Career Not Going Your Way? Try Relaxing Your Grip. | Words from the Wise

Feeling stuck? Frustrated? Just plain mad?

Choosing a career and getting the chance to pursuit it doesn’t always happen the way we’d like.

Careers are unpredictable beasts. They come with promise but no guarantees. While they seem to be about us, they’re actually more about others giving us the opportunity to make their organizations successful.

We often start out believing our careers are within our control. Then reality sets in and we hear ourselves saying:

• “I’m knocking on every door and still don’t get even an interview. Why?”
• “I’ve been performing at a high level in this job for three years and still no promotion. Why?”
• “I never thought the work I do would frustrate me like this. What can I do?”

Too often, we can’t answer these questions. They’re too big, too encompassing, and too far beyond our understanding of the conditions that drive them.

So we keep pressing, driving ourselves forward, dragging our frustrations with us. Some just curl up in a ball and do nothing. Sadly, this doesn’t fix anything.

Words from the Wise

Struggles with career choices and direction have gone on for centuries. Human beings generally want to do work that will support them and bring some satisfaction.

Especially in modern times, the hardest part is figuring out what we like and want to do, given our skills. Once that’s somewhat figured out, we set out to find the right employment.

This figuring-out process requires introspection, which many fail to do. It also requires owning what you know about yourself and the career you want, so that  you can set your direction with an uncluttered mind.

I’ve  worked for many years with job and promotion seekers who have been battered by rejection when they’ve pursued job titles, salary levels, and big name companies rather than the work they enjoy. They’ve held on so tight to their preconceived career must-haves that they have tuned out other opportunities.

I use this quote from Robin Fisher Roffer’s book, Make a Name for Yourself: 8 Steps Every Woman Needs to Create a Personal Brand Strategy for Success, to help clients (both men and women) get free of themselves:

The universe is waiting for you to say what you want…Everything that you are seeking is also seeking you.

Then I add these wise words from Henry David Thoreau in Walden:

 Men (and women, right Thoreau?) are born to succeed, not to fail.

Just think about how complex it is to get all the parts  aligned just right so that you and anyone else can intersect your objectives at the same time.

That means: The job you want has to present itself when your skills and experience are seen as the right fit for the company and when the political forces see you as having the right nature to meet expectations. Whew!

Your successful career starts with your willingness to “put out there” what you sincerely want and then to allow your conscious and subconscious thinking to work together to connect the dots. Your prospective or current employer is doing the same thing.

Relax your grip.

Lots of good things happen when you take that chokehold off your career pursuits and replace it with a realization that what you are seeking is also seeking you.

The benefits can be palpable:

• Less self-imposed pressure, negative self-talk, and energy-sapping stress
• A refreshed ability to see and hear snippets of ideas you might otherwise have missed
• An openness and excitement that blunts feelings of frustration and isolation
• A renewed belief that you will get there and commitment to the effort
• Recognition that your attitude and effort are what you control; success will follow

Your career path is a function of the work you’ve done to offer value to an employer and the initiatives you take to get hired/promoted. Your biggest challenge is to be authentic in the process and prepared to act effectively when opportunities present themselves. Taking your hand off the throttle can help you make a nice smooth turn.

Photo from ladybugrock via Flickr

Calling All Grads! Here’s Help to Land That Job.

Straight talk about how to get a job and keep it is often hard to come by, especially in a concise guide. Marco Buscaglia fills the bill with Calling All Grads! Turning a Degree Into a Job, an e-book he edited that covers all the bases. He put his staff  at Tribune Media Services, Inc. to work mining expert advice on what new grads need to know about the job market and how to engage it. I was invited to comment on his 74 pages of practical, resource-rich advice tailored specifically to new grads. Great stuff!

Graduating is a big deal. It marks the end of those years of formal study and, for some, life on a college campus where living essentials are provided.

For most, the goal of graduating is to get a job, so you can live on your own and chart your own course. That can be motivating or paralyzing. In all cases, it means stepping up to the plate.

What’s your MO?

News Flash: When you’re unemployed, your full-time job is job hunting. To land a job and launch a career, you have to work for it.

