I keep hearing a word that pops up regularly that is completely alarming when I ask job seekers to describe themselves. The conversation usually goes like something like this:
Me: “Ok, now tell me some of your personal strengths and attributes that make you good for this type of job.”
Job seeker: “I’m driven, dedicated, and extremely loyal.”
STOP.
Let’s interrupt this conversation to have a frank discussion about “loyal.”
It always gives me pause because of its contradictory nature when used in the job search process. Semantics mean everything, and this word requires us to dig a little deeper to uncover a huge problem in its use. This brings up two fundamental questions:
Question #1: If an applicant is so loyal, then why are they leaving the employer?
-or-
Question #2: Why aren't companies loyal to dedicated employees instead of laying them off?
Isn’t this expression of ‘loyalty’ technically supposed go both ways? Employees are supposed to be loyal to companies… and companies are supposed to be loyal to good employees, right?
Today’s reality sure doesn’t look that way.
FACT: We spend a significant portion of our lifetime in the workplace… sometimes even more than we spend with our families, on average. The math doesn’t lie: Out of 168 hours in an entire week, we spend approximately 40 sleeping, 73 on our own time, 10 hours commuting, and 45+ hours in the office environment (including lunch time). Out of our entire waking time during any given week, we spend at least 41% in our place of work.
That’s a significant chunk. With that amount of time being spent with co-workers, it’s easy to come to think of this group somewhat as a ‘second family’ – a natural assumption given the complex array of relationships that evolve in working so closely with a group of people over so many hours.
But there’s an emotional connection in there as well, which goes deeper than the perfunctory professional connection. People bond with their fellow employees and supervisors, and there’s a sense of belonging and security that results. Workers are motivated and inspired to throw themselves into their work and oftentimes, exceed what is being asked of them in an effort to help push the company forward. They invest trust in the management and owners in that the executives have the employees' collective back.
Then one of three scenarios happens:
1) The unthinkable. Business drops off, or there’s a change in organizational leadership.
Things end up not being the way they used to be. There are more closed-door meetings, and morale might plummet as a result. Staff members don’t like the new management or direction, and begin looking for new opportunities and want to jump ship. In other cases, changes like these can mean a pink slip. Struggling to understand, the employees are devastated. “I put my heart and soul into that company!” “I worked hundreds of hours of overtime and never noted it just to get the project done on time.”“I loved my job and always got good reviews… what happened?”
2) The flattery of the competitive offer. You’ve worked hard, and it’s been noticed. Competitors try to snatch you away from your current employer and gee, it’s too good to resist so off you go.
3) Boredom / Disconnect. Sometimes, there is simply a shift away from the employer’s engagement in the employee, and the worker begins to feel disconnected and alienated. That’s when they begin looking for new opportunities to learn new things, be challenged, or move to the next level of their career because there is nowhere else to grow.
How we think about the workplace needs to shift. Sure there are a lot of warm fuzzies that are part of any corporate or business culture, which makes you part of a team. And team chemistry is an important part of the equation.
But don’t forget, for even one moment, that the workplace is first and foremost a business environment, and your being there is a mutual business decision.
Companies make personnel decisions based on business, not loyalty. Some still allow loyalty to be factored into decision making, but that is quickly being phased out. It's all about dollar and cents now.
Look at this way: You made a business decision to work for them based on the compensation and work that you would be doing, and they have hired you to do a job based on your skills and performance.
Ultimately, I’m becoming ever convinced that loyalty in the workplace has become obsolete. Long gone are the allegiances that employees make to a company that seem forever binding, and stay in the same position for time immemorial until they retire. And conversely, employers may overlook long-serving employees and see an opportunity to eliminate 'dead wood,' infuse new ideas, and trim overhead costs.
Loyalty expressed now in a résumé or cover letter almost seems a quaint, outdated expression instead of a statement of integrity these days.
So what do you think?
Do you think employee loyalty exists still?
Do employers still express loyalty to long-serving employees?
Or is this all about to be erased?
Monday, January 24, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Your Online Doppelgänger: A Good or Bad Version of The Real You?
I was at a meeting recently and during a break out session on social media, we were talking about how much (or little) of the ‘real you’ should be revealed online. Everyone around the table had Facebook profiles, but several people revealed that they actually had two different ones; one that is business-related and the other locked down to close friends only… mainly because they were afraid of the world seeing the ‘real’ person who expressed thoughts and ideas. The second profile was created because these folks didn’t want to worry about professional repercussions.
