An ordinary woman flees the scene of a murder—and realizes it’s not just the law that’s hunting her.
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On Sale Now!The secrets to success no woman should be without!Whether you’ve just settled into your first work cubicle and have no clue how to go after the success you crave, or if you already have a sweet little office but aren’t sure what’s required to take your career to the next level, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This gives you all the insider advice you need to become a success, go with it, and then savor every second. You’ll find out how to:
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| Kate shares the secrets no boss is ever likely to spill–all with her irreverent wit and candid style. You’ll not only come away with the know how you need but you’ll also feel like you’ve just gotten up from a fabulously dishy lunch! Order Now | |
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The Sixes – Also now out in paperback!In this standalone thriller set in a college town, a student’s murder sends one woman on a search for the truth and into the clutches of a frightening secret society. “Kate White’s newest stand-alone is scarily good – a riveting, psychologically complex tale of mean girls, with a dark twist. You won’t be able to put it down. I loved this book!” |
In addition to writing career books, mysteries, and thrillers, Kate White has been the editor in chief of five major magazines.
The 9 Worst Things People Ever Said to Me in a Job Interview
When I was still in the magazine business, I commissioned a study with an organization of human resource managers about the potential pitfalls during a job interview. It revealed that the decision not to hire is often made within the first five to fifteen minutes of an interview. You need to instantly impress with your promptness, clothes, hair, handshake, body language and manner.
But you’re still not over the hump, of course. Next, you must prove you’re the one. Unfortunately, even a strong candidate can blow it with one bad comment. Here are some of the doozies I have heard over the years.
1) “My favorite magazine? Glamour, I guess.”
There’s nothing wrong on the surface with that answer, but the person who said it was applying to be my assistant when I was running, duh, Cosmopolitan. You might assume she was guileless and just couldn’t utter a lie, but I think she was actually incredibly nervous and blurted out an answer that, though true, she instantly regretted.
My recommendation for every job interview, no matter how senior you are, is to rehearse. Jot down possible questions — standard stuff as well as far-out ones (use your imagination) — and role play with a good friend. But change your answers up a little each time so they won’t sound canned during the interview. Even if you get thrown a few curveballs, rehearsing will up your comfort level so you’ll be better able to deal with those.
2) “I’d like to be involved in some aspect of magazines — editorial, or maybe marketing.”
I heard many variations on this over the years (“articles or fashion,” “fashion or photo,” etc.) and that kind of response guaranteed I’d cut the session real short. It’s not the interviewer’s job to help you sort out how the company and/or field works. Nor is she there to help you decide on a career path. Never seem ambivalent or unfocused. Avoid the word “or.”
3) “Does the company offer childcare?”
That may be something you definitely have to find out, just as you need to know about the 401K plan and vacation time. But don’t solicit that information from a prospective boss during the initial interview. You need to be zero in on the job and what it entails, not the benefits and perks. You can get to those details when… Continue reading at HuffPo’s The Blog.
31 Great Work Perks People Don’t Tell You
For 14 years I was the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and along with the responsibility came some pretty sweet perks, compliments of my company. Two of my favorites? A private chef, who cooked for my family and me five nights a week, and a weekly session with a masseuse, whose hands were so masterful they should have been insured. Just kidding! Those are the kind of perks film stars get, not editors-in-chief. Still, there are tasty perks available out there for all kinds of positions, and they can make a great job even better. To score them, you first have to know what they are (a prospective employer probably won’t volunteer them all unless they’re trying extra hard to woo you). Then you have to come right out and ask for them during salary negotiation — not after they’ve hired you!
Here’s a sampling of work perks based on level of employment. Availability will also depend on your field. (Hint: don’t be afraid to ask for stuff in the tier above yours — you never know.)
When You’re Just Starting Out (at a decent job/company)
1. Continuing education benefits/tuition reimbursement
2. The chance to telecommute sometimes
3. Access to a mentoring program
4. Access to training seminars
5. A health/wellness stipend (i.e. gym, yoga classes)
6. Marketplace discounts (this one is often automatic)
When You’ve Scored a Job on the Fast Track
Everything listed above, plus… Continue reading at HuffPo’s The Blog.
More from The Huffington Post:
· Notes From a Scandal: The Petraus Affair
· How to Get Out of the Binder and Into the Room
· Kate White, Former ‘Cosmopolitan’ Magazine Editor, Prepares For Her Next Chapter
Notes from a Scandal
Like many women, I’ve been riveted by the scandal involving General Petraeus. And like many women, I’m sure, I’ve catalogued and dissected the mistakes made by Paula Broadwell and Jill Kelley, the two females at the center of the brouhaha. Juicy scandals can provide plenty of titillation, but it’s nice when they also offer some takeaway. Petraeus’s misbehavior serves as a great cautionary tale, but since I just wrote a book on career strategies for women, I’m most interested in what I can learn from Paula and Jill.
The “don’ts” leap right off the page/screen. DON’T have an affair with a married man you work with; DON’T arrogantly flaunt a silly honorary title; DON’T send emails without imagining other people reading them; DON’T send threatening emails; and DON’T go into massive debt throwing networking parties.
But something else occurred to me while devouring the daily updates. Though Paula and Jill made a mess of things in the long run, they used a couple of smart, steal-worthy strategies at the front end. They just should have quit while they were ahead.