Proactive grads have already started their search big time before they put on their caps and gowns. They’ve experienced meaningful internships, attended job fairs, scheduled appointments with campus recruiters, and engaged in some serious networking.

For the others, I offer this New Grad Alert: There is no hiring pixie waiting to put a job offer under your pillow.

If you approach the search creatively, you’ll find that it’s a stimulating adventure and Calling All Grads! Turning a Degree Into a Job by Marco Buscaglia provides both treasure map and tools for digging.

Buscaglia writes:

In putting together this book, our staff writers interviewed career experts, hiring managers, authors, other employment specialists and students themselves to present a concise but thorough guide to getting a job during difficult times.

The guide’s job facts, insights, and advice are the product of named experts and career authors who deal with the needs and issues of grads each day. They are an important leg up.

Cutting to the chase.

The guide neatly captures five phases of the job search and gives you an unfiltered look, using job and salary data as well as behavioral examples, at how they work and what you need to do:

1. Explore your options and possibilities, then jump right in
2. Who you know, who you meet are the keys
3. Craft the right resume, cover letter to score an interview
4. Master the interview through practice, patience, professionalism
5. You’ve been hired. Time to ditch some old habits

It’s a book of straight talk:

If you want someone to hire you, that someone has to know who you are. Sounds obvious, right? Then why do you keep posting resume after resume to mammoth job sites, hoping a recruiter will simply gravitate to your name based on your education and experience? Wait, you‘re not the only one with great academic credentials and a record of decent part-time jobs? Well, what do you do now? You get out there, that’s what.

It’s advice encourages and forges positive perspectives:

Granted, you‘ve just finished college and are fully expecting to grab that first job. But remember, your career is a marathon, not a sprint. You‘re in this for the long haul and you‘ll have to make a few adjustments along the way.

The importance of networking is strongly reinforced as the most important job search strategy:

To make the most of networking, realize that everyone you know — from family and friends, to your former professors and co-workers — is a member of your network. You can also realize new opportunities by joining civic, volunteer and professional organizations.

The guide covers many topics like:

• on-line image building and the need to balance it with face-to-face contact
• attending job fairs and turning temporary jobs into permanent ones
• crafting the resume and that all-important cover letter
• interviewing approaches and skills (unfortunately there was nothing on  behavioral interview questions, alas!)
• dressing the part, questions you should ask, and writing the “thank you” note
• how to be successful once you get the job

No more delay

The job search can feel arduous. That’s how a full-time job feels some days. But you still have to slog through it. New grads need to answer the call of the marketplace and their own sense of self by knuckling down and doing the work that lands that all important job.

The help is there in Calling All Grads. It’s worth a look. Perseverance pays!

Struggling with a Difficult Choice? The Answer Can Be Fit to a “T”

Making the right work decision can be stressful, even paralyzing. We just don’t want to get it wrong.

“What if I:”

• End up looking like an idiot or incompetent
• Lose all the career ground I’ve gained
• Cost myself or the company money
• Cause terrible embarrassment or brand damage

Too often we over-focus on the downside of our choices. However,  being overly optimistic about the upside can be a problem too.

“Finally I’ll:”

• Be the next in line for promotion
• Get a great bonus or raise
• Put the company/my work group on the map
• Have the team I need to lead like a champ

Too much pessimism and too much optimism are the enemy of sound decision-making.

Use your head not your knees!

Knee-jerk decisions can cripple your career. We decide that way when we’re:

• Overly emotionally about expected outcomes
• Impatient with the time factors and/or complexity of the choice
• Confused by things we don’t understand about the options
• Stressed by the pressures to decide

There’s no getting away from these realities, but you can replace those jerky knees with a calm and disciplined head.

There are lots of different kinds of decisions we have to make around our careers like:

• Which job offer to accept
• Who to hire or promote
• Which policy recommendation to accept
• What the most important priorities are

Usually, you’ll have a specific window of time when you have to make a decision, so you need a reliable tool to put into practice each time.

The “T” chart to the rescue!

“T” charts (or tables) are simple analytical tools. They rely on you to identify and weigh the right factors in advance of your decision, so you will balance the positives and the negatives.

