Category: Corporate Games

A buddy sent me an article
because he,
a recruiter,
couldn’t believe someone wrote it
(period)
recently
and posted it on a job search site.

There’s a lot of bone-headed advice
floating around
but this article takes the cake

Human Resources expert Sarah Paul
says
“The fact that she is in a suit
(hopefully a stylish one at that)
speaks to her professionalism, ambition, power.
But taking it one step further
by wearing a skirt and
dressing in an overtly feminine way
elicits personality characteristics
more often demonstrated by women…
support, empathy, sensitivity…
which are all desirable traits of a leader
in today’s workplace.”

Lets take the skirt wearing
out of the equation.
Clientk readers know
how I feel about that.

Have you EVER seen
support, empathy, and sensitivity
(i.e. crying at the drop of a hat)
listed as traits desired
for ANY management position?

I didn’t think so.

It isn’t a big secret
what employers are looking for
in potential employees.
They write out their wants
(in code usually
for example:
flexible schedule = working 24/7)
in their job postings.

Sensitivity is NOT
one of those traits.

One of my buddies is
the sole non-white person
in his current company.
With every issue/project,
he has to fight prejudice.
The constant fighting is tiring
and it is hindering his goal
of becoming a senior executive.

He asked me
if he should stay and
‘right this wrong’,
blazing the trail for diversity,
or if he should
look for a new job,
to easier achieve what he truly wants.

My response?
Which do you value more —
the cause
(equality)
or
your personal goal
(becoming a senior executive)?

Because if he stays in his current company,
it will take decades
if EVER
to become a senior executive.
In a more diversity-friendly environment,
a senior executive position
is easier to reach.

When a cause is a goal,
it is a wonderful thing.

But when causes and goals conflict,
you have to be ‘selfish’
and make the decision
that is right for you.

Make the change YOU want to make,
not the change
others think you should make.

A loved one sent out 5 resumes.
He didn’t get any interviews
and he was convinced his resume was the issue
so he spent a week reworking it.

Another loved one has sent out
100’s of resumes.
She hasn’t landed any interviews
but she tells me
her resume doesn’t need tweaking
because “it is perfect.”

Job hunting is like any marketing program.
If the program is working,
we should expect reasonable results.

But what are reasonable results?

According to Priscilla Claman
of Career Strategies, Inc,
we should be getting 5 or 6 interviews
for every 100 reasonably-targeted resumes
we send out.
(I personally have a 10% hit rate
but that is because
I’m in a professionally designated field).

Other Job Hunting Ratios?

We should snag one second interview
for about every 8 first interviews
and
received a job offer
for every 8 or 9 positions we’ve been a finalist in.

Any less than that
and it indicates some part of
our job hunting strategy
is not working.

Everyone thinks they follow the rules.
Really they don’t,
and this can be damaging
when you’re trying to enforce
these rules.

People believe what they see,
not what they hear.

Leading Blog explains
how sometimes leaders THINK
they follow the rules they give others
when really they don’t
and…

“Sometimes this is difficult
to see in yourself,
so asking a trusted friend
if there is a disconnect
between your words
and your behavior is helpful.

As a leader,
it is too easy to think of yourself
as the exception.
“I’m busy.”
“They don’t have to deal with
what I am dealing with.”
“This is for them, I don’t need it.”

When a leader’s behavior
conforms to their talk,
there is a connective quality formed
that is worthy of trust and attention.
If we live our values
we can create radical change.”

Find a trusted friend or mentor
and assign them the task
of keeping you honest.

Blake Landau has a great post
on 14 myths about Gen Y’s.

Gen Y’s were born between 1980 and 1995.

One myth is
they won’t be long-term employees.

“You can turn us into long-term employees.
You’ll just have to do it one day at a time.
Remember we don’t trust anyone,
considering what we’ve seen unfold
in corporate America in the last ten years.
The last two years
–Wall St., Madoff, and the decline of Main Street
–make the Enron scandal look like small potatoes.
We will be loyal,
but you have to earn our trust
through consistent “trustworthy” behavior.
We crave this feeling of “safety”
so to those organizations who can create
this atmosphere based on trust,
you will find the most loyal, committed
and hard-working millennial employees.”

