Paula Santonocito, Global Career Development Facilitator (GCDF), is now available for individual career coaching via email or phone.

Paula has been awarded the GCDF designation from the Center for Credentialing and Education (CCE) and holds a Workforce Career Coach Facilitator (WCCF) certificate from Thomas Edison State College.

A recognized career expert, she is editor of the SingleMindedWomen Career channel, editorial director of Workplace 411®, and author of more than 1,000 articles on employment and career issues.

Paula has been a guest on radio programs, most recently in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and Seattle. She was also recently quoted in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston newspapers, and quoted in an article that appeared at CNN.com and MSN. Her SingleMindedWomen.com article, “2010: Top 10 Cities for Single Women,” and its in-depth research, which examines career and other opportunities in major United States cities, was covered by NBC.

Ask a Question via Email

Paula Santonocito, Global Career Development Facilitator (GCDF), will provide an email answer to one career or job search question: $29.95

Instructions:

1. Submit the $29.95 fee via PayPal.
   1. When at PayPal, click on Send Money and enter allisono@singlemindedwomen.com in the “To” box.
   2. All payments must be in U.S. dollars.
2. After submitting payment, send Paula your question by clicking here.
3. Provide brief background information about your work or job search situation. Include only one question.
4. Use a private email address, as opposed to a company address.

Guarantee: All information will remain confidential.

Schedule a Virtual Coaching Session

Paula Santonocito, Global Career Development Facilitator (GCDF), will meet with you via phone for a 45-minute confidential career coaching session: $89.95

Instructions:

1. Submit the $89.95 fee via PayPal.
   1. When at PayPal, click on Send Money and enter allisono@singlemindedwomen.com in the “To” box.
   2. All payments must be in U.S. dollars.
2. After submitting payment, request a virtual coaching session by clicking here.
3. Provide your phone number and information about your availability.
4. Paula will respond with time options.
5. You both will confirm the appointment.

Session Guidelines:

1. Make sure your coaching session doesn’t take place while you are on the job.
2. To obtain maximum benefit from the session, choose a time when you will have no distractions.

Guarantee: All information will remain confidential.

Career assistance is only a click away. Why not contact Paula today?

Finally, there’s a robust career tool for everyone. AP Workplace Media, a B2B provider of leading-edge workplace communication products and related services, has launched the inaugural issue of Workplace 411®, the first digital magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of employees.

Designed to serve as an extension of a company’s HR and training departments, and to supplement EAP offerings, the bi-monthly magazine provides employees with solutions to everyday workplace and career questions, allowing people to make a greater contribution to the organizations for which they work.

Workplace 411 features expertly-written articles, dynamic graphics, and compelling video clips intended to engage and motivate employees.

Magazine content is relevant for most workplaces, but has been created with Fortune 500 corporations in mind.

Workplace 411, which can be accessed at the AP Workplace Media website, is available at no charge. Companies that would like to offer the magazine to their employees may request a widget from AP Workplace Media for placement on their corporate intranet.

Co-branding opportunities for employers, EAPs or other providers of employee services are also available.

Why not download your free copy of Workplace 411 today? You’ll also want to share it with your staff and coworkers.

In 2009, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Nicholas Kristof eloquently pointed out that our economy might be in a very different place had it been Lehman Sisters and Brothers rather than merely Lehman Brothers. In his piece “Mistresses of the Universe,” Kristof highlights how Wall Street is a place “where senior staff meetings resemble the waiting room at a urologist’s office.”

As someone who spent a brief (and not entirely happy) period of time in NYC working for a global investment bank in the early 1990s, I concur with Kristof’s analysis. So when I first heard about Nina Godiwalla’s new book, Suits: A Woman on Wall Street, I couldn’t wait to see what, if anything, had changed since my days in the hood.

