career counselling

Hello, and welcome to this 4th episode in a small series I’ve called: “Plan and Succeed”.

 Previously in this series, I’ve talked about effective planning principles, goalsetting and the underrated importance of having an overview. All of these things are of course interlinked and influence each other, but in this small series, I’m trying to take them apart a bit so that you can apply them more easily in your own work and life. 

Find the FULL show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/22 where you’ll also find the 3 keys to an effective to-do list.

Today's episode is about a very concrete element of your daily planning.

Feeling happy in your UN career certainly has a lot to do with for example having interesting work and good relationships with peers and supervisors. But a very fundamental requirement for happiness at work - which I think that both organisations and individuals overlook - is to feel that you’re in control of your work and can manage it with the time you have.

I’ve worked with several clients who felt stressed out and frustrated with their work when we started working together. They were wondering whether their job was still right for them and whether maybe they should find something else altogether. 

And after working very consistently on creating an overview, establishing realism and solid prioritizations in their work they found out that that they still liked their work. They’d just lost overview and control which led to overwhelm and stress. (And I know from my own personal experience that it’s difficult to be happy at work when you’re stressed.)

But with that control re-established with effective planning tools that suited them their individual jobs and personalities, they came back and told me that they were happy with their work again.

First Create an Overview
In episode 19, I talked at some length about why you need to start by creating an overview for any kind of planning or effort to make time for important actions. If you haven’t already, I suggest you pause this episode and go back and listen to that episode which can find at www.barbarakandersen.com/19. 

 Without an overview, it’s like you’re standing in the valley looking up on the mountain. It’s very difficult to see what’s the best way to the top – or to find the easiest way to the valley on the other side. But if you can get an overview with a map, then you can plan the best path for yourself.

 So, as I said, a key element of feeling happy with your work is to feel in control of your work. To know that you are in control of your time and your tasks – instead of you being controlled by work.

 And one simple tool but very effective tool to help you with this is an effective to-do list. 

Now, I can almost hear some of you say. "A to-do list? But Barbara, I have a to-do -list – and it just makes me feel overwhelmed!"

3 Common Problems with Most To-Do-Lists
Well, in my experience, there are some key elements that most people are missing when writing their to-do lists. And that’s exactly when it can lead to overwhelm instead of clarity of mind. 

The 3 most important problems are:

1. A lot of people think they’re creating a to-do list, but in reality, they depend on their memory for many of their tasks and only write down some of them. In that way, you use a lot of energy trying to remember things. In fact, much more brainpower than you realise and that’s brainpower you need to do your work – instead of thinking about what is the next task. 

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/22. 

Is it time to get going?

Hello, and welcome to this short episode which is about a mindset issue that many of us struggle with: 

When is it time to take the next step? 

Or to use my favourite car analogy: When is it time to go from “being parked” to “start driving”?

Do you want something else?

For this episode, I was inspired by a conversation with a new client the other day where she shared with me how for several years she had been feeling, well... - not really happy in her job. She had a dream of “something else”, but she had not really been able to articulate that dream. 

And she was also feeling a bit guilty about wanting something else because it was a good job that she was in. She felt she ought to be happy.

The reason she was talking to me about it was that she had finally reached that stage where she knew that she had to act. She could no longer stay in that “dreaming of something else” stage but needed to move to the next stage. She needed to take action. 

Since she still wasn’t sure exactly what that “something else” should be, her first action step was to contact me and get help to figure that out.

Being stuck in the dream stage

And as we spoke, I was reminded of the time when I was in that dream stage (for lack of a better word) myself. 

I spent a fair number of years where I was dreaming of something else, but where I didn’t really know what else to do. 

Because there were many things to be happy about in my job. 

I had great colleagues, a nice boss, interesting work responsibilities and I was working for a wonderful cause. But still, I was not satisfied. And I felt a bit guilty about not being happy. 

When I told people about my job they were impressed. Thought it sounded really exciting. “Yes”, I said. “It is!” 

And I thought: “That’s right. I ought to be happy!” 

And still, I wasn’t. Not because there was anything wrong in any concrete way. But because I needed, and wanted, to move on. Learn new things. Use different sides of my skills. Meet new people. 

It just wasn’t clear to me what that “something else” should be

I often meet clients who are in a similar situation. And I notice that it often also comes up when I speak to people in private contexts. 

So, I have a very important point I want to make today:  

It’s ok to want something else!