Let’s say you have two reasonably comparable job offers and decide to use a “T” chart for each job that you’ll review side-by-side to help you make your choice. Here’s how.

1. On a blank sheet make two large “T” shapes–one for each job you’re looking at.
2. Across the top of each “T” write Pros and Cons.
3. To the left of both “T’s” write the criteria that you are looking at for both jobs.

Consider criteria like:

• Total compensation
• Characteristics of the work group
• Leadership and corporate culture
• Stability of the business
• Opportunities for growth
• Authority and autonomy
• Nature of the work

4. Write the pros and cons for each criteria for each job as you see them on each “T”.

5. Compare both jobs and base your decision rationally the facts you’ve assembled.

You can repeat this process for other kinds of decisions using different criteria in situations like:

Hiring/promotion decisions by considering the candidate’s

• Skills and knowledge
• Interpersonal style
• Leadership qualities
• Growth potential
• Experience

Management policy changes:

• Impact on the bottom line
• Employee readiness
• Timing and potential fall out
• Regulatory/legal implications

The more specific and relevant your criteria, the more likely you will assess your options effectively. The key is not to stack the deck and select criteria that support what you may want to do at an emotional level. You need to keep it real.

Weigh your options.

The cons (the negatives) are often seen as the deal breakers in any analysis. Many of them should be. However, all cons are not created equal.

Once you have looked at your decision-making data, revisit the cons column and see if any negatives can be mitigated. Are there legitimate ways you can make them less of a problem? If, for example, the total compensation for the job you want is less that your other choice, consider whether their job training and opportunities for promotion offer a better chance to advance and make more in the future.

Using a “T” chart to help you make important decisions doesn’t guarantee that you’ll always be right, but it will keep you honest with yourself. It’s just the rationale approach you need for a sound move forward. Choose away!

Photo from paul spud taylor via Flickr

Hungry for a Great Internship? Know Where to Find the Meat.

Internships are considered a must-have for many college students (and even some high schoolers) looking for a leg up in getting a job upon graduation. They hunt to find them, compete to get them, and strive to multiply them–all for good reason.

Internships are real workplace experiences that build and showcase the job knowledge, skills, and behaviors essential to career success.

So why do so many complain about those internships once they’ve been landed?

• The work is too menial. I feel like a lackey.
• I don’t have enough autonomy.
• There’s too much/too little/no supervision.
• I’m left on my own to figure out what to do.
• I do all this work and don’t get paid (or am paid a paltry sum).

Welcome to the business world!

There is often a misconception that, once you get a real job with a real title, all the work is meaty, independent initiatives are applauded, your supervisor is supportive, and the compensation commensurate with the work. Sorry this isn’t so, but internships can help you recalibrate your expectations.

Internship Lesson #1: Teach yourself to see and understand the realities of the work place and what drives it.

You can’t see what’s really going on unless you look. Too many student interns limit their focus to the work they are asked to perform and not the experience as a whole.

Initially, there’s good reason for that: the tasks are new to them and they want to do them well. That’s a good thing but not the only thing.

The real meat is between the bun.

Internship Lesson #2:  Learn what did or did not fit you about the company, the work, and/or the environment and why.

Your internship helps clarify what you need from a job to perform at your best and stay motivated.

That means discovering are how effectively you:

• Handle ambiguity and too little/too much direction
• Perform under pressure
• Communicate with executives, managers, your boss, and coworkers
• Overcome flagging self-confidence and self-doubt
• Use strengths and overcome weaknesses
• Make independent decisions and come up with new ideas
• See your work in the context of the company’s big picture
• Influence or take the lead when there’s an opportunity
• Stay positive and avoid getting caught up in office gripes
• Put knowledge and skills to use in the right way

You need to make your internship as much about discovering who you are within the dynamics of the job as you do about future line items on your resume.

Here comes the judge.

This week I served on a panel to judge internship presentations at a local university. The fifteen students in this six hour undergraduate course interned with major corporations like AT&T, Guardian Life, Allstate, Abercrombie & Fitch and small businesses including a restaurant, spa/pool company, law office, and long-term care facility. Most students were business and/or marketing majors.