Billed as The Devil Wears Prada meets Liar’s Poker, Godiwalla’s Suits provides a lively, heartfelt insider’s perspective on investment banking delivered from an outsider’s point of view. It also presents a poignant and insightful snapshot of an immigrant family with big dreams. Suits is a gripping read, especially if you’re of multi-cultural heritage or interested in why there are so few women in the upper echelons of high finance. Quite literally, I could not put this book down. It hit on all the issues I personally struggled with — wanting (unsuccessfully) to fit into a culture that is profoundly male in every way, shape, and form — while also wanting to earn the same financial fruits from my intellect that the men were.

Nina is no ordinary young woman. She’s an academic superstar. Nina has an MBA from Wharton School of Business, an MA focused in Creative Writing from Dartmouth, and a BBA from University of Texas. After spending a decade working for blue chip Fortune 500 firms like Morgan Stanley and Johnson & Johnson, she currently lives in Austin, TX where she runs MindWorks, a consultancy providing stress management and meditation training to corporations and other professional organizations. Nina speaks nationally on leadership and diversity in the workplace and has been featured in several major publications, including USA Today, ABC News, and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Reading Suits brought many questions to mind – and here Nina is kind enough to answer them:

Early on in the book you describe a group outing with peers from work where you ate little and consumed no alcohol – and your surprise at being told your portion of the “shared” bill would be $130. Did your peers ever talk about their personal finances and if so, in what way?

Several of my peers came from very wealthy backgrounds.  Some even had their parents pay most of their bills and used their sizeable investment banking paycheck as spending money. Since they didn’t have to worry much about money, there was little conversation around it. At the time, I envied them.

You describe arriving on Wall Street for your first internship with 4 suits and 2 pairs of shoes. Of the clothes you had brought from Texas you said, “My 100% polyester hounds tooth TJ Maxx suit stood out like sweatpants at a wedding.” In the world of Wall Street do you feel your external appearance was judged more harshly because you are a woman or because you are Persian-Indian?

Being a minority or woman in investment banking, where there are few, is similar to walking into a cocktail party where you don’t know anyone. It’s not impossible to navigate; however it takes more effort. As a woman or minority, you often have to prove yourself rather than getting the benefit of the doubt. Since the industry is so focused on perception, the way you dress and carry yourself plays just as important a role as your work.

At one point in the book you reflect back upon the benefits of working part-time at the mall while you were in high school, saying “Money bought me the ability to make more of my own choices.” After your experience on Wall Street how do you feel about the role of money in your life today?

Money can buy you a certain level of independence, and I’m grateful I have the education and means to provide for my family. Not everyone has that. But money has its limits. In New York it often felt like no amount of money is enough. There’s typically a ladder you’re climbing and someone’s always ahead of you. I remember some colleagues getting depressed during bonus time because their bonuses (even when they were in the millions) were lower than their counterparts. Money is important to me, but I don’t want to get mixed up in allowing it to define me.

After months of grueling 80 plus hour work weeks you pondered, “I was beginning to wonder how to redefine success. Until now, I’d just assumed that people who had money, prestige, and power lived perfect happy lives. If they didn’t, why would so many people, including my parents and many from my Parsi community, spend a lifetime inching closer and closer to these things?” How do you define success now?

Now, my definition of success is more balanced. Unlike before, happiness now plays a major factor. There’s a certain threshold of money needed to keep me content and after that, there is a diminishing return.

Towards the end of the book you say, “In college, I would’ve laughed at the idea that being in business could be different for women than for men, but only a few weeks into my Morgan Stanley experience, I completely understood.” What advice would you give a woman leaving college and starting a career in business today and would that advice differ if she was of recent immigrant heritage?

I’d heard the banking experience would be “challenging,” but I didn’t expect it’d be so hard to break into a conversation of men in their late 40’s sharing their rowing memories from their East Coast summer camps.  My advice to anyone who’s not part of the majority (women or minority) is to make an extra effort to build a strong, strategic network of people who support you. Now, when I start a new job, I set up one-on-one meetings with people all over the company.  Doing a good job will be expected of you, but it’s the relationships that help you succeed.

For more on Suits and on Nina, visit her website.

Have you worked in financial services?  If so, what has your experience been?

