Commentary Archives - Mentor-Tek

Jun 4 2018

Your New Career – Part 4: Your Resume

Boy time flies when you’re not writing. It’s been a couple of weeks since my guest writer, Jordan Corn, posted his very astute piece, and its high time I get back to it!

This brings me to my next section, and it involves what is usually the first impression you will make to a prospective employer. Your resume literally becomes your calling card, and you want them to call you back.
Now, there have been plenty of in-depth articles written a great deal about resume-writing. I don’t intend to provide that level of detail; there are others who are much more qualified than I am to provide that. However, I would like to provide some high-level pointers on the traits of a good resume. And frankly, each year what looks good on a resume changes. Remember that short time when applicants put small headshots of themselves on resumes? Thank goodness that era is gone!
And now, in no particular order, some pointers on your resume.

Minimize the colors. I’ve recently been the recipient of resumes that were a Calliope of colors. Reds and yellows and blues. Kee your resume to black and white, or at worst case two muted colors. You should be going for maximum readability and not vibrance.
Drop your street address. Nowadays, all you need on the resume is your email address, your phone number, and the city/state where you live. Keep it simple. They’re not going to mail you anything!
Use an email address that is professional. I covered this in a previous part. Given that it’s so easy to create a new email address, pick something with your name on it, or something benign. “TheDogPound@aol.com” is probably not a message you want to send. Is that your rap name? Are you a fan of the Browns? What does it mean? You don’t want it to mean anything, if possible. Also, avoid mail domains that may reveal your age. “@aol.com” says “I got an email address in the early 1990’s and never looked back. Avoid “hotmail”, “aol”, “myspace”, “earthlink”, “*.rr.com”, “msn.com”. Stick to gmail, icloud or yahoo.com.
List no more than about three or four previous employments. Unless your vocation lends itself to short engagements (e.g. consultant), keep the number of previous employers short. If you’ve held multiple positions at the same organization, perhaps group those under a single name. Also, list years as the start and end date. It’s not necessary to list months any longer.
Leave certifications, education and accomplishments to the end. Your experience is the most important part of your resume.
Simply put “references available upon request”. You should already know this one.
No more than 3 pages. Honestly, two should be sufficient, but three should be the absolute maximum length. There may be some exceptions if you are applying for a C-level position.
Spell and grammar check – and do it again! Use the tools of your word-processor to spell and grammar check your resume. Then have someone else read it. And then someone else. So many resumes I’ve received over the years have typos and incorrect punctuation. Here you’re pitching that you’re detail-oriented and then you provide a resume where you use “your” instead of “you’re”. Bad.
Stay serious. Unless you’re applying for a job as a comic writer (and maybe even if you are), avoid funny quips, images, sarcasm. The resume is supposed to be a professional discussion of your experience.
Optimize your resume for job scanners. Most organizations put your resume through an online scanner to do a quick review of it. It’s vitally important that your resume is easily scannable. JobScan will scan your resume for you and provide feedback http://www.jobscan.co I would recommend using this or a similar organization to make your resume as easy to process as possible. Below is a sample output from a resume scanning site.
Customize your resume for each job you apply for. As noted in #10 above, your resume is likely to be sent through a resume scanning service. This is then used to see if your skills match the job requirements. It’s very important that you put words in your resume that meet the skill requirements of the job.
Be honest on your resume. Most people tend to stretch the truth on their resume because often it’s difficult to tell whether an applicant actually has the depth of experience that is being sought. However, if you start adding experience that you don’t have, you may ask a question in that competence area. You don’t want to sheepishly have to answer that you really don’t have that experience. Instead, keep your resume as honest as possible.
Do include a cover letter in most cases. It can’t hurt to have a cover letter and in some cases, it can help. Often a recruiter will scan the cover letter to determine whether the applicant has the appropriate level of writing skills. Sometimes you can explain certain extenuating circumstances by using a cover letter. But usually, it’s just considered professional to include one. You can actually create a very simple cover letter template that you can re-use. Make sure though that you customize it to include the date of submission, the name of the organization to which you are applying, and the position for which you are applying.
No headshots, please. That practice has thankfully died out.
Drop the “Career Ambitions” section – or whatever you call it on your resume. List a description of your strengths in a few sentences and let your experience reinforce those skills. The days of “Looking for a whatever at a great place where I can show my whatever skills” are gone.
Pay a company to write your resume. This is well worth the money.

Other non-numbered points:

Do not despair if you don’t receive any feedback. In the olden (golden) days, you would usually at least receive a rejection letter in the mail (or an email). Nowadays, you may not receive anything. Or you may not receive anything for months. Part of the reason for this is that the application process has become so easy that a job opening may have hundreds of applicants. Organizations typically can’t respond to each one. Another cause of this is that the relationship between organizations and employees has degraded over the years and the modicum of effort required to provide a professional response to every applicant has been deemed not important enough. In either case, log in to your Job Search Log (see the previous article) that you applied for the job and, if you don’t hear anything in a month, go on the job site and see if the position is still open. If not, then you can assume that you will not be contacted about it. Note: in one case I received a response back three months later. I had to go back to my job log to remind myself what position I had applied for.

Print out copies of your resume and bring them to your interviews. Always have spares in case someone forgets to bring one with you. Make sure it’s printed on nice paper, though you don’t have to use expensive parchment anymore.

