This post was originally published on Brazen Life on February 28, 2012.

When our careers take over, one of the first things we sacrifice is our health. We have a hard time focusing on too many things at once, so when we need to work late and push through difficult and demanding months on the job, we tend to neglect some very important health habits that will help us sustain a demanding schedule.

Consider this a friendly reminder to get yourself back on track. The healthier the body, the healthier the mind, and the healthier the mind, the better you will do at work, and the more your boss will reward you. So listen up — some of these changes in your daily routine are easy, and you can start them now.

10. You think you’re too tired from work to work out. If you’re not getting at least 30-40 minutes of cardio activity at least three days a week, you’re not doing your body any favors. Research shows that regular exercise improves your immune systems, lifts your mood, and gives you more energy throughout the day. So when your work life gets really hectic, this is actually the time you want to exercise more to prevent getting sick when you just don’t have time to be missing work.

9. You’re swapping sleep to meet deadlines. I’m no stranger to pulling all-nighters when an important project has a deadline that can’t be missed. But not getting enough sleep can be a serious health hazard if you let it become a regular habit. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation can cause short term memory loss, dampen creativity, and impair learning. If being great at your job is important to you, then getting 7-8 hours of shut-eye every night should be on your agenda.

8. You don’t have a water bottle at your desk. I could spend all day with a beverage in front of me, from coffee, to juice, to tea to beer, and never have a glass of water all day long. But that would be a mistake. Water has amazing health benefits and so many of us don’t drink enough. My mom always suggested the 8×8 rule as a guide: you should drink at least eight, eight-ounce glasses of water a day. The Mayo Clinic suggests we drink even more fluids to stay hydrated: it gives you energy, protects your immune system and prevents dehydration that can lead to headaches and muscle pains. And who wants to be the one with a splitting headache in the middle of a board meeting?

7. You’re eating out of the receptionist’s candy jar too much. One thing that’s easy to do when you get busy is to forget to eat meals, or conversely, continue to eat throughout the day without thinking about it. If you have a candy jar at your desk and find yourself reaching for it regularly, you know what I mean. But eating too much sugar can backfire if you’re using it for quick bursts of energy in place of real food. Sweets and processed sugars can lead to some serious health issues (just check out the video below), including fatigue (after the initial energy wears off), weight-gain, and even depression as recently reported in the New York Times.

6. You think your recent raise means you can eat out more. I’m guilty of dining out too frequently when my schedule seems to leave no time to cook a meal. Those late nights at the office turn into drinks and then before you know it, you’re eating a burger at the bar and getting home just in time to go to bed and do it all over again. We all need to break that habit though: when you’re dining out you have no control over how your food is prepared and the proportions of what you’re given are way more than we need to eat. A good rule of thumb: Don’t eat any food you don’t prepare yourself, but when you must eat out, be assertive and ask for a healthy option.

5. You’re going to happy hour several nights a week to relax. At the end of a long work day, it’s easy to say we deserve a beer or a glass of wine. But when our lives get really hectic, that could easily become a daily occurrence and the empty calories are going to add up. Instead, try relaxing by doing yoga, reading, puzzles, or physical activities like bike riding. After all, even moderate “social” drinking can interrupt your sleep patterns, lead to weight gain, and cause depression and anxiety — and none of those things will help your career.

4. Your lack of culinary creativity means you’re relying on meat and cheese. Let’s face it, the quickest meals are often the least healthy: mac and cheese, pizza, burgers, sandwiches. What do they have in common? Two factors: meat and cheese — two things we should limit when being in good health really matters. Ground-breaking research documented in “The China Study” provides clear, large-scale evidence of the link between eating animal products and failures in human immune systems. Want to ensure you’re at peak performance? Eat more fruits and veggies and try plant-based proteins.

