We all like to think we’re the navigators of our career destinies but too often that is not the case.
Many of us end up in jobs we really don’t love, punching in everyday because we need the paycheck to pay the mortgage, rent, college tuition, car payments, etc.
It’s a fact of life. Sometimes we work to sustain our families, our lifestyles. There is nothing wrong with sacrifices we make to make sure our children have what they need to be able to go out and embark on their own lives.
I know you hear a lot of career ideologies these days that espouse brushing everything aside and doing our dream jobs no matter what.
I’m not in this career camp. While I think people should follow their dreams and try to pursue what makes them happy sometimes reality slams us hard in the face. “Being happy” has to take a back seat to income realities.
You may work a minimum wage job you hate because you’re paying for an online degree to better yourself. Or you may have to work for a parent who needs you to help them keep their business afloat. There are so many of these scenarios.
I met an incredible man recently who has his own scenario. His name is Chuck Madarani and he’s an autoworker who lives in Newark, Delaware.
He’s one of those guys who sacrificed a lot for the good of his family. He never envisioned he’d end up an autoworker as his lifetime career, but at age 47 he realizes it’s his lot in life.
He is not ashamed of what he ended up doing. His family was provided for, and this September he’ll have two children in college. My eyes well up when I think about how proud he is of his children.
Chuck is the focus of my “Your Career” column this week on MSNBC.com. He was one of those subjects that every journalist longs for — I candid man who’s willing to admit he’s not a perfect human being.
Without a college degree or experience beyond factory life, he’s not sure he can find another job in Delaware. That means he may have to relocate to Detroit where he probably could get another auto job. But with two kids enrolled at a Delaware college the move would be painful for his wife and children.
But the bottom line for Chuck is a good paycheck, and that’s what he’ll be able to hold on to if he stays in the auto industry.
His is the kind of job that is disappearing in our country for people like Chuck — $50,000 a year, plus solid health benefits.
I don’t blame him for not wanting to let it go, especially given the money he’ll be spending on college; and with the tough economy that will make it even harder for him to find comparable paying work.
He’s probably not going to retrain and try to find another career. He’s probably not going to hire a life coach to help him find a make-me-happy career road map.
He’s going to do what he has to for him family. No one can fault him for that.
One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes is when Kramer gets an intern.
He gets an intern from New York University to help him with his fake firm Kramerica and the intern ends up doing Kramer’s personal chores and not really learning anything.
Shows like this are the reason why many of my colleagues laughed out loud when I told them I was getting an intern who is a communications major from the University of Delaware.
But I want to set the record straight. Katherine Guiney, my intern, is not doing my laundry.
She’s actually helping me do my job by doing research, calling sources, and helping me edit this blog. I have even asked her to be a guest blogger in this very blog post to report on the importance of internships for college students.
When she’s done with that she’ll probably feed my dog Ody and wash the dishes. But at least she got to see how real journalism works.
OK, I’m kidding about Ody and the dishes.
Here’s her first ever blog post:
As a college student, I am constantly hearing about the importance of internships. In every public relations class this semester, the professor, Phillip Wescott, has tried to scare us into finding one.
“They’re a must have,” Wescott stresses.
We all hear this constantly.
Lauren Rudolph, a freshman in Delaware’s College of Business and Economics, said she gets the internship talk from her business professors and from people who already have jobs.
But are we really hearing this “talk”?
We’re bombarded with information from our teachers, our parents. Don’t use too many minutes, practice safe sex, don’t cram for tests.
With all this advice I wondered if anyone was heeding the internship advice.
To find out, I asked six students at the University of Delaware about their views on internships.
As expected, the freshman and sophomore students said they were going to look into it during the second half of their college career.
“I feel the pressure, but I feel like I should definitely be looking into it my junior year,” says sophomore Rachel Riff.
Riff, a 20-year-old Communication Interest major, is putting off taking the intern plunge “because I don’t really have any direction. It’s easier for people who know what they want to do.”
But time doesn’t always help. When I asked juniors how they felt, they’re responses were eerily similar to those of the younger students.
When asked what her career plan included, Christine Collison, a 20-year-old junior, says, “I have no idea.”
