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.

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 career advice, when they don’t call to offer you the job, inside the hiring process, sage advice from John Wooden, and dealing with failure.

From US News and World Report: 9 Tips For Getting Good Career Advice
“Knowing how to find good advice and how to tell when advice is good or bad are life skills that can take years to master. Here are some tips to shorten your learning curve.”

Wally’s Comment: Forget the title. Karen Burns figures that getting advice is a no-brainer. All you have to do is stand there. So this post is really about what to do with the advice you get. Karen’s got ideas on how to sort good from bad and what to do next.

From Forbes: When They Don’t Call To Offer You the Job
“You think you closed the deal in your last meeting, but then the final call never comes. Here’s what you should do.”

Wally’s Comment: This is a tough moment. Forbes’ columnist Susan Adams offers advice on what to do when you thought they’d call, but they don’t. Should you call? Email? Firebomb the office?

From the Wall Street Journal: Lifting the Curtain on the Hiring Process
“Ever wonder what exactly goes on behind the scenes when you apply for a job? While the recruiting process varies by industry, company and even department, the end result is the same: One person out of many receives an offer.”

Wally’s Comment: Top recruiters tell all! Well, no, not exactly. But perhaps this is the next best thing. Journal columnist Sarah Needleman outlines the basic patterns of recruitment that big companies use.

From the Effective CIO: Five
“If you want to understand the morals and ethics of someone, understand the morals and ethics of their five closest friends.  If you want to understand the business philosophy of someone, learn about the business practices of their five closest business associates.  You get the idea.”

Wally’s Comment: This is just good advice. The core seems obvious. Who you spend time with determines a lot of your quality of life. But there’s more than that in this post.

From the McCombs School: The Upside of Failure: Turning Uh-oh into A-ha!
“WE ALL FAIL. Some of us linger over our failures, examining the wreckage of what might have been, while others sail on toward new ventures (and new failures) without being anchored to old regrets. Why do some people emerge from failure stronger? How do they recover from setbacks to reach new heights of success? What is the secret of the phoenix that emerges from the flames?”

Wally’s Comment: You will fail. It’s guaranteed. You’re human, after all. So you might as well soak up some good advice about what to do when it happens and how you can wring some value out of the experience.

“Thinking outside the box” is still the top business jargon nonsense phrase. It’s so over-used that it’s almost impossible to wring any insight out of it.

So try this, instead. Think outside your own box.

A post by Frank Roche at KnowHR got me thinking about that. Here’s how his post begins.

“Here’s my interview question of the day: If you’re soaking wet, when you get on the train, do you:

a) Shake off like a Labrador Retriever on everyone near you, then set your wet bag and umbrella down on the dry seat next to you?

b) Take off your coat before you sit down, fold it inside out, and put your wet bag and umbrella on the ground?”

In the compressed society of a commuter train, you should think outside your own box and consider how what you do will affect the people around you. In the world of your life and career, you should do the same.

How does what you do affect your co-workers? Do you brighten their lives by showing up or by calling in sick?

How does what you do affect your boss? Part of your job is to help your boss succeed and look good.

How does what you do affect your loved ones? They’ll often give you a pass when you choose a bit of extra work over them. But they won’t do that forever.

How does what you do affect that recruiter? He or she has to make a quick judgment about whether you’re worth considering. What are you doing to pique their interest or demonstrate your value?

You can’t control what people think about you or how they react to you. But you can use what you do and what you say to influence them. Thinking outside your box gives you the option to make choices that help you succeed.

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 starting a new job, mastering technology, revving up your career, moving from temp to permanent, and reflecting on all of it.

From Bob Bessette: 5 Tips for the Brand New Employee
“Due to these trying economic times, a fact of life is that a lot of people have lost their jobs. Hopefully, the new year will bring new opportunities and job openings for these unfortunate workers. Starting out at a new job is both a difficult and an exciting time for any of us who have been there. But we certainly have to be wary of how we are perceived by our new co-workers. We also have to learn who we can trust and who can help us in our new job. Here are 5 tips that will help you get through this tough transitional time.”

