Every week I check dozens of “career” blogs and other online publications, looking for things that will help you find a job, get promoted, develop your skills, and keep everything in perspective and balance. Here’s the pick of the lot for this week. I’m pointing you to items about what to do when you’re “overqualified,” working at home with your spouse, personal branding in 2010, knowing when it’s time to change, and the only way to become really good.

From Karen Burns (Working Girl): 9 Ways to Overcome Being Overqualified
“Employers are actually suspicious of applicants with too many qualifications. They fear you’re just slumming until something better comes along, or you’re going to want too much money, or you’re really after the boss’s position, or you’ll make other employees feel small, or you’ll resent being supervised by a younger or less-experienced manager, or, finally, that you are incompetent (because if you were any good, they reason, you’d be gunning for a better job). What’s even worse is that employers often won’t say the reason they’re not hiring you is because they think you’re overqualified. They just never call you back.”

Wally’s Comment: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post on this before. Boy is it needed. Boy is this a good post.

From Anita Bruzzese: 5 tips for working at home with your significant other
“The tough times have brought about a lot of changes, both personally and professionally. One of those changes has been a lot of people launching their own businesses from home. But what happens when you and your significant other both start working from home? Will it work? Will it cause a rift so wide you’ll never recover?”

Wally’s Comment: Lots of people are living this dream. You’re both working from/at home. You like it quiet. He likes loud rock music. You think 72 degrees F is a great office temperature. She likes it ten degrees colder. And, by the way, who’s going to clean up the kitchen? Oh, it’s big fun. Well, Anita Bruzzese will give you some survival tips.

From the Personal Branding Blog: 10 Personal Branding Predictions for 2010
“Each year, I give my personal branding predictions in the December time frame, but this year, people are starting to ask me about the future earlier.  In 2008, the focus was on behavior changes and in 2009, I concentrated on the economy and the struggle to protect your brand at all costs.  This year, I’ve been analyzing a lot of trends that will have a major impact on our careers and how companies will manage, retain and recruit employees moving forward.  A lot of my predictions involve technology because people have already started changing their behavior, but technology is going to open up even more opportunities.”

Wally’s Comment: Yes, boys and girls, it’s that time of year. It’s time for predictions about next year. In this post the Grand Poobah (that’s smartmouth talk for “recognized expert”) on personal branding, Dan Schawbel tells you how he thinks personal branding will go in 2010.

From All Things Workplace: Five Signals You Should Make a Change
“Life isn’t a part of business; business is a part of life. So, everything of consequence leads to confronting and resolving some kind of issue that leads to a choice about personal change. All of the choices aren’t always huge, but they are necessary in order to develop more healthy and effective patterns of work and leadership. I started thinking about the kinds of signs that flash to indicate the person across the table really does need to make a change. Maybe one or more apply to you as well. Here are five that stand out for me.”

Wally’s Comment: There are articles and posts about how change is hard. There are some that tell you to get on with it. But there aren’t many that tell how to spot the moment you need to move on. Steve Roesler offers typically well-grounded advice on just that.

From Zen Habits: The Only Way to Become Amazingly Great at Something
“Very often you’ll see blog posts or books teaching you to “master” a skill in only 10 days, or 3 days … in fact, it used to be 30 days but the time frame to master something seems to be shrinking rapidly.”

Wally’s Comment: Leo Babauta nails this one. Don’t worry about the debates about “deliberate practice” and “ten thousand hours” and “nature versus nurture” and “talent.” Just remember this. If you want to get really, really, really good at something, you’re going to have to work really, really, really hard. Only Leo says it better.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Tools and Strategies for Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.