My Grandmother emigrated to the United States around 1914. She grew up near Kiev in what is now the Ukraine (but we were always told was Russia). A Yiddish proverb she used frequently was: To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish. (My Grandmother had a thick Russian accent,...

The urban legend out in the world is that the most recent 10 years of your career are all that anyone is interested in. True, but I think this idea is more correctly stated as “really” interested in.The primary rationale I hear for leaving off your early work history is to appear younger. ...

If you really need to get someone you are interviewing off the phone or out of your office, there is no better approach than to use what I call “The excuse you can’t cure.”In the annals of job search, there is no better tool. No one gets mad. No one screams. No one hits you. (This is espec...

I know it is hard to believe, but some of us good natured and hard-working financial folks actually leave companies under conditions that leave us with the possibility of less than glowing references. Perhaps we were misunderstood, or in some cases, we just got a new boss. It is also possi...

You finally found a company that REALLY had interest in you. And, the job actually was in your wheelhouse and financially rewarding. They interviewed you on Zoom, and then had you come into the office to meet EVERYONE.And then, BOOM. They offered the job to someone else.Let’s assume the be...

The sale of big ticket items through personal selling is never easy.When you buy a tube of toothpaste, a pack of chewing gum, or a box of #2 pencils, hopefully you don’t spend a lot of time either thinking about it, or fussing over the details. But, when it comes to buying something like a...

Every once in a while, things get quiet. There is no email (except for our newsletter), and there are no phone calls or Zoom meetings to attend.If you are actively looking for work, it can be a maddening experience.Instead of sitting with your hands folded on your desk, this is a good time...

I often wonder to myself how politicians can do so much lying and get away with it. Okay, sometimes we boot them out of office for lying, but we only replace them with new folks who also lie.The truth I suppose is subject to each person’s individual judgment. What one person considers to b...

There is nothing worse in the world of job search than to have an obvious issue in your background that is difficult to explain.I have often suggested to members that on some topics we discuss there is no right answer. When there is no good answer to something in your background, what do y...

Most of us CFO/Controller types find talking on the telephone one of the more difficult things we do. I believe one of the reasons is that most of our work is accomplished in written form. When we do present our work to the boss or to our peers, it is usually done face to face and to a ver...

Despite all the financial scandals that we have seen over the years, most of us financial types by our nature have a hard time lying. For the most part, it just isn’t part of our DNA.While we may be burdened with many secrets of the organization such as payroll, we get around the questions...

There is nothing worse in this world than to finally get an interview and to blow the opportunity because someone asked you a question you weren’t prepared to answer.I don’t know why some very obvious questions can take a seasoned financial professional by surprise, but they do. Perhaps we...

If there is one thing that is certain about us financial types, it is that we always know the answer.Ask us a question and it isn’t long before we are well into the “primarily due to’s and partially offset by’s.” Yet, this major strength of ours and important skill set is an impediment to ...

I know that many of our members are faced with the unpleasant truth that they have been out of work for a significant period of time. Having been out of work myself for almost two years, I know that this unpleasant question of “Why have you been out so long?” gets asked. Like anything else...

If only those you interviewed with were legally able to tell you the truth about why you aren’t being considered for a particular job. Unfortunately, the things they are allowed to say to you are very limited. Lawyers do really run the world.If we lived in a Jerry Seinfeld world, they woul...

Over the course of our careers, as financial people, we become hard wired to never take no for an answer. When a customer claims they won’t pay an invoice, we can come up with “offers they can’t refuse.” When engaged in a debate at work about the appropriate accounting treatment of some ex...

The difference between being viewed as possessing dogged persistence and being an outright pest is hard to define. Like beauty or obscenity, I guess we know it when we see it.I have had many jobs over the course of my career, some paid, some volunteer that have involved collection work.Whe...

I don't know how many of you participated in school plays during your early years, but there is a lot to be said about thinking about the interviewing process as a series of scenes in a play. Of course, the only problem with this visualization is the degree to which the audience is in char...

It sure is difficult to be focused. As each of us over the age of 40 looks at our career prospects for the rest of our working lives, it is all very easy to believe that we need to expand the market for our services to ensure that we can find another job. (After all, how many buggy whips a...

If you went to an interview with a broken arm, I’m pretty sure you would feel the need to explain.Honestly, sitting there with your arm in a cast, it is hard to imagine a productive discussion taking place until you tell your interviewer how it happened. Was it a skiing accident? Did you t...

Very few among us are professional sales folks. It is for this reason that some of the more subtle elements of interviewing can easily go by us. When you decide to make a purchase, you often have to justify it to others. When you do, you will find yourself repeating things the salesperson ...