December 28, 2006
The difficult convergence: Work and family by age 30
Thirty is a magic number for the new generation — a time when people want their career path and their family life in place. This is a difficult convergence to pull off, but more and more people are aiming for it.
Jessica Marshall Forbes summarizes these feelings as she describes getting married: “We always knew we wanted […]
by Penelope Trunk | 1:24 pm
December 27, 2006
3 great time management strategies I’m failing at
I decided to spend the lull at the end of December working on my time management skills. What has happened, though, is I have merely gained a deeper understanding of why my time management has fallen apart.
Here are three strategies that everyone should be doing that I am not:
1. Do the most important thing first.
I […]
by Penelope Trunk | 3:25 pm
December 26, 2006
Productivity tip: Face-to-face contact energizes your brain
The need to have regular human moments at work is similar to the need to stand up and stretch on an airplane: Your well-being depends on it. On top of that, a workday with regular face-to-face contact is more energizing than a day full of contacts exclusively via computer and phone.
So get out from behind your […]
by Penelope Trunk | 4:11 am
December 24, 2006
Good news for job hoppers: Frequent change maintains passion
Most people change jobs every two years, and, guess what? It’s a good thing to do for your career.
The Bureau of Labor reports that people in their 20s change jobs every 18 months, and CareerJournal reports that 75 percent of all workers are job hunting. All this change has been scoffed at by people who say […]
by Penelope Trunk | 11:54 am
December 22, 2006
Blogger thoughts on building community
It’s been a big few weeks here at Brazen Careerist.
First, I’ve been accepted at 9Rules, a smart, very picky, community of serious bloggers, and I’ve been invited to be part of the Washington Post’s blog program as well.
On top of that, blogs with very heavy traffic have been linking here, so average daily page views for […]
by Penelope Trunk | 2:37 pm
December 22, 2006
Financial freedom is outdated; try optimism instead
I am sick of advice about how to achieve financial freedom. Freedom from what? I have asked some people, who I will not link to, since I’m dissing them, and the most common answer is that they want to be able to make decisions about their life based on what they want, not on what they can […]
by Penelope Trunk | 5:17 am
December 20, 2006
How to get your blog (or yourself) mentioned in print
One of the mantras of the online marketing world is that if you want to get something noticed, you need an offline and an online marketing plan. Because each type of marketing is more powerful when used with the other type.
Bloggers are generous with advice about how to get mentioned on blogs, but what about […]
by Penelope Trunk | 2:58 pm
December 18, 2006
Babysitter drama in the opt-out arena
Here is my babysitter nightmare. I moved to Madison without knowing anyone here. So I found a babysitter through the University of Wisconsin graduate program in early education. The woman I found was great. But she said that she was really busy, and could her boyfriend babysit instead.
I squashed all my sexist stereotypes of babysitters […]
by Penelope Trunk | 1:46 pm
December 17, 2006
Six new ways to get a job
Recruiting practices are changing at a break-neck pace as new technology emerges, and many recruiters are software savvy and focused on innovation. (In fact so many recruiters are blogging that this week is the annual best recruiting blog contest.) These changes in recruiting cause fundamental changes in job hunting. Two months ago, I listed ten job hunt tactics […]
by Penelope Trunk | 2:12 pm
December 14, 2006
Christmas at the office is bad for diversity
Countless workplace studies have shown that a diverse staff is likely to outperform a homogenous staff. So with all this talk about diversity, why are we still hanging Christmas wreaths at work?
Not everyone at the office celebrates Christmas, and acting as if everyone has the “holiday spirit” squelches the spirit of workplace diversity.
Diversity in the […]
by Penelope Trunk | 1:04 am
December 12, 2006
Harvard Business Review hides behind data about extreme jobs
This month the Harvard Business Review has an article titled Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek (subscription required). This article presents all the research to show that the destruction of the family comes faster in situations where both parents work long hours, but the authors, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce, refuse […]
by Penelope Trunk | 3:42 pm
December 12, 2006
Hire someone to write your resume
Look, you have to hire someone to help you with your resume. This should not even be a conversation any more. Would you cut your own bangs? If you were in sixth grade, yes, because the only thing you know about bangs in sixth grade is that they hang on your forehead. Once you learn […]
by Penelope Trunk | 2:00 pm
December 11, 2006
Your significant other can teach you workplace skills
When I was in couples therapy with my husband, I nearly died trying to force myself to listen to his ideas when I thought mine were better. But I realized that I had poor listening skills, and by dealing with my listening skills at home, I improved my listening skills at work.
We can learn how to […]
by Penelope Trunk | 12:41 pm
December 10, 2006
10 tips for time management in a multitasking world
Time management is one of those skills no one teaches you in school but you have to learn. It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you can’t organize information well enough to take it in. And it doesn’t matter how skilled you are if procrastination keeps you from getting your work done.
Younger workers understand […]
by Penelope Trunk | 11:26 am
December 6, 2006
Strategies for getting a good reference
When I was applying to graduate school, I needed three references. The only work I had done was not the reference-generating kind, like signing autographs for Esther Williams and chopping heads off chickens. So the references were a real stretch for me, and I ended up asking my boyfriend to write one.
I had done work for […]
by Penelope Trunk | 3:43 am
December 4, 2006
December is a great month to find a job
A lot of people decide to put their job hunt on hold between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, but that’s a big mistake. There are a lot of extra job openings in December. New budgets take effect in January, but human resources received the job requisitions for the budgeted new jobs in November, and they are […]
by Penelope Trunk | 1:42 pm
December 4, 2006
Beware of burnout: Take the test
Burnout is as much about your dreams as it is about your work, because burnout is the gap between your expectations and your ability to meet them. Jennifer Senior has a great article in this week’s New York Magazine about about burnout, which I will quote from here.
Burnout is not about how many hours you work, […]
by Penelope Trunk | 3:54 am