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 revamping your job search, social networks, writing a better resume, improving your interviews, and becoming more productive.

From MSNBC: Revamping your job-search strategy
“If you’re not landing interviews, it’s time to try something new”

Wally’s Comment: The test of a strategy is in the results. If your strategy isn’t getting results you need to try something else.

From the Wall Street Journal: Social Networks Work
“When you’re making a career change, social-media networking is better than traditional networking for several reasons.”

Wally’s Comment: Alexandra Levit doesn’t make any wild promises here. So if you’re looking for a magic trick, this is not the article for you. She reviews the ways in which social-media networking is more effective than traditional networking with suggestions about how you can leverage those differences to your advantage.

From the New York Times: Writing a Resume That Shouts ‘Hire Me’
“IT’S tempting to think of a résumé as a low-maintenance aspect of your job search. Just list where you worked, what you did and where you went to school, attach that to each application and press the button. In fact, though, you have considerable flexibility in how you structure your résumé. The decisions you make about what it says and how it looks can affect whether you get the job you really want, or get a job at all.”

Wally’s Comment: Your resume is a marketing document that you use to land the right job. This article covers strategy, structure, and tips to help your resume help you to a better future.

From Forbes: How To Give Great Interview
“Show that you have the skills and would fit in, but above all make it clear how much you want the job.”

Wally’s Comment: If you think of your search strategy as marketing and your resume as a marketing document, then this article will fit right it. It treats the interview as something like a sales call with tips for prep and follow-up as well as for how you should act during the interview itself.

From Terry Starbucker: The Secret To A Lifetime Of Productivity – And Five Ways To Find It
“The secret to a lifetime of productivity is simply this:  Making the best selection of WHAT to do at any given moment.”

Wally’s Comment: This post is about easy ways to make a good decision about what you should do right now. Terry’s five tips are general enough to work in most situations and specific enough to be really helpful.

We gathered at a cold and windy gravesite at the far end of the state to say good-bye. There weren’t a lot of people there, in the cold middle of the week, but some had driven over three hours.

The woman whose body we buried didn’t have one of those lives that are significant in the view of most of the world. She was a wife and mother and grandmother and great-grandmother and great-great grandmother. She had a lot of friends. She had family who loved her.

She got the nickname “Picnic” because she would put together a picnic at the drop of a hint. Her picnic basket is the treasured possession of a grand-daughter.

“Picnic” was a living example of what psychologists mean when they talk about “social support.” She had friends and family that mattered. She was an active member of her church. And those relationships made her life rich.

There is a bottom line here. Being connected is important. Study after study comes up with findings that people who have a rich social networks and relationships love longer, happier, and more productive lives.

On blogs like this one we spend a lot of time on career success. Sometimes we discuss “work/life balance.” But developing your social support doesn’t get much attention. To remedy that, here are some suggestions.

Make time for social connections. If you’re busy with your career, it’s easy to do just a little more work instead of spending time with your spouse or friends. Make the time.

Do nice things for others. Kindnesses develop your social support net while they help you feel good about yourself.

Tell people that they matter. Tell them you appreciate them, admire them, and love them.

Do those things consistently. That’s how you develop a “Picnic” kind of life, one that’s rich in people and relationships.

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 networking before and after you get the job, making your point, getting noticed for your expertise, and why job-seeking is like dating.

From Career Diva: Wussy networkers don’t get the job
“From what I hear from job seekers lately, networking is the primary way they end up getting jobs they enjoy, but you all still spend most of your time posting your resumes on job boards. Time for some networking tough love.”

Wally’s Comment: Yep. That networking thing is necessary, even if you don’t like it.

From Anita Bruzzese: How to Hang on to a New Job
“You may think that once you land a job you don’t have to sell yourself to others anymore, that your days of trying to establish connections with strangers is over and you can finally just settle down to doing a job and earning a paycheck. Wrong, wrong and wrong.”

Wally’s Comment: More bad news if you hate networking. You’re not done with it once you land that job. Guess you better learn to do it well.

From HR Bartender: Something to Say: When and How to Say It
“We should all develop opinions and thoughts about ourselves and our businesses in order to help achieve good things.  But that prompts the question, when and how do you present what you have to say?”

Wally’s Comment: Everybody tells you to speak up and say your piece so that you impress the boss and live on in memory when promotion time comes. But no one tells you how to decide when the time is right and how to get that communication job done. Well, almost no one. That’s what this post is about.

From the Wall Street Journal: Get Yourself Noticed
“When you’re reinventing yourself, establishing yourself as an expert achieves two purposes. It promotes your visibility in the new field, and it forces you to become more knowledgeable about current trends and more skilled in relevant areas. Most people who seek to become experts do so out of a desire to help others and foster new business relationships. Once others begin to trust their advice, sales for their products and services usually increase.”

