Three Great Articles to Pass Along

Each month, as I pore through hundreds of career and job search articles that my newsfeed reader drags in, I bookmark a small handful that I feel would be especially useful to my client base — or that I feel really say something highly original/profound about the process of finding work.  This month, three specific articles caught my eye, and I’d like to wrap up July by steering you along to these interesting, well-crafted posts!

Title: And You’re Saying This To Me, Because???
Author: Billie Sucher, Billiesucher.com Career Transition Services
Link: http://www.careerhubblog.com/main/2009/07/and-youre-saying-this-to-me-because.html
Synopsis: Ms. Sucher shares her thoughts on what you SHOULD and SHOULDN’T say to your friends in the event they get laid off; some great food for thought that will help you avoid the kneejerk responses many people blurt out — and that can sound annoyingly patronizing!

Title: 10 Boilerplate Phrases That Kill Resumes
Author: Liz Ryan, The Savvy Networker
Link: http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-experts-10_boilerplate_phrases_that_kill_resumes-97
Synopsis: Short and sweet, Ms. Ryan outlines her “top 10″ list of the most cliched language job hunters should avoid using on their resume; I agree with virtually all of her selections, and would also add “self-motivated” and “seasoned” to the list in terms of trite, ineffective terminology.  And if I’ve written a resume for you that contains one of these phrases, my deepest apologies, and I’ll gladly retool the offending passage at no charge!

Title: Job Sites Get Personal
Author: Sarah Needleman, WSJ.com
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203577304574276082918038074.html
Synopsis: This article, which is more of an objective research piece than the other two articles, above, discusses the emerging genre of “job matching sites” (e.g. Jobfox.com, Trovix.com, etc.) and explores whether this newfangled technology truly lives up to its promise — and delivers qualified job leads to your e-mail box with no muss and no fuss!

Have YOU come across a career-related article that you feel is unusually insightful?  If so, please pass it along!  I always love to hear what types of resources, articles, and postings out there are resonating most with those of you in transition — and will continue to cross-post the really good ones so that everybody can benefit from their wisdom!

P.S. And while we’re at it, here’s another link you might find pretty useful…

Burning Question for Job Hunters #3

“Are you becoming more marketable or less marketable with each passing day of your job search?  If the latter, why are you allowing this to happen?”

It’s certainly no secret that it’s a  “buyer’s market” right now out there for employers seeking talent.  Companies realize that when they get the budget to increase headcount, and advertise a job opening, they’re going to get a healthy influx of resume submissions and will likely have hundreds of eager applicants to potentially choose from.  As a result, in the risk-management exercise known as resume-screening, most companies fall back on applying a safe, standard, conservative set of criteria for determining who might be the most qualified for the job at hand — and this filtering process often includes docking candidates a certain amount of points if they’re not currently employed.

I know, I know.  This seems extremely short-sighted and unfair.  Why should a company penalize you if one day you’re a brilliant engineer, or doing terrific work as a landscape architect, and the next day you get laid off through no fault of your own?   Why should your stock value drop, so to speak, when you’ve got exactly the same qualifications today as you did yesterday when you were still employed?

The reason, like most things, is perceptual.  With each passing month that your resume shows you’ve been out of work, hiring managers are going to become increasingly afraid you’re out of practice in your field, your skills have become rusty, and that you’d face a steeper learning curve (i.e. offer less ROI as a new hire) than other candidates who would be coming to the job directly off the payroll of another employer.  So if you fancy yourself a professional-level employee, accustomed to the rewards, perks, and benefits that accompany a salaried white-collar assignment, you’ve got to step up to the plate.  The word “professional” implies that you’re committed to being a top-notch talent in your field and that you accept the fact that ongoing study and practice will be required to maintain your proficiency level.  Do pro athletes go for months without training, even in the off season?  Do professional musicians?  Would you want to hire an accounting professional for your own business who hadn’t kept up with the latest accounting software or IRS requirements?

