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!
Turn a Lay-Off into an Opportunity
With a flurry of companies laying off significant portions of their workforce as we finish out the calendar year, the holiday season may be career stressful for many. Whether you are part of the highly publicized Amazon, Twitter, or Meta lay-offs, or you are from a smaller company trying to make financial ends meet – […]
Mental Health Must Be a Top Priority in the Workplace
The U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A. released a report providing a framework for Workplace Mental Health and Wellbeing. Dedicated to all the workers who lost their lives during the pandemic and their families, the report is a call to action to lift the voices of all workers, particularly those most vulnerable, and […]
Happiness and Workplace Influence
It’s no mystery that happy employees are more productive but unhappy employees can become extremely debilitated and unwilling to follow leaders. This lack of influence leads to a breakdown in organizational morale, positional power and stability within organizations. Crystal Miller wrote a great piece on Blogging4Jobs about how asserting influence is not a passive thing […]
Slay Your Leadership Dragons
Every week on my CBS Radio show: Career Coach Caroline I get calls or email from listeners asking for guidance about a bad boss. Art Petty wrote a great piece in Management Excellence about Leadership Dragons, the outward behavior by many in leadership roles that prevent them from truly meriting the title of leader. These dragons […]
Delegation is a Must for Effective Leaders
Are you are buried at work, putting in long hours with no end in sight? Chances are you are not working effectively as a leader because you have failed to delegate tasks that your team members are hungry to get a piece of. The Harvard Business Review posted a blog in July about the power […]
Four Simple Tools for Success
So many people ask me about the magic bullet for job search or career growth success. If it were that simple we’d be at 0% unemployment and everyone would be incredibly satisfied with their careers. The good news is that the keys to success are very simple concepts that anyone can apply if they accept […]
Has the Wind Been Knocked Out of You From a Job Loss?
Losing a job can be an emotionally debilitating experience and a severe blow to the ego. For some, it’s like having the wind knocked out of you when the loss was completely unexpected. In this economy downsizing, budget cuts, and reduction in force are common so more people than ever have experienced a job loss. […]
Build Relationships – Get Promoted
Charlotte Beers stressed the importance of professional relationship building and maintenance in her keynote at the Invent Your Future Conference for women which I spoke at last month. Quite often people think promotion and career growth predictors are based on competence, intelligence, or even exceptional strategy or visioning within an organization. While these can play […]
Lose the Obnoxious Roommate in Your Head
I read a piece about Arianna Huffington recently where she discussed how women have to redefine success and power. Think about it – Arianna turned a blog into a multi-million dollar media empire in only a few short years. Some thought her idea would never stick and she herself admits to many career hurdles throughout […]
I’d Rather Be in Charge
This blog title resonates so clearly for many of us and happens to be the title of Charlotte Beers’ new book. Former Chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. Charlotte was a keynote speaker at the first annual Midwest Invent Your Future Women’s Conference last month. Wicked smart, full of moxie, and extraordinary life […]
Invent Your Future Women Rocked Indianapolis
It was the brainchild of my friend and mentor, Deborah Collins Stephens and it took 3 years from our first Starbucks meeting to produce the first ever Midwest Invent Your Future Conference for Women on June 19, 2012 in Indianapolis. Mounting an all-day professional conference for women was a herculean task that kept a steering […]
