Hank Boyer

Hank Boyer is the CEO of Boyer Management Group. He helps job seekers, higher ed and employment services connect people to better jobs faster. Boyer Management Group's acclaimed career development tools assist higher ed and institutions to connect people to employment. His newest book, "Get a Better Job Faster," is available worldwide through Amazon.com and explains more than 3,000 career and job search best practices for experienced professionals/skilled workers and students/recent grads. Boyer's company also works with some of the world's top employers by helping them get the most out of their talented people. Their extensive leadership development course catalog provides effective skills-building for everyone in the organization, from the new/developing leader to the seasoned C-level executive. These coaching programs produce significant results in compressed periods of time. To find out more, please visit www.boyermanagement.com.

Articles by Hank Boyer

• Turning your experience into accomplishments and skills

  Tuesday, August 31, 2021

  Since you were old enough to start your first job or tackle school assignments, you've been accumulating the experiences needed for a successful future. Landing your ideal job as a recent graduate or a seasoned professional depends on how well you translate those experiences into accomplishments and skills that match a prospective employer's needs.

• Make every interview, sales call and presentation better with post-mortem analysis

  Wednesday, August 11, 2021

  Following the completion of a project, sales presentation or job interview, a best practice is to perform a post-mortem analysis — a process where you assess what went wrong in a project. While the most important perspective will be the assessment your interviewers and customers make, it is highly instructive to objectively and candidly evaluate how you did during each meeting.

• What’s negotiable in your raise, promotion or job offer?

  Tuesday, July 20, 2021

  Chances are good that sometime during the next 24 months you'll be in a negotiation for your next raise, a new promotion, or a new job. The great news is that there are far more options at your disposal to raise your overall compensation than you might think.

• Why you should lead your employees towards self-direction, not empowerment

  Friday, June 04, 2021

  Remember when the latest buzzword was empowerment? The premise was that employees who were empowered would be more committed to successful outcomes because they had the ability to make decisions, commit resources, own the decision, etc. What's wrong with empowerment? Plenty! What if you empower someone who is not capable of handling the responsibility? In other words, empowerment potentially fails because of a lack of specific expectations for outcomes and the unintentional (or intentional) ineffective execution towards the objective. What’s needed instead of empowerment is a solid team of self-directed employees.

• What’s the BIG Idea? Episode 3: Jasmine Ahmed on organizational transformation

  Tuesday, May 18, 2021

  In this episode of “What’s the BIG Idea?” we visit with Jasmine Ahmed, Senior Vice President of Global Finance Transformation for NewsCorp. NewsCorp’s media empire spans the globe with trusted brands such as The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Barron’s, News Australia, and Dow Jones.

• Top 10 mistakes made on résumés

  Wednesday, May 05, 2021

  While résumés have evolved over the past decade, some of the same old mistakes keep popping up! For example, the purpose of a résumé is to make it easy for an employer to determine if someone is the right candidate or not. An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) will reject it if it is not a high-percentage match to employer requirements, and employers will not try to guess how nonemployer-centric content might be applied to them. Employers should be able to easily see how you will be an asset to their organization.

• What’s the BIG Idea? Episode 2: Steve Jurash on leading through crisis

  Thursday, April 15, 2021

  In this video, Hank Boyer visits with Steve Jurash, president of the 5,000-plus member Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia (MAP). MAP represents several hundred thousand manufacturing employees. In March 2020, Jurash led MAP through an incredibly challenging period of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, an event that brought manufacturing everywhere to a sudden halt. With several hundred thousand employees' lives affected by his decision-making, Jurash faced one of his most challenging periods of leadership. He shares more than 20 best practices effective leaders use to navigate during periods of crisis.

• 7 lessons for the new manager or supervisor

  Thursday, April 01, 2021

  Being a first-time manager or supervisor can be a very scary time. The confidence you had in performing every facet of the job as one of the team now seems to abandon you as you ready yourself for your first day as the new supervisor. A little pep talk with yourself in the car on the way to work settles things a bit. But now, as you enter the department, it seems as if every eye is on you. You smile and warmly greet your team, though your mouth feels as dry as a cotton ball. You think, "What have I gotten myself into?"

