are times in all our lives when you will carry some debt, crushing levels of debt can stunt your career before it ever gets started. Heavy debt can often cause you to make the wrong decisions about your careers at the wrong times. I often see people who remain in bad jobs far too long mainly because they don’t think they can afford to go anywhere else. Even a short break in earning and their debt threatens to consume them. Debt shouldn’t be the deciding factor in your life and career. It limits your possibilities and, in some cases, can lock you into a cycle of bad jobs, for bad pay, that make it very difficult to escape from your debt.

Monitor your income and your expenses closely and carefully. There are a host of programs and web sites that can assist you and many are free. There really isn’t an excuse anymore. Sure, even I had difficulty reconciling my accounts using the old paper methods, but with the help of some financial software like Quicken and others, I can reconcile my accounts to the penny every month. Even more, I can monitor how much I spend on various categories over time. Nothing can be quite so striking as to see how much money you spend on eating out, but many of us never take the time capture that information and use it to our advantage.

Sales

Another important business skill to learn and use is sales and promotion. If you want to make money in your career, either as an employee or freelancer, you need to be able to sell yourself and your skills to your “clients.” For myself, this has always been one of the most difficult tasks and yet one of the most important. You can’t bring in income if no one knows “what you do and how well you do it.” You have to spread the word about yourself and your work so that jobs, projects and other opportunities can find you. Don’t limit yourself by only looking for work when you need that next job. Always be sharing your work and seeking out those opportunities that come your way. I often say to myself and others, “If there is money on the table, figure out some way to pick it up.”

For me, this is the antithesis of the stereotypical, high-pressure, sales process. Sales isn’t something you do at a particular time or place, but rather something that is integrated into every day and every action you take. Thankfully, the invention of social media, podcasting, online video and other tools has allowed me an avenue for sales that better fits my sensibilities and needs. It has also allowed me to integrate sales into everything I do so that I don’t feel that familiar fear of “Sales” with a capital S that so many of us dread.

People

People are often the most confusing, most obtuse, most troubling part of any career or business. Humans are inherently “messy” creatures who often do things for no apparent reason (at least to other humans), or work against their own best interest and, for the worst of them, try to take advantage of other humans at every opportunity. While this may sound depressing, it is also best to remember that there are also many people who are organized, skillful, smart and caring. Of course, these are the people you want to bring into your life, career and business.

For me, there is a certain amount of “gut feeling” that goes into deciding who I work with and who I work for. If you are attuned to it, people often give you very clear signals about who they are and what is important to them. While snap judgements aren’t always the best judgements, there will be times when it is perfectly clear whether you should work with someone.

The trouble is, we often ignore these signs. You discount what you are feeling about someone because you are pressed for time or pressed for money or simply aren’t paying enough attention. This can lead you into bad situations — with bad people. You end up working with others who find no problem in taking shortcuts in their work, even if it harms the customer or client. You hire people who will take advantage of both clients and yourself if given the opportunity. Be aware of the traps that can be found in human relations. Again, there are lots of great people out there, but if you don’t actively seek them out, you may find yourself saddled with people who don’t share your values or goals and this will greatly restrain your success. If you truly want to succeed in your career, you need to become a keen viewer of other people and human nature in general and react accordingly.

Ignore your business skills at your peril. Trying to develop a great career without them is difficult, if not outright impossible. No matter how good your skills, how creative your ideas or how wonderful your projects, if you don’t have a handle on the fundamentals of business, you will constantly struggle.

***

What you need: Business Skills with finance, sales and people — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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No matter who you are, or what you do, there will be times when your thoughts will feel scattered. Too many ideas, competing for too little time. Your thoughts simply go around and around and you can’t seem to choose any one item on which to focus. I call this painful state — “the stall.” You are so overwhelmed with it all that you stop — dead in your tracks. Your anxiety rises as your productivity falls until it seems you will never escape.

How do I know so much about the stall? Well, it was what I was experiencing right before I started writing this column. As you already know, real life has a way of intruding on our work and I am no exception. In fact, since I have so many differing aspects to my work — computer consulting, writing, volunteer projects — it seems to be a regular occurrence. The more you do, the more life will intrude. This week my parents are in town on their yearly visit and I am sitting at my son’s baseball game as I write. Too many things pulling me in too many directions. There is a way to breakthrough the stall, though and the fact that you are reading this column at all shows that I found a couple of methods to do just that.

