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Career Survival Guide: Part 5 – A new way to Leverage your Résumé !

2/25/2016

I am a big fan of the late Joseph Campbell. In a documentary on Campbell, he recalled when a student came to him looking for direction in life after graduating college. Campbell’s short answer was “follow your bliss”. To expand this thought a bit, I believe what Campbell was saying to his student was to find those things in life that brought the student joy, satisfaction, and sense of worth. My belief on this is the same as Campbell’s. Really this is the core of what my Coaching Practice is about. But how do we find our bliss? Can bliss exist in our Career? I believe it can. One tool to discover our bliss; those things that make use happy, feel satisfied, feel that we have worth we already have in our job tool box. We can use our Résumé in a new way; to discover career gives us best satisfaction – best business quality of life (BQL).
Below is step by step process to leverage your Résumé to find Career Happiness:
1) Get your Résumé current. (In my previous post, Part 4, I described Résumé best practices.)
2) Print out your Résumé (I know – old school – but works the best for this exercise.)
3) Go through the jobs on your Résumé (including volunteer jobs) and number the job you liked most - mark this #1
4) Look at the remaining jobs on your Résumé, and decide what job you liked second best – mark this #2.
5) Continue on to rank the jobs on your Résumé based on those you liked the most – gave you most happiness, and sense of satisfaction. (My suggestion is to have at least three job ranked – if you are in the middle or end of your career, the list may go to 5 or even more. My suggestion is to stop at five.)
6) Once you have your favorite jobs ranked, start a new document (handwritten – or word processor – your choice). You can call this document “Job Happiness Matrix”, or whatever makes sense to you.
7) Your new document will be a table or matrix. In the first row, first column, name the column “Best Job and Ranking”. The second column will be labeled “Things I liked Most”, the third column will be marked “Things I disliked the most”
8) List your favorite job position in the 2nd row of the Column labeled “Best Job and Ranking”. List your 2nd favorite job in the third row, just below your first favorite job.
9) Continue listing your favorite jobs in the first column, until you have finished listing your most favorite jobs. (My suggestion – stop at the top five jobs).
10) Once you have all your favorite jobs listed, go to the 2nd column, “Things I liked Most” and use bullet points to capture those things in your top favorite job that you like most. (These will vary by person, but some examples would be “I got to work from home”, or “My management supported me”, or “My opinions were listened to by management”). List up to five things you liked about your favorite job.
11) Continue this process for all the jobs you listed, until you have content for all the jobs under the column “Things I liked Most”
12) Now go back starting with your favorite job and go to column #3, “Things I disliked the most”, and use bullet points to list those things you like the least about each job, starting with your favorite job. (Again this will very but some examples might be “I hated the commute”, or “I did not trust my boss”, or “I got new bosses every 6 months” – and yes – this happened to me!)
13) Once you have the table/matrix completed. Save it and put it away for the day.
14) The day following completion of the table/matrix – go back to the “Job Happiness Matrix”, and look for things that particularly stand out to you. Bold or circle those items. And save the document for reference later.
In the process above we have identified aspects of our career, and our jobs that have brought us real happiness, satisfaction, and sense of accomplishment, and these elements were discovered through reviewing our own real-life job experiences. We have also captured the evil sisters – those things in past jobs that we have disliked – things that have gotten in the way of our Business Quality of Life (BQL). These are red flags as we continue on our career path. The tool we have created, can be used to help us decide on which jobs to pursue, and which jobs to accept. If our next job offer is 80% to 100% aligned with things that we like most from our jobs – our chances for success, and satisfaction are high. If our next job offer aligns with only 60% or lower of the things that we like most, and if it contains many elements of things that we disliked on previous jobs, or chances for success and job happiness are not good. In summary, we can use our résumé not only as a key to an interview, we can also leverage our résumé as a tool to discover what jobs will make use the happiest in our next career move.