• What’s the BIG Idea? Episode 1: Sydney Guerrero on business development and relationship-building

  Tuesday, March 16, 2021

  In this episode of What’s the BIG Idea? we visit with Sydney Guerrero, Vice President of Busines Development for Orion Innovation, an $850 million global IT leader in digital transformation and product development services.

• It’s time to take charge of your own brand

  Monday, March 01, 2021

  Here’s an easy way to think about your brand: you are who others think you are. Who someone thinks you are is behind every visceral reaction he or she has whenever you come to mind. That is a profound statement, but undeniably true. You do it. I do it. The person three doors down from where you work does it. Every single person with whom you’ve come in contact begins to build a list of descriptors to define what they believe is true about your brand. Because you live in your own skin, you’ve built a perception of your own brand that is what you want it to be. More often than not, it differs from what others believe it to be.

• 10 ways to make a positive first impression at a new job

  Thursday, February 11, 2021

  First impressions are lasting impressions. Every new employee is under intense scrutiny as hiring managers and HR attempt to evaluate each new hire’s potential. Impressing in a series of interviews and during the selection process was only the preliminaries. Every new employee starts out at exactly the same place in the job, since there is no performance track record to view, no known bad habits, and an equal opportunity to excel. Here are 10 ways to stand out and make a great first impression during your onboarding period.

• Good news in your job search: Harry, Larry, and the bear

  Thursday, January 07, 2021

  What is North America’s No. 1 domestic issue of most concern to the average person? Politics? Coronavirus? Who will win Super Bowl LV? Nope! The thing that concerns most people is still jobs. Whether you are 18 or 80, you’ve likely never seen it more difficult to find a great job in your field of interest in your lifetime. Lockdowns in various regions of the country, overseas competition, and rapidly changing methods employers use to fill jobs have all made it difficult for good people to find good jobs.

• Locating yourself in the places of greatest opportunity

  Monday, December 07, 2020

  Are you being intentional about locating yourself in the place of greatest opportunity, or do you just let things happen to you? People who make things happen weren’t born that way, and they aren’t simply lucky. For the most part, people in this group are quite intentional in that they purposely locate themselves in the places of greatest opportunity so that they can capitalize when opportunity presents itself. Dig into the life of anyone who started in humble beginnings, became successful, and then sustained that success, and you’ll find someone who has learned the secret of hanging out in the places of greatest opportunity.

• The most powerful weapon in all of selling

  Tuesday, November 03, 2020

  It is the most powerful weapon of all and appropriate for any sales situation, any product or service, and any type of customer or prospect. And yet most sales professionals don’t use it enough. It works whether you are selling shoes or real estate, advertising or jet aircraft. It works whether you are selling retail, B2B, B2C, face-to-face, via virtual meeting, or over the phone. It doesn’t matter whether your products or services are priced at a few dollars or a few million dollars. The most powerful weapon in all of selling is this: asking effective questions whenever you speak with a prospect or customer.

• Why there’s no such thing as instant coffee

  Thursday, October 01, 2020

  You and I have been born into an accelerating world. Travel that took a week by horseback two centuries ago is now competed in a few hours in the air-conditioned comfort of your car. A little more than 10 years ago, the two-hour meeting you had in the next time zone that required flights and overnights is now completed in two hours, plus 2 minutes for the set up and tear down of a video call. We've become so used to speed that we actually believe there is something called instant coffee.

• 10 people you’ll meet during your next job search

  Tuesday, September 01, 2020

  It is 2:12 p.m. on a Tuesday when your cellphone rings. Looking at caller ID, you see that it is the name of a company you applied to a few weeks back. Arrangements are made to speak in about a week, and now your mind turns to what lies ahead. You need to become an expert on this company… and on the 10 people you will meet during and preparing for your upcoming appointment.