© 2011 SingleMindedWomen.com All rights reserved. Permission to reprint this article must be obtained from SingleMindedWomen.com.

Want more financial love? You can follow Women’s Financial Literacy Initiative founder, Manisha Thakor, on Twitter at @ManishaThakor, sign up to get her email updates delivered right to your inbox here, and enroll in her innovative new online personal finance course called “Money Rules.”

More SMW Career Articles

Overcome Workplace Anxiety

Webinars to Advance Your Career

3 Fashion-Based Career Killers

But how do you handle anxiety when it becomes so crippling that you avoid the situations that cause your symptoms?

Millions of workplace anxiety sufferers choose to ignore assignments, call in sick, or clam up during meetings and seldom answer the phone or return calls.

“Getting out of something” may seem like a relief in the short term. But making it a habit can have significant long-term consequences for your career when supervisors, colleagues, and clients will realize they can’t count on you. Your physical health is affected too: Headaches, high blood pressure, gastrointestinal issues, and insomnia are among the 70% of medical visits attributed to stress.

Workplace Anxiety Defined

Obviously, no one enjoys feeling nervous. Obsessive worry, nausea, stammering, blushing, sweating, clammy hands, a racing pulse—these symptoms of anxiety are enough to make a lot of people feel like heading for the parking lot.

Why do these symptoms occur? Because of the fight-or-flight response—your brain’s signal to choose whether to stick around and wrestle with the saber-tooth tiger or high-tail it out of there. The adrenaline that flows is fuel for our action. It is a good thing!

Of course, few of us deal with tigers in the office. Yet that response still occurs when we confront a challenge. And somewhere along the way, you may have linked that feeling of adrenaline energy with embarrassment or shame. So you trained yourself to avoid situations that increase your adrenaline.

Avoidance is addicting. Get out of doing something—making a presentation, taking the lead on a project, interacting with a difficult client—and you will begin to look for ways to get out of other things. Avoid the situation that makes you anxious, and be anxiety-free, right?

But what if you aren’t in a position to take on a long-term educational commitment?

You still have options. In fact, Bryant & Stratton College offers webinars especially for busy single women like you. Best of all, these webinars are free and they can help advance your career.

Here’s the schedule for August and September:

“Build Your Professional Brand”
Tentative Date: August 24, 2010
Time: 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT
To Register Visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/135369880
Your professional brand is simply all the ways you showcase your professional strengths, attributes, interests, and experience to the world. Fortunately, there are things you can do to start building the professional brand that will make you stand out as a strong contributor to any company–even if you are a student, unemployed or don’t yet have work experience in your chosen field. This webinar will teach participants how to build a professional brand and how to showcase their value to potential employers.

“How to Build a Resilient Career”
Tentative Date: September 16, 2010
Time: Noon to 1 p.m. EDT
To Register Visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/651626593
To build a resilient career, one that will sustain you over the decades of your working life, you need to make smart choices, take responsibility for outcomes, and be able to figure out your best options when things don’t turn out as planned. The good news: There are solid strategies for dealing with career opportunities (and disasters). Knowing these strategies will help provide the confidence needed to be a truly independent professional, regardless of what’s going on in the job market.

Why not register today?

© 2010 SingleMindedWomen.com All rights reserved. Permission to reprint this article must be obtained from SingleMindedWomen.com.

More SMW Career Advice

How Safe Is Your Job?

Increasing Your Market Value

How to Switch Industries

In fact, Maggie Jessup, personal branding expert and coauthor of the book “Fame 101,” cites fashion as the number one roadblock to success. Talented businesswomen create their own glass ceiling, she says.

So, what are the worst mistakes women make when it comes to fashion? According to Jessup, it comes down to the “terrible toos.”

Here, in Jessup’s own words, is her list.

Career Killer No. 1 - Too much style. Some women in business believe that because they spend insane amounts to wear the latest styles from New York their career look just couldn’t be better. They’re wearing the Rolls Royce of outfits and if anyone doubts how great they look they must be mistaken because these are “this year’s colors” or “how they’re wearing slacks in New York” and after all, “they’re Jimmy Choo’s”. Unfortunately, many of these styles only look good if you’re an underweight 6 foot 19-year-old and very few women in business fall into this category. The style rule you must follow to look great and have presence is to make wardrobe decisions based on what looks good on you, with what’s in style only a secondary consideration.

