I have had some great experiences, and many of the career growth opportunities at first seemed to be due to chance. As time goes on, I have become more strategic about seeking and selecting opportunities for growth and transition.

“Rarely are there ever great achievements without great expectations.” 

More often than not, the boss is too busy “doing things” instead of noticing people and the contribution they are making or have the potential to make. 

With the hope of helping people while at the same time making a lot of money, it’s no wonder being a doctor is a draw. But with changes in healthcare recently and the realization that maybe there are other ways to help people and/or make money, some physicians may just want to bait and switch on their career. 

In a conversation with a university professor today, I was struck by his comment that his high achieving students know what general field they want to go into (finance, engineering, nursing) but they actually have no clue what different career options are available in the fields of study they have chosen and they don’t have a clue what working in these fields would involve on a day-to-day basis. 

You’re back from vacation and hopefully you unplugged while there. And now you have a vacation hangover. You’ve got way too many things to do for work, not enough time to do them in and your wondering, just like you’ve wondered the morning after you had one too many drinks, was it worth it? Should I really have even gone on vacation?

Have you always been curious about how machines work? Do you take things a part and put them back together? Do you like to design things? Do you enjoy figuring out why things are broken and fixing them?

If any of these describe you, then Mechanical Engineering may be the career field that would make you tick.

There are some tips here to unplug from work while on vacation, but how are you unplugging on your vacation? Tell us how you do it and we'll reward you with a $50 Starbucks gift card to help you unplug (or replug) more!  We'll pick a winner on Tuesday, July 8th.

What take aways did you have from your last conference or professional development experience? How did you act on them?

The only question you should be asking when it comes to choosing a college:  What are the college’s placement rates or graduate outcomes from the program/major I plan to pursue?

One of the reasons I love CDF training is because the competencies that the training emphasizes fit together so nicely.  Not only that, but they also spur action through behaviors as any good competency model should do.

Regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with SHRM’s move to a comptency-based system, competency models are prevalent.  The career development world has been competency-based through its Career Development Facilitator Training for quite some time.

What you do:

1. Find a posting
2. Copy and paste the posting into Tagcrowd.com 
3. View the word graphic it displays
4. Make sure the biggest words are incorporated into your resume

Being in a leadership role seems to be the ideal in most companies. Leading is what people strive for, and in most cases I think this is the norm because it is the only path by which advancement can take place.