Career Tools

This cast explains an effective way to maintain relationships with professional recruiters. In today’s slow economy, we don’t want to NEED a recruiter and then discover none of them remember us. Almost no one but smart senior executives reach out proactively – but you can do it too. Here’s how.

This cast describes the reasons why leaving your company or industry in a downturn CAN be a bad idea, and recommends options to consider in those situations. Too many professionals fail to realize that leaving their company or industry during a downturn has a long-term consequence – executives are expected to have experience navigating all the way through a slowdown.

This cast explains an important career search question, and how to answer it: "What do you want to do, and where do you want to do it?" You're going to be asked this question, and you have to know how to answer it, without limiting yourself. It's one of those fleeting career moments whose outcome is defined likely BEFORE the moment arrives.

This cast makes the case for the most important thing you do at the beginning of your professional life: get good grades in College/University.   This is the first in a series of what surely will be many Career Tools casts about college and university as preparation for one’s professional adult life. As with so many other [...]

This cast describes a simple way to handle the interviewing question, “What’s your location preference?”

This cast describes a way to approximate One on Ones (O3s) with your boss.

This cast describes your initial communications with a friend or associate whose career is at risk, for whatever reason. We read in the Wall Street Journal this week about a bank failure in the US due to the mortgage/debt crisis the markets are facing. As it turns out, we have several Manager Tools members there, [...]

Manager Tools will present a FREE, one day Career Crisis Skills Conference, on 18 October, to help those affected by the financial and credit market troubles. We will conduct the training/seminar at the Marriott East Side in Manhattan (map, sw corner 49th and Lex), from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be room for 300 attendees [...]

This cast describes steps to take when you realize early in a job that you don’t like it. One of the things that has changed as individuals have had to take over their own career management is more mistakes made by younger professionals. Years ago, larger organizations had a more complete HR approach, and managed their [...]

This cast describes a simple verbal tool for addressing tension, conflict or other ineffective emotions in the workplace. Mark has finally gotten around to writing this cast down! Every time Mark teaches this technique to an executive or manager, he turns to Mike and says, “we gotta make this a cast.” And then he doesn’t. When [...]

For years pundits have been predicting that technology (videoconferencing, etc.) will lead to the decline and death of business travel. We here at Manager Tools don’t agree. We're human, and humans do better with face to face connections to ensure a complex project does well.

In this cast, we cover part 3 of our conversation with John Lucht, premier executive recruiter and author of "Rites of Passage".

In this cast, we cover part 2 of our conversation with John Lucht, premier executive recruiter and author of “Rites of Passage”. Note: John’s website can be found here: RiteSite.com

In today’s cast, we conclude our conversation on Myspace and social networks. As always, if you’re new to Manager Tools and haven’t listened to the first part, you may wish to go back and listen to that first.

We have a special treat for you … as a matter of fact, today we’re publishing the very first podcast with someone other than Mark and Mike. Mark and Mike recently had an opportunity to meet with John Lucht. In this show, you get to hear the first part of the 90 minute interview. If [...]

This cast gives guidance for managers’ use of Social Networking Sites like MySpace and FaceBook. If you’re one of our younger listeners, members, or premium subscribers, with less than 5 years in the workforce, chances are you have a MySpace or a FaceBook page. You stay in touch with friends, let people know what you’re [...]

This cast tells you how to handle requests for your references when engaged in a job search. Even though “References Available Upon Request” is no longer a good idea, reference CHECKING is on the rise and will only increase in the coming years. It seems like since resumes don’t include the age-old line — the why [...]

We’re all in meetings all the time, right? So how come there’s not an instruction manual? We all complain about them. But no one seems able or willing to do something about it. We will. We shared - 3 years ago - our recommendations on how to RUN an Effective Meeting. [...]

This show describes a couple of simple techniques to help you remember people’s names. Whether we like it or not, other people are part of our professional lives. And, as Dale Carnegie sagely noted, “A person’s name, to that person, is the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” But how to remember [...]

This podcast is the second of two on the subtleties associated with being interviewed during a meal.