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5 Reasons Companies Fear Hiring Career-break Candidates & How to Overcome Them

Career advice, Coaching and Consultancy

5 Reasons Companies Fear Hiring Career-break Candidates & How to Overcome Them

If you’ve thought about taking a career break…

… but you’re worried that companies will see you differently because of it, this article is for you.

Unfortunately, you’re not wrong to be concerned as some companies really do see candidates differently after a career break.

However, you can do something about this!

They don’t see you differently because you’re not skilled, not professional, experienced or marketable enough, but instead, it’s usually because of negative assumptions that prevent them from seeing past the career break stigma and recognise your true skills and potential value to them as a professional.

The only person who is going to make them see you real value, is you.  

We know that career breaks are increasingly popular among men and women, with two-thirds of us likely to take a one during our working lives (Harvard Business Review), usually to take care of a child or elderly person. And around 93% will want to re-enter the workplace after their time off.

Yet despite this, career breaks are not without their challenges, particularly when it comes to re-entering the job market.
Research by PWC found that in the UK, three in five professional women will return to lower-skilled or lower-paid jobs following their career breaks, often suffering an immediate salary reduction of up to one third!

However, you should know that these barriers to re-entry are starting to change!

Companies are recognising the benefits of career breaks for employees, with many even offering paid or unpaid sabbaticals. And they’re also starting to recognise the opportunity in hiring candidates who are returning to work, post career-break.

To see more on how things are changing for the better, check out this article and video.

Having said that, if we truly want to understand what is stopping companies from hiring career break candidates, we have to be open to seeing things from their point of view, don’t we?

Only then can we effectively counter these barriers and move forward together.

 

With that said, here are 5 Reasons Why Companies Fear Hiring Career-break Candidates & How to Overcome them:

 

1. Value & Priorities:

The company may be concerned that you no longer see your career, or your work with them as the highest priority, compared to other candidates who don’t have significant breaks in their career.

How to Overcome this: Highlight in your CV, cover letter and the interview how focused and dedicated you are to your career and the company you work for. Clearly express your long term ambition and your drive, and try to show evidence of this through continued professional development

2. Time, Money, Resources:

The company may fear that you’ll leave again (either for another break OR because you’re unsure of what you want professionally) and they’ll pay for that leave with their time, resources and budget spent on recruiting and training you.

How to Overcome this: Demonstrate your commitment to a long term career with them, how ready you are to work again, how sure you are about this job and, if possible, highlight previous company loyalty.

 

3. Out-of-Date:

They may be concerned that time out from your career has made you ‘obsolete’ or out-of-date in the industry, with regards to the latest industry advancements, technology and required skill sets, regardless of your previous education and experience.

How to Overcome this: Stay up to date during your time off. Complete additional training courses. Keep up to date with the industry changes and progress. Show this on your CV and demonstrate it in your interview!

 4. Adaptability:

They may fear that you lack flexibility or adaptability to learn new things or fit in, holding onto an outdated mindset.

How to Overcome this: Highlight that you are adaptable, show them evidence of this if possible, and show a flexible mindset, comfort towards change, and a willingness to learn and grow.

5. Motivation:

The company may question whether you still have the same motivation and career drive that you had prior to your career break.

How to Overcome this: Show them you’re driven, motivated, ambitious and willing to learn and grow as a professional. Do this through your interview conversation and through additional professional training courses. By having up to date industry knowledge, you’re already demonstrating career motivation and dedication. Plus, why not highlight your career goals to show your ambition and direction, so they know you’re not just ‘testing the water’ with them.

 

If you think about it from a business point of view, just for a moment, it’s possible to see that these are natural concerns to have,

But they shouldn’t limit your success!

As candidates, knowing these fears and empathising with them, actually offers you valuable insight into the employers mindset, so you can identify how to adapt professionally and neutralise these fears to land the job you want.

Every professional is responsible for developing their own business skills and their employability, to put themselves in the best position to attract great companies and great job opportunities.

Think ahead for a moment, when you rejoin the business world after a career-break, wouldn’t it be nice to feel empowered, valued, up-to-date, in demand and completely ready! With the right insight and preparation, this is easier than you may think!

Check out this article for 12 top tips on what you can do to proactively start that journey on the right path and ensure you are an in-demand candidate upon your return!

 

What’s your point of view on this? Can you think of any other fears or concerns companies may have about employing ‘career breakers’?

Let us know your thoughts and experiences in the comments box AND feel free to share this article with your friends and colleagues via Facebook & LinkedIn.

