Silence may be golden, but it’s also awkward. In our noisy world, long quiet pauses prompt many of us to jump in and fill the void.Awkward silence is a real issue for people.When you’re face-to-face with another person or with a group of people, you face what Nietzsche called the horror of the vacuum of space with nothing to say.

An Unheard Of Thing: Silence

A pristine forest doesn’t count as anything for GDP, unless you chop it down and sell the wood for lumber at Home Depot. You can say the same thing about human attention. Moments of quiet, pristine awareness, such as a walk in the woods or time with your kids making or appreciating art doesn’t count as a positive for GDP. Our society and our communal lives are wired for as much noise as possible.

Silence Isn't Good For The Economy

We as a society have used silence and honoured silence in ceremonies, milestones, and cultural events. We want to welcome that back into the foreground of our way of being together.Ironically, finding comfort with silence in the workplace starts with more conversation.

The Experience Of Silence 

Ma means empty, negative space.Ma also means pure potentiality. On the job, that would mean having reverence for open spaces, honouring them and building them in.Ma can be physical, such as having empty spaces in buildings that provide a sense of calm and clarity. And Ma can mean adding space into your day, such as leaving free time between meetings instead of scheduling things back-to-back. Or it can be blocking off time for deep, thoughtful work.

An Ancient Japanese Aesthetic Principle Called Ma

While brainstorming sessions are usually filled with noise, they also offer a perfect opportunity to introduce silence. We could add a minute or two of quiet during the meeting, allowing employees to think before sharing ideas.Or create a silent brainstorming session with a Post-it note gallery where people write down their ideas and post them on a wall. Then, participants can slowly peruse ideas and vote for the best one.Silent brainstorming sessions offer new opportunities for intelligence to arrive or be uncovered, which can be especially beneficial to employees who are more introverted.

Use Silence in Meetings

Silence is also a force that can equilibrate anger or tension at work. If people are getting agitated during a meeting, the authors suggest asking for a period of collective silence. The silent pause can help people centre and calm themselves before proceeding.Silence isn’t forcing a resolution before the group is ready. It’s simply ensuring that people are present and listening. The group silence forces everyone into a place where they have to drop their verbalized positions and arguments and connect to the underlying energy of the shared space.

Silence During Conflict

Whether it’s during a meeting, a disagreement, or a deep work session, sitting in silence can take courage because it’s uncomfortable.We need to be able to be quiet together. The experience and power of silence is magnified when it’s shared.

Quiet Together

Many find silence anxiety-inducing. But getting used to the quiet at work can give you a real advantage.

communication

Communication

How to become more comfortable with awkward silence at work

While macroeconomic forces are beyond our control, there are ways employees, at every level, can help insulate themselves against economic turmoil. Here are three entrepreneurial skills that can help you step up during a recession regardless of your position or your experience on the job and the good news is you don't have to be a founder to think like one.

Making Yourself Indispensable

Employees who are open to embracing change, and helping it happen, have an opportunity to make a lasting impressionThat means being willing to step outside defined roles and pick up slack elsewhere, as well as showing enthusiasm for new directions. Employees who go the distance to actively participate in their company's evolution can prove themselves invaluable to the health of an organization, no matter what the economy is doing.

Demonstrate Adaptability

Every entrepreneurial vision has to work within the framework of a healthy bottom line to be sustainable.Regardless of a company's size or financial standing, this will be a year of tightening budgets and departments that find ways to meet or exceed their targets without overspending will shine.

Under-Promise and Over-Deliver

Find effective ways to communicate progress with managers to ensure your contributions and those of your teammates are noticed.Keep the lines of communication open so your value doesn't get lost in the shuffle.Thinking like an entrepreneur not only helps improve the odds of becoming indispensable in your current job, skills like fiscal responsibility, adaptability and self-advocacy apply to any career path in any economic climate.

