How many of you create your goals with your manager? Yes, everyone. How many of you create your goals and then ignore them until it is time to do your mid-year and year-end performance review? I raise my hand to that one this year (not every year). I’m paying (literally) for it, too. At a minimum — put […]

Here are the goals that are easy to check off:Completed all mandatory training on timeResponded to all risks and issues assigned to you Supported department initiatives for improvementPretty awesome, right? You get to answer with a big, affirmative YES I DID! And with each one you answered with that big, affirmative YES, you drove your performance review […]

Your performance review and rating is important — it drives your salary and bonus, if you have the ability to get one. When it comes to performance, then, one strives to not be average — meets your goals — but to exceed so as to get a better salary increase and better bonus.When you sit […]

We’re heading into performance review season and it’s time when we all do our self-reviews. The ones where we write the review for the manager and provide fodder for our manager to defend our rating in the calibration sessions.  Did you notice when you hit the team goals that you had a hard time figuring out […]

After conducting my last job interview — where I was interviewing a candidate — I reflected on what differentiated a job candidate from others to make them the preferred candidate. After all, I’ve done a ton of job interviews over the past year. I’ve provided specific poor job interview practices — talking too long, we […]

Sometimes, the best thing is to get laid off. It, of course, is tumultuous, chaos, stressful, and oftentimes, maddening. In the long run, however, a layoff can help you define yourself, what you want to do and who you want to work for. But, as John Maynard Keynes noted: “In the long run, we’re all […]

We all have a lot of meetings during our day. I don’t know about you, but I can go from meeting to meeting to meeting with nary a break. After a while, it all kinda becomes a blur. It doesn’t have to. The problem with those blurry meetings is that over time, you become highly […]

You read about it all the time — you have to take care of the customer. The customer is always right. Without customers, we have no business. What Cubicle Warriors know, however, it that the most important customer isn’t some vague person out there. They know the most important customer is their manager. Yes, Your […]

When the Republicans passed their tax cut at the end of 2017, the Republicans proclaimed it was a (windfall) tax cut for corporations and a (small) tax cut for individuals. Well, it is a windfall for corporations. For families? It depends. For Cubicle Warriors? It’s probably a tax increase. If you were curious, you might have […]

I once had a coworker who, as was a requirement, humorously put his job title in his email signature as ‘Data Janitor III.’ It wasn’t far from the truth — he was a Database Administrator. Keeping data clean was part of his job. Now, should he put that ‘Data Janitor III’ into his resume? Nope. […]

I believe in jobs that have good salaries, bonuses, and benefits. But I also believe that every jobs ends. And when that job ends, you need to have skills and accomplishments to grab that next job. It didn’t used to be this way. Companies brought you on board, helped you in your work, promoted you […]

I do love hearing from my readers. They ask pretty good questions. This one came in today: “In order to be promoted, one must already be doing the work required in the promotion.” But what if, say, you’ve been doing the extra work for two years and the promotion has yet to be offered? In other […]

If it has been a while since you’ve been in a job search, it’s tempting to apply to a perfect job posting right away. Tempting, but there is work to do.   Before you blast out your resume, take some time to review the basics. Not too long — job postings get removed as fast […]

In my interview the other day on Vocate, the first question I was asked was “What are the most important lessons you’ve had to learn in your professional life on finding and thriving in a job? My first bullet point, of many, was this one: We owe a company our work, but not our loyalty […]

I was fortunate to be able to provide some of the Cubicle Warrior perspective on jobs, interviews, and careers over at Vocate. It’s a pretty long, wide-ranging interview. If you wanted to find out about the Cube Rules approach to working in corporations, you’ll do well reading this interview. Related posts: Interviewing — Two don’ts during […]

There are four critical accomplishments you need to have when you start a new position. None of them relate to your job skills and have little to do with your interview. Instead, you need to learn how things get done in your new job. How you can fit into the team. What your manager tells […]

A lot of articles about doing a job interview talk about how to prepare for an interview. I do as well. But most articles don’t talk about the skills you need to have successful job interviews. This one does. Related posts: Your resume is not about getting the job (it’s something else) Build powerful stories […]

Most people would not have noticed because they were looking somewhere in the past where a thousand articles have been published, but since May, 2017, I officially paused Cube Rules. For a lot of reasons, I needed to back away. Cube Rules was becoming more of a burden, I didn’t know if I was making a […]

When those customer surveys of executives ask about how hard it is to find talented people for positions, you’re likely to hear that finding good people is pretty darn hard. Or is it? I’ve been doing interviews for my day job and it has been (and continues to be) a revelation. The people we’re having […]

When the hiring manager has to interrupt you answering an interview question in order to ask you another question, you’ve pretty much lost the job. That’s happened in literally all of the interviews I’m participating in for the day job. It drives me (and the hiring manager) crazy. It’s like the person interviewed has no […]