I’m generally not a big fan of cliched and often over-the-top motivational phrases but the cliche that refers to how “opportunity knocks” is a good one especially when you consider the whole picture: even when opportunity knocks, you still have to get up and answer the door.

It always amazes me with some people who even despite having things handed to them, will still put forth minimal to no effort to take it.

In the case of the reference to opportunity knocking it’s essentially referring to how you act when you’re faced with an opportunity to improve your life, career, etc.

What will you do to grab the brass ring? (To use another overused analogy)

Probably the worst (or at least one of the worst) traits you can give off during an interview or with anyone who can influence your career is that of laziness. I’ve met my share of people who upon meeting them, just gave me the impression that working with them and trying to help them was going to be a supreme waste of my time.

And it usually was.

Often, it seems that these people are used to getting what they want and simply think that this will be another occasion where this will happen with a minimal amount of work required on their part. Maybe they were spoiled as a child, I don’t know.

Working as a recruiter can be tough because the job searcher of course doesn’t pay the recruiter, the hiring manager does so the lazy, spoiled job searcher often looks at recruiters as just another freebie, someone to do work for them at no cost to them.

Perhaps you’ve worked with people in your own life who view others in the same light.

Working in sales environments has taught me to spend as much time as possible with people and activities that will positively contribute to my success and to avoid those people who don’t.

In one of the books I recently read, the author talks about spending most of your time working on payside activities and little time on non-payside activities ie. spend your time on activities that lead to success, however that is defined in your job.

This is a good strategy for people to follow regardless of whether or not they work in sales.

Someone must be buying those motivational posters, CDs, DVDs and coffee mugs otherwise companies wouldn’t keep making them.

The funniest t-shirt I have ever seen said “Until employee morale improves, the beatings will continue.”

It didn’t motivate me but it did make me laugh. I’m pretty sure that was the goal.

Motivational posters, DVDs, CDs and phrases often look cheesy because they usually are cheesy. If I had a dollar for every time I have seen a motivational product from a person I’ve never heard of, I would have many more dollars than I do now.

I can’t even figure out why I should be motivated to buy said product from said unknown motivational seller let alone why I should be motivated by anything written or spoken by said unknown motivational seller to begin with.

Last week I read a blog that said that “the difference between can and cannot is not.” I still haven’t figured that one out but the good news is that I didn’t have to pay any money to read it. I might have to hire a motivational speaker to explain it to me though.

The only thing worse than having to read a motivational phrase is having to do a Google search to figure out what the it actually means.

I’m not a big fan of motivational phrases and you won’t see me quoting other people in my email signature either. While some of these materials might be helpful to you, at the end of the day companies generally look to hire self motivated people who know what they need to do without having to refer to quotes from people they’ve never met