3. You think fresh produce isn’t going to stay fresh long enough to eat. This might sound redundant, but you’re probably not eating enough fresh fruit and vegetables. The irony is, they are the quickest and easiest thing to take with you when you’re on the go. Throw a banana and an apple in your bag for breakfast, chop fresh bell peppers, cucumbers and carrots for a morning snack. Maybe on the weekend you can prepare a large batch of vegetable lasagna or soup that can easily be heated for lunch at the office. For an afternoon snack try a peach, pear or handful of grapes. Vegetables and fruits provide the best, low-calorie and pure source of natural energy that will keep you at peak performance all day long.

2. You look for comfort in coffee and happiness in energy shots. When long hours are the norm, the only thing getting a real workout might be the office coffee pot. And those 5-Hour Energy drinks are becoming increasingly common in the cubes.  But these solutions have drawbacks. Caffeine, while naturally occurring, is addictive (probably not a newsflash to coffee drinkers, but still worth noting). It can cause anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, tremors and headaches (especially when you don’t get your fix!). And those energy drinks? The main ingredient in 5-Hour Energy is caffeine, although it also contains several thousand times your daily recommended doses of B-vitamins, which can cause other health problems if abused.

1. You equate quick meals with frozen meals. Lean Cuisine anyone? If you’re packing your freezer with prepared meals that you can zap in the microwave, stop now before you give yourself a heart attack. The sodium quantities in packaged food can far exceed your recommended doses — that’s how they disguise the taste of the cardboard that they are packaged in. And large doses of sodium can lead to high blood pressure even in young adults.

So what are you waiting for? Stop adding to your stresses by being unhealthy. If your career is central to your life and you can’t afford to be sick, get your diet on track and follow some simple rules: eat a plant-based diet, drink plenty of water, cut out the drinking and go to the gym or get some exercise daily. You boss will thank you, even if you do turn off your cell phone for that hour on the treadmill, because you’ll be happier, more creative, and more dependable.

Whitney Parker is vice president for user experience at Brazen Careerist, where she co-hosts a bootcamp on how to create and implement a social media strategy and a 7-lesson job search course available on-demand. When she’s not working, she’s figuring out what her next healthy meal will be.

Along with Facebook’s new Timeline feature, they recently rolled-out a new featured called “Interest Lists.” While brand pages cannot yet create their own lists of interests, individuals can now add pages and people to organized lists and share them with friends.

You can take them for a test-drive by logging into Facebook, and from your homepage look for the sidebar item called “Interests” located on your right-hand side. You might need to select “More” to see more options if you don’t see it immediately. You can check out my interest list of Social Media Experts, Idaho Ski Resorts, and Career and Lifestyle Experts by clicking the links.

The easy way for brands to take advantage of this new feature is to have a company executive — like your CEO or CMO — create a list associated with your company — such as a list of best restaurants in your city, or top national security leaders, depending on the nature of your business or industry that you are in. Add your own company to the list of those in the Interest List you’ve created. Then, you should make the list public and share it on your company Facebook page and invite others to follow or subscribe to it.

Another great way to utilize interest lists — especially if you are a CMO or social media strategist — is to make a private list of your competitors and follow the updates that they are making. See if they offer better deals or new products, or if they are testing new concepts with their network. It’s a great way to stay on top of your competition and figure out what is or isn’t working for them.

Have you tried the new Interest List feature, and if so, what are you using it for? I’d love to hear your feedback!

I think I’m a rare breed of woman that hates to shop.

I need very clear objectives when I go shopping: for instance right now I need a pair of black boots for the winter — but they have to be synthetic because I don’t want to ruin the leather when they get wet, and the heel can’t be higher than 2.5 inches. Maybe they should be riding boots since those seem to be popular, or maybe I just need good rain boots (or both?).  I research what stores have appropriate shoes before I go there to try them on. I hate wasting my time in stores, mostly because time is money.

