Find Your Dream Job: Insider Tips for Finding Work, Advancing your Career, and Loving Your Job

Among human resources professionals, it is commonly held that at least 85 percent of all resumes “suck.” Most resumes are are poorly written and formatted, and–most importantly–they don’t showcase the candidate’s value to the prospective employer. Where does your resume fall? Is it in the mediocre majority or the awesome, “non-sucky” 15%? On this bonus episode of Find Your Dream Job, Dawn Rasmussen, president of Pathfinder Writing and Career Services, shares her advice on crafting a resume that stands out, grabs employers’ attention and lands you the interview. Dawn reads from “The Secret Sauce of Kick-Butt Resume”, her contribution to our book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). If you’re looking for more advice on how to stand out as a stellar job candidate, check out Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). The updated 2016 edition is an A-to-Z reference guide for how to find and land the perfect job.  Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. -- FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:    This is Find You Dream Job. The pod cast that helps you get hired, have the career you want and make a difference in life. I’m Mac Prichard, your host and publisher of Mac’s List. On today’s bonus episode, we’re sharing exclusive content from our new book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond compiles job search tips and career management tools into one simple easy to read guide. It’s the definitive tool kit for anyone looking for meaningful work. The book also includes special contributions from an array of job search experts and today you’ll hear from one of them. Here is Dawn Rasmussen, President of Pathfinder Writing and Career Services, reading her contribution, The Secret Sauce to a Kick-Butt Resume. Dawn Rasmussen:  Ask any Portland area human resource manager, recruiter, hiring manager, or headhunter, and believe it or not, he or she will tell you that at least 85% of all resumes suck. I know. I’ve asked them. The good news is that there’s really a simple solution to this common problem. It’s all about shifting your perspective. You may think this document is all about you, but the truth is, it’s really about them. Them being the employer who’s reading your document. With this staggering statistic in mind, in order to get into the top 10% of awesome resumes, your goal and mission is to start thinking about what you’ve done in the past and start positioning your accomplishments as value. That means not simply including your job duties beneath each employer. You’ve got to do better than that. Now is the time to start keeping track of on-the-job accomplishments. What have you done to make it better? What problems have you solved? How have you helped the company reach its goals? Have you helped make money, save money, or save time? Fear not, you who have not kept track of such important things. Many times the answers to these questions lie in performance reviews, plans of work, staff reports, kudos letters, and many other recaps. If you don’t have access to these documents, then your best guess is your best guess, but always be honest and also be conservative. The same thing goes for quantifying your results. You should always try to put a number on your accomplishment statements that helps answer the question the employers have been thinking about when reading a candidate’s resume. Based on what this person did for the previous employer, what is he or she going to be doing for me? That’s the secret sauce to a kick-butt resume, when you can win them over with results not fluff. Mac Prichard:  If you’re looking for expert advice and insider tips like what you just heard, check out Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. You’ll find everything you need to get a great job whether your in Portland, Oregon, Portland, Maine, or anywhere in between. The 2016 edition includes new content and for the first time ever, it’s available in paperback, as well as in an array of e-reading devices including Kindle, Nook and iBooks. For more information on Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond, visit Macslist.org/book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every day we bring to our jobs unique talents and ideas that nobody else has.  When we have the opportunity to put that creativity to good use, our work becomes more rewarding and our employers and the customers we serve benefit. It is a myth that a creative career means a lifetime of poverty. Nearly 1.4 million Americans work in creative occupations. And while only a small number of those become famous household names, a vast majority maintain successful and rewarding creative careers. This week on Find Your Dream Job, we’re talking all about creative careers. We’re joined by Cory Huff, an actor, writer, and expert on the business of being a creative professional. Cory’s website, TheAbundantArtist.com, provides resources for creative professionals looking to better  market and sell their products and services. Cory shares tips on how to start and maintain a strong, independent, and financially sustainable creative career. In this 32-minute episode you will learn: Why a creative career doesn’t mean you’ll be a starving artist Why "business" and "marketing" can't be dirty words for a creative professional How to build a solid artistic career without being famous or “anointed” The irreplaceable value of relationships for creative professionals This week’s guest: Cory Huff (@AGoodHusband | LinkedIn)Actor and Owner, The Abundant ArtistAuthor, How To Sell Your Art OnlinePortland, Ore. Listener question of the week:  I really want to work for a specific company. I'm thinking about taking a lower level job to get my foot in the door, in hopes I’ll be able to move into the job I want. Is this a good idea? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to communitymanager@macslist.org.  Resources referenced on this week’s show: Pixlr TheAbundantArtist.com Bohemians of the Latin Quarter: Scenes de la Vie de Boheme Matt Richards - Ekko Mobiles Chris Cornell How To Sell Your Art Online The Abundant Artist Conference | July 1-2, 2016 in Portland, Ore. Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gender unfortunately matters in the workplace. Women, on average, earn less than men in virtually every single occupation. In 2014, female full-time workers in the United States made only 79 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 21 percent. That pay gap has barely budged in 10 years and, at the current rate, it won’t close for decades to come. Women also struggle to move out of middle management and break through the glass ceiling into the highest level of leadership.  This week on Find Your Dream Job, we discuss how women can win in the workplace. We explore the dynamics behind gender discrimination and discuss tactics woman can use to overcome systemic hurdles. We’re joined author and journalist Farai Chideya, who has written extensively about race and gender in the workplace. Her newest book, The Episodic Career, explores the future of employment, identity, and personal satisfaction. In this 33-minute episode you will learn: The myriad factors that drive down pay for women Why you should “be your own archivist” and document your accomplishments before leaving a job How to strategically “lean in” when negotiating for salary or other benefits Why the most valuable professional leads can come from people you don’t know well Why gender discrimination is about more than just pay This week’s guest: Farai Chideya (@Farai | LinkedIn)JournalistAuthor, The Episode Career: The Future of Work in AmericaNew York, N.Y. Listener question of the week:  How can I position myself as an industry leader or expert in my field? And how important is it to do this? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to communitymanager@macslist.org.  Resources referenced on this week’s show: AllBusinessSchools.com | Winning at Work? A Look at Women in Business Today Farai Chideya MomsRising.org The Episode Career: The Future of Work in America Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation--and Positive Strategies for Change Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard: This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired at the career you want and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard your host and publisher of Mac's List. Our show was brought to you by Mac's List and by our book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. To learn more about the book and the updated edition that we published on February 1st, visit macslist.org/ebook. Gender matters in the workplace. Women on average earn less than men in virtually every single occupation. In 2014, for example, female full-time workers in the US made only $0.79 for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 21%. That pay gap has barely budged in 10 years and at the current rate it won't close for decades to come. Women also struggle to move out of middle management and break through what's called the glass ceiling. Even though women hold more than half of the professional jobs in the United States they only make up 34% of middle managers, 14% of executive officers, and a mere 4% of CEOs. This week on Find Your Dream Job our topic is how women can win at work. I talk with author Farai Chideya about the factors that push down wages for women and how you can negotiate better with your boss. Ben Forstag has an infographic that gives you the facts about the gender gap and other problems women face in the workplace, and Cecilia Bianco answers a question about how you can position yourself as an industry leader. Ben, Cecilia, it's good to check in with you. Let's talk about this week's topic. What examples in your careers have you seen of gender discrimination. Cecilia Bianco: Not necessarily in my career, but I remember when I was in high school I had a friend whose mom was a news anchor and she had found out that her co-anchor was earning a lot more than her. It was a pretty big debacle and it ended in her leaving because she wasn't able to get the money she deserved from that company. It was in the media and it felt like a huge deal at the time. I don't think things have changed much since then, so it's a big topic for us today. Ben Forstag: Let me share a story from my wife's career. When she was out interviewing she happened to be visibly simple fact is they didn't want to hire someone who was going to take 3 to 9 months off to take care of a child, but those are pressures that many women face. Those are situations that many women see themselves in, and so finding ways to work around that is certainly key to helping women achieve equality in the workplace with men. Mac Prichard: A story that comes to mind for me is when I was in high school I had a job working at a restaurant at a hotel. I was in the morning shift with another person, a woman in her 30s. I was 17. It was a summer job for me and I enjoyed it, but she and I, I learned, made exactly the same amount of money, which to me was even, that kind of wage at 17 seemed extraordinary. It struck me for a lot of different reasons, but one was that for me it was a part-time job and I was saving for college and spending a lot of my income on things that teenagers buy. Music, fast food, putting gasoline in a car. For her, it was her whole income. I remember we didn't make a lot, just a little more than minimum wage, and she had to save for several months just to move from one apartment to another. That made a big impression on me. Ben, let's turn to the resource that you found for us this week. You're out there every week looking for blogs, podcasts, and books. What do you have for us? Ben Forstag: I want to start off this week with an infographic I found all about women in the business world. This comes from the website allbusinessschools.com and it entitled Winning at Work? A Look at Women in Business Today. I'll admit it's a little bit odd to talk about an infographic, which is decidedly a visual medium, on a podcast, which is a audio medium, but I'm going to try to do this anyway. I'm a big sucker for a good infographic. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah, and this one is particularly good. It's super in-depth and it makes what you're seeing easier to comprehend. Mac Prichard: I certainly love visuals too. If you ever visit us here at the Mac's List office you'll find an infographic on the refrigerator. Ben Forstag: What I really liked about this infographic was that it nicely frames both the accomplishment women have made in the business world as well as the lingering barriers they face. For example, in 1965 only 1.2% of graduates from the Harvard Business School were women. Want to take a guess of what that number's going to be in 2017? Cecilia Bianco: I hope that it's a lot higher, but ... Ben Forstag: You are right. It's going to be 41% female, which is still not on par with men but certainly a huge jump. This is representative of a general overall trend of women excelling in terms of higher education. Right now women have 60% of all the undergraduate degrees, 60% of all the graduate degrees, and 45% of all advanced business degrees, which is really exceptional. The infographic also includes information about the highest paid female executives and other benchmarks of success for women in the workplace. Of course we all know that women face a lot of professional challenges, and to be blunt the playing field is not equal at all. Across all levels of employment, as Mac mentioned earlier, women only make about $0.79 on the dollar compared to men. Things are slowly getting better, but there's a lot of room for improvement. One of the most shocking facts I found in this infographic was this, that at the current rate of progress, women won't achieve pay equity with men until 2058. Cecilia Bianco: Wow. That's way too long. Hopefully that doesn't play out in reality. Ben Forstag: Are you willing to wait, Cecilia? Cecilia Bianco: Not really, no. Mac Prichard: Not to be gloomy, but it is a gloomy number. When I got out of college, Cecilia, I remember going to an event and someone there had a button that said $0.63, and this was way back in 1980, 35 years ago now. I said, "What's that about?" She said, "That's what a woman makes compared to a man." I thought that number, "Oh, that can't last. That's going to go up." Here we are 35 years later. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. We're crawling at this pace. Ben Forstag: It's bizarre because this is such a political issue that gets brought up over and over again, but we just don't see a whole lot of movement on it. The other shocking status in this infographic was that women are significantly underrepresented in the highest levels of executive management, as Mac brought up. The one stat I pulled out that I thought was crazy is that women are only 16.9% of board members at fortune 500 companies. That's just shocking. I mean, most of these companies at least 50% of their customers are women, but the folks running the organization are not, which is insane. If this is a topic you're interested in, and I think we all should be, I'd suggest you check out this infographic. It's "Winning at Work? A Look at Women in Business Today." I'll put the URL in our show notes. I also want to do a quick plug for an organization that I've a friend who works for that is doing a lot help close that pay gap and helping women in the workforce. The organization is called momsrising.org. One of the reasons that women face so many barriers in the workplace is because they have most of the burden of taking care of children. That means watching the children on a day-to-day basis from 9-to-5 when many people go to work. That means taking maternity leave for young children. That means taking time off when your child's sick, and frankly a lot of organizations don't offer paid sick leave, maternity leave, or any childcare benefits as part of an employment package. MomsRising works with local governments and state governments to try to implement mandatory paid sick days, mandatory maternity leave, issues like that. If, again, this is an issue that you find important and that you want to do something about, I certainly suggest you check out their website. It's momsrising.org. Mac Prichard: Thanks, Ben. Ben loves to do research, but he also welcomes your help. If you have an idea for him or suggestion, a favorite website, book, please write him. His email address is ben@macslist.org. Now let's turn to you, our listeners, and to Cecilia Bianco, our community manager. Cecilia, you're here with us every week to answer our listener's questions. What do you have for us this week? Cecilia Bianco: This week I had a reader tweet at me and ask, "How can I position myself as an industry leader expert in my field, and how important is it to do this?" When I think of industry leaders and experts, I think of people who have a strong and present voice in their field. Having a voice these days typically starts online through platforms we all have access to and can use, blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and really any platform where your voice is going to reach many people. If you want to position yourself as an expert or leader, you want to get your voice out to as many people and groups as possible and find ways to prove your credibility. Writing's a good place to start since it's an easy way to share your thoughts, especially online, and build a following of people who agree with you. Speaking at professional or industry groups in your sector is another great way to prove credibility because 1, someone has endorsed you and your voice in order to book you to speak, and 2, you're growing your network through new people in the audience. Mac, you're seen as a community leader in our field, how do you think others can position themselves as experts or leaders? Mac Prichard: A strategy that could work for anybody is to be generous and share what you know. You've laid out specific strategies that people could follow to do that, Cecilia, whether it's sharing their ideas through blogs or social media posts, I think that would serve anybody well. I would just add in addition to being generous in sharing your expertise, be consistent. You don't have to publish on the hour every hour, but if you are going to commit to, say, doing a blog, commit to a schedule. It could be as little as once a week, or if you're going to run a social media account or post, say, to your LinkedIn page, find a schedule that works for you and then stick to it and people will come to expect to hear from you. They'll look forward to it as well. Ben Forstag: I'll just echo what Mac said. I think it's so important to help other people in your field. When you help others you really position yourself as a leader and as someone with integrity. I think if you can match subject matter expertise and integrity you can't lose. Cecilia Bianco: To answer the second part, as far as how important this is to be and industry leader, I think that really depends on what level you're at in your career. Obviously entry-level people can and should mimic the actions of leaders in their field, but it's unlikely at that stage that others are going to look to you as an expert or a leader. Once you're at a higher level, it's a little bit easier because you likely have years of experience that back up your opinions and your ideas. When you're just starting out I don't think it's a priority to be seen as an expert or a leader. It's more important to focus on getting that experience that you need. Once you're further along, making an effort to become an expert in your field can go a long way towards career stability and future success. Do you guys agree with that assessment? Ben Forstag: Absolutely. I think it's important that being an expert in your field, it's more than just style. Frankly, you see a lot of folks in the online world who, they produce a lot of content and a lot of style behind it but there's not much substance behind it. I think unless you really have mastery of your subject and you're new to the field, trying to position yourself as an expert is probably not going to work. You need to get a little bit of experience before you can really sell yourself as that expert. Cecilia Bianco: Right. I think that has to do a lot with proving your credibility before you try to be a leader in that field. Ben Forstag: Absolutely. Mac Prichard: I agree. One way to get that experience and then acquire that knowledge is buy curating content that others create. One of the biggest challenges that we all face is that we're overwhelmed by information. Somebody who sifts through what's out there in a particular field and presents the best ideas that they're seeing is doing a great service and building relationships and providing value and serving others along the way. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah, I definitely agree. Mac Prichard: Okay. Well, thank you Cecilia. If you have a question for us here at Mac's List, please email us at communitymanager@macslist.org. The segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of our book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. We're making the complete Mac's List guide even better. We've added new content and published the book on multiple e-reader platforms. Now that we've launched the revised version of the book on February 1st, for the first time you can read Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond on your Kindle, your Nook, or your iPad. You can also order a paperback edition. Up until now you've only been able to find it as a .PDF, but whatever the format, our goal is the same: to give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. To learn more visit macslist.org/ebook and sign up for our newsletter. We'll send you special publication updates, share exclusive book content, and provide you with great prices. Now let's turn to this week's guest expert. We're pleased to have with us Farai Chideya, who is an award-winning author, journalist, professor, and lecturer. She has a new book out. It's called The Episodic Career: How to Thrive at Work in the Age of Disruption. I had the chance to read it over the weekend. I highly recommend it. Definitely add it to your Amazon wishlist. Farai currently teaches at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She also frequently appears on public radio and cable television. She's a graduate of Harvard University where she earned a BA. Farai, thanks for joining us. Farai Chideya: I'm really delighted. Mac Prichard: It's a pleasure to have you, particularly to talk about this week's topic, how women can win at work. I think when many listeners think about the subject, the first thing they go to is the pay gap. We talked about that earlier in the show. What are some of the factors, Farai, that drive down pay for women? Farai Chideya: One of the most prominent ones in our day and age is the life cycle of women versus men. Women are much more likely, even now, than men to be involved in hands-on care giving. Of course immediately we think about children and women leaving jobs or not going on a fast track at a career because they have to, and want to, spend time with their children. There's also elder care giving, there's any number of moments at which people of both genders are asked to step up and women are somewhat expected to step up. I think that there's certainly a lot to women wanting to be a part of care giving, but there's also a cultural expectation around it. There's also, unfortunately, not a lot of infrastructure when it comes to women being able to step out of the workforce and then step back in. That's one of the biggest problems is that when women take that time for care giving or for other reasons and try to reenter the workforce, they find it very difficult to get back in. Mac Prichard: Let's pause there for a moment, Farai. What advice do you have for women who are about to take that time away from the workforce and for those who want to get back into it? All of us here at Mac's List, we hear from a lot of job seekers. This is a common issue and people are looking for successful strategies that they can use to make that transition. What have you seen work? Farai Chideya: I definitely think networking is the biggest solution. The reality is that most people have some set of close network ties. That is not actually what is most likely to get you a job. It's the weaker ties of people who are on the outer edges of your circle who have very different life experiences, sometimes than you, and they're seeing you through a little bit more of a remote lens. They're not your best friend. Maybe they're that person you went to college with and you see at a reunion every now and then. It's really important to go to those people to expand your vision of what opportunities are available to you. Also, as long as there's a good base for the relationship, even people who are not deep personal friends of yours will give that much needed recommendation and say, "You should really hire Jane or you should really hire Keisha. This is someone who I can vouch for." That very specific, personal, "I'm vouching for this person," is the way to go and often is a way for women to reenter the workforce. There's also great job training programs available to some people, not everyone. In the book I profile people who have switched careers through federal job retraining programs, sometimes by teaching themselves, so self-taught computer programmers or people who teach themselves even something like scrapbooking, which now is a skill that you can market to other people. People hire professional scrapbookers to help them organize their memories. There's also sometimes a transition where you can work part-time in a new field while raising children or while care giving, and then work your way all the way into a full-time job. Mac Prichard: Okay. If you're getting ready to get back into the workforce, think about how networking can help you. I agree completely with your point about the value of weak ties. It's surprising how sometimes the most valuable leads and recommendations can come from people that you only know slightly. I'm also hearing you say look into job training programs that might be available through state or federal government. There might be opportunities there. Then think about reinvention about new careers or opportunities. Those are good strategies for people getting back into the workforce. What about people who are getting ready to leave to care for a parent or a child, a woman, what should she think about before she leaves with an eye towards that reentry, which might be months or even years later? Farai Chideya: First of all, there's an increasing tendency of people to do exit documentation when leaving a job. This is obviously leaving a job under friendly circumstances. Let's say that you're pregnant or you are taking time out for a family leave and you know that you're probably not going to come back for a while. Sit down and say, "I want to just document the work that I've done over the past year and the skill sets I have. I'd like us to produce a document that I can take with me." You have to be delicate about it. If you're not planning to leave the company permanently you can say, "I'd love you to put this in my personnel file." Also keep a copy for yourself because workplaces change. If you know that you're really not coming back, but you're on good terms with who you're working with, you just say, "Well, you know I know there's probably not going to be a job for me by the time I'm ready to work again, but I'd love you to write a permanent documentation and recommendation that I can take with me when I either come back to this company or go elsewhere." You have to basically be your own archivist. You have to document your own career, you have to have people sign off on things, and don't just go back to someone 5 years later and expect them to know what you did. Take care of that beforehand and take it with you. Mac Prichard: Yeah, that's a great idea. An even more tactical suggestion I've seen people follow is just getting something as simple as LinkedIn endorsements or recommendations from supervisors and co-workers before you leave a position. Whether you're moving onto a new organization or you're going to leave the workforce for a period. Let's talk about pay. You mentioned how the life cycle, how it influences wages for women, what about negotiating salary? What advice do you have for salary negotiations? Farai Chideya: Well, this is a huge hot issue right now because women have been told to lean in. Then women have been told you can't lean in, that's fiction. Really, you have to be strategic about how you lean in. There's a professor at Carnegie Mellon, Linda Babcock, and she wrote a book, Women Don't Ask, Negotiation and the Gender Divide. Basically, she has done all these studies that show that when women make a direct ask in a negotiation like, "I got this job offer from these other people. Can you raise my salary?" Companies react fairly badly to that for women only. Men are allowed to say, "This is my market value. I'm laying it on the table. What can you do for me?" Women are viewed as disloyal. It's a very gendered and emotionally fraught workplace culture around women and negotiation. You have to make a case as a woman