Career Redirection?

This week, during what some in the Christian faith refer to as Power Week we are looking at stories that suggest God is interested in your career and is willing to break in through ways some might describe as miraculous.


Today’s story comes from Kris Valloton an associate pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California. I’ve visited this church and if you are ever in the area I recommend it highly.

Kris writes in his book Supernatural Ways of Royalty:

“You have to be a human being before you are a human doing. When we try to do something without first being someone, we usually find ourselves making a living at a job we hate. Another ramification of this failure to discover true identity is that many people learn to derive their self-esteem from what they do. This may seem fine for a while if they perform well. When they can’t perform anymore, for whatever reason, their self esteem goes into the pit.

This point was driven home to me a while back when I took a long plane trip to the South Pacific. I sat next to a young college student. We had an 11-hour flight together and we seemed to have nothing in common. After a couple of hours I decide to try to get some sleep. When I closed my eyes I had a thought about the young man sitting next to me.

I turned to him and asked, “What do you want to do with your life?”

“I want to be an attorney,” he replied.

I found myself saying, “You’ll be a lousy attorney!”

He perked up and in an angry voice snapped back, “What do you mean by that?”

I said, Attorneys have an extremely high value for justice. They need justice so badly that they will violate relationships to get it. You have a really high value for relationships. You need to be validated, loved and nurtured. Your need for justice is low on your priority list. The first time you get into court and have to attack someone’s character to make your case, you’re not going to sleep at night.”

“That’s exactly right!” he said.

“You know what you need to do?”

“No, what?” he replied.

“You have an amazing gift mix. You have a very creative side that expresses itself in something like acting. You also have an extremely left-brained side that likes to organize things and administrate them. I see your bedroom being really organized and the clothes in your closet hanging in the order of color. You would be a great movie director if you would give yourself to that.”

He almost jumped out of his seat. He said excitedly, “I do organize my room and my clothes just like you described. I have always wanted to be a director and I was the head of my drama class in high school!”

“That’s what you need to do with your life,” I told him. “You’re the next Stephen Spielberg!”

Many of us spend our lives doing something that is very different from who we are. When our activities are an expression of our person, it is amazing how much we enjoy what we do.”

Does God Intervene?

This week is Power Week in the Christian Faith and today we are looking at some modern-day examples of how God has intervened in lives and careers that are reminiscent of some things that happened in the Bible.

My wife and I are both big American Idol fans. In season 6, Melinda Dolittle sang her way into the hearts of people everywhere. Here’s a condensed version of her story found in the book, “Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul”:

“My mom taught me that with God all things are possible if your heart is in the right place. She never dissuaded me from trying anything, even if my success was unlikely. But what I really wanted to do was sing. There was only one problem: I was completely tone deaf. In fact, it was so bad that when I auditioned for the grammar-school choir, they let me in but they asked me just to lip-synch. So there was little Melinda, smack in the middle, singing her heart out. But, in fact, I was lip-synching.

One day I was in a shoe store with my mom. When Whitney Houston came on the music system, everyone stopped and listened. How cool would it be if I could sing like that? I thought. Just grab people's hearts so that they stop and listen to me sing. So I told my mom that since I'm not good at anything else, I would like to be good at singing. She replied, "Baby, you are really going to have to pray very hard."

When we got home, I told her that I was going to sing in the youth talent show at our church, which was one month away. Although my mom was supportive, she was also honest. She told me that would be a great faith project for me. So I prayed, "Lord, I want to be able to sing in the talent show." My mom also told me I would have to practice really, really, really hard.

Every day, I tried to hit those notes, and they wouldn't come out right. My mom kept saying, "You've got to keep working at it. You're not there yet, but just keep trying and praying."The day of the talent show arrived, and I wasn't yet confident that I could sing, but I was confident in the fact that up until then God had always answered my prayers. I saw no reason why he wouldn't this time.

So I strode onto the stage, dressed in my new dress and the shoes I had bought at that shoe store just one month before, and I opened my mouth. Amazingly, out came this beautiful tone! It was like night and day. And not only could I sing, but I could hear harmonies. My mom cried.

After the show, people called the pastor and said, "It wasn't fair to let Melinda lip-synch for the talent show." It was hard for them to believe the pastor when he replied, "She didn't-that was really her."

