1.  Continue Learning Take advantage of opportunities for training both within your company and outside.

2.  Keep Current with Technology Look at job postings in your field to see what technology skills are currently being sought after and stay abreast of these areas.

3.  Dress for Success.  Always dress for the next job above yours but keep it conservative and don’t try to outdo your boss.

4.  Be Diversity Friendly Show that you are comfortable in working with people from all backgrounds and that our differences are what makes us unique and strong.

5.  Have a Mentor Stay close and solicit operational feedback from one or more key people in the organization who can give guidance to your career.

6.  Welcome Feedback.  Do not fear feedback but rather embrace it as a way to look objectively at your performance and strategize ways for improvement.

7.  Find Your Path Look around you to see what areas in the company provide a conduit for growth and steer clear of the ones that seem to be deadends.

8.  Stay Flexible Take on additional responsibilities and make yourself valuable to different departments by expanding your role wherever possible.

9.  Offer to help Take opportunities to help your boss with special projects even if it doesn’t mean immediate financial reward.  It will pay off in the long run with patience.

10. Join Professional Groups Look for opportunities to connect with others in your field through professional organizations or local and online community groups. This provides a great way to meet others in your field and establish future networking bonds.

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A recent study reported by the Wall Street Journal looking at the relationship between salary and happiness has concluded that  75,000 dollars a year is the point at which people remain most happy. Above this number there is no measurable increase in one’s personal satisfaction.

It doesn’t mean that you will be less happy if your earn more, just that you won’t be any happier above the $75,000 mark.  So if you count yourself among those in this group, take a moment to reflect on how lucky you are.  On second thought, you are probably already happy so that won’t be necessary.

source: lifehacker

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If you’re sitting in your office bored, ticked off or feeling down you may be thinking it’s time to go. BUT, you’re not sure. You are rationalizing staying because there is one more great thing you can contribute or you feel obligated in some way. We all go through this kind of mental tug-of-war at one time or another. Knowing when it’s the right time to give yourself permission to move on is one of those big life changers and with it comes anxiety.

There are some indicators of satisfaction that you can examine that will help you make that decision. Let’s review some of them to help you move that decision making along.

1. Salary – I’m almost embarrassed to mention money. Not because “it shouldn’t matter”, it’s because I know it isn’t one of the top 3 issues. I mention it first because everyone does and I want to get it out of the way. What you are paid as it turns out are not the top 3-5 satisfiers for your career. It is something, however. If it is out of line or doesn’t pay the bills it is a big DISsatisfier and you do need to move on. If your pay is appropriate for the job you do, area you live in and meets most of your need, then you’re probably doing fine and this isn’t a big enough deal to make you leave.
2. Boss – This one is the big one. The person that you immediately report to is the number one top item that will make work life great or bad. You don’t have to love this person or even be buddies but you do need to respect this person and feel that it’s mutual. Also, you need to be realistic about this person. Bosses will never be perfect. They are like the rest of us; they have bad hair days and also have their own quirks. The question you need to ask yourself is: “Can I be successful doing work with this person in the picture?”
3. Job Content – This is all about the kind of work you perform. You need to feel like you have the skills, talents and background to perform the job. At the same time you should feel like you can make a contribution and grow. Job growth is not necessarily about being promoted. It is learning new tasks, taking on new responsibilities and making new contributions. The content of your job should be something that continuously stimulates and interests you. If you have reached a point where everything is pretty much the same, you need to move on before it impacts your self esteem.
4. Work environment – This is both the physical space you do the work in and what is in the environment such as people, building and location. You can have a great job, great boss but have to commute 2 hours each way. Your life is potentially impacted too significantly. You may like the job but the environment you are in is too toxic because of interoffice relations. The people you work with could be your source of dissatisfaction and you may not even realize it. We form friendships and alliances with the people we spend so much time working with. At the same time they may feel freedom in complaining and pointing out all the things that are bad. This will have a negative impact on you. You need to examine this situation and determine what you can control and what you can’t. At the same time, you need to determine if you were to design the perfect work environment, would it be like this?
5. Something else If all the stars are aligned and the items listed above are all working well enough for you, you may be tugged by “something else”. The something else could be a lifelong dream of being a nurse or something completely different than what you’re doing today. The something else could be a deep desire to move and live somewhere other than where you are today. It’s ok to give yourself permission to move toward something as opposed to away from your current career. This category of “something else” may turn out to be your calling.

