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 spotting bad (or good) advice, what to do if you get laid off, approaching people you admire without acting like an idiot, making contacts from scratch, and searching for people instead of for jobs.

From the Brazen Careerist: How to identify someone who is giving you bad advice

“I was in Menlo Park last week for the roundtable organized by Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh. They posed questions to the group of entrepreneurial types: What makes good advice? What makes bad advice? The answers were interesting, and each shed more light on why I gave Rob such bad advice. Here are some ideas that came from the group.”

Wally’s Comment: There are two things to know about this post. The first is that it’s really about identifying good advice. The second is that there’s a lot of personal fluff at the beginning of the post. If you like it fine, but if you’re hunting for the meat of the post, scroll down.

From Brittany Hite at the Wall Street Journal: Turning That Layoff into Career Catalyst

“Job counselors say an early layoff need not be career damaging. They encourage recent graduates not to take layoffs personally, to deal with the issue honestly and to quickly begin looking for another job.”

Wally’s Comment: This is aimed at recent grads who got laid off almost as soon as their orientation was over, but there’s good advice for anyone who suddenly has to seek a new job.

From Pam Slim at Escape from Cubicle Nation: How to avoid being “fan boy” or “fan girl” when building relationships with people you admire

“Whomever you note on your “cool smart I wanna be like them when I grow up” list, you can and should look for ways to build relationships with them. But, as creatures still stinging from the social dynamics of junior high, we can fall into “fan boy or fan girl traps” which not only make us feel insecure, but turn off the very people we are trying to impress. So here are my tips, learned from the school of hard knocks.”

Wally’s Comment: This is a great post because it fills an important gap in the suggestions you get telling you to search for a mentor or ask for advice. Read it, clip it and save it so you have it when you need it.

From Karen Burns, Working Girl: Creating Contacts 101

“Yeah, it does seem impossible to get to know people when you’re in a new and strange place. But guess what? No one was born with contacts. Everyone who has contacts has had to create them for themselves. And you can, too.”

Wally’s Comment: Good, practical advice.

From John Schwabel at Personal Branding: Perform a People Search Instead of a Job Search

“The process of getting hired is search, submission, contact, interview (could be multiple rounds), offer and acceptance. By searching for jobs, you will be going through this process and it might stop at the last interview, without an offer. When this happens, all you receive in return is practice for the next cycle. We don’t receive proper feedback during the corporate interview process, therefore we aren’t more prepared for next time (but mentally we think we are). It’s time to invest less in searching for jobs.”

Wally’s Comment: This is a provocative post, indeed. Read it and think about how try this out in your own world.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 8:43 am 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.