How many of you were in some kind of Scouting organization when you were younger? Perhaps Cub scouts? Webelos? Boy or Girl Scouts? Whether or not you were, odds are pretty high you’d recognize that the motto for the Boy Scouts is simply, “Be Prepared.” What you may not know is that there’s more to it than that. The tag line …
What Do You Say About a Hop, a Skip, or a Jump?
September 10, 2024
Written by: Dave Sparkman |
Reading Time: 4 minutes
I just read a recent article in the Harvard Business Review entitled “How to Explain Job Hopping in an Interview” (9/2/24). I was a bit puzzled and intrigued by the title because, in my opinion, biases and criticisms around job hopping are old stereotypes long since settled. According to the article, it turns out I was the one outdated! Defining …
Interviewing — Did You Say Cortisone or Cortisol?
September 03, 2024
Written by: Dave Sparkman |
Reading Time: 4 minutes
How many of you love meeting a new person who’s going to grill you with questions? And you might even believe some of those questions are “trick questions,” asked specifically to see if he/she can trip you up? If you’re like many people, interviewing for a job isn’t anywhere close to the list of things you like to do, and …
I remember the feelings like the event happened yesterday. Years ago, I served as the divisional finance leader for an organization, and it was there I first experienced being unfulfilled. At that time, I didn’t even know how to refer to the feelings I was experiencing, let alone summarizing them into a label of being unfulfilled. I just knew that …
Have you ever done work, on a sustained basis, that you didn’t like or perhaps at which you weren’t that skilled? Or maybe even you didn’t mind it, but you knew it wasn’t what you were built to do? Perhaps you had to do the work to provide for your family? Or you had to do it as the job was …
Feeling O.V.E.R.W.H.E.L.M.E.D.!?!?
August 13, 2024
Written by: Dave Sparkman |
Reading Time: 4 minutes
If you are like most people, regardless of whether you’re unfulfilled or unemployed, you’ve faced the feeling of being overwhelmed. And unlike other times when you’ve felt overwhelmed in life, the feeling accompanying a situation of being unfulfilled or unemployed feels particularly heavy, murky, and…well, overwhelming! What Does it Mean to be Overwhelmed? While I have heard the word “overwhelmed’ …
Designing Your Life – – Designing Your Dream Job
August 06, 2024
Written by: Dave Sparkman |
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Dysfunctional Belief: My dream job is out there waiting. Reframe: You design your dream job through a process of actively seeking and co-creating it. As we continue extracting useful information from the book, “Designing Your Life,” by Burnett and Evans, I found myself intrigued by the chapter entitled, “Designing Your Dream Job.” Yet here’s what the authors stated at the beginning and …
Designing Your Life: How Not to Get a Job
July 30, 2024
Written by: Dave Sparkman |
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Charlie “Tremendous” Jones famously said, “Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet.” One of the books I’ve chosen to read is called, “Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. It’s a self-help guide …
When Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) made their debut in the 1970’s, they barely created a ripple in the job search process. They were very basic and were used to help organize the manual job application process. But the 1990’s ushered in a new era of automation which has continued to progress (or regress, depending on your perspective) to current claims of …
Another Reason Why YOU’RE The Answer!!
July 16, 2024
Written by: Dave Sparkman |
Reading Time: 4 minutes
We often use this statement as the goal for the hiring process: “Matching what you (the candidate) do best to what they (the employers) need most.” And while this sounds very simple and straightforward, if you’ve been on either side of that equation for a while, you know the myriad of complexities involved with both sides. The Cost of a …




