[Employers] are all looking for the same kind of people — people who not only have the critical thinking skills to do the value-adding jobs that technology can’t, but also people who can invent, adapt and reinvent their jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever. Tom Friedman, 7/12/11] 

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Succeeding in today’s global, fast-changing employment market requires a consulting mentality. Traditionally, recent graduates entered the labor market with a “football” mind-set – start from your own goal line and go down the field. As people aged, they expected to move towards the goal by climbing the corporate ladder. Organizational charts were fixed, just like football fields’ dimensions.

This strategy does not work for today’s world. From corporate finance to consumer products, most goods and services are available worldwide. Political demonstrators communicate via Facebook, instant messaging, and U Tube.

Spurred on by an ever growing, technology-savvy adult population and the recent challenging economic environment, businesses are rapidly revising their business models to maximize what technology affords them. The result: meeting younger customers’ expectations and reduced operating expenses, a double win. Continue reading…

What’s the best path to power in your company? Here’s some great advice from Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“You want to get in on the ground floor of a unit that is going to be powerful, one that touches a lot of different things and has influence over important decisions. You should be dealing with the organization’s major challenge at that moment,” says Pfeffer.  Read his entire interview on BNET – The one thing you need to get ahead.

Are you suffering from the outsider complex, a chronic complaint of HR and other staff functions, such as IT, Finance or Marketing? Perhaps you are technically proficient, but relegated to a second-tier status in your business. You aim to be a business partner, but operate on the fringes of the business, marching in lock-step with those in power. So, what’s the magical ingredient that makes someone a trusted insider? And what can you do to transform your role?

Insiders think and work differently from the rest of the organization. Insiders initiate, and insiders follow-through without being ordered. Insiders extend their role beyond widely accepted boundaries. Insiders ask themselves some very basic questions: what can I do, or what can my function do, to make a significant impact on business performance? Continue reading…

Conducting a smart interview is important for the hiring manager and the candidate. Employers need to assess an individual’s ambition, potential for growth, values, authenticity, weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Candidates need to convey what makes them special and where they want to take their careers.

Reporter Willa Plank posted the five must-ask questions for companies to ask on WSJ.com. Her post is worth reading.

Here are some of my own questions:  What was your biggest setback in your career and what did you learn from it? What was your biggest business mistake and how did you recover from it? How have you changed most over the past few years? What could you say about your leadership and work style that would be helpful to your colleagues? Continue reading…

FLOORED is a emotionally charged movie, a gripping look into the trading floor that few have ever seen. It’s an inside look at how computerized trading has dramatically changed the dynamic on the trading floor – wiping out jobs and leaving the incumbents with no easy alternative.

In 1997, there were 10,000 traders on the exchange floors. Computerized trading was introduced later that year. Now only 10% of the traders remain, and there’s no way they can compete.  See short videos.  Continue reading…