Adam Pervez seemed to have it all when he graduated from Madrid’s IE Business School with an MBA in 2009. In a tough job market, he’d landed his dream job, a six-figure position in Denmark working for Siemens Wind Power (SI), helping the company develop capacity for offshore wind turbines. But Pervez soon found himself unsatisfied with the corporate lifestyle, even though he was working in a field he was passionate about. He’d focused on corporate social responsibility and sustainability while in business school and realized he wanted to have a direct impact on poor people in developing countries, rather than help the developed world become more energy efficient. So 10 months later, he did the unthinkable: He quit his job and launched what he has dubbed the Happy Nomad Tour and began traveling the world to put the theories behind corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship to the test.

Read the rest of the article here

Is an MBA for working professionals worth the time, effort and expense? Some say an emphatic yes, particularly for the network.

Early on in The Start-up of You, Reid Hoffman takes on the sacred cow of career advice books, making it clear that the timeworn exhortations of What Color is Your Parachute?won’t fly in this economy.

“That’s the wrong question,” Hoffman, the co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn writes (with the help of coauthor Ben Casnocha). “What you should be asking yourself is whether your parachute can keep you aloft in changing conditions.”

Hence the central conceit of the book. Just as Detroit’s dinosaurs fell victim to hubris and an inability to adapt, so will you, dear career seeker, if you don’t mimic the nimble startups of Silicon Valley. Though Hoffman and Casnocha see the struggle through the eyes of one percenters (they don’t seem to know anyone who didn’t go to a good college), there’s lots of good advice that you can apply to your own career. We’ve distilled that advice into eight solid tips that you can apply to your job search today.

1. “A Company Hires Me Over Other Professionals Because…”

To answer this question, Hoffman uses the example of Zappos, which focuses on mainstream shoes and clothes. While it might be tempting to adapt the company’s “over-the-top customer service” to other categories as well, that would make Zappos’s unique selling proposition less apparent. “If you try to be the best at everything and better than everyone (that is, if you believe success means ascending one global, mega leaderboard), you’ll be the best at nothing and better than no one,” Hoffman writes. “In other words, don’t try to be the greatest marketing executive in the world; try to be the greatest marketing executive of small-to-midsize companies that compete in the health care industry.”

Read the entire article here

How to accelerate your career by using BranchOut

You are invited to the Book Presentation Ceremony of “THE SHIFT” by Lynda Gratton

Work is a defining, all-consuming part of our lives. Now, more than ever, the speed at which the nature of work is changing is having an extraordinary impact on working lives everywhere.

Lynda Gratton is Professor of Management Practice at London Business School and is the founder of the Hot Spots Movement. She has written seven books and numerous academic articles and is considered one of the world’s authorities on people in organizations.

In 2011 she has been ranked by The Times as one of the top 15 Business Thinkers in the world today and in 2008 The Financial Times selected her as the business thinker most likely to make a real difference over the next decade. She was also in the top two of the Human Resources Magazine’s” HR Top 100: Most Influential” poll, and this year Lynda was number one of Human Resources Magazine’s “Top 25 HR Most Influential UK Thinkers 2011” poll.

http://www.lyndagratton.com/

Date and Time: Friday, 24th February at 16:00

Venue:  Room A-301 in Maria de Molina 13, Madrid

To register, please click here

So, You Want To Be an Independent Consultant?

A Panel Discussion on the Nuts & Bolts

Wednesday, March 7, 2012 

5:30-8:00 pm; registration and networking from 5:30-6:00 pm

Wieboldt Hall, 340 E. Superior Street, Room 440, Chicago, IL 60611

Independence

Flexibility

No politics

No bureaucracy

Many alumni, longing to be their own bosses, have considered becoming independent consultants.  The benefits, shown above, can be very appealing.  But, what about the potential pitfalls, and how best to avoid them?  Our panel of independent consultants will discuss the nuts and bolts of launching and running an independent consulting practice.  Topics include:

• Finding and maintaining clients
• Creating a website and other marketing materials
• Balancing business development and execution
• Incorporating
• Getting insurance and paying taxes
• Billing and creating contracts
• Leveraging social media

Panelists include:

Rob Engelman, KSM ’93, Engleman Management Group

Heidi Foreman, KSM ’82, Foreman Consulting, Inc.

Susan Silver, KSM’94,  Argentum Strategy Group

Guy Summers, Farrell Group LLC

Moderated by Karie Davis, Kellogg Alumni Career Coach.

Cost: $25 including beverages and hors d’oeuvres.

Register online by Friday, March 2, 2012. 

For more information, please contact Lin-Wei Bonney at L-Bonney@kellogg.northwestern.edu or 847-467-1928.

Forget Networking. How to Be a Connector

This interesting published on www.Entrepreneur.com defines ‘Connectors’ a term coined by Malcolm Gladwell in “The Tipping Point”, for people who can naturally network.

We all know people like them, people who seem to know everyone. They’re always able to help — or if they can’t, they know someone who can. You meet them for the first time and in 15 minutes, you’re talking with them like you’re childhood friends. They’re successful, smart and funny, with a likable touch of self-deprecation. And they’re interested in everything.

Who are they? Connectors. Take Maryam Banikarim, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Gannett, publisher of USA Today. She has a perfect job for a connector — she helps link Gannett’s various newspapers and media outlets “and bring the pieces together.”

“I like people and am genuinely curious,” says Banikarim, 42. “I like stories and want to make connections. But I didn’t know the word for it until my husband read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and said, ‘I finally have a word for you — a connector.’ ”

Read the entire article here

Top Executive Recruiters Agree There Are Only Three True Job Interview Questions

The only three true job interview questions are:

1.  Can you do the job?
2.  Will you love the job?
3.  Can we tolerate working with you?

That’s it.  Those three.  Think back, every question you’ve ever posed to others or had asked of you in a job interview is a subset of a deeper in-depth follow-up to one of these three key questions.  Each question potentially may be asked using different words, but every question, however it is phrased, is just a variation on one of these topics: Strengths, Motivation, and Fit.

Read the entire Forbes article here

Hacer un buen curriculum pudiera parecer  sencillo pero ni es tarea fácil ni se prepara en un momento. Tanto que en Estados Unidos existe hasta una profesión, CV Writter, una persona que te hace el curriculum, y si tiene un poco de prestigio puede cobrar más de cinco mil pesos. Parece que el tema empieza a parecer importante, ¿no?

Vamos a ver cuáles son los 5 consejos básicos que podemos aplicar:

1. Formato

Pensemos que la primera tarea del reclutador es reducir su pila de CVs de 100 (por poner un número) a 10. Por tanto si el formato del CV, será muy fácil que lo tire a la basura. La forma es muy importante cuando se buscan puestos directivos o posiciones medias/altas.

Para evitarlo es esencial que el CV cumpla con los siguientes puntos:

• Fácil de leer, que de un vistazo se vea lo importante. Máximo 2 hojas.
• Bien estructurado
• Sin errores gramaticales
• Si es en otro idioma tiene que estar revisado por un nativo.
• El contenido de cada trabajo se desarrolla con “bullet point”, no con párrafos.

Para leer el resto del artículo pincha aquí