Career

Starting a Mentoring Relationship – Fall 2012 Mentors Kickoff

Last week marked the beginning of the GovLoop Fall 2012 Mentors Program, starting with the official kickoff on August 28th, 2012. At that event, Andrew Krzmarzick and I discussed the progression of GovLoop’s mentors program, goal setting for your mentoring relationship, and the characteristics of successful mentors and mentees. It was a great event, andRead… Read more »

Beginning With the End in Mind – What’s Your “Big Picture”?

According to Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, habit two tells us to “Begin with the end in mind”. Part of this is developing a personal mission statement that speaks to your character – the values, ideals, and morals that inform your life decisions. A well-developed personal mission statement can serveRead… Read more »

Companies Favor Cleared Candidates

It won’t come as a surprise to most cleared professionals or hiring managers – despite improvements in clearance processing times, companies still prefer to hire already cleared candidates. This is good news for professionals who already have clearances, bad news for those who don’t or who are anticipating needing a higher-level clearance at some pointRead… Read more »

Millennials: Possibly Our Greatest Hope

Jobs are hard for Millennials to find. The more specific the search, the harder it is to find something. If you’re a Millennial, maybe you have a degree. Maybe you have several degrees. Maybe you thought that after working for a few years that you might qualify for something you really wanted to do. ButRead… Read more »

Social Mentoring: From Telemachus to Telecommuters

This afternoon, I’m leading a webinar entitled “Using Social Learning to Mentor Agency Professionals” through an invitation from ASTD Government and The Public Manager. My slides are below. In brief, I suggest that mentoring involves three basic elements (and has since the word first appeared in Homer’s Odyssey): 1) Advice 2) Admonition 3) Assistance WhileRead… Read more »

Dating data

I’m a proponent of online dating when it comes up around the office. It really helps those workaholics I know avoid dating within the workplace, which in my opinion is rarely a good idea. And meeting new people is fun. A side benefit of online dating is all of the data that it gives toRead… Read more »