That being said, if the expectation is that we are supposed to be as authentic and genuine as we are in real life…
Then why are we being told to hold back and play the ‘professional card’… and never post anything that reveals what we REALLY are thinking or saying?
Good question. What do YOU want to do?
There still are an awful lot of other people out there who are ignorant of the fact that their tweets or posts are becoming part of their online digital diary that is forever being recorded. With 4 out of 5 employers using social media to learn more about prospective candidates for jobs, the online version of these people could prove to be not exactly what that company had in mind… based on the expressed opinions of the applicant in cyberspace.
Others, on the other hand, blatantly don’t care about what others might perceive or think about them. Damn the torpedoes, they say. I am who I am, and I won’t apologize for it. They are opinionated as part of their personal brand, and that very reason is what attracts people to them – these people will say it like it is. It’s like a breath of fresh air in a sea of vanilla-like people afraid to ‘rock the boat.’
So why is it that some people can get away with this attitude and seem impervious?
Let’s put it this way: There is really only one rule that really mandates how to handle this: You can’t play both sides of the fence and then try to back off. You have to choose one that you want to reflect your own persona, and then run with it... consistently.
Take Laurie Ruettimann of The Cynical Girl for an example. She’s been a professional human resources manager and is now a speaker, writer, and career industry expert. But she is also unabashedly direct, opinionated, and uses some words that others might cringe at seeing in her blog.
But you know what?
That is unadulterated Laurie.
I’ve never met her, but her honesty, directness, and humor all come together into her personal brand that is engaging and brutally honest. And she asserts herself in a positive way from a position of authority, engagement, and expertise while serving it straight up.
Not everyone can be this open.
So how much do you want your online doppelgänger to reflect the ‘good’ or bad version of the real you?
Where do you think the line should be drawn?
Do you maintain dual online identities… the ‘real’ you or the ‘professional’ you?
That being said, if the expectation is that we are supposed to be as authentic and genuine as we are in real life…
Then why are we being told to hold back and play the ‘professional card’… and never post anything that reveals what we REALLY are thinking or saying?
Good question. What do YOU want to do?
There still are an awful lot of other people out there who are ignorant of the fact that their tweets or posts are becoming part of their online digital diary that is forever being recorded. With 4 out of 5 employers using social media to learn more about prospective candidates for jobs, the online version of these people could prove to be not exactly what that company had in mind… based on the expressed opinions of the applicant in cyberspace.
Others, on the other hand, blatantly don’t care about what others might perceive or think about them. Damn the torpedoes, they say. I am who I am, and I won’t apologize for it. They are opinionated as part of their personal brand, and that very reason is what attracts people to them – these people will say it like it is. It’s like a breath of fresh air in a sea of vanilla-like people afraid to ‘rock the boat.’
So why is it that some people can get away with this attitude and seem impervious?
Let’s put it this way: There is really only one rule that really mandates how to handle this: You can’t play both sides of the fence and then try to back off. You have to choose one that you want to reflect your own persona, and then run with it... consistently.
Take Laurie Ruettimann of The Cynical Girl for an example. She’s been a professional human resources manager and is now a speaker, writer, and career industry expert. But she is also unabashedly direct, opinionated, and uses some words that others might cringe at seeing in her blog.
But you know what?
That is unadulterated Laurie.
I’ve never met her, but her honesty, directness, and humor all come together into her personal brand that is engaging and brutally honest. And she asserts herself in a positive way from a position of authority, engagement, and expertise while serving it straight up.
Not everyone can be this open.
So how much do you want your online doppelgänger to reflect the ‘good’ or bad version of the real you?
Where do you think the line should be drawn?
Do you maintain dual online identities… the ‘real’ you or the ‘professional’ you?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Biggest Secret Obstacle to Your Career
Time and again, clients land in my email inbox or are on the phone talking to me, painfully recounting how the job that they thought was secure was suddenly wiped out in the blink of an eye.
What they thought was a bullet-proof company career is suddenly gone, and the employee is now left with dangling, unresolved questions:
“I did everything right, and was a top performer... How could this happen?”
“The boss and I were best pals… what went wrong?”
"Why me?”
But the truth is: There is no such thing as job security any more. It's all about employability.
And the biggest secret obstacle to your career rests on one thing and one thing only:
How complacent are you?
The people who suffer the most from being 'caught with their pants down' in their career are usually the ones who have not taken an active role in managing their career. Sure, they have contributed a lot of good things, but something gave management pause and made them zero in on the unlucky employee.
That leads to the next question: What have you done to prove that you are not "dead wood?" That you are an active contributor in addition to being a top performer?
No method is entirely bullet proof, but when it comes down to paring down staff, it boils down to a business decision where an employer will look at who might be transferrable to another department or have demonstrated leadership or untapped career assets that might be of use to the company.
Complacency has no place in this business model. The concept of 'upgrading' is becoming more and more practiced as companies who have trimmed their staff down to the core group are now evaluating who is left to figure out how to move the company forward.
But never fear. There IS a way to overcome the perception of a person's complacency.
This is a brand-new year and what better time to actively roadmap out three areas that can shift an employer's opinion about you. Here are the 3 major focuses you need to zero in on to boost your employability quotient with your current employer:
1) Professional development. What kinds of classes, workshops, trainings, etc. can you take that will hone your ability to do your job, and bring back new ideas to the company? A well-trained workforce is important to bosses making staff reduction decisions.
2) Affiliations. How are you building your connectedness within the industry? What kinds of organizations can you join to build up your company’s profile, and keep tabs on your industry peers (and competition)?
3) Involvement. Where are you demonstrating your leadership by volunteering? This is a touchy area as you have to strike the right balance between contributing on a volunteer basis versus not impacting your ability to do your job. But by stepping up, you keep your abilities and name in the limelight, versus dropping off into obscurity.
Showing traction in your career by integrating these three career drivers, and then keeping your boss informed about them is critical to demonstrating how indispensable you are to the organization. They might lay off others, but if you are valuable to the organization by being an active contributor, you’ll have a better chance of surviving being trimmed out of the company payroll by being placed into another area of the organization.
And if the unthinkable ever does happen, you can be more confident in your job search by not being complacent about your career and engaging in active career management. As a result, the opportunities of another employer recognizing you as top talent and snapping you up are exponentially increased.
What they thought was a bullet-proof company career is suddenly gone, and the employee is now left with dangling, unresolved questions:
“I did everything right, and was a top performer... How could this happen?”
“The boss and I were best pals… what went wrong?”
"Why me?”
But the truth is: There is no such thing as job security any more. It's all about employability.
And the biggest secret obstacle to your career rests on one thing and one thing only:
How complacent are you?
The people who suffer the most from being 'caught with their pants down' in their career are usually the ones who have not taken an active role in managing their career. Sure, they have contributed a lot of good things, but something gave management pause and made them zero in on the unlucky employee.
That leads to the next question: What have you done to prove that you are not "dead wood?" That you are an active contributor in addition to being a top performer?
No method is entirely bullet proof, but when it comes down to paring down staff, it boils down to a business decision where an employer will look at who might be transferrable to another department or have demonstrated leadership or untapped career assets that might be of use to the company.
Complacency has no place in this business model. The concept of 'upgrading' is becoming more and more practiced as companies who have trimmed their staff down to the core group are now evaluating who is left to figure out how to move the company forward.
But never fear. There IS a way to overcome the perception of a person's complacency.
This is a brand-new year and what better time to actively roadmap out three areas that can shift an employer's opinion about you. Here are the 3 major focuses you need to zero in on to boost your employability quotient with your current employer:
1) Professional development. What kinds of classes, workshops, trainings, etc. can you take that will hone your ability to do your job, and bring back new ideas to the company? A well-trained workforce is important to bosses making staff reduction decisions.
2) Affiliations. How are you building your connectedness within the industry? What kinds of organizations can you join to build up your company’s profile, and keep tabs on your industry peers (and competition)?
3) Involvement. Where are you demonstrating your leadership by volunteering? This is a touchy area as you have to strike the right balance between contributing on a volunteer basis versus not impacting your ability to do your job. But by stepping up, you keep your abilities and name in the limelight, versus dropping off into obscurity.
Showing traction in your career by integrating these three career drivers, and then keeping your boss informed about them is critical to demonstrating how indispensable you are to the organization. They might lay off others, but if you are valuable to the organization by being an active contributor, you’ll have a better chance of surviving being trimmed out of the company payroll by being placed into another area of the organization.
And if the unthinkable ever does happen, you can be more confident in your job search by not being complacent about your career and engaging in active career management. As a result, the opportunities of another employer recognizing you as top talent and snapping you up are exponentially increased.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The Real Reason Some Employers and Applicants Stink at Interviewing
We’ll tackle both of these groups in this article in a moment, but first, let’s think about your career history.
