Career Hub

Is There Anything We Should Know?

The economy may be going through hard times, but there are jobs to be had in Washington DC. The new Obama-Biden administration has posted over 8,000 vacancies - but before you rush to get your application in, take a look at the application form:

The questionnaire includes 63 requests for personal and professional records, some covering applicants’ spouses and grown children as well, that are forcing job-seekers to rummage from basements to attics, in shoe boxes, diaries and computer archives to document both their achievements and missteps.

Only the smallest details are excluded; traffic tickets carrying fines of less than $50 need not be reported, the application says. Applicants are asked whether they or anyone in their family owns a gun. They must include any e-mail that might embarrass the president-elect, along with any blog posts and links to their Facebook pages.

The application also asks applicants to “please list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the Internet.” 

Now obviously, the reality of political life means that requirements are more strict for these positions than is normal for a regular job, but the article did make me wonder ... How long can it be before companies start to ask for similar information?

I'm in the middle of writing a book on building an online presence, and I had planned to point out that if you participate in forum discussions, particularly on controversial topics such as politics or religion, you should use an alias that bears no relation to your real name.

But what if companies start to ask for those aliases as part of their hiring process? Does that mean you should consider just saying nothing on the Internet? Or at least nothing on any subject that might bother someone?

It seems to me that this isn't feasible - especially for those entering the workforce for the first time during a period when life is lived as much online as offline, where political campaigns organize their supporters through social networking sites and religious discussion takes place on huge and vibrant forums.

I don't know where all this is going, but I do think we're headed for a sea change in how much our employers know about us.

What do you think?

The Big Debate (no that one is over!)

There has been a great debate about personal branding going on over the last few days on several blogs as well a lot comments on Twitter. Geoff Livingston has just posted a follow up to a blog post he did recently I Don't Care About Your Personal Brand (which prompted a very thoughtful post on his own blog by Mitch Joel Why You Need To Care More About Your Personal Brand ) with Rebutting Six Arguments for the Personal Brand.

Well worth following - regardless of which side of the fence you fall - or don't.

Here was my response to Geoff's first post;

" Fair point Geoff and great article that has stimulated a lot of comments not just here and even made a personal brand fan think a bit more. (Full Disclosure - I make a living from helping people identify what their unique skills and attributes are and to communicate them more effectively whilst being themselves = personal branding).

It is always intersting to note that when something rises to a level of mass consciousness - which is where I believe personal branding is approaching then the opposite opinion appears as well. Great for debate and giving people more pros and cons to make an informed choice is always a good thing."

Which in turn prompted me to write "Personal Branding - Is it About to Change?" and then response to his second post:

Geoff

Another thought provoking post to add to the conversation. You have some very valid points regarding personal brands and whilst I refrain from using the word (because I think it has been over used and lost its real meaning) personal branding is about being ‘authentic’ to yourself first and foremost and not creating false images or personas.

I believe that many people were ‘personally branding’ themselves way before Tom Peters wrote about it over 10 years ago. They used it to overcome potential career disadvantages or to maximise what they were good at to advance themselves - perhaps doing it unconsciously a lot of the time but still offering ” a service to the marketplace that’s communicated through visual and verbal communications, as well as the actual product/service experiences.” - ie. doing what they said they can do and producing measurable results.

The interesting shift with personal branding over the last couple of years has been that large corporations are embracing the concept of personal branding as an employee engagement and development initiative and myself and a number of other personal brand strategists are involved in several such programs with F500 companies to help them do that.

Whilst I agree people may not want to work for you just because you ride a Ducati, I would offer to suggest that it might be a deciding factor for someone weighing up whether they want to work with a ’suit’ or a ‘leather jacket’ !

Even you identify that “There is more than a handful of people operating under this masthead, all with their own personal brand identities.” - exactly the reason that other companies are embracing this approach to stand out, perhaps you have been ahead of the curve, or just did not put the personal brand ‘label’ on it until now, but I think its personal branding just the same.

Thanks again for the continued discussion, I look forward to tracking this conversation as avidly as the last."