Career Survival Guide: Part 4 – The “R” Word (Résumé) Insights

2/23/2016

Career Survival Guide: Part 4 – The “R” Word (Résumé) Insights

Always have a current résumé. Always. Even if you have no plans to seek a new employment, or new position within your organization. The reality is that there are moving parts in life out of our control. We cannot control world economy. We cannot control our company taking a new direction and leaving us behind. Sadly, we cannot control office politics. (If anyone figures this piece out, please send me a note, as I find organization politics mystifying!) We cannot control downsizing, and we cannot control out sourcing. So again, ALWAYS have a current résumé. But if you don’t have a résumé, or need to update yours, or want to assess its quality, and usefulness, continue reading.

By way of explanation, a résumé is (ideally) a one to two-page document that highlights your education, skills, and job history. There are two basic types of résumé forms: 1) Functional and 2) Chronological 3) Combined. Functional pulls out skills, and experience regardless of where these skills were learned, or practiced (paid employment, volunteer). The Functional résumé captures experience, and skills based on logical groupings based on skill/experience. Chronological lists jobs in historical order. The convention is to list the current or last position first, at the top. Combined résumé is a mix of both Chronological, and Functional. The Combined résumé highlights skills, experience, but still lists jobs at a high level to make it easy to trace work history. Whatever the format, ideally your résumé s/b one to two pages. For a more detail on the three formats see…
http://www.simplyhired.com/blog/jobsearch/resumes/3-main-types-resumes/

There are many ways to write a bad résumé, and a few ways to write a good, or great one. To assess the quantity of your resume below are a list of don’ts that are universal:

UNIVERSAL RESUME GUIDELINES:

List your Name, and contact information at the top. (Traditional format is to list your home address as well.)
Length should be one to two pages.
Don’t embed a picture or “selfie”
Put your best foot forward, but DON’T LIE
Include dates of employment (month/year is best)
For electronic form use a file format that can be easily opened/scanned by common software (JohnSmith.doc, or JohnSmith.docx)

So above are the hard and fast rules on résumés. What follows are suggestionsbased on my education (MBA), profession (Career Coach), and personal experience (4 career changes since 1980’s).

RESUME SUGGESTIONS:

Don’t do a Functional résumé. I hate them. Beyond this I have not met a recruiter, or HR person that likes Functional format.

Don’t list hobbies. (This may come up in the interview – so be prepared to discuss hobbies, and recreation – but keep off the résumé.

Don’t list your pets (sad but true)

Don’t list your church or religious affiliation.

If you have worked with technology/software, even as a user, (Excel, Visio, SharePoint, etc.) list these out, but put into a “Skills” or “Competencies” section.

Avoid getting into little-known acronyms, or little known systems in the body of the job history/job details section. Listing “help built gyzmo-morphying synchronizing sub system” may have meaning to you – but it will make your résumé harder to scan by recruiters.

My preference in format is Combined résumé, but weighted heavily on the Chronological. You need to make your job history obvious to the reader, not obscure it.

Do use skill buzz words (Scrum, LEAN, Product Owner, Six Sigma, etc.) all but very small companies have software to scan résumés. You want your résumé to press the right buttons. If your résumé makes the cut, the recruiter has about 18 seconds to scan your résumé manually and make a decision to contact you for interview or pass you over.

Do list your education. (Unless there is over-riding reasons not to – a Career Coach, or Career Counselor can help here.) Call out your education in a separate section. If your education is very strong (MBA, Master of Software Development) list it at the top. You want to list your strong suit first!

Do use bullet points to highlight strong aspects of your job experience. Accomplishments, Successes, Delivery of Critical projects are all great candidates for bullet points. People with little time, like hiring managers, will skip much of the résumé, but will most likely skim the bullet points.

