Apr 28 2018
Your New Career – Part 2: Your Toolset

Now finally we are finally getting into the meat of things with finding your new career. And it calls for organization and effort.

Note that my advice is based on my experience of seeking a professional, managerial position.  My previous position was just shy of C-level, so what I was looking for was a bit north of a lay position.  A lot of what you’ll read is about aiming at the middle to upper management.  However, most of the suggestions can be leveraged for any position you’re interviewing for.  And, as I’ve said, if you have specific questions you can always email me or post a question in the comments.

Let’s start by getting set up with the tools you’ll need to be successful:

  1. Make sure you have an electronic calendar where you can keep all of your appointments.  In my case, I used Mac’s Calendar app.  All my devices (all Apple products) use it and they sync using iCloud.  It’s vitally important that you know who you’re meeting with and when.  Missing appointments is a great way to lose a golden opportunity or send a negative message to your potential employer.  A paper calendar can make do, but why not instead make an effort to move into the 21st century and leverage a digital calendar?  Further, by using an integrated calendar app, the appointment contains the address where you’re heading to (and/or the phone number) and you can immediately link to Maps and get guidance and drive time, or you can click on the phone number and easily make a call if you’re running late.  Try that with paper! (…during the interview, slowly unfolds paper map to find the location of next interview…gets paper cut…).

    When choosing a calendar app, you can certainly also use the calendar that is part of Outlook.  That works best when Outlook is also your mail client.  Outlook, however, does not play well with Mac Calendar or Mac Contacts, not even Google contacts (at least for now).
    You can also use Google Calendar, which works well if you have a Google email address.  You can access it by logging into Google and going to calendar.google.com. The good news is that Mac Calendar can connect to the Google Calendar, but Outlook appears not to.  The bad news is that, as with anything you share with Google, it will be scanned and stored for use by their AI marketing monster.
    You can use a paper calendar organizer but imagine how “high-tech” you’ll look when you’re interviewing and have to crack open that journal and write your follow-up appointment down.

  2. Make sure you have an electronic Contacts list.  If you’re like me, a few years ago my contacts were scattered everywhere.  I had Outlook contacts, and Google contacts, separate contacts on my phone, iPad, Mac laptop contacts, and a mishmash of every person I’d interacted with for 25 years.

    I switched to using Google contacts.  Again, this is best when you already have a Google email address, and you can access it using http://contacts.google.com. See the pattern?  http://[content type].google.com and you can get directly to the page with the info you want.  I linked it to my Mac, and it works flawlessly with Mac mail.  However, it doesn’t work well with Outlook.  That’s another pattern you’ll find.

    This is the perfect time to go through ALL of your contacts, merge duplicates, and delete those that are no longer relevant.  Export all of your contacts into a flat-file and import them into Google, which has a nice “find duplicates” feature that lets you merge similar contacts.
    Make sure you have a “me” contacts entry that allows you to quickly send yourself an email.  This is great when you want to take down notes via your electronic device and send them to yourself for later.

  3. Make sure you have access to solid Word Processing software.  You would be surprised how many resumes I’ve seen that were clearly written in Notepad (or vim).  Nearly every platform comes with a decent word processor.  Certainly, Microsoft Word is the king, but Mac Pages is fine, along with a bevy of free writing tools you can download.  Or just invest in the Microsoft Office 360 license, at least for now.  All you really need is a way to do bullet points, bold text, paragraphing, and, for the love of God, spelling, and grammar checks!
  4. Setup a Cloud or backup storage location.  This is not directly related to your job search, but having a cloud drive that you can access from any device allows you to quickly get to your resume or other pertinent information.  Imagine you arrive at a job interview and realize you didn’t bring any extra copies of your resume.  With your resume being on a cloud drive, you can quickly print a few copies at Kinko’s, for example.

    And I should not have to convince you to have a solid backup of all your systems.  I use Apple TimeMachine.  You can use an external drive or the aforementioned cloud drive.  This has saved me even when all I needed was the last version of my resume.

  5. Create a Job Search Log.  On a shared/cloud drive, create a document that you will use to track every company that you contacted or sent a resume to, and every networking activity you participate in — and the result.  Below is a snippet of my log:
    Sample Job Log

    It’s basically a three-column table that includes the date, the activity, and the current status.  I used “orange” to indicate job applications, and white (or clear background) to indicate other activities, and gray for those that had reached a conclusion (good or bad).  These are all gray because they were from earlier this year.

    Also, you may forget where you have applied and apply there again.  Or perhaps you applied and never heard back – this is a great reminder tool to check the status of that application.