After that day, I got asked to join the worship team and the all-state choir, and I've been singing ever since.
One of the other things I loved to do was dance. It was something else I did badly, but that never stopped me before. When I was in college, I was practicing a dance number for a school show when my friend's mom walked up to me at rehearsal and said, "I don't know if you even sing, but I looked up at you and I got this message that I have to have you sing background for a recording session we're doing tomorrow. It must be a God thing."

Her name was Roz Thompson, and her husband was Chester Thompson. He'd played with greats like Phil Collins and John Fogerty, and she was not only a well-known worship leader but had sung with everyone from CeCe Winans to Donna Summer. They were recording a tribute to Rich Mullins called My Deliverer.

Roz drove me to the session, where I sang background for one song. When I was done, the producer handed me a check. I said to him, "I only did one song." He said, "I know." And I said, "Are you serious?" It was more money than I made at my part-time job in a month.

From that one session, my phone started ringing, and my career as a background singer began. To me it was just about the best thing in the world-to get paid to sing.

Nearly seven years later, I decided to audition for Idol. Although I'm sure my success story is similar to other's, I think each of us has a different moment when everything changes, when everything comes together. For me, it was the night that Diana Ross was the guest mentor.

Until that night, I still thought of myself as a background singer, even when the judges tried to tell me I was more. But that night, when I sang "Home," and I looked out and everybody was standing on their feet and clapping for me-that was the moment it all came full circle. The lyrics tell about being in a different place, a different time, and a different world-and there I was, little Melinda Doolittle, living the dream that I had in the shoe store so many years ago-the dream of people stopping and wanting to hear what I had to sing. I knew it was now truly a different world.

God had given me a voice when I wanted to sing. It was now up to me to be the best representative of him that I could be. On Diana Ross night, I knew it would never be hard to do. For it was on that night, when the people wouldn't stop clapping and they thought they were clapping for me, I knew the truth-and I will always know the truth-that without God . . . I'm tone deaf.”

How do you explain that? Did a month’s worth of practice turn Melinda Dolittle into an accomplished singer? Or was something or someone else at work here?

Power Week

This week is Holy Week or what I sometimes call Power Week in the Christian Faith. Next Sunday, millions will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ as they attend mass and church services around the world. My posts for the next five days crack a door on the question, “Does God care about my career?” “Does He care enough to intervene?” Will He Move in my life with power?

Until Jesus was around the age of 30, he worked in a carpentry business and was likely self employed for at least some of that time. Most of the guys he hung out with were small business types who as we will see, had to deal with career frustrations.

Most of us, if we think about Jesus at all, probably pigeon-hole him to the religious section of life. I don’t think his first followers were that much different. Yet, I would suggest that maybe the Scriptures show a God that is interested in all of our life, not just the religious part. One of my very favorite stories about Jesus is found in the Bible and comes from Luke chapter 5. If Jesus taught anything, He taught that God is a God who moves with power and intervenes when we need it...not always as my pastor says, “when we want it, but when we need it”.

Luke 5:4-7
4 When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon Peter, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”

5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”

6 And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear!
7 A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.

So… get the picture. Jesus is finishing up a sermon that he gave while standing in a boat out on a lake and he gives Simon (who many of us know us Peter) some business advice. You can almost hear Simon say, “Jesus, you stay in the religion department or at least the carpentry department, I think I know the fishing business.” But Peter relents, takes Jesus advice, and ends up with what was probably the best business day of his whole career.

Let’s take the next few days and check out how some say God entered their lives and careers in this 21st Century world.

Re-Charge Day - Follow the 1 In 7 Prescription

Footshooting - Multi Level Marketing

In last week's introductory section of "Footshooting" I talked about the importance of showing up. This post is primarily directed at people who are unemployed, significantly under employed, miserably employed, or nervously employed. You could be in a state of mind that would encourage you to make decisions that are not in your best interest or the best interest of your family. Their are all kinds of financial “opportunities” out there today available through infomercials, the internet, and even your friends, relatives, and neighbors.

My focus here is on “Multi-Level” marketing and before I go any further let me make some distinctions. Their are at least 3 categories of business that often get collapsed into one but technically are different even though there is often overlap. These three are Direct Marketing,  Network Marketing, and Multi Level Marketing.

