Skills to Yield Outsized Returns For Your Career with Mark Herschberg

Today on Thought Talk, I welcome Mark Herschberg, author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. 20 years ago at MIT, Mark saw employers asking for skills they were not finding, and not just at MIT but across the U.S. and Internationally. He has spent his career identifying, studying, and palliating the skill gap for what he calls firm skills.

 

Networking, negotiating, communicating, leading, career planning… We tend to think of a lot of these as situational skills, but they are life skills and none of them are formally taught.

 

Join me for an interesting discussion on how leveling up your soft skill may lead to higher ROI than you ever expected; in this world where very few of us are ever trained to make the best use of them, a little bit of formal skills training goes a long way.

Getting Your Skills Up to Par

 

Networking is about building relationships, just exchanging business cards really isn’t it… Use the time you have to go in-depth and build working — and personal relationships you can call on. Karen and Mark highlight a pandemic silver lining.

 

Negotiations are all around us — not just with vendors and employee salaries — they’re part and parcel of attributing project tasks, in partnerships, between managers and employees. Remember that it’s not about zero-sum and often requires coming up with creative solutions.

 

Leadership isn’t a title — it’s about influencing others, having a vision, and convincing others to go along. You can lead every day from whatever chair you’re in.

 

Interviewing (others) — Have you ever wondered how you or your junior employees come up with interview questions? Interviewing isn’t only key to finding the right fit, it’s also a huge component of assessing vendors.

About Karen Tiber Leland

 

Karen Tiber Leland is the founder of Sterling Marketing Group, a branding, marketing, and color strategy and implementation firm helping CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs develop stronger personal, business, and team brands. Her clients include Cisco, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

 

She is also the best-selling author of nine traditionally-published business books that have sold over 400,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Her most recent book is The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand. She regularly writes for Inc.com and Entrepreneur.com and has had articles published in Self, The Los Angeles Times, American Way, The Boston Globe, and many others.

 

Karen has spoken for Harvard, The AMA, Direct Marketing Association, and Stanford, among others. She has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, CNBC, and Oprah.

 

Get in touch with Karen on Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

 

About Our Guest

 

Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. He helped to start the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, dubbed MIT’s “career success accelerator,” where he teaches annually. At MIT, he received a B.S. in physics, a B.S. in electrical engineering & computer science, and an M.Eng. in electrical engineering & computer science, focusing on cryptography. At Harvard Business School, Mark helped create a platform used to teach finance at prominent business schools.

 

You can learn more about Mark Herschberg on his LinkedIn|Website

 

Mentioned

The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You, by Mark A. Herschberg

Negotiation Masterclass with Chris Voss

 

Resources

 

Do you need a LinkedIn or online presence upgrade? One of the easiest ways to do that is to book a Rent My Brain session. 

 

During this one-hour, high-impact consulting call we get to the heart of your social media and LinkedIn issues and you’ll come away with very specific recommendations for how you can upgrade and improve your online presence.

 

For more information or to book a session, contact me directly at [email protected] or visit KarenLeland.com.