A Unique Perspective

Judi provides a unique perspective on job seeking.  Her advice incorporates the possible viewpoints of employers/HR departments as well as the job seeker’s personal and professional goals.   Most career coaches have a canned approach and try to fit any client into that formula without actually listening to determine each person’s unique situation.  

----Pauline S., MA

Holiday Cheer or Holiday Sneer?

“ #*&$^@*”  Is this you this season?  Your guests are still visiting or you’re due to travel home, presents need to be exchanged, family patterns are taking their toll, holiday madness in the airport….

Look around you.  What do you see?  Harried clerks, irritated shoppers, grumpy travelers, crowded parking lots, people with headaches.  Are you one of them?

It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of day-to-day life and its problems.  Your Christmas platter broke, everyone wants something from you, your sister didn’t give you a gift list and hates the sweater you gave her.  You just want the holidays to be over.

Why are you behaving like this?  Is it making your life easier? Is it helping those around you?  Why are you perpetuating the problem?

Life moves in cycles.  The only constant is change.  Today’s craziness is tomorrow’s tranquility.  When you’re in the middle of today’s craziness,   you can’t always change things and make them un-crazy.  But you can change your attitude, and remember that this, too, shall pass.

Moods are contagious, mostly because we forget that our mood is our choice.  Other people don’t put us in a bad mood; we allowed their bad mood to affect us.

Whether you’re standing in after-Christmas lines impatient to make an exchange and slamming your credit card on the counter, blaring your horn in the parking lot, or heaving heavy sighs at your spouse, remember that “catching” someone else’s bad mood means your grumpiness may now be passed to the next person with whom you interact.

We aren’t separate from each other.  We’re all part of the universe, like a bucket of water taken from the ocean is still part of the ocean.  Energy travels.  We pick up the moods of those around us, unless we choose not to or choose to be a change agent.

The remainder of this season, let’s do something different.  When we get grumpy, stop, stand up straight, and breathe.  If you’re in a store, be patient.  Bring a book and read while you wait.

Others are also shopping after-Christmas sales and the clerk may be harried too.  Before you grumble about a distant parking space, notice you now have the opportunity for some exercise.

In fact, let’s go one step further.  If you see an irritated mother whose child just spilled her coke, step in with a napkin.   Smile at the person walking by you or the salesperson in the store.   Look people directly in the eye, and mean it when you say, “Have a great day!” Ask your family for help with a big hug and kiss instead of sounding annoyed. 

Did we forget that although it’s after Christmas, this is still a time of joy?  A time to be gracious and conscious of those around us?  To savor the moments instead of counting the days until it’s over?

I’m no different.  I see my parents once each year, and while my relationship with them has greatly improved from when I was in high school, we still have our moments. 

In their desire to protect me from failure and disappointment, they have a tendency to squash my ideas and willingness to take risks.  If I absorb that, eventually it will erode my confidence and I forget that their intentions are good.  Soon I’m past the point of no return and might say things I regret.  

Stressful times are testing.  But the more you are tested, the more you can practice not letting it affect you.  And the more you practice, the easier it becomes.  After all, it’s your choice how you respond to others and what message you convey. 

This season, let’s focus on “spread tidings of comfort and joy,”  send “joy to the world,” and remember “tis the season to be jolly” by not twisting off when others are crazy, and by sending love back instead of more craziness.

POLL: What's the favorite gift you have GIVEN this holiday? 

visit: http://www.findtheperfectjob.com/archives/444.html - and leave a comment! 

Cease and Desist

 

The other day I was forwarded a press release put out by a reference checking firm.  The title was  ”Cease & Desist: Your Weapon Against Negative Job References.”  The subtitle was “Letters Can Put A Stop To Career-Damaging Feedback.”

I think not.  More like “Letters can make a bad situation worse.”

Let’s first look at how references are done.  Formally, one HR person calls another HR person, checks dates of employment and eligibitlity for rehire.  For legal reasons, you can’t do much more than that.  So it’s not going to help much there.  Eligibility for rehire?  “No.” That’s about it.  Cease and Desist won’t change much there.

On the other hand, there’s a whole lot of informal reference checking that takes place and this is where the cease and desist is applicable and counter productive.    If you’re looking in the same industry or geographical area, there’s the possiblity that the company doing the reference knows the company where you worked.  It goes like this:

Hey Joe, this is Sam over at Magnificent Magic Marbles.  There’s a guy named William Williams applying here for a Director position.  Off the record, what’s the scoop on him?”

Sales and construction are two industries where more than previous employers, you’re looking at informal reference checks with clients and subcontractors.  It’s a network.  People know each other.  As a recruiter, I did it all the time, because I knew people who knew people.