Make Your Presence Known

Here’s how you can stand out during an economic downturn.

career

Career

How to make yourself indispensable at work in a recession

The disconnect between our stated values and our actual behaviours is called an "integrity gap."These gaps often emerge gradually, when we find ourselves making incremental values trade-offs that begin to erode our sense of personal integrity. If we are burned out or have an integrity gap, it is time to make some hard career changes.

The Integrity Gap

<ul><li>Check in with yourself about what motivates you and what you consider to be most important in your life.</li><li>Create an activity-by-activity list of how you spend your time.</li><li>Label each activity by whether you consider it an "energy creator," "neutral" or "energy reducer".</li><li>At the end of the month, pull out the audit and look for trends.</li></ul>

The Self Audit

<ul><li>Most integrity gaps emerge when we ignore or never set our non-negotiables.</li><li>Every decision you make about how you spend your time is a trade-off.</li><li>Just because you can make something fit into your calendar doesn't mean you should make it fit.</li></ul>

Setting Boundaries

<ul><li>Conduct a skill-gap analysis.</li><li>List the key skills needed for your dream job and then grade yourself in each skill area to find where you are strongest-and where you may need additional training and development.</li><li>Create and test several hypotheses for a career future to gauge whether each career path resonates with you.</li></ul>

Test Yourself To Navigate The Future

It’s up to you to know where that line is. What are your non-negotiables? That’s something to think about before you dive into a new job.

Practical tips for aligning your values with your work.

How to Craft a Fulfilling Career

<ul><li>You have the power to make life-improving changes.</li><li>Feel happier at work by pursuing the “Engagement Triangle.”</li><li>Self-care, healthy habits and mindfulness boost your well-being. </li><li>Start small to make headway on big changes, and celebrate little wins.</li><li>Fine-tune your habits to improve your life.</li><li>Choose settings and engage in activities that help you feel happy.</li><li>Keep learning.</li><li>Cultivate a diverse array of relationships.</li></ul>

Key Takeaways

You have the power to make life-improving changes.More than half of American workers feel stressed and frustrated by or stuck in their present jobs. This stands in stark contrast to the one-third of workers who feel engaged and are happy, energized and purposeful at work. If you identify more with the former than the latter group, know that, even if you don’t see a way out of your current situation, you can make practical changes to improve your work-life without changing jobs or career – specifically, changes to your perspective, skills, approach to life, mental acuity and health.

Feeling Happy At Your Job

Happiness and success are similar in that you can’t pursue either directly. Each seems to emerge as a consequence of the way you manage yourself and your activities.

Sometimes, changing how you choose to work gives you a boost. Even if your job doesn’t offer you much autonomy, you can change how you usually do things – even if it’s as small as approaching an assignment with a less pessimistic-than-normal attitude or listening more closely to your colleagues. Your brain reads this simple change as a chance to “be inventive” – a vital component of human happiness.

The How Of Working

<ul><li>A well-honed sense of purpose – Work is more enjoyable and engaging when you feel part of something meaningful. </li><li>Positive relationships with the people in your job-related sphere – When you feel strong, friendly ties to the people with whom you work, you feel happier and more engaged.</li><li>Your performance, or how you approach your work – When your work makes the most of your strengths and provides learning challenges, you experience greater job satisfaction.</li></ul>The Engagement Triangle can help you plan your good days and feel better on your bad days.

The Engagement Triangle: The Three Ps

A well-crafted “statement of personal values” can help you pursue the three Ps(Purpose, Positive relationships and Performance). Think of this statement as a guiding idea that shapes how you pursue your work and interact.   When crafting your mission statement, consider your values and standards, how you hope to help or serve others and the activities that give you the greatest sense of satisfaction.

Your Personal Values

Your well-being influences your happiness and success in the workplace. While people define well-being in different ways, many agree it encompasses four distinct realms: mind, body, heart and spirit. <ul><li>The body element includes eating, sleeping and exercise habits, and stress levels. </li><li>Spirit includes your sense of purpose, values and moral/spiritual beliefs. </li><li>The heart includes your relationships, resilience and sense of compassion, love and joy. </li><li>Mind includes mental and brain health, mindfulness and curiosity. </li></ul>You can improve any of these areas with simple changes.