Examples of Direct Marketing would be Mary Kay, Avon, and Tupperware where people make money selling a product often in the home on commission. In my opinion many of these are very good products and excellent opportunities for those who are so wired to do them. Multi-Level Marketing on the other hand has an income stream that is primarily derived from recruiting a down line of other sales people who are often not so wired and with very little personal sales intended. If it has no personal sales it becomes a pyramid and is illegal. So Multi-Level Marketing encourages minimal personal sales and maximum recruiting of other sales people, usually from a pool of relatives, co-workers, and church friends. I know their is some overlap between Multi-Level Marketing and Direct Marketing but I think they are very different things.

I’m not suggesting that you don’t buy the products from these companies or their sales people. Arguably Amway introduced a lot of people to vitamins. A.L. Williams (Now Primerica) led a needed financial revolution overthrowing the reign of the traditional whole life insurance policy by encouraging people all over America to buy term and invest the difference. Both vitamins and term life insurance have become standards of wisdom. I myself have products from Pre-Paid Legal and I personally know people who have saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars in much needed advice from a good employment attorney. I don’t sell Pre-Paid Legal nor do I get a dime from recommending it but I think it might be a good investment for you.  But for many of you, I think it might be a very poor career choice.  In fact it might be disasterous if you are in a vulnerable time financially.

...I know your best friend is in Multi-Level Marketing, your pastor’s wife is in it, this one is different, your second cousin 3 times removed got wealthy doing it, their isn’t the kind of opportunity in traditional businesses their used to be… I’ve heard all these and many more. Just be especially careful where you focus your time if you are unemployed, significantly under employed, miserably employed, or nervously employed.

Before I get to my own list of concerns with Multi-Level Marketing let me offer up an article written by Inc. Magazine columnist and successful business owner Norm Brodsky. Follow this link to his insightful Inc. Magazine article of over a decade ago:

http://www.inc.com/magazine/19980601/941.html#

Now here is my own similar list of thoughts:


1. I believe in gifts, talents, abilities, and calling. Multi Level Marketing can pull people out of their strengths.

2. Focus is a critical component of success. To take on a Multi Level Marketing Business can pull people away from their job, family, ministry, and other important things.

3. I have experience with employees at a company I’ve worked in trying to sell their network marketing opportunity to their company customers. This creates confusion and distrust with those customers and can even be in violation of employment agreements that you have in your day job.

4. Passion is a critical component of success. Many people get into network marketing with nothing more than a passion for getting rich.

5. Network marketing can foster greed. If you want to get rich pick up a used copy of “Getting Rich Your Own Way”. It is out of print but here is an Amazon link to help you track it down. I offer no guarantees but I believe this is one of the few resources on the topic of getting wealthy that is factually based.
Amazon Link:  Getting Rich Your Own Way

6. Network marketing unlike other sales is based on people having to fail for it to work. If everyone succeeded then everyone would be in… the whole world would be in and then it would cease to be profitable. Think this one through carefully.

7. Many network marketing companies make success sound easier than it is. People I know who have been successful at this work at it 60-80 even 100 hours a week. Americans also now have a built in resistance to network marketing.

8. It sometimes preys on people who are financially suffering and who need a base income. Out of work is the absolute worst time to try this.

9. You often lose and weaken friendships. Inviting someone for dinner under the pretenses of getting together for a fun evening and then switching into the latest business opportunity doesn’t build trust. You may strain the very connection in your network that would have introduced you to a great job.

10. Some MLM companies refer to non-participants and people who move on as losers who aren’t going anywhere in life. This is sour grapes at best.

Here is my bottom line… if you are gifted in sales work… consider a direct marketing opportunity. If you are unemployed, be very wary of a Multi Level Marketing “Opportunity”. Only rarely will it lead you in the direction of those things you are truly gifted and called to do.

Dialing In: A Strategy To Maximize Your Current Job Part 2

In The Truth About You, Marcus Buckingham shares how former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani came across as a gifted public speaker arguing his cases in the court room when he worked as a prosecutor. When he gave talks while running for office though, he came across as stiff. He really struggled when he had to stand behind a podium and give a talk to a room full of people. He hired a speech coach, he practiced constantly, he read speeches of other great speakers but he continued to come across a bit like a robot.

One night his speech coach asked him, “Is there any part of the speaking process that you really look forward to?’’

