Confidence - A Tricky Trait

Pam is a Human Resource professional who specializes in labor relations and performance management. She is in a career transition that has lasted ten months. The job market has been very tight and although she's had lots of interviews, Pam still doesn't have an offer. For some people this situation can be a real confidence killer; not Pam. She is always confident, professional, and ready to tackle whatever comes her way. I asked her how she keeps her confidence up. She replied there are three things that help her through the rough times:

1. Use positive affirmations/self-talk. When Pam starts to hear those negative messages in her head, she stops them immediately. She reminds herself of her self worth and personal power.
2. Volunteer to help others. She has daily contact with others. Pam explained that helping others takes her "out of my self pity" and she feels like she accomplishes something through her volunteer work.
3. Reviews accomplishments - identify the situation, take action, and most importantly remember the results achieved. This exercise reminds her of her unique skills and successes.

So, what's your confidence level? It may be time to claim your confidence. Remind yourself you are successful and significant!

Your Sales Pitch - You're Up!

Selling yourself can be the easiest or the hardest thing you ever do. It’s up to you. Think about it. Most of us have never really been encouraged to talk that much about ourselves and how talented we are. Clients tell me so many times about how hard it is to clearly state their value and accomplishments. Pam for example said the interview question she dreads is "tell me about yourself." She says she's always tongue-tied when she begins to answer. She knows that she's missing out on great opportunities to let others know what value she can bring to the market; however, the nagging word that creeps into her mind is “bragging”.

Let me give you the lowdown on this whole bragging notion......

If you were born and raised in the Midwest, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If not, chances are somewhere along the line parents or teachers drilled into your head that bragging about yourself was bad form. It was showing off and tooting your own horn and parents or teachers were on a mission to put you in your place. It's now time to understand and believe that telling the truth about yourself is a good thing. You've worked hard and you have every right to let the marketplace know! Start putting the marketing of yourself in a new context. Ask yourself; “What do I bring to the market?” “ What is my value to a company?” How do I impact the bottom line? What results have I delivered? Develop your marketing pitch based on the answer to those questions and you'll be ready to hit it out of the park!

"Lost in the Headlights"

New Job Realities

I met Vince for the first time at a networking event last year. He had that “lost in the headlights” look about him as he shyly introduced himself.

It was painful to listen to him stammer through his qualifications. I didn’t know anyone could blush that many colors of red. He told us that his specialty was “utilizing geographical analysis to develop corporate strategy”. None of us had any idea of what that meant and no one asked. The meeting broke up and I ran into Vince in the parking lot. I asked him exactly what his profession was hoping I’d get a better description and this time I did. He explained that he used geographic information and demographics to select store sights of his company i.e. where to put the next McDonald’s or Walgreen’s or Costco. He’s just been laid off and this was the first time he’d looked for a job since college.

He said this was the first networking event he’d ever attended and he was very uncomfortable introducing himself to people he didn’t know. He leaned against his car and shaking his head said that he was highly regarded in his industry, but he’d been in the job market for three months and still hadn’t gotten an interview. He said that people kept telling him that the rules had changed for a job search, but he couldn’t get a handle on what the new rules were. You can probably identify with Vince.

Chances are that the last time you thought about the Career Game, the rules were very different. If you are in a job search you could call the last recruiter you used or answer an ad online and get an interview. The recruiter probably remembered you and even had a file on you. You could get the pertinent information about the position and get scheduled for a face-to-face within a reasonable amount of time. You could probably interview once with the HR manager and once with the hiring manager and that was it. No more!

To be continued.....

YOU are the product

YOU are the product is the message we hear. It sounds good. Promoting yourself makes perfect sense in today's marketplace. Yet, when we sit down to actually put a marketing piece together for ourselves, it's one of the hardest tasks ever!

There's a process I've used that's helped a great deal. Every product has features. Think about your smart phone. It's features include: easy-to-read screen, small size, multi-functional, great connectivity. Those features are what the product does. Your phone also has benefits....that's what the product does for you. So, the features of your smart phone would be that it allows you to communicate on different media. You can work from anywhere and you are more productive.

