Career Hub

More on telling stories, from Seth Godin

Check out Seth Godin's blog post, Shiny and Deep, on storytelling from a marketing perspective. I think his post makes sense for the career world, too. Aren't all career managers and job seekers really personal marketers? If they're not, they should be!

Seth says all marketing stories need to be shiny (attract) and deep (fascinate). Seems like this echos George's Career Hub post, Telling Stories, on grabbing and holding attention in interviews by telling interesting and relevant stories.

Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind says much about the growing force of storytelling in business, too.

So, what's your story?

Telling Stories

Imagine this scenario: you’ve been told to hire an employee to complete a marketing project. You line up 11 candidates and schedule interviews with all of them over two days — a virtual interviewing marathon. You get started. Over the next two days, two candidates sit there, just answering questions, volunteering nothing. (Yawn.) Eight recite the same bullet point items that appear on their resumes. (Snore.) One, in contrast, tells you all about the time she completed a project similar to the one you need to hire for.

Her story demonstrates her understanding of the true objectives of the project. It’s funny — you find yourself chuckling several times. She talks about several things that went wrong and how she addressed them. Her story reflects her interaction with peers, an unfailingly good attitude and the ability to learn from her mistakes. Most of all, it clearly demonstrates that she knows how to complete a project of this nature.

Which candidate is bound to stick out in your memory? Which one are you most likely to prefer? And all other things being equal — like references — which one will you hire?

As a job seeker, it’s true that you can’t spend every interview telling stories. But if you really want to stand out, choose a story in lieu of an expository answer any time you can. Keep your stories brief, relevant, and with clear “messages.” Simplify as appropriate, but keep them honest (they may well come up in reference checks). Focus on success stories and positive outcomes. Any time you can include numbers (“an audit proved that I improved efficiency by 37%!”) always do so.

Often, interviewers will ask for stories — “tell me about a time your attention to detail prevented a problem.” Sure, it can be hard to prepare for any and every such question, but you will find that there are certain topics that come up commonly. A great exercise to go through is to create a journal of success stories. If you can come up with a dozen that all happened on the job, that’s best. If you need to include some from school, church or volunteer activities, that’s fine. (Hint: if you can’t come up with enough stories, start engaging in activities such as volunteering to quickly develop some good success stories.)

At the highest level of mastery, you will have an arsenal of 15-20 success stories, which you can adapt as needed based on cues in the interview. If the interviewer asks questions that lead you to believe that teamwork is an essential requirement of an open position, choose stories that illustrate your interpersonal skills and emphasize the team dynamics. Again, don’t make anything up; just selectively accent the relevant aspects of your stories.

Telling stories makes for better interviews — generally more successful, always more entertaining.

'Aun Aprendo'

Not long ago, I decided to start painting -- not house painting or room painting, but the kind of painting you do with tiny little brushes and ounces, not gallons of paint. Didn't know the first thing about it; it's just something I'd been thinking about for a while and thought it sounded like a fun and interesting diversion. So I jumped in -- off to the local craft store in search of the perfect tools to embark upon my new journey. Asked the associate what tools and resources one would need if one wanted to start painting and one had zero, zilch experience in this skill area. She gave me a near-nasty look and said "Why are you gonna' paint if you don't know nothin' about it?" I offered a lame "why not?" response, only to wonder later why I hadn't quipped the confident "because I can" line.

The Paint Associate (TPA) suggested that I start with "on sale" and "clearance items" so "you won't be out too much when you quit." Hmm. Quit? Clearly, she was ahead of me in the transition process.

Overwhelmed by her positive feedback, good vibes, and confidence-building assurances, I zipped down aisle 7, a career consultant on a mission. Look out!

Heeding TPA's wisdom, I invested $3.78 for three 9x12 canvases (on sale); five bucks for a five-piece paint-brush set (clearance); a name-brand acrylic paint set containing 12 teeny tubes of assorted colors (on sale) and voila, move over Monet and peace out Picasso! I simply could not wait to get home to paint. Seriously, I'm now on my tenth painting and I absolutely treasure each one. Not because they're great, or good, or anything of the sort. It's because I had the courage to try something new and jump in!

Funny, too, how I've been paying much closer attention to news stories about artists. Just the other day, I saw a tv clip about Goya, the famous Spanish painter and graphic artist. One of his last works was 'Aun Aprendo' -- "I Am Still Learning." I like these words very much -- 'aun aprendo' -- for careers, for job search, for life.

Turning silver into gold - companies are finally wooing 55+ job seekers

Today's Career Journal (the on-line career pages of the Wall Street Journal) spotlights a growing number of job sites focusing on recruiting candidates over 55: Online Job Networks for the 55-Plus Crowd.

The tide is finally turning and companies are realizing that they are in jeopardy of losing institutional memory, innovation, and marketshare as their best workers begin to retire in droves. Well, duh! We could have told them that!

Business and The Boss

Interesting reading in Business 2.0 magazine: 50 People Who Matter Now and 10 People Who Don't Matter. The names of those on the outs may surprise you. As a personal brand strategist I find this fascinating.

One of the big things about branding is that brands' core values need to remain authentic but the manifestation of the brands' values and attributes need to stay important and relevant to the marketplace. This is as true for executives as it is for products.

Check out the list of 50 People Who Matter Now - some you may not know, but some like Oprah, Richard Branson, and Bill Gates are almost household names. Each is known for a core value proposition, but each has used that value proposition as a foundation for continual change that is new yet remains on brand. In fact, Bill Gates is now listed as 'philanthropist,' rather than head of Microsoft. Yet we still know Gates' brand as soon as we hear his name.

My family just attended Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions tour concert at Madison Square Garden. Folk music (and some of his old standards re-mixed) - played with 18+ joyful musicians rockin' down the house with a mixture of spiritual, zydeco, dixieland, and funk styles - is not typical Springsteen, but it worked.

The audience of tough-as-nails Metro New Yorkers were singing along, yelling, clapping, and stomping - it was a blast! At the concert's end Springsteen thanked the audience for supporting his 'experiment.' Heck, when he envisioned the album and tour he didn't know if it would work, but he knew he wanted to do it! And the tour has received nearly unanimous rave reviews and expanded his fan base.

So what do the 50 People Who Matter Now and The Boss have to do with careers? A lot if you use them as examples of how to stay on brand without staying in the same place.

When you're managing your career, be authentic but take your authentic value and stretch, reach, listen to your gut, and then go for it. Sometimes it'll work, and sometimes it won't, but keep embracing change and making change and you'll be on track to be among the innovators - the 'people who matter now.'

Getting through to live humans

If you're trying to get someone's name and title or other information, here's a cheat sheet I found on Whatis.com--to get through to live human beings at lots of companies ranging from American Express to Staples.

Are Women Bringing the Art of Being Nice into Business?

I found this Newsweek article fascinating. I blogged about it at Blue Sky, but then realized I wanted to say something about it here because it relates to discussions we've been having about Career Hub. The article is called Try Being Nice and it focuses on Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, who advocate the art of being nice and claim that much of their business success is as a result of simply being nice.

When asked why bother trying to encourage people to be nice, the ladies answered: "We wanted to dispel the myth that only those who eat their young get raises."

It was that quote that got me thinking. When I first began to climb the corporate ladder 15 years ago, I quickly learned to play by the existing rules - the ones set by men. To get ahead, I assumed I needed to be competitive and aggressive. And it worked. I did very well, but within a few years I was miserable.

Now that I run my own business, I'm MUCH happier and yes, I think I'm nice as a way of doing business. Before angry guys flame me I should quickly say that I don't think this is because women are inherently nicer people than men - I just think we operate differently. Women tend to gravitate towards helping and nurturing, and will support even their competitors on the understanding that a rising tide lifts all boats. In my experience, men are  much less likely to be comfortable with this approach.

Which brings me to Career Hub. This is a collaborative effort and there are no immediate, direct business benefits from working to create  a free source of information and insight for job seekers. Is that why, to date, I have only been able to get two men to participate? (one of whom is my husband).

Time to Leave? Seth's Right

Seth Godin had lunch with a friend today who's successful and happy in his job - and told him to leave as soon as possible.

Sounds insane?

It's not. Read the story and you'll see what I mean.

Finding the Right Title

While coaching a C-Level client of mine this morning we came across a funny little challenge... his title statement. This is normally a no-brainer - this is the golden opportunity to take the mystery out of what the candidate is looking for with their next position. In his last position his title was Senior VP/Chief Scientist. To me this conjures up images of test tubes and lab rats and such.

WRONG – He is a Marketing Guru and his area of expertise is handling the technology end of product development.  So we came up with a ½ dozen different ideas from Chief Technologist to Marketing Technology Solutions Expert – none of which he could get excited about.  For all intents and purposes he is the square peg in the round hole.  Gee… would that work?  Now the real reason this problem exists is because he has almost never started out in his career in X job and stayed there – a position has always been morphed for him. 

So what’s a Square Peg to do?  I have given him a ½ dozen soul searching questions to answer and we will come up with the “right” one eventually. The key of course is taking the mystery out of this for everyone. I will let you know what we come up with!

Teamwork Builds a Strong Foundation

Building a new home is a big deal. I haven't done so, but I've listened to plenty of clients speak of this experience and it, more often than not, involves a lot of players -- the architect, general contractor, financial and legal professionals, subs and suppliers, inspectors, in short, a team. Hopefully, the team is invested in each and every phase of the construction project so that it runs smoothly and goes according to plan. It takes teamwork, hard work, and relentless pursuit of the goal, just like looking for a new job. Teamwork is a good plan -- no, a     g - r - e - a - t    plan and the best gift you can give yourself when you're exploring new career options.

So, contemplate these simple questions: Who can you assemble as a team to help you design and build your career project? Who is willing, without compensation, to invest time, thought, energy, care and support to help you get what you want? Who do you know that might be a likely candidate to serve on your team? Who likes you enough to help you achieve your desired goal of finding meaningful employment that is good and right for you? Who are the players on your team?