I spoke for the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS) Career Day on May 7.

I was asked to present the content of my Acing the Interview talk in a 45-minute session. I often teach this content as an interactive two-hour workshop, so I distilled the content down to the most important points. It’s the ultimate cheat sheet.

Top 10 Tips for Acing the Interview

Tip 1: Get Comfortable Selling Yourself and Your Value

Welcome to Sales 101

• If you don’t tell your story, nobody else will
• We are taught from a young age not to brag or call attention to ourselves

Tip 2: Understand the Different Types of Interviews

There are several different kinds of interviews

• Initial screening interview or “check the box”
• HR interview – screening out OR selling you on the company
• Interview with hiring manager
• Interview with colleague / collaborator
• Panel interview
• Video interview
• Presentation interview
• Executive interview

Tip 3: Understand the Different Types of Conversations

Adjust your responses to the way the questions are asked

• Short questions = short answers
• Longer questions = longer answers with stories to back up your points 

Continue reading →

It was my absolute joy to share some of my hard-won knowledge about low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies with fellow business bootstrappers at The Shift coworking space in Chicago last Thursday.

I realize that I don’t cover small business topics that much on this blog. (I usually do it on Carol Roth’s blog, Business Unplugged.)

But I LOVE helping small business owners. And I have learned a lot over the past five years.

What a great group we had! Everyone participated and seemed to get a lot out of it. Here’s what we talked about:

Marketing Your Biz on a Bootstrapper’s Budget.
(A Big Bang for Small Bucks.)

Tactic 1: Blogging Strategies

Why you should have a blog

• Thought leadership
• SEO (you can contact an internet marketing agency toronto to learn more about this)
• Site ranking

Continue reading →

My latest post on Carol Roth’s blog, Business Unplugged, is really important. Small things can make BIG differences in your business.

You might want to check out “10 Easy Ways to Look Professional So Clients Love You.“

I’m doing my first Blab on Wednesday, March 2. (They’re dragging me kicking and screaming into new technology.) Following my own advice, I am telling myself to just get over it.

Actually, I have watched a Blab or two and they are pretty fun. Are you in job search and over 50? You might want to join us! ‪#‎3DSummit‬ Blab: Disrupting Your Job Search While Female http://3-d-summit.com/our-blabs at 12:30 pm CST / 1:30 pm EST.

Here’s how it went.

How can I summarize 2015? I really struggled with this and put off writing this post for as long as I could. Some great things happened, and I had some major frustrations.

It was definitely a year of transition, and while those are fascinating in retrospect, they’re not that fun to go through.

I often joke that I prefer to coach my clients through transitions than to go through my own. But seriously, don’t most of us? Continue reading →

Who has two thumbs and was nominated as a 2015 Small Business Influencer in the Expert category? This girl! Whoo-hoo!

I am incredibly excited. Please take one second and one click to vote for me. You can even vote on your laptop AND your phone 🙂

Just click the image to the left or the link here to vote on the landing page.

THANK YOU!!!

I will be giving my “Productivity: The Secret Sauce for Job Search” talk at the Career Resource Center in Lake Forest, IL on September 9. If you know anyone in job search or career transition, please share this with them.

This is a talk about tactics and strategies. (I always get excellent evaluations.) We will have a great time – and even learn some stuff in the process.

The talk begins at 1:30 PM sharp. I am guaranteed to be optimally caffeinated and appropriately irreverent. It’s how I roll.

Everybody has their safe place – the place they go to in their head sometimes.

When they think of that place, they start to feel relaxed, or happy, or hopeful.

I have a friend who imagines herself on Main Street at Disney World.

For me, I could be on the beach looking at Lake Michigan in Chicago, but very often I am imagining myself in California. There is something about the stark, craggy dry mountains of Southern California that does it for me.

I like to spend time in Palm Springs and Los Angeles. Being able to pick fruit off a tree in the middle of a city amuses me. On this trip I have been able to pick pomegranates and figs. Heaven!

I couldn’t help myself. I had to pick it. I am off to peel my purloined pomegranate.