 

Best,

Adam 

 

P.S. If you’re looking to develop your professional skills and enhance your employability, check out our Business English Courses and Training Courses today!.

For the definitions of the highlighted words check our Glossary.  

 

 

Adam Baker

About the Author

Adam Baker is the co-Founder and Course Director at Trust Native. He’s an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Sport & Organizational Psychologist with professional experience in both Europe and South America.

Adam Baker

About the Author

Adam Baker is the co-Founder and Course Director at Trust Native. He’s an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Sport & Organizational Psychologist with professional experience in both Europe and South America.

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We’ll email you occasionally with our latest posts & most interesting news.

How to get back to Work after a Career Break

Career advice, Coaching and Consultancy

How to get back to Work after a Career Break

Research by Harvard Business Review has shown that over 60% of us will take a career break at some point during our professional lives.

Look a little closer and you’ll find that 37% of women and 24% of men will temporarily take time out from their careers, often to care for a young child or elderly person.

Of these professionals, not surprisingly, 93% want to re-enter the workplace. That said, it isn’t all a bed of roses and re-entry can pose some serious problems.

In the UK, research by PWC found that three in five professional women will return to lower-skilled or lower-paid jobs following their career break, suffering an immediate salary reduction of up to one third!

As if getting back to work isn’t hard enough with the drop in salary, lower position and the difficult mindset shift to feel confident again in the workplace, these professionals are also often seen, unfairly, as inferior to ‘non-career break’ candidates.

Have you taken or do you expect to take a career break? How do companies in your industry see candidates returning from a career break?

 

If career breaks are so common, doesn’t it raise the question, ‘why are business professionals being punished when they choose to get back into the world of work?’

Moreover, what can they do to maintain their professional value as high as possible?

These are just some of the questions addressed by Carol Fisherman in her inspiring TED talk about getting back into the workplace after your career break and the challenges that poses.

In her talk she opens up about her own professional experience as well as what some forward thinking companies are now doing to encourage the educated and experienced career break candidates back into the workplace and offer them real opportunities.

You can watch Carol’s TED Talk by clicking the video below, and if you know someone who is thinking about or is currently on a career break, feel free to share this article with them, they’ll thank you for it!

Video Introduction: If you’ve taken a career break and are now looking to return to the workforce, would you consider taking an internship? Career reentry expert Carol Fishman Cohen thinks you should. In this talk, hear about Cohen’s own experience returning to work after a career break, her work championing the success of “relaunchers” and how employers are changing how they engage with return-to-work talent.

Finished watching? What do you think of Carol’s talk and the initiatives some companies are now taking to help ‘relaunchers’ re-enter the job market?

If you’re a leader in business or a recruiter, how does your company approach relaunchers? And what tips or advice would you suggest for professionals looking to get back to work in your industry or country? 

Tell us about your ideas and experiences in the comments box below.

PLUS! If this article resonated with you, or you know someone who could benefit from hearing this message, then spread the good word far and wide by sharing this article with friends and colleagues on Facebook & LinkedIn.

Best,

Adam

P.S.: If you want to stand out from the crowd, start training your Business English with us today and give yourself the edge over the competition!

For the definitions of the highlighted words check our Glossary. 

About the Author

Adam Baker is the co-Founder and Course Director at Trust Native. He’s an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Sport & Organizational Psychologist with professional experience in both Europe and South America.

About the Author

Adam Baker is the co-Founder and Course Director at Trust Native. He’s an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Sport & Organizational Psychologist with professional experience in both Europe and South America.

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

We’ll email you occasionally with our latest posts & most interesting news.

5 Ways to Find Your Dream Job

Career advice

5 Ways to Find Your Dream Job

In today’s business world, landing your dream job seems to be more and more about savvy networking and relationship building, than ever before.

So, while it’s wise to keep your network active and maintain contact with key connectors, there is a lot more you can do to boost your dream job search…

Having worked within recruitment and selection for several years, helping candidates secure fantastic jobs, we know how daunting and unnecessarily complicated the job search and recruitment process can be for all parties involved, as well as what usually influences the success rate.

Hence why we’re sharing some simple yet wise insights aimed at job seekers, whether your looking actively or passively.

Job seekers can spend a lot of time trolling job sites and sending resumes ‘en masse’ without getting much of a response from employers, let alone landing an interview.

Employers still receive between 102 and 137 applications per job from both social-media networks and job boards, says a 2014 study from Brandon Hall Group.

Effective job search and generating employer interest requires careful thought, research and strategy. To help maximize your job search and get you on your desired career path, consider following these five steps.

