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Intentionally creating a personal brand at work can showcase your stand-out strengths and values and enhance your career opportunities. Read on to learn the steps needed to craft your authentic brand.

It might seem self-centered to cultivate a personal brand at work to enhance your professional career but consider this — you already communicate a personal brand to your supervisors, clients and peers. Why not be intentional and create the best possible impression?

Through self-awareness, honest feedback from others, and strategic communication you can authentically express your personal brand and attract best-fit career opportunities that foster greater job satisfaction and professional success.

“By determining your unique value and living in a way that promotes it, you can become known for your defining attributes. That reputation can help attract opportunities in your career and life that align with your authentic self,” writes Catherine Cote in Personal Branding: What it is and why it matters.

Develop Self-Awareness

Socrates famously said, “Know thyself.” This ancient proverb remains relevant today. Consider it the starting point from which to curate your personal brand.

Write down your values, passions, purpose and stand-out strengths. Consider how you authentically express these qualities in your day-to-day life and how they make you valuable in the workplace.

For example, perhaps you often see the larger picture and take alternative approaches to life’s challenges. If so, your personal brand at work could communicate that you’re a team member who brings a wide-ranging perspective and creative solutions to solving problems and tackling projects.

Continue Reading: https://itsyourcareer.blog/how-to-create-a-personal-brand-to-enhance-your-professional-career/

I probably don’t need to convince you that strategic thinking is important. Earlier this year, I hosted several training sessions on this topic, and the response was overwhelming. Clearly, people get it! They know they need to think strategically, and my training participants were eager to learn how. But the bigger problem was and is always the same – finding the time to actually do it.

Most of us are already operating at (or even beyond) capacity. Between meetings, emails, and the relentless flow of daily tasks, there’s little room left for things that require deeper focus. By its very nature, strategic thinking demands more than a passing thought. It requires reflection and the mental space to intellectually meander, connect the dots, and look ahead.

If you don’t deliberately create that space, it won’t just appear on its own. Strategic thinking doesn’t squeeze itself between back-to-back Zoom calls. It doesn’t flourish in the 10 minutes before your next meeting. It needs your full attention, and (in my experience) the only way to get that is to put concrete structures into place.

Here are some practical ways to do that:

1. Go off-site, even briefly. A change in environment not only helps shift your mindset, it can also help reduce interruptions and distractions. You don’t need to schedule a full-blown retreat to make this happen. Try sitting in a coffee shop, a library, or even an unused lounge area in your building. Physically going to a different space can be a signal to your brain that you’re entering a different mode of thinking. It’s also a signal to others that you’re serious about focusing on something that matters.

2. Reserve space. If going offsite isn’t possible, consider booking space for yourself in a conference room and treat the time like you would any important meeting. Don’t cancel it. Don’t double-book it. Go in with clear goals and an agenda. Know the problems you want to dissect, ideas you want to explore, and concepts you want to give deeper thought to.

Continue Reading: https://eatyourcareer.com/2025/11/how-to-make-time-for-thinking-in-a-busy-workplace/

As end-of-year deadlines collide with festive celebrations, it’s easy for employees to feel stretched thin. Maintaining the right balance of work and life requires thoughtful strategies to protect personal time while keeping up with your professional priorities.

Here, Forbes Human Resources Council members share their top tips for staying on track this season without sacrificing what matters most. From setting boundaries to focusing on one task at a time, these strategies will help you maintain your productivity while still enjoying the holiday season.

1. Set Boundaries Early

Set boundaries early—carve out specific times for work and family, and let everyone know your schedule. Prioritize what really needs doing, and don’t be afraid to delegate or use tools to take care of the repetitive stuff. This way, you stay on top of things without missing out on the season. – Ariel Diaz, TalentMovers

2. Tackle One Thing At A Time

Take time to breathe in and out. It’s essential to handle one thing at a time. – Ashutosh Labroo, BinDawood Holding

3. Maximize Your Time

For yourself: Maximize your time through ruthless time management. You should block specific times for work tasks that align with your most productive hours so that you can get the most done. Equally important is setting aside non-negotiable time for personal activities—treat your personal time with the same level of priority as work. – Ashley Perryman, Spiceworks Ziff Davis

Continue Reading: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2024/11/15/20-ways-to-balance-work-and-personal-time-during-the-holidays/

As we move into the season of reflection and gratitude, I’ve been thinking about how appreciation shows up across the commercial real estate industry and how much it matters. In a space known for tight timelines, high stakes, and constant movement, gratitude isn’t a soft concept. It’s a leadership quality that directly strengthens a company’s reputation, culture, and ability to attract top talent.

One of the clearest patterns I’ve seen over the past decade is that the most successful teams are intentional about how they make people feel. Not just their tenants or investors but their employees and candidates as well. When leaders consistently express appreciation, acknowledge effort, and communicate with clarity, it creates an environment where people want to show up and contribute at a high level. That energy becomes part of the employer brand long before a role is posted.

Gratitude also shows up in the small moments during the hiring process, and those moments tend to have an outsized impact. It can be a hiring manager thanking a candidate for thoughtful preparation, or a candidate sending follow-up notes that reflect genuine interest and respect for the interviewer’s time. These gestures aren’t the reason someone is hired, but they do reinforce professionalism, humility, and alignment, qualities that continue to stand out in a competitive market.

On the employer side, gratitude is a differentiator in candidate experience. Candidates are remarkably perceptive. They notice when a company communicates clearly, respects timelines, and treats them as more than a résumé. Even when the process ends in a “no,” an experience built on gratitude often turns those candidates into future referrals or brand advocates. That kind of goodwill compounds over time, strengthening a company’s overall reputation within CRE.