Wally’s Comment: If you follow HR Bartender’s advice, you’ll get the best mileage if your comments help establish your expertise. This post is about building both your expertise and your reputation for it.

From Forbes: Why Job-Seeking Is Just Like Dating
“A veteran career counselor says a 15-year-old dating manual offers surprisingly good advice for the job hunt.”

Wally’s Comment: Most of the posts and articles I’ve seen comparing dating and job-hunting are entertaining. This one is, too. It’s also helpful.

Inc Magazine just ran an article titled “Color Me CEO? Test Shows How Bosses Are Wired.” Here’s the lead.

“A panel of 900 CEOs organized by USA Today participated in an online 60-second color personality test, and the results were striking: The bosses don’t like yellow or red, but they’re big fans of magenta – at least compared to the rest of the population.”

My first reaction was, “So what?” If a selection of CEOs like magenta instead of yellow, what could that possibly mean for me or for you?

But there’s a less than subtle implication that taking this quick color test online will help you make a wise career choice. That’s why it pays to do a little analysis.

My first big problem came with the following claim. The “color choices paint a picture of the typical CEO as sensitive, cooperative, and not a perfectionist.” It’s the phrase “typical CEO” that gets me.

I’ve never met or read about one of those. Is a typical CEO more like Bill Gates or Bill George? Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer? What about Indra Nooyi, Herb Kelleher, or Richard Branson?

Well, maybe that’s just the article. What about the test itself? I took it online in less than five minutes. That’s a little scary right there.

My first reaction was that the descriptions were a lot like those astrological profiles. All the words are positive and they cover a broad range. In other words, you’ll find it easy to say “yes” to something in any profile.

But some words in mine didn’t fit. One was “impulsive.” I asked my wife. She just shook her head and muttered something about “Mr. Plan the Work and Work the Plan.” I called a daughter and asked her. She just laughed. No one but the color test seems to think “impulsive” is me.

“Suggested careers” for me included librarian, attorney, and web designer. That’s a pretty interesting mix. There was also a note that, “if you love to type, data entry operator might be listed as well, even though you want to be a fiction writer.” I have no idea what to make of that.

I’m for anything that gets you thinking about and talking about what you love to do and are good at. If this test, or others like it, do that for you, rock on. Just don’t lose sight of the silliness and preposterousness of it all, even if the silliness is painted over with some purported science.

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 asking the right question, the length of your resume, motherhood and the CV gap, the indirect approach, and great (seriously) career advice.

From Jason Seiden: Practical Inspiration: Burst Your Own Bubble
“To guard against walling yourself off from change when it comes knocking on your door, start reaching outside your industry or profession. Now. Today. Talk to others about what you do every day and ask them how they would handle it.”

Wally’s Comment: Even if you’re not facing change in your company or industry, bursting your own bubble is a smart move. Best practices come from inside the bubble, but breakthrough ideas come from outside.

From Career Rocketeer: Too Long or Too Short?
“One discussion that arises often is regarding an appropriate length of a resume… always one page? Two pages? Are 3, 5, or more pages ever appropriate? I believe there’s a definitive answer to that question: “It depends!””

Wally’s Comment: No there is no magic length for a resume. But there is good advice about how long your resume should be.

From Dorothy Dalton: Motherhood and the CV Gap
“One of the most frequently asked questions  that I am ever asked,  both as a recruiter and as a career coach,  is  about handling gaps in a CV caused by taking time out to raise a family. ”

Wally’s Comment: Even with men taking paternity leave, women face a career challenge that few if any men will ever face. This one of those situations where there are no easy answers, only intelligent choices. Dorothy Dalton lays them out for you in what is the very best post I have ever seen on this topic.

From the Harvard Business Review: Four Ways to Attack the Castle — and Get a Job, Get Ahead, Make Change
“A wise mentor once explained his strategy for getting things done when faced with an impregnable organizational fortress. He likened it to a medieval castle that doesn’t want you inside and doesn’t want change.”

Wally’s Comment: Rosabeth Moss Kanter struggles with the castle analogy at the beginning, so if that bothers you, just keep reading. There’s plenty of good stuff here. And the principle she refers to, forgoing the frontal assault for a more indirect approach is the most common finding of the “secrets” of successful battlefield commanders.

From Great Leadership: Career Advice Part 5: The Best Career Advice Ever You Will Ever Get
“This is the final part of a 5 part career advice series. The others were: 1. Don’t Settle; 2. Never Stop Learning; 3. Lateral Moves; 4. You Have to Ask. Throughout this series, I’ve tried to incorporate advice that I’ve received and used from a variety of sources including former managers and mentors, with a little best practice research sprinkled in.”

Wally’s Comment:  It doesn’t get better than this. I’m pointing you to the fifth of Dan McCarthy’s five-part series. This post includes links to all the others. Read them. Bookmark them. Read them again.

