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Career News Blog
Career News Blog posts insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domain of the career facet of life. Career News Blog: Career-Advice News 5 Pieces of Bad Career Advice: August 4, 2008 by Alison Green
I'm sometimes unnerved by some of the career guidance that gets repeated over and over in job-hunting guides and career columns. Here are five particularly bad pieces of advice in various career news articles that I cringe every time I see: Bad piece of career advice in career news #1: When interviewing, figure out what the interviewer is looking for and shape your answers accordingly. This is a recipe for landing in a job that you either hate or aren't good at. Or both. You might be able to suppress your real self for a couple of hours in an interview, but you won't be able to do it for 40 hours a week. If you want to land in a job that you'll love and thrive in, show the real you. You'll turn off the employers who aren't right for you and you'll attract the ones who are. Bad piece of career advice in career news #2: When an interviewer asks about your weaknesses, offer up a positive framed as a weakness. This is the fastest way to exasperate me. Claiming that your biggest weakness is perfectionism and you work too hard is disingenuous and looks like you're avoiding the question. Candidates who can't or won't come up with a realistic assessment of areas where they could improve make me think they're lacking in insight and self-awareness—or, at a minimum, just making it impossible to have a real discussion of their potential fitness for the job. I want to know about your weaknesses not because I'm trying to trip you up but because I genuinely care about making sure you're a good fit for the job. I don't want to put you in a job you'll struggle in, and I definitely don't want to have to fire you a few months from now. Isn't it better to lose the job offer now than the job itself later? Bad piece of career advice in career news #3: Leave the months off your résumé and only list years.This drives me crazy, because if you just list "2006," I can't tell if you were there for one month or 12 months—and it makes a difference. It also makes me wonder if you're intentionally trying to disguise a series of short stints. Deliberate deception isn't good in a candidate. Bad piece of career advice in career news #4: Use a nonchronological, "functional" résumé format. This format is used most often by people who have gaps in their employment history, and it's very employer-unfriendly, because it makes it hard for me to get a handle on exactly what your career progression has been. If you have gaps in your work history, I'm going to find them, but if you make me do detective work to uncover them, I'm going to be annoyed. Keep the chronological organization. Bad piece of career advice in career news #5: Don't complain to your boss about your incompetent or lazy coworker unless it's directly affecting your work. I appreciate the "don't tattle" spirit of this advice, but I want to know if employees are getting demoralized by a coworker's shoddy performance, even if it's not impacting their work directly. And I also want to know what they might be observing that I haven't picked up on, so I can pay closer attention. To be clear, I don't want to hear about it repeatedly, but I do appreciate a one-time heads-up, delivered in a discreet, professional way, if it comes from a solid employee. Not every manager shares this stance, but I believe plenty of the good ones do. What bad career advice have you seen? Career News Blog Comment:
My career advice is a bit dangerous though the only right thing on earth! I propose changing the entire career scenario throughout the world by detaching it from its rewards in terms of money and status. Let me do as my profession what I am made to do as my passion. Do not force me to do what pays me the best - that is what the basic corruption is! If I do what I am made to do, I will do it the best. If I do it the best, the overall quality of life on earth will improve. Now please do not tell me that what I am doing is less important for humanity than something else that someone else is doing. Everything is equally important for mankind here on earth! What matters is how good I do it and how free my passion as my occupation keeps me! But what will happen of the business structure of our society then? And how will human society ever get us as the spare parts of its war machinery fighting an unethical war against nature in order to subordinate nature to humanity? Our business structure is violating nature at each and every step as well as at each and every level ruining the whole environment around on this planet. But I want to be in love with what I am doing as my career and I love my people and my planet too. It is this that I bother about and not only the money that my career rewards me with. We will have to change the world toe to head for that! Here is The Super Mind Evolution System that claims to change your personal life, so if you feel the system is good too - like I do - it may be a humble beginning in the direction of changing the way we live! Just watch this video to check for yourself:
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