I don’t know who has hours to spend shopping all afternoon, but it’s not me. It’s a big reason why I don’t bargain shop. It goes against a lot of my other thrifty habits like obsessive budgeting on Mint.com, and setting up multiple savings accounts for each of my long-term goals like buying a house and big travel adventures. But bargain shopping doesn’t appeal to me for three reasons:

1. The opportunity cost of spending hours to find a cheap pair of jeans is generally more than the cost of buying a more expensive pair of designer jeans. I say that because if I try on a pair of amazing designer jeans, I will find a pair I like in about 30 minutes. But I have been known to go shopping for “affordable” jeans for 6 hours and not find a single pair that fit right.  In that same afternoon, if I buy the designer jeans, I could earn the money to pay for them by taking on a new client for website design services. Decision made: new website for the portfolio, plus a much a cooler pair of jeans.

2. No matter what kind of deal you get, cheap clothes don’t last. So even if you have more of them, you have to replace them more often, which means more time wasted (see point one above about how much I hate wasting my time shopping). Sure, maybe every now and then you have a great find and a cheap pair of pants lasts you 10 years. But in general, fabrics are cheaper for a reason and they don’t hold up to daily wearing, or they get out of shape when you wash them, and on and on. Buy something that’s made well and the time saved by not replacing it in six months will be worth it.

3. When you’re a bargain shopper, you often look like a bargain shopper. And that’s not really a good thing when you’re in your professional career stage (i.e. you’re on your second or third job after college). I confess that I don’t think I’ve updated my wardrobe in 10 years. Seriously, I relied on the generosity of my mother and sortof-mother-in-law-to-be (long story) to buy me a cool outfit once a year for way too long. As a result, I don’t really have a wardrobe that reflects my own style. My guess is that I’m not the only one.

So this year I made a resolution to do something about that. I hired a fashion consultant.

I know what you’re thinking, I must be making pretty good money to afford a personal fashion consultant, but I assure you I’m right in that middle-of-America average woman bucket. And I don’t even care that much about fashion to be honest. But that’s kind of why I hired someone to think about fashion for me. I just don’t have the energy to keep up with what colors are in, what is a jegging, or if I can really pull off ankle boots.

But the fact is clothes make a very big impression in business and in life. If you’re in the creative industry, or if you meet with potential investors as a young entrepreneur, or if you do a lot of face-to-face sales meetings, you know exactly what I mean. But even if you don’t, think about the amount of time and money you spend on clothes. If you did the math (and I crunched the numbers for awhile before I did it), it could be that outsourcing your shopping needs make sense for you too.

Here’s how it worked when I signed on with Cake Style. I went to their website and filled out a quick email form. The founder of the company called me back that week and we scheduled time to discuss my current fashion, and what my goals were in working with one of their stylists.

About 3 weeks later I set up a call with my stylist, and they asked me about my sizes, what colors I liked, where I normally shop, what my “problem areas” are on my body that I try to hide (resolution number 2 is tighter abs this year!), and any other guidance for what I like and don’t like. Kait then went on her way to find me 5 really cool new outfits, which she then put together in a video before mailing to me. You can see the preview video I received here: http://cakestyleme.com/whitneyparker/.

I received the box via UPS very neatly wrapped, with a packing slip and personal note. She provided a return address label to re-seal the box when I was ready to send back what I didn’t want to keep. I tried on everything — all of which fit magnificently. Only one belt was too large, so that was the only easy call I had in terms of what to send back. In all, I kept about half of what she picked out.

On average, I’m told most of their clients spend about $1,000 per shipment, so it’s definitely something I’ll budget for in the future — but setting aside a little every month for a really nice wardrobe seems so worth it to me after my first experience with Cake Style. I don’t have to worry about when I’m going to fit in time to buy clothes — they do all the hard work of finding stuff that fits, what’s in style, and that reflects the image I want to portray.

So my lesson to other career-minded women is this: with disciplined budgeting, you can afford to hire a personal fashion consultant. It’s not something for the 1 percent any more. If you’re serious about your career and shopping seems like a chore, this could be just what you need!

