I have been following with interest the recent media hype involving some high-profile companies, Apple and Microsoft, offering a frozen eggs service to their female employees.  I suppose this possibly might be in the way that they might offer luncheon vouchers, concierge services or membership to a health club.  Both companies hope that this move will help them attract and retain female…

Executive Presence Rules are confusing! No kidding! We’ve read a lot recently about executive presence and the hype associated with those indefinable characteristics  style, substance and character or charisma, communication and appearance.  A veritable industry has been spawned to define and navigate this amorphous concept which apparently is perceived to contribute by 26% to successful career progression. So is there…

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Benjamin Franklin Click To Tweet A number of people claim responsibility for creating the term Pitchcraft so I can’t source it exactly. It’s a term I’ve used myself for many years, thinking I was being very creative, although not in the context of baseball, which I find incomprehensible. This is on par…

Even though my kids left school years ago, I’ve always been impacted by the back to school vibe. Just like in school, it’s a great opportunity to use this symbolic period to take some refresher classes.  I decided I needed to go back to school and focus on some time management tips. Why? My goal is to work smarter not longer. Click…

interview (n.) 1510s, “face-to-face meeting, formal conference,” from Middle French entrevue, verbal noun from s’entrevoir “to see each other, visit each other briefly, have a glimpse of,” from entre- “between” (see inter-) + Old French voir “to see” (from Latin videre;). After six years of deep recession and demand driven hiring processes, interviews have been…

Career disruption comes in many forms:  mergers, takeovers, bad bosses, new bosses, downsizing, up-scaling,  marriage, parenthood, re-location, health issues, transfers,  job loss to name some. As a career coach, who is a strong advocate for both men and women to create strategic plans for their careers, I listened attentively to Whitney Johnson. Author of Dare, Dream Do  at a recent 3Plus Mini-Coaching session Whitney shared her tips from…

“BG” (Before Google) LinkedIn and other social networking platforms, any recruiter worth his or her salt maintained a contact book. It included their inner circle from A to Z and was worth it’s weight in business gold.  It benchmarked your connectivity and a solid black book was a sure sign that you had the “C-Factor.” NETWORKING is the single most powerful marketing…

It’s July. The weather in Belgium is relentlessly grey, so I know it’s July because this is the time I always see a spike in requests for entry-level coaching. These come mainly from parents who are concerned that their offspring seem lost, indecisive and/or confused about their future careers. This is because they are. Their alpha under grad friends are already…

 People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” Thomas Sowell” Despite meetings being considered to be time-consuming and time-wasting in equal measure, we are all exhorted to excel and standout in them. This truthfully seems a bit strange to me.  J.K. Galbraith,  the world reputed economist adds “Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want…

What is executive presence? Do you have it? What are the intangibles, the “je ne sais quoi” or X Factors that make the difference between being the person who stands out and commands a room, or who disappears and becomes invisible in the crowd?  How is a person able to inspire confidence and trust of those around him or her, to become a respected…