 Even if you don’t have a clear career plan.

 t’s ok that you want to quit and move to the next part. Do something else!

Maybe you’re right now longing to move on, but you’re worried about taking that next step. You’re concerned about the unknown.  

Because you know what you’ve got, right? Even if you’re not super happy about what you’ve got.

And quite possibly you’re also exhausted from the daily grind you’re in and find it hard to muster the energy to make a move.

What are you missing out on while you're waiting?

On the weekend a good friend talked about the time when he took up his first management position. It had been a hard transition for him, but also very rewarding. And he reflected upon this and said: “I should have made that move much earlier.” 

The reason why he had waited so long to make that move was that he was so comfortable with knowing his old job very well. He felt very competent there. And very safe. And there’s something to say for that of course. 

But while waiting to take that step, he was missing out on personal and professional development. The excitement of learning and mastering new responsibilities. Have influence. 

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/20

https://youtu.be/UznrqV6AFVU

Hello, and welcome to this 3rd episode in a small series I’ve called: “Plan and Succeed”.

Have you ever had that feeling at the end of the workday that you couldn’t really tell what you’d been doing all day? 

Back in the days, I distinctively remember evenings where my husband asked how my day had been, and I responded something like “umm, ok, I guess?”. All the while I was frantically searching my brain to find out what I actually had done that day. 

Sure, I’d been crazy busy attending endless meetings and responding to questions from colleagues and clients in between meetings. And whenever there was a small break somewhere, I had been checking and responding to emails. 

But what had I actually achieved with all this busyness? 

That was sometimes hard for me to put a finger on. For as a good friend phrased it: I’d been "running around like a headless chicken". An image that really says it all…

Because on a workday like that, I’d been racing through the day trying to tackle all the requests and tasks thrown at me. But I had totally lost the overview. And that left me with a vague, but unpleasant feeling of having lost control.

Having an overview sounds like a very simple thing, yet so many of us tend to want to rush right into action, that we overlook the essential starting point of creating an overview. 

Do You Know Where You’re Going?

Maybe you remember my car analogy from episode 3, the one called “What Drives You – And What Drains You?”? 

Well, have you ever been driving your car to a place where you were a little late and now you were not entirely sure which way to take? 

And then you decided that you didn’t have the time to stop and look at the map or set the GPS. So, you just drove on, hoping that you were going the right way. But unfortunately, you got even more late, because you got even more lost before you decided that you really had to stop, and course correct.

The most effective thing would of course have been to get your overview and your bearings before you started out in the first place 

And the second most effective thing would have been to stop at the time you realised you might be lost and get your overview back. Look at the map or set the GPS. 

I’m sure you’ve guessed that I’m talking about my own experience here! And when it has happened, I have every time promised myself to always make sure to get an overview and set the directions before I start driving next time 

So why do we keep ending up in these situations? Not only in traffic but also in the workplace and in life in general?

Can you see the wood for the trees?

We’re so busy getting work DONE, that we start racing off without being sure if we’re going in the right direction. Because often in our work, we can’t see the wood for the trees. We’re so busy dealing with immediate urgencies that we sometimes lose track of what our bigger objectives are. 

Creating – and keeping - an overview is vital for succeeding with any kind of endeavour. 

Because when you have an overview, you have the full picture. And then you can make clever and effective prioritizations.

And on top of that, you also create a sense of calm for yourself. 

Because even if there’s a lot to do, and even if you might not realistically be able to do it all yourself, with an overview, you know you haven’t forgotten anything. Which is a fear that is often a big stress factor in itself. 

And when you have an overview, you can prioritize and decide what needs to happen. 

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/19

https://youtu.be/BeyZGyQZf4c

https://youtu.be/yfOjzbAAjYY

https://youtu.be/-0XP7FHbIeU

https://youtu.be/BBlZWizHmhw

Hello, and welcome to this 2nd episode in a series I’ve called: “Plan & Succeed”.

 In the previous episode, I argued that good planning and organizational skills will help you both in your daily work – and in your career. (That’s the episode called “Can Planning Help Boost Your UN Career?” which you can find at www.barbarakandersen.com/17). 

 Planning, structure and prioritisation will of course help you be more effective with your day-to-day tasks and projects. Which will make you feel better about your work and your professional life. And which will certainly add to your professional reputation – and in that way to your career development. 