Have you ever bombed an interview? Or, have you had an experience where the people on the other side of the table made you want to run away from the job, based on their behavior / dynamics?
What about this gem:
Ever walked into an interview only to see the interviewers obviously scrambling at the last minute trying to skim your résumé… giving the impression they haven’t even looked at it until you sat down?
Chances are, you have.
Let me be clear: professional HR departments, recruiters, and head hunters aside, the rest of hiring interviews are conducted by people who think they have a clue about hiring… but really don’t. Most of these people are small to medium business owners and managers who have never had any formal training in how to hire someone.
And it shows.
There are tons of online articles about interviews gone wrong, both from a company and applicant perspective.
On the employer side, usually the root problem is that the interviewer quite frankly doesn’t know what they are doing and ends up blundering around. Spectacularly, even.
Inappropriate or illegal questions, poor preparation in advance of the interview, lack of internal communication about prospective candidates, internal problems that come boiling to the surface, or just plain wacky behavior all count as interview #fails in the employer column.
Or it could seem fairly normal until the interview gets underway. Suddenly, the dynamics change and the situation becomes a power struggle – who has the job vs. who wants the job, or who has the skill assets vs. the company which desperately needs them.
Applicants, on the other hand, fail horrendously for the most part because of one major factor: They don’t have a sense of their own value. Throughout all of my client interviews, I always throw out the question: Why should someone hire you, and guess what?
Most people fumble on this question.
If you can't tell someone why they should hire you (and therefore know your value), how do you expect them to buy what you are selling as a potential employee?
Prospective employees also fail on other fronts including failing to prepare / do due diligence prior to the interview, exuding self-entitlement, lack of an ability to answer questions concisely and clearly, and not connecting their experience to the job opening.
But the real reason why many of these job interviews end up stinking so much beyond all the points mentioned above (and more) is for one reason:
Employers and applicants fail to think of an interview as a CONVERSATION.
There is so much pressure put on people to perform and keep what’s at stake a top-of-mind that the conversation simply doesn’t take place. It becomes an ugly battleground where some of the worst things come out.
To make the interview experience a conversation, think about how you might meet someone and develop a friendship. Obviously, what’s at stake in a workplace is greatly different than a friendship, but the concepts are the same:
1) What do you have in common?
2) How can you help / benefit each other?
3) Do you like each other?
4) How will you interact and keep a solid, mutually beneficial connection going?
5) What would you like to do together in terms of goal achievement?
6) What kind of team and tools will help you achieve the goals?
When an employer and applicant come to consensus that an interview is really a conversation or business meeting, the pressure is off and a real connection can begin.
Have you ever bombed an interview? Or, have you had an experience where the people on the other side of the table made you want to run away from the job, based on their behavior / dynamics?
What about this gem:
Ever walked into an interview only to see the interviewers obviously scrambling at the last minute trying to skim your résumé… giving the impression they haven’t even looked at it until you sat down?
Chances are, you have.
Let me be clear: professional HR departments, recruiters, and head hunters aside, the rest of hiring interviews are conducted by people who think they have a clue about hiring… but really don’t. Most of these people are small to medium business owners and managers who have never had any formal training in how to hire someone.
And it shows.
There are tons of online articles about interviews gone wrong, both from a company and applicant perspective.
On the employer side, usually the root problem is that the interviewer quite frankly doesn’t know what they are doing and ends up blundering around. Spectacularly, even.
Inappropriate or illegal questions, poor preparation in advance of the interview, lack of internal communication about prospective candidates, internal problems that come boiling to the surface, or just plain wacky behavior all count as interview #fails in the employer column.
Or it could seem fairly normal until the interview gets underway. Suddenly, the dynamics change and the situation becomes a power struggle – who has the job vs. who wants the job, or who has the skill assets vs. the company which desperately needs them.
Applicants, on the other hand, fail horrendously for the most part because of one major factor: They don’t have a sense of their own value. Throughout all of my client interviews, I always throw out the question: Why should someone hire you, and guess what?
Most people fumble on this question.
If you can't tell someone why they should hire you (and therefore know your value), how do you expect them to buy what you are selling as a potential employee?
Prospective employees also fail on other fronts including failing to prepare / do due diligence prior to the interview, exuding self-entitlement, lack of an ability to answer questions concisely and clearly, and not connecting their experience to the job opening.