Giuliani responded, “I like arguing, I like taking a question and then making a case for why my answer is the best answer.”

So he and his coach set about a strategy of re-shaping his talks. He began standing behind the podium to make a few brief remarks and then comes out front and takes questions, arguing his case. It worked brilliantly. He began coming across loose, natural, and comfortable in his own skin. And then an interesting thing happened. Over time he also became more comfortable when he was forced to give talks that didn’t allow for his now signature interactive style.

This is a great story that can be applied to any number of jobs. Is there any piece of a mostly uncomfortable job that you do well? How can you expand that piece so that it eclipses the parts that you don’t do as well?

Dialing In: A Strategy To Maximize Your Current Job

How many ways are their to be really effective at your job? Probably a lot more than you think. In my work as a manager, I have observed sales people reach the pinnacle of success with quite different strengths and ways of going about their job. This is possible with most jobs including the job of running the country. Let’s consider our first four presidents. Did they have similar strengths that led to similar ways of operating in office? Not at all.

George Washington was the military strategist who projected an image of consistency and stability. He had no great gift as a visionary but his cool even temperament served us well as he united a young country. The second president, John Adams was a phenomenal orator and skilled debater. It was said that he could hold Congress in rapt attention for hours as he waxed on eloquently about his positions on Britain, France and so on. He was at his best when voicing his opposition to a real or perceived foe.

Thomas Jefferson was completely different yet. Unlike the orator Adams, Jefferson hated public speaking. In fact, he hated it so much that he refused to give the traditional State of the Union message to Congress each year. He was a grand strategist that loved sitting at his desk, thinking and writing. He wrote out the State of the Union speech and had his assistant read it.

James Madison was different still. He was a very precise thinker and the consummate networker. He loved roaming the floors of Congress, meeting one on one, collaborating and building alliances to accomplish his goals for the country.

All three could rightly be held up as examples of great presidents. But each understood their strengths and weaknesses proceeding to shape the job around who they were. List any other four great presidents in history and you’ll see much of the same principle at work. Lincoln, the melancholy who suffered great bouts of depression worked quite different than the energetic Theodore Roosevelt.

On October 19, 2009 USA Today ran a similar story about the nine current US Supreme Court Justices. Politics aside, they perform the same job quite differently.  Chief Justice John Robert’s sharp questions come quickly. John Paul Stevens prefers to let his colleagues jump in first. Stephen Breyer is known for his hypothetical questions. Clarence Thomas believes a lawyer should be able to make a case without interruption and thus remains mostly silent. Antonin Scalia is the wise-cracker in the group. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a stickler for precise facts.

Check out our job-shaping links to the right.  Their are a number of resources that will help you think about ways to shape your own job around your unique strengths.

A Strategy For Dialing In Your Career

One of my favorite "Maximize Your Career" stories comes from Lance Armstrong. It is detailed in his book, “It’s Not About The Bike” and also highlighted in Brian Souza’s excellent book, “Become Who You We’re Born To Be”.

As you may know, Armstrong is a six time winner of what may be the world’s most grueling sports event, the Tour de France. What you may not know is how hard Armstrong had to work to find his niche, his area of greatness.  Lance grew up in football-crazy Plano, Texas. It didn’t take him long to figure out he was just plain lousy at anything that involved eye-hand coordination or side to side movement. In fact, he discovered, if the sport involved any sort of ball, he didn’t do so well. Most of us have experiences like this. It allows us to rule some things out quickly.

But Armstrong became very focused on finding something he could be great at. At age 12, he gave swimming a shot, and after almost drowning a few times his coach put him in a class with the 7 year olds. He was a bit humiliated, but he didn’t give up. He actually developed fairly quickly and by the end of his first year, he took 4th in the state at the 1500 meter free-style.

In order to get in two swim practices a day he rode his bike to school. That gave him six miles a day in the water and twenty miles round trip on the bike. At age thirteen, he spotted a flyer for a swim-bike-run junior triathlon. At the time it seemed like a lark… he’d never heard of a triathlon before, but amazingly he entered and won.

