Glen Luckman Brand Your Career

Grow Your Career - What IT Leaders Need to Do

Glen Luckman Grow Your Caree By Dr. Jim Anderson

As though the job of being a IT Leader was not hard enough, there’s also that added responsibility that you have to manage your career. With all of the turmoil of the past couple of years, it’s now more important than ever for IT Leaders to find the time to tend to this task.

Growing Your Career - It’s Like Another Job
The #1 thing that IT Leaders need to realize is that it is no longer good enough to sit passively by and hope that your career will take you to someplace that you want to be. Instead, you need to take charge of it. Yes, this means that there is more work for you to do. However, you will benefit from all of the time and effort that you put into this task.

It’s Networking Time
For some odd reason too many of us shun what is probably the most effective career management activity - networking. Study after study has shown that most high paying professional jobs are found through networking. What this means for you is that you need to always be growing your network.

This might cause you to rush out and try to build the largest LinkedIn network that you possibly can. Don’t do it. Deborah Bailey who is a career and employment coach, points out that the quality of the members of your professional network is far more important than quantity of people that you have in the network.

Get Uncomfortable
We all chose to have a career in IT for a bunch of reasons. One of these was because we knew that IT was a dynamic field - it’s always changing. What this means for you is that you can’t sit back and assume that the skills that you have today (both hard and soft skills) will be what anyone will be looking for tomorrow.

Instead, you need to get up off your butt and go out and learn something new. This ability to be constantly seeking out new things to learn will be what keeps your skills fresh and makes sure that you are always employable.

Big Picture Stuff
This might be the trickiest part of the program - learning to keep your eyes open. It’s all too easy to focus on what’s going on inside of your company or even within your industry. However, the key to long-term career success is to stay on top of what’s going on in the big world and understand how it may impact your company and your career.

Final Thoughts
You have no control over what others may do to your career in the future. However, you have complete control over what you do to prepare your career for the future. You are going to need to be proactive (start doing something TODAY) and you are going to have to be willing to adapt to the changes that we all know will happen in the IT field. If you can do both of these things, then you will have truly taken control of your career and you’ll be well on you way as you transform yourself from an IT manager into a true leader.

Career Change - What Career is Right For Me?

Glen Luckman Right Career For You By Sharon Alexander

You have just lost your job after several years and you are not sure what to do next. You are worried that your career is over especially since there is so much unemployment these days. The good news is that this could be great time to make a career change because you will have time to find something you really want.

One of the first things to do is to take some time to assess where you are now and what you want to do next. This is not a time to sit and feel depressed but it is a time to take some time off. This is the time to relax awhile and clear your mind of the loss.

After a job loss you can usually file for unemployment. Although this will not be all of your salary, it can be a help when you are first starting out and it can be part of your strategy.

Once you have taken time to relax and get your head clear here are some strategies to help through your career change transition:

* Realize you are in transition. Instead of thinking that you have lost your job understand that this is just another transition in your life. With the economy the way it is, many people are also in transition. This can be the best time to find a job.

* Get career counseling. Check with the local college’s job center because they usually have services for people who are going through career change. They often have free or low cost career testing that can also give you fresh ideas.

* Research your new career choices. Now that you have career tests in hand you can begin to explore new ideas. You never know when you will find something that you never thought would be of interest.

* Revitalize your resume. Instead of using the tired old resume that you have used in the past, work with a qualified career coach who can help you design a resume that works more effectively for the job that you want. You need a fresh approach from someone who is skilled at career change and who can help you establish yourself in a different way.

* Upgrade your skills. This is an excellent time to upgrade your skills. If you are an older worker check with the local community college because you can sometimes take free classes. When you are going through a career change taking a class can help you generate ideas for your next career.

* Keep a positive and upbeat attitude. Never look at your job loss as something negative. Instead of a closing, this could be an opening to a career change into something you have always wanted to do.

Are You on the Right Career Path? Find Out by Answering 4 Simple Questions

Glen Luckman  Right Career Path By Dr. Daphne Mobley

In the United States, people work approximately half of their waking lives. This statistic is even more amazing when you consider that some individuals spend their entire work day performing jobs that do not provide any gratification for them at all. On Sunday evenings, they become irritated by the mere thought that they will return to work the following day. Why should people spend half of their valuable lives doing something that is unfulfilling? Life can be too short and people are entitled to perform work assignments that give them total bliss, or at least a reasonable amount of satisfaction. It is critically important to pursue the career that you truly desire because this can ultimately result in greater happiness and good health.