Let me start with Paula. It was gutsy and shrewd of her to contact Petraeus and ask if she could interview him for her Harvard dissertation. It would have been easy to think, “Oh, I’ll never get a yes from a guy like that” and settle for someone less noteworthy. Granted, Broadwell had an impressive CV that helped her cause, but she also clearly recognized the sheer power of “the ask”. She obviously also recognized that people, no matter how important they are, love to talk about themselves.
So keep that in mind. Ask. For introductions, for opportunities, for perks, for raises and great starting salaries. And when you meet key people at networking events, ask them lots of questions about themselves and their work.
Now Jill. She’s been described as a bored socialite looking for attention, but since she supposedly worked for a couple of charities and had that amazing license-plated title of honorary counsel for South Korea, let’s call her a career girl.
Here’s what she did that’s so worth imitating. She placed herself at the powerful nexus of Tampa’s military-civilian circles by filling a void. As one insider told People magazine, army commanders get isolated and it’s nice for them to have civilian friends who support them. The glitz Jill offered apparently proved enchanting. It turned out to be a great way for Jill to gain prestige and clout. Until she worked it too hard and it blew up in her face.
The lesson? No, you don’t have to go broke giving parties. But consider what nexus you’d like to occupy and determine if there’s a void you can fill to help you land there.
The Question You Must Ask Before You Sleep with a Co-Worker
Hours before I heard that CIA director David Petraeus had had an affair with the woman who’d written his biography (and worked with him for long stretches), a reporter asked me if I thought it was okay to date someone you work with. Yes, it can be, I told her. That is as long as your company doesn’t have either a written or unspoken policy against it, neither of you is married, neither of you supervises the other, and you plan to be incredibly discreet about it.
She seemed a little surprised by the fact that I was endorsing the concept of office romance. Well, maybe I’m a romantic or softie, but let’s face it: it can be tough to meet a good guy these days. When you find yourself attracted to a work colleague who you’ve spent days or weeks interacting with, it can seem like a far saner way to forge a romantic connection than picking up a stranger at a bar or sorting through the lame-assed liars on Match.com In fact, according to some studies, at least 40 percent of people have dated someone they met at work.
But I added a caveat to my answer: before you date a “safe” candidate at work, you have to realize this: People will find out—no matter how careful you are. Your co-workers see you all day long and they’re attuned to nuances in your behavior that you may not even be conscious of. I was briefly married in my late twenties and after it ended I decided not to broadcast it in the office. But a 23-year old guy I worked with asked me if everything was okay because he noticed I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring. Jeez, Doogie Howser, P.I.
Plus, when you have the hots for someone, it’s just hard to keep a lid on your feelings. You act weird or goofy when the other person is in your presence—avoiding eye contact or saying dumb stuff. Paula Broadwell told a reporter that Petraus considered her his “avatar.” You don’t make a comment like that about the subject of the biography you’ve written. You say that about a guy you’re totally whipped over.
Okay, once you’ve accepted the fact that THEY WILL FIND OUT, you need to ask yourself a question before you say yes to that drink that you know is more than a drink: “When people higher up in the company find out, how will it alter their impression of me?” If you’re 24 and fairly low on the totem pole or you work in a very easygoing, entrepreneurial setting, it may not be a big deal. But if you’re more senior and your company and/or boss are fairly buttoned up, it could negatively color their perception–even if you theoretically are doing nothing wrong. Your boss may get this idea, perhaps not even fully formed, that you are the type of person who puts a need for romance above your work priorities, that you don’t really care what other people think, and that you don’t mind being the subject of gossip (and there will be gossip, trust me).
None of this may make a higher up want to fire you, but it might affect your performance reviews, the assignments you are given and the chance for promotion.
I’m not saying don’t go for the romance. But be sure to ask yourself that question—and listen hard to the answer.
How to Catch a Break in a Bad Job Market
Thanks to the economy, getting the “in” you need, or the job you want, or the career that will really light your fire can be maddeningly frustrating these days. But you can make it happen, especially if you use what I call the TBBH strategy (Take the Bull By the Horns). When I visited Toronto a couple of days ago to promote my new book, I discovered two young women who’d put this strategy into play quite brilliantly.
The first example involves the awesome publicist at my Canadian publisher who coordinated my PR appearances. It turns out she had actually spent the first five years of her career as a chef. But as she looked ahead and imagined kids in her life, she knew she didn’t want to work crazy chef hours for the long term. Some exploration led her to the idea of going into book publishing. But there was a hitch. She’d attended culinary school, not college. After hearing about a special publishing program for college grads, she went to see the man who ran it–and she made her pitch to him: “Let me be the first person who attends who isn’t a college grad.” He said he’d take her on if she spent three months interning in a publishing company. So that’s what she did. When she returned to him, he told her the class was full, but she reminded him of his promise and he found room. And that’s how her second career began.
The second example is a woman who had just started in an entry level position at my publisher’s. How did she get the job in such a sucky market? At a conference, she heard a man speak about social media and the book business. Afterwards, she went up to him and said how impressed she was with his work and his company. I asked her if anyone else had done that kind of thing that day? No. She stayed in touch with him and when a job opened up, he made contact and eventually hired her.
It’s just so clear how these women got what they wanted. Rather than waiting around, they determined where the bull was and yanked it hard by its horns. So find the person who can help you with your next career step, walk up to him or her, make your case, and then show you mean business.