for why your advancement or your higher pay or whatever is good for the company, good for everyone. Women are being asked to make a group argument, whereas men are allowed to make a bit more of a unilateral argument. Just understanding that allows you to frame things. Mac Prichard: Money matters a lot in negotiation about pay. What are some of the other measures of success that women should consider when going into those conversations? Farai Chideya: Certainly women and men should also consider, "How am I going to be evaluated?" Some companies unfortunately really look at productivity as just hours in the office. You may not be that great, but if you're there for 8 to 10 hours you are amazing. I co-authored a book previous to this about women in the technology industry and this one woman talked about how she was told by her boss that she was working "mommy hours." She worked the same number of hours as men, but because she was raising a child she wanted to start earlier in the day and leave earlier in the day. She was working just as hard doing just as much work, but she was working "mommy hours." She left the company. She was like, "I'll never succeed here if people don't recognize how hard I'm working." One of the things you need to ask is, based on my needs, what is my desired schedule and can my company accommodate that? If the company can accommodate it, you need to be very clear and say, "I'd like to come to work at 5:30 in the morning. I know most people won't be here. I'll do my heavy duty project work there. Then when people come in we'll do our collaborative work and I'm going to be gone by 3:30 in the afternoon and go home and be with my family." If you get a negative reaction to that, you have to think about it. I also don't want to pretend that it's just something that women with children need to think about because again there are many different factors. I have friends who are serious athletes well into their 40s and 50s, and they play in ... One of my friends actually is the reigning Golden Gloves champion, "senior champion," which just means that she's in her 40s. She's a female boxer. She's married. She has 2 kids. She's got a great, happy life, but boxing is important to her, and so she has a schedule where she can go and be this amazing national champion boxer. You may have any number of reasons for asking for a specific schedule, but scheduling is really important. Mac Prichard: Certainly that's an issue that comes up a lot when employers talk about millennials in the workforce wanting to have flexibility. I think your point here is an important one. It's all age groups and women and men that are increasingly look for that kind of flexibility. The glass ceiling is real. It exists in the workplace. What advice do you have for women who are seeking promotions and how they can move up? Farai Chideya: I do want to point out although we've been talking about the life cycle, which is how I framed things initially, that according to studies at least 12% of the pay differential between women and is due to "other factors," which basically means sexism. It's a polite way of saying sexism. When you control for everything, women still earn less. I definitely feel like when it comes to looking at the big picture of pay, time, advancement, you have to seek out people who you trust and then if they slip in that trust you have to remind them of the kind of social contract that holds you together. Like, "Well, I don't want to be annoying about this, but when Jason asked for so and so, he got such and such." There's a precedent for this, or if there isn't a precedent for something you're asking for in your workplace you can acknowledge that and say, "I know no one has ever done this before, but based on my record of productivity, blah, blah, blah." When you're talking about whether it's salary, scheduling, all of the other factors that are important, you have to really seek out people you trust, but also be willing to give them a little nudge if they're not acknowledging your skills. Mac Prichard: Right. Be clear about what you want and have a clear ask. Farai Chideya: Exactly. Mac Prichard: We need to start wrapping up, Farai. Tell us about what's coming up next for you. Farai Chideya: Well, I'm touring with this book The Episodic Career. I'm doing some dates in various parts of the country. For me, I just did a date in New York and it was at the Harvard Club of New York, and so one presumes a very educated crowd and a white collar crowd. Let me tell you, everybody there was focused on the anxieties of the modern workplace. Whether I'm talking to people who are more middle income, higher income, everyone is anxious right now. I'm really doing a lot of active listening as I get to enjoy going around the country and talking to people about this book. I'm really listening to what people have to say because there's a lot of anxiety and fear. One of the things I really want to stress to people is that we all deserve to lead good lives. Work should not be a constant fly in the ointment. If your work is a fly in the ointment, you really need to think expansively about what kind of work you want and how it fits in with your life and look towards those personal factors of satisfaction and being in a good, comfortable zone with the choices you've made. We all make choices. Not all of them are comfortable for us, but you have to at the end of the day say, "I made the choice that's right for me." It's about self evaluation. In the book I have a tool called the work-life matrix that really tries to integrate the personal with the work because at the end of the day it's not just about a pay check, it's not just about advancement. It's about what kind of life you get to lead. Mac Prichard: I was impressed by the number of tool and tactics that you had in your book. They're practical things that people can do to act on those choices. I encourage people to dig into it. Good, and I imagine the dates of your book tour are on your website. Farai Chideya: Yes. If you go to farai.com, F-A-R-A-I.com, you'll find both the dates of the book tour and some press that we've gotten and a few different excerpts of the book. There's a lot of material there and hopefully I'll be getting to a lot more cities over the course of the coming months. Mac Prichard: Good. I know people can also find you on Twitter. Your handle is @farai, F-A-R-A-I. We'll be sure to include that, the website, and the books you've mentioned in the show notes as well. Farai, thank you so much for joining us and it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Farai Chideya: I have been so delighted and I really think the work that you're doing is critically important. Thanks so much. Mac Prichard: We're back in the Mac's List studio. Cecilia, Ben, what are your thoughts after hearing Farai? Cecilia Bianco: I thought she had a bunch of really great information and tips for how to navigate your work life. I loved her point about being your own archivist because I think a lot of people forget to do that and then they regret it later on. That was an important takeaway for me. I just liked how she made work more about what type of life you want to lead and now just what type of job you want to be doing. I think that goes a long way towards your work life balance and your happiness overall. She had great tips. Mac Prichard: Good. What are your thoughts, Ben? Ben Forstag: My blood is still boiling over that mommy hours response that one of her clients got at an employer. That's just ridiculous. Obviously, I'm not a mother myself, but I am a father, and I understand the value and importance of getting home and spending time with your kids before they go to go bed. Any employer who doesn't recognize that, I can't think of anything nice to say about those kind of organizations. In terms of tactical advice what she gave, the most important thing is being clear with your ask and with your demands of an employer. Unfortunately you can't just expect employers to give you what you want or to respect the work-life balance, so you need to go in with targeted requests and say, "Here's the value I'm bringing to the organization and here's what I expect back in return." Hopefully you've got reasonable employer who will meet those requirements that you have. Mac Prichard: I think having a clear ask is just vital. I think I've made this point before on the show. There's an old lobbyist I know, or experienced lobbyist I should say, who says the definition of a failed meeting is when you get up from that appointment and there's no clear next steps. That happens because people don't have a clear ask. It's great advice. Thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. If you like what you hear on the show, you can help us by leaving a review and a rating at iTunes. This increases our standing in the iTunes career chart and helps us reach more people and help more job seekers. We have 2 reviews we'd like to share with you this week. Ben, would you like to share one? Ben Forstag: Sure. This one comes from [boney girl 00:32:16] who writes, "This is really valuable stuff. It kind of smashed old assumptions and expectations and offered a totally new approach that is energizing and exciting. Thanks for the wake up kick in the butt." You're welcome. Glad you found value there. Mac Prichard: All right. I have a review from [red dirt girl 00:32:33] who writes, "I will be graduating with my Bachelor's degree in 1 year and this is giving me so many helpful tips and recommendations that I'm already putting to use." Thank you red dirt girl for sharing that and we hope that you'll take a moment and leave your own rating and review. In the meantime, thanks for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Few people's careers play out exactly as planned. Changes of interest, new opportunities, and life in-general all interfere with the perfect, linear career plans we made with high school guidance counselor. But even if you don't know exactly where you career is going, you can still control its direction. The key is being clear about what's important to you as a person and a professional. You don't need a detailed roadmap--just some guiding principles. On this bonus episode of Find Your Dream Job, Ben Forstag, Mac's List managing director, shares the fundamental concepts that have driven that have animated his career. Ben reads "Four Principles to Guide Your Career", his contribution to Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). If you’re looking for more advice on building a meaningful and rewarding career, check out Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). The updated 2016 edition will help you get clear about your professional goals and provide you with actionable steps for getting where you want to be. Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! -- Full Transcript Mac Prichard:    This is Find You Dream Job. The pod cast that helps you get hired, have the career you want and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host and publisher of Mac's List. On today's bonus episode, we're sharing exclusive content from our new book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond compiles job search tips and career management tools into one simple easy to read guide. It's the definitive tool kit for anyone looking for meaningful work. The book also includes special contributions from an array of job search experts and today you'll hear from one of them. Here's Ben Forstag, Managing Director of Mac's List reading his contribution, Four Principles to Guide Your Career. Ben Forstag:  Four Principles to Guide Your Career. Careers develop continuously over forty or fifty years of our working lives. They're subject to both internal forces, like family dynamics and changes of interest and external ones like the economy and the local job market. Accordingly, I've always been dubious about mapping out an entire career in advance. The linear progressions of model career development, law school, clerkship, federal prosecutor, night circuit, supreme court, rarely play out so cleanly in real life. I've certainly worked to navigate my career's direction. However, rather than targeting a predetermined destination, I focus on the journey itself. My career plan is less a road map, than it is a set of four practical guidelines. Here they are. Do what you're good at. We've all heard the dictum do what you love. This is great advice if you have strong passions and a clear vision for how to monetize them, but sometimes, the things we love most don't translate into a job that pays the bills. At least, not right away. In these situations, I urge people to focus first on their skills rather than their passions. Do what you do well. Skills can transfer to different jobs, industries and interest. Focusing on professional strengths gives your career flexibility while also eliminating potential avenues to work in the field of your choice. Ultimately, passion and skill are two sides of the same coin. There's a reason you're good at some things and not others. Your skill set is a reflection of the interest and enjoyment you derive from doing those activities. In this sense, doing what you're good is actually a way to do what you love. Keep learning. Taken by itself, the do what you're good at rule could lead to a monotonous and boring career. That's why it's important to stay curious and explore new interests and skills. Read books and blogs, take classes, network outside of your field. Do anything that exposes you to new ideas. You may discover professional interests that you never imagined. Throughout my own career, I've tried to say, 'yes' to learning opportunities whenever they appear. As a result, I've gained new passions for statistics, data analytics and coding. A surprising development for someone who went out of his way to avoid math classes in college. Stay balanced. It's good to be passionate about your job, but it's also important to have passions outside of the office. One of the best things you can do for your career is to have a healthy work/life balance which provides an escape valve from the stresses of work. It can also insulate you from the inevitable down periods of your professional life. Live your own dream. This is the final rule, but perhaps the most important. You have to evaluate your career according to your own criteria, not anyone else's. Measuring yourself against other people's success is like trying to live their dream rather than your own. Try to focus on what you want in life to do. Without worrying about what others may think. Remember, professional contentment is neither objective nor relative. The only question is whether your job and career path bring you happiness. Mac Prichard:  If you're looking for expert advice and insider tips like what you just heard, check out Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. You'll find everything you need to get a great job whether your in Portland, Oregon, Portland, Maine, or anywhere in between. The 2016 edition includes new content and for the first time ever, it's available in paperback, as well as in an array of e-reading devices including Kindle, Nook and iBooks. For more information on Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond, visit Macslist.org/book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everybody knows that changing jobs regularly is the new normal. The days of working for just one or two employers through your adult life are long gone. But what about switching not just jobs, but careers? Most of us will be in the workplace for four decades or more, so it’s a choice each of us will face. In fact, we may have three or four distinct careers over the course of our working lives. This week on Find Your Dream Job, we’re talking about the challenges and benefits of changing your career. Our guest expert is Michelle Hynes a career coach who specializes in helping people in the midst of work transitions. Michelle has, herself, gone through several career changes. She shares her insights on how to reinvent yourself, not just to improve your marketability, but also to increase your happiness. In this 30-minute episode you will learn: Why everyone--no matter your age--needs to plan for career change How changing careers can empower you as a professional and improve your life How to use informational interview to guide your career change The importance of continuing education, training, and certification How to manage the uncertainty involved in switching careers Resources for older professionals looking for an “encore career” This week’s guest: Michelle Hynes (@mhynesPDX | LinkedIn)Principal, Michelle Hynes ConsultingPortland, Ore. Listener question of the week:  What advice do you have for working professionals who would like to shift careers to a new field? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to communitymanager@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: Michelle Hynes: Coach, Consultant Growth Guide Encore.org: Second Acts for the Greater Good The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Life Encore 2016 Conference: February 9-11, 2016 The 20-Minute Networking Meeting Laura Carstensen: The Longevity Dividend Laura Carstensen: Older People Are Happier Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you make a New Year’s resolution to do something different in your career? The list of changes you seek in the next 12 months could include a raise, a promotion, or a new job. Or maybe you want to improve your professional skills by stepping up your networking, increasing your industry knowledge, or adopting new work habits.   Whatever your goal, you’re not alone. More than 40% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, according to some estimates. (Alas, research suggests only about 8% of people stick to those resolutions.) So what are you doing to ensure your professional resolutions turn into a reality? This week on Find Your Dream Job, Mac talks with Victoria Crispo, career development expert and manager of career content at Idealist. Victoria shares her advice on how to set and attain achievable career goals so that 2016 is a year you move closer to your dream job. In this 33-minute episode you will learn: How to unpack your big career goals into specific and measurable objectives Why you need an accountability partner The biggest mistakes to avoid when you’re setting career goals Tips for making big (and possibly scary) career choices This week’s guest: Victoria Crispo (@_AskVictoria | LinkedIn)Manager of Career ContentIdealistNew York, N.Y. Listener question of the week:  Should people who want to relocate move before they have a new job lined up? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: Ten Questions You Should Ask When Facing A Tough Career Decision The Scientifically Proven Way to Overcome Your Career Fears IdealistCareers.org Stickk.com Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. -- FULL TRANSCRIPT   Mac Prichard:   This is "Find your Dream Job," the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host and publisher of "Mac's List." Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and by our book, "Land your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond." To learn more about the book and the updated edition that we're publishing in February, on February 1st, actually, visit MacsList.org/ebook. A new year means a new start, and as 2016 beings, you're probably making resolutions to something different in your career. The list of changes you want to see in the next 12 months may include a raise, a promotion, and a new job, or maybe you want to improve your professional skills by stepping up your networking, increasing your industry knowledge, or adopting new work habits. Whatever your goal, you're not alone. More than 40% of Americans make New Years resolutions, according to some estimates. In spite of those good intentions, however, most of us don't have much success in keeping our promises to ourselves. Researchers at the University of Scranton found that only 8% of Americans achieve their goals. This week on "Find your Dream Job," we're talking about resolutions, why most of them fail, and why those that stick work. We're recording this in January, but the issues that we're talking about and the information we'll share with you today you can use in any month. Our guest expert this week is Victoria Crispo, who will tell us what people who are successful at keeping their resolutions do differently. Cecilia Bianco, our community manager, has advice about what to do if you're thinking about this is the year that you move to a new town. Ben Forstag, our managing director, has 2 blog posts you can use to make difficult career decisions. All right, Cecilia, Ben, let's talk about your New Years resolutions before we move onto our guest expert and our resources this week. What's on your list? Cecilia Bianco:  Well, for me, I try to make my resolutions based on something I learned in the previous year. Last year, I learned that if I don't keep up with having all my work organized, then I kind of start to fall apart. In the coming year, I want to make a huge effort to stay organized throughout the entire year. Ben Forstag:     For me, I want to be better about getting out there networking on a regular basis, going to industry events, and just social mixers here in town, just so I can meet other professionals in Portland and in other areas. In the past, I've always done that sporadically, and my goal now is to set a regular schedule, a modest schedule, maybe once or twice a month, but have a schedule and go do that consistently. Mac Prichard:    Good. For me, I've found in the past that I have the most success when I just focus on just one or two things, so one of my resolutions last year was to publish the Mac's List book. We brought that out as a PDF this year. The 3 of us have talked about the new e-course that we hope to introduce in the second half of the year, and that's on my to-do list. I'm curious, before we move on, are there tips that you have for our listeners about once you make those resolutions, the things you do that you find make it more likely that they'll happen? Cecilia Bianco:  I find that if I set aside time on my calendar to actually meet that goal, then I'll end up doing it. Setting a weekly reminder on Fridays, or something like that, "It's time to get organized," will keep me on track. Mac Prichard:    I'm also impressed, Cecilia, we share our calendars as a team, when I see that you blocked out time on your calendar to do certain tasks. That prevents the rest of us from interrupting you by scheduling meetings or appointments. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah, it helps. Ben Forstag:    I think for me it's about setting realizable goals for yourself. There's always this inclination, when you set a resolution, to say, like, "I'm going to go from not running ever to running a marathon this year." That's a nice audacious goal, but sometimes it's just too much. It's really hard to reach that goal. The moment you find that you're not on the right step in the progress, you just give up. I would say for me, my goal is not to go to a networking each week. It's once a month, right. It's a modest goal. I can do it. It's achievable, and if I can do that for the next 6 months, then maybe I can adjust my plan and say, "It will be twice a month, now, or 3 times a month, or once every week." Just setting realistic goals that you know you can hit, but that are going to create a real effective change in your life. Mac Prichard:    Keep it realistic. Put it on your calendar, and those are ways you can make it happen. Speaking of resources, let's turn to Ben, who is out there all the time looking for tools you can use. What have you found for us this week, Ben? Ben Forstag:   This week, we're talking about career resolutions. Resolutions, as you know, often involve some kind of change, taking a new job position, going back to school, confronting your professional challenges, and things like that. Change can be scary, right? Especially if we're talking about taking a step into the unknown, something that you're unfamiliar with, taking that new job, where it's a big question mark of what it's really going to be like. This week, I'm sharing 2 blog posts that I've found that can help you manage your fears and make the right career decisions, the right career decisions for yourself, that is. The first post is from the Life Hack blog, and it's titled, "10 Questions You Should Ask When Facing a Tough Career Decision." The author provides some good, high-level questions you should think about whenever your career is at a fork in the road. I'm going to kind of cover this broadly, here. It's a post I'd suggest you go through and read because the author does go into each of these questions in detail. In general, his questions are: Are you willing to learn new things? Will you learn about yourself? Does this new opportunity scare you? Does a new opportunity change the way you think about success? For example, have you been thinking about success solely in terms of money, and then this new opportunity re-frames success as fulfillment, social good, or something like that? Does it excite you to talk about it? Does it affect people in your life, and how does it affect them? Is it fiscally responsible? Does it elevate your skills? In other words, how does this position position you for future career choices you have to make? Is it an advancement in skills and opportunities, or is it stepping back? Is it in line with your brand? Does it provide value? In other words, does it solve major problems or improve the quality of life? Simply, these aren't clear yes-no questions. This is not the cheat sheet for making decisions in your life. These are really more open prompts. They get you thinking about the full impact, cost, and benefits of a prospective change. I love how each question frames the decision-making process around your own needs as a professional. I'd really suggest you check that out. Again, it's, "10 Question You Should Ask When Facing a Tough Career Decision," and it's in the Life Hack blog. I'll have the URL to that in the show notes. Mac Prichard:    That's a great list. One thought that occurred to me as you were talking, Ben, is a question I saw posed on a different blog, which is: When you think about how you want to be known professionally, whether it's as a manager, speaker, or a writer, ask yourself: How are you spending your time doing those things, and does your calendar reflect that? If it doesn't, then something's out of whack. Ben Forstag: Yeah. I think these questions are kind of the micro way of getting at that general, big question in there because I think sometimes that's a little bit too big of a thing to figure out or to put into your mind. This really gets at that. I particularly like the question about, "Does it fit with your brand?" That's just a fancy way of saying, "Does this fit with who you see yourself as and who you want to be as a professional?" Sometimes, people make decisions that don't fit with their brand. I think, at the long run, that's typically a bad decision. It's something you want to think about when you're making that big career change, whatever kind of change that is. The other blog post I want to share is from the Muse. It's called, "The Scientifically-Proven Way to Overcome Your Career Fears." I'll admit, this title is a little bit click-baity, but I think the content in here is really good. We can excuse that title. We all know that sometimes fear immobilizes us and makes it almost impossible to make a good career decision. I know this has been true for myself in the past. I was once in a job that I was miserable at. Every day was painful to go to work. I didn't like it here at all. I didn't leave because I had this voice in my head that says, "What happens if you leave? You'll never get another job. You'll be destitute on the street." That's all just crazy talk in your head. (laughter) Mac Prichard:    I think we've all had that, that vision. Ben Forstag:    So we're all a little crazy, right? Mac Prichard:    Mine involves sleeping in a cardboard box. Ben Forstag: Okay, well maybe we can be neighbors, when we meet. I like this blog because it shares some tips on how you can overcome that knee-jerk fear reaction that you have, which is often not based in anything real. The author borrows from some controlled exposure strategies that psychologists use to treat other fears, like the fear of flying, or arachnophobia. Basically, it's a 3-step process. 1: Analyzing the fear, figuring out where that fear comes from, what it's costing you, how it manifests, and so forth. 2: Creating a plan to slowly expose yourself to that fearful situation so that you can give yourself a little leeway and test the waters without jumping right into something that you find scary. Then, 3: Executing on that plan in a meaningful way. I also like that the examples the author uses here about fears in a workplace situation. It's not just about switching jobs, which is a great unknown out there, but also about issues like how to confront a boss that you have issues with, which can be a very scary situation, or the fear of meeting personal professional expectations, which is one I, frankly, struggle with. Again, that blog is, "The Scientifically-Proven Way to Overcome Your Career Fears." It's on the Muse blog. Again, the link will be in the show notes. Mac Prichard:    Thank you, Ben. If you've got a suggestion for Ben, please let us hear from you. You can write him to his email address. It's ben@macslist.org. Let's turn to our inbox, the high-tech mailbag, and hear from you, our listeners. Cecilia joins us to answer one of your questions. Cecilia, what are you hearing from listeners this week? Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah, this week our questions is, "Should people who want to relocate move before they have a new job lined up?" That's a great question. I don't necessarily think there's a general yes or no to this question. It really just depends on your circumstances and how much of a risk it's going to be for you to relocate without first having a source of income. That being said, I do think it's easier to get a job once you're in the city that you want to work in. If you're able to relocate without taking a huge financial or personal risk, I would probably suggest it. Ben and Mac, you've both relocated more than once. Did you move before you had a job? Ben Forstag:    Well, I've done both. Back in the early aughts, I was living in Spain. My visa in Spain ran out. I had to move back to the States and didn't have time to find a job beforehand. Without a job, I moved to Washington D.C., somehow convinced an apartment building to let me move in without any provable income. It took me a while to find a job there. It was scary, but in that situation, I didn't really have many other choices, so I did that. When I moved to Portland, I actually got a job lined up before I moved out here. I think that was a unique situation, though, because first, it's pretty rare, but second, I had a very strong case to make that I was moving to Portland whether I had a job or not. I think that reassured the employer that this wasn't just some flighty application. In the case of moving to Portland, I said, "My wife and I already have plans to move to Oregon. Here's the move date. We've already lined up housing and everything else." The employer knew that I was a real candidate. I wasn't just someone from Washington D.C. applying for a job. Mac Prichard: I've been lucky enough to have a job to each city I've moved to for the first time, Washington D.C., Boston, and Portland. I will say when I went to D.C., I had just graduated college and was coming off a political campaign. I had a promise of a job for 4 weeks, and it turned out, once I got there, I stayed at that position for 2 years. I didn't think twice about getting on the Greyhound bus from the Midwest, and I think it was just youthful optimism, not something I'd recommend to everybody. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. It sounds like good experience. I do want to mention that while it is probably easier to find something once you've moved, we've actually heard plenty of success stories from people who have moved before having a job. We actually just published a post featuring a woman who found a job within a week of moving because of the preparation she did beforehand. If you don't have a job, but you want to move anyway, there are things you can do, like she did, to make it a smoother transition. Doing research on local organizations that you want to work for and getting connected to people who currently work there, that's a great way to start. You can also use social media as a tool to get a pulse on the local job market. On Twitter, it's always worth checking for a hashtag that covers what jobs are available. Then, Facebook and LinkedIn, there are tons of job groups in each city that you can join. You can also follow local companies, which often post if they're hiring on those 2 sites. One more note: I think if I was planning to relocate, I would probably reach out to recruiting agencies in the town I wanted to live in because they're always looking for talent. They can really help you make the connections you need to before you move. Any other thoughts or suggestions? Ben Forstag:   I have a question for you. In the past, when I've applied for a job when I was out of state, I've thought, "Well, if only I had like a P.O. box that said 'Portland' on it when I applied to this Portland-based job." Do you think there's any value in that, or is that just disingenuous? Cecilia Bianco:  I don't think it's a good idea to make that up. I think that there's little things you can do, like changing your location online. On LinkedIn, if you change your city, that's a great thing to do. If employers are looking, they'll see, not that you're in that city necessarily, but if they're looking to hire in that city, if you're there, they can find you. Ben Forstag:       You've publicly committed to moving to that city. Cecilia Bianco:  Right, right. Mac Prichard:  I like your suggestion, Cecilia, about connecting with a temporary agency because not only can you make good connections that could lead to a permanent position, but if you do come to a town and you don't have a job there, that's a way of getting work right away, beginning to meet people, and make those connections that you can't do from afar. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. I think that's really important. The quickest way to find a job is through people you know, so doing what you can to make those personal connections in advance is the best thing. Ben Forstag:     I'd just throw out there as well that, from what I know about employers and how they work, if they think you're the right person and you're going to solve their problems, they will wait for a couple weeks or a month until you are able to relocate to the town for them. Obviously, the location differences create a barrier, but it's not an insurmountable barrier. It puts just a little more onus on the job seeker to prove that they are the absolute, unique, right match for that position. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah, definitely. Mac Prichard:    Thanks for that great information, Cecilia. If you have a question for Cecilia, please email her. Her address is cecilia@macslist.org . These segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond." We're making the complete Mac's List guide even better. We're adding new content and publishing the book on different e-reader platforms. On February 1st of this year, 2016, you'll be able to access for the first time "Land Your Dream Job in Portland" on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, and other digital devices. You'll also be able to get, for the first time, a paperback edition. Whatever the format, our goal is the same: to give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. For more information, visit macslist.org/ebook and sign up for our e-book newsletter. Once you do, we'll send you publication updates and share exclusive book content, as well as provide you with special pre-sale prices. We're recording this in mid-January. We encourage you to get out there soon because there are great deals coming. Now, let's turn this week's guest expert, Victoria Crispo. Victoria Crispo is manager of career content at Idealist Careers and author of the "Ask Victoria" advice column, where she answers questions for social change job seekers and career changers. Before joining Idealist.org, Victoria helped non-profit job seekers as a resume writer, career coach, and in higher education. Victoria, thanks for joining us today. Victoria Crispo:   Thank you so much for having me, Mac. Great to be here. Mac Prichard: It's a pleasure to have you on the show. We're recording in January, and a topic that is on many people's minds are resolutions for the new year. It's also a subject that I think has relevance throughout the year. Let's talk about New Years resolutions, Victoria, and let's go straight to the dark side. Why don't most New Years resolutions work for job seekers, career managers, and just people in general? Victoria Crispo:   Sure. I think that there are a couple of important points to keep in mind, actually even before you even start to make the resolution, which will then cause it to be a lot easier to keep. One of those aspects that I think can really help is making sure that the goal that you craft, the resolution that you're trying to achieve, is something that is very specific and also measurable. The measurable piece is important because you want to be able to have a way to know that you're progress and that you are actually making change and seeing improvement. That's definitely one area that is really important as you think about not just keeping your resolution, but the first part is how to create a resolution that you will be able to keep and the other things that are involved in that. Mac Prichard:   Let's unpack that for our listeners, because I imagine many people are thinking, "Okay. This is the year I want to get a new job." They write that down. How do they make that measurable and specific, Victoria? Victoria Crispo:    Actually, almost just what you said, unpack it a little bit. What are the other details that are going to be involved in getting that job? That might require doing a little bit of research and reflection. First, figuring out what type of job do you want? Beyond that, what are the things that you need in order to get that job? It might involve taking a look at job descriptions that relate to that type of work. What are the responsibilities that are involved? Have you done that type of work before? What are the skills that are necessary? Do you have those skills, or do you have other ones that might be able to serve as a supplement? In regards to having something that's measurable, it might require having some additional steps before you get to that main resolution of, "I want a new job for 2016." For example, if you see a job description that you're really interested in, and there is a requirement for a certain skill, whether it's computer skills, social media management, whatever it might be, if it's a skill that you don't have, start thinking about what is it that you need to do to get yourself on track and make sure that the resolution that you've developed for yourself is something that you can actually achieve in the time frame that you've given yourself. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Define what that job is, find out what the typical title might be, look for examples of specific job postings that you might see online on job boards or elsewhere, then identify the skills that are required to do that work, and think about the gaps that you might have than employer might see and how you might address those gaps. Victoria Crispo:    Absolutely. Mac Prichard:   Okay. You need to be clear about what you want. What are some of the other steps that people need to take in setting these career resolutions? Victoria Crispo:     Absolutely. Be clear about what you want and the steps that you may not have thought about beforehand that you'll need to get there. I think it's definitely helpful to build in smaller tasks along the way, things that you can use as milestones, reasons for celebration. You are your best judge as to what that means for you. I can certainly give some examples, but it might be gaining entry into a specific area by volunteering and maybe developing a really great relationship with your volunteer manager, which perhaps then leads to an informational interview with someone else, who can take you to the next step. Having a good idea of what success might look like and also knowing that it might not be the exact picture of what you might think, and how to really determine that you are staying on track. Developing some little, smaller tasks that kind of show you that green light of, "Yes. I'm on the right path. I'm getting someplace," are things that you can celebrate, those little, the small victories that you can celebrate and feel good that you're getting to where you want to go. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. Baby steps can pay off. As you move forward, even though it might be in an incremental way, you'll see the progress. Reading your blog before the show, I know you've talked a lot about the importance and the value of having accountability partners. Tell us about the difference an accountability partner can make in setting these kinds of resolutions or in job hunting in general. Victoria Crispo:  I know, for myself personally, I love having someone who I can speak to about the things that I'm looking to do, and someone who is giving me that metaphorical tap on the shoulder of, "Oh, hey. Did you ... ? How are things going with x, y, z?" It is so, so helpful to have someone there in your corner who is able to just be a person who you can check in with and help you evaluate whether you're still on-task. Of course, it doesn't mean that you're going to necessarily take a lot of time out from this other individual. It can be very quick emails. Let's say you, as well, are a writer, and one of your goals is to develop a personal/professional portfolio that showcases the type of work that you do. You might, for example, share a link with your accountability partner. It can be a very informal, yet scheduled arrangement, where maybe you check in once a week or once every other week, but that there is someone there who can attest to, "Yes. You said you were going to do x, y, z, and you did it." I have definitely found that to be helpful in the past. In fact, there are sites that exist, I don't know if you're familiar with Stikk.com? Mac Prichard:    No. Tell us about that. Victoria Crispo:   Sure. It's actually Stikk with two k's. It is a way for individuals to set a goal, set the time that they are expecting to complete that goal, and they can set up a referee. That would be, in essence, you accountability partner. If you like, you can also have financial stakes in the game for when you accomplish your goal. I believe it's set up so that you can have that money go to a charity, the charity of your choice. You can also do the opposite, so if you miss your goal, you can have it sent to a charity that you really don't want to support. Therein lies and even deeper blow. (laughs) Mac Prichard:    All right. Well, that can be motivating. Victoria Crispo:   Absolutely. Mac Prichard:  Yeah. I've certainly had good experience with accountability partners. I remember during one job search, there was a friend I would call. This was a long time ago because we were still looking at newspaper classified ads. When the Sunday paper came out, we would call each other and say, "Okay. I saw this position. I saw that position. I'm going to apply for this one or that one." Just that weekly call was very affirming, and it was nice to have that connection. I'm sure you've had this experience too. I've had colleagues who've had good success with job support groups, groups of people who meet together to just keep each