11 Tips Every Career-Minded Harvard Alum Should Know and May Not

My Answers to Common Career Questions

The World's Shortest Career Course

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers my best ideas on choosing a career, landing a good job, negotiating terms, and succeeding on the job. 

Craftily Laying Low: A success strategy for introverts....and everyone

Conventional wisdom is that success requires assertiveness. But especially for introverts  but also for others, craftily laying low can be wise. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I explain why and offer examples of how to craftily lay low.

Why Career Counseling Clients Fail

How-to writers tend to present success stories. I’m guilty of that. But of course, much can be learned from failure. 

So in my PsychologyToday.com article today, I describe common ways in which career counseling clients fail and what individuals and counselors can do to help.

7 Unspoken Rules for Workplace Success

You may wonder why people less competent than you get ahead while you languish. True, it could be appearance, race, or gender but often, more malleable factors are at play.

As my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer seven unspoken rules for workplace success. They derive from my new book, Careers for Dummies.

Succeeding on the Job: Tips from Careers for Dummies

I offer tips for succeeding on the job in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

14 Career Myths

For millennia, people have had careers. So there’s been plenty of time for myths to emerge and then entrench. Have you bought any of the 14 I mention in my PsychologyToday.com article today?

Having Trouble Finding a Good Job? Keeping a Good Job?

Know anyone who's having difficulty landing a good job? Or keeping one? Or afraid of losing their good job for fear they won't find one as good?

You're not alone. Indeed, many of my clients, colleagues, and friends struggle and worry.

And many feel inferior. After all, every month, the media trumpets the federal government's press release it titles,: "The Employment Situation."That title implies it provides a comprehensive picture of American employment.  Not exactly.

I explain why in my PsychologyToday.com article today. 

An Ultra-Simple Way to Choose and Succeed in Your Career

The longer I've been a career counselor the more I've become convinced that the professionally recommended process is unnecessarily long. 

I propose something far briefer in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

My Favorite New Thoughts About Work and Career

Every time I get what I believe is a fresh thought on living the life well-led, I archive it as a Twitter tweet. I have posted 3,400 tweets.

On PsychologyToday.com, I’ve posted a few sets of my favorites, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Today, I offer 23 of my latest on work.

Unconventional Advice on Career Success

As I think back on my 4800 clients, conventional advice about success doesn't work often enough: work hard, don't procrastinate, blah-blah-blah. So when writing the last part of my 12-part series on your career: Success in Your Career, I decided to try a different approach: Knowing what I do now, if I were starting over, what would I actually do to help ensure success. HERE is the link.

Workaholic or Heroic?

We used to call people who worked long hours "hard workers." Now, we tend to pathologize them as "workaholics," like alcoholics, addicted. My PsychologyToday.com article today argues that many would be more accurately described as heroic. This is an only slightly enhanced version of an article I wrote on this topic for Time.com. So if you read that, there's no need to read this one.

My Top 16 Pieces of Career Advice

With petabytes of career advice out there, how do you find what's really crucial? My PsychologyToday.com article today offers my 16 favorite pieces of career advice.

HERE in the link.

Curated Career Counsel: An interview with Tony Lee

Career advice is abundant, some would say too abundant. Few are as qualified to curate it as Tony Lee. He has developed and presided over award-winning career websites such as CareerCast.com, JobsRated.com, and a suite of career-related sites for the Wall Street Journal, attracting 20 million page views a month. He wrote the Wall Street Journal's Managing Your Career column and is co-author of The Jobs Rated Almanac. His frequent media appearances have included The Today Show and Good Morning America.  I interviewed him in my PsychologyToday.com article today. HERE is the link.

Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Worklife

We’re often too busy to reflect, even on something as important as our worklife. My PsychologyToday.com article today asks questions to make it easier. HERE is the link.

Not-Obvious Career Truths

I’ll soon be giving a talk, Not-Obvious Career Truths: Nine things I’ve learned from having been career coach to 4,600 people. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I give an advance look at what I'm planning to say. HERE is the link.

13 Metaphors and Analogies to Help Your Career

Metaphor often helps us understand better. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer 13 metaphors and analogies that have helped my career counseling clients. HERE is the link.

Three Career Questions I'm Often Asked

Here are my answers to three of questions that readers and callers to my show have asked:

What should I major in? 

Of course, it varies with the individual but here are a couple of my not-widely-held beliefs:

If the person really is a science/math/computer whiz, it may make sense to choose a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) major. But more often, I recommend not majoring in those. They're hard, not that interesting to most people, and these majors contain some very smart, hard-working students bringing down the curve. Also, if you end up switching majors, you'll find most of what you learned irrelevant to life or career. Most important, not withstanding what politicians say, there's already an oversupply.

A major I consider underrated and of wide benefit to one's career and life is theatre/dramatic arts. Studying and being involved in plays (whether as reader, actor, student director, stage manager, whatever) gets you exposed, again and again, to pieces of literature that focus on life's key issues. That repeated exposure is required for it to be transformative for you. A theatre major is more likely than most to make you a wiser human being. And if you spend some time on stage, you'll gain poise, an important and underrated attribute. Most people also find the theatre major fun.

What's the best career?

Again, of course, it depends on the person but I do have a few favorites.

One is optometrist. It offers prestige, a six-figure income, low stress, you succeed with nearly every patient, and there are few emergency calls. Optometry is not offshoreable and you won't get replaced by a robot. The training time isn't inordinate: four years after your bachelor's degree, or at some colleges, you can get a bachelor's degree and your Doctor of Optometry degree in seven.

Haircutter scores near the top of most job satisfaction surveys. Again, you succeed with nearly every customer and you're dealing with something positive--appearance. Plus, you get the chance to develop ongoing relationships with customers: After all, you get to chat with them every month or two. Haircutting is another career that won't get offshored or automated.

Clergy. You get to do unmitigated do-gooding and have a very varied workweek: from counseling the unhappy to preparing and delivering a sermon to planning for the church/synagogue's future. Yes, hours can be long and irregular. Pay often is bad but not always. This is another career that won't the offshored or automated.Tip: Prioritize nuance and true fairness over dogma.

How do you get promoted or at least reduce your risk of getting laid off?

• Try to get to work for a boss who's ethical and a star or up-and-comer. You'll both learn a lot and such a boss is likely to get increasing responsibility, which could create new opportunities for you. 
• Try to make your boss's life easier. You might even periodically ask your boss that explicitly: "How could I make your life easier?"  
• Keep your antennae out for priority areas in the organization and in your field and get more skilled in one of those. 
• You can't overtly brag but subtly try to get it known that you're a person who has good ideas and does fine work. For example, instead of just giving your best idea to the boss, you might bring it up in an email to others "for feedback." 
• Try to be low-maintenance and well-liked by most people. 
• Sometimes, your organization really has too little opportunity for advancement. If so, resist the temptation to stay put and, at least, subtly, confidentially, put feelers out.

My Top 16 Pieces of Career Advice

My USNews.com article today, republished on Yahoo.com's home page: My Top 16 Pieces of Career Advice.