EDITORIALS

I know that all of us take great pride in being “out of the box” thinkers, but there are situations that taking an innovative approach is the same as shooting yourself in the foot.One of those situations is in being innovative with the standard resume format.The traditional resume begins w...

At some point during a long job search I often get an email from a member in which the primary message is about “the futility of it all.”Having been out of work myself for almost two full years in 1991 and 1992, I guess I can say I’ve been there and done that.Being out of work is never eas...

As we begin “the holiday season,” I hope everyone will spend a few minutes counting their blessings.Although the specter of Covid-19 appears to be continuing to hang over us, it is vitally important to keep a positive attitude about life and our career prospects in the days, weeks, months ...

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 know many of you will find it hard to believe, but we are now in a golden period for networking, networking and MORE networking. So, I hope you will please have at it.A lot of people believe that holiday times and especially the period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve are the worst ti...

As you may remember from the song of this same name, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. I know they thought of it first and popularized it, but it is very much like your membership in The FENG. The only difference is you can check out, but I hope you won’t.If you ...

A long time ago I read a book by Dodge Morgan. Those non-sailors among us will probably not recognize his name, but in his 50’s, Dodge decided to sail solo around the world on a sloop especially designed for him. (I also bought the video of his voyage and heard him speak in person about hi...

I know you will all find this hard to believe, but there was a time when The FENG only had 20 members.In May of 1995, I was invited by Ed Devlin, the then Chairman, to join what was at that time The Fairfield County Financial Executives Networking Group. (Ed had recently taken over from Do...

I don’t know if you have noticed, but all of the job leads from The FECG include a sentence that says “You may forward this to other members of The FENG if you are aware of their background and/or interest in this kind of opportunity.”I wish all the job leads in our newsletter had this sen...

I am not going to suggest to you that the world of The FENG is a perfect place. That said, I hope that someday we will be recognized as one of the organizations that “started it all.”We all know that common courtesy is very rare in today’s world, which makes you wonder why they call it com...

When I first got into sailing as a young man (I was in my 30’s), my father-in-law suggested we take a class – what a concept!Sailing is actually pretty simple. First, you can’t sail directly into the wind (I wonder why?). Next, never spit into the wind. And finally, if you feel yourself ge...

One of our members wrote to me a few years ago seeking some career advice. It seems his firm is restructuring and his job is being eliminated. That said, he has some “work opportunities” that are available to him, (some at his current firm) but all of which are a little off task to his pri...

I don’t know if all of you know it, but I started my career in retailing at B. Altman & Company, one of the old line “Carriage Trade” retailers in New York City, and an interesting place to be sure.To be successful in this retailing segment you had to treat your customers’ right. All m...

The classic cruel joke of job search is that the client is looking for someone just like you, but much younger.Of course, no one can use these exact words out of fear of getting sued for age discrimination, which we all know is illegal. Setting illogically low levels of experience and/or d...

As the days of fall begin to arrive in the Northeast and the trees begin to change colors, it is all very beautiful. (However, yesterday it rained hard all day and today it was very windy.) Earlier this month I mostly finished decommissioning our sailboat for the season. This past weekend ...

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...

One of the core values of The FENG is our willingness to share job leads with each other.For some reason people seem to overvalue job leads. There are lots of things that are wrong with published job leads. For one thing, it is a fair fight. I much prefer networking where there is often no...

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...

For those of you who were flying road warriors before Covid-19, I can understand that you may no longer remember the very helpful discussion that preceded take off.Personally, I don’t think that anyone who doesn’t know how to work the seat belt should really be let out alone to wander the ...

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 ...