    Keep this log close to you and update it nightly (or more frequently).  As you’re looking for a job, networking, getting feedback and referrals, it’s easy to lose track of the last thing that happened.   It also helps you remember names and assemble your notes.

    Take any names of people or organizations and add them to your contact list.  Make sure you include phone numbers and addresses.  If you don’t know the address for a business, for goodness sake use Google to search for it.

  6. Get a decent email address.  Oh my oh my, how many resumes have I seen where the person’s email address is something like “deerhunter37@aol.com” or “babybabyloveme@hotmail.com”.  C’mon people!

    First, do you really want an interviewer to judge you based on your email address before getting to know you?  What if your email is “crookedhillary@yahoo.com” or “impeachtrump@gmail.com”?  Is that the right message you want to send professionally?  Hint: NO.   Invest in getting a decent and professional email address (they’re free!) that uses your name or some derivative of it.  Make sure it doesn’t send a message about your political, romantic, dietary, or pop-culture references (“hanshotfirst@greedo.com”).  You want to be a blank slate heading into that interview.

    Also, having domains that seem old or outdated (@aol.com, @myspace.com, @netzero.com, @me.com) again just paints a picture of your technology hipness before you get a chance to say a word.  AOL implies you use a dial-up connection (14.4K baby!) and the others are just old providers of email addresses.  Go grab a free email address from Google, iCloud – or create your own domain (https://www.melyssagriffin.com/use-gmail-custom-domain/).
    Here’s an article on the “mockability” of your email domain. (http://11points.com/11-email-providers-ranked-mock-ability/)

    As you progress through interviews and the ranks of interviewers at an organization, your email address will be seen by more and more people.  Make sure it reflects your professionalism.

  7. Find a tool to provide background information on an organization.  This is not absolutely required, but you really should know the details about the company you will be interviewing with.  If you were laid off, you may have been provided access to an outplacement service.  If so, they often provide access to Hoovers or Bloomberg, or others to be able to research the financial viability of organizations.  If you don’t have that, Google can suffice.

    Really this is more advice than a tool: make sure you research an organization before you apply for a job there.  What’s happened recently?  Did they just get acquired?  What’s their financial position?  What earnings (losses) did they report in the last quarter?  If nothing else, it gives you discussion material during an interview to show you’ve done your homework (more on that in a subsequent article).

  8. Pay for LinkedIn Premium.  If you’re already on LinkedIn, you probably have received countless offers to upgrade to Premium.  I eventually did and found it helpful.  You will get one month free, and then I paid for a subsequent month.   Premium Career (currently $29.99 a month) is sufficient.   In my opinion, it’s perhaps barely worth the cost, but worth it.

    Using premium you can see who looked at your profile and often see a specific name or organization that showed interest.  You get statistics on how often your name came up on searches.   To me, that was an important and interesting part.  It allowed me to follow-up with people who seemed to revisit my profile.  You have to be careful and not do this in a creepy way.  I’d recommend referencing the organization they work with and not “hey, I saw you skulking around my profile…”

    Also, you can turn on the “I’m looking for a job” switch on LinkedIn, which makes your profile show up on candidate searches.
    A future article will provide direction on cleaning up your online presence, including on LinkedIn.

  9. Pay for a Resume Writing Service. Oh yes, this is important.  We’ll get into your resume in more detail in a subsequent article, but this is so important.

    Resume structures and accepted formats change often.  What looked cool and hip a few years ago (your headshot on a resume!) is embarrassing now.  Multi-columns versus single column, using color, a “career goals” section, how you list employment, how far you go back and other key elements of a resume keep changing.  Having a professional service create a resume for you is useful and vital.  You’ll stand out from the others who still use outdated techniques, and you’ll be seen as investing in your job search.

    Also, the way companies scan resumes and look for keywords can be severely impaired if you create a cutesy resume with all sorts of “cool” fonts (papyrus, anyone?).

  10. Wardrobe Makeover.  This is absolutely a tool. The way you look is also seriously important to how you fare in an interview.  It’s unfortunate but true that employers will judge you on how well your clothes fit, how contemporarily professional you appear and the color combination you choose.  There are suit colors that are more appropriate for interviews than others not just the obvious (stay away from all-white unless you’re applying for the job of host of Fantasy Island).

    If you were previously employed at a casual or business casual organization, you may find that you don’t even own a well-fitting suit, or that your polo shirts are ratty, bally, and worn.
    If you’re serious about getting a decent job, you’ll have to spend some money on a few good interviewing outfits, new shoes, and even a new carrying case.  We’ll cover a section on the interview process, but please do NOT show up at an interview with a backpack, or any hat, or way colorful socks.

