Countdown advice to a no-show Client, seeking neither career help or support.

At first I thought 'I've got a problem'. Then I thought 'No; I have an adventure'. Instead of resisting what's going

“There’s a lot worse out there.” E – a long-standing friend – was wondering whether he had one more career move in him. “Coming up to 20 years with the company, albeit under four different owners. “A lot of change, and there’s more to come. I wonder if I should get out before the new owners make that decision for me? “But while it isn’t perfect, there’s a lot worse out there.” E’s comments sent me on a flashback, to my first full-time job after graduation. The company owner g

Sometime when you're feeling important When your ego is fully in bloom. Sometime when you take it for granted You're the best qualified in the room. Sometime when you feel that your exit Will leave an unfillable space. Sometime when you cannot imagine How others will continue with grace. Take a bucket and fill it with water. Put your hand in it, up to the wrist. Pull it out - and the hole that's remaining Is the scope of how much you'll be missed. For Rutherposts direct to y

Excerpt from 'Why Unusual Job Titles are Bad for You and Your Company' by Daniel Bukszpan. Director of First Impressions All About People is a staffing and recruiting company based in Phoenix, Arizona. It has 25,000 successfully-placed candidates to its credit, and co-founder Sherri Mitchell said that she’s seen numerous jobs of old sneak into the 21st century with new-look titles. “Back in the day you would hear ‘receptionist,’” she said. “One of the trendier ways of describ

So what does it mean to be a Partner? At heart, it's belonging and not belonging – the want to be an integral part of a venture and the need for independence, to be on the outside. PROFESSIONAL PARTNERS Partnerships are most common among professional services – accountants, architects, doctors, dentists, lawyers, management consultants. There are plenty of the legal practices on TV (The Good Wife, Kavanagh QC, Suits,) because the core of their business is conflict, especially

For 15 years, I was wading through the murky waters of GMs / VPs / CMOs, all of which made me feel important but much of which was mutual stroking. If I’m a Chief of something and you’re Head of something, we’ll both be impressed with each other (and ourselves). Starting afresh at Beaumont Karlson was a welcome change. Two founders – who had already run two (successful) start-ups - invited me to join them in venture number three. I wrinkled my nose, thinking "why on earth do

Someone asked me recently about my working life; what have I done in my career? And, like many, I slipped in the audio version of my CV - a well-honed, anecdote-filled summary of 30-something years. That same day, I was on the train out of London. Two Asian lads - 14 years-old, perhaps 15 - sat near me. One of them had money worries. Not mortgage or credit card levels of worry; something much more pressing. New girlfriend levels of worry. How was he going to pay to take her o

When a stint with a global corporation ends abruptly, the brand still opens career doors. A combination of “you must have been good to get in” and “you must have learned good habits while you were there” carries momentum. Not to say that positive change happens immediately. The futher you rise, the more frogs you have to kiss. After I'd spent many months splashing in many ponds, a head-hunter invited me to meet with a newly-appointed CEO. He’d just joined a software company w

Three months after my start with IBM, one of the senior managers who had hired me announced he was going somewhere else, and a few other chairs were going to be moved. I wondered if I had bought a last-minute ticket on The Titanic? To be fair, my other boss tried to make good of an unplanned situation: “No need to look over your shoulder; there’ll be more change soon enough, and the cards will fall well for you.” Good to his word, two weeks later I was invited to an ACT* sess

‘The Great Job Title Chase’ started for me at Xerox. At the time the company had split the UK into six regions. ‘Regional Directors’ held the local resources and the collective responsibility to achieve total revenue targets. Simple and straightforward, except for its largest customers. Financial, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, retail - companies that had the temerity not to fit into the Xerox regional structure. Companies with multiple sites and multiple functions across mul