 

1. Understand your job search criteria.

Figure out your top five priorities – whether it is company culture, salary or a specific job position. “If you understand what motivates you as an employee, it will be easier to target your applications to opportunities that match your skills and ambitions,” says Paul Sandusky, vice-president of talent acquisition and development at Ceridian, an HR software company.

Also be flexible. “You don’t want your specificity to cost you your dream job at your dream company,” advises Mariah DeLeon, vice-president of people at workplace ratings and job review site Glassdoor.

She suggests that if you get to the point where you’re interviewing for a job at a company you want to work for but that isn’t quite the right fit, be candid with HR or the recruiter about your expertise and desire to work there. There’s always the possibility of a better opportunity opening up within that company.

 

2. Create a list of jobs that meet your criteria.

Once you’re able to articulate what you’re looking for in a job, use this criteria to guide you in your search. Create a list to keep track of information.

Sheryl Sandberg used an Excel spreadsheet to organize her job search when she graduated from Harvard Business School. Use the format that best suits you.

 

3. Read the job description thoroughly.

Reading the job description during your job search may take up time up front, but it is a major time-saver in the long run; you won’t be applying for jobs for which you are an unlikely candidate.

“Companies generally have limited flexibility on their mandatory requirements, be it a particular university degree or specific job experience,” Sandusky explains. “[However] you should apply to a position if you are confident you can do the job, just be prepared to explain precisely how your skills or experiences are applicable to the opportunity at hand.”

 

4. Customize your resume and cover letter.

Shape both your cover letter and resume to speak to the company, position, key words and job requirements.

Having multiple “versions” of your resume can be an effective way of tailoring your experience to a particular role or industry, Sandusky says.

 

5. Activate your referral network.

Many job openings are not advertised, which is why attending relevant industry events and conferences, career-related lectures and seminars, alumni events or training sessions can pay off.

Let people know you’re looking, and ask about open positions.

Also, let your friends know that you’re looking and ask if you can email them your resume to provide an informed idea of your experience and skills. Chances are, at least one of your friends is one of those people who knows everybody and knows of several people who can provide guidance or a foot-in-the-door.

While there isn’t a magic pill when it comes to finding a job, focusing your job search on quality over quantity and activating your relationships is the way to go.

 

So which of these tips resonated with you?

Hopefully they’ve come in handy for you and will add some clarity, focus and success to your job hunt.

We recommend using a HR or recruitment professional, sometimes referred to as a headhunter for advice, guidance and access to new opportunities in the market.

This can help you identify exactly what you’re looking for and how to find the best companies and vacancies that match your requirements.

If you would like any additional advice from us on this matter, contact us here.

For more great tips, insights and advice for the business world, subscribe to our blog for free!

All the best,

Team Trust Native

For the definitions of the highlighted words check our Glossary. 

Adapted from: entrepreneur.com

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How a Work-Life Balance Could Just Save Your Money & Your Life!

Career advice

How a Work-Life Balance Could Just Save Your Money & Your Life!

Are you a leader in Business? 

You may be familiar with the term, ‘work-life balance’ (WLB), some of you may even manage to achieve this, or at the very least, something as close as is physically possible.

With technology advancing and home office becoming an increasingly popular choice for companies, we’re in danger of losing control of the fine line between our personal and professional time.

Have you ever been relaxing on the weekend or your day-off, and out of nowhere, the peace and serenity of your day is disrupted by the all too familiar sound of your boss or colleague frantically calling you on your mobile or sending you ‘urgent’ whatsapp messages at night.

When you think about it, these calls and messages are rarely so urgent that they can’t wait until the next morning, or until Monday.

The problem is once a line has been crossed, it’s easier to cross it again and again, unless we take charge of the situation.

What is a Work-Life Balance?

A work-life balance isn’t about doing less work, at least in my opinion. It’s about self-maintenance, or better yet, personal and professional growth, without burning yourself out. It’s about keeping your health, both mentally and physically, at its peak. Which ultimately enables you to work smarter, harder, and more effectively.

If you allow work to creep in and overtake your personal ‘down-time’, you can put your health at serious risk.

As professionals from a diverse array of industries, overworking and not getting enough ‘unplugged’ down-time, exposes us to burning-out and developing conditions such as chronic stress, which are two of the most common workplace health issues.

These conditions significantly influence your physical and mental health, and ultimately your quality of life. Not to mention, the amount of medical leave you need from work!

The Cost of a Work-Life IN-balance

Burnout and chronic stress can lead to serious issues such as hypertension, digestive problems, chronic aches and pains, heart problems, as well as negatively impacting mental health, having been linked to a greater risk of depression, anxiety and insomnia, fatigue, mood swings, irritability and jeopardising performance at work.