other updated on their progress, but also to set goals and exchange tips and other information. Victoria Crispo:    Definitely. It's so helpful to have that. I know there are some local job search support groups around here that have been really beneficial for the members. If there's not an in-person group in your area, there may be one online that you can join. That, too, can be effective, if it's a place where you can check in via email or in an online group. I definitely recommend that, as well. Mac Prichard:   Okay. Let's talk about mistakes you see people make that they should avoid when setting New Years resolutions for their careers. What stands out for you, Victoria? Victoria Crispo: I think the main things that stand out are again, not really doing that leg work beforehand of really discovering whether it's something that you can achieve in the time frame that you've given yourself. In some cases, it might be that there are, again, additional steps that you need to take in order to get to where you want to see yourself next. I think that that is definitely one of the bigger quote mistakes that I see, is not really factoring in some of the other things that might come into play as you're doing the work. I think the other mistake is, while it's great to have a goal, definitely building in some leeway for yourself and not beating yourself up too hard if you don't in fact make it by your set time. Job search is only one part of life. In fact, it's all of the other aspects of living. If you look at it in a holistic way, all of the other things that affect life, your relationships, your health, et cetera, do have a place in what happens in your job search as well. Sometimes, the drawback that a job seeker may have when they're trying to meet a resolution that they've set for themselves is forgetting those other aspects that come into play and that sometimes you may need to account for unexpected things that come up in life. Just because you haven't necessarily met your goal exactly doesn't mean that you haven't gone any distance whatsoever. I think that seeing those changes and improvements in your life, even if you haven't necessarily gone exactly where you expected to be is something that should be considered, too. Mac Prichard:    In summary, be specific, break your tasks down into small, manageable pieces, and be kind to yourself. Realize that you're not going to get it done in one day or one month, but you will make progress if you're focused, over the course of a year. Victoria Crispo:  Definitely. Mac Prichard:    Victoria, what's coming up next for you and your organization, Idealist.org? Victoria Crispo:                  Sure. Next month, we will be running an email-based course called find your fit. I definitely encourage anyone who might be interested in exploring their passions and figuring out where they want to go next professionally to sign up. It is a free course, and we will be making the announcement on our site, IdealistCareers.org, and also, of course, on our email list, which you can subscribe to on IdealistCareers.org. Mac Prichard:   Thank you, Victoria, and it's been a pleasure having you on the show. Victoria Crispo: Thank you very much, Mac. It's been great talking with you. Mac Prichard:    To learn more about Idealist, there are 2 great web pages you can explore. The first one is IdealistCareers.org, that's all one word. IdealistCareers.org. When you go there, you'll find career resources and tools. Idealist has a wonderful job board with, actually, thousands of listings. You can find those at Idealist.org. Victoria is on Twitter, and her Twitter handle is @AskVictoria. We'll be sure to put all of these links in the show notes. We're back in the Mac's List studio. I'm sitting here with Ben and Cecilia. What did you 2 think of the conversation with Victoria? What were some of the key takeaways for you? Cecilia Bianco:  Well, the main takeaway I got, I really like her point about breaking down your goal into steps so you can really determine if it's unrealistic or realistic for you to achieve that goal, and then edit it from there. Ben Forstag:   I thought her point about accountability partners was so important, not only so that you've got someone providing some oversight for you and making sure you're staying true to yourself and your goals, but also just so you're not doing this by yourself, right? Sometimes you need another person to share your frustrations or your triumphs with. I think having an accountability partner like that is a great idea. Mac Prichard:   I agree. One of the things that I think is surprising to many job seekers, particularly people who have been unemployed for a while, and I certainly have been there. I've gone through 2 long periods of unemployment, is in my case, I'd began to think I didn't have a lot to offer. We all have a lot to offer. We all have lots of experiences and skills, and helping somebody else by being that accountability partner is one of the most important things I think we can do. Okay. Well, thank you all for joining us and holding us accountable to our weekly production schedule. We'll be back next Wednesday with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime, please visit us at MacsList.org, and you can sign up for our free newsletter there. It's published every Tuesday, with more than a hundred new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on the show, you can help us by leaving a review and a rating at iTunes. I've recently read that more than 80% of podcast listeners find shows on iTunes. By leaving a rating and review, you help us rise in the iTunes rankings, get in front of more job seekers, and help more people. Thanks for your help, and thanks for listening.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Government jobs are always tough to land. Mastering the oft-byzantine formal application process takes practice and insider know-how. In this bonus episode of Find Your Dream Job, Mac Prichard shares his experience applying for government jobs. Mac has worked in multiple departments for the State of Oregon, as well as for several local and state-level elected officials. Mac reads "How To Get An Oregon Government Job", his contribution to the Mac's List book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). And while he speaks primarily about his experience in Oregon, the practical lessons Mac shares are generally applicable to any government job, whether at the federal, state or local level. If you’re looking for more advice on developing a brand that attracts employers, check out Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). The 2016 edition, available February 1, includes new content and will be available on a wide range of e-reading devices, including Kindle, Nook and iBooks. You will even be able to order a paperback edition! To learn more, sign-up for our ebook mailing list at www.macslist.org/book. When you join this list, we'll send you publication updates, insider ebook content, and special pre-sale price discounts. Make 2016 the year you land your dream job! -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You will find competitors in whatever career you choose. No matter how small or niche your field, some people always stand out in your profession.  Education, experience and other advantages contribute to these people’s success, but how you lead you work life can makes a huge difference, too. One of the best ways to stand out in your field and in your career is through creative collaboration. Embracing mutuality--sharing of your strengths, acknowledging your weaknesses and partnering with others with complementary skill sets--strengthens your professional credentials in an increasingly interconnected economy. And people who can facilitate collaboration are best positioned to solve employers’ most pressing challenges. This week on Find Your Dream Job, our guest expert is Kare Anderson, Emmy-winning journalist, TED presenter, and author of Mutuality Matters and Moving from Me to We. Kare believes that collaborative problem solving is the key to a dynamic, engaging and impactful career. She shares her thoughts on how to improve mutuality and the value of team collaboration. In this 32-minute episode you will learn: Why collaboration is a valuable, in-demand skill in the modern workplace How to leverage your professional networks to facilitate collaboration How to embrace mutuality as a tool for networking and job-hunting Tips for improving your teamwork skills--even if you’re an introvert Communications tools to facilitate collaboration This week’s guest: Kare Anderson (@KareAnderson | LinkedIn)Journalist and SpeakerAuthor, Moving from Me to We, Mutuality Matters, and moreSan Francisco, Calif. Listener question of the week: Is it a bad idea to accept a job working for or with family members or friends? What should I consider before accepting? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: The Life Hack Blog - The Ten Things Good Team Players Do Differently Psychology Today Blog - The Introvert’s Guide to Surviving Teamwork The Big Interview Blog - Answering Behavioral Interview Questions on Teamwork Say It Better with Kare Anderson Moving from Me to We Mutuality Matters Slack.com Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:  This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host, and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and by our book, "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)." To learn more about the book and the new edition that we're publishing February 1, please visit macslist.org/ebook. Whatever career you choose, you'll find competitors, no matter how small or crowed your field may be, some people always stand out in your profession. Education, experience and other advantages play a part in these people's success, but how you lead your work life can make a huge difference, too. This week on Find Your Dream Job, we're talking about how you can advance your career by combining your strengths with the complementary skills of others. Our guest expert this week is Kare Anderson. She and I will talk about specific steps you can take in your professional life to break out of the pack. Ben Forstag has several online tools you can use to improve your teamwork skills, and Cecilia Bianco tackles the question that comes up in every workplace: Should you hire family and friends? We're in the Mac's List studio, and I'm here with Cecilia and Ben. First of all, Ben, welcome back from your paternity leave. Ben Forstag:   Thank you. Mac Prichard:  Congratulations on the new son. Ben Forstag:  Thank you. Little Fox, as we call him, is doing very well. Mac Prichard:    I love that acronym. Well, it's a pleasure to have you back. Now, when you two think about peers you've had, either at school or in the workplace or elsewhere, who've stood out, what have you seen them do? Cecilia Bianco: I think the biggest thing that stands out to me is how engaged someone is in their field. If someone's really focused on attending events, workshops, and joining the right groups for their career, I think that goes a long way to making them stand out. Ben Forstag:    One thing that I've seen that I really like is people who maintain active and high quality blogs. I think this is so important because it shows a dedication. This is something you do weekly or on a regular basis. It positions you as a subject matter expert regardless of how big or small that subject is. It's quite notable when you are the subject matter expert on it. Third, it is a showcase for good quality writing. I think those things are so important, and it's just a great way to position yourself with employers and other professional prospects. Mac Prichard:    I think the common denominator that runs through both of the examples that you two have shared, and they're great examples, is a topic that our guest is going to talk about this week, which is the importance of giving to others. She has a book that we'll talk about, "Mutuality," but the idea is this that by helping others and being part of a community, whether it's by writing a blog or participating in professional groups and/or going to events, you're giving of yourself, and you're thinking about the needs of others and how you can help. First, let's turn to you, Ben. I know you have a resource for our listeners this week. What have you found? Ben Forstag:     This week I want to share three blog posts all about the importance of teamwork. When I say that word I know some people are rolling their eyes, and other people are getting great big smiles. Teamwork is one of these clichéd words that really divides people. What do you think Cecilia? Are you a teamwork person, or a work alone person? Cecilia Bianco: I'm more of a teamwork person. I think, as you said, it's become really important in today's work market. Almost all of our listings have that listed as a qualification: How do you work on a team? Mac Prichard:   I enjoy teamwork, too. I have to say when I was in graduate school, I got a lot out of that experience. One of the most important gifts I got was they had us work in study groups, and I had not done that as an undergraduate. That gave me the experience to work with others and helping others in the group, and I found I got a lot more out of my education as a result. Ben Forstag:  I'm of two minds when it comes to teamwork. Part of me really sees the value in it. It's undeniable that this is a skill that employers are looking for. I would guess that ninety-five percent of every job description that we get here at Mac's List includes teamwork as one of the things they're looking for. At the same time, when I was in graduate school, team projects were always those projects where I thought, "Oh man, now I've got to do extra work to cover up for other people." It's something that I'm always working on, and I know I can improve on. That's why I thought this was an interesting topic. It also feeds into what we talked about earlier about working with others and giving to others in a team environment. The first post I want to share comes from the Lifehack blog, and it's called the "10 Things Good Team Players Do Differently." As Cecilia mentioned terms like teamwork and team player are often used so much they lose all of their meaning. I really liked this post because it outlines some basic behaviors that make someone a good team participant. Here are the ten attributes of team players according to the blog: They're reliable. They're unafraid of failure. They share information. They say what they think. They don't dominate meetings. They stay positive. They understand and respect team dynamics. They know when to say "no." They are adept at problem solving. They go the extra mile. This all sounds