The perfect resume won’t get you hired. It doesn’t matter how good your resume is. The thing that will get you hired is your interview (coming to a new part of this series soon). The resume is just supposed to open the door for you to get a chance to speak to someone where you can use your charm, wit, and job experience to convince them that you’re the person they should hire.

You may have the perfect resume but still lose out to someone with a lesser resume but better experience. Your resume is not a substitute for experience.

willrwills 0 Comments

May 14 2018

Your New Career – Introducing Guest Contributor – Mr. Jordan Corn

This marks a new chapter in my articles, a contribution by a guest writer. I have known Jordan Corn for many years. He, like me, spent many a night and weekend doing improv. He’s also an IT person. Also worked (works) for AAA. However, he’s a far better musician and quicker on the wit than I ever was. He was able to get along with people with whom I never could. And his advice was always measured and well-reasoned.

Anyway, when I found myself in search of my next occupation, Jordan reached out to me, and was supportive and helpful, as you’d expect from a kind human being. He forwarded me something he had written when he, himself moved on from a long-term engagement. I found what he had written to be useful and pertinent, so I asked him if I could republish it. I also asked him to please write a forward for it, which he graciously did. So please enjoy this diversion from what The Monkey customarily writes.

About a dozen years ago, I was called to a “quick meeting” in a conference room I had never seen. My sixth sense was tingling, and for about the only time in my life, it was 100% accurate. To this day, I don’t know how I figured it out, but I was there to learn I was being separated after 23 years of a successful career. I had worked in chemical process automation, quickly rose to manage a group charged with automating a global business’s manufacturing sites, later managed the company’s plant-floor Y2K program, then drove a knowledge management effort, and was now in enterprise IT architecture and strategy. My resume read like a textbook from the era.

Thanks to that sixth sense, I was one of the few people who wasn’t utterly shocked by what transpired in that “quick meeting”.

For weeks and months afterward, people at my now-former company would reach out to see how I was doing. Their outreach overlapped with the network I was building as I moved forward and met different people. I came to realize that talking to them was very different from talking to my newer contacts. This awareness prompted me to document the three types of transitional networking in which I was engaged. To this day, I believe the model I discovered helped me put the past in perspective and accelerate my forward progress.
-Jordan

Three Kinds of Transitional Networking

Introduction

Career coaches heavily – and rightly! – coach professionals on the value of networking in order to land their next job. So, upon the loss of a job, it is natural for a professional to embark on a personal networking campaign.

Unfortunately, the guidance on productive networking is spotty, and its successful execution is rare. In part, productive networking is difficult because we generally tend to be more comfortable around people we know and find expanding our network to be a challenge. Compounding this is the fact that employees in transition are emotionally wounded, and do not wish to appear as needy.

If you are an employee in transition, an effective networking model should successfully balance your needs for comfort, emotional support, and productivity. It should provide opportunities for connection, catharsis, grief, personal development and growth, and, of course, employment. The three-tier model described here meets all of these requirements, and provides a mechanism to actively manage – or at a minimum, to be aware of – time spent in different forms of networking.

It is important to keep in mind that this is only a model, and as such, it is not perfect. Activities that appear to fit into one classification in the model may turn out to cross lines, or be entirely misplaced. Some activities may not seem to fit the model at all, or their fit may be apparent only in retrospect. However, this model is useful in allowing you to observe and govern your own behavior in the quest for forward motion.

The Model

Backward Networking

“Backward Networking” is the act of connecting, staying connected, or reconnecting with employees in the place the professional has just left. Wanting to do so is often a natural reaction to the loss of a job. Typically, you are given a number of weeks’ notice before termination. During your final weeks, you may spend significant time in the office, perhaps seeking employment elsewhere in the company, and in all likelihood, receiving emotional support – or at least friendly inquiries – from coworkers.
Upon termination, it feels natural to continue these relationships. These people are seen as friends, and continuing to network with them offers a sense of continuity in a harshly changed world. They offer an ongoing view of what is happening in the organization, and may even offer leads. There is comfort in associating with them, a sense of connectivity to the past, and they’re generally easily accessible. Early association with them is emotionally healthy.

As time passes, however, you should come to realize that it is limited – and diminishing – value in maintaining these backward connections. As you move forward in your job search, much of what individuals at your former company have to say will seem unimportant, and will in fact be counterproductive. Much of what they want to do is to commiserate. Many of them are looking for a progress report; they want to know how you’re doing. Some of them live in fear that they too will lose their jobs, and they are seeking to understand the transition process and its impact. And, in all fairness, some of them do in fact simply miss you and want to stay connected. So there is a strong possibility that you will continue to receive invitations from them.

As these invitations arise, or as you ponder the prospect of a lonely day and consider contacting someone from your former place of employment, consider the value in it for you. Commiserating about your former organization and management is comforting, but after a point, it provides you with little value. Progress reports are useful, but to those who receive them, not to you. Furthermore, progress reports are risky. There may be people in your former organization whom you do not want to update on your progress, and once you’ve started updating former colleagues, you cannot control how that information is disseminated. Explaining the transition process and its impact to former colleagues is likewise helpful to them, but likely only minimally to you. The only real value, then, in maintaining these connections is social.
This is not to suggest that you should completely avoid networking with your former colleagues; only that you understand that you’re doing it entirely for social reasons, and to have little expectation of a return on the investment of time, other than immediate gratification. So network with your former colleagues, but with several caveats:

Recognize that it will not advance your search
Recognize that you are doing it for social reasons only
Limit the amount of time you spend on it! …and…
Exercise caution in what you report to your former colleagues

Lateral Networking

In its most basic form, lateral networking is exactly what it sounds like – that is, networking with people who, like you, are in transition. People in transition can come from any number of places. They can be colleagues who were dismissed when you were. They can be people you meet at professional associations, job fairs, etc. You might meet them in career networking groups, or via e-mail lists.