Cross posted on Refelctions of a Square Peg

A Tale of Two Seasons

This post is for our readers currently in college…

Fall generally finds me in the thick of two different seasons: the on-campus recruiting season for full-time jobs and the “apple season” (my cousins have an orchard where they grow and sell over 85 different kinds of apples). In many ways, the seasons are similar: both generally run from late August to early November, with a peak in mid-September to October. By November, the apples are generally off the trees and offers are “on the table” as many companies complete the majority of their entry-level hiring decisions for the year.

This year, I feel that I am reaching the end of not just a season, but perhaps an era: Wall Street banks will never be quite the same post-reorganization and my cousins have decided that it is time—after almost 70 years—to sell the farm. I’m reminded of a piece Barbara Ehrenreich wrote back in 1985 entitled “How You Can Save Wall Street”:

A free-enterprise economy depends only on markets, and according to the most advanced mathematical macroeconomic theory, markets depend only on moods: specifically, the mood of the men in the pinstripes, also known as the Boys on the Street. When the Boys are in a good mood, the market thrives; when they get scared or sullen, it is time for each one of us to look into the retail apple business.

I am not an economist, and I won’t prognosticate about what this particular season means for the “pinstripe set,” but here are a few observations on the similarities between recruiting and the retail apple business:

Crop condition, valuation, and supply are dependent on climate, market demand, and assessed value—as well as the ability to make projections. Purchasers of large numbers of apples and companies who make a significant number of hires do so in good faith that supplies (or services) that are purchased will be needed later on—and will keep in the interim provided that proper storage conditions are provided. (Like apples, job offers received for on-campus interviews frequently have an expiration date.)

Demand is dependent on the ability to make projections; when there’s less perceived need—there are fewer opportunities to be picked. As can be expected, the number of overall recruiting opportunities is down slightly this year. The National Association of Colleges and Employers recently reported that many employers have scaled back on hiring expectations:

The decreased expectation for college hiring that occurred between August and October was broadly felt across industries. Only government as a sector saw a significant increase in hiring expectations, while manufacturing and professional services remain essentially flat. All other industry categories decreased their hiring expectations for the Class of 2009.

Regardless of what's available, the conditions have to be right for the picking: apple picking and on-campus recruiting are both processes of mutual selection. Just as the over-aggressive job seeker turns off an otherwise willing employer; twisting an apple stem will result in a selection of an under-ripened piece of fruit. The proper technique to pick an apple is to cup your hand beneath the fruit, roll it up gently towards the sky and see if it lands in your hand. If it’s ready, it will come. The same holds true for full-time positions—your chances of a fit increase when you and your prospective employer are both fully prepared to consider working together. If a company can’t hire you now, don’t give up: they may be able to make it happen later on.

This year, expect harvest times to be staggered—hiring will take place on more of an as-needed basis than a calendar-based one, and competition for the prime fruit will be fierce. If you’ve been passed over, assess your skills, enhance your strengths and polish your resume and online presence so that you can be picked when an opportunity becomes available. Once it does, choose what is offered to you carefully: take the time to make sure that the position you are selected to fill meets your needs—and that you can continue to grow with it. (There’s no need to look into the retail apple business just yet, though I do know of an opportunity…)

If there are any lessons to be learned this fall, it is that timing is sometimes beyond our control. If you are in the market for a new position, the best way to get started is to keep growing and to prepare for opportunity when it does come. How will you get ready?

Cross-posted at the Emerging Professional.

What Are You Thankful For?

Last week, I was having coffee with a close friend. I met her several years ago when I was a speaker for a local group. She had called the very next day to say that she'd love to get together for coffee if I'd have time. Probably six or seven years have passed since then and together, we have enjoyed countless coffees, luncheons, laughs and tough talks.

At our coffee and chat the other day, I said "Jane", I need to tell you something. She looked at me quizzically and said "What?"  I went on to say "I just needed you to know how much your friendship means to me -- so thanks for being such a great friend and know that I don't take you for granted." She beamed and said "and you're my titan."

