A group of think tanks, lead by the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that for the first time, men in their 30s are earning less than their parents. For the first time ever, this generation will not be more well-off financially than their parents. What should we make of this new finding? Does this …

Ask yourself: Do people like me?
You get promoted in this world because people like you, not because you get work done. There’s always more than one person who can get a job done. But everyone’s personality is different, so when you want to differentiate yourself at work, focus on your personality.
Showing the True You
In fact, a …

My book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, is available now!
Here is tip #37 from the book: A Long List of Ways to Dodge Long Hours
It’s hard to leave the office at a reasonable time of day when your workplace culture centers on long hours. But the cost of not leaving work is …

By Ryan Healy — like most people our age, my friends don’t really read blogs. So I created a My Space page to market my blog. At first, this worked out great. Our friends could see bulletins every time a new post went up and people got a better sense of what the …

Think twice before you ask for that promotion. What are you asking for, really? The average salary increase is less than 4%. This amount of money is not going to change your life in any notable way. Instead, ask for something that will change your life, like training, or a plum project that will broaden …

Advice for getting happier: Instead of focusing on what’s wrong with people, try focusing on what’s right with people -what makes people happy, successful and more productive. This is what the positive psychologists do.
Senia Maymin (pronounced Sen-ya) has a master’s degree in applied positive psychology. What this means is that she uses the science of …

Here is my book tour schedule so far. You’ll be able to find updates on my book web site, at www.penelopetrunk.com in a few days. For now, here’s the schedule.
I have actually already gone to one city, as a pre-publication test run: Cleveland. And I met up with a bunch of people …

At some point, you’ve probably thought about starting your own company. Maybe you want to get rich and famous from it, but most likely you just want to have fun, learn a lot, and try something new. The trick is getting the guts to do it.
Whatever you want to gain from starting a business, there’s …

More reviews of my book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. I send a big thank you to everyone who is writing about the book! Also, for the book publication, I’ve launched a new home site.
Here’s the home site: http://www.penelopetrunk.com/.
And here are the latest reviews:
Bob Sutton at Bob Sutton
This book made me think, it …

When you try to decide should you stay at your job or should you quit, you probably focus on the part of your job that is not core to you. For example, getting coffee for the boss. You do that and then your boss teaches you, say, how to review a fashion show in Milan. …

My book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, is shipping from Amazon!
Buy it there now. Or buy the book in local book stores starting on May 25.
Here is tip #25 from the book: Don’t Use Adverbs
If you want people to pay attention to what you have to say, write short. This is true …

By Ryan Healy — College taught me the true meaning of independence. I attended classes when I chose, I studied at my convenience, I partied at my leisure and I relaxed when I needed to relax. You would assume that since I am now an “adult,” I would at least have this same …

A few months after I graduated from college, I got a job at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I thought it was the perfect job for me because I was very focused on playing professional beach volleyball, and I needed to earn money to get myself to Los Angeles, but I couldn’t work 9-5 because then …

By Ben Casnocha — More than half of the current crop of college grads will start a business during their lifetime. And last year alone, 700,000 people started new companies in the United States. We are living in the golden age of entrepreneurship.
Part of the force behind this burst of new business is that the …

Guy asked for more material from me for his blog. So I wrote up a list of the biggest workplace myths. Here is my favorite:
Myth #9: Create the shiny brand of you!
There is no magic formula to having a great career except to be you. Really you. Know who you are and …

The biggest difference between the workplace today and the workplace twenty years ago is where the friction is. It used to be that the frontier of workplace change was feminism. Today it is time.
Women pushed for equal opportunity, equal pay, equal respect at home. Men pushed to hold their ground, hold their sense of self, …

Yep, that’s right. Guy Kawasaki inteviewed me about my new book. The post is titled Career Guidance for This Century and it’s at his blog, How to Change the World.

During my first job interview, my mom drove me to 31-Flavors while we practiced interview questions.
One question we did not practice was “How much money are you expecting?”
When the ice cream store owner asked, I said, “Well, my parents are cutting off my allowance for the summer so I’d like twenty dollars a week.” That …

For many young people today, the most trusted source of career advice is their parents. Unfortunately, a lot of parents are giving a lot of misguided advice to their kids.
Today’s workplace is very different from the one baby boomers navigated. But often they don’t realize that, and think the “classic” advice still applies. It doesn’t. …

By Stephen Seckler, Managing Director, Boston Office, BCG Attorney Search and author of the blog Counsel to Counsel.
The cost of a legal education is now reaching stratospheric proportions. Anyone contemplating this enormous investment of time and money should think long and hard before applying.
Here are five common myths about what law school will do for …

My book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, is shipping from Amazon!
Here is tip #21 from the book: Mud Slinging Means You’re Losing Ground
If you want people to like you, give them compliments. I know, that sounds like I’m telling you to brownnose. Instead, I’m telling you to find genuine ways to compliment …