What do you do instead?  A scarier but far more productive method is to heal it.  Remember this is a blog post, so it’s just an overview of what to do. 

I used to sometimes get great references on people who were fired.  But I knew how to do a reference.  Most people don’t.  I also know people, psychology, and am adept at balancing things like that out.  What I did with the reference and what I told the client depended on the bad part of the reference. That’s not human nature.  Human nature wants to avoid mistakes and is going to hear the bad, not the good.  And jettison any possibility for problems.

How do you heal it and effectively temper the problem?  You call the person up and you ask why they’re giving you a bad reference.  And then you work through it until you come to some understanding of what will be said in the future, and how you’ll both present that.

There are other ways to handle a bad reference, and in fact, handle references in general, but this post is specifically in reference to the “cease and desist.”

In any case, rather than go the combatative route, try a little relationship building.  Try more understanding and less assumption.  Move to the positive rather than accentuating – and exacerbating – the negative.  Your job search will be so much better for it, and so will you, especially since it took a lot of guts to make that phone call.

Don’t Rationalize Rude Behavior – (part 1)

In order to get a job, people will rationalize red flags and  fail to make a connection between an isolated event or two and the much larger picture.    I saw this often as a recruiter when I asked candidates questions about their previous jobs.    I see it now with my clients – or people who send me emails – when they are clearly taking something  just to take something,and I counsel them against moving forward in the process and why that is.

These same red flags show up for me too.  That’s because we’re all marketing ourselves in one way or another.    You – the job seekers -  with your resume and cover letter, and me through various means in order to reach more job seekers. 

Although writing and speaking opportunities find me, I also look for them: ezines, newspapers, authors and journalists that might be interested in quoting me or carrying my articles.

One of the reasons I so actively advocate following up is because having been a straight-commission, top-producing sales person who earned my living building relationships with people, I know how important following up is and why it’s necessary.  And I know the frustrations of it, too.  I also know from experience that the red flag is relative to the person, and have nothing to do with me.

When I make a cold call, first I inquire. Then I follow up.  By then, usually I have a dialogue started because the person to whom I’m inquiring gets back with me.  If not, I follow up a third time, and a fourth.   I repeat the reason for calling.  I refresh their memory as to my earlier communications.  I mention that I’ve left a few messages.  I’m always polite.  By the last time, I specifically say I’ve left several messages and would they please take a few minutes to call me back?  So they have to actively and consciously decide not to do that.  It’s not as if they’ve forgotten who I am.

Truthfully, by the fourth time, I’m more interested in just seeing what happens.  I’m not really expecting anything and not sure that if the opportunity presents itself at that point that I even want to pursue it any longer.  The lack of professionalism some people exhibit is astounding.

You have this happen all the time.  You follow up on a resume.  Nothing.  You speak with a recruiter, and then can never get a hold of them again.  They promised to call you about a great opportunity.  Nothing.  You schedule a meeting.  The person doesn’t show up or was called away.  You follow up on an interview.  No return call.

Rude, rude, and rude.  Them, not you.

I don’t care who they are.  I’ve read about singers, movie stars, and even the President, who make a point of answering every letter they receive, although they’re generally form letters sent by people hired to do that.  I’ve called CEOs of large corporations or hospitals, and although I might not speak with them immediately or ever, the admin assistant  phones back.  

The point is that the contact was acknowledged.  Who has such a big ego, or is so busy that they can’t take a minute to even delegate that task to someone?  It leaves me shaking my head in wonder.

Let’s put this statement “them, not you” into perspective.  When I’m selling various newspapers around the U.S. on carrying my column, I share that I was syndicated for 2 years in over 300 major metropolitan markets until they changed their format.  I mention I’ve been a Sunday columnist for the New Haven (CT) Register for four years, and that I’ve written over 50 articles for a trade magazine with which I used to be associated. 

Generally, I’m received enthusiastically and so newspapers around the US are carrying my columns for free in return for my ability to reach more job seekers.  (With newspapers having trouble, they often assign an editor or a reporter to do their columns, so asking for payment would be pointless). 

Yet, with my local paper, a small weekly one, the editor had to talk to the board, and the board, which convenes once per month, would have to vote on it.  The editor forgot to bring it up and after several conversations, it wasn’t worth it.  They’ve gone through several editors since then.  Gee – what  surprise.

Keep an eye out for - Part 2!! 

How Not to Write A Resume:

Does your resume profile read something like this?

Pro-active and solution-oriented person with proven ability to think outside the box and build collaborative relationships by engaging internal and external stakeholders while working in a cross- functional matrix environment.    Critical thinker with exceptional track record of identifying win-win strategies, building consensus, and implementing change for bottom-line results. 