But the real reason why many of these job interviews end up stinking so much beyond all the points mentioned above (and more) is for one reason:
Employers and applicants fail to think of an interview as a CONVERSATION.
There is so much pressure put on people to perform and keep what’s at stake a top-of-mind that the conversation simply doesn’t take place. It becomes an ugly battleground where some of the worst things come out.
To make the interview experience a conversation, think about how you might meet someone and develop a friendship. Obviously, what’s at stake in a workplace is greatly different than a friendship, but the concepts are the same:
1) What do you have in common?
2) How can you help / benefit each other?
3) Do you like each other?
4) How will you interact and keep a solid, mutually beneficial connection going?
5) What would you like to do together in terms of goal achievement?
6) What kind of team and tools will help you achieve the goals?
When an employer and applicant come to consensus that an interview is really a conversation or business meeting, the pressure is off and a real connection can begin.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Turn Your Job Search Upside Down in 2011: 6 New Year’s UN-Resolutions
Ah, New Year’s Eve. A time of noble resolution-making, yet so many get broken while they are still brand-spanking new.
So for 2011, I have a radical idea. Job seekers should decide to make some New Year’s un-resolutions. I mean, we can all make very positive career resolutions that are extremely productive, but shouldn’t we also not resolve to do some of the bad stuff, too?
Un-resolutions are actually the things we wouldn’t consciously do because they just don’t make sense, but a lot of us do them anyway for a lot of reasons, including force of habit, being shy, or even unwilling to adapt to change.
So while you are making your proactive, idealistic resolutions for the coming year, here are some quick un-resolutions to help ‘stay’ the course in 2011:
1) Taking everything personally. Job searching is a tough task, and it is easy to get discouraged, and even feel that not being selected for an interview means that you have no value, which couldn't be farther from the truth.
Keep your chin up, your game face on, and remember to circle back to the positives in your life which will help sustain you through the grueling job search process. Attitude is everything!
2) Be unfocused. Ask any career professional, and they’ll say that you absolutely need to have a pin-point precise job search. A wide and imprecise job search is the same as the shotgun approach: You can expend a lot of energy to cover a wider area, but do you ever really hit the mark when spread so thin?
3) Forget about the contacts we’ve made. Paul DeBettignies of Minnesota Headhunter offers this advice: Don't forget about your network… while the new year brings new opportunities, many people say they have "tapped their network," but when job seekers are asked how long ago that took place, Paul is constantly told: “Six months ago." This answer drives him crazy… Like most people hearing this after offering to help job seekers.
The trouble with most people’s networking efforts is that they are acting like icebreaker ships – they are so busy plowing ahead and breaking a new networking channel that they forget that they have to tend to the path they’ve just laid, which requires on-going maintenance to keep the water clear of ice re-forming. Tending to networking connections also requires ‘refreshing’ to avoid losing momentum of the connection that they’ve just made.
4) Wait around for the right job to come along. “Don't wait for jobs; instead, create one by researching and identifying companies who can use your strengths. Sell them on the problems you can solve,” says Hannah Morgan, of CareerSherpa.
Waiting for that ‘right’ opening can take a long time… So the most important thing you can do right now in a job search is be inventive and be centered on your ability to be the solution to employer pain points. Be a proactive problem solver, and employers will love you for it!
5) Step outside your comfort zones. Sage advice from career guru Miriam Salpeter from Keppie Careers: Don't avoid trying something new/stepping out of comfort zone.
Change happens to us when we need it most, and the best way to expand your horizon and push the proverbial envelope is to try something different.
6) Ignore your social media/online presence. Shahrzad Arasteh of Career Consulting Services reminds any job seeker that having a positive online presence is better than no (or a bad) social media profile.
With so many employers using tools to scour the Internet to find information on prospective candidates, careful cultivation of one's professional reputation is critical during a job search and beyond.
What do you think?
Are there some un-resolutions that you’ve discovered that you want to make for 2011?
So for 2011, I have a radical idea. Job seekers should decide to make some New Year’s un-resolutions. I mean, we can all make very positive career resolutions that are extremely productive, but shouldn’t we also not resolve to do some of the bad stuff, too?
Un-resolutions are actually the things we wouldn’t consciously do because they just don’t make sense, but a lot of us do them anyway for a lot of reasons, including force of habit, being shy, or even unwilling to adapt to change.
