Yes, sad as it is, the way to a successful career is brown nosing. Not familiar with the term? Well I wont explain its derivation here, The Green Man, is a nice blog after all. Suffice to say that it is lavishing praise on your superiors and agreeing with what they say. It appears it is critical in securing that top job you have been hankering after. Also you can forget about making the decision makers aware of your achievements, they just don't care. They just want to get complimented.

These are the findings of Timothy Judge a professor in the School of Management at University of Florida and they are published in the August edition of the Journal of Applied Psychology. Professor Tim says

Kissing up, being nice and agreeing more than disagreeing do seem to be effective tactics for people to use when looking for a job. This approach succeeds because it leads recruiters and interviewers to believe the applicant will fit into the organization. . . . We know that on the job, self-promotion has never seemed to work too well, probably because the supervisor has much more of an opportunity to find out the reality.

If you are sitting at your PC in Iowa reading this thinking "that's why Florida is so pathetic. It's not the same as that here." Then you will be shocked to know that the study was carried out on 116 undergraduate students majoring in business or liberal arts at the University of Iowa. They were assessed on their interview style "suck" vs "self-promoter" and then rated by interviewers on the suitability for positions. Those who chose to suck up to the interviewers romped it in.

Read more here.