The past few years have reshaped expectations across the industry. Candidates want meaningful work, strong leadership, and cultures where communication feels human not mechanical. Gratitude reduces friction, builds trust more quickly, and drives higher offer acceptance rates. And in an industry where the best talent often has multiple options, trust is everything.

This season also holds extra meaning for me personally. Building Careers celebrated its 10-year anniversary this year, a milestone that brings up a lot of reflection. Ten years of partnering with incredible companies, supporting hundreds of candidates in their career transitions, and watching the CRE talent landscape evolve in real time. I’m grateful for every client who has trusted us with their hiring strategy and every professional who has let us be a part of their journey.

I’m also grateful for growth of the business, but also of the team. Bringing on Ceci Swanner this year has added such a dynamic and energizing chapter to the work we’re doing. Her perspective, curiosity, and instinct for this industry have already made an impact, and I’m excited for what this next phase will look like.

Looking ahead to 2026, I’m optimistic. CRE is resilient. Teams are evolving. Leadership is becoming more intentional. And companies that prioritize gratitude in how they lead, hire, and communicate will continue to attract the kind of talent that moves the industry forward.

Wishing you, your teams, and your families a meaningful Thanksgiving. Thank you for being part of the Building Careers community — and for the trust, partnership, and connection that make this work so rewarding.

For anyone who needs to hear it, your first dream job isn’t your forever dream job. You’re not locked into the major you choose freshman year—or, if you’re part of the one-third of college students who change majors during undergrad, even a major you choose as an upperclassman. Consider this post permission to take as many career twists and turns as your heart desires. If you’re thinking about changing course, you’re not alone.

Fun fact: Handshake’s President of Field Operations, Nolan Farris, graduated with a degree in anthropology in 1997 with the intention of teaching, and has now been leading global sales organizations for years. And it turns out he was ahead of the trend. Recent Handshake research shows that of the 57% of college seniors who entered college with a dream job in mind, fewer than half have the same goal now. Meanwhile, almost half of seniors who didn’t have a dream job four years ago have discovered one while pursuing their undergraduate degree.

Internships, work experience, and academic courses are pivotal in shaping the idea of what students like you want in a job, especially in a time where the job market is rapidly changing. You’ve probably applied to and/or attended college in a post-pandemic universe, witnessed waves of layoffs, and are adapting to AI in real time. It makes total sense that as the world experiences major changes, your idea of what you want to do will shift, too.

Continue Reading: https://joinhandshake.com/blog/students/advice-for-dream-jobs-and-career-pivots/

When a position becomes open in the organization, HR and the hiring manager should meet to discuss the position. Some people call this meeting an “intake” meeting. I prefer the term recruiting strategy meeting because the results from the meeting help to establish the recruiting strategy for the open position.

Some people might say, “Hey, I don’t need to have this meeting because I recruit for this position all the time.” And I get it. I’ve worked places where there were certain positions we regularly recruited for. But that doesn’t mean we should skip the meeting. Because one of the things that can happen during the meeting is confirming the job description. 

Forgive me for going off on a quick tangent here but updating job descriptions is (I believe) one task that both HR and hiring managers dislike. And if you’ve ever had to update all the organization’s job descriptions at the same time … well, then you know that at the end of the project, people say things like, “Whew! I’m glad that’s over and I never want to see another job description again.” That’s the wrong response. Once a job description is current, the organization needs to find a way to keep it current. It’s not by ignoring them. 

So back to the recruiting strategy meeting. This is a time to quickly review the job description and confirm that it’s current. Otherwise, managers might make small changes to the job description and HR doesn’t know. Then there might come a time when HR presents candidates to the hiring manager and the hiring manager says, “Why are you sending me candidates with this background? We changed that requirement months ago.” All that work = wasted. Because those little job description changes add up. 

Besides the job description, another reason to conduct a recruiting strategy meeting is to have an effective and efficient process.Get HR and the hiring manager aligned about what’s going to happen and when. This reduces the “I don’t know what they’re doing.” response when someone asks why a position hasn’t been filled yet. 

Continue Reading: https://www.hrbartender.com/2025/recruiting/recruiting-strategy-meetings-why-need-them/

I know that most organizations have moved away from hybrid and remote work. They want employees onsite. I get it. There are advantages to employees being onsite. It can be helpful for communication, decision making, problem solving, and team building (just to name a few). 

That being said, there are a couple of things about return to the office (RTO) announcements that are frustrating. First, organizations should be honest with employees about the reasons that they’re doing it. Some of the announcements are an absolute sugar-coated mess and employees know it. This doesn’t create a positive work environment, which can have an impact on productivity. 

But the second reason that RTO announcements are frustrating is the one I wanted to talk about today. Just because organizations announce an RTO doesn’t mean they have to eliminate flexible schedules. If an employee asks to work from home once every six months, I’d like to think the organization can make that happen. 

Another option that organizations can offer employees is a 4-day work week. Employees work onsite but only 4-days a week. This could be a nice compromise between what the company wants (onsite work) and what employees want (less commuting time, work life balance, etc.). I’ve worked for companies that offered employees who worked second or third shift the option of 4-day work weeks. It was the perk of working an undesirable later shift and it worked well. 

I wanted to mention flexible scheduling because I’ve seen a few articles about a scheduling trend called 996. I’m really hoping it’s not true. 996 work is described as having a schedule from 9a to 9p six days a week. It appears to be what has been termed the new ‘hustle culture’. 

Continue Reading: https://www.hrbartender.com/2025/leadership-and-management/productivity-flexibility-not-mutually-exclusive/