Top 10 Most Popular Career Pivot Posts for 2017 - Career Pivot

Top 10 Most Popular Career Pivot Posts for 2017 - Career Pivot Top 10 Career Pivot Posts I wanted to share with you the top 10 Career Pivot posts that were published in 2017. I have published a similar post the last several years. I changed my posting strategy in the middle of 2017 to create new posts every Monday and update a previous post from 3-4 years earlier on Wednesday. I usually expand the old posts by adding 50-75% new material. This will be the first of two posts that details what Career Pivot readers found interesting in 2017. This post focuses on the most popular articles published in 2016. Next month’s post will list what readers found most often via Google. That will be aninteresting list! Let’s get started. #1 â€" Dealing with that Directionless Feeling [Updated] At various times in our careers, we may feel directionless. This is particularly true when our skills are rendered obsolete or industries have died. In my case, it was when I made a career pivot to being a high school math teacher, teaching Algebra I and II, in an inner-city school in 2004. I pursued this after anear fatal bicycle accidentcreated amoment of clarityfor me. I taught for 2 years and was highly successful. The reality was I could not be a successful school teacher AND stay healthy. The experience drained me of my strength and sparked multiple bouts of depression. I left teaching after the fall semester of my 2nd year drained but, more importantly, directionless. Click here to read the entire post. #2 â€" Free Version of LinkedIn is Dead. May It Rest in Peace. I am declaring that the free version of LinkedIn is dead, may it rest in peace. I contributed the following quote to the Career Sherpa’s post31 EXPERTS SHARE PREDICTIONS FORJOB SEARCH IN 2017: The assimilation of LinkedIn into Microsoft will mean an acceleration of new features along with higher fees. I have somewhat of a unique perspective on the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft as I have been through 2 high-profile tech acquisitions in the last 15+ years: Agere Inc. was acquired by Lucent Technologies for $415M in 2000 LifeSize Communications was acquired by Logitech for $405M in 2009 The chipset that Agere Inc. produced is now profitable and alive as part of Intel. LifeSize Communications was later spun out of Logitech and is still alive but… barely. Click here to read the entire post. #3 â€" What are Your Natural Talents and How to Find Them? [Updated] A quandaryI find many people have is identifying their natural talents. They can tell you all about the skills that have acquired. We are paid to exercise our skills, which may or may not be built on top of our natural talents. If you are not sure of the difference between talents and skills read my postTalents versus Skills â€" Do you know the difference? I have been taking myself through a few exercises. I have found it quite interesting and thought-provoking. Click here to read the entire post. #4 â€" Strategic Networking Playbook â€" Who, How and When! Often when I talk about strategic networking, people will immediately think of networking events. Their palms will get sweaty as they would rather get a root canal surgery than walk into a room full of strangers. I now say strategic relationships becausethere is no relationship building at a networking event! Relationships are created after the event when you sit down and meet one on one. You get to know one another and find common ground. What strategic relationships should you have? This is the “who” of strategic networking. Click here to read the entire post. #5 â€"10 Career Experts Share Their 2017 Baby Boomer Predictions It is January of 2017 and it is time to look to some experts for their predictions and prognostications for the coming year. The impetus for this post came from the Hannah Morgan’s post31 Experts Share Predictions forJob Search in 2017where I threw in my 2 cents.However, a lot of these predictions target the general job market or even the biggest segment Gen Y. What about Baby Boomers? I decided to ask 10 Career experts to provide their baby boomer predictions for 2017. Click here to read the entire post. #6 â€"What is Your Current Salary? How to Answer! [Updated] I’m sure you have been asked early in the interview process,“What is your current salary?” If it was up to me, I would have everyone respond indignantlyâ€"None of your %^%#( business! However, that does not work in our current work environment. So, how should you answer the question,“What is your current salary?” I have a client who, just the other day, was asked this by a recruiter. It was the beginning of a series of interviews or, as I call it, she was going torun the gauntlet. My client very politely said it was early in the process and that she would discuss salary later. It was all about total compensation, benefits, yadda, yadda, yadda. Pretty standard response. The recruiter persisted in wanting to know. She finally said, “We need to know whether we can afford you. What is your current salary?” My client broke down and told her, but added twenty thousand. It turns out that this was in her range. I told my client I would have turned it around. Oh, you want to know whether you can afford me?What have you budgeted for this position and I can tell you whether you are within my range? Make them give you a number! Click here to read the entire post. #7 â€" 8 Ways Older Job Seekers Invite Age Unconscious Bias on Social Media [Guest Post] Job seekers after 55 have a hard (but not impossible) task of finding work. Many find themselves searching for much lower paying jobs, creating a business, or both. Employers and recruiters look for ways to exclude candidates such as baby boomers. One way is to check to see if he or she has a social media profile, and next what does someone’s timeline say about them. Older and younger job seekers are not as conscientious about personal brand awareness as they should. Although we see many people talk about transparency, there are limits. There are absolutes needing privacy like medical information or personal affiliations. There are other things people share offer more unneeded scrutiny: Click here to read the entire post. #8 â€" Do Your Skills Match Your Interests in Your Career [Updated] We develop a lot of skills throughout our career. Most of us learn these skills because they are in demand by our employer or industry. Our interests are aligned with our talents. If you are not sure of the difference between your talents versus your skills please read the postTalents versus Skills â€" Do you know the difference? What happens when your skills are not aligned with your interests? We get bored, burned out or left behind. Click here to read the entire post. #9 â€" 10 No-Fail Ways to Get Your Resume by Resume Screeners [Guest Post] Copyright: rawpixel / 123RF Stock Photo Ten years ago, you would’ve written your resume solely with the hiring manager in mind. Today, your audience is still the hiring manager, but also resume screeners. Resume screeners, also called “applicant tracking systems”, search, filter and parse each resume to determine which candidates are the best fit for the position. This all happens before the hiring manager even sees them. What does ATS mean for you? Your audience should shift slightly away from the hiring manager in favor of ATS. Check out these 10 no-fail ways to get your resume by ATS. Click here to read the entire post. #10 â€" A Near Fatal Bicycle Accident Was Actually a Mammoth Gift My near fatal bicycle accident on July 11th of 2002 changed my life for the better. You read that correctly, that fatal day was actually a mammoth gift in disguise. All I remember was cresting the hill before descending into the blind curve. There are glimpses of memory in the emergency room with my wife, Lotus. After that, it was waking up in the hospital, a brace on my neck with a morphine drip in my arm. The car had been going 30 miles per hour. I was doing 20+. I evidently totaled the ‘96 Toyota Corolla with my body. At those speeds, the survival rate is about 10 percent. Click here to read the entire post. Conclusions I want you to notice that about half of the posts were updated from earlier years. There were also a couple of guest posts that were very popular. Look for more of each in the coming year. Next month look for a post of the mostgoogled posts in 2016. This is alwaysinterestingbecause it tells us what you are looking for. You may have noticed thatwe’ve organized the site into 8 portals to help you find the content that best suits your needs. These are: Career Change or as I like to say Career Pivot Career Issues in the 2nd Half of Life Social Media Job Search in the 2nd Half of Life Networking Career Success Working in a Multigenerational WorkPlace Entrepreneurship You’ll find these highlighted under the heading ‘I need help to…’ on our front page, the sidebars on this site and the bottom of each post. Look for a start here page shortly. What was your favorite post of 2017? Leave a comment below. Marc Miller Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons above. Like What You Read? Get Career Pivot Insights! Check out the Repurpose Your Career Podcast Do You Need Help With ...