Yep, that’s right. Our very own Google Guy Jason Warner is doing Coachology this week. For those of you who don’t know, Jason has interviewed a bazillion candidates as an in-house recruiter at Microsoft, Starbucks and now, at Google. And he has strong opinions about what works.
This week Jason is offering to coach one of …

I am fascinated by self-esteem because it’s such a huge differentiator among everyone – even among the smart and talented. And I don’t think people can fake it. Maybe it is my own, overzealous self-esteem when it comes to my ability to read self-esteem, but I think people reveal their own levels no matter how …

The barriers to entrepreneurship are crumbling, and every six months, technology makes starting a business easier and easier.
As a result, entrepreneurship has become more appealing to a wider range of people. If you measure success in terms of personal growth and flexible work, their success rate is sky high.
Here’s a list of the old and …

Did you ever notice that in most Starbucks there is art on the wall? In hyperly competitive New York City, where I used to live, the waiting list for putting art on the wall at Starbucks was two years. Really. But I signed up.
I know, you’re thinking, Penelope was an artist? The answer is, sort …

By Bruce Tulgan – Instead of avoiding small problems and hoping they’ll go away, solve them as they come up. You’ll avoid disaster and you and your employees will get good at dealing with conflict.(requires the Flash 9 Player)
iPod Video – Download

By Jason Warner – One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is that they get caught up in the tactics of their job at a particular company, and they then don’t do anything to advance their career beyond their current employer. This is a significant error in life strategy.
I see people all the …

The topic of my column in the Boston Globe this week is management issues. If you want to talk with me about how you manage, or how you like to be managed, and you are not older than twenty-seven, I’d love to hear from you. Today. By 3pm eastern time.
Big caveat: You …

Climbing to the top of corporate America requires near complete abnegation of one’s personal life, not in a sacrificial way, but in a child-like way. In most cases, when there are children, there is a wife at home taking care of the executive’s life in the same way she takes care of the children’s lives.
This …

The reason I spend so much time telling you to have someone else write your resume is that I have done it before, and it worked out really well for me.
I thought of myself differently after getting help with the resume. This is because a good resume is not a list or a work history, …

Today’s careers are made and broken by one’s ability to network.
Please don’t post comments about how unfair this is — I know that people who are bad at networking think it’s not fair that the world rewards networking so much. But that’s the way the world is. You’re not going to change it by whining.
Instead, …

I had a career coach. I got the coach the day after a meeting where I was the only woman and the only person under thirty. My boss said, “You need more polish. You need a career coach.” I thought, “Great, my boss is going to pay to help me to fit in with the …

By Bruce Tulgan — Forget the idea of being a hands-off manager. That doesn’t help anyone. In the early 90s it became popular for managers to not manage. Today’s mangers need to reverse the trend.(requires the Flash 9 Player)
iPod Video – Download

Today people talk very loudly about how they want a job that lets them have a life outside of work. That’s smart, of course, because there’s a long list of scientifically proven benefits to your health and happiness that friendship brings. And this includes the findings of Gallup pollster Tim Rath that you are almost …

By Jason Warner — One of my direct reports told me I’m wearing VP shoes. Apparently, my Eccos are the most popular shoe brand among vice presidents at Google.
It’s not surprising that I dress like a VP. Because dressing like what you want to become is an important part of an overall career strategy. What …

I tell people all the time to change their job if they don’t like it, and people tell me this is totally impractical advice. A lot of people write to me to say that my advice only applies to rich people. Or they tell me that single parents, families living paycheck to paycheck, people in …

Does this courtship sound familiar to you?
“We used Instant messenger a lot. But sometimes you just want to get away from your computer, so then we’d text. But fighting while you text is so tedious you may as well just get back on IM.”
This description is from Sandra Proulx, who maintained a long-distance relationship with …

The transition from the end of school to the beginning of adulthood is very hard. Today that transition lasts longer than it used to, because there are so many choices and so few tried and true career paths — if any — that work anymore.
Here are five things to keep in mind to make the …

