The Challenges of Networking as an Executive
20/09/2023
Look online at any of the thousands of articles available on the challenges of networking for a job, and you’ll find that 100% of them give advice on how relatively junior professionals can network “up.” But surprisingly little advice is available for senior executives, who experience a different but equally challenging set of networking hurdles. […]
Do You Need a Career Coach?
13/02/2022
Career coaches provide a range of services, from helping you figure out what you want to do to exploring opportunities for professional growth to supporting you through the ups and downs of looking for a new job. Engaging with a career coach requires an investment of time and money, so it’s important to do your […]
How to Plan Your Life When the Future Is Foggy at Best
08/03/2021
The year 2020 did not turn out as we planned. Unemployment rates in the U.S. are close to twice what they were in February of 2020, and the number of people furloughed is still towering over February averages. Plus, with the profound shakeup of our daily lives, a lot of folks are asking, What do […]
Worried You Might Be in a Dying Industry?
13/01/2021
Any business in any sector is ultimately vulnerable to disruption or obsoletion if it doesn’t plan and adapt for the future. Technological progress creates lots of opportunities but also leaves destruction in its wake. Much of that destruction exacts a human cost in the form of jobs that are lost as one company or industry […]
5 Strategies for Reinventing Your Career in Uncertain Times
24/11/2020
During times of uncertainty, we tend to hunker down and cling to the status quo. A kind of myopia kicks in, and we focus on our most urgent decisions: how to keep our families safe and healthy, how to keep our bosses happy, or, if we’ve lost a job, how to find a new one […]
Stepping into a Leadership Role? Be Ready to Tell Your Story.
20/07/2020
Stepping into a role as a leader — whether as a seasoned executive or a neophyte supervisor — is both challenging and exciting. How you handle this transition can have a huge impact on your career. You need to hit the ground running not only with your bosses and key stakeholders but also with your […]
Onboarding a New Leader — Remotely
26/05/2020
Michael Blann/Getty Images Imagine that you have a new supply-chain leader starting next week. You hired her to do supply-chain transformation before the crisis took hold. But now she is joining remotely and inheriting a remote team, and her short-term, urgent priorities are very different from what they appeared to be before the pandemic. As […]
How the Coronavirus Crisis Is Redefining Jobs
06/05/2020
Martin Barraud/Getty Images The outbreak of Covid-19 has forced organizations into perhaps the most significant social experiment of the future of work in action, with work from home and social distancing policies radically changing the way we work and interact. But the impact on work is far more profound than just changing where people work; […]
How to Recover When Your Career Gets Derailed
29/04/2020
Jakob Helbig/Getty Images Most of us have had minor setbacks at work. But how do you recover from a setback so big that it causes you to lose your job or completely derails your career? An up-to-date LinkedIn profile and your existing professional network will only get you so far. The changes you need to […]
Are You Ready to Serve on a Board?
23/02/2020
HBR Staff/Bulgac/Getty Images Corporate boards are under increasing pressure to diversify their ranks – adding more women and minorities, as well as executives with different cultural and functional backgrounds – to better represent the people their organizations employ and serve. At the same time, the bar for “board readiness” has never been higher: directors are […]
Is That Stretch Job Right for You?
16/02/2020
Fuse/Getty Images During the course of our careers, there are job opportunities that arise — either internally and externally — that seem appealing but may be a stretch, taking us beyond our current level of knowledge, skills, or experience. Research from Hewlett Packard shows that women tend not to apply for jobs unless they are […]
What Happens When Your Career Becomes Your Whole Identity
27/01/2020
Caspar Benson/Getty Images Dan*, a partner at a major Boston law firm, was due at the office, but instead, he was curled on his bathroom floor, unshaven and in his pajamas, crying into a towel. It began slowly, in a meeting with a particularly pushy client, when a thought bubbled up in his mind: “Why […]
5 ways to swim, not sink, as part of a ‘liquid workforce’ | World Economic Forum
12/12/2019
Companies are going to be demanding different competencies, and we need to be ready to meet this demand. I visualize the idea of the liquid workforce as an immense moving ocean. One day, we may have a great job and be enjoying a warm tropical area. However, strong currents may move us quickly from being […]
Don’t Be Afraid to Disagree in a Job Interview
03/12/2019
GlobalP/Getty Images When you’re interviewing for a job, you typically have one primary goal: impress the interviewer enough to get an offer. Often, we think that we need to be agreeable to succeed, which can lead to a lot of nodding on both sides — even if you don’t necessarily believe in what the person […]
You Didn’t Land Your Dream Job. Now What?
