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If you’ve received negative feedback about your job performance, don’t panic. The first step to recovering is to digest the news with poise. While it’s natural to feel defensive or angry during a bad review, career coaches advise against acting on these emotions to avoid making matters worse.

Take a day or two to let things soak in. Then schedule a meeting with your boss to find out why you received a bad grade. Listen carefully and take notes. If your boss doesn’t offer specific examples of poor performance, ask for a few. This way you can learn from your mistakes and also be sure that he or she isn’t making any false or misguided assertions. When the meeting is over, thank your boss for the feedback.

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How to Change Careers
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Should you stay or should you go? There’s no surefire sign that it’s time to look for greener professional pastures. But there are a few clear reasons that could signal it’s time to change jobs.

First, ask yourself if there is a culture clash. Is your entrepreneurial nature always at odds with the collaborative style of your co-workers? Do you need a social, mobile work environment to keep your creative juices flowing, while your office is neatly divided up into closed office spaces? A company’s core culture isn’t likely to change over night, so if you’re not happy, it might be time to look elsewhere.

Another sign that a job change might be in order is a lack of performance-based rewards. Maybe you’ve received the standard raise yet again, but weren’t awarded a new title. Or you consistently exceed the limits of a company’s bonus structure. Most employees need incentives and rewards to feel valued, and if you’re not getting them, it might be time to dust off that résumé.

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How to Recover From a Bad Performance Review.
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by Arlene S. Hirsch
April 15, 2008

Work can be miserable when you and your boss don't get along. At times, quitting may seem to be the only option.

When she was a working journalist, Jill Geisler decided she didn't want to work for someone she remembers as a "gloriously imperfect" boss. "Picture Anthony Quinn, Vince Lombardi, and Hawkeye Pierce all rolled into one man," she says. "Volatile. Demanding. Larger than life."

Ms. Geisler, now a group leader in St. Petersburg, Fla., for the Poynter Institute, a training center for journalists, sought advice from a mentor, who counseled her to get to know her boss before making a rash career decision. Now she's glad she did.

She and the man she didn't want to work for are good friends who laugh about their rocky start 15 years ago. Despite differing styles, they both valued high-quality journalism and community service. Once Ms. Geisler had earned her supervisor's trust and respect, she could question and challenge his decisions and even nag him about his idiosyncrasies.

One reason the relationship succeeded is that Ms. Geisler took responsibility for making it work. Her candor became the foundation for a close and fruitful professional partnership.

If you work for an imperfect boss, what are you prepared to do about it? These suggestions from consultants and employment experts can help you to improve your relationship with a new or long-time supervisor:

Are you known to be late for meetings or appointments? Do you feel stressed because you can’t seem to find time to have dinner with family members, go for your spa session or finish your work on time?

Are you always rushing your children from one place to another, taking them to ballet, French lessons, violin practice and other dreadful “enrichment” activities, and feeling more exhausted than they?

If you answer YES, heaven has mercy on your soul for you’re being condemned to a lifetime of penal servitude, no different from a convict doing hard labour.

Do you feel like your career is in a rut and that your work is making you unhappy? You may be suffering from a mid-career crisis. What brings about this predicament and how do you walk out of it before the resentment bleeds into the rest of your life?

By Becky Lo

Feeling the blues

You’ve heard of a mid-life crisis, but how about a mid-career crisis? Unlike a mid-life crisis, a mid-career crisis is not age-related, but is about the dissatisfaction you feel about your career.

Many working adults in their late 20s to mid 30s are facing mid-career crises, or what is also known as “mid-career blues”. It usually happens after a few years working in the same field as you feel that your job is heading towards a dead-end: Your work routine is becoming boring, you see your peers edging ahead of you but realise that you are not at all interested in catching up.

Singaporean women in the accounting and finance sector want better work-life balance, says a survey conducted last May on more than 700 female professionals in the public and private sectors in Singapore.

Almost 60 percent cited work-life balance as their top priority, over other concerns such as opportunities for advancement, job security and skills upgrading. And more than 50 percent of those polled said they would leave their current job for one that offered a better work-life balance, even if it means less money.

It’s probably not just women, but men too, who need to find the right balance between work and their personal life.

Are you married to your work?
It can be tempting to rack up the hours at work — especially if you're trying to earn a promotion or extra money to send your child to university or for a dream vacation to the Caribbean. For others, it is simply necessary because of the heavy workload.

But if you're spending most of your time at work, what suffers is likely to be your home life and personal relationships. If you are perpetually working overtime and on weekends, you may miss out on important events such as your child's first bike ride, your father's 60th birthday or a reunion with your old friends. Missing out on important milestones may harm relationships with your loved ones.

Whether you are driving a forklift, making fengshui divination or lecturing in economics, you must stand out and be recognised by everyone as the expert in your trade.

Not too long ago, to be an expert meant that you had to have an advanced degree and be doing a specialised job for years. Today, people will pay attention to you if you can deliver what they need, regardless of your professional experience or academic qualification.

Experts are sought after. They get cushy job offers and business opportunities, and command high fees. Even expert forklift drivers are in high demand as trainers and to display fancy moves in industrial competitions.

Reporters interview them whenever an issue or situation crops up in their area of expertise. They get invited to speak at conferences. And if they own a business, their firm gains more market share than their competitors. They are not anonymous because people recognise that they know more.

You must have heard hundreds speeches in your life. Do you remember all the speeches and the names of the speakers? I doubt it. However, I am sure there are a few speeches which have found a permanent place in your minds and hearts. In this article, I will outline few ways to add power to your speeches and presentations.

1. It’s not about how good you are
Many speakers make the mistake of showing their ‘talent’ and bragging about how good they are. Well, it is important to establish credibility that you are an expert, but it is unnecessary to brag a lot about your achievements. In the first few minutes of your speech, you have to answer the “What’s In It For Me?” question of your audience members. The audience must feel that they made a wise decision to attend your speech.

How can you do that? Simple. Focus on their needs. If you are speaking to a group of engineers, talk to a few engineers and discuss with them a brief synopsis of what you are about to present. Take their feedback and tweak your message.

2. Warm-up
You know the importance of a warm-up before you play a sport or working on your routines at a gym. Similarly, you must also warm-up before your speeches. Many speakers arrive few minutes before the speech and are busy setting up the equipment (mainly laptop-projector connections). That’s not warm-up. Here are a few examples of warm-up: