5 Things to Stop Doing – Right Now!

Are you ready to get on with the challenges that you face in your life? Your mouth says yes but your attitude and body language are saying no.

Now let me give you and me credit… we are doing a lot of hard stuff, everyday. Good for us. However, we live better than 95% of the people on the planet so let’s get to the heart of the matter. We’re soft.

If we’re soft… then we’re lousy role models and unimaginative workers/parents/business people/community leaders.

So pick one… any one of these and commit to stop doing it— even just for one day… today.

1) Blaming — what difference does it make who’s fault it is? What are you going to do about it? Sticky wicket relationship? I gotta do my part. Change my attitude. I’m not right. Who cares?

2) Judging – focus on yourself. Let others do what they need to. Live and let live.

3) Tilting at Windmills – when I get all upset over something I can’t change… it slowly dawns on me that I am wasting precious energy. I could be laughing. What the heck?

4) Defending – try listening instead.

5) Being afraid. What’s the worst that can happen? I can tell you that many people have lived through MUCH worse. You can do.

Here’s a good article on 10 things to stop doing. I believe in you.

Photo credit: broken glasses 1   Photographer jfg

The Facebook Nightmare – Lost Job Opportunities…

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I have a very healthy skepticism of Facebook. I am not alone. We have 3 grandchildren under the age of 5; 2 are “on” Facebook, 1 is not. I support a parent’s right either way.

But I also know how much joy and connection Facebook brings to so many people and I respect and appreciate that.

When I read, Facebook’s Generation Y Nightmare,  the article put into words what I sometimes feel is the dilemma of sharing your ‘present’ on Facebook and illustrating it with photos.  The author of the article imagines a young lady, Tina, at 18 in 2012. The items she posts now will effect not only her future career opportunities but also her alternatives for health care.

Yes, it’s imagined and yes, this assumes that ‘nothing changes”, but it’s not hard to imagine judgements/decisions being made based on incomplete or ‘what’s readily available’ data.

So, I encourage you to review your Facebook ‘timeline’ – assuming that privacy settings didn’t work… (which I think is the reasonable thing to do these days)  — what would your future employer or insurer learn about you might prefer that the whole world NOT know.

I know a young man who lost his job as a student teacher because of his ‘drinking a beers with his buddies’ photos on his Facebook page. He was over 21 and the pictures were harmless and yet the school district’s policy on ‘public comportment’ took away his future career. You may think this is unfair but the truth is… this is happening. The nightmare hasn’t even begun yet.. for those who can’t tell their parents… please don’t put me on Facebook!

Thoughts?

Photo credit: Jack Skellington-O-Lantern  randysonofrobert

9 Deadly Sins of Job Hunting

Ok, these may not be deadly but they can slow down your search. Take care of these and your search will go smoothly because you’ll be building relationships and learning during your entire search.

You may not want to address these issues… but you’ll be glad you did.

I borrowed some of these from 7 Deadly Sales Sins.

1. You don’t know who you are so you can’t concisely tell others. Seems simple enough but trust me, if it’s been a while since you’ve looked for a job… you probably don’t know yourself as well as you need to. Look into those dark corners, root out your foibles and shortcomings and learn to say great things about yourself and your capabilities.

2. You don’t know what you want. If you don’t know where you’re going; any road will take you there. How can others help you if you don’t know what you need or want. I know it’s easier to define what you don’t want. Start there.

3. You don’t know how to easily help others (or worse you don’t understand why it’s important.) Being of service, listening, making referrals, introducing like-minded folks, etc. it’s not hard but you do have to stop thinking about yourself long enough to consider what to do.

4. You don’t understand what recruiters, hiring managers or human resource people need. If you put yourself in their shoes for a minute, you’ll be much more effective at getting their attention.

5. You’re afraid. We all are, you are not alone. Some of us just “fake it ’til we make it.” Take a page from that book.

6. You stay in your house and tell people you can’t network because you’re: shy, introverted, technical, a geek, blah, blah, blah. Get over it. Most of us don’t want to meet a bunch of strangers, but we do it.

7. You don’t follow up. You know, thank you notes you talk yourself out of.

8. You don’t have a process for your search. Do you have a spreadsheet of your contacts, companies and connections? Do you have a plan to meet 7-10 new people a week? Do you have a job search ‘buddy’ who can help you? Are you learning new skills?