Update: Here’s what I kept from the video above:

• I loved the skinny jeans and the black “tuxedo” skinny pants. The both fit like a glove and were so flattering. I didn’t even look at price tags, they were that good.
• I also fell in love with the wrap/tied t-shirt with the geometric design. It was incredibly soft and just looked really “new york” when I put it on. With a brightly colored scarf, it looked awesome with the black skinny pants and I wore it out to dinner the night I got the box.
• The tweed skirt was gorgeous and perfect for winter with a pair of black tights. It had pockets at just the right height to be casual, yet dressy. Perfect for the casual matinee Broadway show on Saturday.
• The gold sweater was beautiful and just felt cozy, so I decided to keep it, along with the skinny red belt (I don’t think I own any belts right now, so this bizarrely is my first).
• There was also a very beautiful diaphanous blouse with a light cami that I couldn’t resist. And at that point, my budget had burst and I had to say no to everything else.
• I was saddened most to send back the pink Diane von Furstenberg blazer, which was a gorgeous color, but the price coupled with the brass buttons that remind me too much of stuff my mom wears (not that that’s a bad thing, since generally my mom has a better sense of fashion than me), tipped the balance on that one.

The original post is available on Mashable.com here.

It’s no secret that jobs in social media are becoming more prevalent in nearly every industry nationwide and even globally. A quick search on Indeed returns nearly 30,000 openings in the United States alone.

But what might not be obvious is what, exactly, young professionals should do to position themselves for these emerging roles. And no, it’s not enough just to have a Facebook Page.

During the last several weeks, I’ve talked with dozens of hiring managers who have recently filled these types of positions. Here are their top four tips. (Continue reading on Mashable.com.)

Last week I had the pleasure of serving on a panel for the Association of Magazine Media MPA Digital Conference on Social Media in New York City. You can watch all the discussions and learn more about the event at the link above. A summary of my panel and the video is made available below courtesy of MPA below.

My key takeaways:

• If you want a career in the magazine industry, you better learn social media — editors consider it a must-have skill for junior hires.
• The lines between advertising and editorial content are becoming more blurry, so social media experts can play a key role in identifying the best way for marketing and editorial objectives to merge in the digital space.
• The financial success of magazines are becoming very dependent on their success in the digital landscape. Helping your magazine achieve real results could be the key to job security.

Panel: Social Media Experts at Magazine Brands: Nerds or Your Next Boss?

Quotables

Whitney Parker (moderator), Vice President, User Experience, Brazen Careerist: “Are we just the nerds du jour?…Does your personal brand get entwined in your company’s brand? Are social media strategists the lynchpins, and what kind of job security does it give?” 

I am a big fan of Unbounce, and use it to test various messages for clients looking for sales leads. Below you’ll find an excellent graphic outlining best practices in making sure your digital ad translates into an actual sale via a well-optimized landing page. Unbounce is one of the best in the business when it comes landing page design, and the user interface is fabulous.

If you want to use blogging to get ahead and reach your goals, check out BrazenU’s newest bootcamp, Secrets of an A-List Blogger. This exciting one-week online course will give participants inside access to top blogger, bestselling author and successful entrepreneur Penelope Trunk. Whitney Parker, the author of this post, is co-hosting the event. (This post originally appeared on Brazen Life.)

Like many of you, I left my liberal arts education with the daunting challenge of finding a job relevant to my degree in international affairs. Among my college friends, I counted French majors, history buffs, women’s studies experts, urban designers, foreign policy gurus and even philosophers. Growing up in a rural area, I was in the wrong region to pursue my interest in international affairs, and in a field that had few entry-level openings for new college graduates.

My close college friends were not in much better shape; even in 2003 there were relatively few positions open for people who had just graduated. So like my friends, and like many recent graduates today, I relocated to a bigger city, took jobs that were slightly less than ideal just to get that “foot in the door” and actively sought out positions that would give me the expertise that I always wanted.

Looking back more than eight years later, I wish someone would have told me that I didn’t need to wait for a job or title or promotion to become an expert. I didn’t need to get a job as a research analyst to write about international affairs, nor did I need to work at a prestigious government agency to start making a difference.

The secret I wish I would have known then is that blogging can accelerate your career in whatever direction you want to take it. And you can start today, whether you’re still in school or schlepping lattes at Starbucks while applying for your dream job.