great, Mac, right? This is exactly the kind of person you want to hire. Mac Prichard:   Right. Ben Forstag:    If I had any criticism of this blog piece, it might be that this sounds like the ideal person. A good team player is a just a great listener, does everything right. I do like it because they are concrete things to think about, and how you behave in the office, and how you work with your colleagues. Just things to keep in the back of your mind about how you could improve your relations and your productivity with others. If you heard that list and you thought that doesn't sound like me at all, my next resource is for you. This is a post entitled, "The Introvert's Guide to Surviving Teamwork, and it comes from the Psychology Today blog. As I mentioned earlier, I actually consider myself something of an introvert, and I know how difficult it can be to assert yourself in a group setting. I like this post because it outlines some mindsets and skill sets and deliberative practices you can use to become an effective team leader. The general idea here is that introverts play an essentially role in effective teams. You're needed for the team to be effective, and the role you play as an introvert is being the level-headed listener, the aggregator of good ideas, and the implementer of group decisions. I love this quote from the blog. The author writes, "Extroverts love to talk, but are much less enthused about having to walk away and do the work. This is the introvert's chance to shine. You can be the one who puts your hand up and to work on a project offline." I think that's an important thing to keep in mind because teamwork requires different kinds of people. If it's just a bunch of talkers, nothing is going to get done. Lastly I want to share a blog for how you can talk about your teamwork skills with a prospective employer. As I was thinking about this subject yesterday, it really struck me that what a challenge it is to illustrate your skills as a team player in the interview process, because in most of the things we're doing in an interview is trying to show how great ... like you're the number one guy, you're the expert in everything, you have all the answers, and teamwork is not one of these skills where being the guy with all the answers is an asset. That's often a liability. This post had some interesting answers on how you can answer behavioral questions related to teamwork. It comes from the biginterview.com blog. I'll have the URLs for all these blog posts in the show notes. It's a very long post, but it includes some sample interview questions around teamwork, discusses why employers are asking these questions, and provides some strategies on how you can best answer these questions in a way that shows the skills you have as a team player without bragging, without going over the top, and really presenting yourself as an ideal candidate for their needs. Cecilia Bianco: Your point about focusing on behavioral interview questions I think is really important because if you're trying to act like a team player in an interview, the best way to do that is through examples, so being prepared with examples that show you're a team player is a great way to go. Mac Prichard:    I think your point, too, Ben, about how in interviews there's a tendency to try to please the prospective employer by saying I can do everything and I'm a star in everything. I think smart employers know they're not going to get a hundred percent of everything that's in a job description, and a candidate can't do everything. I think it's important for candidates to remember that, because if they are hired, they will be part of a team. They will have strengths that they can bring to that group, but they can't do everything. If they're managers themselves or they become managers one day, they're going to recognize the value of being able to identify strengths in others, and draw people out in those strengths, and give them opportunities to display them. Ben Forstag:       Really, that's the value of teamwork essentially. It's a way to maximize people's strengths and cover up their weaknesses by combining compatible strengths and collaborating that way. Before I leave I just want to share this one awesome quote that I came across. It's about the value of teamwork, and this comes from Bill Gates. He said, "Creativity is less of an individual characteristic than it is an emergent property that surfaces when people convene around a problem." I think that kind of gets at the heart of why most employers nowadays want you to be a good team player because it helps you come up with unique, good solutions to problems that individuals by themselves can't figure out. Mac Prichard:  I think together a team is stronger and an organization is better for it. Well, thank you Ben. Ben is always looking for suggestions, and he's always thrilled when he hears from people who have ideas for him, so please write him. You can reach him at ben@macslist.org. Now let's turn to you, our listeners. It's time to hear from Cecilia Bianco, our community manager. She's going to reach deep and far into the mailbag, and pull out this week's question. Cecilia, what do you have for us this week? Cecilia Bianco: Actually our question this week came from Twitter, not the mailbag, and it's, "Is it a bad idea to accept a job working for or with family members or friends? What should I consider before accepting?" I personally worked at a family business, and I know it can definitely create tension among other employees. There's a lot to consider and talk about before you accept the job. The most important thing you can get do is set boundaries with the family member or friend before you actually take the job. Ben, I know you've worked with family before, too. What ground rules did you have in place to make it a successful experience? Ben Forstag:   A few years ago I was working at a nonprofit, and my father actually got hired by the nonprofit as a consultant to do some sales work for them. It was a tense situation, but we made it work, and mostly because we had a couple informal rules. One of them was when he started I made it clear that I had no managerial authority over him, and he had no managerial authority over me. We worked in two separate departments and had two separate people that we reported to, which helped. I also removed myself from pretty much any decision that had to do with what he was doing. You're not always able to do this in an organization. Fortunately in the organization I was with there were enough other people that could pick up the slack, and I could step out of some conversations simply because I just didn't want to be involved with that piece. Then the third one, and I think this is the most important, is I made a deal with my father. We weren't going to talk about work when we weren't at work. I think it's important to have a work life and a private life. If your private life turns into a second work life because all the same people are in both camps, you lose that area to decompress and to relax. Off hours we didn't talk about work. If he had a complaint about work or I had a complaint about work, we didn't talk about it to each other. We just pretended that that didn't exist. It was a unique situation, and we made it work. I think it really depends on your own specific circumstances, though, of whether it's a viable option. Cecilia Bianco: Those are all great suggestions. I think the most important main thing to consider is if you're confident that you and the family member or friend in question can treat each other as you would any other coworker or boss. Knowing everything you know about them, as I'm sure you know your father very well, are you going to be able to put aside that knowledge and treat them unbiasedly? Especially once office conflict comes up or any situations arise, you want to be able to treat them like you would a coworker that you haven't known your whole life. Mac, have you ever worked with a family member? Mac Prichard:   I have. My dad had rental properties from many years. He would hire my brother and I and I think my sisters as well to paint apartments, move tenants and put up wallpaper. I wasn't good at any of those things. My sister, Katie, is a star at wallpaper, and she is still papering walls decades later. We all had jobs, but we tended to ... After a stint with my dad, I worked in restaurants or in other places. Cecilia Bianco: Was it a good experience or a bad? Mac Prichard:  It was a good experience. He was basically a small business owner, running his rental properties. Being part of that, going with him, watching him work with tenants, deal with leases, purchase properties, work with realtors, he brought us all along, and we got to watch that firsthand and participate in it. I think we learned some valuable lessons as a result. Cecilia Bianco: In that situation it sounds like it was beneficial because you were probably given a little bit more opportunity to learn since it was your father who was the boss rather than maybe another boss. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. I certainly learned from my other jobs in high school and college, but I think a family member is always going to take more of an interest in a relative, a child or other relative. Many families, I think, want to see their kid succeed in that business as well, and so they want to make that happen. Cecilia Bianco: That makes sense. Two different situations but the same answer. It's okay to accept a job from a family member. Our main point of advice is just to sit down, and get those ground rules in place, and make sure you're on the same page about how you want the work relationship to go. Mac Prichard:  Well, thanks Cecilia. If you've got a question for Cecilia, you can send it to her via Twitter and also by email. Her email address is cecilia@macslist.org. Cecilia, for the benefit for our listeners who on Twitter, how can they reach you via your Twitter handle? Cecilia Bianco: They can tweet @Macs_list, or they can tweet me personally @Ceciliamfbianco. Mac Prichard:    These segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of our book, "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)." We're taking a complete Mac's List guide and making it even better. We're adding new content, and we're publishing the book on multiple eReader platforms. There's a new version of the book coming in February of this year, February 1 actually. For the first time you'll be able to access "Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond)" on your Kindle, your Nook, your iPad and other digital devices. Up till now it's just been available as a PDF. Now for the first time you'll be able to get a paperback edition. Whatever the format, our goal is the same, to give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. To learn more, go to our website. Visit macslist.org/ebook, and you can sign up for our eBook newsletter. We sending out publication updates now, and we're sharing exclusive book content. We're also providing pre-sale prices that are available right now. Let's turn to this week's guest expert. Kare Anderson is a public speaker, author of "Mutuality Matters" and other books, and an Emmy award-winning, NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter who now writes for Forbes and Huffington Post. Kare's TED talk called The Web of Humanity: Becoming an Opportunity Maker has attracted more than 1.7 million views. Her diverse set of clients includes Salesforce, Novartis and Skoll Foundation. Kare, thanks for joining us. Kare Anderson: I'm honored. We share an interest in making our work serve the greater good. Mac Prichard:    I appreciate having that bond with you. I've been very impressed reading your blog over the years about your writing about the importance of human connection, and how much it matters to us all, and what a difference it can make in our careers. One of the topics that you've addressed is how people can stand out in their job search, at work, or in their career by making the most of their social connections. Tell us more about that Kare. Kare Anderson:    I believe it not only makes your life more nourishing, but you stand out when you cultivate relationships with people who have adjacent talents to yours and when you cite and praise the thought leaders and the people in your line of work, your profession, your industry or company. Whenever you shine a spotlight specifically praising people for actions they took, especially in front of people who matter to them, you shine too. I think people notice you. It's always nice to have people offer you a job before you're looking for it even if you don't want it, and that's one way to do that. Mac Prichard:  I think many people will hope that will happen, that someone will approach them and offer them a job. That might happen by posting a resume or a profile on LinkedIn, or getting in touch with an executive recruiter. They just have to sit back and wait for that call, but in your writing you have a different perspective. You say that you can make that happen but there are steps that people have to take. Can you tell us more about that? Kare Anderson:   One of them is I believe in clarity and specificity. The more you're clear and specific on your talents, and the flip side where you're not, the more you might see situations, markets that people are trying to serve, new markets they might be entering, what's missing in their company that might leverage more value or visibility to their current customers and prospects. Then when you do that writing about those situations, if you're prone to writing, is helpful or citing them. When you're talking to customers say, "Just as so and so does this and this company does this, we fill in the gap in between, and we think we want to meet the high standard they do," specifically citing the benefits of companies that you might want to be in or how [to serve 00:19:30] situations makes people more aware of you. I think it's good to also be proactive and be on the lookout for leaders of companies that you admire and say, "That's a company I like. I like what they're doing. I like the way they do that. I wonder if there's a way my talents could serve them." So there are ways to be proactive, but also, of course, ways to be clear and concrete and specific when you're being interviewed. Mac Prichard:    Tell us more about examples of that. If someone goes to a professional association, they see people who are those kinds of leaders you described a moment ago, and they think they can be of help to them, or they're not sure how they can be of help. Let's break that into two parts. First of all, they know they want to be of service to someone. How can they figure out how they could be beneficial to them, and