Self-Care And You

Mindfulness, the new name for a thousands of years old practice called meditation, counteracts the negative and boosts the positive at work. Mindlessness can lead to missed opportunities, inflexibility, bias and feelings of helplessness. Mindfulness increases your abilities, creativity and happiness. Pair mindfulness with a meditation practice to improve your brain functions and lower your stress and blood pressure levels. Techniques for mindfulness include breathing exercises, taking a meditative walk, participating in a guided meditation or enjoying a fully present coffee or snack break.

Mindfulness And Your Well-Being

When it comes to making big changes in your life or career, starting small can help:“Develop a vision” – Consider your ideal life and career and what big goals might help get you there.“Identify micro-goals” – Break each big goal into specific, actionable small goals.  For example, you might set a micro-goal of walking for 20 minutes a couple of times per week.“Commit to small progress” – Plan out tiny actions that support each micro-goal, such as buying new walking shoes.“Record your progress” – Keep track of your progress. Evidence of your successes keeps you moving forward.

Start Small to Make Headway on Big Changes, and Celebrate Little Wins

Forming a new habit is a three-step process:Cue – This is the prompt for the new behaviour you want to turn into a habit. It might be an alarm on your phone or a physical reminder, such as leaving your walking shoes near your front door.Routine – This is the action you take in response to the cue – the new habit itself.Reward – This generates a sense of pleasure about your new habit. Pausing to reflect on how doing the new habit makes you feel can create this sensation.

Form A New Habit

Replace bad habits with better ones by identifying what motivates your unhealthy behavior. Find better habits that fulfill those needs in healthier ways. For example, your daily trip to the office cafeteria for a cookie might be less about sugar cravings than a desire to socialize. Identify the cue for the bad habit, and create a new routine connected with that cue.

Get Rid Of Your Bad Habits By Replacing Them With Good Ones

Make sure your hobby engages you; it should not be something passive, such as binge-watching Netflix.Along with leisure activities, studies show that spending time in nature is one of the best ways to boost your happiness and health. You can get natural benefits in a variety of ways: Go to a park; put a plant on your desk; get a pet; go for a walk, or seek out a sunny spot to work. Adding color to your workspace, keeping your desk tidy and choosing a comfortable chair, likewise, support your well-being and productivity.

Your Hobbies And Activities

Another happiness-building activity is showing kindness to others. When you help someone, you feel a greater connection to your community. Learning to focus your attention on tasks that demand your highest level of skill and attention also gives you a deep sense of satisfaction.

Show Kindness To Strangers

Nurturing a growth mind-set – the belief you can develop knowledge and abilities over your lifetime – helps you handle the unexpected and regard setbacks as learning opportunities rather than failures. It helps you develop grit – the ability to keep going in the face of difficulties – by teaching you the value of practising to improve. Learning bolsters your sense of purpose and autonomy and keeps you from becoming bored.

Having A Growth Mindset

The rise in loneliness poses a problem for people’s health and well-being. Loneliness increases your risk of depression, heart disease and diabetes, among other mental and physical ailments. Relational ties help decrease anxiety and boost confidence and self-esteem. Be aware: You can’t expect to build these healthy connections with others virtually. Replacing conversations with emails and texts can leave you feeling more lonely.

Cultivate Relationships

Any busy workers, even those in lively offices, may drift into loneliness without noticing that it’s happening.

Working with others in an office each day is not a surefire way to avoid isolation. You must be proactive about cultivating relationships. To counteract loneliness, come to meetings early to socialize with colleagues, look for opportunities to greet and thank co-workers, and, when you feel a connection with someone, suggest activities, such as taking a walk together, that would allow you to form a closer friendship. When appropriate, consider forming mentoring relationships within your organization. Whether you are the mentor or mentee, you gain opportunities to teach and learn.