But it’s also essential for deliberately setting specific and actionable goals and milestones for your own career development. And, maybe most importantly, helping you take action on these goals. Creating that happy UN Career for yourself! 

Do you enjoy working with goals?

Or do you maybe have more of a love/hate relationship with goals? 

Many of my clients are in that last category. 

 They often love the idea of goalsetting. When it’s still far in the distance and the goals make them feel industrious and ambitious.

 But then, often when the goals are set, they suddenly feel burdensome, and you can start worrying that you might not have the strength and the resources to reach them. 

Then it can feel like the goals are looming over you. Like concrete blocks that will fall on your head if you don’t work hard enough and reach your goals on time. And that doesn’t feel motivating at all. 

 I’ve definitely experienced this love/hate relationship with goals myself until I learned how good goalsetting works for me.

 So, I want to show you how to enjoy working with goals because you’ll see how clear your goals get. And you’ll appreciate the way well-framed goals will help pull you towards the dreams you want to achieve.

So, why are goals so important? 

Because goal setting can be a very powerful tool in your professional development!

What’s great about using goals in a very deliberate way is that they are the way to making your dreams and visions (and your ambitions) tangible. When you do it right, they will

-        Push you towards the dream of the vision you want to achieve, and they’ll

-        Pull you at the same time

 They help push you because they remind you of your ambition. That you have made this promise to yourself and that you don’t want to let yourself down on. This becomes especially powerful if you also create accountability for yourself.

And they pull you because if you have created your goal in the right way then the image and the feeling that you have of your goal will be a strong attraction and motivation for you. Just like putting a beautiful photo of your next holiday location on the wall will pull you every time you look at it.

So, well-developed goals are really the way to move on your dreams and visions. And ambitions!

 The SMART way to powerful and motivating goals

There’s a great guide for setting up goals, and you might already have heard about it. It’s called SMART. 

However, even if you already know about it, my experience is that most people don’t really use it very well. If they use it all. And that’s a big shame because SMART is both easy and effective.

 So, this is how it works...

 Read the full show notes at http://www.barbarakandersen.com/18

Welcome to this 1st episode in a new series called: “Plan and Succeed”.

In the last few episodes, I’ve talked about some of the big issues around career and work life. Your visions. Your dreams. And your values. So, basically all about what fulfils you in your work and life.

However, a very important element in succeeding with all of this is your ability to make your visions and dreams tangible. And take action on them. 

So, in this new series I’ll share some very simple, but very effective techniques for planning, creating overview and – maybe most importantly – prioritising your time, your attention and your resources. 

You can find the complete show notes for today’s episode at www.Barbarakandersen.com/17.

What’s really important to understand here is that good habits and techniques around planning, will help you not only become more effective with your day-to-day work tasks. But also help you reach the bigger goals for your career and for your personal life. 

How does planning help?

No matter our personality, our job function, our family status, we all benefit from some level of structure, overview and clear prioritization. 

In fact, your ability to plan and prioritise can be a key determining factor for creating and maintaining a happy UN Career. 

Your ability to plan and prioritise is critical in order for you to:

• succeed with your work projects
• have a general peace of mind, knowing that you’re on top of your work
• sustain a balance between those work tasks that are urgent (of which we all seem to have too many)
• – and those tasks that are important, but don’t have a deadline (and are therefore often left on the back burner too long. Think for example: strategy, development, health, training, etc.)
• find time for planning and executing long term professional and career development
• and last, but not least, to create and maintain a balance between work and home life

Planning is worth your time!

A big eye opener for me was when I heard the quote from the American time management guru, David Allen, which says something like this: 

”For every minute you use on planning, you save 10 minutes on execution!” 

 When I heard that the first time, I thought: “Hmm, that sounds just too good to be true.” It actually seemed sort of counterintuitive to me, because it often felt like I had so much on, that I couldn’t possibly waste 5 minutes on planning. I just wanted to throw myself headfirst into the email inbox!

But, in my own personal experience, it has proven true again and again – that, really, for every minute I use on planning I save more on the execution of the task or the project. 

It’s always more effective to get an overview and prioritise your time. And your resources. 

The better I think through

• my priorities
• my planning and 
• the most effective way to deal with a task
• the right order of action steps
• the amount of time I have available and 
• the time I need for a task

The more I do of all that – the better my day and my week flows. The more I get done. The more successful I am with my goals. 

And the happier I feel at the end of my workday.

(And this is also what the people I help report back to me.)