I've thought a lot about that conversation. Maybe it's because I'm a counselor and much of what I hear, at least initially, is what clients don't have, or what they've lost, or what is not going right, or how bad this or that is. As this Thanksgiving season approaches, why not take a moment to pause and reflect upon the things you have to be thankful for and grateful for? Listed below are six professional career-related things that I am thankful for:

* That I have such great clients -- nearly each and every client I have worked with, and for, through the years, has taught me something and has brought much joy to the relationship.

* That I get to play a small part in the life of an individual's continued career success.

* That I get to do a job that I love so very much, day in, day out.

* That I am in an industry comprised of such talented career leaders, coaches, writers, and colleagues who uphold the highest professional standards in delivering services to others.

* That I was invited many months ago by Louise Fletcher to write for Career Hub.

* That I get to read thoughtful comments from you, the readers, both here and in private messages to me, about my blog posts.

To all of you, thank you! For these things, and so many more, I am thankful and grateful. As you plan your upcoming Thanksgiving activities and adventures, how about expressing your thanks and letting someone know that they are your titan?

posted by: billiesucher

Doom & Gloom – What to do about potential job loss

In the past, paralyzed by the present or ploughing ahead?

It is certainly not a great position to be in – either fearful of losing your job or being downsized. I know, I have been there twice myself, once in the last major recession in the late 80’s and the first time from one of my first sales jobs – the whole salesforce of over 200 was let go in one meeting – now that was an experience.

There are usually some immediate reactions when the axe falls or is about to fall and these are all normal human reactions to what is a stressful time – so here are some thoughts and actions to take that will help:

1.Help more, judge less

With so much negativity floating around it is easy for that to rub off and you start to judge people and make negative assumptions about them and even wish them ill fortune.

Take the reverse approach and offer to help more, who can you introduce them too? How can you help them with their job? When you genuinely give then it will come to you as well as you seek out help and assistance.

One of my continuous actions is to help – particularly those who are going through what I have, if there is any way that my experience and learnings can help others avoid or minimize what might happen to them I am there to offer that guidance.

2.Focus on the future

I know I hear you saying – well that’s easy to say and a lot harder to do. Absolutely. But when it all boils down there really is nothing you can do to alter the past, it is gone, happened, you cannot change it – it’s history. However you can certainly affect the future and your place in it, so spend your energy looking forward. I am sure this current crisis offers way more opportunity than we are being led to believe – we just have to believe it ourselves.

3.Take responsibility

Can you honestly say that everything you did and said were right? Probably not, so take some responsibility for your behaviour. Even if the downsizing’s I experienced could not be avoided, there was probably things that I could have done differently that might have had some influence, so I take responsibility for that and try to ensure that it does not happen again. . One lesson I learnt after my first downsizing was always have an up to date resume and to go interview once a year – for practice and to know my market value, so when the second time came I was ready and taking action.

4. Seek learning

There are always lessons to be learned even in adversity, the most successful people have usually had hardship and failure many times over before finally getting it right. My second downsizing taught me that I needed to leverage what I was good at and to make a complete career change and I ended up in medical devices and ultimately National Sales Manager of a biotech company – with no degree and no science qualifications.

5. Expand reflection

It is a fine line between positive peer support and the misery club so you have to be extremely careful. But getting together with like minded people in a similar situation can help with recovery and faster action moving forward. Collectively learning and supporting can be a powerful combination if handled right.

6. Watch your temper

I know I was angry the first time I was downsized, the package was generous which helped cushion the blow but bottom line was my ability was being questioned (or at least I thought so at the time). Don’t overact – take time to cool off and reflect, it is nearly always a sound business decision and a cost of doing business that things have happened the way they have, its usually never personal – so don’t get angry and make it so.

7. Know when to speak

Sometimes saying nothing, even if you are correct, it might be the right thing to do – it could be a bad news meeting where you are surviving (for now) or in your termination meeting, or even at an interview with a prospective new employer – do not think just “am I right?” – but also “is my contribution going to help the situation or the people involved?” - Sometimes not and better to be silent.

Does Your Personal Brand Matter?

