Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Hey Job Seeker! Santa Works in Mysterious Ways!

Since many job seekers have decided to ‘pack it in’ now that the holidays are soon upon us, it is the perfect time to show potential employers how serious you are about getting a new job. Contrary to popular belief, the holidays are often a prime time for job seeking. The time between thanksgiving and New Year's can be the perfect time to ensure that you will be the first hired in the New Year (or sooner).

Company Year End
By the end of the calendar year, many company departments have been given their budgets and now know how many new people they can afford to hire and at what salary.

January New Hires
Companies that are looking to hire for January will have to search for suitable candidates in November and December. If you aren’t out there looking, they can’t find you!

Maintain the Course
Many job seekers take time off during the holidays. Stand out with potential employers by keeping up your contact schedule.

Network During the Holidays
Keep building your professional network. Attend events that are billed as ‘social’ and accept invitations to as many holiday events as your schedule can handle - you never know who you are going to meet or where. Word of caution - Regardless of the reason for the gathering, you should always maintain your air of professionalism. While having a glass of Christmas cheer may be acceptable to most, know that Santa’s Elves are watching your every move. Refrain from being naughty at all costs!

Professional Associations
Join a professional association and attend its holiday meeting. These parties may attract members who do not attend regular meetings. The meetings are more social and often do not have extensive agendas, thus allowing you more time to meet new people.

Contact Maintenance
Sending holiday greetings is the perfect way to maintain or re-establish contacts you made in earlier months.

Low-Key and Creative
Create business cards with a mini-resume on the back. These cards can be a low-key way to remind people that you are available.

Seasonal/Temporary Jobs
Take a part-time holiday job or accept temporary jobs through an agency. The job will help you stay active and allow you to meet people. By working part-time, you can still allocate time to your job search. And don't be surprised if this seasonal work turns into something more long term!

Volunteer
Volunteering is good networking, adds to your résumé, and is also personally satisfying.

Church /Temple/ Any group Attendance

Attendance at many places of worship is higher during this season. If you attend church /temple or have been thinking about joining, this is an excellent time to introduce yourself to the community.

Take Care and Be Good

Take good care of yourself. Holiday celebrations plus job-seeking can often equal a double dose of stress. Make sure to take some time to do activities you enjoy!


Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. All Rights Reserved.Permission to Reprint: This article may be reprinted, provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution: Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. Reprinted by permission of Mary Salvino.“Career Matters” is a blog hosted by Mary Salvino, Senior Consultant for SMART Career Planning.com. This blog is dedicated to those who are seeking advice on managing their career and future job opportunities. We welcome readers to share their experiences, post their comments or ask questions about career related matters. For any questions or comments that are better addressed privately, please feel free to e-mail Mary directly at Mary.Salvino@shaw.ca

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Phone Interview and You

In the interest of saving both time and money, many employers have opted to use Phone interviews as a common way for employers to screen potential employees during the hiring process. Unlike traditional, in-person job interviews, phone interviews are usually short, require less preparation, and may even be outsourced by the employer if deemed necessary. These features make phone interviewing an effective way to narrow down the list of candidates before scheduling face-to-face interviews. If the prospect of a phone interview makes you nervous, these tips can help turn an awkward interview into a confidence-inspiring success.

Tip 1:
Preparation is the Name of the Game

When preparing for a phone interview, don’t forget that not all recruiters and employers schedule them ahead of time. At any moment, a recruiter or potential employer could stumble across your résumé and decide to call you with regard to a recent application. Your chances for success in your job search will be greatly improved if you try to always expect the unexpected (especially during a job interview).


Tip 2:
Keep Your Résumé Near You and Your Phone

In an ideal situation, you should be able to go to where you store all of your job search related information. If that is not possible, at the very minimum, you should keep a copy of your basic résumé with you at all times.

Tip 3:
Always have access to a notepad and pen during a phone interview

Write down the interviewer’s name, key questions he or she asked, and your responses. If you have a copy of the original ad in front of you, it will be easier to identify what the potential employer is looking for in a candidate. If a particular qualification is listed in the ad, then it is important to the potential employer so, try to list how your skill set and qualifications speak directly to what the potential employer is searching for in their ideal candidate.


Tip 4:
Practice (and a Cheat Sheet) Makes Perfect

Just like with a traditional job interview, you should try to anticipate questions the interviewer might ask. If you have come up with examples and practiced your answers ahead of time, you will sound much more intelligent and confident in the interview. Moreover, since the interviewer cannot see you, there is nothing to stop you from referring to a “cheat sheet” – notes to help you remember your practiced answers, so that you never sound like you have been taken off guard.