It does?  Then you sound like everyone else who’s looking for a job.  Not only does it fail to actually convey who you are because the phrases are so generic, but it’s resume speak.  It’s the same as saying blah blah blah.  

By the way,  I hope you didn’t pay someone to write that for you, because numerous professional writers, after they collect your money, are opening books they bought or checked out from the library.  Others have professional designations that they hope to impress you with, but they don’t impress me.  Having seen over half million resumes in my career, I remain unimpressed at most professionally written resumes I’ve seen.  In fact, I’ve redone a bunch of them.

Before you write your resume, or have someone else do it, think about who you are, what you’re good at, and why.  A resume isn’t a list of bland job description and gobbledy gook, generic, overly used phrases – it’s a document that tells your story and conveys who you  are as an individual.  It illustrates how you think, how your career has progressed, why, your degree of motivation, how you make decisions, what you do better than others who have the same skills, and how you’ve benefitted your employers. 

And it’s not just numbers and percentages about how you increased sales, increased production, reduced staff, bam bam bam, hardcore, cold statistics either.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. What are the top 5 skills that have contributed to your success?
2. What are the top 5 personality traits that have contributed to your success?
3. What makes you good at what you do?
4. What makes you different from the person that held your job before you, or the person who will hold it after you, or the person who has the same title working for the same kind of company down the street?

Now you’re starting to get the idea.

Here are pieces from several client profiles that will give you an idea of what you’re shooting for:

1. Effective and innovative training professional adept at creating and delivering courses in multiple modes that bring enthusiasm for change and result in new user proficiency.  Extremely skilled at learning, analyzing and understanding new or upgraded software programs, breaking them down and putting together course materials based on audience needs and level of understanding. 
2. Operationally focused and mathematically inclined corporate finance professional, able to synthesize seemingly disparate pieces into an integrated solution. 
3. Skilled, forward thinking professional who pragmatically identifies opportunities to reduce expenses and scrutinizes financial records to pinpoint and correct errors. Precise, solutions oriented, and trustworthy, with an exceptional amount of common sense, and a positive “can do” attitude. 
4. Recognized and published expert in human resource management with extremely effective listening and interpersonal skills, adept at identifying the real problem. 

Do you get a sense of something about that person that makes them unique?   And every bullet on your resume should illustrate the statements in your profile by showing what you did, the results and the benefit.

A resume that has a generic profile followed by a gloppy paragraph of keywords followed by bullets that say things like….

1. Performed thorough and timely reference checking.
2. Acted as a liaison between the embassy and the international media, students and other private sector partners.
3. Led daily meetings with Oracle to define tasks, outline responsibilities, and form weekly agendas
4. Managed procurement of desktop hardware, software and contractor services with vendors
5. Involved in setting up customer’s project portfolio management system.

…….is not a resume.   The above are job descriptions, not bullets.  They go in a short paragraph by your job title, not bulleted under it.

Product brochures- cars, dishwashers, cameras, televisions –  make sure to differentiate their product from the competition.  You’re selling a product and the product is you.  When your resume is your brochure, it should accomplish the same purpose.

Job Interview KILLERS!

 

I admit I have some trouble occasionally finding articles to share.  Many of the articles give poor advice or don’t provide anything but lame, general, obvious (or what should be obvious) advice that you can find anywhere and everywhere.

But I like this one.  They have some unique points that many people don’t discuss and some of the ones they do are discussed in a rather different way.

I continue to say that because of poor job finding strategies, generic cover letters, really bad resumes and lack of interviewing skills, most candidates are operating at less than 70% if not even as low as 15%.

This particular article only drives home that so many things occur that the individual has no idea are improper behavior for a job interview, thus probably continue to do them, and wonder why they remain unemployed.

It’s from the Wall Street Journal:  November 14

http://tinyurl.com/ybymdhb

Job and Career Advice? (Part 2 of Interview Question)

 

I’d like  to name this person who gives job and career advice because this person is perceived and put forth as a career expert, and because of where she “resides,” her career information is supposedly trustworthy. 

She’s  dispensing career information on resumes, interviews, and all things related to finding a job, but to name her would be unprofessional.  

I noticed that for writing a resume, she advocates using an objective .  They are SO dead for lack of information, specifics, and insight into the individual.  Furthermore, the ones she provides will get you nowhere because your resume got tossed into the trash.  A quick run through other parts of her career advice to job seekers wasn’t any more reassuring.

So just because someone is out there as an career coach and expert, doesn’t mean they are.   And if you have no idea who I am and have never worked with me, that means me too.  The best way is look for free career advice information – subscribe to the person’s newsletter, see if they offer free reports, find articles they may have written on how to find a job and all the issues that entails.  

And it goes without saying that you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the career newsletters either.