A primer on projects, programs, and portfolios

This very basic article attempts to explain the difference between projects, programs, and portfolios. Useful for the uninitiated but otherwise can be skipped.

Your career and organisational culture

“My thesis is that we are in transition from the Traditional, through the Transitional and into the rapidly emerging Transformational organizational culture model. To succeed, many managers and professionals will have to adapt to the inconsistencies associated with working in Mixed Culture organizations. The ability to read these mixed signals and to build effective power and influence support systems is crucial to maximizing career and … [ Read more ]

How to Succeed With Your New Boss

We all know it’s true: Managing up is as important as managing down. That’s especially true when you are starting a relationship with a new boss. HBS professor Michael Watkins discusses the importance of clearly defining goals with your superior.

Four Keys of Enduring Success: How High Achievers Win

What is success to you? HBS professor Howard Stevenson offers insights from research he and HBS senior research fellow Laura Nash are conducting on the meaning of success for high achievers.

Hitting the (Political) Wall

Is there anything you can do when the office becomes a cold and lonely place? Yes, indeed, say these executives-and they wish they had.

How to Work a Room

We tag along as an expert networker demonstrates the art of the schmooze.

Network Your Way to the Top: ‘Working It

You’ve handed out stacks of business cards, called all your contacts, and mailed reams of cover letters. Guess what, pal: So has everybody else. That’s why we’ve asked the pros for networking tips and tricks that’ll help you leave the name-tag-wearing, resumé-waving hordes in the dust.

Why Job Searching is the Second Most Popular Activity on the Internet

With more than 20 million people registered on the monster.com job search site, it’s clear that we are a workforce on the move. In a recent executive education session, Peter Cappelli, director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources, explained how a dramatically different labor market is changing not just the way people are hired and fired, but how they view their jobs, their employers and … [ Read more ]

Career Switching Tips: A Brand New Old You

“What is an MBA, anyway? A degree, of course. A door opener, to be sure. A ticket to the top, perhaps. But for some 75 percent of B-school students, it’s also a new start—the first step in a journey from one field to another. And more often than not, that new field is consulting, banking, or marketing…Our guide to spinning the career switch—compiled with the … [ Read more ]

How To Train Leaders For a Global Perspective

How do managers hone the skills they need to survive and thrive in different geographical and cultural environments? In this excerpt from a new book, experts Morgan W. McCall, Jr. and George P. Hollenbeck offer some answers. PLUS: Q&A.

Inside Three Real Interviews: The Hot Seat

Three MBAs. Three interviews. The razor-sharp recruiter who scored them. And what you can learn from their mistakes.

How to Impress Recruiters: Anatomy of an Interview

What does an interview look like from the recruiter’s chair? Which answers impress? Which comments annoy? What shoots you dead? Top recruiters, career consultants, and psychologists offer shrewd tips and subtle tricks for moving from “How do you do?” to “When can you start?”

Cracking the Case: A Consulting Interview Primer

You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to ace the cases in a consulting-firm interview. In fact, a little preparation can make solving them seem, well, elementary.

How Do You Know When It’s Time To Go?

Everything you ever wanted to know about finding a career counselor (but didn’t think to ask).

Elite Graduate Expectations

Paul Gooderham and Odd Nordhaug gained fresh insights into the preferences of European business school students relating to their choice of job, employer and industry.

Editor’s Note: you can read the article on the web page, but for a bigger font and to get the graphics referenced, read the .pdf version instead (link on the right side of page).

Good Work

What makes the difference between a good finance environment and a great one? We asked the Association for Financial Professionals and Hackett Benchmarking & Research to help us find out. CFO’s survey of more than 100 corporations reveals best practices for financial workplaces.

Smart Ways to Land Your Next Gig

The good news: You’ve found a good job in a company that’s built to last. The bad news: Lots of others are jockeying for the same position. Here are strategies to help you stand apart while everyone else is standing around.

How to Get Senior Management Buy-in

Gaining senior management buy-in is really about finding the right balance between the soft skills (knowing how to listen to them, how to anticipate their reactions) and hard skills (rock solid analysis, irrefutable facts, etc.).

Five Interview Questions Prospective CEO’s Seldom Ask But Should

“It is standard wisdom to itemize and celebrate top leadership traits. That is often followed by a list of survival tips for managing the first year. Of course, both lists are offered after the fact. But neither compilation addresses before the fact. So hot and heady is the pursuit that we ignore or minimize the prospect of failure. The interview needs to be perceived as … [ Read more ]