Welcome to the March issue of Love Your Job. I’ve got 2 articles this month that I think you should find interesting: ‘What does career satisfaction mean to you’ and ‘Confessions of an introvert’.

I’m always busy, and February has been even more busy than usual. My 3rd book went on sale on 15th February and I did a couple of linked radio interviews including recording a couple of podcasts for The Guardian. This has resulted in me being asked to participate in an online Q&A session with Guardian Careers, more details below.

On a personal note, in the past 5 weeks I’ve lost just over a stone in weight and I’ve been doing some killer workouts. As you will have gathered over the months, I am fully focused on my goal, and have now gone 20 weeks without chocolate, paying out for my personal trainer Ben Carpenter helps with my motivation but i’m also focused on my long term goal, and make sure that for almost all my time I focus on where I want to go and visualise my end goal. Just like my job search clients need to do, focus on getting the job and make sure the actions they take help them to achieve their goal of a new great job and to monitor progress. On the weeks I haven’t lost weight I’ve reviewed my eating and exercise plan and made changes, just like job search clients need to review CV, covering letter, interview skills etc. I’ve now lost 52lb since I met Ben and 102lb from my fattest. I’ve now bought some new clothes!

I’m keeping track of where my clients come from and over 55% of clients are from London and the South East. I’m also working with more younger clients, helping them make the right choices for A levels and university. It really is a great time to seek out professional help if the young person is ready and wants to do this.

In this months issue:

• Article 1: What does career satisfaction mean to you?
• Article 2: Confessions of an Introvert
• Join me on Face Book
• In the media in February
• Twitter
• What Denise did last month
• In the Blog

Read more >>

February 2010

Hello again and I hope you are doing really well. So often when people ask someone how they are the reply is ‘fine’ in quite a deadpan voice. But we should all be feeling great, and if not we should be doing something about it. If you answer with no sense of energy to your voice what sort of impression does that give to others? I much prefer to reply with an enthusiastic ‘I’m doing great, thank you’.

I’ve lost a further 9lb this past month, so my health goals are on track. I’m even more pleased to be dropping clothes sizes and had a real clear out of my wardrobe, everything that is big on me has now gone.

Business wise I’ve taken on several new clients, all seeking help to work out what job is best for them or to ace the interview/assessment centre. I’ve also done some analysis and over 45% of my clients travel up from London and the South East, 6% from overseas and only 12% are within 20 miles of where I live. I knew I had a lot of clients from London but was unaware just how many I had. Some of these work with me by phone but 80% will visit me at least once.

I’ve also spoken to quite a few journalists, helping them with their articles. I’m really pleased with how they featured one of my clients in the March issue of Woman & Home. Christine is featured on page 72 and looks amazing.

In this months issue:

• Article 1:Say no to being told you are overqualified
• Article 2: Could dyspraxia be a reason for problems at work?
• Are you on Linked In?
• In the media in January
• Twitter
• What Denise did last month
• In the Blog

To read more

January 2010

Happy New Year, and a big welcome to my 2042 subscribers. May the year ahead be everything you want, in all of your life.

4 days on from New Year and many resolutions will have been made and broken. Rather than rush into resolutions, it may be better to take some time out to set some goals, for your career, relationships and wider life. I’ve an article on this below.

My main goal for the last 3 months has been to get fit and healthy. Each month I share my fat loss progress with you, and I’m bang on target, having lost 35lb in 3 months. Ben Carpenter, my personal trainer is very pleased with my progress and has quoted me on his blog. One reason for sharing this is that it really helps you to achieve a goal if you tell people. 

Read more >>

November 2009

I decided to get this to you early this month. Like always it’s busy for me, but really interesting, and I hope that your past month has been good for you too!

People often ask me how I get so much done. It’s all down to priorities, and since undertaking part time study alongside a full time job and family (in my 20s), I’ve been one to take action and rarely procrastinate. But there are things I should be doing which don’t hit my priority pile and the biggest one to miss is taking care of my health.

In this months issue:

• Article 1:The importance of setting goals
• Article 2:Job Search: Networking
• Just for fun - another fun video from You Tube
• In the media in October
• Twitter
• Updated web site
• What Denise did last month 

Read more>>

July has been the busiest week of my life, every spare waking hour has been spent writing the manuscript for my third book. It was more challenging than I had expected, a few of the chapters cover the same subject as in my ‘how to get a job in a recession’ book so i needed to take a different approach. Other parts of the book were a real joy to write – going into a lot of detail on how to approach psychometric tests and the different assessment centre exercises, topics which had been only briefly covered in my first book.