Do something

When you are stalled it is not important what you do. You simply need to do something. If you want to get moving again, you have to choose one task, no matter how mundane and do it. Sometimes I find it best to pick a task totally at random from my to-do list. Worrying about priorities and deadlines can just lead you deeper in the stall. I don’t care if your random choice happens to be “clean out the cat litter,” — don’t think about it, just get up and do it. Once you complete this first task, you will find that the momentum will keep building. Maybe you will choose another random task. You might even find that your thinking has started to clear and you know exactly what you should work on next. Just like getting a car out of a snow bank, once you get the car moving, keeping it moving gets easier and easier.

Make a list

While sometimes we are hit with the stall because we have too much to do, it can also happen when we don’t know enough about what we need to do. As a devotee of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology, it has been made clear to me that if we don’t have a handle on everything we need to do we can also end up stuck. We can get lost in worry that, no matter what we might be doing now, there is something more important that we have forgotten.

One of Allen’s central premises is that of gathering all your “open loops” into one, central trusted location, so you can feel reasonably secure that you know everything you could be doing at any time. Of course, when I recommend this to those who come seeking advice, I often see panic in their eyes when I suggest they try to collect every single item they need to do. They say, “What? If I gather up everything I need to do I’ll just be more stressed. There’s too much. I’ll be more stalled than when I started.”

I can tell you from personal experience, though, that once you have collected everything you should be doing, you will feel better. It may sound counterintuitive, but much of the stress generating by too much to do in too little time is caused by being unsure of exactly what you have to do. If you know everything you could be doing at any point in time, you are in a better position to logically and rationally select the best thing to be doing. Then you’ll be able to pull one task from the list and get to work.

Stop

There will be times, though, when none of this works. You have chosen randomly, you have listed everything, but still the anxiety and guilt of the stall will eat away at you. In these crisis times, the best thing you can do is give in. Take the stall as an indication that you are at your breaking point and simply stop trying to force your work…at least for a short time. Get a cup of coffee. Listen to some music. Go for a long walk. Whatever it takes to get away from the pressure. You can’t do this forever, of course. Eventually, you will need to re-engage with your work, but you will come back to the task refreshed and better equipped to face the work.

Don’t let the stall get in the way of your work. Randomly chose work until you can gain enough momentum to keep moving. Get a better grip on everything you need to do. Take some time away. Use these tools to get you out of the stall, keep your work on track and your career moving in the right direction.

***

Archive: The Stall — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Part of any great career, regardless of industry, focus or technology, is the ability to remember what it was like to not know something. As we gain knowledge and skills in our work, we can come to think of others as ignorant and clueless, if not outright stupid. This is a danger zone for any careerist as it leads to arrogance, hubris and — in many cases — obnoxious behavior. We can begin to think we are the smartest folks in the room and everyone else is an idiot. Of course, it only takes one bad day, one bad project, one bad result to bring us crashing back to reality.

It is always important to remember that our co-workers, managers and freelance clients are rarely ever stupid. Rather, they are simply unacquainted and unfamiliar with the work they hired you to do. They know they need it done, but they also know they lack the skills to make it happen. This is a point in their favor. They are practicing the great rule of knowing what they don’t know and seeking out your assistance. That is never to be taken lightly.

For example, in a recent project I was asked to record and produce a series of interviews for a client. Their original thought was to record each subject, individually, in their homes or offices, over the course of one day. Hearing this, Some consultants might have said to them, “Are you crazy or just stupid? Do you know the work involved in setting up lighting and sound equipment, recording, tearing down and moving to a new location only to reset it all and tear it all down again?” The answer is, no they did not know. They don’t do this for a living and had no deep understanding of the work involved. This isn’t their area of expertise and frankly, they probably didn’t need to know this information to do their job. Remember, this is why clients call you.

To our credit, we didn’t respond in the way above, but rather saw this as an opportunity to educate and help them develop the project they wanted without blowing out our energy and their budget. We explained how it would be much easier to bring the people to a central location over the course of a few days so we could do one setup and teardown, but still record between 4-6 interviews in each session. Once we explained the logistics of such a project, they immediately saw how much easier — and yet more productive — this approach would be. Until we took the time to explain the process and procedures involved, they really had no idea what they were asking.