The students who stood out were those who discovered the most about themselves while interning. One learned he didn’t want to be in law because he knew he couldn’t defend someone he knew had committed the crime. Another loved the company she interned with (they wanted to hire her) but realized she wanted to work for a large firm. Two other students surprised themselves at how effective they were talking to front-line employees as well as the company president, seeing how they were able to adapt their communications styles successfully. Others learned how it felt to own and defend their web design assignments.

Win-win internships

There are no bad internships unless you choose not to learn anything from them. Every business is fascinating in its own right. Each has a unique business model, leader-driven culture, performance history, cadre of employees, and customers/clients. No matter what your internship role, you are always in a position to observe, explore, and contribute. So whenever you can, take a big bite and savor the flavor.

Photo from Lego-LM via Flickr

Suffering from Resumophobia? | A Remedy for Job Seekers

The job search heats up for many this time of year, particularly for new grads, anyone who’s had enough of his/her current job, or those who have simply put it off too long.

 So, I’m reposting this piece on writing the resume. Other Business Fitness posts to revisit are on transferable skills, the interview process, and questions you need to ask the interviewer. May you land a job that fits you well!

The dreaded resume! Every job seeker desperately needs one but no one wants to write one. Why? Because it’s agony.

The irony is that we fear our resume—the very thing that is our entry ticket to the job we want. Since we resist the things we fear, we put off writing it or suffer major distress when we must. Our concern: “What if my resume isn’t good enough!”

Our “resumophobia” has three main causes:

• Frustrating uncertainty about what recruiters/businesses want
• Doubt or confusion about the value of what we’ve done
• Lack of confidence in our ability to write it “right”

These are legitimate and paralyzing reasons. But we cannot succumb to them. Why? Because—no resume…no interview. No interview…no chance.

The resume is a rite of passage in nearly every job search.

There are lots of great books and experts to teach you how to craft a great resume. What I’m offering are insights that will unfreeze your thinking, so you can get started.

Your resume is packaging. 

It is not a biography, a job description, or a sales pitch. It’s your package!

The content of a good resume showcases concrete results that you have achieved in other jobs. It contains the products (results) that you created. So when you write your resume, make sure it is about important outcomes you delivered. Not everything you ever did—just the most significant results.

Your resume is a picture. 

A resume is art and you want the viewer to be absorbed by yours.

Great artists control the eye of the viewer. Great resumes do that too. The screener’s first scan needs to spot something of interest. That means you need to:

• Position important facts where the eye falls.

Don’t make screeners struggle to find what they’re looking for. When they come to your resume, they will scan down the middle. So make sure that their eyes will land on the words, job titles, and achievements they are looking for. Highlight in bold the words that link what you accomplished to the duties listed in the job posting.

• Create white space so the eye has relief.

Wading through resumes is visually exhausting. White space is relief so use a font size that isn’t too small. Avoid dense copy that sends the message that you couldn’t identify your priority accomplishments and don’t know how to write concisely. Use bullets, avoid paragraphs.

• Include interesting information that keeps the eye reading. 

Everyone brings their own uniqueness to their jobs. Capturing that in a resume differentiates us from other candidates. So be sure to mention a fresh approach you may have taken to a routine work process or to an initiative that you led.

The sections called “interests,” “activities,” and “affiliations” are your big finish. Interesting tidbits there often turn out to be the “big opening” during an interview.

Your resume is your voice. 

The tone of your written words becomes the sound of your voice. That’s the only glimpse into your personality that the screener will get from your resume. When your words are clean and clear, precise and easy, they create a sense of your nature, your confidence, and your approach to work.

Please remember:

• The screener is your audience
• Your purpose is to provide an honest, factual story about your work life

If resume writing still intimidates you, if you are having a difficult time sorting through all that you have done, or if you have some unfortunate “wrinkles” in your work history, investing in some professional assistance may be in order.

The bottom line is that it’s always a good idea to have an up-to-date resume on file, especially in these times. Enough said!

