Author Archives: Connie Shortes (Connie Shortes)
Difficult Conversations and Coffee
On a recent trip to visit our executive suites location in Richmond, Virginia, I visited a Starbucks to grab some coffee. On that particular day, their milk steamer was out, so the team had to tell customers they couldn’t have any steamed milk drinks. If they wanted milk, it had to be a cold drink. Pretty [...]
Texas 4000 Gala
In August, I attended the annual fund raising gala for Texas 4000, an Austin non-profit that organizes and executes the longest charity bike ride in the world. Each summer, around 45 University of Texas students who have been selected from a pool of applicants after a rigorous application process, ride (a bicycle) from Austin, TX [...]
The Virtues of Job Hopping
The days of lifetime employment are gone (did they ever really exist?) and for the most part, we have adapted as a society to the new rules. There’s not much argument these days that one’s professional loyalty lies with one’s own career, not with one’s employer. Particularly among younger workers, the insecurity of being in [...]
Before You Write That Tuition Check…
Some very smart people are questioning the value of a college education. See the May 16, 2010 New York Times article: Plan B: Skip College Not only is the percentage of students who actually finish college and graduate with a degree pretty dreadful, many of those that do finish find themselves woefully unprepared for a [...]
Checklist for a Successful Phone Interview
The current hiring environment is as brutal as I’ve seen it in my human resources career. The stakes are high for anyone looking for a job. Most companies, including mine, use a phone interview to screen (and eliminate) candidates before committing time to an in-person interview. Still, I am surprised at how often candidates are [...]