Yesterday one of my mentors, Leonard Tompkins, died. I got an email from his granddaughter, Mwenza, with the news.

For most of the day I’ve been thinking about Leonard and what I learned from him. Partly as therapy for me and partly as a tribute to Leonard I decided to share some of those lessons.

Dream big. Leonard always had a big dream going and it was one of the things that pulled him forward. That’s because big dreams have an emotional energy that no plan can match. And having a dream gives you a framework that helps you spot opportunities.

Be flexible. You won’t get everything you go after. Neither did Leonard. When that happens, let it go. There are always other opportunities, but you won’t see them if you’re focused on the one you missed.

There will be hard times. Deal with it. Starting a business is hard enough. For Leonard, as an African-American, starting a business after he came back from World War II, it was even harder. Later he fought other battles, including one with the publisher of a local paper. You may not have hard times like that, but you will have your own.

Think about what you can do, not how awful things are or might become. Whatever happened, Leonard concentrated on what he needed to do to make things better.

People matter. Leonard gave people opportunities when no one else would. He helped people who needed it, without making a fuss or making it public. Whatever you do in life, it will be the people who matter most. It will be people who remember you

I am not the only person who will miss him or be thankful to have known him. Mwenzaremembers him as “a tough man with a rough exterior but with a really good heart.” That’s as fine a eulogy as you will ever hear.

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 who’s finding work, networking, phone interviews, going permanent, and an argument against work/life balance.

From Career Builder: Six in Ten Workers Laid Off in Last Year Have Found New Jobs, According to CareerBuilder Survey
“Resilience is not only found among the Oceanic 815 survivors of “LOST” — who returned to TV last night after five seasons of battling hostile island dwellers, a mysterious smoke monster, and the bounds of space and time  — but in taking a look at CareerBuilder’s updated survey among more than U.S. workers, it’s also evident among many workers who have been laid off in the last 12 months.”

Wally’s Comment: This post is both hopeful and helpful. It’s hopeful because this is one bit of evidence that people are finding new jobs. And it’s helpful because there’s some data on who’s doing it and where.

From Anita Bruzzese: 5 Ways to Avoid Freaking Out About Networking
“If you’re looking for work, it may be time to step away from the computer. That’s because like many job seekers, you’re probably spending way too much time poring over job boards and sending resumes to cyber black holes that offer you little chance of finding a job. Instead, it’s time to get on the phone or go out to lunch. In other words, it’s time to network, still the best way to land a job.”

Wally’s Comment: Especially if you’re what Garrison Keillor calls a “shy person,” networking can be worse than the night terrors. This could be one of those situations where proper preparation drives out panic.

From US News and World Report: How to Ace the Phone Interview
“Phone interviews are not, however, the same as in-person interviews. So much human communication is non-verbal! You may need to acquire a few new skills to pull off a great job interview over the phone. To get you started, check out these phone interview do’s and don’ts.”

Wally’s Comment: There’s a tendency to believe that a phone interview is just an in-person interview without the commute. Nope. To succeed you need to master some different skills. Karen Burns offers a list of things you can do to make the ace the phone interview and get invited to an in-person one.

From the Wall Street Journal: Making a Temporary Stint Stick
“As the economy eases into recovery mode, more companies are temporarily filling holes in their work forces before making permanent hiring decisions these days. But with the right moves, a temporary employee can make that job permanent.”

Wally’s Comment: Companies appear to be easing back into hiring by going the temporary route first. If you’ve been hired on a temporary basis, here are some things you can do to get on the permanent payroll.

From HR Ringleader: Balance? Not For Me!
“Though to be clear, I revere work/life balance about as much as an atheist believes in God. So here’s my answer to, “How do I achieve “work/life balance?” I don’t. I have spent extensive time the past few years doing things to lay the foundation for what I’m doing now (writing/speaking). At the time, these things caused major scheduling conflicts. I did them anyway.”

Wally’s Comment: Too much of what’s written on work/life balance implies two things. First, that it’s possible. Second, that there are no trade-offs. Both are wrong. You may not adopt Jason Seiden’s approach, but I guarantee you that you’ll get some ideas from this post that will improve your life, even if it’s unbalanced.

Have you ever had a job you loved, but that just ripped you up? Or one where you loved the work, but the job was one draining, dramatic crisis after another?

Been there. Done that.

In my case, I’d get so wound up during the day that I had to do something physical before I got home, just to work off the tension. I was angry a lot. I drank too much. My sleep suffered. And, as you can imagine, so did my relationships.

But I figured that I could effort my way through it. It was like it was my fault.

Late last month, Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” was on the Charlie Rose show talking about her career. She talked about a previous job that sounded a lot like my experience. 

Mike described that job as “the bad boyfriend.” I thought, “What a perfect description!” The “Bad Boyfriend” or “Bad Girlfriend” job has three characteristics.

