Putting Your Best Foot Forward: Interviews

March 1, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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We’re getting calls and emails from readers who have questions and concerns about layoffs. Here’s a sampling: “With all this talk about layoffs, I’m so worried I can’t concentrate on my job. What can I do?” The last thing you want to do is worry yourself out of a job. Change your unrealized fear from something you can’t control to something you can. Put together an employment emergency kit. Fill it with a financial plan, Continue reading →

Make the Connection: Companies, Colleagues and Customers

February 22, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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Companies have more turnover than they’d like and are working hard to slow down outbound traffic. Many are discovering the potential of Mentor Programs and want to know how to get started. If you’re one of them and would like some basic information, read on. Mentor Programs serve the needs of three primary constituencies: companies, colleagues and customers. The company benefits from employees improving their individual and team performance, knowledge sharing, leadership potential, employee satisfaction, and continuity Continue reading →

Riding the Career Roller Coaster

February 15, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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Ellie (not her name) needs a mountain to climb and she doesn’t have one. What’s her story? She gets her kicks from challenges. The bigger the stretch, the greater the risk, the more exhilarated she feels.  Right now she’s feeling as empty as her horizon is flat. She doesn’t have a mountain to climb. She joined her company over 20 years ago, fresh out of college with a degree no one wanted. She was part Continue reading →

Questions: The Customer is Always…?

February 8, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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Q: How does a retailer, operating a very legitimate business, protect his/her company from misguided customers who are very clearly inappropriate in their demands and yet threaten all types of exposure and legal measures to get their way? Seems to me that this is a form of extortion… the customer isn’t always right! A: I asked several local retailers their take on the subject and received a variety of responses from them. Here’s a sampling: Continue reading →

Deer in the headlights

February 1, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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Q: “I’m in my mid-forties. By now you’d think I’d have figured out how to get a job, but I’m still a deer in the headlights when it comes to interviewing. I review study guides, memorize websites, and I practice. I practice in front of the mirror, when I’m walking my dog, even on my commute to work. I think I’m ready, I go on the interview, and I feel like I did when I Continue reading →

What can you learn from these seven snapshots?

January 25, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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#1 – I’ve been turned down by an employer who obviously doesn’t know talent when he sees it. For example, he asked me technical questions that I couldn’t answer. So I made up stuff that sounded pretty good, considering I didn’t know what I was talking about. He didn’t seem to appreciate my answers, or my jokes. Instead, he peered at me from over his glasses and read his questions off a long sheet of Continue reading →

Public Speaking and Remaining True to Yourself

January 18, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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Do you love public speaking as much as public stoning? Do you enjoy giving a presentation as much as getting a root canal? Do you shut down when you’re asked questions, and avoid asking questions when you need information? If so, you’re in some scared but good company. Let’s face it. You don’t have to speak up if you don’t want to. You don’t have to ask for what you believe is rightfully yours. Just Continue reading →

Interviewers: Ace the Interview

January 11, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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Interviewers who see themselves in the driver’s seat,  need to check their side view mirrors. Their would be  passengers can afford to be selective about where and with whom they climb aboard. Job applicants can get mighty frustrated when they arrive at their interviews and are told “we’re busy, come back tomorrow.” Most of them are currently employed and find it challenging  to arrange time off without neglecting their ongoing responsibilities, and nerve wracking to explain their Continue reading →

The Spirit of Service

January 4, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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Don’t get me started on my telephone service. I’ve already blown too much time trying to report a telephone number that is out of order. It started last night when I received voice mail from an out of state client requesting an urgent consult. He asked that I return his call as soon as possible. I began the quest as soon as I received his message. His  line rang busy. It  continued busy into the Continue reading →

Designing Your Future

January 4, 2011 by Joyce Richman
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“What am I going to do with the rest of my life?” That’s not a question asked or answered lightly. Retirement is possibly the only life stage you plan and direct on your own. There are no clear expectations with ladders to climb and salary levels to achieve. There’s no one telling you how it ought to be; how it used to be; or how it’s going to be. The models you have are a Continue reading →

A New Year: Planning for Success

December 28, 2010 by Joyce Richman
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You’ve unwrapped your gifts, returned from an airport where you probably spent more time than at your intended destination and are ready to begin the New Year. You’re filled with a resolve to… to do what? Why? And how differently will you do it? If you’ve had a little breathing space during the holidays you may have given serious thought to how you’d like to be in the coming year. Perhaps you’ve made a list Continue reading →

Outside the Box Isn’t Easy

December 21, 2010 by Joyce Richman
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Would all the do-ers, please, please, sit down? Stop fixing. Stop lifting. Stop starting. We’re tired of watching you do our work for us. And we let you get away with it, because you insist that it has to be done your way. Where’s the creativity in that? You thought we were lazy, procrastinatin’, good-fer-nuthin’s. No, we’re smart, somewhat lazy (unless really inspired, then we’ll drill through steel to get what we want), procrastinating on Continue reading →

Resume Your Resume

December 14, 2010 by Joyce Richman
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We haven’t had a heart to heart about resumes in a while and it’s high time that we did. What you’re sending out isn’t getting the response you deserve. Here are just a few of the reasons why that’s happening: You may not know the difference between a resume and a promotional piece. You’re using the dump and stir method (dump it all in, stir it around, and let the reader figure it out). You’re Continue reading →

Families and Unemployment

December 9, 2010 by Joyce Richman
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Joyce Richman facilitated a panel discussion at a special December 2010 meeting of the FPC Jobs Group.  Hosted at the First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, NC, the panel worked with more than 70 people to manage the effects that long-term unemployment is having on families.  When one member of the family is unemployed, they whole system has to deal with it.  The program was designed to provide families with some ways to cope emotionally and Continue reading →

Between a Rock and….

December 7, 2010 by Joyce Richman
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Sometimes you feel like you’re stuck between a rock and another rock. You don’t have room to breathe or move. You desperately need air and space and don’t have the energy to push the rocks apart to get it. If you’re one of those people stuck in a merger that just can’t  seem to resolve itself, that may be how you’re feeling. If you’re in a job that is a bad match and you have Continue reading →

Joyce Richman interviewed for Internet Radio Program

December 6, 2010 by Joyce Richman
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Are you worried about your career? Has your career been interrupted from a layoff? Is your career not utilized much anymore in this economy? And how about those interviews that are swamped with others competing for the same work? Your head is full of worries, it’s time for your heart wisdom to take over. Now it’s time to go to your imagination and intuition for guidance.  Joyce Richman, Executive Coach, columnist and TV personality will Continue reading →

Retiring to…what?

November 30, 2010 by Joyce Richman
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“I can’t help but wonder what he’ll do once he isn’t working here anymore. This place seems to be his whole life; what happens when it isn’t?” I bet you know him. He comes to work early and stays late.  He’s known as a company man. He’s dedicated, loyal, with a work ethic that challenges the most diligent. His only fear is failing health even though he’s never had a sick day. (He’s never had Continue reading →

Too Little…Too Late

November 23, 2010 by Joyce Richman
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In the last few weeks I’ve had questions from four people, each from a different part of the country, all having an identical complaint: No one  is willing to say you’re in trouble until they’re ready to fire you. Four people are on the termination bubble: A senior vice president of a heavy machinery manufacturer; a manager of a retail outlet; a marketing director of a technology company; the head of housekeeping for a large hotel chain. Continue reading →