Blog
Debra Wheatman, President of Careers Done Write, provides expert insight to the job search process that puts your career in gear with tips for interviewing, networking, job search strategies and how to create a winning resume and cover letter.
Are you hiring for cultural fit? You might want to rethink that.
Companies that love to brag about their distinct and defining cultures often cite culture as a significant recruiting tool. In turn, their hiring managers often regard the nebulous “cultural fit” as the most essential factor in evaluating candidates. But is this a good way to hire? Not always. What tends to happen is that…
Everything you love to hate about performance reviews
The performance review. Universally reviled by all involved, this annual exercise is one that causes managers and employees to recoil in horror. Managers hate writing performance reviews and holding meetings. Employees dread the annual discussion of what could be done better. While some companies have, in recent years, moved to eliminate the formal, annual…
Top ten pieces of old, outdated career advice that you should ignore
Over the last 30 years, the job market has fundamentally changed. The advent of the internet and the ensuing Information Age, along with a complete revision of the postwar employment contract has placed the onus of managing one’s career on the individual, rather than on the company. But with this responsibility comes a heightened…
Lazy hiring to the extreme
If you follow my blog, you know that one of my pet peeves is #LazyRecruiting and its cousin #LazyHiring. Lazy hiring/recruiting is rampant in any job market. When it’s an employer’s market, it takes the form of hiring companies kicking back, and having job seekers do all the work. In a candidate’s market, like…
Millennials and Gen Z are Changing the Culture of the Workplace
In the bygone era, prior to the late 1980s, life in corporate America was good. It was comfortable. Predictable. Secure. All you had to do was go to college (or not), get a job, work your way up, and then, 40 years later, retire with a full pension. By 1988, “downsizing” had come into favor…
How to deal with sycophants at work
In Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, two swindlers convince a vain emperor they could weave the most elegant clothes so uncommonly fine, only those with the highest refinement, good taste, and exceptional intelligence would be able to see them. The ambitious emperor heartily agrees, thinking it would help him to distinguish the…
Illegal? Shady? Both? Neither?
Each year the EEOC closes more than 100,000 cases. However, only 18% of complaints ever resolve in either financial reward or a change in work conditions. Part of the reason for this is due to the indisputable reality that workplace harassment is notoriously difficult to prove, and that the burden of proof rests entirely on…
Why Women Shouldn’t Earn More Than Men: A Mansplanation
News host Tucker Carlson is afraid. Very afraid. And his feelings are hurt. Why? Because women are empowered. Scary. You see, sometimes women are in high-earning positions. And when they are, according to Mr. Carlson, makes them less desirable to men looking for partners. In Mr. Carlson’s version of reality, the biggest problem in the…
The backlash of #MeToo
Those of us who are old enough will remember that in 1991, Clarence Thomas was confirmed and appointed to the Supreme Court, despite the compelling and riveting testimony of Anita Hill. The all-male Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed him, in the face of credible evidence that he had sexually harassed Ms. Hill. The backlash from this…
Is career advice a form of gaslighting?
I came across an article recently that had a unique take on the kinds of career advice that is typically given to women. The main concept of the article is that women are being sold on the idea that it is up to them to change workplace culture and to make the workplace more encouraging…