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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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!
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Leave certifications, education and accomplishments to the end.  Your experience is the most important part of your resume.
  6. Simply put “references available upon request”.  You should already know this one.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.Resume scan sample
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. No headshots, please.  That practice has thankfully died out.
  15. 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.
  16. 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 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:

  1. Your Facebook Page
  2. Your LinkedIn Page
  3. Your Twitter Account
  4. Your Instagram Pages
  5. Your Snapchat Account
  6. 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 –

  1. 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!
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Do NOT list your Facebook account on your resume.  See previous sentence.  Read it again.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.

LinkedIn

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.
harp-seal-pup-1a-1996-xl.jpg
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
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 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
Nov 3 2016
The Fear of The Fear of Public Speaking

According to StatisticBrain.com, 75% of women and 73% of men suffer from speech anxiety or the fear of public speaking, also known as “glossophobia”. Borrowing from a Jerry Seinfeld routine, he noted that people are more afraid of public speaking than dying, such that “given the choice, people would prefer to be in the casket than delivering the eulogy for the person in the casket.”

About five years ago, I suddenly developed glossophobia. It happened as I approached my 40’s. It struck with horrifying consequences. Suddenly, in the middle of a presentation, I would experience a panic attack. I was unable to continue, my heart racing, and unable to catch my breath. I immediately forgot everything I was going to say. It really frightened me because I had not previously experienced such anxiety. And throughout my life, I’ve been very comfortable presenting in front of very large audiences. I’ve hosted entire IT Conferences, single-handedly, without a trace of serious nervousness. Worst yet, the panic attacks continued. I started dreading doing any presentations and then even conference calls with large audiences. Something had changed and I desperately needed to find out what – and correct it.

“Suddenly, in the middle of a presentation, I would experience a panic attack. I was unable to continue, my heart racing and unable to catch my breath.”

I started searching for examples of others who had experienced such problems and stumbled upon a number of very successful stars who were in a similar situation. Celebrities like Donny Osmond, Leann Rimes, and Paula Dean all struggled with social anxiety and panic attacks.

For me, Osmond was the most intriguing. At the same time, I was searching and coping, I actually happened upon a television special specifically about Osmond’s issues. As he described, in the mid-nineties in the middle of a run of starring in Jason and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Donny Osmond started suffering panic attacks. The child star who had been performing in front of thousands since age five suddenly was calling in sick, or faking his way through performances. What had happened? He was Donny Osmond! How could he feel such anxiety? How would he correct this? In short, he ended up in lengthy therapy and taking all sorts of anxiety minimizing drugs.

Neither of those options seemed palatable but the idea that others had experienced the same onset of anxiety made me feel that there was hope.
The best part of the situation is that I had a boss that was quite supportive and would keep an eye out for my attacks, jumping in and taking over. He sat and listened to me, in astonishment, as he watched someone who had been so outgoing and confident now nervous about presenting information that I knew very well. I also had peers and direct reports that I confided in who would also rescue me if they noticed me faltering.

Now that I’ve generally been able to address my anxiety without therapy or medication, I want to pass along some tips and techniques that work for me – and some interesting information that I’ve found after speaking to other speakers that I consider dynamic and talented.

The Fear of the Fear
My first revelation was that I was starting to fear the feeling of fear. Having a panic attack is a horrible feeling – one that you don’t forget. After a few panic attacks during presenting, I started to worry well before my next presentation. I was feeling that panic feeling days and weeks before my presentation. It would come and go, but when I had it, it was as if I was presenting and panicking. My brain was making me relive the worst possible moment over and over, and it caused me to dread presenting. Was I having a mental breakdown? Was what I was feeling unique to me?

