Confidence attracts. I’m not talking about arrogance, which really bothered me when I was a recruiter and still bothers me (because who wants to deal with that!?). I’m talking about quiet confidence, poise, that “it” factor of believing in yourself and knowing you will get things done. Projecting confidence in a job interview, business meeting or sales call is difficult. Many people, even with a healthy dose of overall self-esteem, can still waver in these high stakes situations. Here are some tips for increasing your career confidence:

Keep a wins journal. Every day, document all the wins, big and small, that accrued during the day. It might be as simple as a follow up call you’ve been meaning to do that got done or not losing your temper with a colleague that irks you. If you are trying to specifically improve your career confidence, highlight your wins on the job or job search and any action steps you took to advance your search or career. But don’t forget to include general wins, like maintaining your exercise routine or making a date with your significant other. Your personal wins will improve your confidence in the professional arena. Over time, there are 2 benefits: 1) you will see all the things you have accomplished and have a pattern to recognize what areas are working; and 2) since you now have to document what you’ve done, you have built in some accountability to force you to get stuff done.

Get roasted. In one of my first jobs, I was at a small company having growing pains that led to staff infighting and a corporate shrink being called in to mediate. One of the exercises was for everyone to write down the one thing they appreciated most about each other staff member. Then we all got together, and everyone got a turn hearing what everyone else said about them. I can still remember my turn – I didn’t feel unappreciated there but I was still overwhelmed hearing firsthand what people wrote. It was a little like those celebrity roasts without the wisecracks. An amazing side benefit for me was that many of my colleagues highlighted a quality that I didn’t even realize I had. So, ask people to name specifically your biggest professional strength and to give an example or some evidence about why they feel that way. Here again there are 2 benefits: 1) you will feel appreciated and therefore more confident; and 2) you may uncover a strength not evident to you but plenty evident to others.

If all else fails, employ a workaround. In an older post on The Glass Hammer, I talked about the substitution technique for interviewing. This is an example of a workaround. You are not getting to the root of the problem and eliminating it forever, but you are finding a way to cope in the moment. Another example of a workaround is enlisting a buddy for an hour to be your accountability partner as you muscle through an hour’s worth of sales calls. Or I carry a picture of my kids to look at before going into auditions (when I was an actor) and now pitch meetings (as a business owner). I instantly get relaxed and grounded and am reminded of the real reason to press on. Workarounds are great and absolutely not a form of cheating. If they keep you plugging away on your search and career just one more meeting or one more day, then they have contributed extra time. And who couldn’t use more time!

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is a career expert, writer, speaker and co-founder of www.sixfigurestart.com“>SixFigureStart®, career coaching by former Fortune 500 recruiters.  Caroline is a co-author (along with Donald Trump, Jack Canfield and other leading business authors) of “How the Fierce Handle Fear: Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times” 2010, Two Harbors Press.  Formerly in corporate HR and retained search, Caroline has recruited for leading companies in financial services, consulting, media, pharmaceutical/ healthcare, and technology.Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

Your day-to-day job is not the same as your career. Your job is but a subset, and your career is made up of each successive job, as well as your accomplishments, publications, keynotes, branding and networks. Therefore, doing well, even spectacularly well, in your current role, is helpful to your career but not sufficient. With roles becoming more broadly defined and communication (and accountability) running 24/7, how do you carve time out of your day-to-day for not just your job but also your career?

Use parallel processing. I first mentioned parallel processing in my June 2 Ask A Coach, when I talked about balancing personal and professional goals. In this case, there are also two distinct and separate goals – your job and your career. You need different time, focus and activity on each, and the ability to maintain each in tandem with the other. Recognize this, accept it and schedule accordingly.

Use your job as a springboard for career planning. Collect testimonials and references from your current work. Join relevant trade associations that will help get your job done but also provide a broader network outside your immediate role. Use insights learned from your current job (nothing confidential, of course) to share with a wider platform via publishing or speaking at conferences.

Use your career management activities to make you more effective in your job. When you network outside the company, even outside your industry, don’t feel guilty about taking time away from your current work – use the different perspectives gleaned to add new dimensions to your current projects. Think about what your current company needs and who in your broader network might be helpful. In this way, you give to your company, you give to your network, and you strengthen your connections both ways.