Networking To Stay Happy

While networking sometimes makes people feel uneasy, remember that its benefits go both ways: You and your networking partners share connection, information and support. Someone you meet might help you find a new job or opportunity, and you might do the same for them. Forming diverse networks broadens your perspectives. These contacts can challenge old assumptions and increase your potential for innovative solutions.

Broaden Your Perspective

Easy to implement strategies to revamp work practices in ways that benefit employees’ health

health

Health

productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

timemanagement

Time Management

Wellbeing at Work

Feeling stuck in a rut at work? According to executive coach Beverly Jones, even if you don’t love what you do, you can find meaning and happiness in your career

If you hate your job and want change, the starting point is with you! Get unstuck, move past boredom, and discover how to flourish at work. This book is for anyone stuck in a rut, burned out, or just plain tired. Has your career plateaued? Do you sometimes dread starting work? Are you bogged down by frustration, tedium, loneliness, or uncertainty? There’s hope. Find Your Happy at Work, the latest book by acclaimed executive coach Beverly Jones, gives you a road map to quickly create more joy and meaning in your work, even if you don’t love your job. Yes, aspects of your career are beyond your control. But Jones says you have more power than you realize. Throughout 50 fast-paced chapters, Find Your Happy at Work offers practical strategies to help you feel more enthusiastic and gratified on the job, whether from in the office or from home. These include: A simple model for creating career engagement that will improve your performance at work and help you develop deeper relationships with others. Techniques for addressing workplace challenges like difficult colleagues, boring tasks, daunting projects, and gloomy environments. Strategies for strengthening your network, building expertise, and laying other groundwork for a resilient career. This book will provide encouragement, inspiration, and useful advice for those who want to be happy in their work, and throughout their lives.

books

Books

If you hate your job and want change, the starting point is with you! Get unstuck, move past boredom, and discover how to flourish at work. This book is for anyone stuck in a rut, burned out, or just plain tired. Has your career plateaued? Do you sometimes dread starting work? Are you bogged down by frustration, tedium, loneliness, or uncertainty? There’s hope. Find Your Happy at Work, the latest book by acclaimed executive coach Beverly Jones, gives you a road map to quickly create more joy and meaning in your work, even if you don’t love your job. Yes, aspects of your career are beyond your control. But Jones says you have more power than you realize. Throughout 50 fast-paced chapters, Find Your Happy at Work offers practical strategies to help you feel more enthusiastic and gratified on the job, whether from in the office or from home. These include: <ul><li>A simple model for creating career engagement that will improve your performance at work and help you develop deeper relationships with others.</li><li>Techniques for addressing workplace challenges like difficult colleagues, boring tasks, daunting projects, and gloomy environments.</li><li>Strategies for strengthening your network, building expertise, and laying other groundwork for a resilient career.</li></ul> This book will provide encouragement, inspiration, and useful advice for those who want to be happy in their work, and throughout their lives.

Beverly E. Jones is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Beverly E. Jones has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Beverly E. Jones's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Beverly E. Jones

Find Your Happy at Work

Law 1: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
No matter how many idiots you suspect yourself surrounded by, you are invariably lowballing the total. This problem is compounded by biased assumptions that certain people are intelligent based on superficial factors like their job, education level, or other traits we believe to be exclusive of stupidity. They aren’t.

The Numbers

Law 2: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.Stupidity is a variable that remains constant across all populations. Every category one can imagine—gender, race, nationality, education level, income—possesses a fixed percentage of stupid people. There are stupid college professors. There are stupid people at Davos and at the UN General Assembly. There are stupid people in every nation on earth. How numerous are the stupid amongst us? It’s impossible to say. And any guess would almost certainly violate the first law, anyway.

