Self-Promotion for Introverts

Career advancement tips, quips, and insights for the quieter crowd

by Nancy Ancowitz

Social Media: Welcome to Hotel California

You may enjoy LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Or maybe it's a love-hate thing with the ever-expanding options, the need to keep all your profiles up to date, and all the strangers angling to be your "friend." Brings to mind the line from Hotel California that the '70s pop band The Eagles made famous: "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." Read More

Listen Your Way Up the Ladder

“We think we listen, but we don’t,” says Nancy Kline in her book Time to Think. “We finish each other’s sentences, we interrupt each other, we moan together, we fill in the pauses with our own stories, we look at our watches, we sigh, frown, tap our finger, read the newspaper or walk away. We give advice, give advice, give advice.” Read More

Quiet Guide to Small Biz Success

Is it time for you to run your own business? If you're an introvert, you may be depleted from the open office environment that has long been in vogue. Why not create your own enterprise, complete with your own workspace, hours, and a mission that so excites you that you can't wait to get to work each day? Read More

Blame Throwers, Credit Grabbers, and You

From cubicle to corner office, workplaces are crawling with what Ben Dattner, Ph.D., author of The Blame Game: How the Hidden Rules of Credit and Blame Determine Our Success or Failure, calls credit grabbers and blame throwers. Read More

Expand Your Network and Land Your Dream Job

Whether or not you're currently looking for a job in this sluggish job market, it's always a good time to build your professional network. If you haven't gone on an informational interview lately, why not set one up today? This time tested tactic will help you land your next job, take your career to the next level, and get new clients. Read More

Hit Your Treadmill's Big Red Button

It was the best career move I ever made. Ten years ago I took time off from my job as a marketing vice president at a major Wall Street firm. The corporate culture of constantly being "on" during back-to-back meetings was particularly exhausting for me as an introvert. After some serious snooze time - a year to be exact - I chose a new career path. Read More

Sound Like a Boss, Not a Bossypants

If you're an introvert, despite the advantages of quietly contemplating your thoughts before sharing them, you are missing opportunities to get heard if you don't speak in your best voice. Read More

How to Compete With Your Frenemies

"Annoying people can be helpful to you. Ask an adversary to coffee or lunch," advises Kathryn Mayer, a leadership development consultant and author of Collaborative Competition. What do you do if an adversary is threatened by your gifts or accomplishments? “If you get good enough, someone will be threatened by you,” she says. Read More

How to Find Your Inner Cary Grant

“As a former FBI agent and police officer, I had to act un-scared even though at times I was scared. I had to act sure of myself, even though many times I was confronted with things that were destabilizing. I had to act the part because that is what is required,” according to Joe Navarro, author of Louder Than Words and other books on nonverbal intelligence. Read More

You Can’t Spell Self-Promotion Without the Om

It can increase your attention span, sharpen your brain, and improve your performance at just about anything. What’s the rage about meditation and how can the benefits of this age-old practice include bolstering your professional profile? Read More

A Dream and the Thing with Feathers

Once a single mother on Welfare, Charlotte Rinderknecht now runs Studio Kinate, the first woman-run animation studio. Apprentices from high school and college as well as individuals at risk are the lifeblood of the studio, which created "Pete’s Odyssey," an animated short. The film garnered multiple awards, including “Best Animation” at the 2010 Beaufort Film Festival. Read More

How to Negotiate with the Terminator

Can you succeed at negotiating while remaining authentic and advancing your relationship with the other party? How about if you see yourself as the less powerful one? Read More

Conquering the Introvert-Extrovert Communication Gap, Part 2

Advice for extroverts: Welcome introverts to state their opinions, but avoid putting them on the spot. Distribute an agenda and ask for their input privately, by e-mail, prior to a meeting to give them time to compose their thoughts. Read More

Conquering the Introvert-Extrovert Communication Gap, Part 1

The tugs on our sleeves are different. Introverts feel the tug to solve problems alone in their Batcaves—solitary confinement to extroverts. The tug on their sleeve is to brainstorm energetically out loud. However, an extrovert’s brainstorming powwow can be overwhelming for an introvert. How can you communicate well with those who are so different from you? Read More

How Introverted Leaders and Proactive Followers Make Hay

Researchers at top business schools just found that introverted leaders get better results when they lead proactive followers (whom extraverted leaders can find threatening); and extraverted leaders get better results when they lead passive followers. Read More

Introverts' Guide to Holiday Merriment

Americans spend an average of 15 hours attending holiday gatherings. That could mean hitting the party circuit three hours a week from the five weeks from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day. What’s an introvert to do? Socialize, of course—if you care about your career. And the corollary: pace yourself. Read More

