A Job You Love

On this blog, I have never talked about myself…and for the first time, I am about to do it.

I have been living in London for about 3 years, and I have decided to move back to France.

I am quite happy even if I still have a lot of work in the UK and I do love working here…a lot of career and job expertise books are written in English so I must say that today I am heavily influenced by the Anglosaxon way … Continue Reading

Outplacement is the service which consists in helping people to achieve a career transition (looking for a job or changing of job).

I must say that this title is obviously provocative…but at the same time, the industry is facing new challenges that really question its foundations.

Is Outplacement working for career changers?

Outplacement has been questioned for a long time about its efficiency in helping true career changers.

Herminia Ibarra explains in “Working Identity” that career changers change in a lengthy process where they meet with people on their target market, where … Continue Reading

Do you work to pay your bills?

This very clever cartoon presents us with an interesting issue…if we have food, clothes, health care…what is the point of working?

Dan Pink and Malcolm Gladwell would say: to create meaning.

Finding meaning and purpose is one of the most powerful way of being happy at work.

Gladwell identified 3 caracteristics of a meaningful job:

1) clear relationship between reward and effort

2) complex work

3) autonomous

Is your job ticking all these boxes? Do you have a meaningful job?

Are you like this person asking “What do we need … Continue Reading

Feedback is everything.

With a feedback, you can improve yourself, you can get better at something much quicker than if you would do it alone.

With a feedback, you can also understand how people see you, and how you come across, or even what kind of skills/qualities people think you have.

For example, to prepare for interviews, getting feedbacks while doing mock interviews is priceless.

And after the interview, getting feedback from the recruiter is another way to improve.

Feedback not only helps you to correct your mistakes but also to reinforce your … Continue Reading

Giving information for free helps to show your skills and knowledge.

Why do you think I am doing this every week?!

Do you know that the word Sell comes from the old saxon Sellan which means giving!

To find a job, the more you give, the more you receive. I am not saying that you should give with the only goal of receiving, I am only saying that giving is the best job search strategy.

You apply your skills, you show that you are still of some use, you help people which boosts your … Continue Reading

I am French so I am a fanatic supporter of France but what happened on Wednesday can teach us a lot.

Yes Thierry Henry made a handball, and yes it was on purpose.

On the short term, France fans are happy because their team is going to be in the world cup. French players, French broadcasters…almost everybody in France says: “sorry for that but at least we qualified”.

I think the handball of Thierry Henry is a short term solution. On one hand it pleases everybody and qualifies a … Continue Reading

Failure happens to everybody.

The other day, the feedbacks for one of the workshop I was running were not so great…It does happen sometimes even if it is rare.

I felt it as a failure, a failure to deliver my workshop, a failure to really give that information, that little hope, that little extra to my clients.

Failure is a learning process. I asked for a feedback to each participant to understand why…

Failure in the process of looking for a job is the same…you will get nos or fail at an interview.

Your calls … Continue Reading

Do you want to win books about Career management ?

Do you want to write an article about Career/job and be read by hundreds of readers?

Do you want your contribution to be recognized and published on this blog?

John Lees, in association with this blog will give away two of his career titles including How To Get A Job You’ll Love for the best contribution.

Write an article about career or job issues! Whatever you want to write about your job search, your experience as a career coach or share some useful … Continue Reading

You will be surprised to learn that John does not believe in personal branding and that he gives creative tips on how to achieve a career change. For him a CV is really useful as an aide memoir and employers oversell positions…

Share your comments and other ideas.

John, I am a big fan of your books and the way you put things across and I have been reading your books (“How to get a job you’ll Love”, “Take control of your Career”) and listening to your talks.

To me, you … Continue Reading

Here is a summary of the most popular articles published on this blog, some of them were published on other blogs or websites, but at the end of the day, the articles you liked most were the most controversial ones!

(and thank you to all the readers, my readership has been constantly raising for the past few months with many comments and people talking about the ideas of this blog)

My goal and purpose: to debunk the old myths about job search and to try to make people think. … Continue Reading

So you think that you spend enough time planning your career or preparing yourself (updating, promoting your skills, your reputation, reading, networking…)

You often do this when you are out of job. But the rest of the time…nothing.

Career management is a reactive activity not a proactive one.

How much time did you spend on preparing your last holidays?

How much time did you spend on thinking about your new car?

How much time did you spend on watching TV?

In a post, I explained how I felt surprised that people spend much more … Continue Reading

A couple of years ago, I was working in a recruitment fair…At the time, I was recruiting for positions in Australia and Middle East.

During the fair I received a candidate…he was brilliant, he was coming across well, nice suit and good speaking skills, a nice portfolio, quite convincing as well.

The only problem was that he was working as a kitchen designer and wanted to work in Australia as an Architect.

SO he thought that by putting a nice suit, preparing a brilliant portfolio would be enough to impress the recruiter.

But he was … Continue Reading

An article about the importance of values inspired me a couple of reflections about values.

What do you believe in?

When I was young, I used to laugh at people values. For me it was: “Values don’t matter, it is just an excuse to show off”.

Now I am 34, and I see the world differently.

I ran an exercise about values and sorted out my 5 most important values.

Learning always learning, Autonomous, Respect, Communication, Authenticity are the values I most value.

But why it is so important?

Do you like money? Do you … Continue Reading

The other day a friend of mine asked me some advice about jobs in the financial industry. Without even thinking, I started straight away with some advice: “you need to contact these people in the industry and maybe you have other recruiters, but the market is tough…”. But after a while I realised that I was giving him only “technical” advice, I did not take a step back and ask the basic questions: where, when, why, How…And as soon as I asked him about … Continue Reading

To give you more food for thought after explaining how important it is to take a step back when considering other jobs The worst job in the world , I found this list of the worst jobs (according to this website), The 10 worst jobs in the world.

And you, what was your worst job?

Share it with us!

Here is the list

2. Hospital laundry workers
3. Hazmat diver
4. Poultry kill room attendant
5. Chainsaw operator
6. Sewage … Continue Reading