Do you fit into this category of dissatisfied employees? The following four questions can help you identify the answer to this question.

• Are you going to work every day because you like your salary or the money that you earn pays your bills?
• Did you begin your career because your parents or someone else wanted you to pursue it?
• Has your work environment become so comfortable that you shy away from leaving your safe comfort zone?
• Do you lack excitement when you talk about what you do for a living?

If your answer to these questions is no - congratulations! You are one of the fortunate people with a career that satisfies your soul. However, if your answer to the questions is yes, you have a life changing decision to make. You can remain unhappy and maintain the status quo or you can develop plans to begin a fulfilling career. Although it may be quite unsettling to change from a job routine that you know well, you can now begin your journey to a rewarding career by identifying what you truly desire to do.

I know how frightening a career change can be. My life was dramatically changed when I resigned from my job as a corporate executive, established my own company and became a motivational speaker as well as a consultant. A myriad of feelings flooded my body and permeated every single bit of my being. My feelings ranged from guilt for leaving a Fortune 500 company that provided absolutely wonderful opportunities for me to fear of assuming an entrepreneurial role all by myself. It was very difficult for me to sever my ties with a company that was such a large part of my life for over 16 years and pursue my own career passion. However, the immeasurable exhilaration overshadowed the guilt and fear when I simply imagined achieving my career goal of motivating others to pursue their own career dreams.

When you make the decision to embark upon your new career, you will no longer simply imagine true bliss, but you will actually feel it when you are completing work assignments that you truly enjoy. Then you will not mind when Sunday evening rolls around - you will look forward to every single Monday!

Making a Career Change in Your Golden Years Not Impossible

Glen Luckman Making a Career Change  By Nelson A Simmons

According to Glen Luckman growing up in a poor, one parent home, the chance of an education beyond grade school was not an option. I had many hopes and dreams growing up, but due to financial reasons, my future career choices were limited. I joined the army at 18 and went into engineering, which took me to the west coast of BC.

During my three year term I got married and became the father of four beautiful girls that are now doing well on their life roads. During these past forty years I have worked diligently at being successful in a number of work from home ventures. Never successful in my duties with these different companies, I began to think that a home business was not for me. I would be dishonest if I said I was happy or satisfied with these home business ventures.

It seemed as though I couldn’t stake my claim to that lucrative paved highway. Nothing ever seemed to click for me.

Retirement time was suddenly at my door. With very little pension and no bank account worth while mentioning I was worried about my future. However, being young at heart and full of enthusiasm and ambition for a more streamlined life style to be shared with my new wife, I came upon a work at home business with real payoffs. Embarking on a new career at my age seemed very daunting and scary, I’ll admit that i had many reservations coming in, but for the first time in my career, I feel truly successful and have found what truly works for me.

The following is a guideline that I chose to follow and for all of those people in their golden years, looking for a career or a career change, the following will help you as it did me.

First off, stop listening to your friends and neighbours in your same age group that say you can’t do it. We all have those individuals in our lives who focus more on skepticism rather than realism. Nothing is impossible and you should always allow time to hear people out before making a judgement. If I had passed immediate judgement when this business opportunity was provided to me I may have missed out on financial freedom for my golden years.

The second tidbit of advice I have for you is to do your homework. In my long life I chose to set off on work from home ventures without doing my homework or reading the ‘roadmap’ that would lead me to financial success. With the business I am in now I am pleased to say I decided to pick up that ‘roadmap’, invest a good deal of time and effort into researching the background of this business and came out not only wiser, but more financially stable.

I assure you and I think that many older people can relate to me, we came from a time where many didn’t believe in banks, cell phones or new age technology such as the Internet.

Career Change Resume - Adapting Your Resume to a Career Change

Glen Luckman Career Change Resume By Jerry Pohn

“If you’re interested in composing a career change resume, or need a little career change advice, I’ve put together a few tips here gathered from expert Human Resource professionals in the industry.”

1. Concentrate on the following two most important areas when composing a career change resume: Research and Transferable Skills.

2. Assuming you are quite sure that changing careers is the best decision for your situation, your next biggest challenge will be convincing your potential employer to give you the job.

