Recently, I was trolling through government statistics. I wanted to understand the recovery and where we really are. I researched numbers from the US Department of Commerce. Then, I looked to the Federal Reserve (Richmond) (Fed). And next, I researched the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). There are some pretty dire numbers out there. No matter where I looked, the details are concerning. The t…

It is odd to think of most employers as gamblers.  Yet, clearly, in hiring new employees, companies actively gamble that they can pick reliable people who will add value—especially at the executive level.  More than any other value, it is the quality of trust—being able to trust an employee. Trust helps would-be employers make the choice to hire or not hire any individual. Think about it.  Su…

There is much talk about life after Covid-19 at the moment. It seems a little premature to me, because the virus continues to hugely impact our daily lives and is likely to remain a continuous threat for a year or more. In his recent contribution to the Economist’s series on “the world after Covid-19,” Bill Gates (whose philanthropic activities on behalf of disease mitigation and prevention ar…

Hyperbole in news reporting is mainstream. Doctoring a profile picture to look younger is an everyday event. So, what difference does a little lie on your resume make? The answer, I hope, is obvious, but let’s consider why people are tempted to lie on their resumes in the first place. One reason is that they are desperate… to exit a painful role, to find a job, to pay their bills, to change …

The dismal headlines in these dark times can be pretty demotivating for would-be career changers. Yet, clearly, even now some people need or want to change jobs. If you are one of these people, what should you do? How experienced are you at looking for an executive job? Perhaps you have done this two or three times in your life and perhaps you have been lucky. Most people, though, waste p…

It is hard to overstate the importance of career targeting as affected executives look out across the swamp of what is to come. You need clarity while searching for the stepping stones of solid ground. Skirting the bogs, quick sands, and other treacherous missteps that predominate. Consider the industry perspective, for example. Airlines, hotels, restaurants, sports, cruise ships, movie th…

Would you consider yourself satisfied?  I mean, in general, with your day to day existence, your work, your life?  The Covid-19 crisis may leave you with time to reflect on this key question and reveal – a hole in your soul. Most people we encounter can imagine a better life. For example, more compensation, less work, more power, a broader scope, more opportunity, or a new industry. Maybe it i…

Things were going so well. An eleven-year-old bull market, for example. Business confidence up. Unemployment down. Then suddenly everything changed. Did we, as a society, prepare adequately; react fast enough; take the situation seriously soon enough? Probably not, because in general it is human nature to change behavior slowly and the danger signals were not unambiguous. Well, that has chang…

For our first twenty-seven years or so the Barrett Group was a physical company. We had an office. People worked there. But much of the career consulting and coaching that we delivered was provided over the telephone. So in some ways, we were already well on the way of being a “virtual company.” About three years ago we decided to change that, so we made significant investments in software…

Fear saps your will. It freezes you in terror. And it makes it hard to think straight and may leave you in darkness. That may have been helpful to our ancestors, but it does not help in the face of the current health crisis. Having time to sit and stew during your social distancing does not necessarily help either, of course. So perhaps you might want to think back about other crises in yo…