Career Advice & Insights

When you’re fresh to a company, lunchtime is prime time to get the scoop from your new co-workers. Lunches are an important part of career growth. On the conservative side, this year you will have 225 lunches during work hours. In five years, you will have well over a thousand. At 30 to 90 minutes … Read More

Title inflation and varying job descriptions may devalue that Top Dog title. Think carefully about what you’re willing to give up to get it. It’s always tough to land a position with your desired job title — doubly so in a rocky economy. Making concessions to secure one could be a mistake, however, according to … Read More

Stop visualizing your workweeks as a series of grueling climbs, and Wednesday will become more than just a tipping point toward the weekend. The concept of “hump day” has had a long history – too long, in fact. For many years employees and managers alike have talked about the importance of getting through hump day … Read More

Take this self-assessment for a clearer picture of your job satisfaction. Be honest. Are you ending each evening just happy to have made it through another day? Well, you don’t have to live in a less than optimal state of being. In the last decade, there has been an explosion of research on what helps … Read More

After years running merchandising and display at a brick-and-mortar chain, OpsLadder member Jason Kunick found fresh opportunity on the Internet. Jason Kunick is the guy who puts the food on the shelves at the grocery store and the clothes on the racks at the department store. As an operations manager who has worked in supermarkets … Read More

How to lose the jitters on the first day at a new company. When’s the last time you were the new kid? For many folks who’ve worked their way up into the senior ranks, their last memories of first-day jitters may be distant indeed. There are a couple of challenges at work for senior employees … Read More

Guidelines on how to resolve conflict when you’re the new guy in the office. Congratulations are in order: You got yourself a wonderful new job! You’ve completed your on-boarding, have a good feel for what’s needed and an even better feel for what’s expected of you. What’s more, you are already exerting a positive influence. … Read More

Jason Rhodes began looking at job postings to explore his options, but when the right job found him, it didn’t take long to get a new job. Jason Rhodes was a passive job seeker. He had a good human resources job in Louisville at a health care company with a supportive boss. But in September … Read More

Craig Bodkin, an IT director in Wisconsin, built a professional network the hard way before he realized he was already married to the best contact he needed. We all know the best professional connections are people who work for your ideal company already. But what we forget is that they may not be strangers. One … Read More