Although he was a top junior in swimming, Armstrong reflected, he’d never been the absolute best at it. But in Triathlons, he was best in the whole state. He hadn’t quite discovered the arena where he would become insanely great, but he was in the vicinity. By age sixteen, he had become a professional triathlete, and by the time he was a high school senior he had a growing career with sponsors knocking on his door.  Eventually he began to focus on cycling. After countless hours of hard work and sacrifice he became the world’s best.
Lance Armstrong’s story reveals several transferable concepts:

1. Try stuff and quickly eliminate some things that don’t show promise.
2. Get in the vicinity. Find some things you can be good at and work at them.
3. Keep trying things with an eye out for that one thing you can be insanely great at.
4. Once you find it, work harder than any one else to develop it.

You Have A Strategy That Is Perfectly...

I don’t suppose it’s a news flash that chess is strategy game. One of the first books I ever received as a young child was a chess book written by a business associate of my dad. It was a new type of instructional in a question and answer format that came with a book mark slide piece that was designed to progressively reveal the answers after I had an opportunity to figure it out for myself. I didn’t get far with the book or go on to excel at chess but the book was such a cool concept. Really it was the instructional strategy I remember more than the content of anything in the book.

Another cool chess related concept was found in the television show “Have Gun Will Travel”. It was a western starring Richard Boone who played the hero known as Palidin. In case you were not privileged to see this show it’s available here. If you are satisfied to just know more I’ll refer you to Wikipedia… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_Gun_-_Will_Travel.  Paladin had a business card with the black knight and like the Lone Ranger’s silver bullet, he had an ample supple of these black knight chess pieces to leave behind after he solved a case. And like any hero, western or otherwise Paladin had a strategy that was unique to his character.

….(Flash forward about 40 years) I was innocently riding along in my car probably about circa 2006 listening to one of my favorite communicators Andy Stanley. All of a sudden these words attacked me from the car speakers… “You have a strategy that is perfectly designed to get the results you are getting”. Then he repeated it… and spent several minutes explaining what he meant. I won’t give you the rest word for word but the upshot is this:

Each of us has a strategy for everything we do. We may not be aware of it, the strategy may not be well thought out, it might not be thought out at all. Our strategy may be to wing it. Our strategy may be to make it up as we go along. But we have a strategy for every single thing we do in life… and it’s that strategy that is creating results we are getting... for better or for worse...for richer or for poorer. (They’re taking this phrase out of a lot wedding vows these days and that too suggests a strategy… but I digress…)

This is true about our diet. It’s true about our exercise. It’s true about our finances. It’s true about our relationships. It’s true about our interaction or lack of it with God. And to our primary point in this blog, it’s true about our career. You already have a strategy. The question we all need to ask is respectfully borrowed from television therapist Dr. Phil: “How’s that workin for ya?” How is your career strategy working for you?

This blog is filled with “strategic alternatives” or approaches designed to assist you in an attempt to “Maximize Your Career”. Every single idea presented here may not be for you. But take a few minutes right now and think about your current career strategy. Does it need tweaking? Is your strategy to wing it? Maybe your strategy is to analyze and reanalyze to the point you never execute on anything. Get a pen and notebook and jot down your strategy.

Genius of the Seven Day Plan

Seven is among other things thought of as the number of completion. Genesis tells us that God created the whole universe in Seven days. In fact, He likes the week frame so much that later in Scripture He talks about a "week of weeks" and "week of years" etc.. This is a wonderful planning time frame to get things accomplished at work. Former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, in his Biography shared how he spent two hours every Sunday evening planning his week. Then , he would schedule according to his highest priorities. Stephen Covey in his 7 Habits Series recommends planning in 7 day increments.

And Strengths Expert Marcus Buckingham in his wonderful book, “Go, Put Your Strengths To Work” says this:

“The most effective routine is a Strong Week Plan.  There’s magic in the seven days of a week. When you are asked to plan for next year, you may manage to define a few carefully calibrated goals: what you will get done. But you rarely take it down to the level of specific activities: what you will actually be doing. Even a month is too long a time frame to wrap your head around. Whereas, at the other extreme, days, hours, and minutes are too disjointed to provide you any real momentum.

Only a week strikes the perfect balance and the psychological note… There’s just something quintessentially useful about the scale of a week. And this should be no surprise. A week was designed this way. It was designed expressly to meet the psychological needs of human beings, something you can’t say about any other unit of time...And they are highly resilient to modification. The most recent redesign of the week was attempted by the French revolutionaries in 1793, who changed a week from seven to ten days and renamed it, confusingly, a “decade”. Needless to say, this redesign didn’t last long—more than a “decade”, but less than a decade.”


