The Career You'll Love » job hunt

Helping to define your next job

Carl — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:25:31 +0000

Does your next job exist yet? Maybe.

But many times jobs are created, or tweaked, based upon specific needs at a certain time, even connected with the talents of certain individuals.

This is one of the reasons why some jobs are filled before they’re even posted: The hiring manager was taking advantage of a great match of someone’s existing skills to address a specific pressing need.

Using LinkedIn to further your career

Carl — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:43:19 +0000

Earlier this year, Microsoft commissioned a study which asked hiring managers how much they used the internet to check out prospective candidates. Here’s a couple of interesting results:

57% used professional and business networking sites (such as LinkedIn).
98% used SOME internet resources to check out candidates.

This tells you that you need to have a positive presence on the internet, because your next boss is most likely going to check you out – perhaps even before ever setting up an interview.

Read the rest on my Workbloom blog»

Twitter as a job search tool

Carl — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:34:27 +0000

I ran across a very nice resource recently, 20 simple Twitter tips for your job search.

I know, I know – you’re saying that Twitter is such a waste of time and, besides, what would you possible want to tell the universe? Fair enough.

But Twitter, Facebook, and other tools can be valuable assets. Here’s why:

You can create and maintain relationships with people using these tools.
You can learn new things, because there’s different conversations going on in these social media.
You can easily find out what’s being said about your target companies.
98% of employers check you out on the web.

I was rather shocked to find out that my kids don’t particularly pay any attention to e-mail. After running my life almost entirely by e-mail for 20 years, it’s hard for me to imagine how to get by without it. I guess this is the same experience that my parents had, switching from telephone to e-mail, or their parents, switching from letters to telephone calls.

But why should you care about Twitter specifically?

You can monitor conversations going on around any topic.
You can find out what’s hot – NOW – minute by minute (that can be very important if you want to find out about job openings quickly!)
Group “conversations” are formed on a somewhat ad-hoc basis and disappear just as rapidly.
People don’t just stick to work-related issues, to varying degrees they also talk about other aspects of their lives.

In my previous job I was monitoring Twitter to do competitive analysis, because it allowed me to see what was being discussed about other companies and my own. For this I used TweetDeck, but there’s lots of tools out there. I like TweetDeck because it monitors my Twitter friends, my Facebook connections, and other conversations of my choosing.

For job searches it’s ideal, because you’ll instantly (OK, within a minute) find out if there’s news about job openings, target companies, or target industries. Since people have to keep it within 140 characters, it’s usually quite short and sweet – but often includes the direct pointer to more information.

Interested? Read the 20 tips above, and then connect with me:

I finally broke down and checked out Second Life last week, but that’s a whole different opportunity I need to learn about!

Looking to Change Career? Emphasize Your Transferable Skills

Carl — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:07:11 +0000

It’s going to happen eventually: You feel stuck in your job role. You want to take your career in a different direction, but your education, your skills, and all the people around you are telling you that it’s too difficult to change.

This can go on for years. Maybe you’re even reasonably good at the job, but more and more it grates on your nerves. You’re just digging a deeper hole for yourself, with no end in sight.

How Giving to Others Opens Doors!

Carl — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:08:22 +0000

I’ve been involved with a fair number of volunteer organizations during my lifetime, and I’ve always been amazed at how much people are willing to give. On the face of it, this isn’t quite rational – why would you do something that costs you a lot of time, money and work, when you aren’t getting anything specific in return?

Ah, but you do get something.

Rebounding with contract employees

Carl — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:17:39 +0000

I heard a great presentation by Edward Hernandez in Denver last week which was quite interesting. He was talking about one of my hot topics at the moment, employee engagement. I thought I’d share with you an additional observation which I believe is much more important than it first seems:

As the economy rebounds, companies will be reluctant to hire full-time employees. Fairly obvious, right? But this has broad implications.

First, why would this statement be true?

Companies have recent painful memories of how hard it is to shed permanent employees.
They will be unsure about the magnitude and longevity of the rebound. Is it for real this time? What happens if it’s slower than currently projected?
Full-time employees come with the expectation of stability in job assignment. There’s more flexibility with hiring contractors to address short-term pain points.

There’s some very interesting implications from this statement for anyone who’s in the job market:

Be open to the possibility of part-time and/or contract work, possibly for the rest of your career.
Tap the available resources to learn how to manage yourself as an independent contract business. Fortunately, there’s plenty available.
Market yourself as an excellent contract worker – this may well place you ahead of others who are only looking for full-time positions. Change your résumé/CV, put up a website, and start describing yourself as a business.
Start tracking what’s going on in your market – what’s happening with strategic moves at various possible employers, where pain points are emerging, and map that to short-term projects that you could engage with.

It’s tough to find a job right now, so anything you can do to increase your odds will be time well spent!

How to brag with style!

Carl — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Nobody likes a braggart. But there are times where you need to promote yourself – to your boss, to potential customers, to future employers. How do you promote yourself in a way which doesn’t come across as shameless and inauthentic?

Here’s the trick: You promote in a way which is well-founded, or where promotion isn’t the primary message.

Here are a few examples:

Share the recognition. The message is a lot softer when a group of us achieved something, as opposed to just my own personal accomplishments. And it can be more powerful as well, because typically a group can achieve more than just an individual.
Provide objective evidence. The fact that I’ve published a book or delivered 433 hours of coaching is more powerful than just claiming that I generally have lots of experience. In addition, the book is almost always a great conversation starter: people want to know about my writing and publishing experience.
Relate it to a future goal. I may not be the world’s best expert yet, but it’s very interesting to tell people about the business I’m building. It’s not uncommon to find people who want to help me, then find that I already have considerable expertise to offer.
Demonstrate expertise in a helpful way. I often sell my coaching services merely by having coaching conversations with people, or as part of a presentation I might give. When people like the way I come across, they see that I can bring them value in a paid coaching engagement.