I’ve seen the impact blogging can have for young professionals first hand. In the past eight years, I’ve held management roles in Washington, D.C., and New York City for various public and private sector employers, and I’ve seen people get hired for having a great blog. I’ve seen friends make successful career pivots using blogging as the basis for change. I’ve met dozens of people who have successfully leveraged a blog to change careers.

Here’s how they do it

If you are “underemployed” — stuck in a job that doesn’t really challenge you — you can probably spare an hour a day to think about the issues you really care about, whether that’s urban planning, photography, French literature or the latest fashion trends. It doesn’t take any high-tech knowledge to start a blog on WordPress.com or Tumblr. If you get in the habit of writing once, twice or three times a week, that’s enough to start building a credible voice in the field you want to enter.

Pretend you already have the job you really want. What would you be expected to comment on in an expert fashion? Try to develop that expertise through research and writing in your spare time.

When your dream job finally opens up, you’ll have already taken the initiative to develop a new substantive expertise. You’ll have a relevant set of thoughtful articles to take to a job interview. And as an added benefit, you’ll have gained a tangible online presence and technical skills that are highly sought after in today’s economy.

So don’t wait for your next job to get inspired. Embrace your passion now and start building expertise through blogging. That could be just what you need to position yourself for your dream job.

Whitney Parker is vice president for user experience at Brazen Careerist and co-host of an upcoming bootcamp on blogging: Secrets of an A-List Blogger: A Week with Penelope Trunk. If you’re ready to learn how you can make the most of blogging for your personal or professional career, sign up here.

The authors, Whitney Parker and Ashley Hoffman, are co-hosts of Brazen Careerist’s upcoming Social Recruiting Bootcamp: Engage. Connect. Hire, an online bootcamp featuring top experts and corporate trendsetters. Find out more about the bootcamp and how to sign up. This post was orignally published on Brazen Life here.

Social recruiting is nothing new, and don’t let anyone tell you any differently. The best part is you don’t need to have “guru” or “strategist” in your title to succeed with social recruiting, despite what the gurus and strategists may tell you. But there is a lot to learn to do it right.

Social networks — including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter — have become core components of any solid recruiting strategy. Indeed, survey after survey shows social recruiting tops the areas where recruiters plan to spend more time in 2012.

But just because you’re on Twitter doesn’t mean you’re going to find your company’s future project leader or inspirational manager in 140 characters. Like accomplishing anything on social media, social recruiting is about strategic engagement — not one-hit wonders — and conversation rather than broadcasting.

Here are five things to remember about social recruiting, whether you’re new to the block or a social media pro:

1. Keep up with latest trends — or risk falling behind

The social media landscape changes fast. Just when you think you’ve mastered Facebook or could get your PhD in LinkedIn, the companies roll out major updates that nullify certain components of your strategy. Fortunately, those same updates can also make you much more effective.

So spend some time keeping up with the latest trends in social recruiting. Dedicate a portion of your re-certification hours to social recruiting training and look for certified courses online that are typically more cost-effective and time-efficient for you and your company.

2. Don’t just jump in — think first

One of the most common reasons companies can’t figure out whether their social media efforts are worthwhile is because they don’t have a strategy. How can you know whether you’re meeting your objectives if you haven’t outlined them? The same is true for social recruiting. It doesn’t have to be a 30-slide powerpoint, but you need some sort of plan.

Before you post all your jobs to LinkedIn, join groups, create a “Jobs” tab on your Facebook page or run a Twitter campaign to promote your careers section, spend some time thinking about your objectives and goals for social recruiting, how your tweets and Facebook/LinkedIn status updates will help you meet them, and how and when you will measure your progress. It will be much easier to measure your efforts and calculate your ROI if you have a strategy up front.

3. Use Facebook’s flexiblity to your advantage

One of the easiest and least intrusive ways to utilize Facebook for recruiting efforts is to add a home for your career offerings on your company Facebook page — and there are a variety of options, some that cost money and others that don’t, to help you do that. Indeed, Facebook is one of the most flexible platforms for social recruiting.

