Career Direction | Discover Your Calling and Career Path

When you see these two words together, what immediately springs to mind? Do those words create a positive or negative word picture? Is that picture a scenario that’s simple or complex? Does it bring to mind a problem or an opportunity? Does your mind promptly bring someone’s face into view? As you start to settle in on these two words belonging together, …

Is There a Right Way to Measure Productivity? In Ecclesiastes 4:7-8, King Solomon tells us, “Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and …

One challenging aspect of a job transition is establishing clear target companies for your search. That challenge is made even more difficult by the reality of the financial resources you have available to pursue those targets. The time you may have to expend to achieve landing at the target may exceed the money you have to live on while doing so.   To support you in …

Remember when you were a child, say about 6-7 years old, and someone would ask you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Perhaps the question came from your parents, a teacher, or a friend. What was your answer? Was it a classic response? Maybe one of the following:  A nurse, teacher, policeman, fireman, cowboy, etc? I remember being …

According to a recent Harvard Business Review, researchers surveyed 950 business school alums. They unveiled five common trends among people who had, or were in the midst of, changing careers. The trends were: “not knowing what to do next, limiting mindsets, inadequate networks, financial constraints, and lacking the right skills.” (“How to Successfully Change Careers With No Experience,” Forbes, 3/30/24).   …

If you’re like me, you don’t go very far through a day without encountering choices, and their accompanying questions, ranging from the routine (How much cream do I put in my coffee?) to the important (How can I best use my day today to accomplish what needs to be done?).   As I reflect on the questions I faced over …

In many of the Career Explorer Crossroads Career small groups I facilitated, I would pose this question: “What would you do for a living if money was not an issue?” That is, if you could do anything you want for a living, and you didn’t have to worry about the amount of money you would make from it, what would …

Have you seen a headline like one of these? –    And if you have, you can easily agree with this quote from Jon Stross, president and co-founder of the hiring platform Greenhouse, which found that as many as 20% of advertised jobs are fake or not filled: “The job market has become more soul-crushing than ever.” Whew! Let that statement …

Throughout my career at Arthur Andersen and UnitedHealth Group, I’ve had the privilege of working with some incredibly smart and ambitious people! You know the kind…no matter what the problem or issue that is faced, they seemed to always come up with a great solution in a record amount of time.   Yet they, like me and most others, often …

Over the past several weeks I’ve had the opportunity to connect with some former colleagues who were recently let go from their employer, along with a couple of friends who are anticipating leaving their employer in the near future.  The top-of-mind question for all of them was, “What should I do first?” Of course, they’re all experienced adults who can figure …