One last heads up on Résumés. Don’t be surprised if you arrive for a 2nd or 3rd interview and the hiring manager has not read your résumé. It is better to expect that the managers have NT read your résumé, and be prepared to close that gap. For that reason, you should arrive at job interviews with several copies of your current résumé. If your interviewer says “tell me a little about yourself” …this is gold. It allows you to highlight your accomplishments, wins, education, and successes. The purpose of a Résumé is to get you an interview. Put your best foot forward, be sure you have accurate contact information, and make your job history, and education easy to understand, and you have a good start of a great résumé – one critical key to get job interviews.

Career Survival Guide: Part 3 - Personal Pitch

2/11/2016

Career Survival Guide: Part 3 – Personal Pitch...

If you have made the decision to seek another position, or even just want to test the water, a step that should come next so to develop a personal pitch for yourself. When we pitch our business, or service to other’s we call this an “elevator script”, or “elevator pitch”. The idea here is that if you are in a conference, or a convention, or any large meeting for that matter, if you take the elevator with others, you can express to them in one minute the core of what you do. My elevator pitch for my Career Coaching business goes like this…” So, you know how most people don’t like the work they are doing? (Nodding of heads here.) In fact, 71% of the employees in north America either hate what they are doing, or feel disconnected from their work. So I work with Clients to assess their job satisfaction. Then work with Clients to create a career vision, then map that vision into a workable plan.” So in less than one minute, I connect with the person I am talking with through stating a very real world problem, I describe my approach and skill (assessment) and also state at a high level what my service or mission is (working with clients to map their career). A personal pitch is similar to an elevator pitch, but you are pitching yourself; your skills, experience, education, and likes in the next job you want to get.

This personal pitch is a means to an end. It can happen without having an up to date resume. The exceptions are if you are attending a job fair, or another gathering where the main focus is to talk job placement. In this case, if your personal pitch generates interest, you can follow up with “would you like to see my resume?” But at most social occasions you can follow up with a resume if need be.

I’d like to suggest what makes for a successful personal pitch. It is good to consider a lead in question to have ready. For example, if you are good at organization, and are looking for a position where organization is a major asset, your question could be…”so you know how most people can’t seem to get organized? I am an ace at organization, and scheduling.” If you are good at getting systems to talk to each other, your question could be…”so you know how complex it can get at organizations when information is in half a dozen places? I make life easier by building services so the information can be shared more easily.” So think about a good question as a lead in, and make it a problem most everyone can relate to. Think of pain points that you make better, or make disappear.

The second part of the personal pitch is to list two to three things that you are good, or even better great at. For example, if you are a project manager and are good at turning troubled projects around, you could say “I am really good at getting troubled projects moving in the right direction again”. (I met someone like this, and the company I was working for at the time hired her based on her success of turning bad projects upright.) If you are a good numbers person, and enjoy doing that work, you can say “I love getting into the numbers and making sense of them so managers don’t have to.”

The last part of the personal pitch is the close. This is the time we ask for leads on a new position. If this is a phone call to a friend, family member, or personal contact, the close would sound something like…”do you know of anyone that can use my talent?” In the case of a career fair, the close could be…” can your organization use my skills, and experience?” Alternately, it could be…” would you like to see my resume?”

To illustrate a sample of a personal pitch for a person that is a middle manager, making a call to a personal contact the conversation would sound something like this:

YOU: “Hi Jane, it has been a while, how is it going?”
Other: “Hey John, it sure has been a while. Things are pretty much the same. Going well overall. How are you? What’s up?”
YOU: “So you might have heard there were some lay-offs at ACME Corp. Guess what? I was one of them.”
Other: “Oh no. Sorry to hear this.”
YOU: “You probably know it was a business decision, and I’m looking forward to the next chapter. I think you know that I was a middle tier manager at ACME. Over the last couple years, I have excelled at delivering quality software at faster speed to market. Using LEAN methodology, we were delivering software into production every month. We increased speed to market by 50%. Do you know of anyone that can use my talents to develop teams that deliver quality quickly?”
Other: “Hmmm…you know I have to think about this. I belong to a professional organization and I could spend some feelers there. Do you have a resume?”
YOU: “I do. I think I have your email. When does your group meet next?”
Other: “Next week. On Tuesday.”
YOU: “Is it OK if I ping you back say Thursday next week?”
Other: “That would be fine. Gotta run. We will talk next week. Take care.”