9. You don’t ask for the job or you ask for every job. Be clear about what you want, who you are and when the time is right, be sure to be clear that you believe this is the job for you and why.

Bonus: You don’t have a complete LinkedIn profile with at least 200 contacts. sigh… what are you waiting for?

I believe in you. Go!

Photo Credit: MelB Handovermouth

The “Skate to Where the Puck’s Going To Be” Career Management Philosophy

Recently I came across an article titled, “7 Jobs You Never Heard of and Why They’re Awesome,” e.g. futurist, greensman (not keeping the putting green nice..) and parabolic expert. Do you think these sounds silly? Think again.

It might seem odd to remember elevator or telephone operators, but what about travel agents, department store clerks (try to find one these days) or assembly line workers. Ten years ago a fair number of people held these jobs.

Today a lot of people have titles that didn’t exist 10 years ago, e.g. Director of Inbound Marketing, Content Marketer, Java Developer, .net Developer or Internet Security expert, etc.. If you believe what Wayne Gretsky (aka the great one… hockey player) said, “Skate to where the puck’s going to be, not to where it has been…” and apply that to your career,  it’s possible that your next job could be something you’ve never even heard of.

If you were born after 1980… it’s very likely you will have a job that hasn’t even been invented yet (not to mention being actively engaged in creating new companies.)

When I speak to educators I remind them that it is their responsibility… along with business leaders… to find out what skills will be needed and to start today to create programs to prepare our future employees. And this is not just for young people! Boomers and Gen Xer’s need to change too.

Because if we, as Americans, don’t figure this out…someone else in the world will and if we think the economy is ugly now…

This is not the ‘responsibility’ of politicians and/or ‘someone else’. Each of us must be prepared. Consider the shark or crocodile– they’ve been around a long time while many other creatures have become extinct. Adapt or die.

Image credit:  Oldster’s view

Guerrilla Hiring (Not Hiring Guerillas)

I often talk with job hunters, HR folks and recruiters about how hiring continues to evolve; think mobile/social recruiting.

When I read this post about a woman who recently applied to,  interviewed for and landed a job in less than a week; I was amazed (job on east coast and she lived on the west coast!)

Here’s her story…

“So, on a fluke, I emailed them my resume. By the next afternoon, I had already done a Skype™ interview with HR and they assigned me a project so they could see my work. I emailed my project, they loved it and offered me a job. I was on an airplane that Sunday and started work on Monday!” What’s on Karen’s Plate

Let’s examine this. She…

1) Wasn’t even looking for a job., she ‘stumbled’ across this posting and decided it was her dream job

2) Sent a resume and someone actually looked at it (wow)

3) Interviewed via Skype™  (candidate and hiring manager actually saw each other, felt the mutual energy, etc.)

4) Completed an assignment (wow again). (So this means that the company actually knew enough about the job to have an assignment that an interviewee could complete and then they made it easy for her to submit it.)

5) Evaluated the organization – I wonder what they did to help her understand their culture? (Made interviewing completely painless!)

Of course all interviews can’t happen like this but imagine streamlining the process to even vaguely resemble something like this. What if you Skype interviewed several candidates? If they don’t know how to use Skype — do you want to hire them? and… can you use Skype?

As a hiring manager, do you have an ‘assignment’ for your short list of candidates?

As someone how waited months for a job to — ‘get approved’, ‘open up’, have a new ‘description/classification written’, etc., this whole thing blows me away. In a good way!

Image credit: Philhill.net

6 seconds = How Long Your Resume Gets Looked At…

Have you ever been on the hiring side of a resume? It’s not fun.

You often feel like this guy. Overwhelmed by ‘paper’ and buzzwords that don’t tell you anything.

Before you spend more time and get more opinions about your resume, check out this article, “How Recruiters See Your Resume…” Take a look at the heat map associated with this article.

It tells us that the more structured your resume, the easier it is for those 6 seconds to be productive and get you into the consideration pile vs. the no way pile.

The goal of the resume is to… wait for it… get you an interview! Be sure to think of it that way. It’s not to document your entire work history.

By the way, how’s your Linked In profile? Do you have 300 connections? Do you belong to several groups? Have you uploaded your PowerPoint presentations? Do you answer questions? Make sure you include a live link to your Linked In profile from your resume.

Now go forth and streamline that resume!

Image credit: Career Insider

Blogs, Frogs and Dogs

How many blogs do you read?

Do you know what an RSS feed is?

If not, think of it as an inbox. A virtual inbox where you send information that you want to read later on. Google reader is a good tool (RSS)  for managing electronic information.

I send the posts from about 40 different blogs to my reader and at night when I’m watching TV — I scan through my inbox. Would I rather be reading something else? Yes, often I would, but this is what I need to do to stay in business.

If you’re a job seeker… how are you adding value to your network? Are you synthesizing information? Are you a producer of content not just a consumer?

Not sure which blogs to read?  How many civil engineering blogs do you think there are? well, here’s the top 50!  and here are the top 10 dog blogs…  and top 10 science blogs. Read as many as you can, be interested and interesting.

My point is… get used to getting your information from a real time resource like blogs, twitter, ning groups, etc.

If we are going to be effective at work, model appropriate change behavior for our children and proactively manage our personal growth– we need to change and fast.  Like taking vitamins for our health, we better learn to absorb new information everyday.

Photo credit: Mylotphotos.com

Balance Yourself Not Your “Work/Life”

When I was a young mother (back in the last century), there was a lot of talk about work/life balance and how “women” needed to work harder to ‘find’ it. The only thing I needed to find was a few hours sleep and someone else to plan dinner and drive the kids all over the place.

It’s better today because both men and women are looking to balance their responsibilities and my observation is that they are doing a fine job. Their bosses and workaholic colleagues might disagree but the truth is, they understand that it’s about balancing themselves — not their work/life. They only have one life and work, family, play, learning are all part of it.

If you look at the younger generation and think they don’t get it… take a look in the mirror. My friend Hannah Morgan (Career Sherpa) was telling me about “helicopter” parents. These parents who think it’s perfectly ok to go to a career fair with their college senior! A College CAREER FAIR!

My kids would barely let me review their college applications never mind go with them to a job interview. Michael Jackson wrote these great lyrics from The Man In The Mirror—”Take A Look At Yourself, And Make A Change”. Yes, please.

Photo credit: Believe in you

Stop Using Facebook

I’m a capitalist and an entrepreneur and respect people who start businesses.

What I don’t like are businesses that take advantage of customers. In the world of Free (think Facebook (FB), Google, Twitter, etc.) are services really free?

I have been teaching social media for about 3 years and have heard 100′s of FB stories. Some heart warming (“I keep in touch with my grandchildren”), others disturbing:  lost job opportunities, stalking, loss of privacy and being fired. If only people had thought a little about what they were sharing, many of these terrible circumstances could have been prevented.

In reading the post, “The Facebook Hiatus”, the author deactivated his account because he spent more time reading “status updates than books.” Beyond the issue of time, are you aware of how, how often and with whom FB shares your data?

“Unlike other big corporations, (FB) doesn’t have an inventory of gadgets or cars; its product is personal data — yours and mine, ” says Lori Andrews in, Facebook is Using You.

As FB goes public, we’ll see even more exploitation due to sagging ad revenue. Ads will now be inserted into your news feed and on log out pages.

I know you love FB. All your friends are there. I don’t really expect you to stop using Facebook, I just want you to think before you post.

Photo credit: Inkstainedknuckles.com

Go That Way Really Fast…

Famous movie line from John Cusack in Better Off Dead:

““Go that way… really fast. If something gets in your way… turn”

When we’re in transition (new job, no job, marriage, divorce, new baby, etc.) we get lots of advice from well-meaning friends and family members. They usually suggest taking time to asses all your alternatives. Now I’m not opposed to taking time to think but…

I notice that a lot of people use thinking as a way to block action.

Let me say that again. If you are unhappy, if you are stuck, if you don’t know what the next step should be… take action. Go fast. Really fast.

I like this article titled, “On Gen Y Careers… Go That Way.” It encourages young people to try lots of things; lots of different things. It’s great advice and it comes naturally to millenials.  For those of us that are not 20- somethings, we can follow this advice too.

I have had 5 careers. Every job I landed, I took because the position held great learning opportunities for me. In looking back, I should have changed more not less. I could have had more mentors if only I’d asked. I did a lot but I was afraid and perhaps, so are you. Go really fast, if something gets in your way, turn!

Photo credit: Mansoor Siddique.com