Tip 5:
Create a System for Keeping Track of the Résumés You Send

Take the time to record and catalogue the basic information on each company, position title, contact name, date the position was applied for, and qualifications for the job. Keep the original ad as well at a copy of the cover letter and résumé you sent in. If you have a chance to research the company, make a file with that information, and keep it near the phone as well.


Treat phone interviews in the same manner as any other kind of interview. If, as a result of the interview, you have not been scheduled for a second interview, you should still take the time to send a follow-up note to thank them for their consideration. If you feel that you could have answered some of the interview questions in more detail, you should include this additional information in your follow-up note.


Just as an aside, take the time to remove all of the 'cutesy' messages on your answering machine. And, if you are one of those few who do not have call display, train your children to NOT answer the phone when you are looking for a new career opportunity.



Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. All Rights Reserved.Permission to Reprint: This article may be reprinted, provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution: Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. Reprinted by permission of Mary Salvino.“Career Matters” is a blog hosted by Mary Salvino, Senior Consultant for SMART Career Planning.com. This blog is dedicated to those who are seeking advice on managing their career and future job opportunities. We welcome readers to share their experiences, post their comments or ask questions about career related matters. For any questions or comments that are better addressed privately, please feel free to e-mail Mary directly at Mary.Salvino@shaw.ca

Friday, November 19, 2010

The Money Is In The Follow-Up

When you are looking for new career opportunities, it is critical that you treat your job search as a business relationship. After you send out your résumé, you have two options. One, sit back and want for all of the calls to come in asking you to come in for an interview (don’t hold your breath) or two, develop a system to identify your job leads and treat these leads in the same manner as any good salesperson would.

Take the time to nurture the relationship and remember to follow up with the administrator regularly. In business, as in your successful job search, conversion of sales and leads is all in the follow-up. A good follow-up is critical to building strong relationships with your prospective clients/employers. Unless you are offering them an immediate fix to an issue they have right now, a prospective client/employer will not normally buy from you on your first contact.

Finding the correct job will take time. In most cases, buying/hiring is an emotional process, and it will take time for the trust to be built between you and your client/potential employer. "Trust is a Must" in any business or employer/employee relationship.

When building trusting relationships, it is important to be very clear and consistent in your follow-up with prospects. A “No” today, might just mean a maybe tomorrow; or a "Not right now, call me again in few weeks." - could be a "Yes, I am ready to work with you."

Being committed to following up on your prospects can be the difference between not having any relationship at all and an extraordinary one. When I hear job seekers say that they don't have the time to carry out a proper follow-up regime, my response is that they can't afford not to have the time. The follow-up is an important aspect to any successful business relationship.

Consider the following: A prospective client/employer calls you in for a chat to find out more about what you can do to solve some of their current challenges - they may have been referred to you or found you via the Internet. You may have even cold called this potential prospect, in the hope of doing business with them. This is the first contact you have with the person and although they think what you have to offer is great, and you followed your sales plan close to the "T", they decide not to pursue your service.

What you do now is important! You can either file it away in the ‘too hard’ basket, like a large majority of people do, or you can put it straight into your follow-up system. Remember that effective job searches are akin to selling any product or service effectively. In order to be successful you need to develop a system that puts the focus on building trusting relationships.







Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. All Rights Reserved.Permission to Reprint: This article may be reprinted, provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution: Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. Reprinted by permission of Mary Salvino.“Career Matters” is a blog hosted by Mary Salvino, Senior Consultant for SMART Career Planning.com. This blog is dedicated to those who are seeking advice on managing their career and future job opportunities. We welcome readers to share their experiences, post their comments or ask questions about career related matters. For any questions or comments that are better addressed privately, please feel free to e-mail Mary directly at Mary.Salvino@shaw.ca

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The Elevator Pitch - It is YOUR business!

An "Elevator Pitch" is a concise, carefully planned, and well-practiced description about you or your company that your mother should be able to understand in the time it would take to ride up an elevator. It is NOT a sales pitch. It is a brief introduction to let your audience know about the goods and/or services you have to offer.

The most effective elevator pitches answer the following questions:

What is the name of the product or service?
  1. For business - What is the product or service that you are trying to sell?

  2. For personal - What is your current job title?

  3. If you are a job seeker - What is the job title of opportunity you are seeking?

What are the competitive advantages of the product or service?
  1. For business - What makes your product or service ‘better than’ the product or service that potential customers can get from your competition?

  2. For personal - What makes you good at what you do?

  3. If you are a job seeker - Can you fill the need[s] of a potential employer?

What is your hook?
  1. For business - What is the tag line for the business?

  2. For personal - Why does anyone need to remember you?

  3. If you are a job seeker - What can you do or say to help those you meet remember you?

When perfecting your elevator pitch it may be helpful to consider and incorporate the following helpful hints:

  • Concise - Use 100 words or less to focus on what is at the core of your message
  • Clear - Use terminology that laypeople can understand
  • Make some kind of request - Do you want their business card, to schedule a full presentation, to ask for a referral?
  • Practice your delivery and keep it fresh - Your language, your approach, and what you choose to highlight for a particular audience has got to change over time
  • Use powerful words
  • Use words that create a visual image to help your audience remember you and/or the product you are selling
  • Stick to hard facts and numbers
  • Tell a story - Focus on the opportunity/problem that you have encountered and why you or your solution is the most unique way to provide value and benefit to your audience
  • Target your pitch to the right audience - Develop more than one pitch, if necessary


Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. All Rights Reserved.Permission to Reprint: This article may be reprinted, provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution: Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. Reprinted by permission of Mary Salvino.“Career Matters” is a blog hosted by Mary Salvino, Senior Consultant for SMART Career Planning.com. This blog is dedicated to those who are seeking advice on managing their career and future job opportunities. We welcome readers to share their experiences, post their comments or ask questions about career related matters. For any questions or comments that are better addressed privately, please feel free to e-mail Mary directly at Mary.Salvino@shaw.ca

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Good, Bad and Ugly Companies, Their Senior Officers/Managers, Bosses, and You

Before you sign on the dotted line you should consider that all companies ultimately demonstrate how Good, Bad or Ugly they are through their hiring practices and organizational culture.

When you apply a Bell curve to measure how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ a company is, only a few of whatever you are measuring will fall into either end of the curve. The majority of what you are measuring will fall somewhere in the middle. This same principle can be applied to the health of companies and the competency of their employees.
What follows are the main attributes of the most successful companies as well as the characteristics of their senior officers and managers. This information has been gathered and summarized from decades of studying, observing, motivating and inspiring employees to perform at their best:

  • Good companies and hiring managers will strive to will pay people what they are worth, not what they can get away with paying. They will supply a pay range for a specific opportunity and understand that more often than not, the amount the company chooses to pay is directly related to the competence level of potential employees.

  • Good companies encourage their employees to share their experiences and insights. Organizations that incorporate mentoring and coaching as a matter of course are more successful than those that do not. Knowledge transfer is good for both business and morale.

  • Good companies will share both good and bad news with their employees. The more senior officers within the company will share news in a factual manner and be there to answer any questions or concerns that arise from the announcements.

  • Good companies provide their managers with the necessary tools that enable them to do their jobs effectively. Good bosses keep management off employee’s backs.

  • The senior officers of good companies expect their managers to take the heat and share the praise. It takes courage to take the heat and humility to share the praise. This is an attribute that comes naturally to great bosses.

  • Good bosses delegate responsibilities, not tasks. Every boss delegates, but the ones that routinely dump the tasks they hate on workers will survive for only a limited amount of time. Good bosses delegate responsibility and hold people accountable. As a result, this symbiotic relationship becomes more fulfilling for both the boss and the subordinate and fosters professional growth.

  • Good bosses encourage employees to hone their natural abilities and challenge or help guide them to overcome their perceived obstacles.

  • Good companies encourage the building of team spirit. There is an exceptional, one-of-a-kind book that describes - in dramatic and insightful fashion - the conditions under which great groups occur. It’s called Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration, by Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman. The 10 Rules of Great Groups (from the book’s original 15) are as follows:

    1. Great groups and great leaders create each other

    2. Every great group has a strong leader

    3. The leaders of great groups love talent and know where to find it

    4. Great groups think they are on a mission from God

    5. Great groups see themselves as winning underdogs

    6. Great groups always have an enemy

    7. People in great groups have blinders on

    8. Great groups are optimistic not realistic

    9. In great groups, the right person has the right job

    10. The leaders of great groups give them what they need and free them from the rest


  • Good bosses treat employees the way they deserve to be treated. This means that respect is not automatic; it must be earned.

  • Good bosses inspire people by sharing their passion for business. Good bosses can motivate people and inspire their employees by knowing just what to say and do at just the right time to take the edge off or turn a tough situation around. Genuine anecdotes help a lot. So does a good sense of humour.



All of the above adds up to an environment where people feel appreciated, recognized, challenged, and appropriately compensated. In order to help ensure that your next career move is as good as it could be, do your research. Find out everything you can about the company’s organizational structure and culture before you sign on the dotted line.



Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. All Rights Reserved.Permission to Reprint: This article may be reprinted, provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution: Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. Reprinted by permission of Mary Salvino.“Career Matters” is a blog hosted by Mary Salvino, Senior Consultant for SMART Career Planning.com. This blog is dedicated to those who are seeking advice on managing their career and future job opportunities. We welcome readers to share their experiences, post their comments or ask questions about career related matters. For any questions or comments that are better addressed privately, please feel free to e-mail Mary directly at Mary.Salvino@shaw.ca

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Toxic Bosses Are Hazardous To Your Health (and Career)

We’ve all heard stories about the nightmare of working for a toxic boss. Some of us have even had the unique displeasure of doing so ourselves. Red flags to such behaviour often appear as early as the interview process. What follows are the warning signs of a toxic boss. If you heed this advice, you might be able to avoid a negative work environment and a horrible life experience. At the very minimum, you will be able to gain some insight as to what you are signing up for.

Disrespectful Behaviour: Be wary of unprofessional behaviour, especially if it rears its ugly head even before your actual interview. Simple mini-moments of disrespect include e-mails that aren’t returned, changes to interview dates and times without notice and a lack of apology for having to reschedule meetings foreshadow your potential supervisor’s style.

Visual Cues: If, upon meeting you for the first time, your ‘would-be’ boss scans you from head to toe as they extend their hand to greet you, they are intuitively sending a message that you are not as important as they believe themselves to be. Body language experts will tell you that such an action, albeit subtle, is the nonverbal equivalent of a belittling comment. This action is a good sign that your talents are not going to flourish in the environment.

Defensive Body Language: If you are good at your job as is revealed and supported by your marketing collateral i.e. résumé, social networking profile, portfolio of work, an insecure hiring manager or boss will find you threatening and will use the power of their position to make your life miserable. Telltale clues that the person you are talking with are intimidated by your ‘credentials’ include constant shifting, avoiding eye contact and rifling through papers as you talk.

Bad Attitude: If your interviewer exhibits a general lack of enthusiasm or interest in the company, watch out! It could be a bad day, or it could be a bad boss. To help suss out the reason for the behaviour, ask for information about company turnover rates and turnover rates for the division or individual manager. Once those rates have been revealed, you can then compare those rates to industry standards. If the interviewer claims not to have that information at hand, don’t buy it!

Distrust of Others: A toxic environment is often revealed by the attitude of key members in the organization. When a boss or hiring manager openly displays a lack of trust in people, especially for those on the team in which he or she is supposed to lead, take the time to inquire about the problems/issues that are facing the company and what their causes might be. If the answers to these questions consist of blaming others in the organization, especially those on his or her team, Run like the wind!

Fear Used as a Motivator:
Ask the prospective boss or hiring manager about the others on the team with whom you will be working. During the interview process, it is perfectly acceptable to ask about how well the team works together, stays focused and meets objectives. Once these questions are answered, you can then follow-up on the question by asking about the consequences to the team for the inability to remain focused and/or reach objectives. When managers disrespect and distrust others’ motivations, they resort to extrinsic means with which to motivate. These extrinsic means include threats, public or private berating/humiliation and comments about employee terminations.

Word Choice: Word choice sets up a dynamic that can raise or lower the energy in any room. If your boss or hiring manager is in the habit of starting every sentence with a negative message and then tries to diffuse the initial comment, it is likely that negativity is plays a key part in his or her emotional life and that they carry that negativity over into work. Listen more than talk; your ears are your best hunch barometer.

Mask of Charisma:
Those in the company of toxic bosses and hiring managers who appear to be overly friendly can liken the experience to children being lured into dangerous situations with candy. If you are being presented with an opportunity that sounds too good to be true, be wary. Think to yourself, if everything here is as good as they claim it is, why is the position open in the first place?

Self-Absorption: If the ideas of your boss [or interviewer] seem to be more important than finding out about your thoughts on a particular subject, if you provide an answer and the interviewer tells you you’re wrong, or if your boss [or interviewer] interrupts you and offers their own answer to the question, it is an indication that [s]he will be difficult to work with.

Know that there are very few perfect bosses in today’s work environment. All bosses and hiring managers have their own idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, the worst of these peculiarities lower morale and productivity, cause abrupt personnel turnover and lengthy hire lag, and generate complaints and grievances.

On the ‘up side’, it takes a lot of effort to be a bad boss. True professionals, however, have the skill and ability to use the proper antidotes to make potentially bad situations more tolerable, and, at times, even more rewarding. Know that truly bad bosses will eventually be flushed out and put out of their (and your) misery. As Groucho Marx once said, "Time wounds all heels."


Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. All Rights Reserved.Permission to Reprint: This article may be reprinted, provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution: Copyright © 2010, Career Matters. Reprinted by permission of Mary Salvino.“Career Matters” is a blog hosted by Mary Salvino, Senior Consultant for SMART Career Planning.com. This blog is dedicated to those who are seeking advice on managing their career and future job opportunities. We welcome readers to share their experiences, post their comments or ask questions about career related matters. For any questions or comments that are better addressed privately, please feel free to e-mail Mary directly at Mary.Salvino@shaw.ca