Again, this didn’t come from a place of stupidity, but rather a lack of understanding of the steps that led to the finished product they had in their mind. This is so typical when developing projects either internally or working as an outside consultant. Your clients see the finished product in their mind, but they may have no idea of all the work and preparation needed to get there. This is where your knowledge, skills and ability to educate become so very important. If you don’t have the ability to see beyond what you might think of as a “stupid question” you risk losing the entire project.

That fact is, I often describe myself as being an non-traditional educator. Everything I do, in all my work, involves some sort of education. I just don’t spend that much of my time in what would be considered a traditional classroom. Rather I tend to work one-to-one with partners, co-workers and clients, teaching them skills and helping them move forward with their own abilities. Great teaching — and great work — does not come from a place of arrogance. It comes from a deep understanding of both my own skills and the needs of my clients. They need to understand. They need to learn. They need to be made to feel comfortable and safe so they can take the risks of learning new skills and, in some cases, feeling “stupid” in front of someone else. Arrogance can crush this fragile relationship and leave you wondering where your clients, and your money, went.

Know what you know and know what you don’t know. And know what your clients know and don’t know. Develop your skills and knowledge, but never forget what it feels like to “not know.” Remember how you felt in the past and you will develop a greater knowledge of and empathy with your clients. This then paves the way for great things both you in your own career and for your clients. Educate, illuminate and then create. Your clients need you, your skills and your knowledge.

***

Showing your clients the way — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Our fourth CareerCampSCV (Santa Clarita Valley) is happening on July 13th, 2013 and tickets are available starting today. We hope to see you there!

Unemployed? Underemployed? New college graduate? Considering new career options?

Join us for CareerCampSCV 2013!

When: Saturday, July 13, 2013 9AM to 3:30PM

Where: 26455 Rockwell Canyon Road Santa Clarita, CA 91355

FREE Admission • FREE Parking

Directions

College of the Canyons Career Center presents CareerCampSCV, a FREE  unconference dedicated to helping you build the career you deserve. The day will include scheduled speakers, ad hoc presentations and breakout ses- sions on all aspects of building your career. CareerCamp is FREE for all adults who want to build or improve their career. Space is Limited. Register for FREE today. For more information, a list of scheduled speakers and additional career content

Registration is now open for CareerCampSCV 2013 – July 13, 2013 is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Job Openings from Tuesdays with Transitioners

Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, organizer of Tuesdays with Transitioners posted these job listings recently. Join Tuesdays with Transitioners Meetup group to receive these job listings directly via Meetup.com and email.

Job Listings from Tuesdays with Transitioners – May 12, 2013

• Curriculum Specialist (Sebastopol, CA)
• Principal, Mariposa School of Global Education
• Las Virgenes School District is looking for counselors-Application deadline is May 14
• Medical Assistant, Plastic Surgery Office (Westlake Village)
• Personal Assistant to High Profile Actor
• Talent Assistant, Management/Production Company
• Part-time Social Media and Office Manager/Assistant
• Call Center – Customer Service (Health Care) – Paid Training Coventry Health Care – Scottsdale, Arizona (Phoenix)
• Music Studio Instructors, Join the Band
• Speech/OT Therapist

Link to Tuesdays with Transitioners for details on all these positions and past listings

** Find more jobs on the Career Opportunities Job Board from SimplyHired.com

Job Listings from Tuesdays with Transitioners – May 12, 2013 is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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There is a wealth of career advice and information available today via books, television and the Internet. Most is given in the sincere hope of improving the lives of others. It is important to draw on this advice to improve your life and career whenever possible. I am constantly reading reams of material every week, looking for ideas to keep my career on track. Despite all that, there can be a dark side to career advice if you don’t think deeply and clearly about the advice you decide to implement.

The truth is, when faced with an expert, a guru, a respected member of our industry, we run the danger of accepting every thought, every rule, every idea as fact. Self-growth isn’t about accepting every idea unconditionally, though. It is much more important to find ideas that hold a resonance for us, personally. Even with the most knowledgeable experts, not every concept will be a gem. It is up to you to sort the wheat from the chaff, whether expert advice comes from a renowned speaker, a book or the Internet.