Wally’s Comment: This post is aimed at a person who’s just been hired for a new job. It’s also worth reading if you’re taking a new job in the same company. And remember, there are times in your career, Entry Stages, where settling in and becoming productive is your big challenge.

From Building Better Leaders: Mid-Career Professional-It’s Time to Push Out of Your Technology Comfort Zone
“I’m working with more and more mid-life individuals interested in reinventing themselves in new careers, and I’m finding that a fair number of them are wholly unaware of or just plain frightened of the ever-increasing array of tools and media for networking, communicating, learning and collaborating.”

Wally’s Comment: I think the third major technology wave of my lifetime is rolling in right about now. First there was computers. Then the internet. And now? Some commentators call it Web 2.0 and others talk about social media. It doesn’t matter what you call it. But it does matter that you start adding some new tools to your career kit.

From the Wall Street Journal: Revving a Career While It’s in Neutral
“With prospects for new jobs or promotions still looking grim, many workers are struggling to take their careers to the next level. Some, though, have found ways to cope and make themselves more marketable for when companies start hiring again.”

Wally’s Comment: The recession has brought a lot of job movement to a halt. Cutbacks on promotions and layoffs have limited the places you could go. And people who might have left for greener pastures two years ago are staying put, gazing over the fence for a glimpse of green. The result is that you may be stuck where you are for the time being. Use the time wisely, my friend.

From Anita Bruzzese: How to Move from Temporary Work to a Full-Time Gig
“Employers, still nervous about the health of the economy, have kept their permanent staff numbers lean, but have boosted their number of temporary workers. So, the question is: if you’re a temporary employee, how to you get an employer to hire you on a permanent basis when companies seem in no rush to do so?”

Wally’s Comment: Anita Bruzzese offers some sage advice on making the move from the periphery to the center of your company.

From Mary Jo Asmus: Reflection in 15 Minutes with Bullet Points
“I encourage my clients to find a way that works for them to reflect. This means setting aside some time to THINK. I get a lot of resistance, and understand that finding the time to reflect is difficult in their busy schedules. The thought of spending time along can be tough too, considering most of them (like most leaders) are action-takers. The idea of being still to reflect can be a bit disconcerting; it may not feel like anything is happening (but what if thought were considered “action”?).”

Wally’s Comment: We Americans are an action-oriented people. We’re so action-oriented that we look askance at anyone who’s just sitting there reflecting on life or thinking about the future. But the fact is that your life and career are likely to improve when you season them with a bit of reflection. Another fact is that you don’t need to give up your day job and join an obscure cult of saffron-robed meditators to get the benefits. Mary Jo Asmus tells you how.

Maybe you’re thinking that this is just the time to head back to school. If you know what you want, you should consider the newer, more narrowly focused programs that have been springing up recently. They’ve been especially noticeable in business schools.

Since 2001, the number of business students enrolled in specialized programs has increased by four percent per year, so that today they make up more than 20 percent of enrollments. At MIT, for example, a master’s degree in finance zeros in on the needs of specific jobs, like asset management.

Many of the more focused programs are offered by schools located in areas when industries are concentrated. Rutgers, located in the pharmaceutical heartland of New Jersey, offers a degree in pharmaceutical management. The University of Oklahoma, in the state that pumps oil on its capital grounds, offers programs designed to appeal to companies in the energy business.

In addition to being more focused, many of these programs are also shorter than the traditional MBA. The MIT program, for example, is for one year, not two.

Sounds good so far, but there’s a catch. Those specialized programs make you more and less hirable at the same time.

Show up at an oil company with that degree from Oklahoma, and you’re likely to be a prime prospect. Put that same degree on your resume when you’re seeking employment with a pharmaceutical company and you don’t look as good.

That’s why going for something narrow is a good choice if you know what you want to do. Otherwise, you risk spending time and money to wind up no better off than you are today.

If you know what you want to do to earn your daily bread, narrow your focus. Just be sure to pick a program that increases the odds of getting the kind of job you want.

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 sleep, saying “No,” your pregnancy and your career, a simple way to test how you’re doing, and learning for the world ahead.

From Brian Based Business: Sleep to Prime Body & Brain!
“How much capital did you put in your sleep bank this week? Since Night Owls and Early Birds may skimp on sleep, it gives us pause to reflect on how much sleep we’ve had in the last week. We benefit with plenty! Just consider.”