In fact, Harvard Business Review recognises that the cost of healthcare spending on psychological and physical problems in the USA due to employee burnout, is an estimated $125 billion – $190 billion a year.

Every nation has a different experience and perspective on the concept of a work-life balance. It’s influenced by culture, profession or industry as well as the values shift between generations and the associated demands and pressures.

Did you know, for example, that Japan still faces a serious health crisis due to exhaustive corporate overtime demands? It’s said that the latest employment law prohibits more than 100 hours overtime, per month!

This overtime culture has been linked to many potentially fatal health issues, even elevated suicides levels! There is now even a Japanese word specifically for this tragedy, “Karoshi”, which translates to “death from overwork”.

Whatever your opinion about a Work-Life Balance, the benefits of getting your personal and professional lives aligned are undeniable, and on the flip-side, the cost and impact on your physical and mental health for failing to do so are serious enough that we should all be, at the very least, conscious of it.

WLB is a Two-Way Thing

It really does require some discipline these days, considering that we are all driven to progress in our careers, to earn more money and climb the corporate ladder. As a result, it’s increasingly difficult to switch-off on weekends and in the evenings once you arrive home, particularly if you’re in a management or leadership position.

Companies often place heavy expectations on employees, especially managers, influencing their priorities to choose work over relaxation, and to give up their free time to work even more.

We find ourselves in a battle of two desires: On the one hand, we want rapid career progression, recognition at work, financial wealth and corporate success, and on the other hand, a vibrant social life, family time, relaxation, happiness, and physical and mental Health.

Often, when we’re caught in this battle, we become stuck in the middle in ‘no man’s land’, and neither our performance at work, nor our personal health and happiness prosper from it.

How are companies changing?

Nowadays, many companies recognise that a WLB is an essential part of a healthy working environment and they’re adapting their offices, rules and regulations and operations to further balance and improve their employees’ quality of life.

The truth is that great business leaders want their management and employees to be well-balanced individuals, not over-stressed or burnt out.

They value the long term health of employees, as well as happiness and low stress levels, because it directly reflects in employee productivity, effectiveness and commitment to their company.

Some firms incorporate things like casual Fridays, flex-time working hours, and themed food days, while others take a more liberating approach, allowing employees to choose the hours they work, so long as they deliver the results, sometimes even removing dress code policies, altogether.

 

How about you?

How does your company approach the subject of overtime?

Where do you draw the line of too much work and how do you prevent yourself from burning out?

Moreover, how do you manage your employer’s expectations, while still being committed to your work, live a healthy lifestyle, and pursue career progression, all at the same time?

That’s why it’s called a balance!

We’d like to know what you have to say on this! Come and share thoughts via the comments box below!

 

Did you enjoy this article? Feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Best,

Adam 

About the Author

Adam Baker is the co-Founder and Course Director at Trust Native. He’s an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Sport & Organizational Psychologist with professional experience in both Europe and South America.

About the Author

Adam Baker is the co-Founder and Course Director at Trust Native. He’s an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Sport & Organizational Psychologist with professional experience in both Europe and South America.

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

We’ll email you occasionally with our latest posts & most interesting news.

How to Make a Work-Life Balance Work

Career advice

How to Make a Work-Life Balance Work

What does the term ‘Work-Life Balance’ mean to you?

Take a second to reflect on that for a moment.

Would you say you have a genuinely healthy work-life balance?

How do you ensure that your personal and professional life stay in perfect harmony with one another? Is that even possible?

Or do you already know you need a little more balance in your life. Maybe you feel overworked, under-fulfilled or over-stressed at work and/or in life? It’s probably fair to say that most of us at least feel over-fatigued at times, isn’t it?

Actually these could all be signs that your work-life balance isn’t as good as it could be.

 

What does a real work-life balance look like?

Most of us are striving for some kind of balance between our professional and personal lives, granted, some are better than others at it, but as individuals, we’re all seeking our own version of this balance to truly unwind from work, live fully and recharge our batteries.

For some, heading out to the beach or the mountains for a few days or simply chilling with the family is enough to detox and renew their energy, ready for the week ahead. For others, it requires something a little wilder and more cathartic, like living an alcohol fuelled 3-day blow-out, to reach the level of stress-relief required.

Everyone requires something a little different. But a true work-life balance means a lot more than just occasionally hitting the reset button when work is getting too much to handle and it’s bringing you down.

It’s a lifestyle choice that impacts your short and long term health and happiness!
So where do we even begin to improve our work-life balance?

