Career Planning

What does exercise have to do with finding a job?

September 6, 2013 By Marta Goertzen

I have been thinking about wellness a lot lately. I have been particularly active in the last year because I traveled extensively on my boat so I got a lot of physical activity while I worked. I also got a lot of work done. I wrote three books that will be published shortly and worked with many more clients than ever before. I also wrote a regular blog for The Interview Doctor and a regular blog for my travels. Looking back, it seems like an enormous amount of work but at the time, I just had fun.

Arriving back in port for a desk job, I wonder how I will get my regular activity. That caused me to wonder if my physical activity was related to the tremendous amount of work I got done.

I did a little research. Apparently, there is a correlation between exercise and success. Students who regularly exercise perform better on tests. People who stand or move while they work feel better. I learned this is from the positive endorphins that run through your body after exercising. Those endorphins make you feel great and give you energy.

I know that now that I am back on dry land, working out of an office, I need to get out and get some physical exercise if I want to continue to feel great and produce business results. I don’t have to buy a bunch of equipment or join a fancy health club. I didn’t have equipment or a club for the last year. All I had was my own two feet. I walked, ran and climbed all over my boat. That seemed to do the trick for me.

So let’s apply this concept to a job seeker or someone going for a promotion. You are busy and under a bit of stress. You have limited resources – maybe limited time or money. The combination of lack of time, stress, and limited resources might lead you to think you don’t have time or money to exercise. But, this is the time when you need regular exercise the most.

You want those positive endorphins to be coursing through your veins, making you feel invincible. You want the extra energy that allows you to finish one more item on your to-do list. You want that energy to shine through your eyes, your face, making you tone and lively.

Go for a walk or a run. Run up the steps at your local museum Rocky-style. Do 100 jumping jacks and 100 sit-ups every morning. Walk to the grocery store. Take the dog for a long walk. Get moving!

You MUST find 30 minutes a day to get away from your desk and move. It will bring dividends in your career.

Labor Day Card 2013

August 30, 2013 By Marta Goertzen

Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased. – Adam Smith

Every so often it is appropriate to pull out our history books and remind ourselves that Adam Smith, original spokesperson for capitalism in his ground-breaking book, The Invisible Hand, believed in the value of labor, even over monetary wealth. Our society often forgets this basic principle in our constant veneration of all things money-related.

So this Labor Day, remember that everything you see, everything you touch was put there by someone’s labor. People who get sweaty, who don’t earn a lot of money, and who don’t have much of a voice.

Thank a hard working person today. Then have a hot dog and celebrate a hard earned day off.

Katherine and Dan, the hard working Interview Doctors.

The Freelancer’s Bible by Sara Horowitz: A Different Look at Contract Work

August 27, 2013 By Marta Goertzen

If you are a job-seeker looking for a full-time position with benefits, perhaps you are feeling the competition, pretty intense at times. I recently conducted a search for an experienced middle-to-upper management position, and found a large (0-plus) number of candidates with the qualifications we agreed we needed for the hire. The distilling process of the search was driven by a few key factors which had more to do with chemistry fit in the organization and specified number of years of experience than capacity to handle the role. From what I’m seeing, landing a full-time job with benefits is very competitive.

The fastest growing employment status today is ‘contracted service.’ As much as 12% of the workforce work is in ‘temporary’ positions and that number is growing rapidly. Now it’s time to use that fact to your advantage.

Let me recommend a book to you that oddly may prepare you to win the full-time-hire-with-benefits competition, even though the book’s focus is the careful preparation of a freelancer career. It’s called “The Freelancer’s Bible” by Sara Horowitz.

First, what’s a freelancer, and who should read this book?

Freelancers include the following:

New grads starting their careers.
Full-time workers wanting to earn more for their kids’ education, or saving more for retirement, or transitioning to a new career.
Laid-off workers who are job-hunting.
Workers who leave full-time jobs for greater work-life satisfaction or more flexible hours for school or training.
Parents who want a flexible schedule to take care of kids or aging parents.
People who turn their hobbies into profitable ventures, making money doing what they love.
Seniors seeking to supplement their incomes and stay active.