So while you are making your proactive, idealistic resolutions for the coming year, here are some quick un-resolutions to help ‘stay’ the course in 2011:
1) Taking everything personally. Job searching is a tough task, and it is easy to get discouraged, and even feel that not being selected for an interview means that you have no value, which couldn't be farther from the truth.
Keep your chin up, your game face on, and remember to circle back to the positives in your life which will help sustain you through the grueling job search process. Attitude is everything!
2) Be unfocused. Ask any career professional, and they’ll say that you absolutely need to have a pin-point precise job search. A wide and imprecise job search is the same as the shotgun approach: You can expend a lot of energy to cover a wider area, but do you ever really hit the mark when spread so thin?
3) Forget about the contacts we’ve made. Paul DeBettignies of Minnesota Headhunter offers this advice: Don't forget about your network… while the new year brings new opportunities, many people say they have "tapped their network," but when job seekers are asked how long ago that took place, Paul is constantly told: “Six months ago." This answer drives him crazy… Like most people hearing this after offering to help job seekers.
The trouble with most people’s networking efforts is that they are acting like icebreaker ships – they are so busy plowing ahead and breaking a new networking channel that they forget that they have to tend to the path they’ve just laid, which requires on-going maintenance to keep the water clear of ice re-forming. Tending to networking connections also requires ‘refreshing’ to avoid losing momentum of the connection that they’ve just made.
4) Wait around for the right job to come along. “Don't wait for jobs; instead, create one by researching and identifying companies who can use your strengths. Sell them on the problems you can solve,” says Hannah Morgan, of CareerSherpa.
Waiting for that ‘right’ opening can take a long time… So the most important thing you can do right now in a job search is be inventive and be centered on your ability to be the solution to employer pain points. Be a proactive problem solver, and employers will love you for it!
5) Step outside your comfort zones. Sage advice from career guru Miriam Salpeter from Keppie Careers: Don't avoid trying something new/stepping out of comfort zone.
Change happens to us when we need it most, and the best way to expand your horizon and push the proverbial envelope is to try something different.
6) Ignore your social media/online presence. Shahrzad Arasteh of Career Consulting Services reminds any job seeker that having a positive online presence is better than no (or a bad) social media profile.
With so many employers using tools to scour the Internet to find information on prospective candidates, careful cultivation of one's professional reputation is critical during a job search and beyond.
What do you think?
Are there some un-resolutions that you’ve discovered that you want to make for 2011?
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Company Culture: 6 Tips On How You Can Plug In
A hot topic in the careers industry right now is company culture, and probably the biggest issue of all: what exactly is it?Talk to any career or human resource professional, and you’ll likely get a wide range of definitions.
However, one thing holds absolutely true no matter what:
Companies that have a positive work brand presence attract people who want to work for them.
You’ve seen those examples on the news: Google has playrooms and goof-off space. Nike has a large campus and gym with a giant track surrounding it.
Ooooo. Sweeeeeeeet!
Wouldn’t it be great to work at those companies?
But let’s take a little closer look at what company culture really means.
Companies who champion emotional intelligence in their leaders cultivate trust and loyalty within staff. The ones that succeed in building a superior company culture have built a strong reputation for respecting and recognizing employees, which in turn, attracts top talent. Perks are nice, but individual recognition and connection of talent to task matter more, and leaders who are savvy enough to be in tune with their employees’ needs can guide development of the company culture into 'fun.'
Another aspect of creating a positive workplace is through reinforcement the value of the tasks assigned to employees; staff will end up taking pride in their individual ownership of job responsibilities. In a perfect scenario, the most important person is the one who is at the front line; a good company culture will make the receptionist feel that they count and have a personal stake in the company’s success.
But where does company culture really begin, at least where job seekers are concerned?
Plugging into a company’s culture can be a tough task for an outsider (job seeker). Here are some tips to gain confidence on that fit:
1. Build the major connecting bridge. Fitting within a company’s workplace culture means finding a link between your background and demonstrating a common vision and passion for their organizational mission, and this process begins in the interview. You need to connect your assets to their mission to make the first big plug-in to their culture; personal values linking to company ones are like a marriage- there has to be a solid match from the start ( but there is always room for some compromise).
2. Read the lay of the land for potential landmines in a company’s culture. On one hand, hiring managers are looking for chemistry, personality, and genuine ability to fit into an already-established culture paradigm that you must be able to fit into. But on the other hand, cues about this culture are difficult for job seekers to pick up on because no one is going to out-and-out tell you the way things REALLY are on the inside. But job seekers can find out a great deal in the interview by watching the interviewers carefully. Who defers to whom? Are there sideways glances? Does someone cut someone else off? Do they seem happy to be there? Are you greeted cheerfully when arriving for your appointment? Trust your intuition on the 'vibe' –if you rely on your gut instincts, almost 100% of the time you’ll find that you are reading the situation correctly.