People in transition are excellent networking colleagues, for a number of reasons. First, and perhaps foremost, they are going through exactly what you are experiencing. This makes them prime – and much safer – candidates for commiserating, swapping stories, and sharing learning. Second, they are on the lookout for job leads. Therefore, they may be aware of the opportunities that you have yet to encounter. Third – and this is especially true if they do not come from your previous organization – they know people who you don’t. This can make them excellent sources of contacts in companies you may be targeting, contacts with recruiters you have yet to meet, etc.

People in transition can do far more than finding your contacts. They are excellent sources of feedback on resumes, cover letters, references, job applications, etc. They are good sounding boards, too; once they know you, they can offer you significant advice on how to advance your search, what avenues might be wise to consider, and where you might be wasting your time. They will usually do this both constructively and sympathetically, as they are in the same position you are.

Much has been written lately about the benefits of job hunting in groups, which is of course an activity ideally suited to people in transition. Among these benefits are having someone to ask questions of a potential employer that you as a candidate do not want to ask, strongly targeted leads, and the ability to effectively attend multiple networking events simultaneously.
There is also an enormous emotional reward in interacting with people in transition. They understand what you are experiencing, and can be truly sympathetic. You will want to reciprocate the help they offer you. You will find doing so to be truly uplifting, both for the impact it has on those you are helping and for the feeling of worth it provides to you.

People in transition are excellent antidotes to the lonely days you will likely face during your transition. With a broad enough network of them, you should have little trouble finding someone to talk to, have lunch with, or plan an outing with, whether it be to a job fair or the local coffee shop. Be warned, though; when your colleagues in transition find jobs, you are likely to experience an emotional setback. Just remember when that happens that your newly-landed friend may be able to help you find a job in his or her new organization. And remember too that there are always more people entering transition, many of whom would benefit from your experience, and many of whom can open new doors for you.

It is important to recognize the role of people from your organization who lost their jobs when you lost yours. While these people can be excellent lateral networking contacts, you need to ensure that your connections with them don’t take on too many elements of backward networking. Just as with your backward networking contacts, reminiscing about the past and complaining about your former employer is of limited value.
Lateral networking can extend beyond people in transition. A broader definition of lateral networking is interacting with people who may (or may not) be able to help you move forward, or whom you may (or may not) be able to help. This broader definition would include:

Recruiters who might or might not be aware of opportunities for you
People currently employed at other organizations (including your former company) who you know are job-hunting
People in professional associations who might be able to connect you with leads

Forward Networking

Forward networking is the act of connecting with people who are likely to move your search along. Clearly, these are the people with whom you want to spend as much of your time as possible or as much of your time as possible seeking.

The most obvious forward networking contacts include hiring managers and interviewers, HR staff at companies at which you are pursuing leads, and recruiters who have approached you with definite leads. These individuals are clear gatekeepers as you approach specific jobs, and so must be treated differently than either your lateral- or backward-networking contacts.

There are other, less obvious people who fit the criteria of forwarding contacts. You likely have friends or acquaintances who can either help you network into their companies or perhaps even hire you. You may be connected to these people in any of an infinite number of ways – they might be neighbors, fellow volunteers, members of professional organizations to which you belong, members of your religious organization, former coworkers, etc.

You already know how to behave among the gatekeepers – attentiveness, a positive, can-do attitude, and a blend of assertiveness, humility, and curiosity are essential. In dealing with these individuals, you cannot complain about the past, commiserate, or have down days. While the less obvious forward contacts rarely are immediate gatekeepers, you must treat them as if they are. By default, you should view every forward connection you make as an interview. While most of your contacts will not be as formal or intimidating as a panel interview, it is crucial to assume that each person with whom you forward-network is judging you as a potential candidate. This is true regardless of whether your contact is as simple as a casual e-mail request, or as involved as an office visit and lunch.

Finding forward contacts is a matter of talking to people. Your lateral contacts are an excellent starting point. Job postings often provide contacts. Beyond that, the most effective way to find contacts is to be clear that you are job hunting, without appearing needy. Don’t hesitate to let friends, neighbors, fellow congregants, and professional colleagues know you’re looking. They will suggest contacts to you. You may even make a few useful forward connections through your backward contacts, but approach these by initiating targeted requests (i.e. “Bill, I recall that you used to buy from GreatCo. As I recall, Joe was your salesman there, wasn’t he? I’d appreciate it if you could provide me with his contact information.”) rather than as part of general networking.

Spend as much time as you can finding and connecting with forwarding contacts, but remember, when you’re exhausted, having a bad day, or have simply run out of ideas, to go back and connect with your lateral contacts to get re-energized.

