9 Lives for Women Blog

Economists categorize people as wealthy, middle class or poor, but according to my late grandfather that leaves out the layer he was fond of calling “50 Dollar Millionaires”. According to my grandfather, many people who give the appearance of affluence actually are highly leveraged with little wealth or savings. It was his favorite snarky topic…

It’s true that some people have a hard time getting off a certain career track. If you’ve been in marketing for 20 years and you want to reinvent yourself toward public health, it can be hard to get employers to connect the dots. But it can be done. Transferring your skills to an entirely new…

There are plenty of articles in the media forecasting that many Americans will never have the money to retire. In that scenario work is a ball and chain, a means to an end, just a way to pay the bills. Other people have played the retirement savings game well, can afford to retire, and never…

Yet another reason to have a “Vitamin C” deficiency—employers want to hire people who are currently employed. (In 9 Lives for Women parlance that’s “C” for Confidence.) I was reminded of this form of discrimination when I read Diane Irwin’s Resumes of NJ blog post, “Do Recruiters Discriminate Against the Unemployed?”. Apparently they do, but it’s about as frustrating as saying men only want to marry women…

Here you will find compelling excerpts from a wonderful article by Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti, Vice President and Managing Director of Apollo Research Institute, an organization focused on education, work and careers in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Tracey’s article gives great credence to the non-linear career path, which I’m happy to see is trending upward. In my coaching and recruiting years I’ve always advised women to…

When women tell me they’re having a hard time deciding whether to go back to work (and they tell me the same thing a year later and then a year after that), I know that the underlying reason is often fear. It’s fear of putting yourself out there after so many years, fear of being rejected, fear of the process, fear of the current job market, fear of what you could command in dollars after many years out, fear of losing…