3. Ask soft-ball questions that actually dig up the dirt on company culture. I always advise clients to ask this interview question: “What kinds of professional development does your company offer?” Employers need to be able to connect the dots of the value of professional development to being tools to do a good job. But the deeper question is this: Does the business value employees enough to invest in them? How a company treats their employees (either as valuable assets to be invested in or thrown away after being used up) is a question that should be on every job seeker’s mind in an interview. Training and professional development activities add to the mosaic of company culture while bringing in new ideas to share and excite others. Outside educational opportunities encourage employees AND companies grow... together. It’s a win-win situation: Companies are more productive; staff gain skills.
4. Transparency impacts company culture. Learn what you can from your inside contacts and also during the interview. Don’t be afraid to ask how previous organizational challenges have been handled. How the executive level handles significant strategy shifts or restructuring initiatives is indicative of that company’s core culture values and overall treatment of staff.
5. Communication styles matter. Communication is another broad term, but think about it: What clues do you pick up on during the pre- and post-interview contact with the employer? Are the interviewers clear? Do they make you feel comfortable and well-informed? Or is it more ambush-style? How do the interviewers respond during your face-to-face interview? Is it a stiff conversation, or more of an open, easy communication style? Companies with positive cultures have leaders who are open to new ideas and are focused on empowering their employees. Communication styles that allow for free expression of thoughts, ideas, and suggestions in a constructive way without negative repercussions are good indicators of what a company culture is like.
6. What interviewers like about their jobs speaks volumes about corporate culture. Ho hum. If the interviewers are not fired up about what they do, how on earth do they expect to draw in top talent? No one wants to work at a place when the interviewers can’t even sell them on the benefits of working there. One of the advantages to consider includes an upbeat work environment. People who are passionate about their jobs positively bubble enthusiasm and are excited to answer this important job seeker question. Staff will provide insights on important cultural benefits of working at this company. If they are happy, they’ll be providing a cultural transmission of happiness throughout the interview, and you’ll pick up on this right away.
Defining a company’s culture is sometimes like trying to tackle a marshmallow- you can’t quite get your arms around it and you aren’t quite sure what you are going to get once you are inside. The best you can do is be smart, do your research, take a temperature ‘check’ during the interview, and base your decision there. An accurate understanding what key values are to a company can help you plug in quickly and become welcomed as part of the team.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Sneak Peek into Future of Job Seeking –A Chilling Trend That You Absolutely Need To Know
The past weekend, I attended a gathering of career thought leaders in Seattle, WA, and found this to be an incredibly insightful experience.
Usually, résumé writers and career coaches are so busy with clients that we don’t often have the opportunity to sit down and discuss observations, as well as up-and-coming trends on the horizon.
We talked long and hard about how social media is slowly creeping into the candidate selection process, and spent quite a bit of time on video résumés.
Full disclosure: I’ve been relatively un-swayed in my opinion that resorting to videos is the wrong route to go as it is a static, staged, uncomfortable experience for most job seekers that end up leaving them looking wooden throughout the video. But of greater concern is that many think that these outlets leave candidates wide open to discrimination, based on the widely expressed opinions of many human resource managers.
However, the ice began to crack in my resolute stance on this hotly debated topic. Several of the thought leaders repositioned the idea of a video résumé as being an insight into a person’s passion… the written résumé document conveys the skills, action, and expertise, while a video ‘slice’ (as in a 15-second cut) that focuses on the candidate describing what fires them up or something that inspires them can work magic in conveying what makes a person tick.
Interesting, and food for thought. I’m not totally convinced this is the answer as most people don’t have access to a professional video crew that can make just the right believable angle, but perhaps this is a whole new industry waiting to emerge. Who knows?
But one nugget that came out of this meeting sent an absolute chill down my spine.
One of the attendees, Mark Hovind of JobBait.com (and an analytical guy who is tops at discerning trends out of mountains of data), laid it out starkly:
In the future, job seeking will be a platform which aggregates a person’s entire background into one location, including employer, supervisor, or manager ratings, dollar figure that they are worth, and any other relevant social data that could be an influencing factor on hiring decision. This, in turn, will fuel an ‘e-Bay’-like auction off to the highest bidder.
