April 2013

my boss is requiring us to let him be our “life coach”

A reader writes: I currently work for a very small family business where there is basically one man in charge — the CEO. He has just decided to start requiring his staff to participate in a “life coaching” practice every week that he will be leading. He said he wanted us to share our personal […]

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fast answer Friday — 7 short answers to 7 short questions

It’s fast answer Friday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go… 1. Former boss is aggressively mining my contacts on LinkedIn I have a former boss who recruited me for a job from my profile on LinkedIn. (I believe he found me through another employee’s contact list.) Since hiring me, he […]

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how many interviews are too many?

A reader writes: I applied for a job that I thought I’d be a good fit for. It turned out that I was applying to a recruiter, and he phoned me the next day and wanted to meet. We had a coffee meeting at one of the outlets the company I was applying to is […]

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terse answer Thursday — 7 short answers to 7 short questions

It’s terse answer Thursday — seven short answers to seven short questions. Here we go… 1. How can I reach out to a great candidate who I had to reject? I conducted an interview screen recently that resulted in a no-hire decision for the candidate. It was, however, an extremely difficult decision, and the candidate, […]

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my manager is excluding me from important conversations

A reader writes: I need to have a conversation with my manager about why I continue to get excluded from strategic conversations when my teammates are included. My colleague, who is just a bit senior than me, has mentioned on more than one occasion conversations she has had with our manager about overall strategic goals […]

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to get hired, will I have to take a job outside my field?

A reader writes: I’ve been told by some professionals in my field that in order for me to get hired in this tight job market I would have to take a position that I don’t want. My field is environmental science, and they have suggested that I try similar fields such as environmental health, public […]

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