EDITORIALS

For those of us who read the newspaper from time to time, one can’t help but notice that just about everyone who is mentioned in any story is given a label.The label selected is usually something very simple such as “a 46 year old truck driver from Illinois.” In this case it is someone’s c...

I have written many times that there are only 3 ways to find a job and manage your career: Networking, networking and more networking.There are actually 3 kinds of networking. The first is making new friends. The second is keeping in touch with old friends. And the third part of networking...

For those of you who have the pleasure of earning frequent flier miles, I can understand that you may no longer be paying strict attention to the very helpful discussion that precedes take off.Personally, I don’t think that anyone who doesn’t know how to work the seat belt should really be...

The process of self-assessment is never easy. It is sort of like taking out your own appendix, but without anesthetic.As senior financial folks, it is often the case that we don’t have to engage ourselves in the game of “What is it we do? And, who are we?” until very late in our careers. U...

Every once in a while I get a note from one of our members about folks who are promising to find him/her a job by waving their magic wand.I can almost see these so called miracle workers crawling out from under the rocks they call home. You would think that exposure to sunlight would kill ...

As a group I think you will agree that most financial folks tend to be modest. I am not sure, but I think there was a required course on the dangers of bragging back in college, because it is like pulling teeth to get most members to provide an honest assessment of what they did.There were...

I’m not sure why human beings resist change. It is truly the only constant in our world.For almost 6 years I worked for The Thomson Corporation, a company that was really into change. I used to joke that we reorganized every week even when it wasn’t really necessary, just to keep in practi...

Since we have many new members each year AND many members who may be active again from time to time, I thought it might be a good idea if I wrote about our “qualified members only” approach to responding to job leads and why it works for you.First, let’s understand that posted jobs are onl...

Anyone involved in personal selling will tell you that one of the more difficult tasks faced by any salesperson is handling customer objections.The easiest customer objections to handle are the ones the customer tells you about. Innocent sounding questions like “What colors does it come in...

As I hope all of you know, I have a small consulting practice called The Financial Executives Consulting Group, LLC. (As time permits, please visit our website: www.TheFECG.com to see what we do.) Bruce Lynn is my business partner. We both also devote significant amounts of time on a volun...

It is a sad fact of life that no one ever has enough friends. Men in particular (and our membership is 90% men) seem to have a difficult time making friends.The whole “guy thing” sort of works against us, I suppose. Men are supposed to be strong and never need help from anyone. Remember wh...

Remember back at the beginning of time when you would return to school in the fall and would have to write something about what you did all summer?Oh how I envied all those kids who did exciting things over the summer. We didn’t have a lot of money and my father was a plumbing contractor, ...

It is at all times important to remember that Americans live in the present and the future.If you want to sound like an old person all you have to do is spout phrases like “I remember when gas was 25 cents a gallon.” Or, “I remember when we did spreadsheets with pencils and calculators.”To...

I would be the first one to agree that finding ways to keep in touch with your business contacts during a job search is more art than science. That said the old saw “out of sight, out of mind” applies here.At the end of my two year job search which began in 1991, I had about 1,400 index ca...

Personally, I am not a big fan of art museums. Sure, there are particular “objects of art” that I find to be of interest, but I guess I find the walking around part a little tiring.For amusement during these art museum tours I try to overhear what the tour guides are saying. The at length ...

One of the biggest problems you face as a senior financial executive is that you have too many product benefits. In a very real sense, you are too good to be true.For those of you who have been hearing you are “over qualified,” let me suggest to you that you are. After over 20 years of wor...

Have you ever felt you didn’t know anything about computers? I do all the time, and I have been using them since my first Apple IIe.Still, there is just so much to know and so much to learn. And, the rules keep changing. Things that work on one computer don’t work on my next one. (Why Micr...

“They” say (I don’t know who they are) that searching for a job is filled with highs and lows.It doesn’t matter who you may have heard it from or how often you heard these words of consolation, if you have been through a long job search, you know the feelings. I suppose we can find ways to...

Down sized, right sized, laid off, fired, reduction in force. I think you have to agree that the world has developed a very colorful vocabulary to describe those things that have caused many of our members to be active in their respective job searches.If one of us went in for an interview ...

There are a lot of counterintuitive ideas out in the world. (It is sometimes called “out of the box thinking.”) What may not be fully recognized is that The FENG, our little circle of friends, is based on quite a few radical ideas, and amazingly they all work.The earliest premise of our or...

After “I love you,” “thank you” is probably the next thing no one hears enough.The subject I am going to discuss tonight could also be called common courtesy, or common courtesies. I know that everyone who is active in their search is very busy, but so are those who are sharing their valua...