 

Maybe We Need an Expert Opinion

Check out this insightful TED Talk by Nigel Marsh, who raises some really interesting as well as comical points about the Work-Life Balance:

Video Introduction: “Work-life balance, says Nigel Marsh, is too important to be left in the hands of your employer. Marsh lays out an ideal day balanced between family time, personal time and productivity — and offers some stirring encouragement to make it happen.”

So, having watched this TED Talk, how do you rate your current Work-Life Balance? Did if give you any extra food-for-thought?

 

In a Perfect World

We’re all individuals with different life goals, ambitions, health levels and ideas of what the perfect working day looks like. So again, what does it mean to you?

If you could describe your ideal working day, what would yours be like?
What could you change today that would bring you closer to that ideal? Often these changes are easier than we may imagine.

As a leader, or future leader in business, how could you apply this to your own professional and personal life, moreover, how could you positively influence your employees to improve their work-life balance, too?

 

Be sure to share your experience and opinion with us on this subject via the comments box below!

Did this article resonate with you, or do you know someone who could do with hearing this message?

Feel free to share this with your friends and colleagues on Facebook and LinkedIn.

 

Best,

Adam

For the definitions of the highlighted words check our Glossary. 

About the Author

Adam Baker is the co-Founder and Course Director at Trust Native. He’s an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Sport & Organizational Psychologist with professional experience in both Europe and South America.

About the Author

Adam Baker is the co-Founder and Course Director at Trust Native. He’s an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, and Sport & Organizational Psychologist with professional experience in both Europe and South America.

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

We’ll email you occasionally with our latest posts & most interesting news.

Tips from the world’s best in Business!

Career advice

Tips from the world’s best in Business!

If clichés like “Follow your passion,” “Give 110%,” and “Be true to yourself” just aren’t cutting it for you, then we’ve got some fresh takes on how to get a head start in your career.

From “Don’t work too hard” to “Relax”, here’s some unconventional career advice from some of the most successful business people around:

 

President Donald Trump: Be an outsider

Like him or not, Trump’s business acumen and commercial success is undeniable.

During his first commencement address as President of the United States, Donald Trump implored Liberty University graduates to “challenge entrenched interests and failed power structures.”

“Remember this: Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy,” Trump said. “Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right.”

Trump told graduates being called an “outsider” was, in fact, a good sign — “It’s the outsiders who change the world,” he said.

“The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you must be that you must keep pushing ahead,” Trump said.

 

Mark Zuckerberg: Finding your purpose isn’t enough

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it’s not enough to simply find your purpose in life — most young people today already instinctively try do do that, he explains.

Instead, he told Harvard’s graduating class of 2017 that the challenge for today’s 20-somethings is to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.

“Purpose is that feeling that you are part of something bigger than yourself, that you are needed, and that you have something better ahead. Purpose is what creates true happiness,” he said.

To help the rest of the world find a sense of purpose, Zuckerberg says young people can do three things:

1. Do great things, no matter how scary this might seem. “The reality is, anything we do will have issues in the future. But that can’t keep us from starting,” Zuckerberg says.

2. Offer your money and time to help someone out. “Let’s give everyone the freedom to pursue their purpose — not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because when more people can turn their dreams into something great, we’re all better for it,” Zuckerberg says.

3. Build community. “We get that our greatest opportunities are now global. We can be the generation that ends poverty, that ends disease. We get that our greatest challenges need global responses too. No country can fight climate change alone or prevent pandemics. Progress now requires coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community,” Zuckerberg says.

 

Richard Branson: Never look back in regret — move on to the next thing

Richard Branson’s mother taught him that.

“The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures, rather than putting that energy into another project, always amazes me,” the Virgin Group founder and chairman told The Good Entrepreneur. “I have fun running ALL the Virgin businesses — so a setback is never a bad experience, just a learning curve.”

 

Sheryl Sandberg: There is no straight path to where you are going

“As Pattie Sellers of Fortune Magazine says, careers are not ladders but jungle gyms,” the Facebook COO wrote on Quora. “You don’t have to have it all figured out.”

Sheryl Sandberg recommends having a long-term, abstract dream to work toward in addition to a more concrete 18-month plan. The long-term plan allows you to dream big, while the short-term plan forces you to push yourself and think about how you want to get better over the next year and a half.

“Ask yourself how you can improve and what you’re afraid to do,” she wrote, adding “that’s usually the thing you should try.”

 

Warren Buffett: Exercise humility and restraint

In a 2010 interview with Yahoo, Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett saidthat the best advice he ever received was from Berkshire Hathaway board of directors member Thomas Murphy. Murphy had told Buffett:

“Never forget, Warren, you can tell a guy to go to hell tomorrow — you don’t give up the right. So just keep your mouth shut today, and see if you feel the same way tomorrow.”