An interesting post at The Buzz Bin touched on some issues I've been thinking about for a while. In "I Don't Care About Your Personal Brand,' Geoff Livingston outlines why he opposes the idea of developing a personal brand. His post is aimed at people working in the online space, but his points apply to anyone. You should read the whole thing, but this is the part that caught my eye:

3) While personal brands are concerned with themselves, the market is also concerned about itself.

4) The market doesn’t care about the persona, only what value the persona contributes to the larger community.

This gets to the core of why I have never jumped on the personal branding bandwagon, despite having flirted with the idea for a while. In the end, I'm much less interested in having my clients focus on their 'brand' than on the value they can add to potential employers. Value-added is simple, direct and focused on the employer. Personal branding is something broader (to be sure value-added is a part of it, but not the only part) and seems to me much more focused on the individual.

In order to pinpoint a client's value proposition - exactly how he or she will help the company succeed - I  use many of the same approaches as a personal branding consultant, but the focus is different - not the self-indulgence of me (the candidate) but the outward focus of they (the employer).

For a long time, I attributed my reluctance to jump on the personal branding train as something related to my background. As a Brit, I'm always a little uncomfortable with anything that smacks of taking oneself too seriously. But after reading Geoff's post, I see that it's not just that.

It's this:

24) A personality oriented brand does not necessarily equate to successful results.

It's the fact that results (and actions) matter. Results and actions tell me what you will do for me. Results and actions tell me whether or not you will add value to my organization. Results and actions show me who you are much more effectively than any carefully crafted public image.

I know that many of my colleagues disagree (and many of the Career Hub bloggers will definitely disagree!) but for me, a focus on results will always be more effective than a focus on brand. After all, all products and services have brands, but how many of them deliver what they promise?

My personal favorite is my bank Chase, who tell me that 'the right relationship is everything' and then constantly leave me on hold for hours while they try to figure out why my online banking has gone awry one more time, leaving me yelling "THIS ISN'T THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP!!!" as my blood pressure soars once again.  But they do send me the occasional Starbucks gift certificate, with a very nice message about how much they value my custom, so I guess that's supposed to make it all OK ;-)

I can't help wondering how much better they would be if they stopped spending money on branding experts and fancy loyalty programs and instead invested that money in actually adding value to my life.

And in the end, that's my point. Instead of worrying about personal brands, I think people need to think about results and value-added. I expect many of my colleagues will point out that these are not mutually exclusive ideas and I agree - but that would be to miss the point. I know that in some cases, with the right candidate and the right personal branding coach, a person's 'personal brand' will be built around the results they have achieved, but I think the idea of 'personal branding' leads to the same problems with people as it does with businesses - a focus more on the message (the right relationship is everything) than on actually getting stuff done.

Let's face it, if you can show that you have delivered great results and made a big impact on prior employers, you really don't need to worry about packaging it in a pithy branding message. It will be obvious to everyone.

And if, like Chase, you haven't ... well a nice brand message might open some doors for you, but eventually people will figure out that there's nothing there.

Cross-posted at Blue Sky Resumes Blog

Play the Kevin Bacon Game to Land the Job You Want

I was listening to jobradio.fm the other day and heard some great practical tips on leveraging your network to land your next job.

As you may know, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon was a trendy game in the last decade in which the players tried to connect any film actor in history to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible and in as few links as possible. The Bacon number of an actor or actress is the number of degrees of separation he or she has from Bacon, as defined by the game.

All the rage on college campuses in the early 1990s, this trivia game is a variation on the famed "Six Degrees of Separation" concept widely popularized through exposure in the play by John Guare and adapted for the big screen in 1993 (featuring a stellar cast including Stockard Channing, Will Smith, and Donald Sutherland). According to this concept, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six "steps" away from each person on Earth.

The idea actually has some pretty solid support and research behind it, such as an ABC Primetime investigation that verified it is a small world after all and a study by Microsoft researchers that examined records of 30 billion e-mails among 180 million people in various countries and found that any two strangers are, on average, distanced by precisely 6.6 degrees of separation.

