With a continuation of last months blog topic in mind, I recently picked up the 2011 Edition of ‘What Color is Your Parachute?’  I first reviewed this book in 1994 as a job seeker and newly minted Engineering graduate.  I appreciated the books practical, to the point, and often entertaining approach to preparing and conducting [...]

So after a couple years of life as a salaried employee, you’ve decided that you are a good fit for contracting and want to give it a try.  Even better, you’ve worked with your agency and landed your first interview with a client for a lucrative contract position. So, how best to prepare for the [...]

Contracting gives you more autonomy as a professional.  However, the flipside of this is a greater responsibility for you to manage your career and its future health.   One of the key areas of this responsibility is ensuring that you as a contractor have the skills and certifications businesses are looking for and that they remain [...]

Over the last few months I have met a number of talented employees who were thinking of making the transition to contracting.  This of course was more prevalent in 2008 versus today but nonetheless contracting offers many professionals the type of career flexibility that they find very appealing.  The contractor gets to choose what they [...]

About 5 years ago I attended a presentation at the University of Toronto given by Steven Stein, CEO of the largest Canadian publisher of psychological tests.  The topic was ‘emotional intelligence’ and the question being pondered was none other than: Why do some people with high IQs struggle in their career while others with moderate IQs [...]

This key question can be answered in a number of ways but how about addressing it by looking at the failure of culture on a grand scale?  Take the AOL-Time Warner merger for example a decade or so ago.  2 CEO’s (Gerry Levin & Steve Case) decided to merge their companies, 2 very different animals, [...]

Over the last few months I have been asked a number of times why I decided to start a business and become self employed amidst one of the worst recessions ever? Also, why did I decide to start a staffing company? These are good questions I remember always being a business minded type. For example [...]