Most people don’t need to go to graduate school. Sure, you need an MBA to run a Fortune 500 company, and you need to go to medical school to be a doctor, but in most cases, a graduate degree doesn’t provide a ticket to play – because anyone can play – but rather, the degree …

By Ryan Healy — I recently received an email from career coach and corporate consultant, J.T O’Donnell. She attached a link to a new e-learning course that she gives to young employees, and she asked for my input. For days, I debated how to respond. Eventually, I replied and told her that I …

The topic of should women work or should they stay home is a baby boomer fetish topic, with Leslie Bennetts being the current poster girl.
Joan Walsh, writing at Salon, points out that we are generally sick of baby boomer women telling younger women what to do and what not to do. But we are also …

Here are more reviews of my book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, which is already shipping from Amazon.
I send a big thanks to each of these bloggers for taking the time to review the book!
Sarah van Ingen at Armchair Interviews
Trunk’s writing is tight, energetic and enjoyable to read. After spending a couple days …

A job cannot make you happy, but it can save your life. People spend so much time looking for that perfect job, the perfect boss, the salary that will finally make them feel secure. But in fact, the impact a job can have on your life is overrated. Unless your life is completely falling apart. …

The difference between an MBA from a top school and the other schools is large. For example, one of the biggest benefits of business school is the connections you make while you’re there. So, the more superstars you go to school with the more superstars you connect with.
Another benefit that business school gives you is …

By Will Schwalbe — Many people who are nice in person do things with their emails that they wouldn’t think of doing face to face. Here are five ways to make sure this doesn’t happen to you.
1. Remember chain of command.
When you email people several rungs above or below you and forget to cc: one …

My book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, is shipping from Amazon!
Buy it there now. Or buy the book in local book stores starting on May 25.
Here is tip #26 from the book:
Leverage Your Core Competencies by Off-Loading Jargon
Don’t use jargon. I know you’ve heard this rule before, but maybe no one has …

One of the best ways to distinguish yourself at work is through productivity. We’re all sifting through too much email, we all have more work than we can ever get done, and we all have access to more information than we could ever consume.
The people who make the best decisions about how to process this …

I am a list writer. I do it by hand. Every day. Sometimes three or four times a day, if I’m feeling really overwhelmed.
Lists are a great way to force yourself to prioritize your life. When you read lists of why people fail, it’s clear that writing a list of goals every day will make …

I loved Ryan’s post about helicopter parents because, like many changes generation Y brings to the workplace, helicopter parents force me to see how much the dynamics of the workplace have changed and how what’s appropriate at work today is different than what was appropriate only two or three years ago.
The hardest parts about writing …

By Ryan Healy — Recently, I have seen a slew of articles about helicopter parents. Parents of millennials are becoming very involved in the job search process. These parents feel they have the right to call their child’s company to discuss benefits and relocation packages and even negotiate salary. I think this …

In many respects, changing careers is like dumping your significant other. It’s a lot easier to do than solving the problems you’re facing. But in so many cases, hard work and self-knowledge could solve most of the problems. And I have found — in both careers and relationships — that if I get through a …

Here is a list of some reviews of my book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. I really appreciate that so many people took the time to review the book. Thank you! (There are more reviews than these — I’ll post another list next Monday.)
Joanne Bamberger at Punditmom
An amazing little volume that should …

The job hunt of the new millennium is not sending out resumes and going to interviews. For the most part, it’s casually talking to people. And they don’t want a ten-minute story as an answer to the question, “What do you do.” They want an “elevator pitch” — one or two sentences that you could …

Hello everyone in Cleveland. I’ll be there Monday night, and after years of writing columns and blogging, I’m really excited to meet people face-to-face.
I’ll be at Artefino at 6:30, with no particular agenda except to get to know you. If there is a small crowd, we can have coffee and chat. If there’s a large …

Most of us will change careers at least three times in our lives. And most of us will be nervous at one point or another in the process.
Invariably, you’re giving up the known to pursue the unknown. So, even if you hate your current career, it’s still scary to give it up.
Five Steps to a …

By Will Schwalbe — Some of the most polite things people say can take on a totally different character when you write them in an email or in an IM or text message. Here are some examples.
1. Please
We are taught from an early age to say “please” when we ask for things. “Can I have …

People often tell me that I should answer more questions from readers. I do actually answer a lot of questions, but I don’t put them in a Q&A format. People say they like the Q&A format. But I don’t believe people like it as much as they say they do.
I confess, however, to really …

There is a media feeding frenzy over the last study released from the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation about the wage gap: All hands on deck! Women don’t make as much as men do! There is a lot of hoop-la about this study, which says that the wage gap happens immediately upon entry …

By Ryan Healy — A question I have been thinking about for months is, what is more beneficial to a young person’s career; putting in the extra time to do great work for a company that undervalues them, or finding a hobby that will positively contribute to the career they hope to have in the …

My book tour will include a lot more cities than this. But these are my test cities, to see how much interest there is coming from the blog.
I’m going to do a sort of get-together thing (not sure what) in both of these cities. If you are interested in joining me in Cleveland or Atlanta, …