The Career Salon

Lead with Talent

Happy New Year!

At the turn of every new year, many people embrace resolutions, composing vision boards and writing down goals. Most times, a major part of those resolutions or goal planning sessions is seeking a more fulfilling, lucrative, or purposeful career change.  In recruiting, the first quarter is one of our busiest times of year. We get approval to work on brand new openings and employees vacate their positions after annual appraisal and bonus cycles, moving on to other opportunities, which leaves us looking for backfills. 

Recruiters everywhere are looking for talent! Not just talent in the sense of a technical skill set, but communication skills (written/oral), personality, engagement, etc. It is important that jobseekers know that the key to obtaining that next opportunity or advancing within their current environment, is to lead with TALENT. Here are a few tips on how to lead with well-rounded talent in 2022:

  1. Survey and write down the things you are good at – Take a look at your strengths and capitalize on them in whatever environment you find yourself in
  2. Whether you work in Corporate America or for yourself, go above and beyond your basic job description/role. To have the foundation in which to ask for a particular salary, fee, or increase you will need to demonstrate your capacity to be exceptional in your role.
  3. Make a concerted effort to improve yourself via professional and personal development. If you need to take a class, get a certification or advanced degree, engage an executive coach, or talk to a therapist, those are all things that can help.
  4. Get involved in things outside of work or business. Engaging in community service or lending your talent to other organizations is always a plus,

We hope that you have a prosperous New Year!

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The price we pay for mediocrity


We like group projects. You get to interact with people of various skillsets with diverse ideas and take on enormous tasks by collaborating. When it’s all settled, everyone has their individual pieces to contribute to the success of the team. Of course, in many group projects, there is this thing that starts to rear its head after introductions and the division of work in a project. You start to realize through your regular updates and team meetings that a few team members are not doing the work. You try to put in extra time and effort to cover the gaps. You try not to bring it to your leader’s attention for fear of being a tattletale but you have to admit you’re extremely agitated. In some cases, you do bring it to a leader’s attention but the results are still the same, nothing. Everyone sees it, they are tired of the shenanigans and yet the project is over, it was a success and those slacking team members’ reputations are still intact. What just happened?

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MEDIOCRITY ——–>>>

Is this the norm now? We accept mediocrity as above average or excellence?

It’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. We’re going to let you in on a little secret, employees are not ignorant and they know what’s going on. Employees who do the work tend to notice when promotions and special opportunities have been made into a political game, a result in “who you know”, or a learn on the job leadership experiment.

Making mediocrity the norm changes the whole landscape of the work culture, causes resentment, and can lead to toxicity on teams. Organizations should play chess not checkers when it comes to strategically placing people who will foster a culture of excellence. When leaders accept mediocrity in the name of protecting people who look like them or because they were once a good individual contributor (of course they would be a good leader) or simple laziness, we literally create “work monsters”. Work monsters, who will make other employees lives a living hell. Mediocrity has the nerve to:

  • Do performance reviews/make comp decisions
  • Question others who are bringing value to the team and know what they are doing
  • Make more money than the people rowing the boat
  • Continually be given the grace to hold, keep, and move up in leadership positions

For some reason, we thought that hard work, dedication, and commitment to being strong servant leaders were some of the ultimate goals in organizations. If we look closely and ask the people working in most of these environments we will see that it’s not always the case.

When we tolerate mediocrity in our work environments we are asking our employees to pay a price. The price of not having a safe space, not having equal opportunity, suffering at the hands of a know-it-all by proxy of promotion, or favor and not being recognized for the real hard work. THAT PRICE IS TOO HIGH!

#dobetter

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Drown out the Noise and Manage YOUR Career!

We decided to write this short article because the daily perusing of LinkedIn is inundated with career coaches, personal brand builders, and content noise. We love LinkedIn for the fact that it brings so many people together to share information, network, or find job opportunities. The main goal of this article is to encourage people that may be looking for work to drown out the noise and manage YOUR career. There are so many career experts and conflicting opinions floating around on LinkedIn, which might be confusing for those who are actively trying to land an opportunity, especially in the age of COVID-19.

There are awesome people on LinkedIn that are totally qualified and knowledgeable to provide resources and guidance in your career. With that being said, in all situations there may be people who attempt to capitalize on the moment to build themselves up, increase followers, and be “popular”. The time is now, for content creators/thought leaders to be consistently authentic and original. Recycling content and posting things that tickle the ears of vulnerable job seekers is not where it’s at. Job Seekers: No one is more familiar with your background and experience than YOU. Help is a wonderful thing, but noise has got to go! Drown out that noise, focus, and be the manager of your career!

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When the Comfortable Majority is Uncomfortable in Corporate America

We have entered a period where silence for most is no longer an option. The constant trauma of seeing and experiencing black lives taken needlessly has evoked a move to cry out to the world. Black men and women have always held their emotions close. We often come to work pretending that everything is ok. We strive for success, we try to jump higher and run faster just to keep up a pace, where others are almost always given a head start. What is that head start? Not being black

Before the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and others, it was a well-known secret that we couldn’t afford to talk about our true feelings and be our authentic selves. We have policed our tone, facial expressions, dress, and hair, but these terrible tragedies were the heavy cherry on top of all of that.

We are tired, thus you get TRUTH. 

We are starting to have conversations, demanding safe spaces, equality, respect, and accountability. Many people that are in the majority are uncomfortable. This is not a bad thing and we are going to give you 3 reasons why:

  1. Change happens when you are uncomfortable
  2. People are becoming more aware of the root cause of the discomfort
  3. We can call out the people, things, issues that make us uncomfortable as a result of more people seeing it and do something about it

Most black people go to work every day in uncomfortable circumstances, aside from those outside of work. It’s time for that to change. We call on allies to use their discomfort to make change. Organizational leaders and HR departments have the opportunity to be on the side of right and truly make their workplaces all-inclusive and diverse, on purpose. We urge all of you to feel empathy with your discomfort. We charge you to CLEAR THE PATH. DO BETTER. 

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Season 2: Episode 3 – A Conversation: Clarice Phelps – A Black Woman in The History Books

In this episode, we have the pleasure of speaking with the 1st African American woman to help discover an element on the periodic table-117 Tennessine, Clarice Phelps! In our chat, Clarice tells us about her greatest life lessons, thoughts on diversity and inclusion within STEM, how it feels to be a part of history, and more!

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Season 2: Episode 1 – A Conversation: Staffed with the Best – Alpha Rae Personnel, Inc.

Season 2 of the podcast is back in full effect. We’re kicking off the season with Dr. Rae Pearson, CEO/President and Alisa Pearson, COO/General Counsel of Alpha Rae Personnel. Alpha Rae is a leading national staffing and training company. We are happy to have them in The Career Salon with the HR Twins! 

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