Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

Failure vs. failure — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

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There is a great difference between Failure (with a capital F) and failure with a lowercase “f”, but sometimes it can be hard to see that. While it is part of the human condition to fail on occasion, and despite what we might learn from those failures, failure is never, ever, easy. Given enough failures, in fact, and you might start feeling like a complete Failure. This is a dangerous place to tread, though and can lead to greater problems down the road if you don’t come to some sort of understanding with yourself, your life and your career. Don’t let failure stop you in your career tracks. Face it, deal with it and then move forward.

Read Failure vs. failure — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

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Beyond the Briefcase: New visual icons and symbols for career — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

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I recently did a Google Image search on the word “career” just to see what it would turn up. There I found lots of pictures of signposts and arrows, lots of uses of the word Career in various typographic styles and, of course, eager, young  (almost exclusively) workers attired in suits, ties and/or skirts, often carrying briefcases. While I wasn’t that surprised by the search results, I find myself continually surprised by the icons from the past that we still use to represent work and career. Almost like the stereotypical usage of an old, rotary phone being used to represent a telephone or any type of call, the use of the briefcase or the suit and tie is just as outdated..

Read Beyond the Briefcase: New visual icons and symbols for career — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

What you SHOULD be sharing in your social media feeds — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

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A few weeks ago I talked about how to attract work and opportunities to you, instead of constantly begging for your next job. One of the biggest elements of attracting work to you is using social media to share the most interesting aspects of your life and work and show people “what you do and how well you do it.” Of course, it is worth taking some time to think about what you might share on your social media feeds that contribute to this end goal. Here are a few ideas to get you started in sharing the right kind of information.

Read What you SHOULD be sharing in your social media feeds — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Privacy and the need to sell yourself in your career — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

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Privacy is in the news a lot these days and it is a valid concern for all of us. That said, when you are trying to build the career you deserve, an excessive focus on privacy can make your careerbuilding more difficult, if not impossible. This is due to a large change in how we find jobs and develop our careers. The days of resumes and job fairs and networking are over, at least in the traditional sense. Today, you need to be spending every moment telling people “what you do and how well you do it.” If you insist on keeping every aspect of your life private, you are severely limiting the number of people that know about you and the opportunities these people may be able to provide. When it comes to your career, you can’t “hide your light under a bushel” and expect to achieve the career results you want.

Read Privacy and the need to sell yourself in your career — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

How to attract work to you — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

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The current form of career development/management is flawed.  First, you discover what work you might like to do and are qualified to do and then you go in search of someone offering a job/needing someone with your skills. Once you settle on a particular line of work, you make the rounds, resume (if not hat) in hand, begging someone to give you a job. It has been this way for centuries, but I think that is exactly the argument for why it shouldn’t be done that way anymore.

Read How to attract work to you — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

What you need: A Freedom Cache — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

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One of the most important aspects of any career is the freedom to make the best decisions for yourself and your family. Allowing circumstance to push you from one job to another without any sort of plan ensures that someone else will always be in charge of your career. You either make your career happen or your career happens to you. If you truly want to build the career you deserve, you have to insure that you also build the stability and the cash reserves that allow you make career decisions on your own terms instead of making decisions because you have no other choice.

Read What you need: A Freedom Cache — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Transitioning out of consulting can feel like quitting 100 Jobs — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

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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. 

 

Read Transitioning out of consulting can feel like quitting 100 Jobs — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Look for jobs outside the norm — from the Career Opportunities Podcast [Audio]

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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.

Read Showing your clients the way — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

What you need: Business Skills with finance, sales and people — from the Career Opportunities Podcast [Audio]

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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.

Read Showing your clients the way — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Showing your clients the way — from the Career Opportunities Podcast [Audio]

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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.

Read Showing your clients the way — from the Career Opportunities Podcast

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library