EDITORIALS

My wife is a speech pathologist by education and early work experience. One of the things that drives her crazy is one word answers. Her approach in teaching speech has always been to ask questions that create a conversation. The only way to get the kids she was working with to improve the...

Probably one of the most difficult issues to resolve when competing for an appropriate job opportunity is how much follow up to do. It is a fine line indeed between ensuring that those making the decision know you have real interest and making a real pest of yourself and changing their dec...

We have all heard the old saw: “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.” There is also this amendment: “Don’t make your first impression your last.” I only wish everyone would be so kind as to repeat these sayings to themselves in all the things they do with regard t...

I am often asked by our members to give them a “formula” for constructing their very own 90-second announcement. If only that were practical. The problem with 90-second announcements is very much related to the very limited time you are allowed. Having been in the advertising business for ...

One of the more amazing things I find myself discussing from time to time is that organizations seem to take on a life of their own. Even when I “drop in” many years later I find very little has changed. As I “drop in” to chapters of The FENG around the country, one of my goals is to find ...

When I was growing up, my father was a plumbing contractor and I had the great experience of working with him weekends and summers from my early teens until I graduated from college. The test we used to determine whether or not we had correctly completed a complicated installation was whet...

It would be great if we could all see behind us while at the same time looking forward, but it just isn’t possible. And, sometimes just looking forward is hard enough. We have all heard about the “buddy system” that swimmers use. And, of course, having someone “watch your back” is a concep...

One of the great mysteries in this world is why any two people would network. Yes, I know this sounds like heresy coming from someone who has built his entire life on networking, but it is actually a very good question, and one that members who have not been exposed to “the truth” often as...

For those of you who have had the honor of dealing with legal matters, you know that the phrase “Time is of the essence” is frequently used in contracts. The idea is that if you want to get the deal done, you better move quickly. (In other words, you will need to get off your duff.) The wo...

As you mature and become over qualified for just about everything, it is inevitable that you will be interviewed for a job (of limited income or responsibility) that you would like to have, but fear that you will be deemed too old or having previously earned too much money to be “happy” in...

In certain respects you have to envy actors. Every time they get up on stage they get to assume the role of some new personality or character. Sometimes I wish I could do that. I have often thought about my 90-second announcement and wondered what it would be like to assume the role of som...

I don’t know if your incoming snail mail is anything like ours, but we sure get a ton of unsolicited mail. The procedure we follow in our house is to pile the mail up and pull over a large garbage pail. The rule is, “when in doubt, throw it out.” Hard to believe how much junk mail we get o...

It continues to be my observation of our members that for the most part we tend to move from large companies to small. Part of the reason is that we have no choice. Large companies generally speaking don’t hire senior executives from the outside. They try to grow their own. In any case, th...

If there is any topic I discuss more than any other in phone conversations and in face to face meetings with new members and old members alike, it is the process of creating your very own inner circle of friends. All you have to do is talk to friends of yours who have found jobs to see how...

As someone who always suggested to his children that a pair of scissors would be a good tool for putting together jigsaw puzzles, perhaps I am not the right person to be constantly preaching about “qualified members only.” Still, having the SPECIFIC experience for a particular job posting ...

The FENG is a society based on helping others. (Not that they actually need our help, of course.) I realize that, at times, members are in a sensitive state and I try to act accordingly. But, I don’t really know if providing brutally direct advice is better than soft peddling what they abs...

The mindset that is most appropriate for a job search is very much like my Army experience where we used to lament what we referred to as “hurry up and wait.” As raw recruits, we were expected to arrive at points at the previously appointed minute, whether or not others were ready for us. ...

Just as an experiment, I unplugged my phone from my desk today and took it upstairs and put it on our bathroom scale. (My office is in my house.) I am sure the scale is wrong because I couldn’t get the scale to even register the weight of the phone. But then, the scale is generally used to...

The volume of your responses to job leads posted in our evening newsletter is always a concern of mine. With the strengthening job market for senior financial officers, one of the many things we have going for us AT THE MOMENT is our fine relationship with the search community. (Be sure to...

Although most of us have acquired enough manners over the course of our lives that we know enough not to ask a stranger to give us his/her seat on a bus or train, when it comes to networking, I find that many folks don’t know when they have overstepped their bounds.The approach I would sug...

One of the many skills we always need to be polishing as financial professionals is our listening skills. The problem begins with the fact that as financial professionals we are more comfortable receiving our information in written form. Put us in a “selling” situation, especia...