• How to have the difficult conversation when it is needed

  Tuesday, August 04, 2020

  Planning is your No. 1 strategy when it comes to a difficult conversation. Not all things in life can and should be planned. But if you are the one initiating the difficult conversation, it is essential that you thoroughly plan for the conversation and plan for the things that will likely not go according to your preferred plan. Planning should take place at each of the stages below in order to assure that each stage goes as smoothly as possible.

• What makes a difficult conversation difficult?

  Wednesday, July 01, 2020

  Why are some conversations difficult? People enter almost every conversation with certain expectations and opinions. Those expectations are based on the relationship between the people and the circumstances surrounding the conversation. When it feels like those expectations or positions are being challenged, human nature often reacts initially with emotion. For example, when a co-worker with a smile on her face after a holiday weekend approaches you and asks you about your weekend, you expect a pleasant conversation. Conversely, if you made a sizable mistake and your boss asks to meet with you, you enter the discussion with a degree of apprehension.

• 6 steps to getting better at everything

  Wednesday, June 03, 2020

  I've been an executive coach for almost two decades with greater than a 97% rehire rate. I want to share some of the tactics and strategies that continue to work across different industries, different cultures, and different kinds of need areas. You can become better at almost anything if you follow this simple plan.

• How to remain highly employable

  Monday, May 04, 2020

  The talent gap is the difference between the skills employers want and the skills job seekers and employees possess. As Gallup and others have pointed out, after more than a decade of being aware it exists, the talent gap has not been eliminated and in some cases has widened. Not only have secondary and post-secondary education not been able to fully sync up with employers to close it, the target is continuing to move.

• How to ace a group interview

  Monday, April 06, 2020

  More and more employers are using group interviews to help make their final selection. A group interview occurs whenever there is a team of two or more interviewers who each participate in the same job interview at the same time. Some employers use group interviews for finalists for a position, while others use group interviews for candidates positively flagged after one or more phone interviews. Group interviews may be formal in that questions are scripted ahead of time and specific interviewers are assigned to ask questions in certain areas. Conversely, sometimes group interviews are more relaxed and conversational in an effort to get to know the candidate, and how well an individual would fit within a team.

• The power of the career development discussion

  Wednesday, March 04, 2020

  With overall employee disengagement levels over 60% and many millennial employees already looking for their next employer, career development discussions have become a critical tool in attracting, developing, focusing, and retaining talented people. Career development discussions are not new, though they have recently become a rising star among best practices across all employment sectors for retaining talented people. The biggest challenge is that most managers do not know where to start in having an effective career development discussion.

• The art and science of speculative job applications

  Friday, February 14, 2020

  Should you apply for a job you'd really love to have when there are no openings advertised and no visible signs that the employer is hiring? A speculative job application is when a job seeker applies for employment to an employer where there is no known opening for the ideal employment a job seeker desires. The hidden job market is huge. It is estimated that the hidden job market could be at least 50% of all open positions available.

• 5 counterintuitive principles that will change your life

  Thursday, January 30, 2020

  It's not easy to be counterintuitive and go against the old paradigms. Yet history teaches us that most breakthrough successes have come from running counter to the prevailing paradigms. For example, where would we be today if, in 1981, Bill Gates of Microsoft had believed his own pronouncement, "640K of memory ought to be enough for anybody," and stopped pushing the limits of what computers could do? So, take a walk on the wild side, try these five counterintuitive principles for yourself, and see if they help you achieve breakthrough performance.

• How to begin navigating your career transition

  Friday, January 03, 2020

  A career transition occurs when someone changes the nature of their career path. It means this person has already invested substantial time on a particular career path, and now seeks to change to something fundamentally different. Navigating a career transition need not be overwhelming. Here are several questions for successfully navigating a career transition that should be answered before taking the leap.