Photo from Corey Ann via Flickr

Bankrupt or Flush with Transferable Skills? A Telling Story

Transferable skills get us hired or promoted. They’re our career currency. Without them, there’s no deal.

The more transferable skills we have the more valuable we are. Resumes market them. Interviews showcase them. 

Can you list your top ten, most marketable transferable skills, right now?

Bankrupt or flush? 

Transferable skills are attached to us all the time, not just at work. It’s time to get a handle on your bank of skills.

Pick a recent life event and write it down.

As you uncover your transferable skills, insert them like I’ve done here.

Casey, down for the count 

I start every day (dependability) in the barn, feeding my horse, cats, and Casey, my seven-year-old, Lab-golden retriever mix. Casey’s a busy dog, full of energy who, as a puppy, wouldn’t tolerate being a house dog. The barn was way more interesting. So she got her way.

About two weeks ago, I noticed that she wouldn’t eat (attention to detail) her breakfast. That happens sometimes, so I went about my other chores. Then I noticed that when she tried to go into the horse stall, her back end faltered. Three minutes later she was down and couldn’t get up.

My large animal vet was at a conference, my small animal vet on vacation. I suspected I didn’t have much lead time (problem assessment) to get help for Casey.

There is a veterinary hospital about four miles from me where I had never been a client. I called (decision-making) at 6:30 AM to learn they opened at 7.

I lifted 79-pound Casey into my car, drove to the vet hospital, and waited in the parking lot for someone to show up (assertiveness).

The receptionist was the first to arrive. I explained that I wasn’t a client but had a dire need (communication). She looked at me kindly and explained that she didn’t have an appointment open until 10:40, but she’d let the doctor know when she came in at 9:30. I scheduled the appointment as a back up (planning), took a deep breath (stress management), went home and waited.

I parked the car in the shade and brought Casey some water (safety and initiative). She lay quietly. I took a shower so for my next appearance at the vet hospital, I wouldn’t look so shabby (brand management).

At 8 AM the phone rang. The veterinarian was there and would see me. Relief.

It took me and a technician to carry Casey into an exam room (collaboration). The veterinarian examined and then admitted Casey. After some blood tests, it was clear she had Lyme disease (big surprise, I had it and my horse too) plus a seriously low potassium count.

The decision was to keep Casey overnight with IV fluids. I received several update calls from the veterinarian and one that unnerved me a bit. Since the hospital didn’t have 24-hour coverage, did I want them to transfer Casey to a monitoring facility about 35 minutes away (risk assessment)?

I opted to keep her where she was, thinking it would be less stressful  (decision-making and accountability).

The next day the vet called saying that Casey was a “new dog,” on her feet, hungry, and wagging her tail. She could go home with medications and a few restrictions.

The technician hugged me when she brought Casey to me. I struggled to hold myself together (self-control).

Next I wrote a commendation letter to the veterinary hospital owner, the case veterinarian and technician who cared for Casey (communication).

I admit I was braced for the worst. I’ve been through other events here at the farm that didn’t have a happy ending. Each time I have to face uncertainty, I need to draw on those experiences and transferable skills for strength.

Finding yours

 You have your own transferable skills that you undoubtedly take for granted since you’re using them without thinking.

It’s time to make your transferable skills part of your consciousness and your conversation. They are the building blocks of your career and your business fitness. Uncover them and use them well.

Out of Work? Hire Yourself.

You think you can’t. I say you can. Don’t over-think it, make it too big, or get in your own way. Just try it. 

Plug the gap. 

Being out of work, creates a glaring gap on your resume. Your work history has come to a (hopefully temporary) dead end. 

This makes job seekers lose sleep at night and I don’t blame them. 

So the question is: “What can you do about it?” 

I say, “Plenty, if you have something of value to offer.” 

Everyone has some level knowledge and skills needed by someone else. You may know how to: 

• Organize: information, schedules, office space, projects, or events
• Troubleshoot: software, IT tools, work processes
• Consult/coach: on performance, problem solving, change, life skills, regulation
• Create: specialty items, written materials, social media tools, art
• Present: training, speeches, proposals, videos 

There are clients/customers who need your know-how. It doesn’t matter whether you charge them for your services or not. Each time you serve someone, you are functioning as an entrepreneur. 