To recap, below is a check list of the key parts of a personal pitch:

1) Lead in Question (usually around a real word problem, or pain point)

2) Mention two to three skills, and experience (things that you are truly good at, and have proven your value)

3) Close (You ask for leads on a new position)

The power of a well written personal pitch is that when the opportunity to sell ones-self arises, (and this can often be unpredictable – a party, a phone call from an old friend, etc.) we will not trip over our words in describing our skills and success. We have rehearsed the personal pitch, and we are concise about summarizing our skills, and experience, and have a solid close in place where we ask for leads, and level of interest. If you have a well written personal pitch, and have it down pat, you will get right to the point, appear more confident, and display that you fully understand what you can do well, and are focused when making your key points.

Career Survival Guide: Part 2 - Assessment

2/3/2016

Career Survival Guide: Part 2 – Assessment

It can be a life changing, emotionally charged move to leave your current position. There is always risk in making a job change. Even in-depth interview processes cannot completely prepare you for the very real experience of working for a new boss, in a new environment, and a new culture. In completing my MBA, the most important concept I will always remember is “minimize risk, maximize profit”. So how will we know when it is worth taking on the risk of leaving our current positon, and taking on personal risk?

An element I would like to stress, is “how do you feel about your current job?” This is a consideration that is often overlooked. This is especially so with us males. When working for a Fortune 500 company I had first-hand experience seeing what the emotional toll looks like when one is miserable in their job. I recall a manager who was demoted from a director positon to a non-management positon. I could see in body language, and demeanor the pain he was going through. He went from being an optimistic, happy human being to literally a walking zombie. He would drag his body around the offices. His energy dropped. I could see the pain in his face, and posture. He was miserable. To my knowledge this manager is still at the same company. He stuck it out. Was it worth it to hang in there? I will never know for sure, but the last photo I saw of him, he still looked miserable. To me this is a waste of a life.
Below is a check list of things to look for that can help you assess how bad your situation might be:

You feel your energy drop as you think about your job in the evenings, or weekends.

You find that your opinion is always in the minority in department meetings.

You fill out your performance review, and use “Exceeds Expectations”, but your boss rates you “Needs Improvement”

You feel you cannot do right by your boss regardless of your decisions.

You find your job stress carries over to evenings, and weekends.

You are feeling you are not getting support from your management

You have felt for a long time you don’t trust your boss

You have consistently gotten “meets or exceeds expectations” on your reviews, but your new supervisor rates you as “needs improvement”

You are in constant worry around frequent, and regular job lay-offs. (A move may not be as risky as you think. And yes, I have been there.)

You suffer from Sunday night blues as you think about going back to your job Monday.
Your peers seem to focus on the negative most of the time.

There is a department meeting, and you are not invited. (Red flag.)

You are given a performance improvement plan that you realize is impossible to meet (start looking NOW)

If you have said yes to several of the points above, please consider speaking with a professional. A Career Counselor, Transition Coach, or Career coach can provide great value in sorting out your situation, and helping you arrive at the best decision. The above is a partial list, and I hope it will trigger some thinking around job satisfaction for a free assessment send an email to [email protected] and request “Job Satisfaction Survey”.

Career Survival Guide: Part 5 – A new way to Leverage your Résumé !

Career Survival Guide: Part 4 – The “R” Word (Résumé) Insights

Career Survival Guide: Part 3 - Personal Pitch

Career Survival Guide: Part 2 - Assessment

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Career Survival Guide: Part 5 – A new way to Leverage your Résumé !

Career Survival Guide: Part 4 – The “R” Word (Résumé) Insights

Career Survival Guide: Part 3 - Personal Pitch

Career Survival Guide: Part 2 - Assessment﻿

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Career Survival Guide: Part 2 - Assessment