Collision confesses to not having an internship lined up for this summer, her last before graduation, and not having had one previous in years.
When I told her what these students said, Jill Gugino, a career service person in the College of Business and Economics, believes “it’s unfortunate” that so many students aren’t getting with the internship program.
But, she maintains, it not a reflection on the University’s efforts.
Gugino stresses that internships can help a student decide if he or she is going down the right path, and can even lead to a full time job after college.
While I guess it does seem that there really isn’t a huge downside to internships, maybe continuously pushing them on students, as if they were a punishment, isn’t the way to do it.
A working-world reality check, however, may do the trick.
I went right to the source, a job recruiter, to find out if internships really make a difference when you’re away from the college cloister and hitting the job-seeking pavement.
Greg Antonelle, recruiting director for AimHire Associates, LLC, has placed many college graduates in real jobs, and he says, “there’s no exception,” internships give college grades much more ammunition than job seekers who didn’t intern.
Antonelle believes that outside of the education, internships are “the biggest thing you can have on that resume.”
As for Katherine’s internship with Evemerica, I hope it ends up a plus on her resume what ever she ends up doing. It’s already been a plus for me.
(If your teens are wondering if they’ll be able to land a summer job this year, check out my column this week.)
(FYI, I will be out on vacation the week of March 24th thru March 28th. My intern will be moderating comments during the week. Cheers, Eve)
Nowhere to run to, baby
Nowhere to hide
Got nowhere to run to, baby
Nowhere to hide
Remember these lyrics? They’re from “Dance Party” by Martha & the Vandellas?
It could very well be the anthem for this job market.
There seems to be no industry to run to if you’re looking for a job. And there seems to be no place to hide if you don’t want to get downsized, or screwed on your raise this year.
But it’s not just finance. On Tuesday, Delta announced it was cutting 2,000 jobs and offering buyouts to 30,000 employees. And don’t even look at the cutbacks and layoffs in the U.S. auto industry. (I write about how that industry has been ravaged in my MSNBC column later this month.)
So, where does a poor working soul go to find job safety, let alone employment bliss?
Believe it or not there are places to go. I’ve written about many segments that are actually growing. Healthcare, telecommunications, alternatives-energy providers and a host of technology jobs.
There are also some you would not expect – veterinarians and gaming surveillance experts, you know the people that keep an eye on gamblers in Vegas.
And all types of jobs in the forensics arena are big, especially computer forensics. You know, the people that figure out who hacked into computer systems.
Now let me offer a reality check here. Just because experts and the labor department tell you there’s opportunity in a certain profession doesn’t mean you can walk out and snag a job like magic.
There may be parts of the country where growth occupations are big, while other towns have few if any openings. You also have to have the experience and sometimes educational background to land one of these jobs. This is especially critical in a tough economy when employers can be a bit pickier and wait for the right candidate.
Lists like these should just be a guideline.
Figure out what’s hot in your town. Check out job boards and see how many positions are available in specific industries. Look for firms that are advertising in your town, at ballparks or in the local paper. If they’re spending big on ads they probably have a budget to hire.
Call you local chamber of commerce; they probably have their own list of growth companies and industries.
If you guys get a chance, I’d love to hear if you are in an industry that’s growing or dying?
I got an email from a woman this morning complaining about the amount of money she makes. It was déjà vu all over again.
I get emails like this from women all the time.
This is typically how it goes:
I make X amount of money but I know a coworker makes more than me. I’m really mad and don’t understand why my employer doesn’t see my worth.
These emails come from women at all levels of the corporate hierarchy, from secretary to high-powered executive.
I have to admit, these emails drive me crazy. Why? Because women just can’t step up to the plate and demand what they’re worth already. They want to focus on how hurt they are that their bosses don’t see how great they are.
Well girls, this is childish thinking and we all have to stop it NOW.
Sorry to be so harsh, but if you want to play with the big boys you have to leave your feelings at the door and go for what you want.