The July newsletter is now available for you to download here

July 2009

Welcome to my newsletter and a big hello to the 51 new subscribers this month, This newsletter now goes to 1834 subscribers and I’m really pleased to have you all here.

June has been a lovely month for me, I went on holiday to Scotland and travelled around the Highlands. It was a very leisurely journey and I appreciated being able to stop and walk or take photos or just sit and look out at a Loch – we were blessed with some wonderful weather.

If you are one of my regular readers you will know how I cram so much into my life, so it was good to take time to sit and relax rather than get on with yet another task. So there have been less blog posts this month, but many more twitter ones, it’s so easy to write a short ‘tweet’.

Just before we went on holiday I contributed to a press release for GumTree on the importance of work experience, and I was phoned whilst on holiday for a radio interview with Smooth FM. The signal wasn’t great on my mobile but we spotted a red phone box so I did my interview from that, with my husband asking people outside if they could be quiet as I was doing a phone interview, a couple asked if I was famous, and I think Simon did say I was regularly on the radio!

In this months issue:

• Why you should sign up for Twitter
• How to get a job in a recession – the book
• Wellness Within, by special guest Lisa Esslemont
• and more

Read the whole newsletter here>>

May 2009

I’m back on schedule and wishing you a very happy early May, hoping you enjoyed the weekend. The sun has shined but it hasn’t been overly warm, but I found it just right, when I went for a walk in the country.

It’s been a manic couple of weeks – coming back from holiday, getting on with marketing my book and also getting on with completing my second book. Just got the comments back from my editor so getting on with more revisions, I should be getting good at this.

A big welcome to the 39 people who subscribed in April, my subscriber total is now 1758 and I’m very pleased to have you all here. I hope this newsletter is of interest and if there is something specific you would like me to write about please do let me know.

Read more >>

April 2009

A big welcome to the 104 people who subscribed in March, my subscriber total is now 1724 and I’m very pleased to have you all here. I aim to make this newsletter of interest and if there’s something you would like me to write about please let me know.

March and now April have been so very busy, hence the delay in sending out this months issue. I realised in early March that I was becoming a bit overwhelmed with how much I had going on in my life – busy with clients, consultancy, writing and publishing my book, planning for my holiday and trying to find snippits of time for family, friends and non work stuff I wanted to do for me, which has been side lined for months. So I took the decision not to exhibit at the One Life Show. Whilst I’d paid out the money for the stand, it was going to cost more than that figure again for travel, accomodation and all the incidentals they don’t tell you about when you book – £99 for lighting!

Amazing People is only me, with part time office support and outsourcing of some tasks. People choose to work with me because of the personal attention they get. I’ve always done my best to see clients promptly but with the amount of work this hasn’t been possible. I stopped even having short enquiry calls the week before I went on holiday and the current situation is that it is about 2 weeks before people are getting an appointment so there is a need to plan. I’ve realised that talking with clients for 10 hours on a day – which I’ve done more than once is not good for me – I need some time to relax as well!

Read more >>

The February newsletter is now available and you can download it here:

A big welcome to the 107 people who subscribed in January, my subscriber total is now 1581 and I’m very pleased to have you all here. I aim to make this newsletter of interest and if there’s something you would like me to write about please let me know.

I’m drafting this as I travel back by train from London. I’ve spent Thursday morning doing a series of interviews with radio stations about the launch of an online resource aimed at mature students considering entering higher education. It’s been a lot of fun, I travelled down last night, walked to the studio this morning, met the PR rep and studio manager, then we found there was a power cut so into a cab and off to their second studio. I met with the Rt. Honorable David Lammy MP, his PR advisor and then the interviews started – every 10 minutes, sometimes just one of us and some times together. A few of the live interviews didn’t happen as the radio stations focused on the weather.

The campaign is around the launch of a new online resource, http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Mature_Students.

Luckily the weather was fine in London, just a bit wet, but the snow was getting worse as the train pulled into Gloucestershire. Thank goodness I got home ok and was greeted by 3 snow men. It’s another story today, Friday, with huge swirls of snow coming down.

It’s been a busy month, the draft of my book is with my editor and going through final reviews and layout. I’ve included an excerpt from the introduction below and I’ll keep you in touch with more details. 

In this months issue:

• Article 1:How to get a job in a recession, excerpt 1
• Featured Service: Interview coaching
• Article 2:Dealing with recruitment agencies
• What Denise did last month
• In the Blog