Musings of an Introvert Publisher, Part 3

"What author—whether introvert or extrovert—wouldn’t revel in the immediacy of thousands of consumers clicking the “Like” button for his or her book?" says Gary Krebs, VP and group publisher at McGraw-Hill Professional. Read More

Musings of an Introvert Publisher, Part 2

Dealmaker by day and homebody on weekends, VP and group publisher Gary Krebs at McGraw-Hill Professional uses words, mostly spoken, to inspire, persuade, and sell. How does he do that as an introvert? Read on. Read More

Musings of an Introvert Publisher, Part 1

"Coaxed by my mother into employment—she refused to take home a starving, unemployed writer—I entered book publishing full-time right after college," says Gary Krebs, VP and group publisher at McGraw-Hill Professional. He continues, "It was a good fit, as I have always loved and treasured books and reading." Read More

How Do You Talk About Yourself?

Even though the elevator pitch is a time-worn topic in career and networking articles and books (mine included!), every time I attend a social event, I still hear different variations on, “I’m an accountant.” Monotone. Eyes averted. Throat clearing sound. Fidget. Jazz it up, number crunchers! Other folks too. Have a heart for your audience. Or carry smelling salts. Read More

Is Obama an Introvert?

In his recent New York Times article, titled "Education of a President," Peter Baker paints a picture of President Barack Obama as an introvert: "Insulation is a curse of every president, but more than any president since Jimmy Carter, Obama comes across as an introvert, someone who finds extended contact with groups of people outside his immediate circle to be draining." In contrast, in an earlier story in the Huffington Post, Michael Melcher argues that Obama "likes variety, spends a lot of time in physical activities, and seems to get energized from the world as a whole." Obama: introvert or extrovert?

An introvert we’ll call Tara Jung says, “My workspace is so tight that my neighbor and I bump hands when we mouse.” In fact, Jung, a director of client strategy at a major Wall Street firm, works on a trading floor, and her desk shares one long contiguous surface with the other workers—including her boss—who all work knuckle to knuckle and knee to knee.

“What work I have done I have done because it has been play,” said humorist Mark Twain in an interview in the New York Times in 1905. “If it had been work I shouldn't have done it,” he continued. He added, “When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world.” Read More

Shushing Your Inner Bully: A Quick Trick

I frequently encounter highly accomplished people who don’t think of themselves that way. If that's you, here's what you can do. Read More

Non-responders: Why Your Key Prospects Don't Say Boo

Why don’t your prospective employers, clients, and other key players follow up with you when they say they will? Don’t they take you seriously?

We recently celebrated the forty-first anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, when a soft spoken astronaut named Neil Armstrong made a giant leap for mankind. Isn't it about time for other reflective, idea-oriented people to get their due? We think so. Instead, simmering under the surface of our cultural consciousness is a belief that introverts are impaired. Read More

Networking Isn't About Using and Getting Used

Most experts on networking agree it’s a two-way street—a way to build relationships rather than foisting yourself, your business cards, and your wares on everyone who crosses your path. Despite that, lurking in our collective unconsciousness is the notion that networking is about using people and getting used. Following that logic, if you’re an introvert—or someone who is more stoked by solo activities than social activities, why would you want to dive into a mosh pit of slick people shaking down one another for leads when you could stay home and read a book?

Imagine driving along the NJ-495 roadway, which dramatically scoops around and dips down the cliffs of Weehawken, New Jersey, into a huge industrial no-man’s land before you enter the Lincoln Tunnel to the legendary city of Broadway, big business, and billionaire dreams. As you navigate your way through this sea of gray, peppered with smokestacks and billboards, your eyes jump from ads for SmartWater to iPhones to one about you. Now imagine what your billboard would say, how it would look, and what image it would convey. Read More

How to Increase Your Self-Promotion Intelligence, or SPQ

A colleague crows at you in a self-congratulatory tone, listing the mountains of achievement she’s climbed and minimizing yours as molehills. She uses “I” to punctuate the start of each sentence. She namedrops to further raise her status—and lower yours. Another colleague is the brains of the organization, but he gets drowned out when he pipes up at meetings. So his less gifted colleagues get the recognition and the compensation that he deserves. You've heard of IQ and you may have heard of EQ, or emotional intelligence, too. Now for a new term: SPQ, or self-promotion intelligence. The term is definitely pop and meant to be fun, but your SPQ is also serious business when it comes to your career (even though the acronym also stands for Sweet Potato Queens!). Read More

So You Want to Write a Book?

Diamonds in the rough beware. Diane O’Connell, the editorial director of Write to Sell Your BookTM, said that there’s “not a Bennett Cerf type editor out there waiting for a brilliant author.” She added that editors today are terribly overworked, so they’re looking for manuscripts that are ready to go. “They won’t see the beauty in the mess,” she added. Read More