The Blur Between Lateral and Forward Networking

There is clearly a gray area between lateral and forward networking. Some people you think are lateral contacts will turn out to be forward contacts. Some people who start as lateral contacts may become forward contacts. Some people who you think are forward contacts may lose their status as you learn more about them, or if their position changes. Here are some guidelines for dealing with the blur between these two classes of people:

Assume that anyone you meet who is working for a company that might hire you is a forward contact, until you have reason to believe otherwise. Therefore, do not assume you can safely commiserate with them. After all, you cannot control what they may say to a potential gatekeeper who asks about you, so why give them anything negative to relate?
Similarly, approach people who are in transition cautiously – do not simply assume that because they are in transition, they are lateral contacts. Use your early interactions with them to determine their role.
Take care in dealing with lateral contacts who have landed, and therefore have potentially become forward contacts. It is quite possible that you have shared more with these people than you would with other forward contacts. The good news is that since they shared an experience with you, they are likely to be significantly more forgiving of your grievances than other forward contacts would be. However, once they become forward contacts, you should shift your attitude in dealing with them, and look to other lateral contacts for commiseration.

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Commentary Corporate General Information Management Self Help Technology Tips and Tricks

May 6 2018

Your New Career – Part 3: Social Media Presence

Hopefully, by now, you’ve prepared your toolset for the job researching and interviewing process? If not, go back and read a previous article. I’ll wait.
Until now we have focused on relatively simple areas to address, including your emotional health. Look for a guest post shortly about what happens to your network of friends after you are unemployed.
Now we have to turn our attention to one of the more difficult tasks. This one is particular will take some time and creativity.

It’s time you “professionalized” your social media presence.

By that I mean, review:

Your Facebook Page
Your LinkedIn Page
Your Twitter Account
Your Instagram Pages
Your Snapchat Account
Any other public social media (blog posts, Pinterest, MySpace, Tinder, etc.)

A Little Primer on Social Media and the Interwebs

Facebook has been in the news recently (April 2018 – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/06/cambridge-analytica-kept-facebook-data-models-through-us-election) due to a scandal with Cambridge Analytics where they scraped Facebook data and used it to build a persona for millions of unwitting Facebook users. This persona was then leveraged to generate specific political ads based on that user’s likes and dislikes to guide them to vote for a particular candidate. It was generally considered illegal not because of what was attempted, but because it was allegedly done without Facebook’s knowledge/consent. It’s okay though, Zuckerberg apologized (https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/10/zuckerberg-apology-to-congress/).

Mind you, big data engines and machine learning algorithms can now categorize you based on studying all of your online presence, including emails and text messages. You must know by now that your Alexa queries are used by Amazon to suggest products and services – and that this information is sold to others. So it’s important to know what sort of footprint you’re leaving out there.

Try this – search for your name online using Google. Too many hits? Enclose your name in quotes. Note how Google search often finds you very quickly and has links to a host of information including company career names, media posts, Facebook pages, ReverbNation (if you’re in a band), and others. You are very easy to find, it’s hard to erase the Internet trail you’ve left out there, and it tells potential employers a lot about you. See if you can find out where you live, who lives there with you? Your property taxes? Easy. The cost of your home? Yep. Mugshots? Check.

See a photo of the front of your house? Yep, thanks Google! note that in itself says a lot you. Live in a dangerous neighborhood? Is your yard full of weeds and is there graffiti on your garage door? Search for your home on Google maps and use Street View to navigate to the front of your house.

And this information will be out there forever, or until aliens take it down with an EMF pulse (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/01/14/emps-how-to-detect-blast-that-could-darken-world.html). EMF is unbelievable.

The Folly of Using Your Actual Name

While it might be tempting to come up with user names that reflect your real name — especially since it’s often easier to make up a unique user name by using parts of your actual name – that’s a very bad practice. This makes it easier for online searches and machine learning algorithms to compile a list of all your recent activity and associate it to you personally.

If possible, then, make up a user name that means something to you and your friends, but doesn’t generally link to your actual name.

Gmail is Your Friend (This Time)

Another way to find links between your accounts is to look at the contact email address (or phone number) on your profile. First, you should resist the urge to provide a phone number except for some very specific security-related functionality (to text you to unlock a bank account).
But more importantly, if your email address is sammysosa@aol.com (see my previous post on not using AOL as a domain), and your name is actually Sammy Sosa, then you should not use this email in your profile information on social media. Instead, use Gmail to create a new account called something like “baseballhero78@gmail.com” and use that in your profiles. Set up your email client (Outlook, Mac Mail, Gmail) to receive emails from that account. You can still use sammysosa@aol .com (or better yet, @gmail.com), but use it for professional correspondence and things that you aren’t ashamed of sharing with potential employers.

Google is Not Your Friend (Usually)

Keep in mind that by using Google Gmail, you’ve already agreed to allow Google to scan all of your emails, advertise to you based on your email content, and potentially share this information with others. The same goes for searching. Everything you search for is remembered by Google and your ISP’s to be used to market and study you. The same goes for any events you put on Google Calendar. And for YouTube videos, your search for, channels you subscribe to, and any videos you watch – all of that is owned by Google, but licensed for your use. Thanks and Neat!

True Story => Recently I was in the market for a new car. I searched for Mazda CX-9 to read up on dependability and see reviews. After only a few of those searches I started getting ads for that Mazda, and emails from Mazda. Creepy. After only about 15 minutes of searches.