During Berkshire Hathaway’s 2015 shareholders meeting, Buffett also told a curious seventh-grader that the key to making friends and getting along with coworkers is learning to change your behavior as you mature by emulating those you admire and adopting the qualities they possess.

 

Bill Gates: Keep things simple

In a 2009 interview with CNBC, Microsoft cofounder and chairman Bill Gates admired Warren Buffett’s ability to keep things simple:

“You look at his calendar, it’s pretty simple. You talk to him about a case where he thinks a business is attractive, and he knows a few basic numbers and facts about it. And [if] it gets less complicated, he feels like then it’s something he’ll choose to invest in. He picks the things that he’s got a model of, a model that really is predictive and that’s going to continue to work over a long-term period. And so his ability to boil things down, to just work on the things that really count, to think through the basics — it’s so amazing that he can do that. It’s a special form of genius.”

 

Ivanka Trump: Think less, do more

Ivanka Trump previously told Business Insider that you need to work especially hard early in your life to find and foster your passions so that you can love what you do.

“Passion is something that’s hard to discover purely through introspection,” she explains. “You have to have experiences — you have to learn real time and through experiences what makes you tick.”

This means identifying the things that you could potentially be interested in and then just going for them, whether it’s through internships or taking jobs in fields that could potentially be interesting for you.

“Just go out and do things, and those things that continue to spark an interest, do more of,” she advises.

Once you’ve found your passion, the key to success is then putting in the work.

“The only people I’ve ever met who are really successful in their fields, regardless of what field that is, are people who are deeply passionate about the work they do every day and are motivated by a sense of purpose,” Trump says.

 

Tony Robbins: Make yourself invaluable by learning the necessary skills you may be lacking

Before Robbins was the inspirational speaker with a cult following that he is today, his career was going nowhere, even though he was putting in long hours.

It was his mentor, the late motivational speaker Jim Rohn, who gave him the advice that eventually helped him turn it all around. As Robbins detailed in a Facebook Live Q&A at Business Insider’s New York office:

“He said, ‘Tony, you’re so focused on expecting things to happen so fast … Your worth in the marketplace is based on your ability to add more value than anyone else. If you can find a way to do more for others in your company, more for the employees, more for the clients, than anybody else, your gifts will make room for you. But in order to do that, you’ve got to build skills.'”

 

Maya Angelou: Make your own path

In her book, “The Best Advice I Ever Got,” Katie Couric quotes the late author, poet, dancer, actress, and singer Maya Angelou:

“My paternal grandmother, Mrs. Annie Henderson, gave me advice that I have used for 65 years. She said, ‘If the world puts you on a road you do not like, if you look ahead and do not want that destination which is being offered and you look behind and you do not want to return to your place of departure, step off the road. Build yourself a new path.'”

 

Lloyd Blankfein: Chill out

The Goldman Sachs CEO’s best career advice is something he says he’d never have followed himself when he was younger: “Chill out.”

As he told Goldman Sachs interns from around the world during a speaker series:

“There’s not a sport — there’s not an activity in life where, if you have a really hard grip, you actually are better. Whether it’s baseball or golf … the looser you are, the further the thing goes, because it’s a lot easier to whip around a string than a stick. If you’re tight, I’m speaking metaphorically, if you’re really tight you’re not necessarily better.”

 

J.K. Rowling: Embrace failure

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling children’s book series “Harry Potter,” knows a lot about achieving success — and failure.

“I don’t think we talk about failure enough,” Rowling told Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show. “It would’ve really helped to have someone who had had a measure of success come say to me, ‘You will fail. That’s inevitable. It’s what you do with it.'”

Before Rowling became one of the wealthiest women in the world, she was a single mom living off welfare in the UK. She began writing about her now famous character, the young wizard, Harry Potter, in Edinburgh cafés, and received “loads” of rejections from book publishers when she first sent out the manuscript, The Guardian reports.

“An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless … By every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew,” Rowling said during a 2008 Harvard University commencement speech.

She went on to say that she considered her early failure a “gift” that was “painfully won,” since she gained valuable knowledge about herself and her relationships through the adversity.

 

Melanie Whelan: Get a job, any job

The CEO of SoulCycle believes that new college grads should forget about doing what they think is expected of them and just get to work.

“Get a job and work hard,” she told The New York Times’ Adam Bryant in an interview. “You are going to learn a ton in whatever that job is, so don’t stress too much about what it is or where it is. Just take a job and put your head down, work hard, raise your hand for anything anybody asks you to do.”