3. To achieve this your chances are greatly improved if you can demonstrate to them that you have an extensive knowledge of their industry, notwithstanding the fact that you don’t have experience in the field.

4. Make sure that you understand what professional paths are open to you in your new career, and from that establish your career goals. This becomes the basis from which to form your career objective.

5. Do your homework on the company you are seeking to join and then do even more homework on the competitors in the industry. It really will serve you well to appear very knowledgeable of the industry as a whole.

6. The next hurdle to get over is to convince them that you are more suited to the job than the other candidates with more experience.

7. To achieve that you need to pull out all the stops and bring out the big guns…namely — your eagerness to learn, your extensive knowledge of the industry, combined with an array of transferable skills, enthusiastic energy and a fresh approach.

8. The transferable skills you want to highlight would be for example:

* Generation of new ideas and concepts
* The development of new processes
* Organization
* Project Management
* Customer Relations
* Verbal and Written Communication
* People Management…etc.

Such skills are universally useful to any organization and hence you need to use them to highlight your qualifications for the position you are seeking.

9. Listing all your professional skills and experiences and the qualifications necessary for the job you are seeking, will assist you in highlighting which skills are transferable to the new career.

10. A functional resume format will be best to assure that most or all of the required qualifications of the job are met.

7 Strategies to Credit Crunch Proof Your career

By: Sharon Alexander

Every time you open a newspaper nowadays, the first thing you see is the current fear of a recession, the credit crunch, the banking crisis and the difficult days ahead with a downturn of the economy. It seems obvious that there will be cost cutting measures within some organizations, which in turn triggers fears of downsizing. Keeping this in mind, it is better to credit crunch proof your career when there is still time. Even if your company is not affected right now, it is necessary that you build up a strategy to safeguard yourself. There are no magic answers or sure shot solutions but these tactics can help to give you confidence and an added edge.

1. Update your skills and learn new skills: Now is the time to invest more in yourself. Update your skills in your current areas of work. Similarly, learn new skills like IT skills. You may take up new courses or trainings that will enhance your resume and can prove to be helpful not just in your current job but also any new opportunities if the need be.

2. Target your resume for specific jobs: Design and develop a resume that is fully targeted for a specific job that you are applying for. It should not be a generic list of your qualifications and experience. If you are unable to do so yourself, invest some time in learning this skill. Only a professionally targeted resume can take you further to an interview level. Your resume should stand out from the rest and should be appealing enough to the employers.

3.Get yourself noticed: At your current job, take efforts to be noticed. Make sure your boss is aware of your achievements. If you are given an opportunity for a new role and responsibility, take it up. If you are involved in a very important project, you may be safer than most.

4. Make yourself indispensable: Be ready to take on new tasks even over and above your usual activities. Volunteering to take on new tasks helps in making you indispensable as a person who can undertake any activity happily. That will help list you out as an important team member not worth losing. Find ways to contribute innovatively to your company. Be an active team player.

5. Start networking: It helps having a good supportive network. Keep in touch with former colleagues in other organizations, you previous bosses etc., which can help you find other job opportunities whenever the need arises. Be equally helpful to your contact as far as possible, as then only can you expect them to return the favor.

6. Plan your finances carefully: Building up your financial reserves is necessary. Even if you may be given a redundancy package it may take some time to come. If you have some financial reserve to last you at least 6 months, you would not go deeper in the trough. Plan you finances carefully with your current job at hand.

7. Don’t hide: Do not make yourself invisible, considering that you would not get axed because of it. Get up and prove yourself so that you become a bit safer. Your clients and boss need to see results now. Try to solve immediate needs.

7 Glen Luckman Strategies

Career Management Defined

By: Tony Jacowski

Career self-management is controlled by the concerned individual and includes certain plans and information applicable for future career decision-making and problem solving. It is comprised of continuously improving the existent conditions at the present work place and preparing yourself for a change. Career self-management and organizational career management are not restricted and can actually help to promote each other.

Common Misconceptions

Listed below are some of the common misconceptions about career management:

Most people think that the most skilled candidate is likely to be selected. However, this is not true. Candidates with limited qualifications avail of a number of job opportunities because of the way they prepare and present themselves. In short, they self-market themselves in the required manner. Being skilled or qualified is not the only criteria. You must be able to convince the employer that you are the most suitable candidate for the job.

