Make Time for Career Management

Make Time for Career Management I saw one of my favorite quotes on Twitter, shared by Pluralsights Head of Practices Mariah Hay and it prompted me to make my own quote: I love the quote she shared the older I get the more true it rings. Health and wellness is not something that people my age get to enjoy without some effort. For over thirteen years Ive been acutely aware of the career and job search space, starting when I lost my job after having done everything I was told to do to have job security. I soon found out that was a facade a fraud. What was good career advice for 1970 was not good career advice for 2006, when I was laid off. I was well-degreed, well-experienced but had a week brand and a week network and had no idea how to do a job search, or manage my career, in this new era. And so Ive been on a weird mission to create tools (JibberJobber) and system (Job Search Program) and training (my Pluralsight courses) and encouragement (my speaking) and new thinking (51 Alternatives to a Real Job (book)) and thought leadership (on my social channels). Its weird because I didnt get my MBA so I could be an entrepreneur and create. I got it so I could have an easy path to the corner office and a fat salary and great retirement. Did I mention facade and fraud? Yet here we are. I do what I do, and I try to spread the word and help others prepare. This week Ill probably hear someone say Ive never heard of JibberJobber before wow!! No, you havent. Because career management was off your radar. You were busy working hard at your job only to realize you were a day away from long-term unemployment even though you had the title, the degree, the experience. I hope the professional legacy I leave will be that of encouraging others to think differently about their jobs and their career. I hope when people think of me they think man, he really changed how we think about careers. But for now, Ill take people who should have been doing career management who are in the job search, looking like deer in the headlights, wondering what happened to them and how to recover, and help them, one step at a time. But you, who reads this post, will not be there. Because you are working on career management. You are doing the right things right now. Right? Make Time for Career Management I saw one of my favorite quotes on Twitter, shared by Pluralsights Head of Practices Mariah Hay and it prompted me to make my own quote: I love the quote she shared the older I get the more true it rings. Health and wellness is not something that people my age get to enjoy without some effort. For over thirteen years Ive been acutely aware of the career and job search space, starting when I lost my job after having done everything I was told to do to have job security. I soon found out that was a facade a fraud. What was good career advice for 1970 was not good career advice for 2006, when I was laid off. I was well-degreed, well-experienced but had a week brand and a week network and had no idea how to do a job search, or manage my career, in this new era. And so Ive been on a weird mission to create tools (JibberJobber) and system (Job Search Program) and training (my Pluralsight courses) and encouragement (my speaking) and new thinking (51 Alternatives to a Real Job (book)) and thought leadership (on my social channels). Its weird because I didnt get my MBA so I could be an entrepreneur and create. I got it so I could have an easy path to the corner office and a fat salary and great retirement. Did I mention facade and fraud? Yet here we are. I do what I do, and I try to spread the word and help others prepare. This week Ill probably hear someone say Ive never heard of JibberJobber before wow!! No, you havent. Because career management was off your radar. You were busy working hard at your job only to realize you were a day away from long-term unemployment even though you had the title, the degree, the experience. I hope the professional legacy I leave will be that of encouraging others to think differently about their jobs and their career. I hope when people think of me they think man, he really changed how we think about careers. But for now, Ill take people who should have been doing career management who are in the job search, looking like deer in the headlights, wondering what happened to them and how to recover, and help them, one step at a time. But you, who reads this post, will not be there. Because you are working on career management. You are doing the right things right now. Right?

Do You Know Your Internship Goals

Do You Know Your Internship Goals When you’re looking for an internship, your first step should be setting your internship goals. They are a list of things you wish to gain from the internship and what the purpose of the internship would be. If you don’t do so properly, you might just end up wondering what you are doing in that organization, in the middle of your internship term. Here are some of the basic questions that you should ask yourself before you get into an internship. 1.             Why do you want to do an internship? Internships are a tool that you can use to gain invaluable, hands-on knowledge Image Credit: thewebkitchen.co.uk and experience about the inner workings of a modern organization. If you are interested in a specific industry or career path, you can learn how things work and what it means to work in that industry or field through an internship. You can experiment with multiple internships and see where you fit best, then pursue a career in that field. You must decide what your reasons are for doing an internship before you do anything else. 2.             What do you hope to gain from an internship? You must put together a list of realistic expectations from that internship. Whether they are about making contacts in an organization for future referrals or just an addition to your resume, so that your application carries more weight, you have to be realistic. 3.             What are your specific career interests goals? If you aren’t sure about your career path and can’t decide whether you want to pursue a career in your major or minor, an internship is invaluable in helping you decide. You can even try an internship in a completely different field if you aren’t sure about that either. Who knows, you might even end up switching your majors. 4.             What type of work environment are you looking for? Organizations are like living, breathing organisms. The people working in them define them, and their cultures and work environments vary significantly. You must know what kind of work environment you want to work in and whether you prefer working in a small, flexible technology company or a large corporation Image credit: selfhelpzone.com with hundreds or thousands of employees in every department. Smaller companies offer new hires the opportunity to expand their horizons and experience other roles and facets of the business as well. It is also easier to move up in such companies as compared to larger companies. Larger organizations offer better opportunities when you’re thinking of switching jobs or prefer the large, corporate culture. 5.             Where do you want to intern? This is the most important question you can ask because it can make or break your career path. Choosing the right company can mean the difference between becoming a millionaire by the time you’re forty or still worrying about and planning your retirement by the time you’re sixty. If you’re going for an internship during a college semester, you have to take into account the proximity of the organization’s office to your college. However, be mindful that the internships on your resume play a very pivotal role when you start applying for paid jobs. 6.             Are you looking for a paid, unpaid or credit-hour internship? Though rarer than they used to be, you can still find some good paid internships if you look at the right places. However, most are unpaid. If you are looking for an internship in a non-profit organization or agency, you most probably won’t be paid. However, large corporations usually pay their interns a stipend or provide other benefits. Recruitment services such as InspiringInterns can help in these regards, as well as provide grooming and training for interviews, tests, and other organization specific requirements. Featured Image Credit: TWK 3

The importance of the kiss-up

The importance of the kiss-up I get a lot of email, and the biggest whiners are the people who refuse to kiss up to their boss and therefore have stalled careers. Newsflash: You have to brown nose, but the professional phrase for this act is manage up. This is such a basic pre-requisite for career success that I am shocked when people have to be convinced to do it. Almost every workplace problem that Ive heard can be boiled down to three pieces of advice: 1. Get to know yourself better. 2. Get to know your boss better. 3. Make sure you are making both of you happy. Jared Sandbergs column this week is a good overview of the culture of managing ones boss, Why Mr. Kiss-up Keeps Getting Ahead. Sandberg is one of my favorite career columnists, maybe because usually he doesnt even pretend to give advice; the only advice is from his headline writer. I have a feeling Sandbergs situation is actually a good example of managing up: He doesnt want to give advice, he wants to do reporting. But his boss knows that career advice sells. So Sandberg writes the column he wants and lets his boss hire someone to slap advice on the top. A good example of how compromising a little can align your own goals with those of your boss.

The End of an Era

The End of an Era Embed from Getty Images //embed.gettyimages.com/embed/530682631?et=ufvZ2I5MSWpAsfIbdepP_AviewMoreLink=offsig=0uniPAmHEkgzo8MiqSOltSL1V-kktJUrz1c6R6-eiOk=caption=true This is one of a series of posts on The End of Jobs: Money, Meaning and Freedom Without the 9-to-5. In The End of Jobs, Taylor Pearson writes about the seismic change in job growth since 2000. He presents an interesting theory: The past economic downturn wasn’t what you thought it was. He says we weren’t going through a global recessionâ€" we are transitioning between two distinct economic periods. He cites a book called The Fourth Economy, where author and systems thinker Ron Davison organizes the last seven hundred years of Western History into three distinct economic periods: Agricultural (1300â€" 1700), Industrial (1700â€" 1900), and Knowledge (1900â€" 2000). If you look at these dates carefully, you’ll also see that the pace of change is doubling with each era. The Agricultural period lasted 400 years; the Industrial 200 years, but the Information Age only lasted 100. Pearson says that the problem we’re facing is that many people have not recognized that we’ve entered a fourth economic period. That means we’re still investing in what worked in the previous period, and those investments are producing dramatically diminished returns. Here’s how he breaks it down. In any organization, system, or process, there is a single constraint that is holding it back â€" a primary constraint that, unless solved, will prevent success. If you have five people stuffing envelopes, producing 20 envelopes per minute, but only one addressing them, producing two per minute, the addresser becomes the constraint. No matter how many more envelopes you stuff every minute, you’ll never be able to ship more than two per minute, because addressing is the constraint. Adding more people addressing envelopes is the only way to ship more. Got it? Taylor says the same theory of constraint is true in large and complex systems like economies. In the Agricultural period, land was the constraint. That meant that the biggest landowners were the wealthiest and most powerful men. They solved for that constraint to grow wealth. In the Industrial Age, beginning about 1850, capital became the most important constraint. It was expensive to build factories and infrastructure to ship products. Europe was fighting several wars, which are also expensive. The Rothschild family became the richest in Europe by selling war bonds to countries like Prussia. Bankers became the most powerful people in the world, because they were the source of solving the capital constraint. As corporations began to evolve and gain power (about 1900), the constraint wasn’t capital. Companies had enough capital, but they needed more knowledge to be able to expand. The early 20th century was an age of many technical advancements in science, engineering, medicine, and computing. As technology companies emerged, starting in the 1970s, CEOs supplanted bankers as the most powerful men in the world. At the beginning of the 20th century, tech startups could generate billions in wealth with almost no capital investment. Facebook, conceived and built in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room at Harvard in 2004, is now worth $250 billion. Pearson argues that we entered a new economic era in the early 2000s, one in which entrepreneurship is the primary constraint. Lots of people know lots about programming and technology; but only Steve Jobs created the iPhone. Only Zuckerberg envisioned Facebook. Amazon ate the retail book industry; Netflix ate Blockbuster within a few years of launching. Digital media is in the process of eating print. Pearson says we’ve shifted from a world of complicated work to a world of complex and chaotic work, (see my previous post on the definitions here) where the skills needed to thrive cannot be taught in traditional schools. Here’s the problem: we’re continuing to invest in knowledge under the mistaken assumption that it’s what’s needed for success. What is needed, says Pearson, is investment in entrepreneurship, which is the primary constraint of the new economic era.

The Best Way to Write a Resume For GIs

The Best Way to Write a Resume For GIsWhen a person is looking to start working and should be paid a wage, the best way to convince the employer that you are the one they are looking for is to write a resume for a GI. These resumes come in many forms from a stand alone resume, to an effective business card.A person looking to work for a GI will have to know how to write a resume for GIs. What does it mean? It means that you must understand what they are looking for and what the job entails.The first thing you need to do when you write a resume for GIs is to know their requirements. This means that you must understand the training programs that they use and what the requirements are for their position. If you find it hard to decipher what the job requires from what the training program requires then you may want to hire a professional in this field to assist you.After you know what their requirements are then you must create a resume that they will find useful. In other words, you mus t make it well tailored to fit their needs. This means that you need to be able to tailor your resume to their personality and what they already have. This is because the people that work for a GI want the best fit for their qualifications, as well as what they already have.Once you know what the GI is looking for in their resumes then you can decide on the format. One format that is commonly used is the stand alone resume. This means that you take down information such as education, experience, and skills and you stick them all together in one document. The stand alone format is the easiest format for you to use when writing a resume for GIs because it is very easy to read.On the other hand, if you choose to go with a shorter resume then you can use a more effective format called a two paragraph resume. This means that you will only highlight the main points of your qualifications. You will go over the skills that you have so that they will not be left out.However, you can see that a person who has a long term relationship with a GI will most likely be considered for a long term relationship with them. So you will want to make sure that you keep your skills up to date as well as your skill level.Many people wonder if it is harder to write a resume for GIs because they have better skills than you. This is not true because most people that work for a GI have more than enough skills to do the job for them. With the training they receive and the pay that they receive, they have no reason to go out and do a job for someone else because they will be making a higher salary in their own place.

How Do You Rate Your Performance as a Job Seeker

How Do You Rate Your Performance as a Job Seeker The other day I wrote about what a job description would look like for a job seeker.   I cant stop thinking about the concept.   My belief is that most job seekers have not been given good job descriptions.   They are not performing well (have been in an extended job search) because they do not know what is expected of them.   Nor is anyone evaluating their performance.   As a result, they are frustrated.   And I think employers are frustrated too, because they have to evaluate so many candidates with varying levels of interviewing skills. In a networking group we talked about job duties and skills required in the role of job seeker and this is what they came up with: Duties: Managing on line promotion of company brand (yours) Plan and implement marketing strategy/campaign using marketing plan Develop new and manage existing relationships Ability to perform prospecting on the phone and in person to build a pipeline of opportunities Increase contact volume and enhance your image in the local community. Monitor activities and performance to ensure actual secured jobs meet or exceed established revenue plan. Other duties as assigned. Skills Required: Demonstrated time management skills Excellent written and verbal communication skills (Public speaking a plus) Organizational skills Customer service skills Database management skills Strong active listening abilities Ability to self manage (take initiative and stay motivated) Familiarity of research tools (InfoUSA, ONet, Million Dollar Database, and others) Leadership skills Keen understanding of business etiquette Special Requirements: Must be a jack of all trades and not afraid to do what it takes to get the job done.   Must learn new things daily.   Working knowledge of technology, including social media and all Microsoft office products. How would you rate your monthly performance in those areas? Exceeds Expectations, Meets Expectations, Needs Improvement

What Happens When You Do Everything Right In An Interview And The Hiring Manager Is Nuts - Pathfinder Careers

What Happens When You Do Everything Right In An Interview… And The Hiring Manager Is Nuts - Pathfinder Careers What Happens When You Do Everything Right In An Interview… And The Hiring Manager Is Nuts? Have you ever had this happen to you? “Emily,” a client and a friend of mine, recently had a rattling experience. She applied for a job for which she was eminently qualified, and executed everything flawlessly throughout the entire job application and interview process… including doing her research on the company, preparing interview questions of her own, writing thank you notes, and then politely checking in on the status of her application to show just the right level of interest and enthusiasm for the position. But when she made it to the second round (after having charmed the first-round interview panel), she found herself sitting in front of a company vice president who the final decision-maker…and someone who also was clearly off of her rocker. From inappropriate personal items on display in the VP’s office to mention of being under the influence of a painkiller, to a rambling tirade that lasted 45 minutes of the 55-minute long interview, Emily found it difficult to get a word in edgewise to connect her background to the position opening. The conversation with the VP bounced all over the place, and it was clear that the VP had some serious personal mental issues. The whole ‘interview’ ended up being a monologue from the VP, and at that point, Emily realized that it was best to resign herself to letting the VP take the conversation where she wanted to take it… which was apparently all over the map. This whole situation was incredibly discouraging for Emily. She was fired up, had great ideas to take the organization to the next level, had gotten the buy-in from the staff from the first-round, and was ready to hit the ground running. Everything was electrified with the “YES, I can do it” vibe. Yet it was clear that there was one problem that the department was not able to deal with… The VP was nuts. And sure enough, in a follow up call to HR a week later, Emily was told that the VP had said that she was going to get back to Emily personally (but did not)…. and the HR person sympathetically told Emily that the VP had selected two other candidates for a third round, and suddenly, had gone in an entirely different direction in terms of candidate requirements (at this point, the HR person had a tinge of irritation in her voice). Crushed, Emily hung up, trying to figure out what to make of the entire experience. So what do you do, when everything is game, set, and match: and then the loose cannon arrives on the scene and blows everything to bits… and there is NOTHING you nor anyone else who is your advocate can do? First, you cannot control the situation. As frustrating as it is, that person / obstacle is immovable and they are in a position of authority which you cannot change. You are only responsible for your conduct, and if you execute everything flawlessly, then you’ve done everything expected and demanded of you. Beyond that, there is absolutely nothing you can do to influence or shift opinion, and to attempt to do so will only result in it reflecting badly on you for circumventing the person in question. Second, you need to let it go. Look through the entire experience and determine what the take-aways are… is there anything you could have done BETTER? It’s ok to examine what happened, what the clues were, how you responded, and if there was anything else you could have contributed differently â€" but you ultimately cannot dwell on it… you’ll drive yourself crazy with the ‘what ifs.’ Decide what you want to learn from the experience and integrate it into how you want to present yourself in case this same kind of situation presents itself again. Then let it go, and concentrate your efforts on your job search efforts. Don’t devote your energy on something that is now in the past…. Instead, focus on your future. Third, you wouldn’t have enjoyed working there anyway. Sure, it’s easy to adopt this attitude, but think of it this way… how many of us end up in a dysfunctional workplace that ends up eating up our productivity time by us ‘kivetching’ to other employees about a particular problem or person? If you are experiencing a disconnect in the interview and can easily see through personal issues and personality problems of your potential future boss, what do you think it would be like on a daily basis? Most likely, it won’t improve from there… I always say that you are interviewing employers just as much as they are interviewing you. If the employer is that bad in an interview, what do you think they will be like as your boss? The interview is supposed to be when everyone is on their best behavior! And, as part of evaluating a job opportunity, no matter how much you need the money, you should weigh the mental cost of working with supervisors with control, anger, or personal issues. A healthy workplace could be more desirable than a bigger paycheck served up with a whole lot of angst. And chances are that there’s someone in your social or work circle that ended up going to counseling because of an unhealthy work environment. The key to get beyond these excruciatingly disappointing interviews where you knew you had it ‘in the bag’ but got derailed by someone who isn’t in their right mind is to understand the boundary lines between what you can and cannot control, and to do what you can do to the best of your ability. If it doesn’t come to fruition, then there wasn’t a fit, and you need to move on to the next opportunity and put your energy into more productive efforts.