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May 7, 2011
So now you landed and from my previous blogs recognize the importance of maintaining your foundation. That is you will not forget the network that you worked so hard at building during your job search, maintain & build that resume that you have been constantly tweaking plus you are going to ensure that you at minimum keep yourself relevant in this fast changing world by maintaining and building your skills. Maintaining your foundation is an on-going process.
What additional steps are there? Presumably, you want to ensure you do what it takes to keep the job that you worked so hard to land. One suggestion in making sure that you keep the job is to ensure you know why you were hired. What skills, attributes and image did you portray? Let's examine each of these in detail. What can you do to ensure that you know the skills they wanted plus the skills that perhaps they did not know they needed to effectively do the job? Do you know what were the "must have skills" and the optional or ideal skills your new employer was wanting when they were conducting the search? Do you still have a copy of the advertisement? Is it possible to obtain a copy of a job posting? Perhaps, there is a job description. What research did you do or could you still do to determine the skills necessary to do this job. If you were to do a self-assessment, how effectively are you utilizing these skills? What other feedback can you obtain? Once you determine this feedback, is there any action plan that you want to put in place to perhaps improve on a skill that you are not demonstrating as effectively as you feel is required.
For the purposes of this blog, I am referring to skills as being technical skills. Additionally, I am defining attributes as being the same thing as behavioural skills. Behavioural skills or attributes are often referred to as the soft skills. Examples would include: interpersonal skills, communication skills, organizational skills, teamwork, assertiveness, detail oriented, problem solving, etc. Similarly to the technical skills exercise, how you can you determine what attributes are required for the position and how can you assess how you are doing as compared with job requirements.
Finally, the image you portrayed. One could argue that this is much the same as attributes but what I am really expressing is the real reason you were selected. You demonstrated that you were the best fit for the job. Those making the decision decided that for whatever reason they felt you would be the perfect fit for there company. What made them feel you were the "perfect fit" for the job. Perhaps, you indicated you were willing to do "whatever it takes" to get the job done but then after you were hired you indicated that work-life balance is critical for you. You are who you are but if you want to keep the job, you may need to be consistent with who you said you were or who you represented during the interviewing process. If this is not the real you, you may want to do considerable self reflection to determine what it is that you are wanting from the job and develop your plan for moving forward.
In my next blog, I will continue offering suggestions that may assist you in keeping that job you worked so hard to obtain! |
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April 16, 2011 The final part of your foundation is maintaining and building your skills. During your job search you probably determined what skills you required or already had that would allow you to get the job you just landed. Similarly for future jobs, you will need to have the skills to do those future jobs. How will you obtain those skills? There are many ways to acquire the new skills including perhaps, just by doing your new job, you will further develop those skills. Perhaps, your new employer will provide in-house training or send you out for training. You may also be given special projects or assignments. You may volunteer or look for opportunities inside and outside your organization. Maybe you will read more business books or you may decide to upgrade your education by attending night school or enrolling in on-line courses. Attending external courses also helps you build your network particularly if you make an effort to connect and stay in touch with others taking the same program. A lot of the ideas mentioned above when implemented will actually contribute to your success in your new job. Whether networking or acquiring new skills, you will become more effective in your new role. This will likely increase your chances of keeping that new job or being given other opportunities inside your new organization. Regardless, you will be well positioned for your next job three years from now. |
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March 26, 2011 Another key component of the foundation includes maintaining and building your resume. This includes keeping a record of your achievements and significant projects including your role in these projects and the results. As you begin to collect these, you will be well positioned to add your new company, job title, and some key accomplishments to your resume. In addition, you will position yourself well for any future interviews where behavioural type questions are asked. You know, those questions where for example they ask, “Please tell me about a time you used your leadership skills to ensure success of a project.” You will be well positioned to describe some background on the situation, the action(s) you took and the results of your action. In next week's blog, I will introduce Part 3 - Building Your Skills. |
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March 19, 2011 You have finally landed. After months and months of refining your resume, creating a list of accomplishments, attending networking events and building your network you have landed. So now what? The clue to the answer lies in the fact that the average job will last less than three years. As unbelievable as it sounds, this means that you need to begin preparing for your potential next job. I know this is not what you want to hear but it is not as bad as it sounds. You have already constructed a “strong foundation” for your job search. In essence, all you need to do is to keep it strong and perhaps make it stronger. The problem though is that many of us tend to revert to old habits. If you tended to work longer hours and did little networking, you may revert to those old habits. But after learning how important it is to have a strong network and quite likely it assisted you in achieving this new job, you need to ensure that you don't forget your network. For those of us that may not be natural networkers, the challenge is making the time and motivating yourself to do it. Personally, when I know that by not keeping my network strong, it could