Recognize yourself in this list? A lot of working people would raise their hands to at least one of these situations today.

So how do you develop and take advantage of a ‘freelancer mindset’? It’s a different approach to the job search world or the career-planning world that empowers rather than diminishes your confidence in what you bring to the table. You don’t put all your eggs in one job basket. Establish contracts with various clients, and look at your time servicing those clients as your financial investments.

Diversifying the investment of your time can show you the value you bring to the market place, because you see what businesses and clients are willing to pay for your services. And, if you are prepared to seek out clients and business relationships that respect that value, you begin a freelancer life in the ‘balanced lane.’

Horowitz provides a VERY thorough look at all the parts of a freelancer business development plan (this is a Bible, a resource as much as a read). A ‘freelancer mindset’ knows the value of a start-up business plan (part one), creating a process for getting clients, and getting work (part two). It involves marketing yourself and your brand to grow your business (part three), managing your business, your time, your office, and your taxes (part four). And, working and playing, and staying on top of your game, including safety nets like affordable health insurance and scheduling down time, and giving back to your community (part five).

If you are an experienced professional or a new college graduate, in need of supplemental income or a new job, finding a full-time-job-with-benefits gets easier when you begin to live the confident, entrepreneurial mindset of a freelancer. If you want to position yourself in this global economy, consider The Freelancer’s Bible by Sarah Horowitz.

Think about the future on Independence Day

July 2, 2013 By Katherine Burik

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
-Woody Guthrie

This year as you enjoy potato salad and hamburgers or watch that July 4^th parade, take a moment to think about the bigger picture.

This great country’s future depends on everyone getting involved and everyone having an equal opportunity to get ahead. But it takes everyone.

If this land was made for you and me, what can you do today to make this land a better place for us all? How can you get involved to make your community stronger? How can you expand your horizons to consider the other guy? To help other people get ahead? To help other people learn?

Start today. Thinking about something or someone other than yourself will open opportunities you never expected and make you a stronger candidate when you change jobs.

Thinking about the future on Independence Day,

Katherine

Are you responsible for your actions? In a job search? In life?

June 28, 2013 By Katherine Burik

Seth Godin’s recent blog, “The Perfect Crime”, posted on June 24, 2013, challenges us to consider the impact of marketing in a way that changes the culture to benefit you and your shareholders at the expense of people, health, and culture.

We traveled recently to Washington DC. Beautiful old mansions and gorgeous high rises devoted to lobbyists trying to change our culture and society, attempting to bend the rules to benefit the shareholders at the expense of society. It is an awesome sight. You can define “awesome” any way you choose. I might also describe it as overwhelming. Every tiny organization has a lobbyist group.

What if you don’t? Our little entrepreneurial business does not have a lobbyist. I do not have a personal lobbyist representing my personal interests either. So how do I get power or influence my world?

Seth raises an interesting question about how we spend our money and how we allow ourselves to be manipulated as consumers. The more important question for us is what is our responsibility to ourselves, our shareholders, and our communities for our behavior?

As Seth says, if you are “responsible for the power in your hands… then we need to own the results of our work… No sustainable system can grant power without responsibility.”

As a business leader and entrepreneur, I choose to function in a manner that makes my community stronger. I am stronger when my colleagues and community is stronger. So I make business decisions and personal decisions for the greater good. Sometimes I come up a little short personally but I am comfortable that in the long run I will win when my clients and the community wins, especially if I play a role in making my little world better for those around me.

As a job seeker, you are responsible for the decisions you make. You can be as active or inactive as you wish. You can choose to work for companies that harm or help the greater community in which you live. The goal is not just a job offer. Your goal should be a business role that balances personal fulfillment with the impact you have on society. Anything less changes the culture at the expense of people, health, and culture, not necessarily for the better.