Wally’s Comment: Shakespeare had it right.

“Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast”

When you read Robyn McMaster’s post you’ll find out why Shakespeare was right and also about a few things the old Bard missed.

From HBR Blogs: This Year, Say Yes to Saying No
“You have to be selective about what you take on — and disciplined about retiring longstanding activities to make room for new ones. In other words, you have to be able to say, No. Frequently, politely and effectively. The good news is that the same technologies that threaten to overload you with to-dos and appointments can also help you to say no. Here’s how I use my computer and the social web as allies in the discipline of saying no.”

Wally’s Comment: One thing that will help you sleep better is learning to say “No” at the right times. It’s a key life skill that gets far too little attention. Alexandra Samuel remedies that shortcoming with this helpful post.

From Anita Bruzzese: 6 tips for handling a pregnancy and a career
“When a woman finds out she’s pregnant, it can be a joyous occasion – until she realizes that her juggle to combine motherhood with a career may be just beginning.”

Wally’s Comment: This post is must reading if, as they say in the disclaimers on those drug ads, “you’re pregnant or may become pregnant.” If you’re a boss, read this. If you have friends, daughters, sisters, cousins, a spouse or casual acquaintances who may have to deal with the dual challenges of career and pregnancy, you may want to read this, too.

From Dorothy Dalton: Career reflection: Could you get your own job?
“I also coach people in transition in various professions and sectors and advise them always of the need to stay up dated in their fields.  But what about people not looking for jobs or directly at risk in any way?  Could they successfully apply for their own jobs? Could you?”

Wally’s Comment: What a great way to quickly assess how you’re really doing on the job! And Dorothy Dalton’s post will have immediate practical value for you if you’re in a company considering layoffs or on either side in a merger or acquisition.

From Chief Learning Officer: Learning at Top Speed
“Given the pace of global competition, it’s not surprising that most business executives are worried that their companies are moving too slowly to keep a competitive edge. In a recent global survey of senior business leaders, The Forum Corp. found that 90 percent of respondents considered speed critical to their business success, but only 42 percent thought they were much faster than others in their industry.”

Wally’s Comment: GE’s Jeff Immelt said that the key skill for becoming head of something like his company is the ability to learn quickly. Increasingly this will be the case for people and organizations.

My wife put her new cookbook down. Hard.

“It’s another stupid ‘just-like’ cookbook,” she sneered.

My wife hates “just-like” cookbooks. They’re the cookbooks that suggest that any dish, no matter how complex, can be created in half the time of the famous recipe, if not less. They claim it’s “just like the original.”

My wife knows what every great cook knows. There are some things that you can’t rush. Good things do, indeed, take time.

That’s true for many things in life besides cooking. Quality relationships don’t happen in ten minutes. They take time. Mastery takes time, too. Don’t be fooled.

If you want to be great at anything, you can count on two things. It will take time. And it will take work.

Researchers tell us that it takes 10,000 hours to master a domain of knowledge or practice. You can’t shorten that by much.

But you can reduce the time it takes to get that 10,000 hours and the value you get from it. You can get better sooner.

Plan. Don’t leave your education and development to chance. Figure out what you need to do. Plan to do it. Do the foundational work first.

Remember that many times process matters. As Tim Hurson says, “You don’t get a baby by getting nine women pregnant for a month each.”

Don’t be clueless. Jack Canfield says that “Success leaves clues.” Look for what’s worked for others. See if it will work for you.

Be consistent. Do something every day to improve. Not almost every day. Not “on an average day.” Every day.

Use all the tools. Take classes. Read books. Talk to those ahead of you on the trail. Use role models for guidance. Find mentors to help. Practice, practice, practice.

Take stock from time to time. Access how you’re doing. Change what needs changing.

The bad news is that all of this takes work. But if you want real mastery, that’s what’s needed.

But there’s good news, too. Most people won’t do the work. They’ll settle for the quick route to expertise that’s “just like” the real thing.

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 job search books, advanced degree programs, home offices, balance, and letting go.

