Part of the day was spent getting ready for my first informational interview with a gentleman from Price Waterhouse Coopers. A friend of mine set this up with a friend of his. Nervous going into this because I really didn’t have any idea what to expect. I was very grateful when I heard about the possibility to talk to someone from PWC, and even more grateful after talking to him.
He was very gracious, straight forward and much more giving than expected. He has already forwarded my resume to one of his team members; and he is willing to meet with me again in month, (at his suggestion). He has also offered to be a reference within PWC and to provide introductions.
One goof on my part, I had asked for a ½ hour meeting, so as we closed in on the ½ hour I was trying to close the meeting thinking I was starting to encroach on his time; worried I was making him late for his next meeting. He kept asking questions which I answered and then we finally broke up the meeting about 45 minutes into it. Then I saw on the calendar that his OA had actually set up the meeting for an hour. In my thank you note, I explained my mistake.
Learning a lot in the interview, I came away excited to look at jobs at PWC where going in I didn’t have a open mind to the possibilities.
Yesterday’s blog went down the bunny trail of social networking. This area is important in the job search and may be important in my next job because it is an area where I have passion. This morning I was sent a link which links to a great article from the wall street journal on the same subject, well worth checking out: Facebook generation vs the fortune 500.
These 12 work-relevant characteristics of online life represent changes that are taking place in the workplace. These are being driven by technology and the ability of younger workers to more readily accept and leverage the changes. As a more mature person entering the job market after a long time, I need to consider how I can leverage these same technological changes to make myself more valuable.
I also received another great link today. This one was to a video, which takes about 15 minutes to listen to. Which is a lot of time, but I highly recommend that you listen to it. The video is called “Changing Your Happiness Baseline” and is on the topic is on Positive Psychology or study of what makes people happy. It talks about how performance can be improved over 50% just by doing simple exercises.
Here are six simple areas for improving your happiness baseline:
Gratitude (In morning write down 5 things you are grateful for)
Journaling (Just 3 minutes on a positive experience)
Simplify vrs. multitasking (Focus on one thing and get more done)
Utilizing your strengths (Define your strengths and use them)
Exercise (Just Do it)
Meditation (Concentrate on your breath)
Doing the gratitude exercise in the morning will show effects all day. Do it for 21 days and the positive effects will last for 6 months. Journaling for 3 minutes a day improves your immune system and reduces doctor visits by 50%. Exercise is as powerful a medicine as taking anti-depressants. All of these benefits are easily achieved and can make a big difference in your job search and life. Learn these and more in the video.
Is it worth 15 minutes? Check it out here: Changing your Happiness Baseline
Here is what I’m grateful for today:
My wife and kids
My friends (and their friends)
The goodness and charity of people
The notes of encouragement, thankfulness, ideas, and empathy
Unbelievably, this process of career change
I just pray that I feel the same way in 10 months on the last one.
Tomorrow: resume search
inSite Group 52
Jobs applied for: 23
Rejections: 7
Job Posting withdrawn: 1
Interviews: 1
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