Twitter-mania

Twitter has made it easy to communicate with vast arrays of people, publicize your personal opinions, and follow organizations that may interest you. Twitter rage is a thing, where a Twitterer will tweet angry things at various politicians, actors, social media outlets, organizations, etc. Rarely do you get a response, but your Twitter friends who share the exact same feelings as you will Like the tweet.

Under the same guideline as “don’t use your real name”, you should not have a Twitter handle (or associated profile email address) that you use to tweet anything that a prospective employer should not see.

If you would like to stay on Twitter and rant, leverage a Twitter handle that cannot be linked back to you by name. Or, if you have a lot of followers due to your clever tweets and amazing Twitter polls, change the name of that account to something that is not readily linked to you. Then start a new Twitter handle that you can use for personal and professional tweets. Then link the professional account to your personal email and take the time to follow a number of industry icons. Do NOT Tweet anything using this personal account that would tip people on your personal political opinions, and don’t tag your “rant” account from your personal account.

“But I’ve Gotta Be Me!”

Sure, thanks for that. That’s what the Russian bots said.
Listen, you don’t know what the political leanings are of the people who will be reviewing your resume. TECHNICALLY, Human Resources and prospective interviewers are not allowed to look for any social media presence, but the reality is that it often happens.

Most mature employers and recruiters can set aside their personal opinions and interview you objectively. But some cannot. And when you are in search of a job, you need to be a clean slate. Or at least a professional slate. Heck, you can use your professional social media account to research a prospective employer and even Like or retweet stories the organization puts out there. Great way to show that you support what they are doing.

Facebook

Another “same deal here”, but a little more difficult. Facebook does allow you to mark your account private and not allow search engines to find you. And you should immediately do that. However, the world is a small one (thanks Disney!) and while it’s full of joy, it’s also full of fears, but there’s so much that we share, that it’s time we’re aware. It’s amazing how many people operate in similar social networks. A recruiter may be a friend of a friend who is a cousin of a family member of yours and stumble upon your information. And that could be good or bad, but you’d prefer it was neutral.
Here are some things you can do on Facebook –

Create a private and a public persona. That is, create two FB accounts and use the private one for sharing opinions about politics or Selena Gomez. Come on, Selena. Charlie Puth is adorable!
Lock down your account. FB allows you to control how posts are viewed, so do NOT allow your posts to show up publicly. Create groups of FB friends that you want to include in your most personal views, and another group for views that are relatively benign. Use the appropriate visibility when posting.
Delete your Facebook account. A bit extreme, but Facebook popularity has been waning recently. Deactivate or delete your account. You can download all of your content in case you want to re-activate it at some point.
Clean up your Facebook presence. Yep, look at the “likes” you have set up for movies, books, other companies, political affiliations — and drop the ones that could be polarizing. Looks through your recent posts and delete those that are highly political or extreme. DELETE any photos that are suggestive, including a certain lack of clothing or where you were drunk and riding that Skeedoo up onto the dock, while holding a beer.
Do NOT list your Facebook account on your resume. See previous sentence. Read it again.
Create a business/organization Facebook account. If you use your personal Facebook account for another venture such as a restaurant, professional service, a personally run company, a social group, etc. it’s just as easy to create a second account and move all of that content from your personal account to your organizational account. Then do not link the accounts, and be careful when you tag one account to the other. Facebook provides some nifty tools for organizational pages.
Remove information that would lead people to know your age, your marital status, your employment, your sexual preferences, your religious affiliations, etc.
Mark the following bio items private or hidden:
1. Birthdate
2. Relationship Status
3. “Looking for a (man/woman/elf)”
4. Job details, if not pertinent to your job search. If LinkedIn says you were employed until last month, and Facebook says you’re now waiting tables at a Wawa, then remove the Wawa. There’s nothing wrong with waiting tables at Wawa. But it may not be pertinent to your desire to be a Vice President of Technology.
5. Education years – people can figure out how old you are if you graduated from high school in 1983 or if all your likes are from 1966-1969 (Star Trek TOS!).
6. Bio quotes that may not be funny to everyone: “I killed Amelia Earhardt”. I mean, okay but why?

Remember that everything you do on Facebook, including Likes, Tagging, Comments, Locations are used by Facebook (and sold to others) to paint a picture of you. What do you want that picture to say about you and your employability?

Profile Photos

Review all of your social media accounts and make sure your profile photos are professional. They don’t need to be a headshot in formal attire in front of a clearly fake backdrop, with mood lighting. But they should avoid anything that suggests you’re not professional. Also a blurry shot (or pixellated one) tells me that you don’t have many photos of yourself or that you’re not very technologically adept. If you don’t know how to crop your head out of a photo and/or reduce or enlarge a photo without creating blurriness, ask a more techno-savvy family member to assist.

Update your photos every few years. Using one from 15 years ago will surprise an employer when you show up as someone much older looking. That’s not to say employers should be avoiding hiring older applicants, only that it’s misleading and may suggest to your employer that you’re vain, disingenuous, or haven’t paid much attention to your Internet accounts (or hair color) recently. Do the same if your look has changed recently.
Select a photo where you’re smiling naturally, not making a “duck face”, not trying to be seductive, not brandishing a weapon, not wearing a bikini, not with any part of your body duly exposed, etc. – I think you get the… picture.
And as you take informal photos in your personal life, keep an eye out for ones that have a nice image of your face, smiling and natural. Put a copy of those in a folder because a) we both know that we rarely take good photos anymore and b) it could be useful for a future profile pic. At some point, crop the rest of the photo out and use that for your headshot.