For instance, the IRS maintains a simple recruiting page on Facebook that generates a great deal of comments and interaction every day. Companies like Citi and Intuit have also integrated job postings into their Facebook page, which gives them added visibility to candidates who might not venture to the corporate website. A host of new job board apps like Work for Us and LinkUp make it easy to add these features to your page.

If your company is large, consider establishing a separate Facebook page just for your recruiting team. A great example is Intuit’s Facebook page, where they host chats, videos and podcasts to encourage potential candidates to apply for open positions.

4. Have conversations, don’t just blast

Twitter has become a go-to place for job seekers who are looking for the inside scoop on new job openings. That means if you’re a recruiter or employer, you should make sure you’re right there with them.

First, participate in live online conversations where you might meet potential candidates. #HireFriday, created by Margo Rose, is one such chat created to help job seekers connect with recruiters. You can participate in the chat every Friday by simply following #HireFriday via Twitter search, responding to comments and questions, and tagging your comment with #HireFriday. #Jobhuntchat is another popular live conversation between recruiters and job seekers, and tools like Hootsuite and Tweetchat.com make it easy to the follow threads.

Second, if you’re tweeting about jobs and open positions, make sure your profile description uses relevant keywords so job seekers can easily find you. Mention “recruiter,” “careers,” “jobs” or “human resources.” Think about which keywords candidates might use to search for you, and keep it simple. Being clever or over-complicated can hurt your cause.

Always remember, Twitter is a vehicle for conversation, not a megaphone. Connect with other thought leaders in the recruiting space, and share relevant content even if it doesn’t have your brand stamp.

5. Use Linkedin for more than search

Most recruiters are aware of Linkedin’s expensive search tools. Sure, they’re helpful, but not required.

Here’s another way to find candidates with specific skills (for free): use LinkedIn’s new Skills section. You can only enter one skill at a time (hopefully LinkedIn will soon allow users to search for combined skill sets), and the search results will show people with those skill sets who are most closely connected to you. Since the results identify people in your network (up to third-degree connections), it’s easier to find an “in” who will introduce you to potential candidates.

In addition to listing people in your network, the new skills search also shows the largest Linkedin groups for people with these skills. If you’re looking to post a job that reaches this market, join these groups and share a link to your job posting.

Want to go beyond search? Think about where your target audience may be, and go there. Are you a recruiter for technical positions? Drupal gurus? Marketing or PR positions? Join industry-focused groups and make substantive connections with members. Post relevant articles, engage in discussions, comment on and “like” status updates. Be active!

With social recruiting, you’ll get out of it what you put in. Spend the time to think about what you’re trying to achieve, actively engage on your networks and be creative about how you reach out.

Remember, the skills that made recruiters successful before social have not changed. Networking, listening and communicating will prove your success — one tweet or “like” at a time.

Whitney Parker (@whitneymparker) is Vice President of User Experience and Ashley Hoffman (@ashleyhoffman) is Director of Marketing and Communications at Brazen Careerist. They reguarly host online bootcamps to help people learn new skills to find a job they love. Find out more over at BrazenU.com.

I waited tables throughout my college years and had many memorable customers. But one busy Saturday lunch hour was particularly unique: a woman dining with her family was oddly curious about my career aspirations and essentially interviewed me between her refills of Coca-Cola.

By the end of her meal, she offered me a job as her research assistant making twice my salary serving pizza. It was puzzling to have an impromptu interview. But being prepared for the unexpected puts you in a position to capitalize on exciting opportunities at the drop of a hat. And who doesn’t want to take advantage of a nice stroke of luck?

Here are a few things you can do right now to make sure you’re ready the next time you bump in to an unexpected future boss:

Prepare an elevator pitch. While you can’t anticipate all the questions a potential boss may ask you on the spot, one thing you can be sure of is that they will ask you what you’re doing now and what you want to be doing. It is especially important to have an answer that is  positive, confident, and tells a story. Rehearse your pitch verbally, and try recording it with a video camera or audio device so you can get a sense of how a potential boss will interpret your story. Revise your delivery accordingly until you’re satisfied you have an honest, confident and up-beat way to present yourself.