Nothing Else Matters

Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.A stupid person is one who causes problems for others without any clear benefit to himself.The uncle unable to stop himself from posting fake news articles on Facebook? Stupid. The customer service representative who keeps you on the phone for an hour, hangs up on you twice, and somehow still manages to screw up your account? Stupid.

The Golden Law Of Stupidity

There are three phenotypes that co-exist alongside stupidity. First, there is the intelligent person, whose actions benefit both himself and others. Then there is the bandit, who benefits himself at others’ expense. And lastly, there is the helpless person, whose actions enrich others at his own expense.

Stupidity Vs Non-Stupidity

The non-stupid are a flawed and inconsistent bunch. Sometimes we act intelligently, sometimes we are selfish bandits, sometimes we act helplessly and are taken advantage of by others, and sometimes we’re a bit of both. The stupid, in comparison, are paragons of consistency, acting at all times with unyielding idiocy.However, consistent stupidity is the only consistent thing about the stupid. This is what makes stupid people so dangerous.

The Non-Stupid

Essentially stupid people are dangerous and damaging because reasonable people find it difficult to imagine and understand unreasonable behaviour. An intelligent person may understand the logic of a bandit. The bandit’s actions follow a pattern of rationality: nasty rationality, if you like, but still rationality.With a stupid person all this is absolutely impossible as explained by the Third Basic Law. A stupid creature will harass you for no reason, for no advantage, without any plan or scheme and at the most improbable times and places.

Unreasonable Behaviour

Law 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances, dealing and/or associating with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril.

A Costly Mistake

Law 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.We can do nothing about the stupid. The difference between societies that collapse under the weight of their stupid citizens and those who transcend them is the makeup of the non-stupid. Those progressing in spite of their stupid possess a high proportion of people acting intelligently, those who counterbalance the stupid’s losses by bringing about gains for themselves and their fellows.

Hidden Danger

We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

The five universal laws of human stupidity

It can be hard to figure why a formerly fun job turns dull. Maybe your role no longer excites you, maybe you’ve outgrown it, or your responsibilities have changed and now fail to bring you joy.Packing up and leaving may feel like the obvious option, but it’s not the only option. If you don’t particularly like your organization or your manager, then yes, you should probably follow your gut. On the other hand, if you’ve found an organization that values you and your contributions, provides you with opportunities to learn and grow, and has a culture in which you can thrive, then wait.

Figuring out why you don't enjoy your work

You love your manager, your team members, and your job. But lately, you’re on autopilot, and ready to take on a new challenge.  Acquiring new skills is one way to push past the stagnation you may be feeling. Try voicing your desires to your boss, whether you’re interested in taking on a new project, picking up additional responsibilities, participating in a workshop or class to expand your expertise, or attending a conference the will add value to your current role.

If you’re looking to evolve your current role…

Maybe you’ve outgrown your current team and are looking to make a more substantial change within the organization. <ul><li>To get started, you’ll want to understand what career paths are possible for you internally. Make a list of people or job functions across the company that you’re curious about. </li><li>If there are jobs that especially pique your interest, reach out to colleagues in those positions for an informational interview. </li></ul>

If you’re looking to take on a new role in the organization… 

As you consider what you’re looking for, you may find that it is not the work itself that you are unsatisfied with. Perhaps the parameters of the job are dragging you down, and you need a more flexible arrangement in terms of job location or hours.When you approach your manager about this, speak openly about what your goals and needs are, but also be sure to tie your needs back to the needs of the organization. Give examples of how you can better contribute to your team if you are able to work within your preferred location and circumstances.

If you’re looking for more flexibility…

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

What’s Making You Miserable at Work?

Before you grow, you have to know what your company is trying to grow toward. If you want to grow, make sure the things you do are going to help your company on its mission. Say no to the work that doesn't get that rocket flying in the right direction. Say yes to the work that does. With good leadership, the things you do every day should roll up into the mission.