make my next job search longer, it motivates me into action. So maybe I can start attending those monthly association chapter meetings that I often skipped in the past. The first thing that everyone can do is to let everyone in your network know that you have landed. You can thank them for their contribution in helping you land. Perhaps, you can occasionally send an update about how things are going, things you are learning, etc. Perhaps, if you have any challenges, you might solicit advice from specific members of your network. You should be continually thinking of ways to help those in your network. A suggestion is to send a quick email to people in your network about articles or events of interest. Additionally, review the activities that you have been doing to build you network and see what you can continue to do! If you feel you could have done a better job, perhaps read books or articles on networking. Ideally, you want to avoid having not contacted many in your network for three years when you are again in transition. In next week’s Blog, I will discuss maintaining and building your resume in the context of having just landed a new job. |
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March 12, 2011 I had the privilege to do a presentation last week to a group of approximately 20 internationally trained professionals to provide them with with some tips from an Human Resources practitioner's perspective for finding work in Canada. I had recently landed some new urgently required work with a client plus I was wanted to make some changes to a speech & then practice it for an upcoming Toastmaster's Competition. I had been very tempted to back out of this commitment and am very glad I did not. Yes, some of you that are reading this may know that I ran over time and was disqualified in my Toastmaster Competion because I did not practice the changes that I had to my speech. But regardless, I would do it all again. I met people from all walks of life. One had worked as a doctor in another country and when I asked the group about a peak experience in his life, he shared a story about saving a woman's life that had swallowed some poison. While preparing for this presentation, I asked the facilitator what areas I should cover. Naturally, the presentation was to include networking, resumes, interviewing but one that I had not thought about was keeping the job after attaining the position. This surprised me but the more that I thought about it, the more sense it made. There also seems to be a lot of information available about networking, resumes and interviewing but very little about what do you do to keep your job. Unfortunately, I do have a lot of experience in having to terminate employees and often have either been involved in decision making process of whether to terminate specific employees or have noticed some things. It is my intention in future blogs to expand on this topic. So now you landed, now what? What advise would you give to someone after they landed? I would appreciate your comments. |
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August 28, 2009 Today I attended a meeting where we were attempting to develop a partnership with a company to promote our speaking business. The person we were talking to is a small business entrepreneur who is involved with and oversees a number of businesses. We were asking for his feedback concerning topics that might be of interest. He mentioned that there seems to be a lot of people talking on many of same topics and that he often obtains little value by attending these sessions. He felt that most of the presenters have come from larger organizations, talk in a different language and don't really understand the needs of an entrepreneur. For me this was very much an eye opener. In recent blogs, I have been talking about ensuring your employees can align with your company's vision. But if a small business owner's initial concern is how to go about hiring their first employee, there first concern will not be ensuring you employees align with the company's vision. Hiring an employee seems relatively basic to someone who has been working in the Human Resources field for many years. But even with an Human Resources background, most Human Resource Consultants have worked for larger companies that already had payroll departments that looked after all the government deductions and so offhand, would not have a great amount of knowledge about all the legislated deductions. However, at least with my background, I know what is required and can find that information. But what if I didn't know what was required? I would try to find someone who truly understands my needs or at least will listen to me and quickly learn about my needs. And here is the big "aha" for me. Assuming me client is an entrepreneur, I can now put myself into their shoes and start thinking about what I would do if I was them. And if I was hiring an employee, the first thing that I would be to figure out what I really wanted my employee to do. What would their level of responsibility be? From there, I would determine the behavioural and technical skills that I wanted this person to have. From there, I would find out how much that I would have to pay to find such a person. I would then find out all the other costs involved in hiring a person such as vacation pay, employer health tax, employment insurance, workers' compensation, employee health benefits, etc. to determine the total cost. From there, I might look at other alternatives such as hiring a contractor or hiring an employee through an agency. Each of these are large topics in themselves which I can now go and learn more about so that I can truly be of service to entrepreneurs. As I think about this, I realize I can develop a checklist or a process may which I can truly use to help my clients. I am now think that I can create a great presentation plus other products that truly be what the client wants |
