A college friend recommended “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant” by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.  She’s in real estate and the book helped her promote her business differently.
With traditional marketing strategy, companies strive to build a better solution at a better price.  The idea is to outsmart and outdo the competition.  It’s an exercise in one-up-man-ship that frequently leads to each competitor releasing marginally better solutions over their competitors.  The authors describe that approach as a red ocean strategy.  Firms behave …

(This article continues where OERamz’s third article “You’re Fired! Part 3 – What’s All This Web 2 Point Oh My God?” left off.)
I recently read someone’s touching reflection of an influential person in his life – his Boy Scout leader. He shared how this man had played an important role in his life, how he had learned from this coach to be the man, father, employer and all around person he had become… a testament to those who have guided us and served as incredible role models. This chapter …

(This article continues where OERamz’s second article “You’re Fired! Part 2- Making A Graceful Exit left off.)

Had to get over the shock and numbness that followed – was that Day 2 or Day 20? I lost all sense of time and reality, but had to pick myself up and start with a plan of attack. Given the difficult market, and the holidays, I accepted the fact it would take a month or two (if only).

The holidays came and went, fast forward to the New Year. Had to come …

A week back I published Kevin Donlin’s article “Three Simple Job Search Ideas from Stuff Going on Right Around You.” I started looking around his blog and found a FREE downloadable e-book called “The Simple Job Search Manifesto.” I figured if I’m publishing his story I might as well learn a little bit more about what the guy does.

I’m really glad I did. This 65 page e-book contains a well organized plan for getting yourself back to work. It covers choosing your ideal job, finding the …

For this article, I went through the dozens of books I’ve reviewed in Career Jockey’s Book Review topic and forced myself to pick only three books.  I had to make some tough calls, but these are the ones that together contain the meat of what every job seeker needs to know.

Book #1 – What Color Is Your Parachute? 2010: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles

I wrote my What Color Is Your Parachute book review within three weeks of launching CareerJockey.org. I’ve …

I was surfing around Technorati this evening and ran into a job hunt blog called Keppie Careers. It’s written by Keppie Career founder Miriam Salpeter who has been advising clients regarding their career plans and writing resumes for over 12 years. I’m her newest Twitter follower and will be adding her blog to my “Blogs I Like” list as soon as I finish writing this post. She has great resources of all kinds for job seekers.

I really recommend reading her article on Karen Burn’s book “The Amazing …

If I sit back and consider where I’ve made career mistakes, I’m drawn more to the chances I passed up for being too risky than any one of my major screw ups. It’s not haven’t had any good screw ups. (We can sit down for a beer sometime and have some fun reviewing those.) It’s that the times when I took the easier route or opted against taking a risk probably cost me more and led to bigger regrets than the other ones. I have spoken to …

I ran into Heather Mundell’s life@work blog and found some very inspiring articles to help you find your true life’s calling. She’s a career coach, but her sweet spot is working with clients wanting to find the ideal job for themselves. She works with people on their job searches, but according to her writings, prefers to work with people to discern their calling and launch job searches towards that end.

I read her latest article on managing fear and stress during a career transition. She’s writing about staying …

In a previous article I described how when preparing for a speaking engagement, I completed exercises from the book “What Color Is Your Parachute?” leading me to some personal discoveries. I was a software engineer, project manager and technical architect realizing I had stronger people skills than I had realized and I enjoyed using. My technical skills had been driving a successful career to date, but could this be a sign pulling me in another direction. I started thinking, “How should I respond? What should I do …

Several winters back, I had hired a strong group of performers. I worked hard at bringing out the best these folks had to offer both as individuals and as a team. I received a very positive review from my boss. He recognized my accomplishment as going beyond the call of duty when I had been taking for granted that I have a knack for running software projects on time and under budget.

At the time, I was also speaking monthly for a groups tending to the …