OK, here’s the actual email I got this morning that sent me up on my salary soapbox:
I make $18.00 an hour been and I’m with this company 9 yrs. Have over seen the training of office personal and have gone beyond my call of duty, have acted as office supervisor on many occasions, have put in 10-11 hr days at time, you name I have done it…
I am highly insulted to find out what the referral coordinator makes.
She somehow found out that the referral coordinator makes more than her and she’s “highly insulted.” This is such a female response. Most men would just get pissed, go into their manager’s office and demand more.
Not Mrs. D, as she calls herself.
I would like to know, how do I approach my office manager on telling her what I know. I am the 3rd highest paid employee and have 9 yrs on the job. I have been over looked twice for the office manager position, have done more for this office then anyone and know more than about the office than anyone.
Not sure what to do. I feel like I am cheap labor.
There it is, the “cheap” comment. Why do so many women go there? It’s like we all see ourselves as cheap dates that are being taken advantage of.
When I asked Mrs. D if she had asked for more money she said,
I have not asked for more money yet. My 9-year anniversary will be in June. I want to be able to let her know that I know how much this other person makes without disclosing how I know. I want to be able to let her know what I feel is my self worth and what I have done for her office.
Women, if you don’t ask for more money, you don’t get the honey.
That’s just the way it is.
Forget about the information you got about other people’s salaries. Your boss is under no obligation to pay you the same as someone else, unless of course you were part of a union shop.
So, you need to state your case, without the emotion and the “highly insulted” baloney.
You should lay out all the things you’ve done for the business, concrete examples of how you saved the firm money, or helped them make money, or made them more efficient. Find out how much other people make in your profession at other companies and present all this in a sensible manner to your boss.
But you have to negotiate for more money from a position of strength. That means you have to be willing to start looking for another gig if this doesn’t go the way you want.
Never threaten your boss that you’re going to leave, just make it clear that you’re worth X amount on the market, and while you love your job and the company you work for you want to be paid fairly.
We need to stop taking everything personally, especially when it comes to our careers. We’re already sabotaging many of our personal relationships because of this feminine personality trait, let’s not doom work as well.
The cell phones and PDAs of headhunters all over Wall Street are going off like crazy as Bear Stearns’ employees try to find out what their jobs prospects might be.
It’s hard to believe a stalwart of Wall Street like Bear Stearns could be in the mess it’s in now. Employees are literally shocked at the events of the last few days. Many of them had their life savings wrapped up in the company stock, and many of them are having to sell homes and cars to help make ends meet in light of the bargain basement price J.P. Morgan was able to snatch Bear Stearns up for, $2 a share. No one could believe the price, and how the value of employee stock plummeted.
Soon, thousands of financial services employees could be hitting the pavement with resumes in hand. What will that mean to you all out there that are working in the sector; had planned to switch your present career and go into finance; or for you college kids out there so near to getting your finance degree?
You all better think long and hard at what the future holds. Make an intense assessment of your present employer, how the company is doing now and what the prospects for five and ten years down the line may be.
Jeff Rosenfeld, vice president at consulting firm CBIZ, thinks the financial sector is at the bottom of a cyclical market and will rise again just as it always does. But, if he had a kid deciding on whether to get into the segment he’d advise him or her not to right now.
So, for recent grads and individuals in the field, it may be time to think of industries that are more recession proof, he advises, such as consumer products, technology and healthcare.
I can’t imagine what workers at Bear Stearns are going through today. You commit yourself to a company, as many of these employees did and then one day, whammo. What was unique about Bear Stearns’ culture is all the workers, from the top down, saw themselves as part of a family, part of an organization that they all believed in. That’s why so many workers pumped so much of their money into the firm.
But folks, a company is just a company. And as it turns out in this case, the company was a house of cards.
When workers reflect on the time and effort they put into their careers there, many must wonder whether it was all worth it.
There was a telling quote in today’s Wall Street Journal in a story about the employees.
One broker who had been with the firm since 1974 said:
“I have a lot of good friends here, from mail clerks to senior people I’ve spent more time at Bear Stearns that I have with my own family.”
Was it all worth it? It’s hard to say. But the lesson learned is money and career has to be put in check. Work hard. Kick butt. Make money. But in the end, realize it may indeed all be fleeting.