More than anything, keep the conversation open, honest, and useful to your audience. Let that work to build up the impression that you have expertise and experience.

Career Plan B

Carl — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:00:52 +0000

I’ve talked about Career Plan B before, but I’d like to be clear about what this concept is. “Plan B” is what you’ll do if your expected career path doesn’t go as you’d like. There’s several ways this might happen:

The market need for the job might decline or vaporize, making it very hard to get the job you’d like.
You might lose your job, and be unable to find something similar which meets your requirements.
You might get burned out with your current career path.
You might feel that your career isn’t giving you the results you’d like, and would like to consider options.

Plan B, then, is one (or perhaps more) different career options that you’re seriously considering. Why bother?

Well, the value is this:

It helps expand your thinking beyond your current constraints, even giving yourself permission to “think crazy thoughts” to see what might happen.
It creates flexibility. Rather than limiting your options to just what’s provided by your current employer or job search, you can exp0and it to include whole new horizons, even evaluating whole new models of how to get income.
It helps you to weigh your options. When you only have one career direction, then the options may be limited – and may be more driven by your employer than by your own needs. When you have different options, it lets you test them more holistically against how they help you meet your own goals.

This is an especially important topic for me right now, because just this last week I decided to make my previous Career Plan B – being an organizational coach – into my plan A. So I’m no longer hunting for a job; instead, I’m now building my fledgling coaching business. This is a HUGE mental shift for me, and takes a great deal of courage.

One final point I’d note: Having a Career Plan B in mind doesn’t really deliver much value to you until it starts affecting what you’re doing. Am I recommending that you have two jobs, working two careers at the same time? Not at all.

Instead, you need to look to your Plan B to affect:

What education and learning opportunities you pursue
What you engage in with your non-work time
Where you target in your job search
What data you’re gathering about the market need for those kinds of jobs

So: Make your Career Plan B fairly specific, and then ask yourself how you will make progress on it. Do some investigation. If that shows you the Plan B isn’t worth pursuing, great! Learn, adapt, and grow.

The ups and downs of the job hunt

Carl — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:35:18 +0000

My job search hit a speed bump this week when I was informed that I’m no longer in the running for a job as a leader in a local software company. The logical side of my brain can handle this, of course, because I know that it takes a lot of contacts, applications and interviews in order to land a job.

But still, it’s disappointing to have invested so much energy and attention to this job, and have it whisked away with a two minute phone call.

This is part of the struggle of hunting for a job. How does one handle the emotional roller-coaster?

1. Recognize what’s happening. There was a dark cloud hanging around that was hard to identify, until I realized that I was going through a little grieving process.

2. Let logic have a voice: The odds are against you, it’s OK to feel bad, it’s not personal, etc. Since I’m an analytical person, this helps me to feel a little bit better.

3. Take a break. Yesterday my wife and I went on a fantastic bike ride, and then wasted the evening watching a movie, eating quesadillas, and drinking margaritas. Not exactly on the diet, of course, but it helped me to re-energize. I did not feel like writing this post yesterday, my heart just wasn’t in it.

4. Get back on the horse. Today I’m doing some more investigation, making contacts, and redoubling my efforts. The energy and optimism is coming back.

How do YOU deal with the inevitable disappointments?

The momentum is building!

Carl — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:00:13 +0000

I feel incredibly lucky this week, suspiciously looking over my shoulder waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve made significant progress on both my job searches: as a business strategy leader, and as an organizational coach.

For the former, I had a great interview yesterday with a rapidly growing local software company. I know a few people who work there, and it comes highly recommended. I’m well qualified for the particular job, and am about 80% happy with how I answered questions during the interview. There’s a lot more process to go, and I have no idea what the odds are, but it’s great progress. Perhaps what feels good is that this is the first serious interview I’ve had outside HP since I lost my job, which gives me some confidence that maybe I really do have skills that are valuable to the Real World out there.

On the coaching front, I’ve talked to a number of companies which are in the business of supplying coaching services to companies. Several are actively interested in me, in a capacity of contracting my coaching services through them in order to serve the end customers. That seems to be a very popular business model for these companies, because it gives them flexibility to serve a wide variety of clients, connecting them with a wide variety of on-demand coaches.

From my point of view as an independent coach, of course, the amount of business I’d get depends a great deal on what would be brought in by a company like this – especially until I’ve established my own identity as an independent coach. But it seems like a great way to get started in the business.

What’s so interesting about this is that it’s all coming from networking: through the local Fort Collins networking group, through all of my coach friends inside HP, and with my other coach friends outside HP. Sure, I monitor a lot of job postings constantly, but the real rich and exciting opportunities are coming from discussions with real people. I could apply for a job as a manager at Home Depot in Denver, but that’s not using my unique skills and passions.

(Speaking of passions, if you want to find out more about what’s happening in Sacred Music in my world, check out my other blog. There’s too much interesting stuff happening there to copy it here.)

Another reason why it seems like momentum is building on the job front is that I’ve been developing this “Career Plan B” for about ten years now. So when the axe fell and I needed to start exercising that plan, I had it already forming in my mind. I had talked to people about it, and invested for several years into networking with people which might help me later.

Which they definitely are.

Worried about your job? Don’t have a career plan B? Get cranking. Now. It will payoff in many ways, both before and after your next job change.