Think about it.
There are already reputation management or assessment tools out there already, quietly gathering data and information about people and what others think of them. We are absolutely one heart-beat away from that all-inclusive platform that pulls data from all over the web into a job seeker profile that you may or may not be able to control.
A critical mass of personal information is being built up to the point that the pieces are already there- someone is going to invent the program that consolidates it into a comprehensive profile.
The big question is how are employers going to interface with this system? There’s always going to be the human factor, but unless you get the right ‘classifications’ to fit into a specified applicant pool for the bidding, there’s always the danger of being qualified yet not considered due to someone’s established data algorithm.
This kind of data behemoth likely would also become a highly attractive target for hackers aiming to cause a massive data crash, Mark added, and I have to agree with him.
Another potential issue includes when a maligned person takes to the web in a fit of revenge, bent on destroying the reputation of a specific individual. This could have devastating impacts on careers. Risk management, Mark said. It’s going to be all about risk management including job applicants being proactive about taking ownership of negative backgrounds.
Why did I share these insights in this post? Mainly to wake everyone up. If a gathering of career professionals such as ourselves could see the handwriting on the wall, you can be sure that someone in a technology field is likely in the final stages of an application to be launched in the not-so-distant future.
Understanding the career implications and taking even more care in reputation management is a good best practice to start working on now, so you are ready to meet the very near future on its terms.
Usually, résumé writers and career coaches are so busy with clients that we don’t often have the opportunity to sit down and discuss observations, as well as up-and-coming trends on the horizon.
We talked long and hard about how social media is slowly creeping into the candidate selection process, and spent quite a bit of time on video résumés.
Full disclosure: I’ve been relatively un-swayed in my opinion that resorting to videos is the wrong route to go as it is a static, staged, uncomfortable experience for most job seekers that end up leaving them looking wooden throughout the video. But of greater concern is that many think that these outlets leave candidates wide open to discrimination, based on the widely expressed opinions of many human resource managers.
However, the ice began to crack in my resolute stance on this hotly debated topic. Several of the thought leaders repositioned the idea of a video résumé as being an insight into a person’s passion… the written résumé document conveys the skills, action, and expertise, while a video ‘slice’ (as in a 15-second cut) that focuses on the candidate describing what fires them up or something that inspires them can work magic in conveying what makes a person tick.
Interesting, and food for thought. I’m not totally convinced this is the answer as most people don’t have access to a professional video crew that can make just the right believable angle, but perhaps this is a whole new industry waiting to emerge. Who knows?
But one nugget that came out of this meeting sent an absolute chill down my spine.
One of the attendees, Mark Hovind of JobBait.com (and an analytical guy who is tops at discerning trends out of mountains of data), laid it out starkly:
In the future, job seeking will be a platform which aggregates a person’s entire background into one location, including employer, supervisor, or manager ratings, dollar figure that they are worth, and any other relevant social data that could be an influencing factor on hiring decision. This, in turn, will fuel an ‘e-Bay’-like auction off to the highest bidder.
Think about it.
There are already reputation management or assessment tools out there already, quietly gathering data and information about people and what others think of them. We are absolutely one heart-beat away from that all-inclusive platform that pulls data from all over the web into a job seeker profile that you may or may not be able to control.
A critical mass of personal information is being built up to the point that the pieces are already there- someone is going to invent the program that consolidates it into a comprehensive profile.
The big question is how are employers going to interface with this system? There’s always going to be the human factor, but unless you get the right ‘classifications’ to fit into a specified applicant pool for the bidding, there’s always the danger of being qualified yet not considered due to someone’s established data algorithm.
This kind of data behemoth likely would also become a highly attractive target for hackers aiming to cause a massive data crash, Mark added, and I have to agree with him.
Another potential issue includes when a maligned person takes to the web in a fit of revenge, bent on destroying the reputation of a specific individual. This could have devastating impacts on careers. Risk management, Mark said. It’s going to be all about risk management including job applicants being proactive about taking ownership of negative backgrounds.
Why did I share these insights in this post? Mainly to wake everyone up. If a gathering of career professionals such as ourselves could see the handwriting on the wall, you can be sure that someone in a technology field is likely in the final stages of an application to be launched in the not-so-distant future.
Understanding the career implications and taking even more care in reputation management is a good best practice to start working on now, so you are ready to meet the very near future on its terms.
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