Bear Sterns realizes the gravity of what’s happening and has told employees that grief counselors were standing by. My intern Katherine Guiney, passed along these quotes from the New York Times today:
“The stability of your world is shattered,” said Ari Kiev, a psychiatrist who counsels financial execs. “You are angry at the firm for failing you. But it’s more than money. It’s the shame and embarrassment. Now the question is, can you pay for the house and do you give up the second car.”
For many workers, it looks grim. One worker put it this way:
It’s hard to imagine not surfing the Internet, blogging or sending emails today. The news is just too compelling.
For the first time since the Great Depression, the government has bailed out a top U.S. bank. The move could ripple throughout the economy, and that means everything from stock holdings to job security will be on the line for many Americans.
How can you not want to use all the technology available to keep on top of the ups and downs?
But, if you want to be productive in your job or focus on building your career, you might want to power off.
We’re like techno drug addicts waiting for our next cyber fix. I admit it. I can’t even leave the house to pick up my kids at the bus stop without my damn Iphone. I have to keep checking my emails, or surf the Net for the latest news.
Alas, this is all busy work and I’m really not accomplishing anything at all. (I’m definitely not concentrating on my kids at that moment, that’s for sure. Here I am trying to do as much work as possible via my iPhone so I have time to help my kids with homework. But when I get back home I have to run up to my office and attend to emails and all the supposed critical fires I need to put out.)
A few smart worker bees out there have already realized all the information is like the ice cream in a Screwball. Remember those? The Good Humor guy sold them. They were in a cone shaped container and there was bubblegum at the bottom. The bubblegum was the best part of the thing, but you had to spend all that time eating the mediocre ice cream, aka technology, to get to the gum, aka the meat of the matter.
These insightful souls, I’ll call them Screwballs, are taking time off from the cell phones and emails to boost their productivity. And, it’s working.
Are you guys overloaded? What have you done about it?
I emailed customer service on Tuesday about the issue and as of last night, nada.
So, being a journalist, I decided to contact the media people and ask what’s up. I emailed a general press mailbox and got a reply almost immediately.
It was from Kay Luo, LinkedIn’s Director of Corporate Communications, asking me to give her a call. It included her work and cell phone number. (Amazing what an email from a reporter can do.)
Well, I explained my situation and she was able to close out one of the accounts right on the spot while we were chatting on the phone. She couldn’t merge the two accounts, which would have been ideal. Now I’d have to go back to the people that tried to connect with me on my second account and re-invite them to link with me.
Anyway, I could deal with the inconvenience. But I wondered why it took so long for someone to answer my inquiry on Tuesday when I was just any other LinkedIn member and not a reporter.
OK, here’s what she told me:
“Normally fast-turnaround customer service is reserved for paying users. We have 20 million members and it’s hard to get to all of them. We have a small customer service team in Omaha.”
Yikes! I didn’t know that just because I don’t pay for service I would be left in a LinkedIn abyss if something went wrong!
What is someone got into my profile and changed it, making me out to be some criminal or wacko? Sorry Eve, you’ll have to wait.
But how long do we non-ponying up customers have to wait? She said paying customers get 24-hour turnaround but the rest of us, she couldn’t say.
I asked her where on the site did it say non-payers got less service than payers? She said she’d have to check the site and get back to me.
I’m in the process of researching the many work-at-home offers out there online for a future column, but I wanted to alert people to one that I’ve been seeing pop up often lately.
This is how it goes: You get an email and the subject line says, “I’m leaving Internet Marketing and Giving Away My Business,” and the email is supposedly from Dr. David Lee Anderson. The actual email says:
For the next 3 days we’re allowing a select group of individuals
take a sneak peek at a brand new Online income program.
Only the first 500 to response will be eligible.
Hurry To Our Site
When you click on the link you end up at a page that says, in big letters:
“Give Me Just 5 Minutes & I’ll
Show You A Brand New
Underground Instant Cash
System For Generating Up To
$29,955.38 a Month Online!”
