Sometimes, “the closer you are to [career] danger, the farther you are from [life] harm”

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“You’re the only parent of anyone I know who is pushing their art kid to art school and out of nursing.” I was talking to my oldest kid, encouraging her to apply to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts High School, a residential performing arts school which also has a visual arts program. We live in a …

New York-to-Paris automobile race: [Automobile stuck in snow]

Top Reasons Why Your Resume Says “Career stalled”

Forrest ChristianCoaching, Underachievers 7 Comments

Have you ever considered that your career path is a lot like a movie? Film scholar Chris Simmons, a colleague of mine, lectured once on the massive blockbuster, Titanic. He showed how everything in its visual language spoonfed what the director wanted you to see, know and feel. The director made deliberate choices to make it easy for us as …

Marine Sgt. at New Orleans, La. By Howard R.Hollem. Library of Congress collection via Flickr.

How Having Closed Sector vs. Open Sector Career Affects Your Success

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Guy Benveniste had a great thought in article from 1977 about “Survival inside bureaucracy” that are even more relevant in today’s New Economy / Creative Class work-world. Benveniste postulated that there were three different types of careers: Closed sector Open sector Location-dominated Closed sector careers are what my father generation expected. Your entire career is within a single company; or, …

Young worker at the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad 40th street shops, 1942.

Getting that low-level job as a Hidden High Potential

Forrest ChristianCareers, Underachievers 6 Comments

Sometimes when you’ve been the Hidden part of “Hidden High Potential” for way too long, you just want to find something that pays the bills. You look for a job, any job.

This is hard to do, even when times are good. When times are hard, it seems impossible.

Just ask Julie Neidlinger. She knows all about how hard it is to get a job when you’re grossly overqualified. The story she tells is an excellent example, because it’s such a common one to so many of you Hidden High Potentials. She went looking for an office job in the state with the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, lower than my region had during the good times.

I was looking for something Monday through Friday, normal business hours, regular paycheck, nothing retail or selling — I just want to be able to put aside money and rebuild my savings.

For some reason, in this type of work, I am not hireable. I do not know why.

So I’m going to tell her, and give some hints as to how she might be able to pull this off, and close with the core truths that are more useful.

New York-to-Paris automobile race: [Automobile stuck in snow]

Anchoring Means Your Low Starting Salary Gets Your Stuck In Low Paying Work

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A tweet from @JaneHadfield mentioned a recent post by Cynicus Economicus, who asks “So what exactly is this optimism [about the economy] all about?” His answers are interesting, and reminded me about something I wanted to talk about here regarding jobs and the idea of anchoring. He notes that there is very little to really be happy about. Yet people are talking as if things are turning around and the risk is behind us. What’s going on?

Thems That Got Jobs Will Get More; Thems That Don’t Will Lose

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People with jobs are actually earning more. They are also much less likely to get fired than they were before. However, those without jobs are likely to be without for a very long time. No jobs are being created, and the usual pipelines are clogged with people all trying to use them to find jobs that just aren’t there. READ MORE….