If you are currently in a career that is essentially a good fit for you, but maybe not a perfect fit, Buckingham’s job crafting method that he outlines in “Go, Put Your Strengths To Work” is phenomenal. The book is our Amazon resource of the day and his Dvd is in our resource center at the column to the right. If you want to take his workshop it is available for free in our guest teaching sessions courtesy of the Oprah Winfrey Show.

If you are unemployed, Harvey MacKay makes the wise suggestion that looking for a job is your job. In the free resources that accompany the promotion of his latest book, he offers a Week Planner Page for job seekers. You can find that in a group of pdf files under Career Links and Harvey MacKay or just click on the link here:  http://www.harveymackay.com/pdfs/gettingajob.pdf

Note: For some reason this link can be a little finicky...you may have to try it 2 or 3 times.

Re-Charge Day - The 1 In 7 Principle

My step son Glenn is spiritually wise way beyond his years. A few months ago in passing he asked me one of those zinger questions that rattle around in your head for days… “Do you believe in taking a Sabbath?” he asked. Of course I had all the “right answers” in place… “I was going through a career crisis and I needed to work extra hard and long to make it through to the other side”.  Even the Bible talks about being able to “pull your ox out of the ditch on the Sabbath” and I thought I needed this extra time to pull mine out.  But it so easy to build habit patterns that carry on far past the ox in the ditch season of life.

Randy Frazee in his excellent book, “Making Room for Life” talks about what I call the 1 in 7 principle. In his chapter called “The Hebrew Day Planner” he writes:

“We function at peak performance when we take one day a week to rest and replenish. When we violate this design, we are abusing our bodies and souls, and little by little we diminish our effectiveness. So important was this principle for living that God modeled it himself by taking the seventh day for rest. Did God do this because he was tired? Does divinity perspire? I don’t think so. God did not come to nightfall on the sixth day and say ‘Thank Me It’s Friday.” God is reinforcing a pattern that is essential for healthy, productive living.”

As a reminder for all of us each Sunday I will post the Re-Charge Day and the guy with his head in the light socket. If you are in Visalia, you are invited to recharge with us at Crossroads Community Church meeting most Sundays in the Visalia Convention Center. If you live somewhere else across America, please email me or post a comment requesting a good church in your area. I’ll do some research and recommend one.

Don't Shoot Yourself In The Foot

This begins a semi-weekly series on "Footshooting" or the things we do that sabatoge our efforts in getting a job and keeping one.  Today and for the next few Saturdays I'm going to talk about the job interview process and my experiences as a manager on the west coast.

The first topic is so basic it's almost embarrassing.  Yet it happened so often and so consistently in cities from San Diego to Seattle that I have to begin here. 

Woody Allen reportedly said, "80% of success is showing up".  In my experience this is true in sales, it's true in the work world at large, and it's most true for a job interview.  I interviewed candidates in dozens of locations.  I set my own appointments, I had them set for me, I did reminder calls.  I did everything but go and pick the candidate up.

With all that, rarely did I have more than 3 out of 10 candidates actually show up for an interview appointment they scheduled themselves.  I've thought about this a lot.... I'm not sure what it means or what it says about people in general and job searchers in particular.  I've talked with colleagues around the country and their are some minor regional differences but in general the show up rate was pretty awful everywhere. 

I only offer one conclusion.  In not one case did we hire someone who didn't show up for an interview.  I'm sure this is the case with pretty much all companies.  If you want a job, show up for your interview!  This is true even if you don't think you want the job for 3 reasons:

1.  It's a small world...the word gets around when you don't keep an appointment.

2.  The person interviewing may have knowledge of other unadvertised positions within the company that
would be perfect for you.  He or she may also know of opportunities in another company or industry that would be perfect for you.

3. You'll be a person of your word and that builds self-respect and good habits.  Both are essential in building a career.

Use Your Head To Get Your Foot In The Door

Business author Harvey Mackay just came out with a very helpful new book for career changers of all stripes. Check out the Larry King interview below and take a look at the free resources in our Career Builder Links to the right.   He's put together some great tools to help with finding your ideal job, interviews, and other career related topics.