So if you’re one of the many unemployed professionals who has essentially “checked out” from their occupational discipline during the course of their job search, and you’re losing confidence (and interviews) as a result, it’s time to get back in the game.  There are NUMEROUS ways in which a motivated individual can increase their marketability, especially if you’ve had 40+ hours of time per week suddenly freed up via pink slip.  Take a relevant college extension class.  Or two.  Or three.  Get that certification you know you should have, but never made time for.  Finish your degree.  Order all the latest books in your field and scour them to become familiar with the emerging trends and thought leaders shaping the future of your discipline.  Follow any blogs that specifically cover your industry — or start writing one, yourself.  And try to engage in several hours of practice each day in whatever it is you do for a living, either on your own or through volunteering to a non-profit, school, or start-up who will feel incredibly lucky to have you.  Trust me, all of these things will make a difference, and you CAN and SHOULD list these activities on your resume so that potential employers will realize you’re a serious professional, not a slacker drifting along in search of a paycheck.

To sum up?  While it may not feel like it, and you might not even like to hear it, I’m afraid to say that much of your “marketability quotient” is under your direct, conscious control.  It just takes an attitude adjustment, at times, and the realization that expecting a professional living goes hand-in-hand with accepting responsibility for maintaining a professional set of competencies — even when you’re not getting paid to do so.  Sure, such activities aren’t usually as fun as remodeling your house, working in your garden, or tackling the endless honey-do list that tends to accompany the unemployment process, but neither is watching your bank account dwindle!

So don’t let your skills atrophy — forge a plan, even if it’s just a part-time plan, for keeping your qualifications in tip-top shape.  Heck, with the speed at which many industries are changing, you might even be able to leapfrog some of the people who are currently working and learn the new skills they’ll be wishing they had in the next 2-3 years!  Something to think about, at the very least…

Burning Question for Job Hunters #2

“If you’re not having as much success as you’d hoped in your job search, do you think it’s because a) you don’t really know what you should be doing or b) you know what to do, deep down, but just aren’t doing it?”

If you’ve been job hunting for a while now, without much in the way of results, this is a really important question to ask yourself — making sure to be as honest as possible when answering it!

I say this because I think many out-of-work individuals pretend the issue is (a) when, in reality, issue (b) seems to be a far more common culprit leading to lackluster job search results.  For example, when a frustrated job hunter says something like “nothing is working” or “nobody’s hiring” I want to instantly respond “that’s an interesting perception–what activities have you been engaging in, exactly, that would support these conclusions?”  Held up to this kind of standard, you usually discover that the arguments being made don’t hold much water and that a more authentic, accurate series of complaints would be along the lines of “nothing (among the limited things I’m doing within my comfort zone) is working” or “nobody (among the handful of companies I’ve sent resumes to after seeing them run an ad on the Internet) is hiring.”

Tough love, I know, and of course I realize that a lot of people say these kinds of things simply to blow off steam without expecting anybody to take them literally.  But if you’re facing a genuine career crisis, and need to find work in the immediate future, it’s important to diagnose the real roots of your problem so that you can take action to fix them.  So again, if you’ve been unable to generate many (or any) interviews over the course of a few months, or longer, ask yourself whether it’s because you truly don’t have a grasp on the series of steps you should be pursuing — or whether you’re letting fear, doubt, procrastination, overcomplication, or similar emotional landmines get in your way, instead.

If your answer continues to be the first item, I’ve got good news for you.  There are countless career advice books, websites, and counselors around who can point you in the right direction — and the vast majority of them are free or cost very little.  If you’re into web surfing, I’d recommend you peruse a site like Quintessential Careers or Ask the Headhunter, or go through the extensive array of job hunting advice I’ve chronicled here on my own blog.  If you’d prefer to kick back with a book or two, I’d recommend the old standby What Color is Your Parachute (much of this advice still holds true!), Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters, or Allison Hemming’s Work It! How to Get Ahead, Save Your Ass & Land a Job in Any Economy.  And if you’ve got the funds, of course, you can always invest in personalized assistance through a coach,  like myself, who can help you jump the curve and build a solid game plan for moving forward.