Most people feel that as long as they already have a job, they don’t really need to work on their careers. Again, this not true. Whether or not you are employed currently, you should be prepared for change, in whatever form. To steer clear of any career-related disasters, you should implement the concept of “Perpetual Career Management” to enhance your career growth.

Professional education should not stop when you graduate. You should always explore ways to increase your knowledge. You should be constantly updating your skills via journals, seminars and pursuing certifications. These choices should be a part of your consistent career development effort.

Don’t be under the misconception that your job is secure if you work hard and do a good job. With current mergers, outsourcing, downsizing and an unstable economy, there is no job that is entirely secure. You must be fully responsible for the future prospects of your chosen career.

What Graduates Have In Store For Them

Organizations in the United States and other developed countries have been following a trend of employing only the best university graduates to prepare them for future leadership within the organization. However, apprehensions about the proceeds in investing long-term in career development has led many organizations to wonder if this conventional stress on the management of graduate careers should be continued. Employers are now wondering whether they should promote self-management or whether they should continue with the traditional methods of career management.

Similarly, graduates are also faced with a problem. They need to decide whether they should engage in self-management or whether they need to adhere and prepare for the traditional methods already in use. Organizational commitment is important in shaping the responses to career development practices and in acting as chief indicators of the influence of these practices.

Glen Luckman Defined

Career Branding Strategies to Beat a Recession

By: Sharon Alexander

Self Branding or career branding is an often over-looked important party of the job search. The biggest mistake that people make is to assume that their past accomplishments and career experiences will speak for themselves.

Often, job seekers can fail to take a proactive approach to creating and marketing their reputations. Branding is setting yourself apart from other job
seekers. If an employer sees “productive,” or “self-motivated” basically stamped on your forehead he/she is going to stop and take notice. The blame lies entirely on you if you choose not to be active in asserting your reputation.

It is so important to market and manage your reputation in this manner. Start by determining what your strengths and assets are. What have other employers complemented you on? Are you dependable? Do you show good leadership? Or maybe you have good analytical qualities?

Whatever your best feature is, you need to identify it, and then go about highlighting it to potential employers. There are many different ways to market your brand. Begin including your brand in emails and letters. When you describe to people your job functions, include your brand. This can be done effectively and tastefully in a manner such as, “I work for company X to create new software; my work is completed on time and on budget.”

Another example from a manager’s standpoint could be, “I lead others to follow my example and work efficiently without sacrificing quality or integrity.” The first example provided highlights the candidate’s respect for deadlines and good money sense. The second showcases the employee’s leadership qualities and values. Once you establish your brand you can use it in many situations to remind your potential employer what it is that you bring to the table.

The bottom line is that if you don’t brand yourself, others will. Nobody wants to see bad qualities like these present in a potential employee. You might have accidentally given a bad first impression without even knowing it, and words like these might cling to your name.

Much of this could have been avoided had you mentioned in early email correspondence that you have responsibly performed your duties with other employers and that you possess such and such qualities. Obviously if you claim punctuality as a selling point, then are late to an initial interview, your actions discredit your claims. Generally, however, you can shape the opinion that others will take toward you, by effectively marketing your brand.

Glen Luckman Career Branding Strategies

Career Development Brings Success

By: Shanat Kuphur

Meaning of the word “career” has moved out of its regular boundaries as a “money making business” into something more as a culminating edge of human ambitions. Henceforth career development and career development plans conquer their dreams even in a sound sleep - eternal happiness becomes a mirage. Vigilant eyes have to be kept to win back those lost hours of sleep.

Worldly pleasures have always attracted mankind-so is career development. Professionalism has grabbed world in such a spurious manner that education itself is oriented to career development. As world is advancing at the fraction of a second, becoming a professional-a lawyer, doctor, engineer, businessman, scientist-only can satisfy the ambitious students of today. Even after procuring a job, the urge for career development continues- human needs never ends.