    Also, get a haircut, get your teeth whitened, treat that acne, invest in cologne (don’t slather it on!), practice smiling naturally, practice your handshake.   When you step into the interviewer’s office, you need to strike them as a great “first impression” person.  This is often a key, but unwritten part of the interview process.

    Finally, have your interview clothes dry cleaned.  Don’t just iron them or worse yet show up with wrinkled clothes.  After every two or three interviews, have them dry cleaned again.

Being prepared for your job search means having all the tools in place to react to opportunities, do research on organizations, and have that snappy outfit ready when you’re called in for an unexpected interview.

willrwills 5 Comments
Apr 26 2018
Your New Career – Part 1.5: Emotions in Motion

Alright, before I get into the good stuff I wanted to write another short article on attitude and emotion.

[The reader quickly closes the browser]

220px-SqmotFor those who continued to read, thank you.  I think it’s important to discuss some of the feelings you may be going through at this point.  And some realities.
Emotions in Motion, Track 2 from Billy Squier’s similarly titled album (1982)
According to some scientists, there are six basic ways you might be in the situation where you’re in search of a job, though there are many variations (for example, you could be a circus clown that caused a high-wire disaster and thus had to sneak off in the night before The Flying Garbanzos broke into your trailer and brained you).

The main reasons you may be looking for a job include:

  1. You are searching for your first job.
  2. Your organization shut down and you’re out of a job.
  3. You were fired from your job.
  4. You voluntarily quit your job.
  5. You were laid off from your job. (similar to #2 above)
  6. You working now but considering a switch.

This article on emotion may not apply to people in situations 1, 4, and 6.  However, forthcoming posts on how to search for a new job will apply to all cases, including the specific aforementioned clown situation.

Let me be clear.  You are valuable.  You have skills and talents that others want.  Or, you can develop those skills and talents into something that is very desirable.  But the last thing you want to do is to let your dismissal from a job be a commentary on your self-worth.  Even if you were let go because you were underperforming, that is a commentary on your skills and not you as a person.  Stuart Smalley would agree.

There is a natural tendency for humans to undervalue their worth [except for narcissists].

In fact, some of the most talented and amazing people suffer from something called The Imposter Syndrome. (Wiki: Imposter Syndrome).  In short, the work you do comes so easy to you that you start to worry that you really don’t have a skill; that anyone could do what you do, and eventually someone will find out you’re a fraud.  Everyone from Donny Osmond to Neil Degrasse-Tyson has suffered from this psychological affectation, and those are very talented people.  So if you are thinking that you have nothing to offer, you’re probably wrong.  When you get very good at something, it often feels like you’re just phoning it in.  But you’re not.

If you’re laid off from a company, you could be feeling sad, bitter, or shocked.  It’s like being dumped by your significant other.  You may feel isolated or just plain old sad.  And you may secretly hope that the organization suffers from your departure; that they never recover and eventually go bankrupt and close down.  Yeah, they didn’t realize what a mistake they made by letting you go! Not much chance of that usually.
Anyway, and once you get a new and better job (and you will!), you won’t care as much about that sentiment.  Note that I said, “as much”.

Alternatively, if the company that laid you off is in some sort of turmoil, that turmoil will continue with your departure (unless you were the one who caused the turmoil).  So at least be pleased with that.  But put your energy into the new search and not into casting spells against your former employer.  Be positive and embrace positive thoughts. “I’m positive they will collapse without me!”

If you were fired from your job, it could have been for a number of reasons.  If it was because you violated an HR policy, then learn from that and don’t do it again.  However, if you were let go as part of a performance issue, take the feedback seriously.  But please don’t take it personally.  You can either find a job that you have the skills for, or you can take the initiative to identify those skills that you seemed to be lacking and improve.  There are so many easy and often free ways to gain experience and skills.  More on that in a future post.

The worst thing you can do is let the dismissal play in your mind over and over, or think about what you could have done differently, or whose fault it was that you were let go.  Let it go.  You can’t change the past.  You can’t even predict the future.  You can barely control what’s going on in the “now”.  So, all you can do is take stock of where you are and create a plan to get back on your feet.

And, just as you move on, your former employer will move on.  Think about the things that the job provided you, be thankful for all the things you learned, and build upon those skills.  Or, take the traits of your former job that were less than stellar and plan on finding someplace that doesn’t suffer from the same deficiencies.