then how might they do that? Kare Anderson:   First of all, learn a little bit about ... that person does well or something where you think there's a gap for them, and when you're at a conference or a social gathering say, "I've long admired your capacity to do this. I wonder if we could talk a bit about it because I have a shared interest in serving that market or in that situation, and I want to give you some suggestions and see what you thought of them. I'd love your candid advice frankly." What if ...? If they say that, say, "What about this? What if we did that?" Recently I'm a big fan of analytics [geeks 00:20:56] for example. I think there's certain occupations where there's growth, and they're certainly one of them. If they say "I notice you have a great product. I notice that you get a lot of good testimonials. That shows that you're doing a lot of things right. Would you be interested in exploring how to understand more deeply the profile of the kind of customer you serve, the traits they have in common both as it relates to your product but also in other parts of their life?" For example, I found out a team I work with of analytics geeks that surgeons happen to like fine wine and male surgeons especially. They also like certain lines of clothing when they're out of the hospital. So when the analytics said we've found this out about the profile of the customers you're serving, these surgeons, can we propose that we join with your marketing people to find efficient ways to reach them in other unexpected places and to perhaps partner with some of the organizations that reach them in those situations so you can stand out more? So they were coming at it differently. Or thinking about a nursery. I'm working with a nursery. There's five outlets. I suggested to them stand out, not only sell plants but offer three options to keep your business growing. Offer to sell the service of people who will plant the plants for them, whether it's for an individual organization or to create a landscape design that can go with the plants and/or provide regular maintenance plus suggestions of when to add what kinds of plants to their business landscaping or their home. That way the person offering that, they may be a landscaper, they may be someone who's just seeking more work at a basic level planting plants. I admire the people saying, "Let me help you differentiate your product by what I can do to help you. So that was just two examples. Mac Prichard:    Those are great examples. What I like about those as you were talking is that you're thinking about the needs of the person you want to help. Kare Anderson:  Yes. Mac Prichard:    You have the services they might require. Whether it's you're running a business and you're trying to identify the needs of potential or current clients and how you might need them, or you're looking for work and you want connect with a potential employer, it all comes back to the needs of the person you want to have that relationship with, and how you can help meet them. Kare Anderson:  That's very well put. I call it triangling, triangle talk. First referring to you, say, "Is this an interest of yours?" or "I noticed you're doing this. Am I on target? May we talk about something a way I think ...? I know a person who could help you or I could." So it's you, me and then us, which is increasingly rare in our culture by the way. Mac Prichard:   I think making those connections with others and being a kind of broker can make a huge difference. You've written about the work of Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, about the value of giving to others without any expectation of getting something in return. You've talked about that in your book, "Mutuality." Can you tell us more about the book, the main idea? I know you've got some practical steps in that book that you share with readers about how they can act on that idea. Kare Anderson:     I'd be glad to. One of the things that's important about Adam is he said givers are among the least and most successful, so it's how you give. Because one of my hot buttons, which I'm trying to work on, are people who are unhelpful givers. They give something that clearly demonstrates they don't really know you, and so you try to act genial back. But in "Mutuality Matters" I believe the future in our increasingly connected world is to cultivate relationships with people of complementary talents around sweet spots of mutual interests. The more you do that you'll have more lenses on a situation. You can innovate faster. You can see an opportunity or solve a problem better. In that attitude you don't do it just when there's a crisis. You do it ahead of time. You can, in effect, becomes what Joe Calloway calls a 'category of one,' where you're the only person that combines a strength, that's somewhat unique, with a network of people where you can call on them, and they will call on you. It's not quid pro quo, but it's an ebb and flow of mutuality over time. Thus you can stand out wherever you are at any level of a large company or small one. That's why I like intranets, by the way, for companies because an intranet is a internet within a company. A lot of them ... badly designed so it looks like more work, but when it's done right, and this just makes my heart sing, when you can ask for help internally from each other, you see who keeps asking for help but doesn't ever get asked for help, and you see who's the most helpful. Again going back to Adam, he said it's not leaders we should look for in an organization, but who offers the most helpful assist most often. They provide the assistance that people want. They add the missing link. They help become the glue that holds groups together. That, I think, is increasingly what individuals need and organizations need to stay agile. Doing that is in your enlightened self-interest. I also think it makes for less conflict and more conviviality when you're speaking to a part of someone saying, "You can do this." Like I'm a fast thinker. My business partner's a slow thinker. Doesn't mean one's smart and dumb. I'm an extrovert. In some situation he's an introvert. We're now realizing the reverse may true. But we can do and see things that the other person can't and vice versa. That's my wordy way of saying why I like mutuality. It also makes it fun because you say, "Oh my gosh, I never would have thought of that. Mac Prichard:  Our skills and our weaknesses can complement others when we're part of a team. I wanted to get back to your book. You had talked about specific ways in the book that people can promote mutuality. Can you tell us more about some of those steps? Kare Anderson:  I think the first thing in promoting mutuality is to speak to the side of someone you most like and admire, especially when they're not demonstrating it, because it's not how people feel about us when they first meet us. It's how they feel about themselves. I think [citing 00:27:47] to two or three other people, one of my favorites, a thing that three unexpected allies could do together around a sweet spot means they often will like the experience they have on one action, and they'll like you for making it happen. Those are two ways to spur mutuality and where they're more likely to be pulled toward you and think of you. If you give enough other people what they need in their life, you often get what you need, even before you know you need it, from people you sometimes didn't think could provide it. I think that makes for a productive and satisfying life [in 00:28:20] mutuality. Mac Prichard:    I think that's well said. Well, we'll include links to your book and to the two authors you mentioned as well. Thank you for joining us today, Kare. Kare Anderson:    I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I love your notion online of work backwards. I call it reverse engineering. Have that end goal in mind for you and your team. Mac Prichard:   Well, thank you. You can find Kare online at her blog, Moving From Me To We and at her website sayitbetter.com. We'll include links to both of these sites in the show notes. Thank you again for joining us today, Kare. Kare Anderson:    I was honored Mac. Thank you and thank the team. Mac Prichard:   We're back in the Mac's List studio with Ben and Cecilia. What do you two think? What are some of the important points you heard Kare make? Ben Forstag:  I really liked the idea that she put out there that there's a huge professional value to networks, and not just for advancing your own career but as a service in and of themselves. One of the key ideas here is that your unique skills and your ability to bring in other people with their own unique and complementary skill sets, that's a huge asset for a professional for solving problems on the fly. It's something, frankly, we don't think about our networks like that very often, but we should. Mac Prichard:  I agree with you Ben. I think each of us is a kind of impresario or broker person who knows lots of people with skills and can bring folks together to solve problems. When we do that, it does create opportunities for us. Ben Forstag:    And there's a value-added for being that person who can bring everyone else together. Mac Prichard:   Right. Cecilia Bianco: Your last point, that's what I took away from the most, thinking about who's the most helpful around you. If you are that person that's providing the most value and help, then you really stand out and are someone people are always thinking about. Ben Forstag:   I liked her point also about ... she called it intranets, and a lot of organizations have those, but there's also a lot of communications tools out there. One is called Slack. It's like a chat tool that organizations use so their teams can collaborate openly. The idea that when you put it out there into your network that, "I need help with problem X" and other folks jump and address that problem for you, that mutuality there, that give and take of each person contributing their unique skills, that's where the magic happens. The more we can facilitate that process through technology and through our own willingness to embrace that, the better results we're going to have both professional, personally and for our organizations. Cecilia Bianco: I agree. As Kare said, it definitely makes your work life a little bit more fun. Mac Prichard:   Well, thank you both, and thank you our listeners. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find that dream job. In the meantime visit us at macslist.org where you can sign up for our free newsletter. It comes out every Tuesday, and there are more than a hundred new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on the show, please let us know by taking a moment to visit iTunes and leave a rating and review. The benefit of that is that it helps us help others because the more ratings and reviews we receive, the higher we rise in the iTunes charts, and the more people learn about the show. Thank you for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to one estimate, 80% of employers Google candidates before inviting someone in for a job interview. What will people see when they Google you? Photos from your college spring break trip to Mexico or an up-to-date LinkedIn page? What impression will you create online? That you’re the life of the party or an accomplished professional? Using social media in your job hunt isn’t only about playing defense. Facebook and other personal accounts can make a big positive difference in your career. This week on “Find Your Dream Job” Mac talks with Joshua Waldman, CEO and founder of Career Enlightenment, about how to use social media in your job search. Joshua is the author of Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies, and he’s also written for Forbes, Huffington Post, Mashable and the International Business Times. Joshua’s career blog, CareerEnlightenment.com, won the About.com Reader’s Choice Award for Best Career Blog 2013. When he’s not writing, Joshua presents keynotes, trainings and breakout sessions around the world. In this 28-minute episode you will learn: Why your online profiles matter Tactics to leverage LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter in your job search and career How to improve your online profiles and use them effectively Common mistakes professionals make with social media How to appropriately send “cold call” requests on LinkedIn A free tool to clean-up your social media accounts This week’s guest: Joshua Waldman (@joshuawaldman | LinkedIn)CEO & Founder Career EnlightenmentPortland, Ore. Listener question of the week: I'm thinking about asking to connect with someone on LinkedIn. The problem is -- I've never actually met them. Is this ok to do? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: Scrubber.social Viral cat video (Psycho Cat Beats Up On Vet) from former colleague, Jennie Day-Burget CareerEnlightenment.com Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies Free InMail Templates LinkedIn Profile Grading App “Nasty LinkedIn Rejection Goes Viral” Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Wing it” and “job interview” are two phrases that should never go together in the same sentence. Before you walk into an interview, you need to prepare yourself, do your homework, and practice what you will do and say. But how do you prepare responses when you don’t know the questions? And what, besides having good answers, contributes to a successful interview? This week on Find Your Dream Job we talk about the interview process and share tips on making a great in-person impression with a prospective employer. Mac chats with executive recruiter and career coach, Janet Brumbaugh, of Janet Brumbaugh and Associates. Janet helps her clients hone their interview skills by video-recording them in mock-interviews; she then reviews the tape with the jobseeker, to identify mistakes and opportunities for improvement. In this episode, Janet shares her expert advice on how to your own interview performance and outcomes. In this 33-minute episode you will learn: The specific research you should do before an interview What employers are looking for during the interview process How to make the interview less of an interrogation and more of a back-and-forth conversation The questions you, as the candidate, should be asking at the interview How to respond to oddball interview questions This week’s guest: Janet Brumbaugh (LinkedIn)PrincipalJanet Brumbaugh and AssociatesWest Lynn, Ore. Listener question of the week:  What questions should I ask an employer in an interview? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: 10 Weirdest Job Interview Questions of 2015 GlassDoor.com Janet Brumbaugh and Associates Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices