Be Authentically Yourself!

The magazine racks at bookstores and grocery stores are loaded with stories of personal success and failure. We all want to be in the successful category and avoid failure. But we're neither. Each person is so unique that none of us can live up to others' successes, or failures. We simply must be ourselves and do our best to offer our God given talents. Each of has certain skills and personal traits which help us perform certain jobs well. But even in the context of job performance, so many external variables can influence your financial success, it’s futile to define yourself as a success or failure based on what happens in your job. Coach John Wooden (won 10 college basketball championships in 12 years) is reported to have never mentioned winning and losing to his players. He emphasized if you try your best every day (and there will be good and bad days), you’ll never be a loser.  Rather, your effort is what counts.  Have a great day!

IT Hiring Uptick-Qualified Candidates

The Wall Street Journal recently indicated IT hiring was up. While we’re seeing a bit of an uptick in our clients’ job openings supporting this assertion, we’re also mindful of our need to have the best candidate for each job. In the pre-internet/pre email days, we used to hand deliver resumes. For that added touch, we might just put a gold paperclip with our card at the top of the resume. When you performed your personalized service this way, you wanted to be darn sure your candidates were qualified for the position. With the internet it seems easier just to submit categories of candidates instead of truly specific ones. There can be no doubt this business is still based on quality relationships and well qualified candidates. The work is in the day-to-day details.

College Degree or Not?

Too often I’ve reviewed resumes where people list colleges they’ve attended, the dates, and the areas of study. But the degree isn’t listed. I don’t know if these candidates are trying to imply a degree was earned. But I’d say it is in the candidate's best interest to list hour taken so the reviewer can get an idea of where this candidate was in the college process. I think it works against the candidate to fail to identify that a degree was earned, but also fails to list the hours completed. It is more complete to list it all, and it separates this candidate from the others that don’t provide the information.


I’m certainly not suggesting a degree guarantees success. It’s just that many employers require it, or commensurate work experience. And for that reason, be as thorough as possible. And if you don’t have a degree, be very specific about the nature of your work experiences. Employers love to read examples of work product to they can visualize how it may translate into the job.

Spring & Jobs

Spring is upon us – in the Midwest at least. The meteorologist said it had been over six months since Kansas City last saw an 80 degree day. With these nice days comes a sense of what’s fresh and new outside. Too bad we couldn’t put our desks, computers and phones outside. Did anyone say we couldn’t?


Inside or out, we are nevertheless acutely aware of those still looking for work. There’s no shortage of hard luck stories on the news. In certain regions of the United States it does appear more employers are hiring now. I’ve read unemployment claims have gone down (hopefully not the result of states simply running out of funds). I know our own clients have picked up their hiring activity somewhat. Hiring ebbs and flows every few weeks, but there’ is cause for optimism.

Whether it is in matters small or large, do what you can to lend a helping hand to someone looking for job. It may be a referral, a job opening, or something as simple as an encouraging word. And get outside as much as possible.