This is not about working double-time. It is about having awareness that just executing the daily grind is not enough. You do not want to look up from your desk next July 2011 and be exactly where you are, not having connected with anyone or not having accomplishments known to the outside. Your job and career are separate entities, and both need attention.

P.S. My first book is out! “How the Fierce Handle Fear: Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times” 2010; Two Harbors Press includes 22 essays on fear. I write about fear and career transition, including my first extreme career shift from corporate to acting and the 3 strategies that I used to make the leap. Other contributors include Donald Trump, Jack Canfield and Pamela Slim. You can get the book on my site at http://www.sixfigurestart.com/about-sixfigurestart/fierce/, and it comes with a bonus mp3 of my workshop Onward! Overcoming Fear.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

I had a client who had started a business that needed a cash infusion. At the same time, recognizing that cash flow was an issue, he started to explore going back in-house (he had been a successful banker before starting his own shop). He needed to position himself as both an entrepreneur and an employee without diluting either focus or confusing his market. How do you position yourself for two different careers?

I see this conundrum more and more. On the entrepreneur/ employee front, more people are starting side businesses or picking up consulting projects. But even when one is committed to traditional employment, jobs are wider in scope and you may find yourself with a role that is a compilation of several different functions. I reconnected with an old hire of mine from my media days, and she was straddling PR and marketing in the same firm. Consequently, she was unsure how to talk about both without diminishing her experience in either.

Positioning is framed by two things: who you are; and what you are targeting. So the above conundrum seems to revolve around the first half – confusion on how to express who you are. But it really is more about the second – describing who you are in the context of your target. If you are sure about your target, you can easily find a way to talk about your two (or more) sides in a way that adds value to your target and therefore makes you the logical choice, not the outlier.

When you have multiple targets (as in my banker client who was targeting investors and prospective employers) this is trickier, but still not impossible. We worked on a story where entrepreneurship was a logical extension of his career but not the only one. He created a message that focused on the current growth stage of his business and how the fork in the road involved either investment or employment and that he embraced both possibilities. Most importantly, everything was framed in a positive and empowered way so that his targets, whether investors or employers, could see that he was proactive about his choices.

An upbeat attitude about the choices you have made in your career and life are a critical component of positioning. Notice when you talk about your history, whether you tell the story as if it happened to you or as if you selected what came. Try framing your story around proactive choices, even when they were opportunistic (you still walked through those open doors!). You will find that your positioning is much stronger, and whether you have twists and turns in your career or two (or more) career paths, you still come across as focused, empowered, and therefore desirable.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

Contributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart™

This question came after a webinar I led last week: “How The Hiring Process Really Works.”

It was mind blowing to learn that my resume will probably not make it through the resume screening stage due to my current year-long (and counting) resume gap due to having a child (Note: in the webinar I mentioned that gaps of any kind, not specifically family-leave, raise red flags in a resume screen). In the meantime, how do you recommend mothers address a resume gap for time taken off to have a child and/or raise a family? In the beginning of my job search, I was very open to explaining that the gap was due to having a child, but I sensed some hesitation from several prospective employers once I revealed that tidbit of information. Lately my strategy has been to ignore the gap and only volunteer my motherhood status if asked. Should I explain the gap in my resume? What about in a cover letter?

Yes, you should explain the gap in your resume. No, don’t highlight the gap in your cover letter. And definitely NO, don’t attribute the gap to your kid(s).

First of all, for readers who haven’t heard me talk about gaps, I am a big believer from my 10+ years in recruiting that gaps are big dealbreakers in a resume screen. They are not dealbreakers for your search overall. It is actually not that difficult with the proper positioning to turn a gap to an inconsequential factor or even to your advantage. But that is only when you have a chance to position your gap – i.e., talk about it – and leading with your resume means you don’t have that chance to talk about it.

So, focus on networking and getting access to people so you can tell your story in a way that explains the gap in your resume. Mention the year (or more) as time you took for personal reasons. Then quickly move on to highlight what you did during the gap that is relevant to the employer at hand. If you studied something, talk about that. If you completed project work (whether volunteer or pro bono consulting or internships), talk about that.