Melanie Whelan said it’s important for young job seekers to live in the present rather than worry so much about where they’re headed. The key is working as hard and learning as much as possible. When you do this, she said, good things will follow.

“A lot of people think in terms of ‘should’ — I ‘should’ be a banker, I ‘should’ go to law school, I ‘should’ pursue what I studied in school,” she said.

This is a mistake, she told Bryant.

 

Eric Schmidt: Say yes to more things

In her book, “The Best Advice I Ever Got,” Katie Couric quotes Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt as advising:

“Find a way to say yes to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learn something new. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids.”

 

Chelsea Handler: When you make a commitment, keep it

The millionaire comedian and actress says that she learned the importance of showing up when she was a waitress in her 20s.

“Whether that was a result of wanting to be liked from years of rejection in high school, or whether it was wanting to be dependable and reliable after years of being the opposite, I just wanted people to feel that they could count on me,” she writes in a LinkedIn post, titled “I Used to Hate Doing Stand Up. Then I Discovered the Power of Showing Up.”

Handler says that her habit for dependability has since bled into every facet of her life.

“It was no longer an option to not show up. I now practice ‘showing up’ with everything I do. It has permeated every facet of my life. Whether it’s wanting to cancel a workout, a friend’s party, a public appearance, my family in New Jersey. Whatever it is, when I commit, I show up,” she says.

 

Steve Jobs: Don’t just follow your passion, but something larger than yourself

In a Business Insider article, Cal Newport, author of “So Good They Can’t Ignore You,” referenced Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson, who recalled an exchange he had with Jobs shortly before he died.

Jobs reportedly told Isaacson:

“Yeah, we’re always talking about following your passion, but we’re all part of the flow of history … you’ve got to put something back into the flow of history that’s going to help your community, help other people … so that 20, 30, 40 years from now … people will say, this person didn’t just have a passion, he cared about making something that other people could benefit from.”

 

Suze Orman: With success comes unhelpful criticism — ignore it

In a LinkedIn article about the best advice she ever received, motivational speaker, author, and CNBC host Suze Orman wrote that success has often made her a target of nasty criticism”entirely disconnected from facts.” At first these attacks made her angry, but she eventually learned to ignore them.

She wrote:

“A wise teacher from India shared this insight: The elephant keeps walking as the dogs keep barking. The sad fact is that we all have to navigate our way around the dogs in our career: external critics, competitors, horrible bosses, or colleagues who undermine. Based on my experience, I would advise you to prepare for the yapping to increase along with your success.”

 

Arianna Huffington: Don’t work too hard

In a LinkedIn post, The Huffington Post and Thrive Global cofounder Arianna Huffington revealed that she’s often asked if young people pursuing their dreams should burn the candle at both ends.

“This couldn’t be less true,” she wrote. “And for far too long, we have been operating under a collective delusion that burning out is the necessary price for achieving success.”

She says that she wishes she could go back and tell her younger self, “Arianna, your performance will actually improve if you can commit to not only working hard but also unplugging, recharging, and renewing yourself.”

 

Stewart Butterfield: Have an ‘experimental attitude’

Stewart Butterfield, cofounder of Flickr and chief executive of Slack, one of the fastest-growing business apps of all time, shared his best advice for young people with Adam Bryant of The New York Times:

“Some people will know exactly what they want to do at a very young age, but the odds are low. I feel like people in their early- to mid-20s are very earnest. They’re very serious, and they want to feel like they’ve accomplished a lot at a very young age rather than just trying to figure stuff out. So I try to push them toward a more experimental attitude.”

 

Dr. Phil McGraw: Make sure you’d be all right with someone judging you on any of your work

The television personality, author, psychologist, and host of the “Dr. Phil” show suggests that, before you submit any work, you should ask yourself if you’d be OK with it being the only thing someone used to form an opinion of you.

He told Business Insider that he learned this lesson during the second season of his show, when he was having trouble deciding if he should cover a particular topic for an episode.

His son said to him: “You have to ask yourself this question: ‘If someone is only ever going to see one Dr. Phil episode in their life, would you be OK with it being this one?’ If the answer is ‘no,’ don’t do it.'”

McGraw says that he keeps this in mind now with all of his work, whether it’s a book he’s writing, an answer he gives in an interview, or an episode he does.

 

George Stephanopoulos: Relax

“Almost nothing you’re worried about today will define your tomorrow,” “Good Morning America” coanchor George Stephanopoulos told personal-finance website NerdWallet. “Down the road, don’t be afraid to take a pay cut to follow your passion. But do stash a few bucks in a 401(k) now.”
 