In his pursuing for a lofty career, man often turns to be complaining. A dissection of the state of the art clearly reveals an unbiased human mind. Frequent career switching followed by red lines in career graph is the end result. A fretful mentality supplemented with lack of perseverance, determination and confidence is the root cause of these hindrances in the path of career development. Career development goals are set aiming at long-range career growth in the initial years. A lack of motivation and a lack of understanding of the aim throw stones and thorns in the road to the target. Egos and complexes pull their legs further down. A realization of potential becomes impractical and a career break through turns out to be impossible. Blinking eyes at this major issue is paving the way for a cancerous disease of mind. When surveyed for reasons, what commonly found is - setting lame excuses by beating around the bush, searching for heads to put the blame upon - this bird’s eye view makes things worse than the worst.

In order to succeed and have a commendable approach towards your career path, it’s essential that you follow a decided career development path. This need not be someone else’s plan, but just your estimates or goals based upon your personal gauging of the current day scenario. However your career development approach or path may not always get the much-anticipated momentum. The reason being you may be confused or simply not confident about your own achievements. Apart from this you may not be able to foresee and may not really device the best of plans. As such hypnosis for career development can help you see a great change in your monotonous and all too stagnant career graph.

Hypnosis for career management enables you to make a conscious decision and ensures that your sub conscious mind is always working towards this goal. Hypnosis awakens your inner being making it aware of the concerned scenario; you gain a deeper insight into what’s happening and revise your approach accordingly. Through hypnosis you will be able to initiate the process of change.

Career Development with Glen Luckman

Successful Job Interviews

By: Pamela Watson

Within this article I will share an important secret behind successful job interviewing and career management. We all know that a well designed job search requires much more than revising your resume and learning a few job interview tips. Usually it’s good to get advice from the experts and career counselors or coaches. But, it is far more important to know yourself and to know where you want to end up. Do you have a picture in your mind of where you’ll be in 5 years…10 years? Have you written it down? With this picture or goal in mind, can you now plan for tomorrow’s career strategy? What can you do, tomorrow, that will lead to the better job or the promotion?

The most important secret to successful job interviewing is knowing your career vision - - where you want your career, and your life, to take you. Every step you take towards securing a new position, obtaining a highly desired promotion, reaching short-term career plans should be based upon a big picture - - your career vision. It is what provides the pathway for your personal success. It is what keeps you on track during disappointments and in the midst of organizational or personal changes. We have to know what it is that we’re seeking to be effective within our career moves.

Recently, I received an email from a business associate who wanted to share a promotion within a major corporation. I’ve known this professional for over ten years, have heard him speak of his career goals, and I recognized how valuable his stepping stones mean to him. His careful preparation, and planned risk-taking, was leading to career success that had personal value to him and his family. When necessary he had made adjustments and changed jobs, but he kept focused on achieving the big picture.

The steps to creating your vision are similar to the the way companies create their long-term plans or mission statements. Due to the size and functioning of corporations, it can take months - - sometimes years - - to complete a mission statement.

That’s not the case when you create your own personal one. The process doesn’t take as long, and there’s no need to get an entire management team together to complete it. What’s most important is that yours be based on your “reality” and your “dream.” Between these two areas is a “gap of compromise” that allows you to create a successful vision of your career. Whether you’re searching for a new job, a promotion, or career satisfaction, it’s important to have a vivid picture in your mind of where you’re heading.

Your career vision can be drawn directly from your personal values, family background, financial desires, geographical limitations, physical needs, etc. At least 25% of it should deal with your reality.

So, if you have an deeply embedded, vivid picture of your career goals, it makes life so much easier in your job search. You begin to fully use your network in a way that will get you better job leads. You are then able to clearly identify what company or position can further your career and synchronize with your goals. You can fully evaluate a company before, during, and after the interview. You begin to use a much more efficient job search strategy.

Many job seekers send their resumes to numerous job boards, recruiters with generic opening statements and introductions. You throw enough darts and sooner or later something’s going stick, rights? But will that new position lead you to your desired position? Or will you be looking for a new position 6 months after accepting the offer? The secret to successful job interviews centers on you knowing where you expect to end your journey. With this knowledge you can search for a new job with a clearer sense of what it is that you will accept, or not accept.

Job interviews are designed to review the results of your career-related actions, as well as to determine how well you will fit within the company. If you’ve done your homework (self evaluation and company research), then your vision should directly impact the short-term step of interviewing. By understanding where you’re heading, you’re more likely to successfully manage interview questions - - as well as decide if the position is one that will lead you closer to career success.

Successful Glen Luckman Job Interviews