So, planning really is well worth your time!

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/17

https://youtu.be/oVwFWbUdJLg

https://youtu.be/uWtXQQYdx2M

https://youtu.be/1w11AfeNa10

Welcome to today’s episode which is related to something many of us dread - the annual performance review process! 

Oh, the hours I spent on this in my UN career. And, to be frank, not always convinced that the value of the process compared to the time I and everybody else invested in it. So, although I very much agreed with the theory of the performance review (I was working in Human Resources after all!) – I must say that I didn’t personally look forward to the process. Having to evaluate myself. Try to write about how brilliant I thought I’d done through the year. Not exactly my cup of tea!

So, I’m happy to let you know that today’s episode is not really about the performance review process itself. It’s about seeing the performance review process from a different angle. 

You can find the show notes for today’s episode at www.Barbarakandersen.com/15.

So, you should no longer see the performance review as a stressor in the middle of other urgent work. 

Instead, let the performance review serve as your annual prompt to stay on track with your career development and ensure that you take time to take action and take charge of your career. I actually already touched on this in episode 9, the one called “Why You Always Want to Have an Updated CV!” (You can find that episode at www.barbarakandersen.com/9 ).

3 ways to get much more out of the performance review process!

#1 Use it as an Opportunity to Go into “Career Mode”

You’re busy. It feels like there’s never really enough time to think about your career, your professional development, networking and looking for jobs.

But for the performance review process you’re required to sit down and update your goals. You have to review your results and your competencies. You’re forced to think and write about what you’ve done well during the year. And you should welcome that as an opportunity. 

You may not necessarily expect big results from the performance review itself, but I say it’s actually good that you’re forced to do this because you need to think about it for you. 

 So, take this opportunity to go into “career mode” and line out: 

• Everything you’ve achieved and all you’ve learned during the year
• The results you’ve created
• The competencies you’ve displayed or developed
• The skills you’ve displayed or developed

While you’re in this “career mode”, think also about:

• What’s the next thing you’d like to do? 
• What would you like your next job to be? 
• What are the skills you’d like to develop further?
• Would you like to diversify?
• Would you like to go to the next level in terms of expertise – or in terms of authority and responsibility?
• Would you like to develop by moving to the field? Or to HQ or a regional setting?
• Is there a particular part of the world you’re eager to experience? 
• Would you be interested to see what difference your experience could make in an NGO setting?
• Or would you like to go home and use your expertise in a government context?

You should of course talk with your supervisor about as many of these things as you feel comfortable with. Seek his or her support for your development and your next steps. If you don’t think this is feasible, think about how else this can be done? Who else will/can support you?

Think about what you will do in order to move in that direction.

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/15.

Hello, and welcome to this 14th episode in the Happy UN Career Podcast - about 3 reasons why you want to set goals for the next year (and the 8 steps you need)!

So, today’s episode is about looking forward in the next year – even if that seems difficult in the midst of the pandemic. But most of us are geared in such a way that we function best with something to look forward to.

And if the outside world is not providing that – you should look to create it yourself.

I believe that if we want change in our lives, we really have to find a way to look for – and create – that change ourselves. We can’t change the pandemic. We can’t change the restrictions that may apply in the place we live. But we can start making plans for the things we can make happen. That we want to make happen.

So today I’ll share the 3 reasons why you should create goals for yourself for the next year – and the 8 steps to do that.

So, this episode is really about goalsetting – laying out a direction for the year. For your year.

Reason #1 for creating goals for the year: Good goals let you work on your plan

Because if you don’t have your own goals – and plans to reach your goals – you’ll end up spending your time working on other people’s goals. Other people’s plans.

Goalsetting is really about setting intentions. Figuring out where you want to go – so you can plan a way to get there. If you don’t know where you’re going how will you know how to get there? And how will you know when you have arrived? 

If you just follow the flow, one day after the other, one email after the other, you’ll be fine for a while probably. But one day you might look up from your desk and realise that the world changed around you. People left the team. Your supervisor is new. And now the scope of your work is being changed. 

It seems like everybody else had a plan and moved on. And maybe you were so busy responding to emails, meeting deadlines, and attending meetings that you didn’t get around to figuring out your own plan. Let alone taking action on it.

This was my life at one point. I was so busy doing the day-to-day stuff that I never really had the energy – or thought I had the time - to step back and deliberately make a plan for what I wanted to happen. How I wanted to develop. What I wanted to try. 