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August 21, 2009 If you are a Facebook friend, you will have seen some discussion concerning why the chicken crossed the road. My response was to the effect that we should ask the chicken. In the media, we have been hearing various pronouncements that the recession is over. But we are also hearing that the reductions in the workforce are not over. Companies are continuing to downsize and employees will continue to lose their jobs. The employees that still remain are doing more work than ever and have the constant threat of being downsized hanging over the head. How are they feeling and what can be done to help them? My response is that we should ask the employees. Why should employers care? I believe most employers do care for their employees from a human perspective. But even disregarding the human element, the effect on the employee's health will result in more absenteeism and increased drug/medical premiums. Additionally, there are many studies that show that an unhappy or overstressed employee is not as productive as an employee who is fully engaged and enjoying their work. If employees are working extreme hours or have too many things to do, they will not be as effective and efficient as they could be. What can employers do? The employees who have survived may be concerned that they will be the next to be terminated. Having regular communications with the employees is extremely helpful. It's important that all news, good or bad, is shared at regular intervals. Many employees fear the worst anyway so giving potentially bad news is better than receiving no news. Some employers only communicate with their employees when there is bad news to share and/or they require their employees' assistance. This further keeps employees on edge because they keep hearing rumours about another meeting to anounce further downsizing. Additionally, why not ask the employees how they are feeling and what you as an employer can do to make things better. It is important that you listen to what your employees have to say and not become defensive. Some employees need the opportunity to be heard and very much appreciate being able to talk to someone who is not defensive or judgmental--just someone who really cares and listens intently. Additionally, it is recommended that you make employees aware that you are also very overwhelmed and you may not be able to implement many of the ideas that are brought forward. Thank your employees for their efforts to date and their ideas. Encourage suggestions that can may implemented by the employees themselves or with very minimal effort or expense. By communicating regularly and honestly with your employees and by responding appropriately to suggestions, your employees will see that you really do care and this will relieve some of the stress. Why did the chicken cross the street? I don't know but I thought you would never ask... |
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August 14, 2009 One of the key characteristics of top companies is that there is strong alignment between company's mission, vision and values and that of their employees. Let's examine what this really means. What is your company's mission? This question seems difficult. What is your company's purpose? This seems easier to answer. So where does purpose fit in this? My own purpose is to bring clarity to indivuals and businesses so that can they attain greater success. So to help clarify, let's say for the sake of argument that mission and purpose are essentially same things. As an example, if I was working for a widget company, their mission statement might say: "We manufacture widgets." Vision is often described as a beacon of where the business wants to go. Some people argue that it should be inspiring while others argue that there needs to be a degree of reaonableness but I believe that most important part of it is in the understanding of where the business wants to go. Let's assume these widgets are components to a larger product and this larger product is used in medical facilities. Your company's vision might be, "to a have a widget in every medical facility in Canada." On the surface, this may still be difficult for an employee to get excited about. However, once it is put in the context of how this widget contributes to the making of a megawidget and the megawidget contributes to the medical facilities success and then the importance of medical facilities, this widget company becomes a very attractive employer. The more employees know about their company's mission and vision or in more common language its purpose and what it wants to attain, the more employee's can feel connected to the business. When this concept is taken further and employee's understand how their job or job objectives are contributing to the company's purpose and what it wants to attain, the more motivated employees can be. If, for example, I was a buyer and I had job objectives such as ensuring timely delivery of quality products, I could see how my success in achieving this objective would contribute to the making of a quality megawidget in a timely manner. I would also know that this is contibuting to the success of the medical facilities. Assuming that the work that I doing aligned with my career objectives (and the company and I had similar values), there would then be very strong alignment between the company and myself. |
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August 6, 2009 I have returned from a couple of weeks vacation during which time I spent a little bit of time contemplating who I really am. I was doing this because I am reading a book entitled Leadership From the Inside Out by Kevin Cashman for a second time. It is a book where you are advised not to read it from cover to cover but to stop, think, take notes and answer some of the questions provided. Of course, being what I believe is me, I did not take this advise the first time and read the book from cover to cover. Now reading it a second time, I can hardly believe that I read it the first time as I am discovering much new material. In this book there is a quote by Carol Orsborn which says, "When you empty yourself of the illusions of who and what you think you are, there is less to lose than you had feared." This resonated with me because I had recently read a coaching article where the client who was a senior executive essentially was answering an important question about why he acted in the manner that he did with a response that if I behaved in another manner, it would not be me. This was a huge realization for the client as what was holding back this person in further advancing his career was how he perceived himself. Once having this realization and with some further coaching and homework by the client he became more successful in his role. I wondered what if I believed that I was more outgoing and believed that I had a wealth of experience to share with world. Why do I believe what I have experienced is worth less than what others have experienced? Is this limiting my business success? Or on a more personal note, what if I could share my inner feelings with those closest to me because I believed that I was less introverted or more passionate? What kind of person could I become? I was prompted to write this blog while taking my morning walk with my two dogs--a miniature schnauzer and a pug. I was walking past a park and noticed a swingset. I recalled how I used to enjoy swinging on these swings and much to my mother's chagrin occasionally jumping off while in midair. I thought to myself, what if I didn't believe that I was too old to be playing on swings. Why can't I? However, perhaps I will not jump off in midair. |
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