Note: if you’re an actor/actress, there’s a whole other aspect to headshots that are beyond the scope of these articles. That’s when you need professional services.

In general, look at your profile photo and objectively ask what it says about you. Or better yet, ask your mother what it says about you.

This is such an important one that I’m going to devote the next post to it (3.5). THIS is the main online tool in your job search and it likely needs cleaning up and refined. More on that later.

Sealing The Email Address Part 2

This is so important that I’m going to keep harping on it, like a seal. Like a Harp Seal.

For your resume or for any correspondence to potential employers, you must have a professional email address. Drop the funny names (buymymonkey, anyone?) or antiquated domains. Create a brand new and professional email address that reflects a polished and objective person. Use that for professional correspondence, your resume, and social media profiles for professional use.

Summary

That’s just a quick take on what you need to do to your social media presence before you start applying for jobs. It’s so critical that you appear professional, polished, and objective. For me, it was surprising how much I was projecting about myself with my social media accounts all mixed and cross-referential.

It took me a few weeks to clean everything up but in the end, it allowed me to take two personas: the guy you absolutely need to be employed at your organization and my informal social media presence. Let no one cross the other!

And work to keep it that way, even after you’re employed.

willrwills 0 Comments

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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:

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.
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.
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!
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.
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:

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.
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.
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).
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.
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?).
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]

For 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:

You are searching for your first job.
Your organization shut down and you’re out of a job.
You were fired from your job.
You voluntarily quit your job.
You were laid off from your job. (similar to #2 above)
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.

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

Jan 20 2018

Coming Soon – Diary of a Job Search

In 2017, on 12/12 at around 12 noon, I found myself suddenly unemployed after 23 years of dedicated service to a single organization. Since then, I have been gearing up for a job search. The enjoyment of not having to work is now juxtaposed with the worry that I will need to eventually find employment.

I’m keeping copious notes and once I have found a place to land (or perhaps a vocation, since I may not land in one place), I will publish my experiences here in hopes of helping others find success as I will (did).
The process is far different than it was 23 years ago, trust me. And it’s not intuitive. And if you’re over 40 (guilty, your honor), it’s even more challenging.

My background is in IT leadership, innovation, product development. I designed and built software by assembling a team of highly effective technicians and supporting roles. I also did the marketing and sales for the products developed, demonstrations, and financial analysis.

Keep checking back… in the meantime, I’m publishing some articles I wrote for another publication and this is me, below, earlier in December 2017.

Will R Wills 0 Comments

Aug 29 2017

Top Ten Warning Signs That Your Job is Killing You

Let’s get right to it!

You look forward to the weekend so that you can catch up on work.
Someone tells you “Thank God It’s Friday” and you agree, but then think to yourself, “But Monday is just around the corner…”
Sunday afternoon you start getting anxious about work Monday morning.
After a full week of work, you realize all you really accomplished was to answer and send emails.
You have more than two days at work where your calendar is just meetings all day.
Co-workers have to plead with you to schedule meetings at lunchtime because there’s just no other time available.
You have to schedule a meeting very soon and then realize the first available time is three weeks from now.
You take time off and spend each night responding to email.
You eat at your desk at least two days per week so that you can catch up on work.
You’ve not been to any personal or technical training in years.

Please send me any others that you might have experienced -!

Will R Wills 0 Comments

Jul 22 2017

The Unrivaled Leader : Part 8 – Hearing (and acting upon) Negative Feedback is Part of the Job

Ooof, it’s hard to take feedback, isn’t it? As a layperson, you might be subject to ~~negative~~ constructive feedback from your boss. You should, in my opinion, seek that sort of feedback. All ☀️ sunshine☀️ and 🍭 lollipops 🍭 comments feel good but aren’t that useful. Constructive feedback from your boss,, assuming it’s legitimate, provides specific information that you can act upon to improve your productivity.

But often that attitude changes when you become a manager. For some, being given a management position appears to endorse an inner feeling of superiority. “Hey, I’m something special and I must be doing all things perfectly for me to be given this position!” For others, they may have not developed the skill of properly managing upward feedback. In either case, not seeking and not being receptive to subordinate feedback can be career limiting.

(Note: I say “can” because there are plenty who have made a very successful career by only “managing up” and not caring much what their subordinates think. But for this article, let’s assume you want to be a servant leader)

Let me make this clear, you desperately need feedback from your staff. Without it, you’re plodding along, unaware that trouble is brewing and that often means it will rear up at the worst possible time, such as during a full staff meeting, when one of your staff members asks publicly about something you were unaware or unreceptive about. (another note: in such a situation, your boss should know better than to endorse such feedback publicly and instead just receive it and promise to look into it).
Here are some basic thoughts about the feedback you receive:

A) Is it Legitimate?
The most challenging part of hearing feedback is whether it is legitimate. You have to consider whether it represents something that could be possibly true. In nearly all cases, I think you’ll find that such feedback will have at least a shred of truth linked to it. A small percentage will be feedback that is based on improper perception or a misunderstanding, but one could argue that this still makes it legitimate. The perception of issues is as strong as the existence. So you treat all feedback initially as being true.

