Ask would-be career-changers about their resumes and “packaging” and you might get any sort of response. It can range from “I don’t have one” to “It’s not up to date” or “I had it redone professionally.” At the Barrett Group, we see perhaps 20,000 resumes per year. We have a pretty clear understanding of what is effective under which circumstances. What Does Your “Career-Packaging” Say Abou…

Another time when I was between jobs, a recruiter came up with an interview for me that appeared to be a perfect fit.   The opportunity was in Germany—a private company big in the plastic films industry, owned essentially by two reclusive brothers.  It was a big general manager or small CEO role for a business of a certain volume. This company had multiple plants, European sales organization, …

In our experience, ANYTIME is the perfect time to explore and land your new job. By the time you read this it may well be 2021 already. But it’s still worth emphasizing our experience over the last 30 years that the holiday period is actually a very rich time for candidates to explore their social capital and even land jobs. In fact, one year, we had five candidates land jobs between Christmas…

At the Barrett Group, it is our business to help executives clarify their career objectives (with our Clarity Program©). We then help them market themselves effectively.  To do this as consistently as we do, we find it useful to take stock of the market situation. Every once in a while the market must be monitored, like a swimmer lifting his or her head up over the waves and verifying position …

Do you have conflicts at work?  It would be highly unusual if you did not.  People involved in even the simplest tasks bring different experience, skills, and expectations so conflict in one form or another typically lurks just around the corner. Are you ready for take-off? The questions are how you deal with those inevitable differences and what conclusions you draw.  A little perspective can…

Distraction as a way of life. We have discussed at some length the fact that people have very different behavioral styles, particularly the executives who come to us for help with their careers.  We use the DISC instrument as a way of detecting behavioral tendencies.   The high D (Dominance) types are driven and focused but often have no patience for details or the attention span to follow lon…

Several times in my career I have been without work.  Sometimes by choice.  Sometimes not.  And particularly in the latter case, it can be a very scary feeling… almost as if you are alone in the world.  You send all of those emails. You submit your resume and you try to engage with recruiters. Also, you reach out to your contacts and affect some semblance of happy confidence… but in the quiet o…

Do you miss the human touch? These days, as I understand it, most stock brokerages and similar financial service firms primarily offer exchange-traded funds. These essentially track a specific market basket of stocks, often something as recognizable as the NYSE or its ilk.  The reason is that machines do this better than humans. Machines recognize the patterns faster. Make the adjustments fast…

Imagine the glorious future when all you have to do is go online and type in the sort of job you want, the location, and maybe the target compensation… and out pop two or three job offers. Well, we’re not quite there yet.  In fact, we may be farther away from that job seeker’s utopia than we’ve ever been because there has never been as much data available to job seekers as there is today, and …

Most of us at one point or another in our careers feel under-appreciated, like the boss does not really see all the wonderful things we do, like the team takes us for granted, unloved, under-paid, etc.  Human beings have ups and downs, of course, and it’s always hard to qualify these feelings.  So, what can you do to be more confident when making such a key decision? One simple way is to find …