A good way to think about the process of getting a job is that a resume gets you in the door, and an interview is where you close the deal.
Here are nine ways to ace an interview and get the job:
1. Tell good stories.
When someone says, “Tell me about yourself,” they don’t want to hear …

A lot of readers ask me how to find a recruiter to help them find a job. In general, my answer is: Forget it. Headhunters don’t work for people who need jobs. Headhunters work for people who have jobs to fill.
The way this works is the hiring manager has a specific type of person he …

By Bruce Tulgan — Sometimes people who make insane demands are actually giving you the clues to getting better work out of your team.(requires the Flash 9 Player)
iPod Video – Download

Who makes the best salesperson? A cheerleader.
The drug industry is so systematic about recruiting cheerleaders that the New York Times writer Stephanie Saul wrote a feature about it, spotlighting women like Onya: “On Sundays she works the sidelines for the Washington Redskins. But weekdays find her urging gynecologists to prescribe a treatment for vaginal yeast …

By Jason Warner — I’ve been interviewing people for a very long time. Sometimes I think maybe too long. You have to go back to my very first recruiting job at Microsoft to understand. This was when Microsoft was The Place to Work in the Technology World, circa the mid 1990s.
In this …

The reason I know so much about being late is because recently, I have been late a lot. So I have been telling myself that each time I am late I have to honestly think about what sort of behavior is causing me to be late, and write it down.
The write it down part is …

It turns out that young people are poised to significantly increase workplace productivity. But, before we get to that link, here are links to help us redefine age and rethink what engagement looks like at work.
1. Recompute your age
Here’s a new way to think about which generation you are part of: How many social media …

Knowledge workers can spend about 40% of their day on email, not just reading and replying, but also searching for an email they want to reference. So it makes sense that we are always looking for ideas to make dealing with email faster.
Here’s one: Get a coach.
The three biggest problems with email are: There’s too …

By Bruce Tulgan – We know that writing stuff down helps us remember. But we don’t do it all the times that we should. Here are the ideas that will cause you to write down more, and writing down more will help you do a better job.(requires the Flash 9 Player)
iPod Video – Download

Emotional intelligence. This is how you will differentiate yourself at work in the new millennieum.
We can see the world shifting around us in response to the fact that tolerance for poor social skills is getting less and less. The need to fit in with a group on some level, is getting higher and higher, and …

By Jason Warner — There has been a lot of press regarding the implications for job seeker of Those Photos on MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites. You know the pictures I’m referring to…
Most of the discussions I’ve heard on the topic are cautionary, as in, “Beware! What you post or …

Today Jason Warner starts guest-blogging on Brazen Careerist as Google Guy.
I met Jason when he was the head of North American Recruiting for Starbucks, and he launched a blog meritocracy.net. Then I followed his switch from Starbucks to Google and we’ve been friends ever since.
I’m really excited that he’s blogging here because I have learned …

In this age of transparency and authenticity it seems absurd to not tell you my real name. My real name is not Penelope Trunk. Well, in fact, it is Penelope Trunk. Sort of. At any rate, my name is definitely a lesson in personal branding.
My name started out Adrienne Roston. It’s fun to write that …

The old paths through adult life don’t work anymore. Graduate school is no longer a ticket to a stable career, and in some cases, it’s not even a ticket to a job. Student debt weighs so heavy today that people should not expect to have what their parents have. Technology opens up many types of …

Today is the first of a weekly event where someone gets free coaching. The coaches will be different each week, and they will address a variety of aspects of work and life.
I’m calling this feature Coachology because I think we all are going to learn a lot about the wide range of coaching that is …

It’s tax time, and every year I think to myself that I should be deducting everything. Really. All my income comes from freelance writing, and since there’s almost nothing in my life that I don’t write about, maybe I can deduct everything.
After years of thinking I should do this but not really doing it, I …

A couple of months ago, two people sent me the same thing: A womens’ magazine was looking to interview a woman who was doing a good job balancing kids and a freelance career.
“You should respond to this!” said one of the emailers. “This will be great publicity for your book!” said the other emailer.
Articles that …