B) How You Should Comport Yourself When Receiving It
Here’s a good guideline: pretend your staff person is you, and you are presenting this feedback to your boss. How would you want your boss to treat you? This is a good yardstick for many things you will say and do as a manager of people. Treat yourself as the third person and consider what you would prefer.

In general, listen. Receive the feedback. Take notes. Be receptive. Repeat what you are hearing to make sure you understand. These are basic listening techniques.
A couple of general rules:

Find a private place to receive feedback. You want the provider to feel comfortable speaking freely and you may not want others to eavesdrop.
If the feedback is about something dangerous (“Janie’s got a gun!”) or something unethical (“Bill stole a computer”) or a violation of HR policies (“Jordan had porn up on his laptop”) you need to act upon this information right away – which often means contacting security or human resources.
You don’t have to offer immediate feedback, whether acceptance or repudiation. You should use good judgment in this case, but I’ve found that taking the feedback, giving yourself time to think and explore the information you received, and then scheduling a follow-up is usually the better tact. Blurting out “that’s not true!” or “the hell you say!” is not appropriate usually.
You may be receiving confidential or private information. Don’t blab to others about what you’ve heard.
If the feedback is about you, before you reject it, ask yourself if there’s any chance it is true (whether in reality or by perception). Nearly in all cases, you should be able to find the possibility that the feedback is reasonably valid. And in general, you should again just listen and take notes rather than argue.

Bottom line is that if you wish to keep receiving feedback from your staff, you have to create an environment that is professional and receptive, even if you find out some of the feedback is not legitimate. Blasting back at a staff member providing input will inevitably be shared with others in your group and presto, you now have a reputation.

C) Closure
In some cases, you may not be able to provide closure. It may be that it’s information that requires follow-up or a timeline to receive additional feedback before you can determine legitimacy. Let the person know whether you expect to be able to address their feedback in a short time or that it will take longer.

In many cases, beyond a verbal closure, you’ll want to provide an email/written closure – especially for serious circumstances. This both provides the individual with well written (hopefully!) feedback and provides you a paper trail should this discussion take an awkward turn.

D) Formal versus Informal
You’ll want to have both formal and informal communication paths for feedback from your staff.

Formal

Set up periodic staff meetings that have a good chunk of the meeting related to receiving feedback or Q&A. You don’t want it to become mob rule, but having a place where people can comfortably provide feedback is useful.
Set up meetings with groups of your staff in a casual place to get specific feedback. Mix and match the group so that you have people from various disciplines and with various personalities. Don’t pull together a group of all introverts, or all extroverts. I called mine “Fireside Chats with Bill” – though we didn’t actually have a fireplace in our cafe.
Set up a Comments Box where staff can write anonymous feedback and place it in this box – and remember to check it (!)
Perform a periodic “climate survey” where you ask questions that can be used to determine staff sentiment.

Informal

Sometimes you can rely on your Administrative Assistant to be your “ears on the ground” and alert you to brewing trouble. It takes an Assistant who is close to staff and isn’t perceived as a shill.
Use peers you have in other departments to listen for scuttlebutt. Return the favor, of course.

E) Destructive Feedback
There are going to be times, hopefully very infrequently, where you’ll hear feedback from someone simply trying to be destructive to the department, a project, a team member, or you. This is the most difficult feedback to manage appropriately for two reasons: 1) it’s very hard to listen patiently to severely stilted, personal, and negative feedback, 2) you may not be able to address this person’s concerns or make them stop providing inappropriate feedback.

Part of this can be managed by making sure the hiring process weeds out such staff people. In a future article, I will discuss my “no jackasses” policy related to hiring the right kinds of staff people.

Assuming this person made it through your “no jackasses” policy (or was inherited), you may not be able to assuage this person’s concerns. If this person is unable to accept that their feedback is either not actionable or illegitimate, and/or this person attempts subversive behavior, you may need to work through your Human Resources department to correct this behavior or ultimately release this resource.

If the person shouts or loses their temper, you have to quickly decide whether you cut that session short or whether you make an attempt at calming the person down. These days, you also have to be aware of whether violence upon you is impending. In such cases, it’s best to capitulate in order to defuse the situation, and then head on down to HR (or Security) for assistance. Obviously, do not get into an altercation with your staff member, whether physical or verbal.

F) Feedback That Cannot Be Acted Upon
You may receive feedback that you cannot act upon or resolve. It may be general feedback that would require much more senior authority than you to address. It may be feedback that is legitimate but cannot be resolved due to workplace policies. It may be feedback about you that, to address, would force you to deviate from what you believe is the right behavior or policy.
In any of these cases, and others, you should be able to document the feedback and let the person know that you cannot (or are prohibited from) addressing the request. You have to count on this person to be reasonable and empathetic (reminder, “no jackasses”).

If you’re a person that never accepts feedback, then it will be very difficult to appear that you want it.

If you receive suggestions that need to be mitigated at a higher level than you, do a follow-up with your senior management if the suggestions are appropriate. Let the requester know the progress.

