EDITORIALS

I think you will find as you are out and about interviewing, that there are always at least two difficult questions that an interviewer would like to ask you. And, not much will happen during an interview unless you get them out of the way.While the “elephant sitting in the room” varies by...

Several years ago I got a note from one of our new members that warmed my heart.He forwarded a note to me with a copy of his resume and as I scrolled through his message I smiled to myself in pride at what a remarkable organization we have created for ourselves.I didn’t actually need yet a...

Over the past few years I have had the great pleasure of reconnecting with three very old friends. Not only have I known them each for a long time, but like me, they are getting old.You would think that since all roads lead to Matt Bud, I would long ago have reconnected with everyone I eve...

In my distant past I remember seeing a commercial in which an Abraham Lincoln look alike was sitting in an employment agency office. As the recruiter was flipping through his Rolodex he was telling old Abe that without “that sheepskin” he really wasn’t going anywhere. I guess the same thin...

I was shooting the breeze with a few of my fellow sailors several times this summer and got to thinking about the fact that for most of us, our worst misadventures happened early in our careers as sailors.When I got into sailing in my mid-30’s I started out by taking a course with the Coas...

When asked what I do, my gut reaction is just to say “I do the Matt Bud thing.” In a sense, I don’t know what I do anymore, I just do. You see, I have been at it a while and I don’t tend to spend a lot of time thinking about it. (Frankly, I don’t have a lot of time TO think about it.)To a ...

I don’t know if any of you remember the movie Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, but Raymond had a method for dealing with his pain. He kept a journal. Anytime someone hurt him, he wrote it down in his book.I don’t remember if he ever referred to his book or reread it for enterta...

Thus begins Moby Dick. Of course, I am more likely to say: “You can call me anything you like as long as it’s not late for dinner.”I have always believed that what YOU call yourself and what you want others to call you is one of the most important pieces of information you can know about s...

One of the hardest things to do during a job search or even during a difficult time at work is keeping yourself energized and positive. Here again is another example of how our basic honesty as financial folks gets in the way of our success.If you ask a financial guy how he is doing, you t...

People rarely ask or even want to know why the sky is blue or why the sun comes up in the east and not the west. And, when you are sitting in an interview, these are not questions you need to have answers for.The difficult thing to determine when the rubber finally meets the road is what n...

If there is anything those of you who have ever been engaged in a job search have learned is that NO ONE ever has enough friends.Although I count all 35,000 of you as friends of mine, I still continue every day to try to make a few new friends.It is almost sad in a way that networking beca...

I know it may sound strange coming from someone publishing hundreds of pages of job leads a month, but job leads are overrated.If you are over the age of 40 and all you are doing is answering job leads in our newsletter or from any of the well respected jobs sites, you may as well be writi...

There is nothing harder than handling a negotiation that involves your own personal finances.We have all been through tough negotiations that stood to benefit the firms for which we have worked, but nothing can create more stress than when the negotiations involve our own salary or severan...

Many years ago Lily Tomlin had a skit on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In where she played Ernestine, the telephone operator. This was one of her great gag lines.In much the same way, those of us who make a lot of phone calls are in the same pickle.I’m not sure if people just never call their p...

As I hope all of you know, The FENG is not a fee for service. Our most important “folkway” is that in order to be accepted as a new member, you either need to have a sponsor, or you need to find one.As Chairman since 1996, I take the time each and every week to review new member applicants...

Over the past few months I have completed several projects on or for my sailboat.My father was a plumbing and general contractor. Having worked for him from the time I was 13 until I graduated from college, I am pretty handy with tools. I also had a lot of very old cars, and not being inde...

Sad to say, the typical email cover notes I see bear a strong resemblance to classic kidnap notes.You know the ones I mean. Randomly selected letters and words cut from magazines and newspapers and pasted together on a piece of paper to communicate a demand for money.Perhaps this is a litt...

Networking is what The FENG is all about. And, it has a lot of not so obvious twists and turns, one of which I am going to go over tonight.I hope all of you are becoming pros at using our Member Directory Search feature and calling up other members. I hope that those members you are contac...

I had lunch a long time ago with one of our members. I always enjoy meeting and talking to the members of our august body because I am reminded of issues that I have discussed before that bear repeating. And, when I discuss them again, it is usually with a different twist because I continu...

I have given much thought over the years to how sailing is a lot like life. In dreamy meditation at the wheel of our sailboat, I have often thought about the unseen and uncontrollable forces affecting our progress and how through the skills I have acquired at her helm I have been able to m...

For those of you who are new to the networking process or who claim to not be very good at it, please know that even I am still learning.Friends are always in short supply, especially when it comes to managing your career. But, unlike all the consumer goods available just by taking out you...