Category: Tools You Can Use,

The Opportunity Pyramid – Stop Searching for Jobs. Start Searching for Opportunity.

Paul Wagenaar

We spend an enormous amount of time talking about how to find a job. But what if we’ve been looking in the wrong places?

Most job seekers begin with the jobs everyone can see, the ones posted online. It makes perfect sense. It’s easy, accessible, and feels like the obvious place to start.

But when almost everyone is looking in the same place, competition becomes fierce, and a surprisingly large part of the opportunity landscape remains invisible.

This is a longer piece than I normally write, but I didn’t want to reduce an important idea to a few quick tips. There is more to finding opportunity than searching harder. Sometimes, the real advantage comes from changing where, and how, we look.

I hope you’ll take the time to explore it with me.

Before I got up off the ice

Paul Wagenaar

I was lying on the ice, staring up at the lights, knowing I didn’t belong.
Everyone else was faster. Better. More natural.

I had no business being out there, and I knew it. In that moment, I made a decision: I was done.

I started to pull myself up, already planning how I’d leave, what I’d say, how I’d explain that this just wasn’t for me.

And then someone skated over.

Job Seeking Series

Paul Wagenaar

Did you know that 70-80% of the jobs available are not advertised online? That means the people who only look online for jobs have a lot of competition.

This is a number that seems to be all over the internet and even if it is only partially true; how do you access them? “Word of mouth,” and networking. What if you don’t really understand networking or would like some tips? Keep reading.

With Freedom Comes Responsibility

Paul Wagenaar

Politics and elections is more than 10 second sound bites and popular slogans. We seem to have grown apathetic towards our democracies and take our rights as something we will always have.

Most of the world does not live the way we do … if we are not careful our rights and democracy could disappear while we are watching.

Read this as a beginning, ask questions, become interested, become engaged, and vote whenever you have the opportunity.

Things to consider …

Paul Wagenaar

Good organizations want to find good people and good people are seeking jobs with good organizations. In today’s “Tools Everyone Can Use,” there are tips for both sides to use that work that you can start using right now that will make a difference.

21 Questions/Lessons Learned

Paul Wagenaar

Small and medium-sized organizations, retailers, service companies, and even charitable organizations struggle even in good times. When inflation is high, the labour market is tight, and competitive pressures cause many sleepless nights it is an even greater struggle.

Success, the ability to adapt and overcome is achievable, a good place to start is to consider the lessons learned in “beware the rabbit hole.”

Turning the page on price focused marketing

Paul Wagenaar

Marketing and advertising is all about us; however, the vast majority is just “noise,” and too many small and medium-sized merchants get caught up in that noise. Today’s post is about “turning the page on price” to focus on those things that add value for your customers and clients.

Mind the gap.

Paul Wagenaar

Many organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of “On-Boarding” new people to their teams. Taking the time to introduce “Team Charters” and developing “living processes” that help nurture and develop people are vital to increase staff retention. Managing “off-boarding” is also important. It is a process that should not be ignored, to gain valuable insights and feedback but also to ensure the organizational relationship is ended properly.

Tools Everyone Can Use to Handle Pressure

Paul Wagenaar

A friend asked for a post on pressure. I wrote this with them in mind using tools other have shared with me. I hope that it might help other people as well. Handling pressure is a learned skill and sharing skills and stories is a great way to help friends and family.