You don’t want to dwell on the why of personal reasons because it’s not relevant, and you want to focus on what’s relevant. You also don’t know how the interviewer will react. You don’t know how they feel about working parents (or any other personal time off). Maybe they think you took too little time. Maybe they will start thinking about their own choices and wax nostalgic about their own family leave or get pangs of regret for not doing what you did. Maybe they will feel resentful that you made a choice they wanted to. Maybe they don’t care and will wonder if you always talk about personal things during a business meeting.

As you can see, there are many things that might occur if you bring personal issues into the discussion but they are all distractions. The best thing you can do is move on. This is the same reason why you don’t highlight the gap in your cover letter. The cover letter is to sell the good stuff, not the potential distractions. In the cover letter, you should mention the studies, project work, or whatever you did during the gap, so it’s clear there really is no gap, but don’t put any reasons there. Let them call you in based on what you did, not what you didn’t do.

The capital NO for not discussing kids is because it’s a distraction (as per above), but also because it is a hot button issue for some people. As a recruiter, I always wondered about candidates who freely brought up kids in the interview. Are they not aware that I am not supposed to discuss that in the hiring process – who doesn’t know that by now? Are they aware and trying to make me uncomfortable – what type of person would do that? Are they just unaware of the distinction between personal and business – what will they be like with clients if that’s the case? You can see that no good can come out of volunteering this topic. It is not about hiding anything. It is about having boundaries for yourself and for the prospective employer.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

I recently led a workshop on Resilience for HR executives at a financial services firm that had recently undergone a major restructuring. One VP asked: “How do you allocate time between your personal and professional goals?”

It’s a fitting question for that particular firm because many of the attendees were juggling several jobs and new roles. There was uncertainty, anxiety, and overall fatigue. Yet, the question is fitting for many executive women who juggle multiple roles all the time. How do you keep track of everything and ensure that nothing gets short shrift?

Drop the guilt. The attendees seemed relieved when I told them to just drop some things for now while the restructuring was at its peak. The reality is that there will be times when your life is one-sided and unbalanced. In the long-term you want to even out those cycles and ensure that you build in breaks to refresh and renew. But in a crunch period, it’s more effective to just accept that you have to let some things slide to incorporate whatever extra responsibility has come onto your plate.

Play favorites. It is not about giving the same time and attention to each of your priorities. At times, some will need more or less time. There might be a lull at work, perhaps budget season has passed or the product development cycle is complete, and you can use this time to get your personal taxes in order, get doctors appointments out of the way, or get traction on your exercise plan. I recommend having one personal and one professional favorite at most times, so that you never get too concentrated in one area or another.

Use parallel processing. You always have to ride multiple tracks. Even if we isolate professional goals and discard all personal and even if you like your job, you still have two tracks: your current role and your overall career. These are not the same things. Executing well on your current job does not ensure your overall career. You still need to make sure that the right people know about you, that you stay abreast of market trends, that you maintain and improve your skill set. So regardless of how narrow you want to define your goals, you will always have at least two, and you must budget your time and attention in parallel.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

What are the differences between hiring objectives of a small (startup) company versus a bigger corporation?

The job search does differ when you are targeting start-ups versus established firms. Getting information on and networking into smaller, newer firms requires deeper research and more resourcefulness. You probably have just one chance at the hiring manager in a small firm, while at a larger firm, there are more potential points of entry. Finally, as this questioner mentions, the hiring objectives and practices of a start-up will differ from a bigger corporation, and you will need to adjust your search accordingly.

Your role will be different depending on the size of the firm, even for the same functional area. Your team size, budget, and other resources will vary, and therefore you need to position your skills specifically against what your target requires. For the start-up, you may want to highlight your flexibility and resourcefulness. For the corporation, you may want to elaborate on your relationship-building skills.

Your career path will vary. When you talk about your ambitions, you want to position them to match what is available. For a start-up, there may be no clear path, or it will likely include lateral and cross-functional moves. For an established firm, there may be a well-defined path and clear rules of engagement for next career steps.