So, what are your features? Your education, experience, industry knowledge. people skills, communication skills, special training and talents all qualify as features. What are the benefits of these features to an organization? Your educational benefits are that you have reasoning and decision-making skills. Your experience means you can "hit the ground running". Your industry knowledge means less on-the-job training. People and communication skills means you are a team player and can explain ideas.

So, sit down and write a list of your features and benefits and create your marketing piece. You're a great product and we need you!

New Year's Resolutions

Our guest blogger is Pam Waits. Pam is an HR executive who is passionate about her work. She's very good at it! Pam is expanding her reach through writing and as you'll discover she's an excellent writer as well. Enjoy!

This blog is directed to all of you employers out there and it’s from those of us who are seeking new employment.

There are a lot of us in the market and we have great ideas so please pay attention. The list is comprehensive and I invite you to take a few minutes to read these resolutions. They could help you discover an incredibly talented, loyal batch of new employees who will help you outpace your competition. Here goes.

I, Employer, will:

1. Treat you with respect. I will never lose sight of the fact that even if I don’t hire you, you could be my customer. And while I’m at it, I will be sure to treat the people who already work for me with respect, too.

2. Keep you the job seeker informed throughout the process. I know that your timetable is different than mine. You have a greater sense of urgency and I shouldn’t keep you hanging. Specifically, here is what I plan to do:

A. Acknowledge receipt of your resume/application. At the very least, I will use some form of auto response. I know that you often feel like you are sending information into a black hole and I want you to know that your effort has been successful.

B. Let you know after completing a phone interview if you are moving on to the next step or if it’s the end of the line. By doing this, we can both move on and you won’t need to take your time or that of my recruiters by leaving messages.

C. Provide as much information to you as I can if I decide to interview you face-to-face (e.g., job description, work environment, company culture). In return, I expect you to review this information before the interview and withdraw your candidacy if you aren’t qualified for or interested in working for me.

D. Provide you a status report if you go through face-to-face interviews. I will let you know if there’s another step, what that looks like, whether you will be participating and the expected timeframe.

E. I will notify you even if you didn’t get the job so you can move on. I will make every effort to do this on the phone instead of e-mail as a sign of my professionalism and respect for you. I think this will enhance my reputation as a top employer.

3. Return your calls and/or e-mails if I somehow fail to keep the lines of communication open. If nothing else, I will let you know that I got your message and that I don’t have an update to give you. This demonstrates that I am courteous and respect you. I expect you to show me that same courtesy and respect in return.

4. Start and end appointments (phone and face-to-face interviews) with you on time. If there is a schedule change, I will let you know as soon as I know.

5. Keep the interview process as simple as possible. If I need multiple interviews with you, I will only ask if you are one of my finalists.

6. Interview you only if I am interested in hiring you – not to tap into your expertise or benchmark your salary.

7. Not interview you until I have approval to fill a position or until I know what I want. I don’t want to waste my time or get your hopes up.

8. Not check your references unless I intend to make you an offer. To do otherwise wastes my time and the time of your references. It also sets an inaccurate expectation with you that I intend to make an offer and that just isn’t fair.

9. Consider you if you meet my qualifications, even if you don’t have experience in my industry. I will be open to the fact that you could bring a fresh perspective that would benefit my organization. I will even take that one step farther and start interviewing people from “outside the box” to see what new dynamism I can bring into my organization. I think I have been missing talent and opportunity by limiting myself given that many talented people are trying to transition to new careers and news areas of expertise.

10. Not discount you just because you are currently unemployed. I will be mindful that many people are out of work through no fault of their own and that the talent pool of the unemployed is very rich.

11. Not take advantage of the fact that you are unemployed. If I make you a job offer, I will compensate you fairly in line with your experience and qualifications.

12. Talk to you about my opportunity if I think there might be a fit, even if I think you are overqualified or the pay I am offering is too low. I will have an open discussion with you about my concerns and give you the opportunity to respond.

