This evening I decided to make one of my favorite cakes: The Glazed Lemon Cake from the Silver Palate Cookbook. While eating dinner with my son I told him about the beginnings of The Silver Palate company and how Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso had changed food forever with their little shop on Columbus Avenue and the cookbooks that followed.
But then this led me to the story about the job not taken. The summer after my first year in college I’d worked as a swim instructor at a camp and then headed back to my hometown of NYC. I was reeling from my parents’ divorce and had decided not to return to college in Massachusetts opting instead to live and work in New York. Somehow I got information about a job for a little food shop, The Silver Palate, that was just opening. For a girl who loved to cook and bake this was a dream first job — I put on my dress and clogs and walked over to the shop on the upper west side. I had worked hard to lose my ‘freshman 15’ that summer and had vowed to appreciate, but not indulge in, the food I admired in the shop.
When was the last time you did an informational interview? Contacting someone you may not already know to learn about what they do, and how their company works, can be an eye-opening opportunity. You can gain important information about the work you want to do, and learn about the culture of the place you hope to work at. Many of you have already done this kind of interview – from either side of the table – interviewer or interviewee. Some people, like me, love doing these interviews, and others, while they know it could be very valuable for them, are uncomfortable reaching out to talk with a stranger. While I really love doing these, I haven’t done one in a while so I decided to reach out and talk to a variety of people in hiring positions to learn more about what’s happening in hiring, and to be able to share this information with clients and other readers.
Mompreneur, dentist, franchisee, CEO, brick and mortar retailer, E-commerce Business Owner, Service Provider? How do you define yourself?
“Many of today’s new encore careers build on multiple work and life experiences, so they are a good match for older adults who’ve spent decades in the workplace,” Ms. Segal said. To help older workers upgrade skills for such jobs, she added, community colleges, online degree programs and intensive workshops are expanding training and fast-track certification programs.