The site also asks you for your name and email. And be careful when you try to navigate away from the site. A supposed agent is IMing you but to answer the agent you have to hit send, which may mean they end up picking up your email even if you don’t want them to. So don’t click on anything at this site!!
I did some snooping and figured out that the site is owned by Digital Paper Products in Geneseo, N.Y., and it turns out the Better Business Bureau of upstate New York had some interesting information on the company.This from the BBB website on Digital:
In September 2005, the Bureau sent a letter to the company requesting background information as well as the names of consumers who have made money using their program.
The company has not responded to the Bureau’s request and therefore has an unsatisfactory business performance report for failing to substantiate that consumers are getting paid to work at home as a result of their services.
“We’ve identified them as a work-at-home company and because of that we’ve raised red flags about their operation and what they’re doing,” says Peggy Penders, a spokeswoman for the BBB.
That’s right, just because they are offering work-at-home work, the BBB cautions consumers to beware.
“Not one of these companies actually generated any income for people who fall prey to them,” she says.
I want to start out this post by saying I love LinkedIn, the social networking site that allows people to connect, thus creating the coveted connections that can help you build your career or business.
That said, there are some problems people need to be aware of.
Recently, I’ve been getting requests by people to link with me and when I go to LinkedIn I get a message saying the message was not intended for me.It happened a couple of times so I decided to check it out. Turns out, some how I created two LinkedIn accounts. Don’t ask me how the heck I did it. I think one day I tried to connect with a person and when it wouldn’t accept my password I inadvertently created another account. I’m guessing at this. I don’t know for sure.
Well, it’s created a bit of a mess for me. There are now two Eve Tahmincioglus and they’re both me!
A bunch of people have asked me to get linked and I never responded to them. Why? Because it was part of this other mystery account.
I figured it would be easy to fix the problem. I would just cancel the other account.
Well, there is no function to actually cancel a LinkedIn account that I could find. I ended up on a page that asked me to email my issue to a LinkedIn customer service person.
I sent the email yesterday and this is the response I got back:
We are in receipt of your question, this is an automated acknowledgement. A service professional will review and respond to your inquiry.
Haven’t heard anything yet.
I started asking other people if they’ve had any LinkedIn issues and here’s an interesting one that you should all be aware of.
Mark Amtower, a consultant and CEO Coach, said he’s seen a couple of instances where profiles were altered but not by the person in the profile.
And, this one Amtower shared is freaky:
Once a person I knew was listed as an employee of mine (I have no
employees - it’s just me and my wife), and I am certain he did not add it.
He is a senior person at a BIG company. It would have been embarrassing for
him to have someone from his company spot a glitch like that. When contacted,
LinkedIn had no real explanation.
Yuck, that could really cause career hell.
I think we all need to go back and check our profiles and also check all the connections we have and make sure we’re not listed as working for someone we don’t.
These technological advances are great. I love them all. But I learned a good lesson. Even though humans are not involved in much of this stuff, mistakes can still happen. Or should we call them “techno glitches”.
And for all of you out there who haven’t heard back from me as far as accepting your LinkedIn invitation, please send me another one. On second thought, why don’t you all wait a couple of weeks until LinkedIn fixes this glitch. I’ll keep you posted.
We all like to think we’re the navigators of our career destinies but too often that is not the case.
One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes is when Kramer gets an intern.
Nowhere to run to, baby
I got an email from a woman this morning complaining about the amount of money she makes. It was déjà vu all over again.
You may be seeing some of my CareerDiva blog posts on a new site called 
The cell phones and PDAs of headhunters all over Wall Street are going off like crazy as Bear Stearns’ employees try to find out what their jobs prospects might be.
It’s hard to imagine not surfing the Internet, blogging or sending emails today. The news is just too compelling.
The Good Humor guy sold them. They were in a cone shaped container and there was bubblegum at the bottom. The bubblegum was the best part of the thing, but you had to spend all that time eating the mediocre ice cream, aka technology, to get to the gum, aka the meat of the matter.
It turns out if you don’t pay for premium services at 
I’m in the process of researching the many work-at-home offers out there online for a future column, but I wanted to alert people to one that I’ve been seeing pop up often lately.
I want to start out this post by saying I love