What exactly does this mean for you? It means that you really can in all likelihood use networking to zero in on a valuable contact that will help you successfully conclude your job search, and you can probably do it in far fewer than 6 steps. After all, you are probably not trying to reach the Queen of England or the Pope--just someone who works in your field of interest or at a company where you would like to work.

So how does one play the Kevin Bacon Game to land a dream job? We all know by now that networking is one of the most effective ways (if not the most effective way) to search for employment. The Kevin Bacon strategy encourages us to think outside the box when considering who is in our network, to leverage that network to the utmost, and build on it.

Here are 3 key rules that will greatly expand your network horizons and help you to achieve success in your networking efforts:

>>> Look outside your normal network. Consider people such as your hairdresser, mechanic, doctor, manicurist, pharmacist, etc. who know a lot of people.

>>> E-mail everyone in your address book with specific information on the job you want. Ask each person to identify at least one person they know in your field of interest (or if possible who works at a company that interests you).

>>> Once you have made a new contact, never fail to ask "Who might you suggest I speak with next?"

You'll be surprised at how rapidly your network will expand, and amazed at the unlikely sources from which good job leads will flow.

Posted by: Laurie Smith

Is it about to change?

It is interesting to note that as something becomes more popular and many more people talk, write and with technology now everything else online about it that debate about it's pros and cons escalate. Obama versus Hilary and then Obama versus McCain a case in point.

So is the case with personal branding. When I first started over 5 years ago looking at the subject there was very little out there - certainly on the web - save for Tom Peters article - Brand You - a few books and William Arruda over at Reach, whom I connected with very early on and got involved in his first ever certification program.

Now never a day goes by without the term coming up multiple times on Google alerts, Twitter, etc etc.

When I talk to a prospective client for personal branding I want them to make an informed choice, it is certainly not for everyone and so they should weigh up the pros and cons of personal branding. That is why I liked the current debate going on prompted by an initial post over at Buzz Bin by Geoff Livingston - I Don't Care About Your Personal Brand and then a thoughtful post by Mitch Joel over at Twist Image - Why You Need To Care More About Your Personal Brand. both posts have prompted a lively continuing conversation and debate.

The events of this week have highlighted that lively debate about opposing views stimulates greater engagement and involvement and that makes us all a little more informed, whether you think you are a brand, or not. Thanks Geoff and Mitch for the conversation.

Cross posted on Reflections of a Square Peg blog

The Language of Career Management

If you are a job seeker, perhaps you're spending a lot of time, energy and money in equipping yourself with 21st-century leading-edge career management strategies and best practices. Do you ever feel overwhelmed in trying to learn all the stuff there is to know about the career business? Do you feel like you're trying to learn a whole new language and not much of it is making sense, yet?

Imagínese y soñe. Piense grande. Comience pequeño.

Considere las opciones. Descubra. No dé para arriba.

Sea persistente. Búsqueda. Hallazgo. Posibilidades y opciones.

Cualquier cosa es posible. Resultados asombrosos. Felicidad.

Gratitud. Sonrisa. Muestre el aprecio. Hoy. Mañana. Siempre.

Just like the text above, maybe you can read it and maybe you can't. Maybe it makes sense and maybe it doesn't. For some, learning career tips, tricks, and tactics is much like learning a whole new language. At first, maybe you can't figure anything out; it's all gobbledygook. But the more you learn and discover, the more things seem to fall into place. Piece by piece, word by word, bit by bit, sooner or later, the career puzzle begins to fit together and take shape. You figure out a word here, a line there, and voila, you begin to get it.

No matter how you say it, spin it, or speak it, there's no better time than now to learn the language of the career management business to help you move forward in this competitive, volatile, ever-changing 21st-century workplace. Buena suerte.

posted by: billiesucher

Are you perfect?

Just went to this You Tube video from a Twitter recommend by Guy Kawasaki - really has changed my whole thinking about the day. It explains what drives Tiger Woods to continue to want to improve - the pursuit of perfection. The scene setting is a little long - but worth the wait for the last 30 seconds - awesome

Cross posted on Reflections of a Square Peg