Maybe I was also a bit afraid? Because I knew what I had. I was comfortable with feeling really good at my job. If I left for something else, then maybe I wouldn’t feel as confident. At least for a while. And what if I wouldn’t perform as well in the new place? In the new role? 

And possibly there was also a level of procrastination involved. When you’re already very busy, it takes extra energy to pull yourself away from that. So, you just get on with your job and respond to the next email and tick off the next thing on the to-do list and thus leave the goal setting and the bold decisions for – tomorrow. 

Reason #2 for creating goals for the year: Good goals put you in control

When you set goals (and make a plan), you have conscious thoughts about what you want. What you want your life and work to look like. And feel like. You’re taking responsibility. You’re being proactive instead of being reactive. 

When we’re spending most of our time and resources reacting to all the things others want from us, demand from us – that can easily make us feel despondent. It can make us feel like we haven’t much control over our lives. And that is not good for us in the long run.

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/14.

Hello, and welcome to today’s episode which is about using the end of the year to take stock and celebrate everything you did and all that you accomplished in 2020. 

Remember the Career Car analogy that I talked about in Episode 3? 

Well, imagine that you’ve been driving for a while now. 

The traffic has been dense, and you’ve often had to find new routes – trying to get around big holes in the road or avoiding an accident you could see further up the road. But you’ve still been driving as fast as you could because it often felt like you were a bit late. And there was still a long way to go.

Now you’re feeling tired and in need of a break. You might be a bit concerned about the route you’re taking. Is it still the best one? Are you going to be able to arrive at your destination in time? And are you sure still sure about your destination?

So, today I want to give you an opportunity to pull over, get out of your car and have a good, long stretch. Lower your shoulders that have been sitting up around your ears for the last while. Turn and look around and behind you – and get out the map and really notice how far you’ve travelled. And faster than you thought after all? Maybe you visited places on the way that you had not at all anticipated from the beginning. What did you learn and experience on the way? With whom? How did you cope with the challenges and problems? Etc. 

2020 has been a hard year. A truly challenging year for everyone, and it’s easy to just want it over and done with. And then forget it all. But that would be a big shame, I think. After all, many things happened that I want to remember. And be mindful of. 

And I’m sure that’s the case for you too. A lot happened in 2020, and you coped with a lot– and my guess is that some of those things you probably already forgot about. 

From a work perspective, working in the UN, I’m sure you still delivered a lot – under different and more challenging circumstances due to the pandemic. 

So, this episode is about taking time to remember, acknowledge and celebrate everything you did. All the things that went well after all. All the things that turned out differently, but in the end were ok. The battles you fought. The challenges you overcame. 

The work you still managed to do while homeschooling your children from the dining table. The training you pulled off, but now online instead of physically. The support to colleagues and supervisees that you had to do via Zoom instead of being able to chat informally in the office. Missing social and professional interaction with your colleagues. And so on. You will of course have many more examples yourself.

Privately, you probably had to cope with many challenging situations as well. Working from home – maybe in settings that were not really conducive to focused work. Maybe sharing your internet connection with the rest of the family having to negotiate whose Zoom meeting would take priority. Suddenly being responsible for your children’s schooling from home (and I’m sure many of us have gained a lot of respect for the teaching profession!). Missing parties and celebrations. Not being able to be with your family and friends, etc. It’s been hard, but you are still here. 

So, I have a small exercise that I always enjoy at this time of the year

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/13 

Welcome to this 12th episode of the Happy UN Career Podcast!

I’m so pleased to see that the podcast has been well received by you who are listening to this. Because without you – there really wouldn’t be much point in doing this.

It’s very interesting to see the metrics for the different episodes and I can see already that some episodes are particularly popular. One of them is episode 10, the one I called “Take a Chance” where I interviewed my former colleague from UNDP, Mike Dodd, about how he’d taken chances in his career. So, if you haven’t heard that one yet, I’d encourage you to go back and give it a listen at www.barbarakandersen.com/10 .

Your career belongs to you

And inspired by my talk with Mike, I wanted to talk a bit more in today’s episode about how important it is to acknowledge that your career really and truly is a personal and individual thing. Your career belongs to you.  

And now you might say: well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? We’re all individuals with distinct personalities, and competencies and skills. How can a career not be personal and individual?

