This Is Not The Career I Ordered™ Blog
Savvy Professional Career Wisdom by Caroline Dowd-Higgins
This is Not the Career I Ordered is read by thousands of careerists around the globe. With savvy tools, inspiration, and resources, this timeless book empowers you to enjoy your career, and love your life!
Future-Focused Leadership
Leadership has evolved over the decades and savvy, future-focused leaders empower others to do great work. The shift from command-and-control management, to leading with empathy, humility, and vulnerability is essential to attract and retain top talent. If this leadership style is new to you – it can be learned. Let’s take a closer look at […]
2023: Let’s Do This!
As we begin a new year, the time is ripe to start fresh and consider what you need and want to be happy, healthy, and gratified in your life and career. The pressure to pick a new year’s resolution can be stressful. Instead of a singular resolution that is likely to wane in a few […]
You Must Earn Respect in the Workplace
In the era of Facebook you can like something with the click of a mouse to show your personal attraction or acknowledgement towards a person, object, or sentiment in a post. It has become a popularity contest of sorts to attract numerous likes and expand your social media presence and network of friends. Many women […]
Why Everyone Can Benefit From Sales Skills
Jeff Haden wrote a piece in Inc. com about the most important skill for success. After interviewing 20 business owners and CEOs – every one of them indicated that sales skills were paramount – in any field. To many people, “selling” harkens back to the tragic figure in Death of a Salesman and the need […]
Who’s in Your Corner?
I talk a lot about assembling your team or Personal Board of Directors because I believe that nothing incredible is accomplished alone. Jessica Hagy wrote a greatpiece in Forbes and identified 6 people you want in your corner to help you move your professional goals forward. The Instigator –this person pushes you and makes you […]
How to Excel in a Male Dominated Workplace
In her TED talk (which has gone viral), Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook talked about the scarcity of women in the corporate company restrooms and being mistaken for someone’s assistant during her earlier career days. In reality, the boys club still exists in many careers so what’s a professional woman to do? Jane Fang wrote […]
Reverse Networking – It’s Not About You
I read a great piece in the Harvard Business Review by Jodi Glickman about networking that I wanted to share. A self proclaimed communications guru, Jodi found herself at a networking event not in the mood to schmooze and hobnob. While she considered bolting altogether, she instead did some mental furniture rearranging and decided on […]
A Flexible Workforce Will Stimulate the Economy
Sallie Krawcheck wrote a great piece in Forbes about Flexibility Without Shame that really resonated with me. It’s no secret that fully engaging women in the workforce will increase our GDP and the economy significantly. The problem with engaging more women remains the flexibility factor. Krawcheck divided working women who chose to have children into […]
Turn a Rejection Into an Offer
One of my clients got what she thought was a standard rejection letter after an interview and she was frustrated and discouraged. I encouraged her to follow-up with a phone call to the employer to thank them for the interview and to keep her in mind if the company’s hiring needs changed. As it turned […]
Savvy LinkedIn Strategies
With 200+ million members on LinkedIn you are really missing out if you are not using this professional social media platform to your advantage. I had Ben Casnocha on my CBS radio show Career Coach Caroline recently and he co-wrote a book called The Start Up of You with LinkedIn founder, Reid Hoffmann. We talked […]
Why Top Talent Leaves
In this career era, employees are not loyal to organizations because organizations are not loyal to employees. But many companies struggle with retaining top talent long enough to see their return on investment for new hires. Mike Myatt wrote a great piece in Forbes illustrating just why top talent tends to move on. You’ve heard […]
New Year = New Career!
The pressure for a New Year’s resolution is palpable this month, and the media is bombarding us with ads for weight loss and smoking cessation. But what about New Year career advice? A record number of Americans are still unemployed and many others are dissatisfied with their current work. Now is a great time to […]
All I Want for Christmas Is a New Career
The stress of the holidays can be difficult enough without having to worry about finding a job or reinventing your career. This season consider tapping into the wisdom and expertise of your friends and family. Turn the holiday conversation into a professional development coaching session and ask your circle of trust to help out by […]
