Talent Wars for Accountants

Yep, you read that right. Since Sarbanes-Oxley was adopted in 2002, there’s been an increasing demand for accountants. And how are accounting firms attracting new recruits? Through stories. The Wall Street Journal reports that Deloitte and Touche, one of the Big Four accounting firms, is asking "employees to make short videos about their experiences at…

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Second Curves, Self-Definition, and Family Support

Other thoughts/hypotheses on Second Curves: There are multiple Second Curves. The hope is that each successive curve will be more successful (steeper curve, higher performance) than the previous one. And in an ideal world, each Second Curve starts off at a higher point than where the previous Second Curve started. The fear in the context…

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More on Sigmoid Curves

I’m wondering what causes the start of the Second Curve for individual careers. So I started to draw sigmoid curves for different scenarios of career transition. Here are a few examples. I haven’t yet figured out how to quickly draw these curves electronically so I’ll verbally describe: Laid-off, burned out white collar professional, in the…

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Sigmoid Curves

I recently came across Charles Handy’s work, a business philosopher, and author of The Age of Paradox. He uses the idea of life cycles (for businesses and for individuals) following the shape of an S-shaped curve, a sigmoid curve, where there is an initial dip followed by growth and decline. In order to minimize the…

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Life With No Regrets

Try this exercise from Jim Huling, in an article published by Motto Magazine: Identify the different roles you play that define who you are. Personalize the roles to further define. For example, Andy’s mother, business owner, gardener. Add in roles even if you have not spent time on them recently.  For example, you may have…

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