The differences in culture and opportunity presented by big versus small firm require you to be clear about your motivations. Why do you want to work at an untested, lesser known, possibly volatile start-up? Why do you want to work at a staid, Fortune 500 bureaucracy? When I recruited for start-ups, I was suspicious of candidates who didn’t know my client because they seemed to be chasing any start-up rather than my client specifically. Likewise, when I recruited for Fortune 500 companies, I was suspicious that candidates who couldn’t articulate clear reasons for wanting my client were just chasing the brand.

Size does matter in your job search. The skills you highlight, the plans you share, and the preferences you reveal all position for companies of a specific size and history. It’s okay to pursue both targets. Just remember to adjust your messaging accordingly.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

As you plan your career, there are so many things you can invest your resources in – taking continuing education courses, working towards a certification or advanced degree, getting involved in a professional group, expanding your network, attending conferences, getting published, looking for better jobs. The decision on whether to choose a continuing education course needs to be weighed against all these other options. It will depend on what you want to get out of the course and your career overall.

Continuing education is good to expand your skill set without the commitment and expense of an all-out certification program or additional degree. You can pick and choose exactly what captures your interest or what you feel will most benefit you right now. Company tuition reimbursement plans are often capped, and continuing education courses can be selected to fall below the maximum. On the other hand, a course here and there will not have the weight of completing a certification or advanced degree. Many companies will reimburse only for full programs, not a select course.

Continuing education gives you perspective outside your current field. A quantitative analyst might exercise her right brain with a film studies course at night. An IT manager might build better appreciation for company strategy by taking some business courses. Don’t just think of continuing education as a smaller alternative to an all-out program. Use the flexibility of taking a course here and there to get introduced to things you might otherwise not because your work is so specialized.

Continuing education does not preclude other investments in your career. The people you meet at your class expand your network. Your class work might inspire an article to publish or a workshop for a conference. The skills you learn may enable you to lobby for space on a project outside your determine or a job with wider responsibilities. The benefits of continuing education don’t have to stop in the classroom or accrue only if you attach them to a terminal degree.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

Recently, I heard from someone who was frustrated that, despite following all of the recommended career advancement strategies (networking, following up, working on her pitch), she was not moving forward. As an example, she referenced a few leads that had grown cold. What is the problem?

Now it could very well be that she is not networking, following up, or positioning herself as well as she says. But even if she is doing all of the steps right, and the quality of activity is there, a handful of leads not working out is not surprising. You also need quantity of activity in your job search and career plans.

Any one lead may not work out regardless of anything you do. There may be no promotion budget any longer. The management opportunity changes in a restructuring. Your company gets bought, and all of your allies and stakeholders get tossed when new management steps in.

Just like your financial investments should be diversified, so should your career investments.

Network inside and outside the company, at different levels, in different industries and functional areas. Follow up is not just about networking contacts but also about following up on different opportunities. Are you considering lateral moves, entrepreneurship (or employee status if you’re an entrepreneur), consulting v. in-house, nascent industries you may not know much about yet? When you position yourself, is it just to a small group of insiders who already know you? Are you blogging, speaking at conferences, getting quoted or publishing?

It is very easy to get swept up in the day-to-day of your job, especially in these times where resources are already stretched thin. But if you focus exclusively on quality of work and don’t expand your reach to a wide enough quantity of audience, you are leaving your career vulnerable. Get yourself out there and not just at the margins but with 100+ networking contacts. If you are in active job search mode, aim for 10+ target companies in play at any one time. If you are in career development mode, have several possibilities outside of your current company that you can move on at all times. Focus on quality, of course, but quantity also matters.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

I recently have graduated with my BS in Business Administration, Finance. I’ve been accepted into University of Richmond to study the Masters of HR Management. I find HR very interesting and want to learn about the subject, but what if later on I decide to focus on a career outside of HR? Will this masters degree hinder me? Since my undergrad is in business, I have absolutely no desire to go for my MBA. They seem like a dime a dozen these days. How would the MHRM be viewed to recruiters in terms of managing other areas of a business? Other departments?