Dress for success. Even on weekends. We’d all like to think the weekends are our own, but the fact is you can run into a future boss anywhere. There’s no need to wear a suit on the weekends, but think twice before leaving the house in something you’d be embarrassed to see a future colleague in.

I had an anxious day when I got a call mid-day from a potential employer inviting me for an interview just three hours later. Unfortunately, I had not exactly worn an interview-quality outfit to my job at the time and did not have enough time to go home and change. That mistake cost me the expense of a new suit while en route to the interview. The moral of my story: always leave the house in interview-ready clothes — even if your current office attire doesn’t really require it.

Never leave the house without the essentials. Your bag should always contain the networking essentials: your business card, a notebook and pen. If you bump into a potential professional contact, don’t let the opportunity pass without giving away your contact details and agreeing on follow-up steps.

Prepare a portfolio. It may be more obvious for job seekers in the creative industry, but many other types of job candidates can benefit from having a professional portfolio. What should you include? It depends on the type of work you are seeking, but it might include articles you’ve written and published; advertising campaigns you’ve designed, supervised or otherwise participated in; screenshots of websites you managed, designed or coded; if you’re an architect it might be blueprints or photographs of spaces you’ve designed; if you’re a chef it could be menus you’ve prepared and served. A variety of job industries have tangible documents you can use to prepare a portfolio, so think about what makes sense for your line of work. Can you carry it with you everywhere? Probably not. But early in my career, I kept one at my office and one at home. If an interview or other opportunity came up. I had something tangible to put in front of a prospective boss or client. Today, an online portfolio is also handy, and if you have one, it’s great to put a link on your business card.

Finally, if you find yourself in the midst of an impromptu interview, don’t forget to smile, be confident and end by asking how and when you should follow-up on your conversation.

Whitney Parker is vice president of user experience for Brazen Careerist, director of social media forYoung Professionals in Foreign Policy, and media coordinator for the Institute of National Security and Counterterrorism. You can follow her on twitter @whitneymparker.

Photo credit.

Stress is nothing new to me: I was diagnosed with stress-induced asthma in grade school. How much of a nerd do you have to be to get stressed out over getting an A on your second-grade math homework?

It didn’t end there. I regularly got sick during final exams in high school, and don’t get me started on what a wreck I was in graduate school. Yes, some might call me a bit of a “Type A.”

Recently, I had a visit with my doctor to talk about my stress levels. I was convinced I was going to have a heart attack (despite the fact that I’m barely 30), because I have too much going on in my life. Do you know what he told me after laughing at my neuroses? He said I need to learn to manage my stress, because it doesn’t get easier with bigger promotions, more money, or landing more clients, grants and contracts: it gets harder. (Someone should tell him not to do commercials for the Trevor Project.)

So in a quest to learn from those who are similarly afflicted with having incredibly stressful jobs at an early age, I’ve asked some people who have been there and done that to share tips for coping with the ever-increasing responsibilities and even more stress as they climb the career ladder. Here’s what they told me:

Take time for yourself, whether in wine, exercise or reading

“If I have any advice (besides that wine is good for you!) it’s to try really hard to take every day one day at a time and not to worry too far ahead in the future,” says Theresa Hitchens, director of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, Switzerland. Theresa is not a stranger to stressful jobs. She’s been an inside-the-Beltway reporter since her early 20s, and advanced to bureau chief for Defense News in Brussels before she was 30. Now as the director of a UN agency, she manages dozens of full-time researchers and is responsible for the strategic and tactical direction of the center as well as raising money to support it.

“Above all, don’t panic before panic is due! Otherwise, you risk falling into the trap of the thousand-legged bug that was paralyzed because he couldn’t decide which leg to move first,” she advises.

