When I first started out as a manager, I would block out several hours of my calendar whenever I onboarded new people to my team. On their first day, I would use this time to walk them through the basic policies and procedures that they would need to follow in their roles, show them how to log into the software they needed, and help them understand the org chart, mission and other basic company stuff. Over their first week, I would meet with them several mores times to answer questions. At the end of the week, the plus side of…

A resume is a tricky thing. A resume compresses your entire work history and accomplishments, not to mention your career aspirations, into one or two pages. It’s an impersonal, short, and lacking in context. It’s no wonder people have a hard time writing these.

This is probably why resume writing is one of the most popular reasons colleagues and strangers reach out to me for advice. What follow are the tips and tricks I’ve given out over the years that help break down the seemingly impossible task of writing an effective resume.

Your starting point

I think that the hardest part of writing…

Mansplaining has become a well known concept thanks to Rebecca Solnit and social media. Mansplaining (or whitesplaining or straightsplaining) is an act by which a person explains something to a another person without first ascertaining if they already know about the subject being explained. There is usually a patronizing tone involved.

A quick google search will surface a ton of research and articles about splaining and how this behavior can perpetuate harmful stereotypes about marginalized groups. And there are other behaviors that live in the same category as splaining:

• Interrupting or finishing a coworker’s or direct report’s sentences for them.
• …

A personal anecdote to kick off this post:

A few weeks ago an agency recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn and asked if I’d be interested in speaking with their firm about roles. Since I’m on the market, I said yes to a conversation. When we eventually connected by phone, the recruiter surprised me by saying that her boss, the agency Director, would actually be the person asking me questions during the call. The Director jumped in, introduced himself, and we started the interview.

He began by asking me to go over my career history. I walked him through…

How many readers have gone into a new company on their first day to find that their computer hasn’t been set up, their desk has someone else’s papers still on it (or better yet, dust), and the folks sitting next to them have no idea who they are? This scenario is super uncomfortable and a bit of a buzz kill; especially when a company has spent so much time (and money!) recruiting a new hire and getting them excited to work there. Not prepping for a new employee’s start date sets the wrong tone right from get go.

But onboarding goes much further than making sure someone has a clean desk, a computer, and access to the company intranet on their first day.

It’s also…

If you haven’t yet read Atul Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto, I highly recommend you add it to your next Amazon order. As the title suggests, the book focuses on how a checklist can be a powerful tool in many scenarios. Gawande is a surgeon and he discusses how the medical profession has come to rely on checklists for both routine and emergency procedures in the OR. In the OR forgetting a step in a pre-op procedure or doing steps out of order can have devastating effects on the patient: infection, the wrong operation performed, death… It’s easy to see checklists have…

Congrats! You’ve made it through the interview process and have an offer on hand. If you’re lucky, the offer will be every thing you want it to be and you’ll want to sign as soon as you get the paper. Chances are however, there will be something about the agreement that won’t fit your expectations and you’ll want to negotiate.

If the offer isn’t perfect, it’s important to decide what you want to negotiate. Remember that an offer isn’t just about the salary a company is offering to pay you. Offers also consist of your title, your health and PTO…

“Titles are free” is something I hear a lot from managers. This statement usually comes at the end of a meeting where the manager and I are discussing making an offer to candidate, whether someone on their existing team should get promoted, or how we can convince an employee who just gave their notice to stay at the company. From the manager’s standpoint, giving away a higher title is an easy (and cost effective way) to get a candidate to sign/keep an employee motivated/retain talent.

While technically true (titles don’t cost actual money), I do think that managers are too…