Shivani Berry

You can’t trust your initial reaction to feedback. Defensive responses are driven by common fears about our own competence, and fear is a powerful distorter of the messages we hear.

How to Answer “What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?”

Don’t take common interview questions lightly just because they’re predictable. Underpreparing for them can make the difference between moving ahead and moving on. One question that often comes up: What are your strengths and weaknesses? In this article, the author outlines clear steps for how to describe your strengths and weaknesses along with sample language to use as a guide.

Monty Fowler

Every formal 1:1 or review conversation with your manager should include the following: “Please tell me one thing I should stop doing, one thing I should keep doing, and one thing I should start doing to help me progress in my career.”

Anjuan Simons

One tool that’s often overlooked in driving your career is using the performance process at your current job. Most companies have annual reviews where performance reviews are compiled and used to determine who is ready for promotion. Don’t wait for that review period to drive your promotion. Find out the critical success factors your supervisor will need to see in order to support your promotion. … [ Read more ]

Randhir Vieira

Plant seeds throughout the year with your manager about the skills you’re trying to acquire that are outside of your immediate role. Restate these at your regular performance reviews, but also when someone on the team or in the organization leaves, which may be a win-win for you and your manager. If you know the company may be considering a reorganization, offer your skills to … [ Read more ]

Davit Balagyozyan

Write down every person you work with, their biggest need, and their most ideal “OMG this makes my life so much better!” Now you have a list of your organization’s greatest needs and solutions. Now, decide if filling any of these needs aligns with you (Hint: If you’re excited about it, that’s usually the right mark).

Molly Graham

The best version of your career is finding jobs that are in the Venn diagram between what you love doing and what you’re exceptional at. This may sound obvious, but oftentimes as you get more senior, the Venn diagram is often “things I’m exceptional at” overlapping with “things I hate doing.” You have to know yourself well enough to turn those jobs down, even when … [ Read more ]

How to Answer “What Are Your Salary Expectations?”

There are many interview questions that inspire dread in an interviewee — from “What’s your greatest weakness?” to “Tell me about yourself.” But one in particular is especially complicated: “What are your salary expectations?” If you go too low, you might end up making less than they’re willing to pay. But if you go too high, you could price yourself out of the job. In … [ Read more ]

Shivani Berry

“Feedback” is a loaded term. Not only do you tighten up when you ask for “feedback,” so does the feedback giver. Swapping it out for “advice” is more inviting and indicates you value your colleague’s counsel. Instead of saying “Can I have some feedback on what I could have done better?” say “Do you have any advice on how I can improve on X?”

Shivani Berry

Lots of advice centers around getting better at giving feedback to others, but we rarely focus on how to attract useful feedback about ourselves — even though it’s in our own best interest to do so. What’s more is we often unintentionally repel the rare feedback that does come our way by getting defensive or shutting down.

Knowing what other people think about you can be … [ Read more ]

You Don’t Like Your New Boss. What Should You Do?

Starting a new job always comes with a few unexpected challenges. One that is especially hard to navigate is a strained relationship with your new boss. What should you do if you realize you’re just not getting along? Start by diagnosing the problem. In this piece, the author lists a few reasons why there might be tension and offers advice for how to mitigate the … [ Read more ]

38 Smart Questions to Ask in a Job Interview

The opportunity to ask questions at the end of a job interview is one you don’t want to waste. It’s both a chance to continue to prove yourself and to find out whether a position is the right fit for you. In this piece, the author lists sample questions recommended by two career experts and divides them up by category: from how to learn more … [ Read more ]

From BigCo to Startup: 20 Tips for Evaluating Early-Stage Companies & Making the Leap

Choosing your next role is one of the most important investments you can make — but, unfortunately, no one hands you a ready-made toolbox for navigating big career decisions. And evaluating opportunities in the startup world — without much publicly-available information and data to grasp onto — can be an even trickier black box.

Even in a compressed job hunt, taking a few minutes to flip … [ Read more ]

The Secret to Happiness at Work

Your job doesn’t have to represent the most prestigious use of your potential. It just needs to be rewarding.

Dwayne Johnson

Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.

Ditch Your To-Do List and Use These Docs To Make More Impact

At the end of the day, the only thing that actually matters is the impact our work has on our company, our customers, our colleagues, and our professional development. And the only way to stay on top of that is to hold ourselves accountable to our higher-order goals with as much enthusiasm as we have for the dopamine rush of reaching inbox zero.

The best leaders … [ Read more ]

Six Reasons Successful Leaders Love Questions

Asking questions and listening to the questions of others helps leaders make better decisions.

Putting Common Career Advice to the Test

A great deal of career advice, while given with the best of intentions, is often not based on verified evidence and is anecdotal, hackneyed, contradictory, or outdated. We now have more clear evidence of what constitutes good advice in terms of which mindsets to hold while navigating one’s career. According to the evidence, some is powerful and effective, some is at best unhelpful, whereas some … [ Read more ]

7 Questions to Ask Your New Boss

The most important relationship to get right when starting a new job is the one with your boss. How do you build trust right from the beginning? And how do you get the feedback you need to succeed? The author offers seven questions to try. You will accelerate your career success if you can manage your boss better, which requires you to understand them better, … [ Read more ]