13. Vow to be realistic in my requirements and to make a decision. I won’t keep positions posted for months trying to find the candidate who “walks on water”. I will choose the candidate who meets my qualifications and will fit in with the culture of the organization.

14. Broaden my sources for filling positions to include networking (both formal and informal channels). I realize that in many cases posting jobs on Internet job sites only seems to create work for my HR staff. Many times the best candidates are found through referrals, not online.

Thanks to the people who contributed to and inspired this list of resolutions - may we inspire the employers who read it!

Staying Ahead of the Curve-Communicate

Our guest blogger is Pam Waits. Pam is an HR executive who is passionate about her work. She's very good at it! Pam is expanding her reach through writing and as you'll discover she's an excellent writer as well. Enjoy!

I love to read. Normally I read business books or fiction. But recently I took a detour and read Stan Romanek’s book entitled Messages: The World's Most Documented Extraterrestrial Contact Story.

In this book, Stan recounts his encounters of alien sightings, abductions, implants, and conspiracies. Understandably, Stan expresses fear over who the aliens are, what they want, and why they targeted him. There is no clear communication so he doesn’t understand what’s going on, let alone the rationale for what he is experiencing.

As I was reading his book, I thought that Stan’s story is very similar to many employees in today’s workplace:

· How many times have you felt that you didn’t know what was really going on?

· That you didn’t trust the messages that were being conveyed or the people who were communicating them?

· Have you ever learned important information about your company through the news or a customer and felt the company should have told you directly?

· You may not have personally experienced the feeling that you were being targeted, but I bet you know someone who has felt that way.

I doubt very many companies would take pride in comparing their workforce to Stan Romanek’s alien encounters.

So what can companies do to make sure employees don’t have a Stan Romanek encounter? Good communication! Sounds easy enough but is it? No! If it was easy, we wouldn’t talk about it so much.

I learned something early in my career that definitely helped me with communication and maybe it will help you, too. One of my former bosses asked a question in every staff meeting – “what rumors are you hearing?” The first few times he asked the question, no one was prepared. But we were a bright group and quickly started going out and talking to employees to see what was going on so we could report it to our boss. When the rumors were serious or pervasive enough, we would take action to address them. The simpler ones would be corrected on the spot – if they weren’t true. This practice helped us stay ahead of the curve.

If Stan had access to good information, he wouldn’t have been afraid, distrustful or suspicious and his book would likely have had a very different message. The same holds true for employees.

· Listen to your employees,

· Talk to them,

· Communicate information that you can, and

· Be honest with the information that you share.

It’s very easy to identify the need for good communication, but it’s not always easy to accomplish. Because we don’t listen as well as we should, important messages may have to be repeated.

Because we don’t listen as well as we should, important messages may have to be repeated. (Made you pay attention, didn’t it?)

With that in mind, I close with a quote from Robert McCloskey, an author and illustrator of children’s books:

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

Moms, Birthdays, Parades & Costumes

My Mother's 85th birthday was November 16. The last "big birthday" she had was her 80th and my sister and I decided to hold a parade in our home town in her honor....of course we didn't tell her so when we showed up with a pickup truck, over-sized chair in the back of the truck and crown with a bouquet of roses, she was mortified. We had the police block off main street and all the local merchants had a little glass of schnapps for her as she drove by. The high school band played "Happy Birthday" and a huge football player kinda kid sang "When Irish Eyes are Smiling". The local newspaper came to take photos for the front page of the local paper. My Mother swore that she would never speak to us again. She did speak to us that night at dinner and explained that her reputation was ruined and her friends probably wouldn't speak to her again. They did. In fact, one of them called me a week before her 85th to see what we were doing this year....nobody wanted to miss the fun.

We did surprise her by coming home unannounced a few days before the big day. We had a murder mystery dinner and raided the local costume shop for our outfits. The party was fun...still I know she was waiting for that last big surprise. It's hard to top a parade, but this year's big surprise was excellent too - her granddaughter Maggie became engaged during our mystery crime dinner.

Happy Birthday Mom, We're already planning the 90th!!!!