Growing toward company goals

To grow, you need to have opportunities. And to have opportunities, you need to make connections.The best way to create opportunities is to share your work. One of the easiest ways to do this is to write about what you and your immediate team do. Keep people in the loop about the great work you're doing and how it contributes to the company mission.

Discover opportunities

As long as you're at a company that values growth, growth doesn't just mean sitting around, waiting for the calendar to reach a specific day, month, or year.Instead, you "wait" on opportunities like new roles, new projects, and new promotions by actively investing in what you already have on your plate.

Investing your time

There are many legitimate reasons for leaving a job: things like misaligned values or poor managers. But if personal growth is what's causing you to look elsewhere, first take a closer look at the company you're at. Are they growing? If so, opportunities may be right around the corner, and it's up to you (and hopefully an empathetic manager) to find them.Even if your job title doesn't change as quickly as you'd like, you can still grow.

Growth is about more than titles

Career growth is about more than titles

<ul><li>Sifting through career options is a task with near-limitless possibilities, so have fun with your job search. Be open to different options. Keeping an open mind open mind when it comes to your job position or job title will help you find a suitable fit easier.</li><li>Don’t box your options into one category. You might be qualified for jobs that you didn’t even know about.</li><li>Having experience in more than one spectrum makes you invaluable to employers, so a career change could result in making substantially larger amounts of money.</li></ul>

Career exploration with an open mind

Asking for advice from knowledgeable sources is possibly the best way to form a career plan. <ul><li>Rely on the advice of people who have done it before. This could be someone internal in your organization or someone outside of it. </li><li>Professional networking groups can be a great tool in syncing you up with others in your industry. However, don’t just rely on those. Surfing around LinkedIn can also be a great way to get in touch with the right people.</li><li>If you applied for a job and didn’t get it, try to ask for advice and look for reasons why they didn’t hire you. This can give you direction on what to work on for the next time around.</li></ul>

Ask for career advice

Research is huge when planning the rest of your life’s work. Do you know which companies you would potentially want to work for? Do you know what job title is fit for your qualifications? Do you know what kind of salary you need? These are all questions that you should know the answer to when looking for work. Use the internet to your advantage when looking for your dream job.

Obtain as much information as possible

Professional social networking sites are a great way to help you keep tabs on your accomplishments. Your future employer can’t and won’t hire you if they don’t know what you’re capable of. Additionally, when it comes to making a case for yourself you don’t want to have to scramble to remember details. Keep samples of your work and notes on some of your accomplishments!It’s all about creating an impressive resumé/portfolio of yourself and making an action plan. Also, professional experience is becoming increasingly more influential to managers when compared to a college degree when looking at your job application. However, many employers still look for formal education, and having both is a big-ticket to success.

Keep a solid record of your accomplishments

Make goals, and crush them. Goal setting is key in successfully planning your career.
If you’re not ready for that dream job now, then what do you need to do to get there? Determine what skills you need, what projects might help you build your resume. If you’re considering a career change, how will you get that experience? Do you need a formal training program? Your goals may change over time, but having something set will ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

Set Goals

<ul>
<li>Job shadowing: Just like buying a car, trying out a job before taking it is always a great idea. What if you love the clean environment of working at an accounting firm, but you lack the necessity of being able to stand up and walk outside when necessary? Many organizations may allow you to do some job shadowing as part of your role, especially if you express interest in furthering your career with them. However, even if your organization doesn’t permit it, then consider looking for other places to get the skills. </li>
<li>Education: If you don’t quite have the skills you need to reach your career goals, then formal education may be a benefit. Do you need a degree? Would a Masters help? Sometimes just a class, certification, or other training might be all you need.</li>
<li>Take on new projects: If you’re on the right path but short a few skills, there may be room within your current job to get there. Look at what new projects and responsibilities you can take on that will help you advance your career.</li>
</ul>