It’s time to reveal this work on your resume. 

Hire yourself. 

Self-employment is employment. Working for yourself is about providing services to others. 

When you do that formally, you are functioning as an entrepreneur. 

Working for yourself shows the hiring manager that you: 

• Take your capabilities and their value seriously
• Can attract and successfully serve clients/customers
• Are a self-starter, committed to building your career
• Have the courage to put yourself out there
• Are motivated and energetic about taking on new challenges 

“Being” your own business showcases what you’ve been doing since you’ve been out of work. It maintains your employment continuity, so you’re always working up to the present. 

Your resume will need to name your business and include the outcomes you’ve achieved for your clients—problems solved, installations completed, savings achieved, or negative impacts avoided. That’s what you include in your bullets. 

You may decide to keep your “business” active while you’re working or only between jobs. Either way you’ll want to address that on the resume or in your cover letter. 

Getting started 

Becoming a business entity isn’t complicated, for these purposes. Just: 

• Create a business name as a sole proprietorship. To keep things simple, consider using all or part of your own name.
• Get business cards.
• Write a simple statement about what service(s) you’re offering, so you can tell people when they ask.
• Decide on a fee-for-service when you need/want to charge
• Get the word out (social media makes this easy, networking too)
• Consider a blog that can double as a simple website where you write about what you do and post about what you know (This adds credibility for clients/customers and a credential for a future hiring manager to consider.) 

Find a few clients/customers (non-profits are often a good source) where you can work on a pro bono (free) basis, in exchange for a testimonial that you can use if they’re satisfied. This is also how you’ll get those outcome statements for resume bullets. 

Ask for referrals and see where your efforts take you. Remember, you’re not trying to turn this into an all-consuming business, (although it could grow into something significant). You’re still in the job search. So balance your time. Pick your spots. 

I once worked with a client who’d been out of work for over two years. He was looking for an executive position in sales but couldn’t get a look. So, he set up solo sales training consultancy with himself as the president. He had no paying clients, but that didn’t matter. He suddenly was at the table with the people he needed to meet with. 

Surprise yourself. 

Your career is in your hands. Being out of work is an empty feeling. It can drag you down. Staying in the game is important for your psyche and your resume.   

You don’t need a job to do valued work. You just need an outlet. That you can create for yourself by staying business fit. 

Photo from David Vincent Johnson via Flickr

 

 

 

The Internship Game—Step Up or Get Left Out

Internships are almost a right of passage to getting hired. The thirst for them has stirred businesses of every stripe to offer internship opportunities, particularly unpaid ones. 

There’s an upside and a downside to unpaid internships. So you need to know how to get the most “up” out of your choices. 

Make your free labor pay. 

The CBS Sunday Morning program ran an eye-opening segment called, “Internships: A foot in the door?” 

Lauren Berger, blogger known as the Intern Queen, made this telling comment: 

“The most common question that employers are asking in that job interview after graduation is, ‘Where did you intern?’ And if the person next to you even had one internship and you didn’t, there’s a good chance that that other person is gonna land the opportunity….” 

Internships are like any other commodity. If the demand for internships is greater than the supply, then economic principles take over. Businesses have work they can’t or won’t pay for, but if they can get it done for free, they’re in. Voila, the unpaid internship. 

Here’s how internships are playing out according to the Sunday Morning segment:

“In a 2010 survey, 42% of college students who graduated with an internship on their resume received a job offer, compared to just 30% for students with no intern experience. And, those graduates with internships received a higher starting salary, about $42,000, compared to just $35,000 for those without.”

It’s not, however, any old internship that’s going to deliver positive results. It’s only internships that add to your skill set and experience base. So if you’re going to work for free, you have to get marketable value from it. The only one who can convert the asset-value of free work into paid work is you.

No plan. No chance.

If you go into the internship race without a plan, you’ll likely end up losing. When you go after an unpaid internship you’re making an investment, not in dollars but in time. And you know that time is money.

Internships are the starter kit for your career. When you’re selecting an internship, you need to be specific about what you want from the experience. After all, you’ll be using your internship experience on your resume, so it needs to give you outcomes that will mean something to a recruiter.