The Rules

Of all the advice given by experts, including yours truly, I first turn my critical eye to any hard, unbreakable rules. Advice that uses words like “must” and “never” is suspect to me and deserves special attention. It is a rare piece of advice that remains true forever. Rules, if they are useful at all, are fleeting. Work, business and your career change in substantial ways every day. Rules that might have been applicable today, could be obsolete tomorrow. While experts seek to find the universal truths in their areas of expertise, the world does not stand still. Any attempt to assign unbreakable rules will eventually fail. The world has a way of rendering much obsolete, even when created by some of our best thinkers. Who would have thought 30 years ago that CEOs would regularly dress in turtlenecks and polo shirts to give some of the biggest speeches of their lives?
From the gut

There is another phenomenon which is especially disheartening. Sometimes, when taking advice, we will start to ignore our own best instincts, our own “gut level” reactions. Regardless of how we receive advice, or from whom, if that advice goes against our own basic instincts, we will fail to implement that advice properly. It is impossible to whole-heartedly follow a plan of action if we don’t believe in that action to our very core. We may try to fool ourselves into believing, but our instincts will always win out in the end.

The most likely reason we don’t believe is that our instincts are telling us the advice is flawed, even if we can’t consciously put our finger on the reason why. I am sure you have felt it before; that creeping sense of uncertainty; that gnawing sense of doubt. These are warning signs and should be observed as such. There is some missing piece that needs to be discovered and analyzed. Maybe the advice isn’t a good fit for your company. Maybe it goes against some personal ethical belief. Maybe it has simply become obsolete in today’s work world. Whatever the reason, when you have doubts, you must explore them and quiet them before you ever try to implement new advice. If not, you will end up sabotaging your own efforts in the most subtle of ways.

The Trap

There is one final trap when taking advice from friends, managers or experts. If you are not careful, they can end up running, and possibly ruining, your career. When we begin to accept advice unconditionally, we give up control. We let others take over the direction and speed of our career. This often means that someone else is leading you to a destination they desire more than you do. Without thinking critically about advice, there is a danger that your decisions can become a series of automatic responses that serves no one well.

You might sense yourself on this track if too much of your life is taken up with defending a particular expert, concept or way of life. If you invest your own success too deeply in an external source, you can feel threatened when those around you, or even life experience itself, doesn’t agree. Instead of using the advice to help you build a better life, you spend your days trying to protect it in the face of mounting contradictions and attacks. There must be a balance or you will find yourself trapped in a downward spiral built by your failure to think critically about ideas.

Be very careful about the advice you accept and implement. Think critically about each and every piece and never (oh my, there’s that word) accept it unconditionally. While advice can certainly help you build your career, it can also take you down the wrong path, if you let it. We have a brain in order to allow us to think, not simply parrot one idea or another. Thinking critically about your work and your life is just one way to build your career.

***

Archive: A Critical Eye On Advice – from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Enter the keywords you are searching for and your location to get fresh and focused listings.

Jobs.WelchWrite.com

Jobs Available – Listings of all types at Jobs.WelchWrite.com – Search by keyword and location is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Over my years as a freelance computer consultant, I’ve heard many stories of workers who have difficulty getting paid for their work. There can be disagreements about whether a project has been completed, claims of cash-flow problems or even, at the worst, simple fraud. Sometimes companies or individuals can be slow to pay invoices or, when they grudging pay, complain about the quality of your services. There are, it seems, a myriad ways to not get paid for your work.

After talking with my peers about payment problems, it seems I have had it easy. Where they might have experienced several issues with payment, I might have had one. It seems that, often, payment issues have more to do with how we do business, rather than any particular type of client.

Over the years, I have found that part of the secret of getting paid is to act like you expect to be paid. This might sound a bit odd, but I have seen workers who are not confident in their work and offer a host of apologies and excuses, even when they are completing the assigned task in a better than average fashion. They don’t have respect for their own work, and this spills over, often unconsciously, to their clients. This makes it easy for clients to request change after change without additional payment. These clients will often let invoices sit unpaid for weeks or months, considering others more worthy of payment. In the worst cases, it may take threats of legal action or more to get paid.

If you want to get paid, reliably, for your work, there are a few guidelines that you need to follow.

* State your rate, confidently, at the beginning of the relationship

Make sure that your clients know your rates and payment requirement before performing any work. Nothing is worse that having a client question your rate after you have already performed significant work. You may never see the payment for that work, even if the client has benefited significantly.

Don’t apologize for your rates, either. There will always be those who cannot afford your rate, especially as you gain experience. In many cases, the only resource you have to sell is your time and your knowledge. Discounting your rate either shows a lack of confidence in your own work or a belief that you have mis-priced your work.