23/11/2019
fStop Images – Caspar Benson/Getty Images No professional has a perfect record: at some point, you’ll apply for what seems like a dream job — and be rejected. Taking a little time to wallow is natural. But eventually, you have to will yourself to move on. That doesn’t mean giving up on your dream, but […]
How to Manage the Emotional Roller Coaster of a Job Search
21/11/2019
Jorg Greuel/Getty Images Most of us, at some point in our career, will conduct a job search — if not several of them. While it can be a time of excitement and hope about new opportunities to come, it can also be a time of great uncertainty and anxiety. Not only will you likely feel […]
How dual-career couples find fulfilment at work
02/10/2019
The struggle to balance two demanding careers is a dilemma that many employees face daily. Our recent study of more than 35,000 workers with spouses or live-in partners in a variety of professional sectors found that 89 percent of women and 70 percent of men are part of a dual-career couple (DCC)—a couple in which […]
Should You Accept a Lower-Level Job After a Career Break?
23/09/2019
Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images It’s a dilemma in the career re-entry world: What level is the right level to return to after a career break? Returning professionals who take a lower-level position than the one they were in before their career break may worry they are selling themselves short. Employers can be confused by the relauncher who […]
Why Are We So Bad at Choosing the Right Job?
04/09/2019
RyanJLane/Getty Images What would be your perfect job? Although there are well-defined parameters around what people actually want from work, our career-related choices are not always consistent with those parameters — even when we are consciously aware of them. Consider that most of us want just three specific things from our jobs, namely: Of course, […]
5 Steps for Tying Executive Compensation to Sustainability
05/08/2019
Thomas Jackson/Getty Images The final link in the chain of improving corporate accountability for sustainability is to tie improvements to pay. In our last article, we explained that companies should use incentives to motivate executives to tap big strategic opportunities related to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. Now we want to describe how these […]
Why Having a Target Salary in Mind Can Derail a Job Negotiation
15/07/2019
LockieCurrie/Getty Images One of the most daunting tasks when you hit the job market (particularly for the first time) is negotiating your salary. The conversations often don’t feel fair because of the information asymmetry. The person you’re negotiating with knows what the firm generally pays people and is likely to have more experience with these […]
Could gendered language be responsible for excluding women from power?
17/04/2019
Nevertheless, any discussion about the link between language and gender discrimination often results in predictable comments about the trivial nature of the issue. It is this attitude that contributes to perpetuating male power and authority at the expense of women. Language defines women’s position as inferior in relation to men. Unlike some other languages, English […]
How artificial intelligence is shaking up the job market
15/12/2018
The future of work is usually discussed in theoretical terms. Reports and opinion pieces cover the full spectrum of opinion, from the dystopian landscape that leaves millions unemployed, to new opportunities for social and economic mobility that could transform society for the better. The World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs 2018 aims to base […]
Beth Comstock says 3 kinds of people can help your career
06/11/2018
It’s hard to climb the ladder to success all on your own. Former General Electric executive Beth Comstock spent 27 years at GE and former NBC properties, eventually rising to the level of vice chair. She recently wrote a memoir and career guide “Imagine It Forward.” On an episode of Business Insider’s podcast “This Is Success,” Comstock said she learned […]
What to Do If There’s No Clear Career Path for You at Your Company
10/10/2018
Tatsiana Volskaya/Getty Images. We all know the old script: join a company, work hard, move up the ladder. But it’s been decades since that was a reliable path, and not just because of layoffs or outsourcing or robots. These days, the culprit preventing many professionals from identifying a clear career path at their company is […]
