The Voice of Job Seekers

Mark Anthony Dyson ★ Career Writer ★ Speaker ★ Thinker ★ Award-winning Blog & Podcast! ★ "The Job Scam Report" on Substack! ★ I hack and reimagine the modern job search!

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by Mark Anthony Dyson

How Pruning Is Helpful To You Like Coach Prime

How Pruning Is Helpful To You Like Coach Prime

Deon Sanders, coach of the University of Colorado Boulder football team, taught me one valuable career lesson lately. Maybe you saw other things (I would love to know if you saw anything else applicable), but one thing happened before Saturday’s game was critical to success.

When Sanders was named coach of this 1-11 team, he did something unprecedented in building a team that was his: He replaced last year’s team except for ten scholarship players from last year:
*85 of them were scholarships last year. This year, just 20 were full-time scholarship players.
**New coaching staff.
***Signed the #1 high school prospect

Once he was announced head coach, Sanders said, “We’re bringing kids that are smart, tough, fast, disciplined with character.”

Colorado athletic director Rick George said, “I have confidence in him and his staff, and they know what they’re doing,” George said. “… He’s been very honest and forthright. He’s been very open about it publicly and privately. He’s trying to build a winner at Colorado, and this is his way to do it”(Bleacher Report, 8/30/23).

Skeptics and critics were waiting, reserving their opinions for a more opportune time. Sanders said he kept the receipts (noting those who criticized him).

I call it “pruning.”

Cut off the parts no longer useful and make room for new growth. While we can call it gardening 101, it’s also an essential part of building. To build a strong foundation, you must replace the weak one.

What does that have to do with your #career? Sure, starting over can be refreshing, but your career’s weak or dead parts must be replaced with newer, more vital ones. You’re not rebuilding if you only eliminate the unusable parts.

It’s not good enough to get new training to advance your career. What is most relevant to your next career move/company/industry? Identify those skills/thoughts/moves

Keeping irrelevant jobs on your resume and LinkedIn profile is not good enough. Are they relevant to your new chapter? If not, emphasize the things your next move requires.

It’s a process needing thoughtfulness, strategy, and execution. You can’t be sentimental about past skills or victories to the point of keeping them if they’re not required.

Colorado won 45-42.

He’s got a respectable record, now. What do you think?

Well, he matched last year’s record by doing it his way. Even if he loses the next four. If he wins, he doubles the wins from last year. In either scenario, it’s a work in progress.

Shouldn’t we all prune our careers at some point? Like Sanders, they’ll be critics waiting for their opportunity to ask what and why are you doing this pruning.

Also, like Sanders, keep receipts, but remember, you’re a work in progress, making room for growth.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

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Filed Under: Job Search Tagged With: branding, Personal branding

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Don’t Take That Job ‘Til You Read This Book

Don’t Take That Job ‘Til You Read This Book
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Don’t Take That Job ‘Til You Read This Book will help you control your career in a way most job seekers don’t. Leigh Branham and Mark Hirschfield authored this book (and included contributions from me and others) to help you navigate the post-pandemic changes in the world of work. 

Leigh Branham is the founder of Keeping of the People, Inc. He has authored several books and is a speaker and consultant. 

Mark D. Hirschfield is the Vice President of Consulting Services and Strategic Partnerships of BI Worldwide. 

This is the second book Leigh and Mark authored together. Both have long career coaching and consulting experiences. 

You are more than welcome to join the discussion. Here are three ways you can:

– Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your comments to the same number

– Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message

– Send email feedback to mark@thevoiceofjobseekers.com

Discussion highlights: 

  • The book’s primary purpose was to look at all the possible pitfalls and the main reasons employees leave, flip the coin, and look at it and say, these might be one of the reasons you would leave your next employer.
  • They use the lenses from Lee’s last book to say what leadership is like. What are career opportunities like? We know that if people don’t experience those things, it oftentimes can lead them to be demoralized and then, in turn, leave.
  • Leigh and Mark stepped back and thought about the pandemic effect, and what happened was people had money coming from the government, and they had a little bit of cushion. 
  • Technology and innovation created more possibilities, such as daily compensation. 
  • Is your employer helping you feel valued from a compensation and reward point of view?

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

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Filed Under: Career, Job Search Tagged With: Career Advice, Job Search

by Mark Anthony Dyson

You Are Really The Prescription To The Job Description

You Are Really The Prescription To The Job Description

My son is a nurse. He often asks me about my health. When he was in nursing school, he asked me about my medication, diet changes, and food. When I mentioned that I loved a specific fruit, he reacted in a way that I didn’t expect, “If you’re eating X and taking Y (meds), you should know X binds with Y and won’t be effective.”

I looked up the study he referred me to and asked other nursing friends, and he was right.

When I say, “You should be the prescription to the employer’s job description,” there is thus a layer to consider.

That layer is critical thinking.

When pharmacists fulfill drug prescriptions, it is one of the crucial duties of a pharmacist. Another critical responsibility of a pharmacist is to identify potential drug interactions.

A popular definition on most websites is, “A drug interaction is a change or a reaction in the effect of a drug when it is taken with another drug, food, beverage, supplement, or medical condition.”

My short stint as a personal trainer over a decade ago gave me a warning from mentors and other trainers when recommending supplements. Even specific types of food can interact or bind themselves to drugs or supplements to nullify or limit their effectiveness. I vigorously set out to learn the difference between improvement from placebo, double-blind controlled, human randomized controlled trials, etc. But I digress.

Your takeaway is how you can offer solutions to interviewers, showing your awareness of the effectiveness of the suggested solution. While you may know the right things to do or say, can you explain what would potentially obstruct your solutions? Under what conditions would they work? What conditions could keep your suggestions from working? Are there any potential negative interactions to your strategies?

Offering solutions in a prescriptive manner sounds more casual than it really is. It is a thoughtful approach, knowing what to leave in, what to leave out, and the pros and cons. Demonstrating how you continuously seek out mastery of your craft reveals the strengths and weaknesses of how you get the job done.

While we want to brag about what we can do, are we as critical when and why our strategies and thoughts? Is it a struggle? Are there times when they don’t work?

As you become the prescription to the employer’s job description, you will realize that it is more than just reading and familiarizing yourself with the material on the Web.

Knowing the difference between what the material says and what works with human interaction is key. Many times, the experience, trials and errors, and missteps inform better than the material we read.

Understand you are not only prescribing yourself as the solution, but with clarity, you’re a work in progress. Your knowledge, experience, and expertise is still a work in progress.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

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Filed Under: Job, Job Search Tagged With: job description, Job Search

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I moderated a panel on Wealth Management for executives by Black Enterprise Magazine in October 2023 in Miami.

I was interviewed on Scripps News show, “The Why!” 4/13/2023

I talked with John Tarnoff and Kerry Hannon of “The Second Act” podcast about job searching after 50 in October 2022.

I was on “The Career Confidante” podcast to talk about “boomerang employees” and “job fishing” in June 2022.

Making Job Search a Lifestyle With “Dr. Dawn Graham on Careers,” SiriusXM Ch. 132, Wharton School of Business May 2021

In May 2020, I talked with LinkedIn’s Senior News Editor Andrew Seaman on “#GetHired” Live.”

Beverly Jones, host of the NPR podcast “Jazzed About Work,” invited me back to talk job scams, job search trends, and AI tools in April 2024

WOUB Digital · Episode 183 : Job search expert Mark Dyson says beware of scams, know AI & keep learning

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