* Carefully specify projects, deliverables, change order processes and payment plans

If you are working on a long-term project, your project plan must contain a detailed account of deliverables, and the payments associated with those deliverables. Payments should be on-going, at regular intervals. A detailed change-order process should be in place to allow changes as the project develops, but also provide payment plans for this additional work.

It might sound like an enormous amount of work, but if you launch a project without carefully specifying your rates, payments and change order process, you are almost guaranteed to lose money. You are setting yourself up for disagreements over the original specification, the change orders and even whether the project is complete in everyone’s mind.

* Don’t extend credit until a relationship is established

In my own business, I ask for payment at the end of each service call, either by check or cash. As I develop a relationship with the client, especially in small business environment, I might eventually move them to a monthly statement. I only do this, though, once they have established the ability, and desire, to pay. To be honest, since I always apply the 2 previous guidelines in all my work, this is usually not an issue. Those clients who show any issues with payment are quickly abandoned. There is no reason you should have to deal with payment issues. It only saps the strength of your business and damages your own confidence in your work.

The final truth is, payment problems in our businesses are usually of our own making. If we don’t price our services correctly, or don’t have confidence that our rates are fair and appropriate, we send out subtle signals that allow less than scrupulous clients to take advantage. Specify your larger projects so that payments and change orders limit opportunities for disagreement. These few simple guidelines can help you build your business and your career by showing your clients that you expect to be paid for your good work — something any worker has a right to expect.

***

Archive: Getting Paid — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Many people like to think that there is work and there is play and there is never any crossover between them. We do “work” to earn money to pay for our food, our clothing, our houses. We “play” to escape our work and have fun. I was reminded this week, though, that playing can also result in more creative and fulfilling work, often in entirely new areas. In today’s work world, where everyone is an entrepreneur regardless of where they work, we all need to be looking for those new, unique ways, to expand our work and build a career that is both lucrative and fulfilling. Often, this means engaging in new ideas and projects simply for the sheer fun of it. I can tell you from personal experience that you never know where it might lead.

My most recent story of turning play into paying work started a few months ago. I was working in my computer consultant role for a friend of a friend. It was some typical Windows-related software issues that I fixed in about an hour. This was my traditional work role — fix the problem and get paid.

At this client’s house, though, there was a beautiful Asian-influenced garden. There, in the heart of the suburban San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, was a tranquil retreat for both the owner and the clients who came to her creativity consulting business. I was so struck with the garden that I asked the client if I might take a few photos to share on my garden blog — another aspect of the far flung areas of my work/play. When I returned home, I posted those photos to my blog and then also created a short montage video, which I naturally shared with her.

Fast forward to about 6 months later. This same client contacted me again, but not for my traditional computer consulting. She was holding a creativity event and wanted to know if I could create some testimonial videos for her business with the people who would be attending. She had quite liked my original garden video and since she already already knew my work she felt comfortable in hiring me for this new project. Had I not taken a few moments to document her garden for another aspect of my work — and share those photos and video through my blog — she would have probably never known I was even capable of video production.

This story directly points out how important it is for all of us to engage in activities outside our typical work — and share those activities with others. You never know where your next job, your next project, your next career may come from. I have found over the years that these serendipitous moments are often the source of my most fulfilling and lucrative work. It may seem odd to combine work with play and personal projects, but it is through this combination that we develop our own personal career and create opportunities we may never have thought possible.

The strange fact is, we are often the worst judge of our own talents and value. We can be dismissive of our leisure activities and think that there is no way these activities could also help us earn a living. This is why it is so important to share these activities and let others decide how useful they might be. In this particular case, the client simply did not have the skills — or interest, for that matter — in creating these videos, even though she knew they would be very useful for her web site. Once she saw my interest and abilities, she realized she had found someone who she could pay to bring the project to fruition. Had I never shared my interests and skills, though, we both would have missed out on a great opportunity.

Starting today, I want you to think about your own interests and hobbies and how you might share those interests with others. Surely, not every part of your “play” needs to be turned into paying work, but wouldn’t it be great to earn money doing something you absolutely love? This can’t happen, though, unless others know about your love, your skills and what you can create for them. Open yourself up to opportunities all around you, simply by letting others know what you find interesting and fun. You never know where it might lead.