Select internships that provide opportunities to:

• Learn and/or apply knowledge that aligns with your career interests (i.e., IT, customer service, marketing, teaching, finance)
• Lead, work independently, and/or assume responsibility for outcomes
• Build your interpersonal skills, confidence, and experiences
• Meet and build relationships with all kinds of people (i.e, customers, vendors, leaders)

There are great internships, awful ones, and everything in between. Your job is to land the ones that will do the most for you.

Working for free is a luxury that not everyone can afford. This reality can be tough to swallow. 

In the Sunday Morning piece, here’s what Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit Washington think tank, explained:

 “…increasingly the top internships are going to kids from the top of the income ladder. ‘Who can afford to come to Washingtonand spend $4,000 on housing and food and then work without being paid? It is not the children of farm workers or factory workers or, you know, the children of people who are unemployed right now. It’s going to be upper middle class kids….’”

This reality intensifies the need for planning way ahead to get internships that fit and make you a more attractive candidate for the next work-for-free opportunity or that all important paid job.

Keep working

Internships aren’t just for college kids anymore. Unemployed workers abound. People used to working don’t like being idle. So, unpaid internships are in their line of sight too.

There is no better credential than meaningful work where you add value and demonstrate your commitment to your career. Even though there are arguments decrying unpaid internships, they’re here to stay. Now is the time to make them work for you.

Photo from Samuel Mann via Flickr

What to Say After You’ve Lost Your Job

Less is more. There’s a lot to sort out. 

Job loss is upending. We generally don’t see things clearly, may act in haste, and are likely to say the wrong things. 

We lose our jobs for different reasons:

• Poor performance
• Breaking the rules
• Reorganization
• Downsizings and mergers 

When our number comes up, the boom comes down in different ways: We may be: 

• Fired for cause
• Asked to resign
• Displaced with outplacement
• Offered retirement 

The circumstances around your release impact what you say to: 

• Networking contacts
• Telephone interviewers and recruiters
• Hiring managers
• Family and friends 

Overcome the hurt 

What you say to yourself about losing your job will leak into what you say to others. 

If you’re beating yourself up, making excuses, blaming your company, wallowing in hurt pride, and carrying weighty emotional baggage, getting over it is your first challenge. 

Start by talking to someone who will help you put things in healthy perspective so you can move on. 

The temptation is to make the entire job loss situation about you. (That’s not usually the case unless you’ve done bad things like broken rules and/or laws.) 

Even if you’re released because of poor performance, there is always a context that puts that in perspective, removing obstacles to new opportunities. 

First, develop a balanced view of what took place before you were let go. Revisit the: 

• results you produced
• expectations of your boss
• dynamics of your work group
• company’s priorities 

The value of our jobs and the way we perform is defined and driven by business conditions. 

Simple explanations 

When you’re out of work, the question you usually get is, “Why did you leave?” 

News flash: Most people don’t want to hear all the gory details. 

Advice flash: A one sentence answer will do. 

The question is about you not the company. So answer it from your perspective. 

If someone wants to know the company’s reason why you were released, s/he should ask someone there. It’s not your job to provide the company’s rationale for letting you go.  

It’s during the job search process that we’re most often asked, “Why did you leave?” Here are some ways to frame your answer: 

If released for performance 

• I was hired for my technical knowledge and experience in planning, but my job had turned into frontline troubleshooting.
• After a successful career as a collaborative leader, I was unwilling to adopt the command and control leadership style my manager wanted.
• My personalized approach to customer service wasn’t compatible with the new script-driven processes.

If released through downsizing

• The company implemented new cost saving technologies that meant disbanding my department.
• I was part of a downsizing/company merger that displaced mid-level managers with production specialties like mine.
• Demand for the products/services in my division had been declining because of foreign imports, so the company closed it.

These answers are intended to be brief, broad, and truthful. Each one suggests something about either your principles or your understanding of business realities. You don’t want to lure the questioner into digging for the particulars.