Career Killer No. 2 – Too young. This wardrobe trap can snare even the smartest of women in business and it is deadly for a career. A simple example will make the point. If you are a 45-year-old office manager, don’t shop at Forever 21. For some reason a surprising number of women believe they can take off 10 years by dressing 20 years younger, when actually the opposite is true. It may be fun but you will never achieve the look you’ll need to be a leader in your field. The people who could put your career on the fast track won’t take you seriously. This is about appropriateness; dress just right for your age.

Career Killer No. 3 – Too bad hair. We live in a hair-obsessed society; yours must be great or at least really good. Have you ever had someone look at your new cut or style and say, “Ouch, that’s too bad?” Likely not, because even your best friend will lie to you about this career-builder or career-killer for women in business. So what can you do to get that great look? Follow a few simple rules: Never do a home perm; under no circumstances have your best friend dye your hair; if you have the same cut you had in high school it is wrong; and work nights at the Dairy Queen if you must so that you can afford a quality style, cut, and color. Note here to watch out for the too much style trap because something that would rock in New York can make you look foolish in Phoenix.

Do you recognize anyone you know on the list? Worse, do you recognize yourself?

If so, all is not lost. It’s simply time to follow Jessup’s tips and become more fashion savvy.

“You can make a powerful lasting impression in a business setting with fashion,” Jessup says. “These fashion errors are the most overlooked elements of building great careers for women and they are also the quickest, easiest, and least expensive to fix.”

© 2010 SingleMindedWomen.com All rights reserved. Permission to reprint this article must be obtained from SingleMindedWomen.com.

More SMW Career Advice

Warm Weather Work Attire

Your Summer Wardrobe: Keep Cool, Stay Chic

How to Dress for an Interview

While not a traditional route, it is nevertheless the path Detective Christine Mannina’s career has taken.

Great at the Job

Mannina is a detective in the highly-acclaimed Homicide Investigations division of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Over the course of her career as a homicide detective, she has maintained an impressive 90 percent case solve rate, high above the national average of 61 percent. She also boasts a virtually unheard of 95 percent conviction rate—nearly every person she has arrested who has been tried for homicide has been put away.

Mannina has received numerous awards during her career in law enforcement, including Detective of the Year, Officer of the Month, and the Medal of Merit, as well as several certificates of commendation. She graduated from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy with honors.

Perhaps it is no surprise then that Mannina is featured in the Investigation Discovery (ID) channel’s docu-series “The Shift,” a show about the work of homicide detectives at the Indianapolis police department. Currently in its second season, “The Shift” is ID’s highest-rated original series, thanks largely to the work and personality of Detective Mannina.

Mannina has also appeared in the television series “Cops” and “Women and the Badge.”

Spreading the Message

When not on the job (and on television), Mannina blogs about her life and work at the Investigation Discovery website.

She also enjoys public speaking, and regularly addresses school and civic groups about the topic of criminal investigation. Her speaking engagements and position on the police force, along with her television presence, have made Mannina a role model for young women who say she has inspired them to enter the field of law enforcement.

If this weren’t enough, she plans to share her experiences via yet another medium. Mannina is currently working on a book about her career, which she hopes will serve as another window into her world. It will include insights into crime and human nature from this strong, independent woman’s point of view.

If you’re interested in a career in law enforcement, you can learn a lot by following Detective Christine Mannina on the job on “The Shift.” Be sure to also check out the video on the SMW Career channel.

© 2010 SingleMindedWomen.com All rights reserved. Permission to reprint this article must be obtained from SingleMindedWomen.com.

More SMW Career Advice

Career Choice and Gender Bias

Career Choice: FBI Special Agent

Single-Minded Entrepreneur: Karen Allen

Single Women and Workaholism

For our purpose we will define workaholism as a compulsion to work with little time devoted to personal relationships, rest, and recreation—other than booking an annual pedicure.