Marla Malcolm Beck: Remember that you won’t end up where you start

Marla Malcolm Beck, cofounder and CEO of Bluemercury, said in an interview with Adam Bryant of The New York Times that she always reminds students that “nobody ends up in the first job they choose out of college, so just find something that is interesting to you, because you tend to excel at things you’re interested in. But just go do it. You have nothing to lose.”

Her other piece of advice: Go into tech.

“If you look at all the skill sets companies need, they involve a comfort level with technology,” she told Bryant.

 

T.J. Miller: Work harder than anyone else around you

T.J. Miller, comedian and star of HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” told personal-finance website NerdWallet that this is truly the formula to success: “It worked for me, and I have mediocre talent and a horse jaw.”
 

Alexa von Tobel: Get up, dress up, and show up

What Alexa von Tobel, founder and CEO of LearnVest and the author of New York Times best-seller “Financially Fearless,” means is that it’s important to wake up excited for what’s coming, dress the part, and always show up ready to go.

She wrote in an article for Business Insider:

“As a new hire, you will likely find yourself in tons of new situations, and it’s up to you to figure out how to navigate them.

“Remember that your manager is strapped for time, so know when to ask questions. Are you unsure of the objectives for an assignment? Asking her to clarify is crucial, since it’s pretty hard to make the mark if you don’t know where it even lies.

“On the flip side, avoid bombarding your manager with petty questions that could be answered by your peers or a quick Google search.”

 

John Chen: Being a ‘superstar’ can hurt your career

“Most employees think that the best way to show value to their boss and get promoted is to aggressively claim credit and ownership over everything they do,” BlackBerry CEO John Chen wrote in a LinkedIn post. “While it’s important to be recognized for what you do and the value you add, grabbing the glory is going to turn off your coworkers.”

It can also turn off your boss, he warns.

“Trying too hard to show you’re a superstar tells me that you only care about what’s best for you, and not the company as a whole,” he wrote.

 

Salli Setta: Never eat lunch alone

Red Lobster president Salli Setta told Business Insider that it’s important to get out from behind your screen at lunchtime because lunch is a prime networking opportunity.

The benefit of always having lunch plans with someone are twofold: You can get information that will help you “think about your job differently,” and you also get on your companion’s radar.

“It isn’t about saying ‘hi, what are we going to talk about, let’s talk about sports,'” Setta said. “It’s about identifying the object of this lunch in your mind” and going in armed with “a couple of things that you want to ask, and a couple of things you want to share.”

 

Deepak Chopra: Embrace the wisdom of uncertainty

In a LinkedIn post, Deepak Chopra, popular author and founder of The Chopra Foundation, said that he wished he embraced the wisdom of uncertainty at a younger age.

“At the outset of my medical career, I had the security of knowing exactly where I was headed,” he wrote. “Yet what I didn’t count on was the uncertainty of life, and what uncertainty can do to a person.”

“If only I knew then, as I know now, that there is wisdom in uncertainty — it opens a door to the unknown, and only from the unknown can life be renewed constantly,” he wrote.

 

Brian Chesky: Don’t listen to your parents

Brian Chesky, cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, said in an interview with The New York Times’ Adam Bryant that recent grads shouldn’t listen to their parents.

He told Bryant:

“They’re the most important relationships in your life, but you should never take your parents’ career advice, and I’m using parents as a proxy for all the pressures in the world. I also say that whatever career you’re in, assume it’s going to be a massive failure. That way, you’re not making decisions based on success, money and career. You’re only making it based on doing what you love.”

 

Diane von Furstenberg: Keep it real

In an interview with Adam Bryant of The New York Times, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg said she learned that trusting yourself is the key to success.

“In order to trust yourself, you have to have a relationship with yourself,” she told Bryant. “In order to have a relationship with yourself, you have to be hard on yourself, and not be delusional.”

 

Rick Goings: Be nice to everyone

Rick Goings, CEO of home-products company Tupperware Brands, shared his favorite pearls of wisdom for young people with Business Insider. One of them was to be nice to everyone when you go on a job interview.

“I like to check with the driver, our receptionist, and my assistants on how the candidate interacted with them. How you treat others means the world!” he said.

 

 So what do you think? Good advice?

Which of these tips most resonates with you? 

Are there any ideas here that you just don’t agree with or don’t understand?

We’d like to know what you have to say on this! Come and share thoughts via the comments box below!

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Best,

Trust Native Team!

 

Original source: Business Insider

 

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