“Take some downtime every day for you. I wish I could say I exercised, but I don’t much: I read. Not for work. Scifi or fiction or poetry or whatever is far far away from what I do for a living. Even if it’s only a half hour a night, it helps me get out of my stressed out head.”

Do your most important task at the start of the day

Time management is also important, my former high school classmate Jeremy DeLuca tells me. “I make sure I work on the most important tasks first each morning — what is going to make the most impact. I think way too many people come in and get right on emails and then half way through the day they really haven’t completed much on the larger tasks and start getting stressed. Just make sure and manage your time and know when you leave you did everything you could.”

Jeremy and his brother Ryan DeLuca launched BodyBuilding.com right after we graduated high school in Boise, Idaho. The company how has an annual revenue in the hundreds of millions and more than 200 employees, but Jeremy said the stress of starting a company hit him right away.

Like my former boss Theresa, Jeremy says he makes time for his family and personal life every day: “I always make time to go to the gym (before work or at lunch) and have time with my kids each night I can. Remember: Life is way too short so make sure and live every moment! With work and outside of work. That is what I live by!”

Ask for help

Young CEOs have some special challenges. Chris Hertz, CEO of New Signature, an IT and creative company based in Washington, D.C., says you have to know when you need support. “My philosophy has always been to know when to ask for help, trust the people I work with, treat everyone (clients, colleagues, vendors, partners and the community) the way I would want to be treated, and act honestly and ethically. I believe this approach can greatly reduce the amount of stress that one experiences at work.”

“Additionally, I frequently remind myself to have perspective on my work. For example, the decisions I make in business are not life and death decisions and therefore I remind myself not to act as if they are. This doesn’t mean that I don’t take my work seriously and work hard to do the best job possible, but I do believe it is all to easy to create a heightened level of stress simply by not placing the source of stress in perspective.”

Asking for help may come in many forms, such as hiring interns and assistants, delegating some of your responsibility, finding a professional to talk  to about your life, or finding a mentor who can give you advice on the next steps for your career.

Stay fit: where the body goes, the mind follows

Melissa Harris, business columnist for the Chicago Tribune, also knows what it’s like to work around the clock. “I have a piece due every Wednesday and every Friday come hell or high water. There’s close to zero flexibility,” she says. Each article can involve dozens of interviews and a great deal of research, so time-management is key.

“During the most stressful periods in my life, I gain weight,” she adds. “So I’ve adopted a few rules: First, eat a low-sugar, low-carb diet. Second, one glass of wine or one mug of beer is enough. And third, a personal trainer is worth going broke over. I look at it this way: If your body’s in good shape, that’s one less thing your mind needs to worry about. I also use all of my vacation days; taking time off is important to re-energizing yourself.”

Be all you can be: observe, orient, decide and act

Matthew Mullins, a former special operations intelligence officer with the United States Air Force, gave me some advice from his military life. If you think about it, what job could be more stressful than one that forces you to face life and death situations? It’s kind of crazy to consider that the majority of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — the ones dealing with those situations — are under 30. And there’s no delegating those tough decisions to a subordinate.

“Heavy resistance and overwhelming ‘fire power’ in both urban combat and the office space can really render all sense of up and down ineffective,” Matt told me. “My key to handling a situation where I’m upside-down is to first apply what the Air Force coined as the OODA loop: observe, orientate, decide, and act.”

Following that advice, Matt says you should observe and analyze what is causing the feeling of stress. Orient yourself in the direction of taking action, and consider the outcomes of various action steps. Then, decide when and how to move forward. “Last but not least, always act.” On a battlefield, that means “once you commit, it’s cover your teammates and return fire with all efforts. Don’t stop in the middle of an open field under fire!” In the office, however, that means you have to support and resource your chosen plan of action. Don’t half-ass it.

Breathe. Just breathe.

Stress in the workplace is something that comes with the territory for many jobs and professions. How we deal with it can make or break our careers. How do you handle a stressful career, a stressful life transition, or stressful situation, and come out on top? Join the conversation by leaving a comment below!