• One more time: Why we hate performance evaluations

  Tuesday, December 03, 2019

  They are the subject of jokes, disliked by employees and employers alike, deemed "untrustworthy," and yet they continue to be a staple for how people are managed. As I work with employers and employees across North America, I hear horror story after horror story about how much people dislike the annual ritual of performance evaluations. Here are my unofficial top 10 reasons why people loathe performance appraisals and what must be fixed to make them effective.

• How to have a career development discussion with your boss

  Monday, November 04, 2019

  Over the past two decades, much work has been done to understand what causes some employees to have high engagement with their employer — actively realizing personal and professional growth — while other staff members are disengaged and feel tired, stagnant, and disinterested in their work. Most employees want what they do for a living to serve a greater purpose for both personal and professional growth. Not just something to do to fill time and earn money.

• Accepting or declining an offer letter of employment

  Thursday, October 10, 2019

  You got the offer letter. Now what? You’ve spent the past three-and-a-half months interviewing, and your efforts have paid off. One of your top employers has made a verbal job offer to you and has promised to send you an official offer letter. Here’s what you can expect to see, along with a few ideas on what actions to take. These ideas apply to new employment as well as accepting a promotion with your existing employer.

• Should you relocate to take a new job?

  Thursday, September 05, 2019

  In America, just under 15% of the population relocates each year. Some relocation is local and regional, although a good portion (at least 20%) is relocation outside the region. Unless you are relocating outside the area as part of a job transfer or retirement, chances are high that you’ll need to find employment in your new city. So, how do you go about conducting a remote job search? Here are five things a relocating job seeker could do, most of which require just a bit of planning to do them effectively.

• Watch what happens when you align your team

  Thursday, July 25, 2019

  On a crisp late September morning, as I stood on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River just outside downtown Philadelphia, I witnessed a tremendous lesson on alignment. An eight-person rowing team was practicing for an upcoming race and one of the oarsmen was having difficulty staying in sync with the other seven rowers. Principles of alignment are true in business and almost every other human activity. Failure to properly align means missed goals, wasted time and resources, and a less-than-optimal working environment. Results range from poor to good, but never great.

• Volunteering can help you accelerate your career

  Wednesday, June 12, 2019

  One evening, 24-year-old Mary Hernandez was speaking with David, her career services advisor at Center Community College, about how she could transition into a medical records position. Because she was working full-time at Platt and attending classes a few evenings a week, it was not practical for her to serve an internship. David suggested that she consider volunteering at a healthcare facility on Saturdays. "Volunteering is a terrific way to gain experience, to give back to the community, and to build an effective network," he explained.

• Don’t ever resign with a ‘shove it’ quit

  Wednesday, May 01, 2019

  In 1977, country music artist Johnny Paycheck recorded what many employees wanted desperately to tell their boss as they quit their jobs. "Take This Job and Shove It!" nearly won a CMA award for Song of the Year, and artists like the Dead Kennedys and David Alan Coe re-recorded it in the years to follow. Have you ever felt like leaving a job this way? Many people have. However, before you yield to the temptation, there are few things you ought to know.

• Your personal brand: You are who people think you are

  Friday, April 12, 2019

  It happens every single time someone sees you, your name, or hears your voice. It is inescapable, and it plays a significant role in how people respond to you. For example, it's about 3 p.m. and your smartphone buzzes, so you look at your phone to see who is calling you. In an instant, you recognize co-worker Larry LeGarrett’s phone number and wham! — you brand him before you decide what you are going to do with the call. Whether you answer or let it go to voicemail depends largely on how you feel about the Larry LeGarrett brand.

• Strategies for speculative job applications

  Thursday, February 28, 2019

  A speculative job application occurs whenever someone applies to an employer for a job that is not open. Job seekers do this in the hope that something on their application or résumé sparks an interest from the employer. Most employers’ websites offer the ability for candidates to post résumés and online applications regardless of whether or not there is a specific opening associated with the application. Most speculative applications are poorly done and never result in a call for an interview.