G) Public Dissemination of Feedback
There may be some suggestions or feedback that you receive that you should or could share publicly with your staff. This could be during a staff meeting or via email. Make sure you get approval from the provider to share this information (perhaps anonymously) with others before you do. Sharing suggestions reinforce that you’re receptive to such things. You may even receive personal feedback that you can share with the group, for example:

“Recently someone suggested that the strict working hours I’ve been enforcing have been causing stress to those folks that have long distances to commute. I can see where inadvertently this is the case and thus have agreed to allow people an extra 30 minutes to arrive in the morning.”

Sometimes you can read suggestions out loud, but be prepared to hear some stiff feedback or unexpected notes. In either case, keep a sense of humor.

Summary
Everyone wants their feedback heard, and so do you. When you approach your boss with suggestions, you’d prefer she/he is receptive and supportive. You should be the same way with your staff. Lead by example, be humble, and make them know that your job as a manager is to give them the tools and support that are necessary to do the job, and then get out-of-the-way.

Will R Wills 2 Comments

Jul 19 2017

The Unrivaled Leader : Part 7 – Answering Email is Not Productivity!

I find that the amount of time that I spend answering emails continues to grow, and has continued to grow since the introduction of that platform in 1972. Thanks, Ray Tomlinson. I’ll email you my personal thanks. And if I find where you live… Heck, before starting to writing this article I spent the previous hour reading, answering, and forwarding work emails.

Who hasn’t felt the satisfaction of emptying their inbox by rifling through and responding (REPLY ALL!) or forwarding emails and then deleting them from your inbox. Or felt the stress of opening emails and seeing 200 new ones.

Emailing is not productivity.

I sometimes wish that sending and replying to emails was accompanied by physically poking the recipient (or sender) in the eye. In this way, you (or they) would be keenly aware of the pain you (or they) were inflicting by simply flinging emails out to others. And answering emails rarely is an end to a workflow. Emails beget emails beget emails beget… (Proverbs: 110: 1-16)

Emails are used as replacements for meetings, and too many meetings is something I ranted about in the previous article. And emails have come to replace the phone or face-to-face conversations. I’ve experienced my next-door cubicle neighbor sending me an email that could have been solved with a five-minute visit. Things are in a sad state of affairs.

So I mulled and mulled and tried to come up with some ways to avert email overload.

I recalled once where I inadvertently deleted all my emails from my inbox and you know what? Nothing bad happened. The people who needed something from me simply re-emailed or (or, [gasp!] called me).

Things I Have Tried
To help, here are some actions we took related to email overload that I and my team have tried over the years to varied success:

We tried “no email” mornings where the management team agreed that between 8:30 am and 11:30 am, we were not going to send each other emails.
We introduced a mechanism with subject line pre-fixes that provided information on the content of that email without you having to open it. For example:
1. “AR” means “Action is required of you”
2. “PF” means “Print and File”
3. “NRN” means “No response necessary”
4. “FYI” means, well, “NRN”, but “NRN” was a strong suggestion NOT to respond
We had an email etiquette class to remind people how and when to write emails.

All of these provided a modicum of relief, but because we could not control what others did relate to the email we were still inundated.

Suggestions
So to wrap up this short article, here are some suggestions and guidelines that I think you ought to strongly consider:

Peel off people from emails that are not key or are not expected to provide input. There have been countless times in endless email “chains” where I’m CC’d and dragged along in the wake of the conversation. Some parts of the conversation are just “yep” or one sentence that continues to pull me along like a minnow in a paper eddy. Just drop people off, especially executives from the To: and CC:.
If you’re CC’d – avoid the temptation to respond. Technically, as a cc:’d recipient, the intent should be to advise you rather than gather your feedback.
Keep your emails very short. No more than one paragraph. Writing long emails simply forces people to speed read and skip potentially vital content. Tighten and re-tighten the language. Less is more, more or less.
Do not send inflammatory emails. Emails, like regrets, are forever. And you don’t want to leave evidence of your unstable personality for all to read at some future performance review session.
As a corollary to the previous item, if you do find the need to send a strong email, don’t send it and instead save it for an hour (or a day if possible). Read it again at that time and you may find that a) things have changed and thus there is no need for your email, b) things have changed for the better and your email now seems silly, c) you really should not have sent that email at all, d) you don’t really care about the topic as much as you really thought at the time. Ambivalence is a strong and often rewarding emotion.
Immediately unsubscribe from junk emails. Hit the “Junk” and then the “Block” buttons on your toolbar on spam emails.
Setup rules by the recipient to move emails from less important people (or informational emails) to a separate folder — that you probably then will never visit. Then set up rules that periodically empty out these folders.
Before sending any email, pick up the phone and call the person. You may get your answer right away. [Note: the worst is when someone emails you and then picks up the phone to discuss the email they just sent you. “Justifiable homicide” comes to mind.]
Proofread your emails. So many times I have received emails that appeared to be written by someone who didn’t understand verb tense, punctuation, correct forms of possessiveness, oh, the English language, etc.

What have you done to help assuage the tidal wave of emails? Email me and let me know: willrwills@gmail.com.

Update 7/20 –

The inclusion of the email address at the end was an attempt at irony. My thanks to the readers who said “hey, you know that you included your email address, right?” Yes, I do.
Another annoying thing was suggested by a reader. Let’s call him Peter. That would be:

Having a long email chain forwarded to you simply with “FYI”, forcing you to read the entire chain – and then finding out you were already on the TO: or CC: anyway! Ugh!!

Will R Wills 2 Comments

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