“My first revelation was that I was starting to fear the feeling of fear. “

I decided to find the answer by approaching my peers who I thought were very good speakers and asking them directly “do you get nervous before presenting?” The answers I received were interesting and reassuring. A summary of the most common answers included:

  • “Yes, I still get a little nervous but once I get going on stage I get over it very quickly.”
  • “Yes, but I would not describe it as nervousness. It’s actually more like adrenalin and I’ve learned to almost like that feeling.”
  • “Yes, I get very nervous, but then I realize that I’m totally prepared and so I talk myself to a more calm state.”
  • And from one speaker who always seems so confident and cool while presenting: “I’m nervous the whole time. I’m not panicked, but in the back of my head, I do get a little edgy. It keeps me on my toes.”

The message was most speakers still feel that twinge of nervousness prior to the limelight, but they are able to muscle through it. Some presenters do a good job of hiding it. Or, they change that nervousness into excitement. Now, this was a technique I could practice! It did feel good to know that even the best speakers have some derivative nervousness just like me. I’m not so special after all, and that was okay with me!

So given my research and my experience, I would like to present the ten things I did to basically overcome my panic attacks and push through the nervousness to present and present well.

1. Prepare
I used to speak completely off the cuff, with few notes. I knew what I wanted to say and was able to pivot quickly. But when nervousness set in I would often find myself completely lost on my next point or not recalling key information that I wanted to pass along.

So, to address this I started actually writing out word for word what I was going to say. I would write it out exactly how I wanted to present it, including pauses, colloquialisms, and interjections, and I would bring those notes to my podium. I didn’t read the notes word for word, but I did skim over them as I spoke. I used this technique early on, knowing that eventually, I would have to abandon this. Presenting while staring at notes standing behind a podium did not exude executive presence. But this gave me a crutch and, early on, helped me get back out in front of people. These days I don’t write out such detailed notes.

2. Improv
Since my early twenties, I had been interested in comedy and improv. I actually had performed some open-mic stand-up comedy while living in Jacksonville and generally enjoyed it. Now, twenty years later, I wondered if improv could help me with my nervousness. I signed up at the venerable SAK comedy theater in Orlando and proceeded to take and pass Levels 1 through 4. I stopped and did not proceed to their Conservatory Classes, something I might take up down the road.

Improv was an interesting experience. I had always thought (and received feedback) that I was quick, clever, and funny. So I had a high level of confidence. What I found was that there are a LOT of people who are funny – and it felt like most were funnier and quicker than I was. It was a unique experience, both enjoyable and humbling. I had a fantastic instructor in Level 1 named “Bob Kodzis” who was quite supportive. I made a number of friends that I still have today.

Through Improv, I found confidence in performing, especially since Levels 1 and 4 had a “showcase” at the end where we put on a real show in front of a live audience. It was nerve-wracking and exhilarating – and great fun.
What Improv taught me was that I could stand in front of a group and talk about anything without any preparation. I didn’t need notes and could come up with material without much effort. It was a great confidence booster.

I think of this when I find myself nervous. I say to myself “heck, I could get up there and get an offer from the audience and create a whole scene, so presenting material I already know will be a breeze!” This helped.

3. Reality Check
Sometimes as I’m about to present, I think to myself “in an hour I’ll be back at my desk and this will be behind me”. I practice “mindfulness” and try to take myself out of the “right now” and think about what is happening to me as if I was a spectator.

Mindfulness is a useful technique that I use even when I’m not presenting.

4. Break Up The Monotony
Having to present twenty PowerPoint slides full of material is not only boring to the audience but it is also stress-inducing. It’s just talking and talking, and it is difficult to allow for a few seconds of silence to catch your breath. So, now I try to add some multimedia. This accomplishes three things:

  • It allows me time to be “off-stage” and catch my breath
  • It provides for more a more interesting presentation
  • It breaks my presentation into thirds or quarters and this allows me to track my progress towards completion.

I’m not suggesting that you pepper your presentation with home movies or clips from South Park. Any multimedia needs to be pertinent and appropriate. Also, it cannot be too long. A few minutes tops. And you should introduce the clip and summarize it afterward.