***

Sharing your interests and personal projects can lead to paying work for others – from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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Job Openings from Tuesdays with Transitioners

Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, organizer of Tuesdays with Transitioners posted these job listings recently. Join Tuesdays with Transitioners Meetup group to receive these job listings directly via Meetup.com and email.

Job Listings from Tuesdays with Transitioners – April 29, 2013

• Sr. HR Business Partner (El Segundo)
• HR Manager (El Segundo)
• HR Director (Gardena)
• Social Media/Digital Marketing Intership (Possibility of Intern-to-Hire)
• Contract Technical Writer, Medtronics (Northridge)
• HR Analyst, Entertainment Company (Los Angeles)/HR Generalist, Real Estate Company (Beverly Hills)
• Entertainment Agency seeks 2nd Assistant
• Director and Manager, Tierra del Sol
• Contract-to-Permanent Recruiter, Emser Tile
• HR Business Partner, Los Angeles-based manufacturing firm
• Associate Director, Human Resources (San Francisco Bay area)
• Sr. Compensation Analyst
• HR Generalist (Jackson, MS–relocation paid)

Link to Tuesdays with Transitioners for details on all these positions and past listings

** Find more jobs on the Career Opportunities Job Board from SimplyHired.com

Job Listings from Tuesdays with Transitioners – April 29, 2013 is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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How often do you know everything about a job or project before you walk through the door? How often do you know everything about a piece of hardware or software before you have to install it or, even more likely, teach it to someone else? The world moves too quickly these days to possibly learn everything we need to know, before we need it. In today’s world, we are often deeply engaged in more “just-in-time” learning than ever before. So, how does one survive in a world where we are learning and teaching at the same time? Oddly enough, to be successful at just-in-time learning, you actually have to make many preparations.

Traditional and more

One way of preparing for the “just-in-time” world is to learn as much as possible about as much as possible. If you have taken classes in Cisco router management, project management or accounting, you may have 70%-80% of the knowledge you need to be productive. Training, classes, apprenticeships all fill the well you will draw on in later work. You need to choose wisely, though. Overly-specific training or classes that have limited application aren’t going to help much. You simply won’t find enough opportunities to apply that knowledge. Training on products or concepts that are nearing obsolescence won’t serve you well, either. You need knowledge that is going to be applicable in the coming months and years.

That said, nearly anything you learn can help, even if you are not yet sure how it applies to your future work. Take, for example, learning how to manage a coffee bar. It has many lessons to offer that apply far outside its immediate realm. You will learn management skills, accounting and bookkeeping, customer service and a host of other useful skills. You can never be quite sure how you will apply your new knowledge in the future.

Your goal in all this learning is to be able to face new challenges by drawing on your reserves of knowledge. In an example from my own life, it is impossible for me to work with every piece of hardware and software on the market today. In fact, it would foolish to even try. I would be spending hours investigating devices and programs I might never see in the actual course of my work. Instead, when I find myself facing an entirely new situation, I have developed enough experience with enough devices that I can make my way through nearly any process.

Over the years, I have also discovered a host of web sites that allow me to find more specific information “just-in-time.” Whether I am faced with an unfamiliar virus, error message or unique piece of computer hardware, a quick search is often all I need to move the project forward.
To some people, this “seat-of-the-pants” method can be overwhelming, if not outright frightening. Still, it is essential for every worker, regardless of your type of work, to apply these methods, no matter what your official job title. You must be able to adapt, learn and apply your knowledge almost simultaneously.

Another important aspect of “just-in-time” learning is the ability to retain the knowledge you have acquired from day-to-day and moment-to-moment. In my own case, I use a combination of tools to “remember” information that might be useful in the future. My first, and most important, tool, is the journal I am writing in at the moment. I often take notes when I am with a client, especially if faced with a particularly esoteric or challenging problem. Then, when faced with a similar problem in the future, I don’t have to try to remember the entire solution, only a basic idea of when I first faced the situation. Then I can simply flip through my journals to refresh my memory.

I also use online bookmarking tools, like del.icio.us, to remember useful web sites, tech notes and online discussions. These tools add the additional benefit that they allow me to access the information wherever I have an Internet connection and they contain search tools that can quickly locate the information I need. You should develop similar tools to assist your learning and retention.

Just-in-time learning is a fact of life in today’s work world, but through active learning, and learning through experience, you will be ready to face even the most exotic work challenges.

***

Archive: Just-in-Time Learning — from the Career Opportunities Podcast is a post from Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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