Getting skills

If you’re ready to look for new jobs, here are some suggested steps:
<ol>
<li>Build an impressive portfolio/resume. Impress employers by showing them what you’re capable of.</li>
<li>Add your portfolio to online job marketplaces. Your portfolio isn’t any good if it doesn’t reach the eyes of employers. While sometimes sites like this can be spammy, they can also be a good way to find leads on jobs that you may not have considered on your own.</li>
<li>Apply to as many jobs as possible. With today’s technology, you have no excuse for applying as many job applications as possible.That means you could potentially apply for hundreds of jobs in one day. However, it can also be smart to customize your resume and cover letter for individual jobs, so don’t skimp out on effort here!</li>
<li>Be prepared for responding to job offers. Shooting at a wide range of targets means you could get a lot of responses. Be sure to respond quickly, keep an eye out for follow-ups, and be attentive. You should be prepared for multiple interview stages, have examples of your work to provide, and be prepared for the long haul — finding jobs can take a long time.</li>
</ol>

Going on the hunt

Planning your career can be challenging. What do you really want to do with your life? Are you on the right path? Is this job just a dead end or is it

Planning your career — get to the dream job you want

There are several reasons why people consider unpaid freelance work. Those new to freelancing may think that they need to build up experience and a portfolio. Even seasoned freelancers sometimes consider doing unpaid work in the hopes of breaking into a niche area. However, some "test assignments" are borderline scams. It's usually exploitative to expect someone to work for free.

The "test assignment" trap

Completing a free 'test assignment,' that's 'testing' several other freelancers is giving too much power to someone who's making money off your expertise. However, at times a quid-pro-quo agreement is in order, such as working for experience or exposure. Other ways to build up a portfolio includes starting with small, quick jobs on gig-finding sites instead of unpaid freelance work. In addition, building up testimonials and customer feedback gives evidence of your skills.

Building your portfolio without selling yourself short

Some companies ask freelancers to submit test assignments out of ignorance. However, freelancers can use creative ways to convert unpaid work requests into paid gigs. For example, when a client approaches you for an unpaid SEO opportunity, identify their websites strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement. Then, during a short phone call, you can review your findings without providing deliverables for free.

Convincing clients to pay

Here's what writers and freelancer advocates have to say about when it's worth it to do unpaid freelance work, and when to draw a hard line.

The 'Test Trap': When to Say No to Unpaid Freelance Work

Careers were always linear, with every worker climbing the corporate ladder, rising from an individual contributor to a manager and then further upwards.  This structure is now getting outdated. <ul><li>Modern careers are spread in all directions and not just vertically. </li><li>There can be horizontal growth, personal growth aligned with company requirements and a shift towards learning on the job, upgrading one’s skill sets.</li></ul>

Career Evolution

Who you know has always been more important than what you know.<ul><li>When most of the workforce went remote, the advantage of being close to a senior person who can help in one’s career growth evaporated.</li><li>Now, employers need to keep employees engaged and show that they are invested in their welfare.</li><li>This will create equal growth opportunities for introverts, WFH employees and those out in the field.</li></ul>

Supporting Modern Career Development: 
Level The Playing Field

<ul><li>Employee training and development had been neglected earlier, but teaching the workforce new skills are the biggest drivers of employee engagement and happiness.</li><li>Most CEOs claim training as a big business challenge due to the costs involved and no immediate, tangible results to show.</li><li>They must realize that career progression is not a straight line, but a multi-directional path happening across various mediums.</li><li>Employees need democratizing and dynamic growth opportunities based on their passion and interests.</li></ul>

Supporting Modern Career Development: 
Learning And Development

CEO and cofounder of Gloat Ben Reuveni says careers are no longer ladders—they are lattices of vertical and horizontal opportunities, shaped by personal and professional aspirations, in addition to company needs.


How to become more comfortable with awkward silence at work

How to make yourself indispensable at work in a recession

How to Craft a Fulfilling Career

Find Your Happy at Work

The five universal laws of human stupidity

Thea T.