• How you can become a more effective listener

  Tuesday, February 05, 2019

  For most people, being listened to equals respect. It's true across cultures and true over time. True in your personal life as well as your professional one. And it is a best practice of people who want to be successful, regardless of who they are, what they do, or and how old they are. Hearing is an act of the brain registering a sound. Listening gives the sound meaning and considers an appropriate response. Active listening requires intentionality on the part of the listener. It enables the listener to extract critical content from what is being said.

• Results-driven credentials that demonstrate your value

  Tuesday, January 15, 2019

  If employers hire people to produce desired results, why not build a results-driven résumé to prove you are the best candidate? Why not give yourself an edge in your career search by building this résumé that tells employers you are a candidate they must consider? Whether it’s a for-profit (or a nonprofit, i.e., "not-for-loss") employer, businesses and institutions are looking for people who can deliver results that positively impact the bottom line.

• Don’t be that guy

  Tuesday, December 11, 2018

  One of my first bosses, Bill Forte, taught me a very valuable career lesson that is worth sharing. "Hank," he said, just as I was about to leave for a weeklong training meeting, "at this meeting you are going to see a room full of people from across the country who are just like you — working hard to get ahead. I guarantee there’ll be some doofus who shows up late for a session and has an excuse. Maybe he’ll say something stupid and anger someone. Or have too much to drink and behave badly. Or be disruptive. Sometime next week he’s gonna get fired because he just didn’t understand that everything he said or did was seen by someone whose opinion matters. Hank, don’t you be that guy!"

• Commonly confused words that can cost you credibility

  Thursday, November 01, 2018

  A homonym is a word that sounds roughly the same as another word but is very different in meaning. We’ve already covered the importance of using the spellcheck function when completing all job search documents, and the use of grammar, word choice, and slang applying to the written as well as the spoken word. Here are some commonly confused homonyms that sound the same but are often confused when writing.

• Basic but brilliant coaching questions

  Thursday, October 11, 2018

  Coaching is the process of helping someone master a skill or the correct application of knowledge. Teaching focuses on learning something new; coaching focuses on mastering that something. Teaching ends when someone is able to demonstrate that he or she can correctly perform the skill or apply the knowledge. Suppose a few days ago your employer launched a new initiative. You staff met and received training on the initiative. You’ve just observed Mike, a staff member, who put the initiative to use. Here are three brilliant coaching questions you could use.

• 8 qualities interviewers wish their candidates possessed

  Tuesday, September 18, 2018

  An informal survey of HR professionals, hiring managers and recruiters identified eight attributes they most wished their candidates would prove in an interview. Truth be told, most employers hope that the first two or three candidates they see will all be A-players, eminently qualified, and hungry for the job. That way they can fill the opening with an A-player and move ahead with the next opening. With this in mind, here are the characteristics employers wish their candidates possessed or demonstrated during the interview.

• There is no such thing as instant coffee

  Tuesday, September 04, 2018

  You and I have been born into an accelerating world. Travel that took a week by horseback two centuries ago is now competed in a few hours in the air-conditioned comfort of your car. Just 10 years ago, the two-hour meeting you had in the next time zone that required flights and overnights is now completed in two hours, plus two minutes for the setup and tear down of a GoToMeeting session. Email, smartphones, internet, Skype, social media…everything is happening faster and faster. We’ve become so used to speed that we actually believe there is something called instant coffee.

• 9 behaviors of highly promotable people

  Tuesday, July 31, 2018

  One of the early career lessons every employee learns is that not all people possess the same degree of talent, work ethic, intellect and persistence. People become promotable when they are characterized by the following types of behaviors. This list is not complete because each employer is different. The nine behaviors listed below are a good start. You need to make it your business within your first year with an employer to learn the specific set of behaviors that your employer most values.

• How the incredibly high cost of a bad hire affects your job search

  Friday, July 20, 2018

  First impressions are lasting impressions. So, your first few seconds in a new job, meeting a new client, or networking in person may be much more critical than you think. Most interviewers will tell you that they have already made up their mind about a candidate within scant moments of meeting him or her for the first time. Even before a candidate opens his or her mouth, the interviewer has mentally recorded hundreds of impressions of the candidate.

• Career development and the wine glass theory of management

  Tuesday, May 08, 2018

  When someone says management, do you immediately think of someone with staff reporting to him or her? One of the myths about career progression is that in order to be a manager, you must have staff reporting to you. While many managers have one or more levels of staff reporting to them, there are those functions that require management oversight but little or no staff reporting to the manager of the function. In our training program, we use a wine glass to illustrate how people start at the bottom in a career, develop upward, and then come to a decision point at the bottom of the cup of a wine glass.

• How compensation decisions are made

  Friday, April 13, 2018

  From the fervor over a $15 per hour minimum wage to robots coming to take people's jobs to the impact of the new overtime regulations, compensation is on the minds and hearts of just about everyone in the U.S. Before you can begin to get a handle on any of these issues, you first must have a basic understanding of how employers make compensation decisions.

• Be indispensible by becoming dispensable

  Thursday, March 22, 2018

  ​Robert Half knows a thing or two about ability. He founded Robert Half Associates, today a $4.7 billion global provider of talented staff through its seven industry-focused divisions. RHA was again ranked this year among Fortune's Most Admired Companies, tops among staffing companies.

• Effective onboarding: Forget the company mugs and pens

  Friday, February 09, 2018

  I was having a conversation with a client recently about the troubles her workplace was having because of higher-than-acceptable employee turnover. Their employee engagement surveys for the past two years showed that engagement was lowest among employees who had been there five years or less.

• Making the financial case for job search education on campus

  Tuesday, December 05, 2017

  I recently posted a discussion on LinkedIn asking the question, "If a Career is the Objective of a College Education, Then Why Isn't How to Conduct a Job Search Being Taught on Campus?" I received many comments, both appended to the post as well as hearing directly from some of you.

• How the best coaches help others to succeed

  Thursday, November 02, 2017

  Coaching is the process of helping someone master a skill or the correct application of knowledge. Teaching focuses on learning something new; coaching focuses on mastering that something. Teaching ends when someone able to demonstrate that he or she can correctly perform the skill or apply the knowledge.

• 4 things interviews of tomorrow must discover

  Thursday, September 14, 2017

  Traditional hiring has largely focused on a candidate's experience and education as the primary qualifiers for a position. Both skills and knowledge can be learned and mastered over time.

• 7 emerging currencies of life and career success

  Thursday, August 10, 2017

  You are living in a period of time that promises unprecedented levels of change and challenge — and that is certainly saying something given the tsunamis of change over the past decade. Here are seven currencies that successful people will use in the year ahead to make it one of the best years in their life and career.

• Feedback: The fuel that drives optimal performance

  Monday, July 17, 2017

  What keeps people going, contributing their best efforts whatever the task? Among the many possible answers, perhaps the most effective is feedback from the person's supervisor. Effective feedback lifts the spirits and encourages people to contribute their best efforts.

• 3 reasons people don’t trust you more

  Thursday, June 15, 2017

  With few exceptions, no one can succeed in much of anything without trust. An employer isn't likely to hire you if you are untrustworthy. A customer won't buy from someone she doesn't trust. A co-worker will doubt your motives if he cannot trust you.

• How to how to hire the right coach for your business

  Monday, May 15, 2017

  ​Your organization likely invests significant resources in training your staff members. But learning something new does not mean the person has mastered it, and that is where coaching comes in. Coaching moves an individual from knowing what to do to consistently executing at a level of mastery. Coaching has produced some impressive results for companies and organizations of all sizes.

• Don’t forget your job interview toolkit

  Monday, April 17, 2017

  Congratulations on your interview! You tirelessly applied to positions of interest that matched your skills, knowledge and talents; you customized your résumé and application; and you just got off the phone after agreeing to meet with HR and the hiring manager next Tuesday.