This is now true for ALL employees.

As a Gen X’er,
I gave day-to-day loyalty.
I worked for a large quick service restaurant chain.
I had a great job,
and an admiration for the brand.

Then they did something
I couldn’t ethically stomach,
and within days,
I put in my 2 weeks notice.

You earn your employees’ loyalty
one day at a time.
Don’t take it for granted.

Receiving advice from experts
is truly that easy
(and everyone is an expert)

As Scott Ginsberg shares…
“Affirm the value of people’s accomplishments
by constantly asking them,
“How did you do that?”
This allows you to become
a stand for people’s greatness.
And it gives them a front row seat
to their own brilliance.
Plus you might learn something cool.”

Asking how something is done
is a sincere compliment.
It states that
you admire the results so much,
you wish to replicate
the person’s success.

I get excited
when someone asks me
HOW to become a romance writer.
I happily tell them
all of the things I wish I had known
before I started.
Unfortunately, I don’t get asked
this question very often.

Ask an expert
“How did you do that?”

Gil Schwartz
in May’s Men’s Health
advises never to apologize
for fuck ups.

Why?

“Two reasons.

First, no apology is ever sufficient.
Look at how many times
Tiger Woods apologized for his misdeeds.
Did anybody care?

Second, apologies generate demands
for future punishment.
Since your apology is definitely
not accepted by anybody,
the immediate follow-up is often,
“Sure! You’re sorry now!
But what’s to be done about you?!”
If you never apologize,
you don’t give the mean guys
a chance to move to the next square.”

I’ll admit to being an apologizer
but I usually skim over the apology
and spend time on the solution
and lessons learned.

And I don’t apologize
without having some sort of solution
’cause yeah,
the mean guys will slice and dice me
otherwise.

When folks say
“Learning new skills take time”
many of us think of the time
spent in classrooms
or with mentors,
the initial learning of the skill.

It is more than that.

When I first learned to write,
I could write 250 words an hour.
I’d look at romance writers
writing four 100,000 word novels a year,
and think…
“That’s impossible.”

And it was,
for me
when I was writing 250 words an hour.

With every word I wrote,
however,
I wrote faster.
Last week, I wrote 1,000 words an hour.

This week,
I am back at the 250.
Why?
Because I’m learning a new writing trick,
and it is taking me time to master.

Don’t become discouraged.
Give yourself time to
both learn the skill
and to become accustomed
to using that skill.

September, to me, always means
back to school.
Although I haven’t been in
full time formal schooling
(life is an eternal school)
for decades,
I continue to get that
back to school urge.

And I use it.

If I haven’t taken courses
or learned any new skills in a while
(not a concern this year,
as August was a career-changing
learning month),
I sign up to learn a new skill
in September.

I also go back to school shopping.
Being a writer,
my office supplies
can be sourced during
the back to school sales.
I’ve been buying manuscript-holding binders
for pennies,
and cool creativity-driving pens,
and boxes of computer paper.

Use that back to school feeling
to drive your career
and business forward.

Recently, I started working
with a new editor.
She sent me a list of issues with my manuscript.
She sent no suggestions on how to fix them.

I was frustrated.
If I knew how to fix these issues,
they wouldn’t be issues in the first place.
I emailed her and explained that.
She eventually told me how to fix them
(as she knew all along how to fix them).

The editor-writer relationship
is very much like a mentor-protege relationship.
The mentor points out issues, sure,
but she should also point out
resources or methods
that the protege could use
to FIX the issues.

Telling her to figure it out
on her own
or to find another mentor (critique partner)
to explain how
defeats the whole purpose
of having a mentor.
A mentor without possible fixes
is simply a critic
and we all have enough of those.

The fixing is the difficult part.
If you’re not willing to offer that,
don’t become a mentor.