However, so often when I talk to people (and this goes for both clients and friends and old colleagues) it strikes me that we constantly compare ourselves to others and how they’re doing. What they’re doing. Especially those that are ahead of us in terms of being at a higher level in the hierarchy or are working in areas that are somehow deemed more important or influential. 

It’s easy to get a feeling that you should be more like those people, find out what they do and maybe try to do the same thing. Progress in the same way as them. And that feeds the sense that so many of us are struggling with already. 

That we’re not quite measuring up. 

That we’re not making the choices we ought to make. Or succeeding in the way others expect of us.

So, I have a question for you today: 

Do you feel that your career has to live up to other people’s expectations?

What I have noticed is that we attach quite a bit of value to what other people think of us, and our career. How they evaluate how we’re doing in our career. What we’re doing. Or who we report to. Or what our title is. And so on.

I wonder if you recognize this?

We’re influenced by societal norms. But maybe even more by organizational norms. That makes us look at what others do. Thinking, maybe that’s what I should do? 

But we’re also influenced by others’ opinions and expectations of us in a very direct way. We’re influenced by what our parents taught us, by what our spouse or partner wants for us, by what our supervisor expects, what our friends suggest, and so on.

This goes from: what next job you should pursue to how to do networking or promote your work – or yourself! 

And all these expectations and suggestions come from a good place. All these people care for you and want what they think is best for you. For you to fit in. Be successful. And be safe. Based on their own experiences and how they see the world.

But what works for one person does not necessarily work for the other. 

And yet, I find that a lot of advice around career is not particularly centered on supporting that sense of the individuality. Or finding out what inspires and motivates you in your work life.

Read the full show notes at www.barbarakandersen.com/12

Hello, and welcome to this 3rd episode in a small series I’ve called: “Professional Development - Job Hunting and CVs”.

In the previous episode in this series (the episode called “Why You Always Want to Have an Updated CV!”) I talked about 5 problems you solve by always having a good, updated CV. You can find that episode at www.barbarakandersen.com/9.

As I also promised in that episode, I’m back today to talk about some important guiding principles for writing a CV you’ll feel proud of – and that you’ll be happy to share with your network and send with your applications. 

So, that’s the topic for today. I’ve identified 5 important CV writing principles that nearly always come into play when I discuss CV’s with my clients. I’ll share those with you of course – plus, I’ll share a tip to make CV writing interesting and rewarding! 

So, who likes CV writing, anyway?
The thing is – as I know I have said before - I have yet to meet a person who told me that they enjoyed working on their CV! 

I have met a few people who treated CV writing as just another task on their to-do list that they would just sit down and work their way through. According to plan. 

But then I’ve met a lot of people who really don’t enjoy it. In the same way they really don’t enjoy the annual performance review process.

Maybe you recognize this? 

Of course, you want to be recognized for your efforts, but you find the whole CV writing process somewhat tedious. And you feel uncomfortable having to point out your own talents and achievements. 

I definitely felt like that myself! I had a love-hate relationship with CV writing for many years. 

I wanted, of course, to have a crisp and professional-looking CV clearly outlining my experience and competencies. And which would hopefully give me an edge in the recruitment process.

And I certainly enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment and professionalism when I finally got it done and felt I’d done an OK job of it. 

But frankly, I felt very self-conscious about the whole process of deciding what to keep in and what to leave out. Suddenly everything seemed important. But was it? 

At the same time, I felt very awkward about having to promote myself. And I felt uncomfortable with the tactics I felt were going on with the CV writing and the whole application process. 

The whole thing triggered feelings of frustration and discomfort – and, honestly, a lot of procrastination. 

The problem, I found out later, is that this way of thinking about CV writing is very much focused on me, myself, and my feelings. And all those feelings make it difficult to sort the essential from the non-essential in the CV.

A good first tip is to get yourself – or at least your feelings - out of the CV, so to speak. And that’s where it’s often very helpful to get support from someone else. 

So, to help you get started, I'm happy to share 5 important CV writing principles. 

5 Key Principles for Writing or Rewriting Your CV

Principle #1: Make it short(er)

There are no laws or regulations on CV’s. But there’s good advice. Which is based on common sense really. I may tell you that your 8-page CV is far too long. But then you may tell me that this is the CV you used when you got hired for your current position. So, an 8-page CV does not necessarily mean that you won’t get shortlisted. But it does not really signal competence in filtering the essential from the non-essential. Or strong written communication skills.

Read the full show notes at http://www.barbarakandersen.com/11