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What Boards Want

In working with executives who are interested in serving on Boards, I always have them try to find some descriptions of actual Board seats that are in play – perhaps “specs” from a recruiting firm handling a Board search or from the company’s Board selection committee. The descriptions are useful in aligning the candidate with […]

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Yellow Brick Path marks 10-year anniversary with a makeover

It’s hard to believe that Yellow Brick Path and its team of consultants and coaches have been serving clients for a decade in defining their career paths, presenting themselves professionally, gaining visibility, and finding their next jobs. During that time, the focus of the company has evolved, the job search and recruiting marketplace has changed […]

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A book review: Will College Pay Off?

Book Citation Information Will College Pay Off? A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You’ll Ever Make, by Peter Cappelli, 2015. PublicAffairs™, a Member of the Perseus Books Group, New York, NY, USA. 215 pages.

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An Easy Solution to Better Resumes

What to include on your resume – an easy solution Clients often expect that I am going to know exactly what should be included on their resumes to have the most appeal to recruiters and hiring organizations. The truth is that no one can know that – but there is hope. What clients should expect […]

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Getting New Systems Used

Getting new systems (models, programs, processes, innovations) used: As relevant now as 40 years ago In 1979, Peter Keen, a professor at various times at Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and Wharton, gave a keynote address entitled “Where Do Systems Get Used: Organizational Issues”. “Systems” for Keen translates to model-driven “decision support systems” (DSS) that were being […]

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The Executive Role: Is It For You? – Pete Bradshaw

The Executive Role: Is It For You? In 1985, I had the opportunity to participate in a leadership development and coaching program led by Howard Holt “Pete” Bradshaw of Organization Consultants Inc., who died in 2012 after a long career providing counsel to business leaders. At one point during the program, he asked the participants […]

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Reflections of an Executive, Tom Lysaught

Report Card Questions: Reflections of an Executive This is an excerpt from the President’s address to the GTE Directories Corporation (GTEDC) Senior Management Conference in 1985.  GTE became part of Verizon and its telephone directories division was later spun off. This address is a timeless classic that has never lost its relevance or power for […]

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Board of Directors: Referencing prospective candidates

Several years ago when I was working in Executive Search recruiting, a client that was searching for a new member of its Board of Directors asked for guidance on conducting reference checks. The questions that were compiled then have stood the test of time and a couple of them are particularly powerful in eliciting how […]

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Showcasing a Business in a LinkedIn Individual Profile

Recently, I got a call from a small business owner on the best way to showcase his business on LinkedIn, essentially creating a resume for his business. The caller was a co-owner of a firm that had been in business for four years. Prior to that, both owners had respectable careers with two industry leading […]

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Stepping up to the next role

Recently my team and I have put together a quick checklist of questions that we think help in creating a resume for a person whose goal is an internal promotion or finding a job at the next level in another organization. What is the next job? Often clients can’t actually define that clearly. They just […]

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