Another technique I have is that I might find a co-presenter for materials or parts of the presentation. I introduce an expert to provide some additional insight. Again, this has to be well thought out and appropriate. And nowadays I don’t use this technique, though I found it helpful early on.

5. A Life Line
I found that having an outlet available takes away some of the anxiety. That is, I have one or more people who can answer any questions or elaborate on a particular point. This is like a co-presenter except that these individuals stay out in the audience. I may even let them know that “I might ask you to elaborate on this” so that they can be prepared.

If I became nervous, I could always say “hey Eric, what would you say is our potential list of customers” and let Eric expound on this. I would use this time to take a drink of water and gather myself.
But here’s the key, just knowing that I have that lifeline takes away a lot of anxiety. I rarely now have to use these lifelines.

6. Turn Anxiety into Excitement
Like one of the survey takers said to me, nervousness and excitement are closely related emotions. I practiced turning my nervousness into excitement. I’d say to myself “Hey! I’m getting the chance to present and many people will not get this chance!” I knew that I do present very well and always get great feedback, so this is yet another chance to spread this joy to more people. I talk myself into being excited about the upcoming presentation. And when it goes well, I congratulate myself privately on doing a good job.

7. Calm Down
When you are about to go on, your nervousness can often peak, causing your heart to race and your breathing to speed up. I’ve found that forcing yourself to breathe deeply and slowly, and paying attention to how you are controlling your heart rate can actually make yourself feel calmer. This gives you the ability to control your body and your reaction.

Some people may need a relaxant to prepare for a particularly stressful presentation. And while I do not, I know others who do and find this useful. The challenge is not to look “drugged up” unless you’re presenting in front of pharmaceutical companies.

8. Take Notes While Waiting to Present
One of the funniest things in comedy is called a “call back”, which in general is a reference to something that has already occurred. While waiting to go on, always have a notepad and pen with you. Take note of things the previous speaker said that you can emphasize as well. Also, sometimes things said can be used for humor. The current speaker may mention something that you can use as a light, personable attempt at humor. Have your presentation printed out and with you, and flip through it (quietly) as the current speaker speaks and annotate points that they made that you can make on the appropriate slide.

I recall one example where my boss’ boss presented something before me that was about the traits they are looking for to fill a particular position. The words he used included “never let you down”, “never give up”, “never lie” and to me, this sounded like the lyrics to the Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. I made a note, tried to remember and wrote down the various phrases in the song, and then suggested in my presentation that Rick Astley could be the right person. Got a solid laugh and put me at ease. In fact, as I read off the lyrics to the song, people quickly knew what I was doing, but I methodically went through the lyrics to the end before I announced Rick’s name as the best candidate.

By the way, taking notes has the added benefit of taking your mind off your presentation.

9. Rehearse
An easy technique to help with nerves. Rehearse and rehearse again. Driving to work, speak out loud to yourself, and pretend you are presenting. Time yourself. Record yourself. But in general, know your material and your speaking points. This helps stem a key facet of insecurity while presenting.

10. Stand on Stage Beforehand
A simple technique that helps me is to get up on the stage prior to the session being opened. Walk around the stage to every edge. Look out over the empty chairs. Imagine what it will be like when there are people in those seats. Get comfortable with the layout of the stage, the location of the podium, the controls you will need to flip through your slides.

Also note that in presentations on large stages with a sizable audience, you will likely have spotlights on you. This has two effects: it makes it quite warm on stage, so be prepared to sweat. And it makes it difficult to actually see the audience. It’s why performers ask for the house lights to be brought up when addressing the audience. But it can help you because if feels like you’re presenting to an empty room. Sometimes you can see a few rows upfront and that’s good because it gives you some feedback.

***

I can’t say that these techniques will work for you. Heck, you may need lengthy therapy and medication – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’re like me, just knowing that others have similar problems can make you feel a little more confident that you, as well, can address the fear of public speaking. And maybe using some of these techniques you can get back to giving knock-out presentations.

willrwills 0 Comments