One special note for those who were employed for 10+ years before finding themselves out of work.  There’s definitely a benefit to the stability of being employed by the same organization for many years.  But nowadays it’s rare to work the same job from a young age to retirement.  The job market is just too competitive, and most employees and organizations are frankly not that loyal anymore.

One of the disadvantages of working that many years at the same organization is that you end up carrying a lot of accumulated baggage throughout that time.  Especially if it’s common at that company for many people to work as many years as you did.  Every mistake, every person you made angry, every dumb thing you did and said will follow you throughout your employment.  It’s hard to reset or atone for misdeeds, and it’s equally hard to impress on people who have traits that you haven’t shown before.

So, if you did work at the same organization for many a year, and you find yourself out of a job, you should be thinking about the things that you will do differently at your next gig.  You’ll get the amazing opportunity to reset and work with people who have no preconceived notions of who you are.  And that’s a blessing even if you were well-liked.  We all have things we would have done differently if we could go back and do it all over again.

But you can’t go back, as Eddie Money pointed out so repetitively.  But you could be his little baby by buying two tickets to paradise.  Shaking.
All the above encouragement applies to you if you are currently employed but looking for another job.  That’s a very difficult situation because the job search process is a full-time job in itself.  Don’t feel hopeless if you haven’t had much luck.   I’ll give you some tips and techniques to help you land that job while you’re working.

Now that you are hopefully feeling better about yourself and the situation you’re in, let’s start with the real meat of the program.  Part 2 coming soon.
Better-days-are-on-the-way

willrwills 0 Comments
Apr 24 2018
Your New Career – Part 1: So You Lost Your Job

If you’re reading this, you’re likely out of a job.  Maybe you were laid off, maybe something else.  Or maybe you’re in a dead-end job and you are longing for something better.  Maybe you’re more adventurous and you quit your current occupation without having another one waiting for you?  It doesn’t matter because this is about finding your next career opportunity.

There are certain people who go through life and experience hardships, and then success ,and are happy with celebrating their good fortune privately.

That’s perfectly acceptable. There are others who feel the same way but then have the urge to help others who were in the same circumstances.   I would fit into the latter category.   That’s why my blog contains articles on fixing PS3’s and touch-sensitive faders.

If I figure out something useful, I want to share it with others.  And that’s the purpose of the forthcoming articles.

Now I can’t guarantee that if you follow the suggestions I will present in this series that you will end up as gainfully and happily re-employed as I am.  But I know the knowledge I will impart can only make your circumstances better.  And some of it is not intuitive.

I took notes for myself through the re-employment process and based on those notes I think this will at least a six-part series, maybe more.  I won’t come back and edit this paragraph if the actual number is different.

Let me kick this off by saying that losing one’s job is painful and scary.

There are certainly financial implications. You may lose your health coverage, or it may suddenly triple in cost via COBRA.   It’s a “job” to search for a job; it takes a lot of effort. It can be twice as bad if you don’t have solid support behind you in your family.  But you can overcome it.

Be aware that nearly all of those people who were your work friends will remain your work friends. By that I mean, you will lose nearly all of them as friends.  Be prepared for about 10% – 15% of your former acquaintances reaching out to you to offer help after you are unemployed.   This could be because they are afraid for their own jobs and don’t want to be seen interacting with someone no longer working at their organization.  It could be they are uncomfortable or embarrassed and don’t know how to interact with you now that you don’t share that commonality.  There could be politics involved that would make it impossible for them to interact with you going forward.  Or in a few cases, you may no longer be useful to them now that you are not influential in their organization.  Don’t let any of that bother you.  The folks who do reach out to you are special and you should focus on them.  And focus on your network outside of work (more on that later…)

Finally, there is a book that helped me through the process and that I probably should have read long ago.  It was suggested by a former co-worker who turned out to be only a work friend unfortunately, but that did not devalue the suggestion.  The book is called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (Amazon: The Power of Now ).  It’s described as a spiritual book, and in many ways it is, but it’s really about how to live your life in a way that puts the most emphasis on what is going on at the moment, and not dwelling in the past, or having your hopes hanging on some future event.  It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it.  And it’s somewhat difficult to read; I had to read it in parts.  I often go back and re-scan sections.  It puts things in proper perspective and makes for a much calmer experience.

Look for a new article every week or less and please let me know your thoughts or share your experiences.  Let me know if anything you read actually helped you get interviews or, hopefully, landed you a great new occupation.

Are you ready for your next big opportunity?

Well, let’s go find it.

willrwills 4 Comments