10 Jun

Posted at 05:06h in Interviewing
Since I'm an independent consultant I find myself speaking with hiring managers often. My first goal in every conversation / interview is to find out what they need help with and how I can help.The one question I ask every single time is: Based on our discussion so far, where do you think I would fit in your organization?

04 Jun

Posted at 06:07h in Quitting Your Job

When I resigned from a large consulting company after 3 years of working as a consultant, I sent out my farewell email at the end of the week. The next day, the CEO sent it out to the ENTIRE US Consulting Practice. (A lot of people).

Note: I wasn’t a Director, Partner, Senior Manager or even a Manager. I was a Senior Consultant. I didn’t save the company millions of dollars by inventing a new methodology or product. I wasn’t given any top performance awards or recognized as a global leader within a company.I can only guess it was because he saw something noteworthy of sharing. In short: I loved working there & it showed in my e-mail.If you're quitting, here is exactly what you need to do to leave on a good note:

03 Jun

Posted at 08:12h in Career Inspiration, Quitting Your Job, Relationship Building
Meeting is the name. Coffee is the game.Mark Suster inspired me to take 50 coffee meetings. I took his advice, and then I took it again, and again and again and again. To the tune of 250 coffee meetings in 400 days. The result was phenomenal.Love_CoffeeMy main motivation to do this was because 1)I like people and 2)I knew no one in Chicago after I quit my job. I wanted to get connected in a deep way.Here is a summary of what has happened:

02 Jun

Posted at 05:08h in Career Inspiration, Job Tips
HP announced that they were planning on laying off between 11,000 and 16,000 people.I am going to look at this from the angle of an employee and not the business aspect of it.The biggest misconception that workers have is that if they work hard, impress their boss and get good marks on their performance review, they will advance.Assuming every single employee at HP goes through an Annual performance review, here is a break down of how the 16,000 employees would be rated based on a bell curve rating system.
  • Exceeds Expectations: ~2,560 (16%)
  • Meets Expectations: ~10,880 (68%)
  • Below Expectations: ~2,560 (16%)
What do all three groups of employees have in common? They are all going to be laid off.The meetings, the review forms, the doing everything to impress your boss, the loyalty to the company are all out the window in the names of cutting cost. That's what it will come down to.But what about the exceeds expectations resources. Shouldn't they be saved since they are high performers?

20 Oct

Posted at 13:59h in Interviewing, Relationship Building
I love it when people say "I don't care what people think of me".  I have two people that they should meet: BULL & SHIT.Here is what they are really saying: "I don't want you to think that I act differently because of what other people will think of me".O2N3v5aIronic? I think so.Interviewer: So hey Robbie, do you care what people think about you?Robbie: No way! I created this blog for myself. I don't care if anyone reads it. I write this blog for myself and not other people. I don't care what other people think of me. This blog is all about me!Interviewer: Oh really. So why don't you just keep the blog private then?Robbie: Ok, this interview is officially over. Where's my agent who organized this interview? I'm here to talk about how I'm just Robbie from the block, and you're trying to instigate. I'll make sure this is your last interview ever buddy. You'll see the wrath of my power!!Interviewer: Dude, really? You're taking this overboard.Robbie: I knew I shouldn't have agreed to this interview. I told my agent that I would only do this if there were a bowl full of Red M&Ms in my dressing room, and instead they gave me Red Skittles. Ugh, amateurs!/End Interview