From About.com: Top Job Search Books
“Need job search help? There are a variety of books available that will help you with every step of the job search process including how to write a resume and cover letters, how to find a job, using social media to your advantage, how to change careers, how to ace the interview, and how to target and streamline your job search.”

Wally’s Comment: Alison Doyle lists ten great books that will aid your job search. Some you’ve heard of. Others, probably not.

From the NY Times: Ten Master’s of the New Universe
“Highly specialized master’s programs provide a field guide to the zeitgeist. There are degrees to fit every niche and new twist in the culture.”

Wally’s Comment: Lots of people who are between jobs seem to be considering using the time to go back to school. What’s different from years past is that they’re considering a broad range of specialty degrees with an eye on career development. Here’s a look at some of those degrees.

From the Wall Street Journal: For More Workers, Home is Where the Office Is
“The home is the new hotbed of entrepreneurial activity. Here are some basics of maintaining an efficient home office.”

Wally’s Comment: I’m typing this in my home office. It’s my only office. A few minutes down the road, my daughter and son-in-law just bought a home with a space designed as a home office. This is a far cry from the days when no one admitted that they actually had a home-based business. But just because more of us have home offices doesn’t mean that we’ve got the best possible home office for us. This article will help remedy that failing.

From Your Voice of Encouragement: Striking a Balance – A Contrast in Coaches: Skip Prosser and Urban Meyer
“The lives of these two men – and the contrast in the way they managed their personal lives – reminded me that time with family is precious and can never be recovered.”

Wally’s Comment: Balance, or lack of it, is a common topic of discussion and the subject of multiple gaggles of articles. This post stands out from the crowd.

From Random Acts of Leadership: Casting off the “Good Junk”
“For me 2009 was a year of tremendous learning and change, love and loss, as well as shedding stuff and organizing.  Now that the frenzy of activity has passed I have enjoyed some time to reflect on many things including lessons learned. The lesson revealed to me was one my dad tried to teach me more than once.  You see we moved quite a few times.  Each time he had us take things that were perfectly useful, but that we had not been using (or even remembered we had!) and put them in a box labeled “good junk”.  He would date the box.  One year later, after we were long since settled into our new home, he would take the box and donate it.”

Wally’s Comment: Even those of us who aren’t packrats are packrats. I think it’s hardwired into our species to hang on to things, just in case. Susan Mazza analyzes why casting off the “good junk” is a good idea.

There’s much ado about “lifelong learning” as a requirement for our fast-changing times, but not much about how you can enrich your life and, perhaps, your career by teaching yourself.

There’s a fancy word for that. It’s “autodidact.” Become one and you join a distinguished club made up of people who’ve taught themselves important things. Members include Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin, Michael Faraday and many others.

If your perception of “education” is based on the years you spent in school, you’ll find that teaching yourself is a very different experience, indeed. When you teach yourself, you follow your own interests, down any path that they may lead. The result is that you’re spending most of your time learning about things that interest you, not things that someone else crammed into a curriculum.

There are practical advantages, too. Having what David Ogilvy called a “well-furnished mind” gives you the stuff of creativity. Most good ideas come when you connect an idea from one area of your life to a totally different area.

Your brain does that naturally. And the more you learn, the more things there are to connect. It’s a powerful tool in the Knowledge Economy.

Start your adventure at “The Autodidact Course Catalog.” This article from Johns Hopkins magazine lists resources for a variety of subject areas. There’s cognition, cosmology, computer security, constitutional law, children’s education and a host of things that don’t begin with “C.” There’s business and nature and design and more.

Dumb Little Man has an excellent post on “10 Ways to Become a Self Taught Master” that will help you get started. There are dozens of other great resources on the web to help you expand your learning. Here are three of my favorites.

Wikipedia is a great place to start learning about any topic. Terms are defined and there are links to related resources.

MIT has put all of their courseware online. It’s free, but you really should make a donation to support it.

ipl2 is the result of a merger of the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians’ Internet Index (LII). I loved both of those and the combined version is even better. It’s an “annotated collection of high quality Internet resources, selected by IPL staff for their usefulness in providing accurate, factual information on a particular topic or topics.”

So pick a topic that interests you. Find a place to start. Then, student, teach thyself!