Most cover letters are addressed to people you don't know, so let's just stop referring to them as cover letters since what they really are is sales letters. You are trying to sell yourself to a stranger. The best way to think about this letter is in terms of direct mail, so pay attention to […]
The fact that good-looking people make more money is truer for women than men, which is especially unfair, because it is very hard to not gain a million pounds when you're pregnant; I gained sixty. This column is about my two-month quest to lose that weight, and the importance of making a plan for any […]
Preparation for an interview should include preparing to be silent. An interview is a sales call, not a chat session. So you shouldn't answer every question you get. Sometimes, you need to give a non-answer. This might feel a little weird to you, especially if you're a genuinely honest person. But remember that in most […]
Whether you're thinking of a top-tier MBA or a PhD in anthropology, there is a right way and a wrong way to approach graduate school. You need to understand your dreams, and what is required to achieve them. Also, you need to understand the marketplace, and what it values. If you dream of climbing ladders […]
Recently I read about a company which has three full-timers whose only job is to make employee life fun. They plan outings, parties, raffles, all reportedly in an effort to “stave off headhunters” and to keep engineers working “12- 15 hours days.” Here is a little note to the hundreds of employees at this company: […]
Here is a message for people who say they can't stomach office politics: You will die a slow, painful career death. This is because there's no getting around office politics, and mastering them is essential to being able to steer your own career. Don't take that as bad news, though, because mastering office politics is […]
Periodically, a college student sends an email to me asking if he or she can interview me for a term paper. I always say yes, and I always learn something about my work by answering student questions about my career. Invariably, within the list of questions, there's a stumper. This week, the stumper was, “How […]
I am not featured in my high school yearbook as person most likely to be giving career advice. In fact, people were probably thinking, as they signed my yearbook, that I was the person most likely to never even find a career. This is because I have had bouts with mental illness since I was […]
I had my baby last week. I'm tired. But not too tired to recognize management issues during labor. There were three management styles among the people who were in the delivery room: 1. The micromanager That was me, ordering my husband around, even when the contractions were so strong that I couldn't stand up. I'm […]
My brother Erik told me, “When I read one of your headlines that isn’t about me, I don’t read the column.” I usually think of Erik as a good example of my target audience: He loves the details of business, he’s excited about his career, and he wants to be a billionaire. So for one, […]