The tension and the problems never let up. There’s almost never a day that you go to work and come out unscathed.

There’s something about it that you really love. It might be the work. It might be the team you work with. It might be the schedule. It might be anything.

That something you love is seductive. So you decide that you can make it work, even though it’s never worked for long and even though you know, deep in your heart, that it never will.

Your decision to take all the responsibility on yourself is what makes a Bad Boyfriend/Girlfriend job. And it’s where salvation lies.

Because your choice makes the job a Bad Boyfriend/Girlfriend, you have it in your power to change things. But the only way to do that is to walk away.

Do not make “one more” try to make things work. Leave.

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 getting blacklisted, customizing your resume, preparing for a phone interview, your first day on a new job, and learning forever.

From the Wall Street Journal: How a Black Mark Can Derail a Job Search
“While U.S. search firms and hiring managers rarely admit they have such tallies, a growing number keep unofficial blacklists of undesirable applicants. These individuals often remain untouchable for years. Recruiters and employers mainly want to exclude liars, losers and misfits. Yet you also can get banned for minor infractions, such as simply taking a counteroffer. And it’s hard to discover or remove a bad mark beside your name.”

Wally’s Comment: It’s true. There are blacklists out there. Getting on one can be very bad for you and hard to fix. Here’s advice on how to stay off a blacklist and what to do if you discover that you’re on one.

From Cube Rules: 5 ways to customize your resume to get the interview
“If you’re sending the same resume to every single job then you’re hurting yourself more than you’re helping.  If you’ve sent out 100 resumes and have received no responses or only one response it’s time to reassess your job search strategy and take a good long look at your resume submission practices.”

Wally’s Comment: Just because you can send the same resume to every business in the Northern Hemisphere doesn’t make it a good idea. Here are some thoughts on how to crank up the customization of your resume.

From Ask a Manager: How to Prepare for a Phone Interview
“I’m always amazed by how often I can tell that a candidate hasn’t really prepared for a phone interview. Laziness aside, preparing takes a lot of the stress out of the experience and lets you answer the phone feeling confident and possibly even excited. Here’s what I recommend you do to prepare. Ideally, you’d do this the night before.”

Wally’s Comment: Yes, the phone interview is a real interview. And, yes, you should prepare for it with the same care and attention you would use for any serious interview. Here are five specific things to do.

From HR Ringleader: The Do’s and Don’ts of Starting a New Job
“Today is the day- day one at my new job. Thank you to so many of you who gave me advice on what to do and what not to do when starting a new job.  From the comments on the blog, the DMs on Twitter, notes via FaceBook and e-mail, I feel like I am prepared to start this new phase of my life on the right foot.”

Wally’s Comment: Trish McFarlane just got a new job. And she got lots of advice from her friends about what to do and what not to do. And she’s willing to share. Lucky you.

From Great Leadership: Career Advice Part 2: Never Stop Learning
“There’s three parts to every career path: the past, present, and the future. Kind of like Dickens’s Christmas Carol. A lot of us tend to think of these elements in terms of the results we’ve achieved (as documented on our resume), the work we’re doing, and what we want to do when we grow up (our career plans and goals). There’s another way to think about your career path – think of your career as a learning journey. ”

Wally’s Comment: Many years ago, one of the giant paper companies ran ads with the headline: “Send me a man who reads.” Today we’d make the language more inclusive. We also need to broaden the key point. Make it: “Send me a person who learns.” Learning is vital to success in the Knowledge Economy. And the good news is that every job and every assignment you have give you the opportunity to learn something.

Friday it snowed in Charlotte. I was looking out my office window at the exact instant the snow began.

We knew the snow was coming. Several times during the day I went to the window to see if it was here yet. I looked at the lowering grey sky. I checked the wind, high in the trees. No snow.

But this time was different. As I was looking at the sky, suddenly, in an instant, there was snow in front of my eyes. One instant I was waiting. The next instant I was watching.

A lot of life change is like that. Steady effort. Sudden-seeming change.

I once coached an executive who wanted to improve the quality of his internal blog posts. He worked diligently.

He honed his openings, improved his research, and adjusted his writing rhythm. But for a very long time it seemed like he wasn’t making much progress.

Then, after more than a year of effort, we both realized that for the previous month, every post had been excellent. Even when we reviewed the posts we couldn’t spot the moment when change happened.

Like the snow, mastery wasn’t there. Then, in an instant, it was.

Many of the most worthwhile things you can learn in life take a long time. Conscious, deliberate effort, coupled with feedback and adjustment will move the process along. Even so it may seem like you’re not making much progress.

That’s when it’s hard to keep going. So do these two things.

Remind yourself every day of why you’re putting in the effort.

Remind yourself of what you need to do today. A checklist will help.

Keep working. Keep getting better. Because one day, suddenly, mastery, like the snow, will be there.