It seems single women may be more susceptible than married women to the work-your-head-off tendency.  In her book, “Married to the Job,” Ilene Philipson describes how the solo woman is vulnerable to lose sight of the rest of her life:

“Throughout history, women have married for economic survival and security.  Thus, when women today marry their jobs, a similar logic applies. In a world of rapid economic change, family disintegration, and the ongoing expectation that it is women’s responsibility to rear children, many, if not most, women look to the workplace for economic survival and security. Many are putting their hopes for fidelity and commitment through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in their employers. Jobs, not men, seem to offer more in the way of economic stability over the long haul.”

One Woman’s Experience

Suzy Wilkoff’s story fits perfectly with the job bride dynamic. She has a collection of awards and accomplishments from becoming the first and only female football recruiting coordinator at University of Miami. After graduating from college, she worked her way up the ladder at Delta Air Lines where, during the course of 12-year career stint, she advanced from working in reservations to an outside sales representative position with a multi-million dollar territory.

Then, after receiving heaps of job offers, she began working with one of the top golf instructors in the world. It was exciting driving around in a golf cart, working as an executive assistant. With the understanding that she would have to work some Saturdays but would have time off during the slow season, the hours increased and the money didn’t; she was working six days a week and being paid for five. She says, “I didn’t mind working Saturdays but wanted to be compensated.”

Between having high expectations for herself and living in Florida where employers can fire staff with no reason, Suzy allowed herself to work and work.  She explains, “I focused on the enjoyable parts of the job. I appreciated relationships with co-workers and customers. I tried to enjoy my personal time. I told myself, ‘I’m organized. I’m tough. I don’t cry. I don’t pout. I don’t complain. I can take a lot of stress and pressure.’”

Sure, sometimes circumstances are beyond your control. However, it helps to be alert to negative forces—and do your best to avoid or counteract them.

Big Picture Issues

Circumstances beyond your control include, you guessed it, the economy. To say that economic conditions have impacted the workplace is an understatement. Employers have implemented layoffs, furloughs, pay cuts, and other measures to deal with declining demand for goods and services and the subsequent decline in revenues.

This has created a climate that, admittedly, can be difficult. When coworkers get the axe it doesn’t exactly boost the morale of the people who remain.

Pay cuts can be equally hard to handle, especially for single women who are typically their only source of financial support. For single mothers, having less income can be even more stressful.

Even if your take-home pay hasn’t been affected in the past year, chances are your work environment has become more somber. It may be that your coworkers have been impacted by changes your employer has made. Or perhaps they have family members who are unemployed and they feel additional pressure.

No matter what the circumstances, it’s likely someone you interact with on a daily basis is struggling more than they were a year or two ago.

The Day to Day

As a result, in one way or another, so are you. When negativity enters a work environment, it’s very difficult to ignore it.

People become less engaged in their jobs and less upbeat personally.

Before you say, sure, step back and think about it—really think about it.

In order to do this, you need to take a look at your current job and career choice, as well as your personal life.

Workplace Assessment

Begin by thinking about the situations you typically find yourself in at work. For example, does your job involve a lot of competition? If you’re in sales, this is definitely the case.

Perhaps your position requires a lot of patience. If you’re a first-grade school teacher, patience is a must-have.

Or maybe you’re involved with newspaper production, which means daily deadlines.

Generally, people know certain things about themselves and steer away from those careers for which they aren’t suited. If you can’t stand the sight of blood, you won’t become a doctor. Or, if you don’t like air travel, pilot and flight attendant won’t be on a list of career choices.

However, other aspects of the work experience may not be taken into consideration. What’s more, you might not even realize a particular component of a job doesn’t mesh with who you are—at least not until you come up against it.

Getting Personal

Then you may think it’s you, and that you need to adapt. In some situations, this may be true. In others, though, characteristics of the job may not be in sync with who you are.

Women especially tend to think they need to change, when instead what needs to change is the job or aspects of it.