You simply want to address the question and then move on to positive conversations about:

• Your accomplishments
• Your career interests
• Industry needs and trends
• Networking opportunities

Focus on the positives

Jobs get lost for both legitimate reasons and unfair ones. Sometimes the boss doesn’t like us, other people undermine us, we’re evaluated unfairly, the job wasn’t as promised, or we got unlucky.

Sometimes it’s about timing, missed signals, and our inability to do the work as expected.

There is something positive about every job experience, even if it’s just the lessons learned.

Your challenge, if you lose your job, is to throw off the pain, ditch the stress, write your one sentence answer, and take bold steps toward your next opportunity. Go for it!

Photo from shiftstigma via Flickr

Not Your Ordinary Interview Preparation Checklist—Everything Counts

Every conversation becomes an interview, of sorts, when there are questions to:   

• Get information and/or share ideas
• Form or validate perceptions
• Assess capabilities or weigh credibility
• Develop or broaden relationships
• Explore or finalize next steps
• Offer or retract opportunities 

That means we always need to be ready to answer questions effectively, especially when they are part of: 

• Job interviews
• Promotional discussions
• Performance feedback
• Special assignment offers
• Requests for project support 

Interviews affect our careers. We can’t afford to be sloppy or naive about them. 

Be on your toes 

There is casual conversation at work and there is serious conversation. We need to know which is which and when one suddenly becomes the other. 

What starts out as a “how was your weekend” conversation with your boss can quickly turn into: “I didn’t know you were so involved as a youth soccer leader. Do you know _________? He’s a good friend of mine.” (Interview question) 

In an instant you have added another variable to a work relationship and more data about your skills. 

There thousands of bits of information and experiences plus endless relationships and connections that you’ve accumulated in your life so far. 

I suspect that you, like most, don’t consider most of them assets for the interviews that are coming your way. That’s a big mistake. 

Our credibility as employees, job candidates, managers, business owners, consultants, and teachers is rooted in our experiences.

Everything counts 

Careers grow on the basis of knowledge, skills, experience, and relationships. 

“Been there, done that” in business is exactly what management wants when we’ve done both well. It’s what an interview is designed to reveal. 

Surprise yourself by completing this inventory about what you’ve done that is relevant to your career today and for the future. 

Then turn it into a checklist to help you prepare for your next “interview.” (The parens are ideas to get you started.) 

Your “been there” list 

1. What different kinds of organizations have you worked for? (Companies, non-profits, start ups, store chains, mom and pops)
2. What states, town, and countries have you worked in?
3. Whom have you meet that you’d admit to? (Business owners, community leaders, politicians, journalists)
4. What career experiences have you dealt with? (Job loss, promotion,  transfer, company closings, achievement recognition)
5. What schooling, training, and travel experiences have you had? (Institutions attended and degrees/certificates received, countries and states visited, cultures experienced) 

Your “done that” list 

1. What kind of office work have you experienced? (Management, administrative, technical, financial, communications)
2. What kind of field work have you done? (Sales, construction, troubleshooting, installations)
3. What entrepreneurial or freelance experiences have you had? (Hobby business, social media marketing, blogging)
4. What volunteering have you done? (Cause promotion, political candidate support, fund-raising)
5. What have you done that’s creative? (Musical/theatre performances, artwork exhibited, writing published, arts patronage) 

Everything adds up 

Every interview and conversation is an opportunity to connect with someone. What makes you interesting are your experiences. Where you’ve been and what you’ve done create a picture of what you know and the skills you have. 

Some experiences are serious and others funny. They all have value. 

I’ve written in this blog about being hit between the eyes with a spitball when I taught high school, hauling cartons of frozen butter and turkeys to Head Start centers when I worked in social service, and being questioned by a dozen lawyers during a utility company rate case. 

You have your own stories like these to draw from but better.   

Keep track 

It’s tempting to minimize our experiences. We tend to think the experiences of others are grander. 

A successful interview isn’t about being grand. It’s about connecting, being authentic, and sharing experiences that demonstrate your capabilities, integrity, and commitment. 

Take a little time to create your checklist. Use it when you prepare for your next interview. You’ll be surprised at what an asset it is. 

Photo from bpsusf via Flickr