• What makes a supervisor great?

  Monday, March 20, 2017

  Think back over all of the supervisors, bosses and managers for whom you've ever worked. Pick out the ones who were truly exceptional. What characteristics did they have in common? Of all the things that might be named, chances are that you’d find that the best managers consistently performed these two functions effectively.

• Are you hiring just two-thirds of a candidate?

  Monday, February 06, 2017

  When companies hire people, the most common practice is to go about the process of describing the ideal candidate in a job posting and/or job description. Employers typically identify things like the essential duties of the position; the ideal set of educational credentials and experiences a candidate should possess; and a set of core competencies the candidate should possess. However, this method of selecting people is missing at least a third of what makes the person a successful fit for a position of interest.

• 3 ways to provide compelling proof in a job interview

  Wednesday, November 09, 2016

  Congratulations — you got the interview! A job interview provides employers a terrific opportunity to find the best candidate to fill a job opening. Now it is up to you to prove you are the ideal candidate. Let's look at three ways to do this.

• Want to write like a pro? Bookmark this page

  Wednesday, October 12, 2016

  Remember Cliff Clavin, the loveable mailman from the old TV sitcom "Cheers"? He was always confusing his words along with his facts. Unfortunately, some of us have Cliff Clavin moments when it comes to our word choices, too. A homonym is a word that sounds roughly the same as another word, but is different in meaning. Here are some commonly confused homonyms that sound the same but are often confused.

• The top 12 principles of networking

  Thursday, September 15, 2016

  Networking is not something you do when you need to get a job or attract new customers. Networking is a lifestyle discipline that should be started by the time you graduate high school. Every skill required in networking is one you likely know and have used in past interactions. Now it is a matter of applying some best practices to what you already know to become an effective networker.

• 5 ways to destroy trust

  Monday, August 01, 2016

  Trust is confidence in someone or something, believability; the opposite of suspicion and distrust. Consider the words of Gandhi about the topic of trust, "The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted." The day-to-day experiences people have with you go a long way towards establishing your reputation as someone who can (or cannot) be trusted. The degree to which people trust you will cause your career to flourish — or languish.

• The unintended consequences of the new overtime rules

  Friday, June 03, 2016

  Proponents of the new regulations argue that many workers being paid a salary ("overtime exempt") between $23,660 and $47,476 are unfairly denied overtime compensation afforded to hourly workers ("nonexempt"). This move is being hailed as a way to put more money in the pockets of low- and middle-income Americans.

• Don’t be that guy: 10 bad behaviors to avoid

  Monday, May 09, 2016

  One of my first bosses, Bill Forte, taught me a valuable career lesson that is worth sharing. Just as I was about to leave for a week-long training meeting, he dropped a bit of wisdom on me.

• 7 key attributes of highly promotable people

  Monday, April 04, 2016

  As an employee — whether part-time, full-time, contract or otherwise — your day-to-day performance places you in one of two categories: promotable or not promotable. Getting a promotion starts months (or years) before the promotion date. What makes someone promotable? Here are seven attributes of highly promotable people.

• 5 things you must accomplish before age 25

  Monday, March 07, 2016

  ​The first 25 years of your life are supposed to be the foundation-building years, where youth grows into adulthood and gains the basic skills and education necessary for your peak career years. As the foundation goes, so goes the building.

• How instrumented learning increases engagement and positive outcomes

  Monday, February 15, 2016

  Something Tom Hopkins once said to me has stuck for decades. Hopkins, once dubbed "The Greatest Salesperson in America," was discussing how a person could convince someone else that something is true: "If I say it, they'll doubt me. But if they say it, it must be true."

• Going slow to go fast — Master this principle to master everything

  Monday, January 18, 2016

  It would be incredibly boring if life moved at one slow, monotonous, steady speed. Because it doesn't, you'll want to master the "go slow to go fast" principle to increase your successes in life. What do job seekers, sales professionals, athletes, managers, HR professionals, accountants, physicians and health coaches all have in common? To be really, really effective at what they do, they must adeptly manage their actions in response to the speed demands of their jobs.

