I talked in episode #268 about leading through a reduction in force — today I want to talk about the signs that your company might be about to do a RIF — and how to be prepared. We’ll discuss ARFO, some signs to look out for, and the red flags that tell you to look somewhere else immediately.

Once again, I am pulling from the book Leading with Emotional Intelligence by Reldan Nadler. In his book, Nadler talks about “The Perfection Loop” — the fact that success-driven people often set unrealistic goals that set them up for failure or frustration. Today, we’ll break down why people set unrealistic goals, the six stages of the Perfection Loop, some indicators that you’re in one, and how to counter it.

Here’s a fact: for most of us, and the companies in which we work, career development is rarely a priority. There are too many urgent matters to attend to every day…and career planning takes a back seat. So today, we’re talking about what might be holding back your career development — and how to help.

I get a lot of questions about following up after a job interview. Today, I want to give the ABC’s of interview follow-up, as well as some creative options for staying in touch throughout the decision-making process.

Today, a return guest – and one of my favorites! Previously, Katrina McGhee was on the podcast to talk about taking a career break. Today, we talk about leveraging a sabbatical before taking on a bigger role. Whether with your current employer or accepting a position with another company, you may need a break before taking on even more responsibility and challenges. Katrina talks about the signs that this break may be more of a need than a want and how to ask for the break. We also talk about re-entry strategies after the break is over.

Today, we’re talking about organizing your job search. For some of you, this may be a foreign concept – why would I need organization to look at job boards? I just look at them and apply to as many jobs as I possibly can – right? Wrong. I’m not going to go into detail with specific job search strategies – I covered that in multiple other episodes. Rather, what I want to cover today is the structure of your job search…dedicating time for your job search and using that time to your best advantage.

For some of you, you may want help with your goal. For others of you, you may want to make a job or even a career change this year. For still others, you may want to position yourself for success in your current role. These are all great reasons to hire a coach, so I wanted to dedicate an episode to helping you find the right coach for you.

Let me start by saying I’m a planning geek. Goals and strategies excite me, and I love realizing the aggressive goals I set for myself. Today, I’m inviting you to pick an area of your professional life that you would like to see massive change in. We’ll work together to create a plan to make it happen!

This week, my guest is Sonja Price. Our parents and grandparents often worked for the same company their entire career – many times, even in the same position. This model doesn’t serve most of us today, and there are financial, developmental, and other reasons to change jobs every few years. Sonja Price and I talk about how to create short- and long-term career goals that will serve as our guideposts for making decisions about career changes, when to look inside your organization and when to look outside, and the indications that it is time to leave your current job.

Your career is not something that happens to you. It should be something you carefully manage. Today, I want to give some high-level concepts about managing your career.

I’ve heard about goals till I’m blue in the face. And the focus is often on SETTING goals, rather than how to actually ACHIEVE them. In this podcast episode, I want to approach this topic from a different angle.

For those of you who were job searching when this all began, or those of you who will be job searching as a direct result of Virus Jail, you have some unprecedented challenges ahead. Unprecedented, but not insurmountable. In light of the New World Order, I want to talk about career pivots and reinvention.

Today, I want to talk about creative networking strategies in the era of Virus Jail. When in- person networking events are literally against the law for many of us. Here’s the main message I want to convey today: You can’t put your career or job search goals on hold during Virus Jail. You can’t wait to exhale until this is over. As I keep reminding you: Your goals are still your goals. How you achieve them may change, but the desired result hasn’t. The most effective job search strategy, hands down, is networking. The most effective career advancement tool is networking. Your challenge, then, is to get creative with networking during Virus Jail.

Today’s guest is AmyK Hutchens, and we’re talking about “How to Handle Tough Career Conversation.” AmyK covers how to handle three particularly challenging career conversations: the job interview, dealing with a difficult co-worker, & asking for a raise. AmyK also provides you with her three top tips for handling any tough career conversation you may face.

Today we’ll be talking about the questions that can be useful during a first meeting with a boss. This is your chance to determine what your boss’s expectations of you are, what criteria he will use to measure your success, and what is most important to your boss. This is also the perfect time to clarify job responsibilities, as well as things like work hours, dress code, and expense reporting. For the boss, this is an opportunity to understand how to motivate and communicate with the new hire.