Our career and our finances: for professional working women
these surely rate as our most precious assets - perhaps along with
our reputation and our personal brand.
Annie Lennox sang years ago that "sisters are doing it for
themselves" and it's a wise (and happy) woman who keeps a
measure of financial independence while doing work she finds
engaging and meaningful.
In all the years Professionelle has been running, it's
probably no accident that most of the requests for advice we've
received have been from women wanting to identify and
capitalise on their career opportunities. These questions reflect
all career stages, from Day One, Job One through to
boomers pondering what a satisfying retirement would look like. The
recent global financial turmoil has added redundancy advice to what
you'll find in this theme.
Lastly, we share interviews with successful women, asking their
advice on careers and how they "make it all work".
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02 September 2009
By Galia BarHava-Monteith
the economic down-turn is really starting to hit home. Though at Professionelle we don't accentuate the negative, Galia could see it might be time to share her personal story of redundancy and the lessons she learned from it. It was a very challenging period but it formed the seeds of Professionelle.
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31 August 2009
By Juliet Moses, Partner, Taylor Grant Tesiram.
What happens if you spend countless unpaid hours of doing the GST returns for your husband's business, only to have your marriage end? How can you protect your financial interests if you are providing professional services, whether they be accounting, legal, marketing or otherwise, to or for your husband's or partner's business but aren't being paid for them?
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14 August 2009
By edited by Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes
"What range of arrangements are generally made in partnership or directorship agreements for leaves of absence such as maternity leave or sabbaticals whereby you, as a principal are not actively working in the business each day? I'm on maternity leave so will not be working regularly but can be involved as a shareholder ie monthly meetings." We asked our senior contacts in professional service firms for their experiences.
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08 August 2009
By Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes
When the environment is full of threats, as it is right now, it's a natural instinct to hunker down. So is the F word (flexibility) losing out to the R word (recession)? A new US report delivered the verdict: flexibility is alive and well, claim employers. But do the employees agree? Do they even dare ask for flexible arrangements any more?
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01 July 2009
By Galia BarHava-Monteith
At Professionelle we have both come a long way on becoming convinced of the power of networking. Part of Professionalle's promise is bringing professional women together and we keep working on ways to deliver on that. Here, Galia extensively recaps on why networking is so powerful and shares practical tips women can try to increase the effectiveness of their networking.
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06 June 2009
By Sandra Beale (submitted by Brian Morris of The Institute of Business Studies)
Networking is vital to grow businesses and personal support networks. Read on for 10 practical steps to make networking work for you
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02 June 2009
By Ann Andrews, The Corporate Toolbox
Look on the recession as valuable downtime to draw breath, reassess your business, and plan for future success.
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27 April 2009
By Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes
Getting past the shock of redundancy is a crucial step in turning the situation to your advantage. The self assessment phase that follows is critical - and take time to assess your values too. This article contains advice from leading executive recruiters for overcoming this significant challenge.
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24 March 2009
By Gil Vanture, translated by Galia BarHava-Monteith
A Hebrew-reading member alerted us to an affirming article by an Israeli psychologist, Gil Vantura, on the value of hiring working mums. Galia BarHava-Monteith translated the piece with Gil's approval. Whatever country you're in, if you're a new mum dealing with sometimes adverse comments of bosses and workers, you'll find some encouragement from this piece.
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05 January 2009
By Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes
We're fairly sure there's no silver bullet out there! Whether we're Gen Y, Gen X, Gen Jones or Boomers, we're all grappling with compromises as we try to stay sane yet also find work that interests and rewards us as professional women. Below we share the stories, experiences, tips and tricks our members sent in as part of our second birthday survey.