• 9 prep tips to ace your job interview

  Tuesday, December 08, 2015

  Congratulations! You just got a call from the employer whose job posting seemed like a perfect fit, and they want you to interview next Wednesday. You've got a little less than a week to prepare to ace your interview. What can you do to ensure you're ready? Take a close look at these nine areas of preparation:

• Are you running to a new job — or from your current one?

  Tuesday, November 03, 2015

  If you are contemplating making a job change, it's time to ask yourself the hard question: How much of your motivation is running to a new opportunity, versus running from your present situation? There are some days that every employee dreads strapping on the uniform and going to work. And there are some jobs that downright sap the joy out of working.

• Leadership fortitude starts with honest feedback

  Monday, October 05, 2015

  Fortitude (or courage) usually shows up high on the list of attributes of a great leader. Great leaders best display fortitude not by taking bold risks and implementing aggressive programs, but by the honesty with which they deliver feedback to their staffers.

• Think inside the box to optimize performance

  Tuesday, September 15, 2015

  Performance management is all about helping people achieve their potential. Regardless of their function, all employees in your organization can be placed into the BARP-COTT Box. First, let's take a closer look at the box, and what each portion means. Then, we'll figure out some strategies for dealing with employees in each quadrant.

• Brand yourself — or others will do it for you

  Monday, July 20, 2015

  Try this right now: Open up a Web browser and Google your name. Finished? What appears about you is what customers, employers, recruiters and prospects will see. It's your brand. So, based on what appears, are you a credible brand that inspires trust?

• Are you needlessly suffering the natural consequences of diversity?

  Tuesday, June 02, 2015

  What do you think about when you hear the term, "diversity in the workplace"? Differences in ethnicity? Culture? Gender? Language? In 2015, it is hardly a revolutionary concept to be working side by side with a person of a different race or accent or upbringing. We don't stop the assembly line when some who is different from us walks onto the plant floor or into an employee meeting.

• Performance evaluations that employees and managers love

  Monday, April 06, 2015

  If done effectively, both employees and their managers will look forward to the process and will be willing participants. The mentality moves from, "we have to do this" to "we get to do this." When the organization aligns around something as fundamental as an honest dialogue about performance, the future can be so much brighter. Here's how organizations can "fix" their performance evaluation process.

• Are you experiencing career frustration?

  Tuesday, March 10, 2015

  One of the most unexpected things about a career or job choice is that sooner or later you realize that you are experiencing some level of career frustration. What is the likelihood of feeling satisfied with your current career/job all of the time? If you said "not good," you would be right.

• Forget empowerment! What you need are self-directed employees

  Friday, February 06, 2015

  Remember when the latest buzzword was empowerment? The premise was that employees who were empowered would be more committed to successful outcomes because they had the ability to make decisions, commit resources, own the decision, etc. As someone was empowered, they also became more accountable for results. What's wrong with empowerment? Plenty!

• A LinkedIn profile makeover doesn’t need to say, ‘I’m looking’

  Thursday, January 08, 2015

  Take a long look at your LinkedIn profile. Kinda sparse? Doesn't stand out as anything special, just more of the same old, same old? Too few connections to be a player? A fuzzy selfie and a 3-5-word description for each section heading?

• Learning from a presentation or interview post-mortem

  Monday, November 10, 2014

  Following the completion of a sales presentation or job interview, a best practice is to perform a meeting post-mortem. While the most important perspective will be the assessment your interviewers and customers make, it is highly instructive to objectively and candidly evaluate how you did during each meeting.

• Achieving success with holistic performance management

  Monday, September 29, 2014

  Do you know people who got up this morning and made it their objective to fail in their assignments or job? Yet every day, regardless of industry or role, talented people struggle to make their best contribution to the organizations where they work or volunteer.