Life is too short to spend too much time working at a job situation you don’t love and doesn’t nurture your soul. Your career should feel shamefully fun and more like a vocation. Making a decision like this can be tough but it is not a sign that you’re doing the wrong thing. It’s tough because it is a big part of how you spend your life. It’s tough because you want to make sure you enjoy the next thing. It’s tough because it’s a change.

source: atlantacareerpath

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This manipulator seeks to gain your trust by pretending to be your ally and friend. They will call you after work or suggest going to lunch in an attempt to share with you their gripes about management and other coworkers. This is in an effort to loosen you up and get you to make similar derogatory statements about others or share any inside information you may have learned about someone. This person cannot be trusted to keep what you have told them in confidence, and will usually begin to share your statements with others in an attempt to cast you in a bad light and make themselves look better.

Rumor Mill

This is the person who gets satisfaction from broadcasting every juicy morsel of gossip they hear about others of a personal or business nature. Examples would include talking about romantic involvements among employees, possible business changes such as layoffs, or why someone was fired.

Backstabber

The Backstabber has no qualms about throwing someone under the bus if it serves to advance their career in some measure. They will create the false impression that they work in the company’s best interests and report to management every error or conduct violation that they see in anyone around them.

Corporate Sociopath

This individual seeks advancement in the corporation by any means possible without regard to the impact it may have on others careers. They are remorseless and incapable of feeling empathy for anyone in the way of their climb to the next rung on the corporate ladder. They are usually emotionless and driven workaholics that are both humorless and robotic in their interactions with others.

Sycophant

The Sycophant is the “Eddie Haskell” of the organization who uses flattery on those in positions of power around him to ingratiate himself. This is usually a person with weaker skills than their teammates and therefore uses charm to try to level the playing field.

Teacher With Pets

The Teacher With Pets is in a leadership role and shows favoritism to some of her direct reports. She is motivated by personal perceptions of individuals rather than by maintaining an unbiased results based approach to measuring performance. This creates discord and disfunctionality among the team as signs of favoritism become more evident.

If you are working around any of these types of coworkers, the best advice is to maintain a professional and dedicated work ethic within your position in the company. Work to live but do not live to work since your job is only one of the many aspects of your life. Always remember that “loose lips sink ships” (or careers) and keep your friends close and your “frenemies” closer.  To quote Eleanor Roosevelt,

“great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

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Best Selling Author Connie Glaser

Most of the publicity about the dismal job market has focused on big corporations. But an even greater effect has been felt by small businesses. The local diner, the neighborhood “Joe the Plumber” and the hometown newspaper have also drastically reduced employees. Whether you are a financial analyst at a big bank or a waiter at a local restaurant, there’s a real possibility that your job is in peril.

As we are all learning, the entire work landscape has shifted. In what we now refer to as “the good old days,” measurable factors like education, training and experience trumped intangibles like attitude, enthusiasm and cooperation when it came to employment status. But in these challenging times, the decision to keep someone on the payroll often has less to do with degrees and diplomas than with personality and attitude.

You may not have even thought about this before, but this is the time to spend a few minutes looking at life from your boss’s perspective. If you do, here’s what you may discover:

Most bosses hate to lay off employees. It’s no fun to sit across from someone who needs, wants and sometimes even loves a job and hand them a pink slip. Letting someone go is not a power trip. It is a painful part of being an executive, manager or business owner.

Most bosses don’t need or want more headaches. These are tough times for everyone, including your boss, and he or she probably has serious problems that you are not aware of. For this reason, an employee who doesn’t add to that long list of irritants, has an advantage over one who does.

This is not the time to be “high-maintenance” or “complicated.” If you, say, have a temper or a tendency to miss those Monday morning sales meetings, you may find yourself out of work sooner rather than later. This economic climate can’t accommodate workers who have personal issues that interfere with the smooth running of an office or a business.

Check your ego at the door. It would be nice if we lived in a world where our concerns, priorities and egos were important to everyone with whom we came in contact. But until that new world order arrives, our best job insurance is to slap a smile on our face, be as helpful and cheerful as possible, and go out of the way to make life as pleasant as possible for the people who sign our paychecks.

Lots of people who never imagined that they would be out of work now find themselves unemployed. The good news is that these tough times will eventually pass, and the economy will stabilize. But the bad news in that we are all facing challenges for which we are unprepared.

Whoever thought that banks would fail, Starbucks would become a “treat” rather than an “essential,” foreclosures would hit our block, or layoffs would affect our family? One of these days, we’ll look back on this recession and consider the way we all had to recalibrate our coping skills.

You’re smart and you’ll manage to re-educate yourself about the coping skills needed to ride out these rough times. The same way you now “pause” before parting with your hard-earned cash, you’ll soon learn to shift gears when at work. These are the times when great employees and great companies go into an survival mode, and now is the time to make sure that your boss considers you absolutely, positively essential to his or her wellbeing.

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