Here's a post from The Birmingham News on how downsizing may open the door to a mid-life career change. If handled with the proper attitude, this cloud can have a silver lining and provide the opportunity for an unexpected happy change in your life.

Read the full article here:
http://blog.al.com/bhamjobs/2010/02/mid-life_career_change_downsiz.html

Career advice comes in all shapes and sizes, in four legged friends and even on youtube. If you are an animal lover, you will appreciate this video. If you are passionate about helping people with special needs as my friends at www.ucpbham.com are, you will be able to relate.

If you are making career choices or changes, or helping shape a young person, the message is just as powerful. Find your real talent. Don't waste time being something you are not. You may miss the opportunity to be spectacular in your own way.

I wrote an article that was published in the July/August issue of Diversity Executive. It covers the fact that women executives are not as plentiful as male executives and what diversity efforts can be implemented to help move women through the ranks.

Read the entire article at the following URLs:

Article on Diversity Executive website: http://www.diversity-executive.com/article.php?article=711

I talk regularly with clients about their elevator speech or infomercial.   It is an important part of networking meetings, interviews and the corporate picnic. In the interview context, being able to succinctly (within 1 minute or so – some say 30 seconds) articulate who you are and what you are about is essential.  My recommendation is that you bullet point it and practice it ahead of time:  a little bit about you and your family, your early work experience, what you have been doing recently and why you are having the conversation.

My clients range from people who network naturally to people who would prefer a root canal to having a conversation. From clients who twitter, text and e-mail to people who would prefer not to turn on a computer.  Whether cyber savvy or more of a face-to-face communicator, networking can seem unnatural or awkward.

Learn to like it. If you go in with a mindset that networking is a necessary evil or a means to an end, you will come up short. The clients I work with that have phenomenal success say they like "meeting people" and learning about their story.

I'm seldom taken with a character like I was with Kokopelli. Like many people who visit the Southwest I saw this hump backed flute player everywhere. Turns out his legend dates back thousands of years. What enchanted me was the idea of a man that went from town to town bringing good news. Myths included him being responsible for the changing of the seasons and fertility. He was a source of music and dancing. We sure could use some Kokopelli.

I attended my 25th high school reunion three years ago and spent time with an old friend.  She reminded me that I used to like to write.  I wrote letters, poems and stories.  I even made up words for jingles and songs.  What happened?  Life, I expect.  Busy with work, clients and day-to-day grown up stuff – for me – writing has been limited to proposals, marketing documents, training plans, client resumes and cover letters.  I had not written for the sheer pleasure of it in years.  Roseanne remembered a me that I had long forgotten.

I am fortunate to be a part of countless career discussions – or in this case – career processing – that is, making sense of it all.  My colleague called the disconnect between corporations valuing employees one day and letting them go the next The Big Lie.  Yesterday, you cared about me.  Today you put me out on the street.  Yesterday you needed me.  Today, I've lost my job.

A client recently commented that for her, not a lot has changed because of the stock market, the bank decline, etc.  Because she has never really had A LOT she is not feeling as concerned or pinched as others.  She is early in her career, healthy, conservative in her spending, goal oriented and too young to have participated in the excess of the 80s.  With two small kids, second homes and lavish vacations are not the norm for her.