If you ask 10 recruiters the same question, you will get a range of answers. Careers are not an exact science and vary based on an individual’s goals, skill set, personality, drive, etc. In this case, the only thing I am sure about is that you will find some recruiters who highly value the MHRM, some who dismiss it and some who will be in-between.

I personally am in-between about the MHRM. I would value it primarily in the cases where I am recruiting an HR-related role. I don’t outright dismiss it but it is a much more specific degree (and therefore less versatile) than a general MBA with an HR concentration or a Masters in Organizational Psychology or Organizational Development.

Before opting for the MHRM (or any graduate degree for that matter) you need to be clear about why you are getting it. Do you think you need it for a specific career path? Do you want to use it to change careers? Is it the network, the degree on your resume, the school for bragging rights?

Then do research to find out if this degree and this school will give you whatever it is that you most want. Ask people who have the degree what they did with it. Ask people who are in careers that you want what they think of the degree and why they did or did not get it. You’re on the right track by reaching out to a recruiter via this column but get other data points, including other recruiters, to get a broader perspective.

Another consideration is your options without the degree. What will you do with the time and money saved? What jobs or other degrees/ training are you also considering?

Finally, you have to be prepared to make a decision with incomplete information. The degree may make perfect sense now but then your career ideals change in five years and you find the degree less useful. You don’t need a medical degree to write, but Michael Crichton has one and it clearly didn’t hinder his success. You need to weigh the value that you place on the degree, what you can learn from the marketplace about how it values the degree, and what your other options are, all in the context of what you think you want now. That would be an informed decision, and you will be able to sell that choice in future interviews regardless of exactly what those jobs are.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart (www.sixfigurestart.com), a career coaching firm comprised exclusively of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Prior to launching SixFigureStart, Caroline recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citigroup, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Time Inc, TV Guide and others. Caroline offers a half-hour Complimentary Coaching Consultation to individuals who are interested in experiencing coaching and finding out more about how it can help them reach their career goals. To schedule a consultation, contact her at caroline@sixfigurestart.com.

I often hear from people who think that networking means spending lots of time discussing their job search with family and friends. Then when they have exhausted their contacts’ patience and still don’t have a job, they wonder why they haven’t been able to crack this hidden job market everybody alludes to.

The hidden job market does exist and is significant since 80% or more of jobs are filled outside of job postings and recruiters. But the hidden job market is not about employers hiring friends and family. Your BFFs won’t get you a job. The reality is that the winning leads are more likely to be 3 or 4 connections removed. So when you network, in order to tap that hidden market, you need to move out from your comfort zone. If your friends could help you, they would have already. For career changers, friends are especially dangerous b/c they probably have a set way of seeing who you are and what you do and therefore wouldn’t be able to help, however well-intentioned.

Instead, focus on strangers and build rapport by getting to know their companies, their business problems and how you can solve them. In this way, it’s still very much about who and what you know. The best candidates, especially in competitive markets, get to know the decision-makers and are perceived as experts and problem-solvers.

So do this quick check-up on your networking:

Are the people in your immediate network actually hiring for jobs you want?
If so, keep deepening these connections. If not, get to the hiring managers;

Do you know what you want specifically enough (company, department, job title) that you can find the hiring managers and can research the issues they care about?
If so, approach them. If not, do this research;

Are you meeting with hiring managers on a regular basis – 5 or more meetings per week for a full-time search?
Job search is a numbers game and if you’re not matching quality with quantity your search will lag or stall;

If you are not doing this level of targeted, high-impact networking, what is stopping you?
Get a job search buddy, a mentor or a coach, depending on the level of support you need, but get the help that will move you forward.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is a career expert, writer, speaker and co-founder of SixFigureStart, a career coaching firm comprised of former Fortune 500 recruiters. Caroline is a co-author (along with Donald Trump, Jack Canfield and others) of the upcoming “How the Fierce Handle Fear: Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times” due out March 2010; Bascom Hill Books. Formerly in corporate HR and retained search, Caroline most recently headed University Relations for Time Inc and has also recruited for Accenture, Citibank, Disney ABC, and others. Caroline is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Professional Development at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs, a life coach and a columnist for CNBC.com, Conde Nast’s Portfolio.com, Vault.com, Wetfeet.com and TheGlassHammer.com.