But I’ll warn you in advance: if you’re expecting magic bullets, or for somebody to suggest that looking for a job can be accomplished without a healthy dose of grit, discipline, temporary setbacks, and hard work, you’ll be sorely disappointed.  Virtually all legitimate career advisers preach from the same choirbook — and emphasize that the most effective formula for job hunting is to figure out the specific problems you can solve for an employer, make a list of the employers most likely to have these problems, then invest 30-40 hours each week seeking to create dialogue with these organizations via a mix of outbound networking, direct marketing, recruiter contact, and published ad response activities.  There are no real shortcuts, any more than there are “get rich quick” schemes out there that will make you a millionaire overnight or “Hollywood diet pills” that will help you lose 20 pounds without breaking a sweat.  As for those speed-reading courses that promise to teach you how to read War & Peace over your next coffee break, the jury’s still out on those…

And what if, at the end of the day, your unflinching analysis does reveal that (cue the trumpets) the real obstacle behind your unemployment struggle is NOT a lack of knowledge, but a lack of willpower or motivation, instead?  That’s a good thing, too!  At least you now know where your real challenge lies — and can channel your time, energy, and effort into breaking these self-destructive behavior patterns.  There are all kinds of ways you can go about this, ranging from reward/punishment schemes to peer support forums to weekly “accountability chats” with a fellow job seeker, and ultimately it will be up to you to figure out which motivational systems work best for you.  But hey, at least you’ll be focusing on the right problem instead of getting trapped in the “insanity” cycle of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results!

Burning Question for Job Hunters #1

“Do you deserve a great job?”

I often start many of my job search workshops off with this direct, no-nonsense question to see how people react to it.  As you might suspect, after a few puzzled looks, most of the hands in the room eventually go up and the majority of the audience casts their lot in the affirmative — declaring that yes, of course, they absolutely deserve a great new position.  My attention-getting rebuttal, of course, is to inform them that in my own humble opinion, they’re all dead wrong!

Where’s the disconnect here?  Of course, when you step back and think about it, it all comes down to the word “deserve”…

One of the biggest obstacles to most people’s courtship of the job market is the notion that somehow the job market is “fair” and that decent, talented, hard-working individuals are more or less entitled to a good job, with good pay.  In an ideal world, this would be true, perhaps.  But need I point out numerous examples of where individuals who are seemingly quite lazy…or unscrupulous…or missing a few cards from the deck have risen to positions of great influence and power?  Or perhaps you’ve seen evidence in your own places of employment (ha ha) that the path to getting ahead hasn’t necessarily been what one would call a meritocracy?

How about if we talk in terms of companies, not candidates?  Would you say that a fairness principle applies?  Does Ford “deserve” to beat Toyota or GEICO Insurance “deserve” to beat State Farm?  Or on the product side, did VHS “deserve” to beat the Betamax format, way back in the day, even though most experts pointed out that Betamax was a far superior product, technically speaking?  (for those younger readers who weren’t around during the ‘videotape format wars’ here’s a handy link that will bring you up to speed…)

In this corporate context, it’s pretty clear that “fairness” and “justice” are concepts that don’t really apply.  They just aren’t a relevant part of the equation.  Short of engaging in criminal behavior, American organizations are free to employ every ounce of creativity, strategy, and spunk they can muster in order to get people to buy their products (even inferior ones) and vanquish their competitors.  So remember, the labor market is a market, too.  It functions almost the exact same way as the consumer market.  It’s a competitive environment and the rule, not the exception, is that perceptions of value routinely trump bothersome realities.  So if you buy into the mistaken belief that a great job is going to find you, based on your loyalty, stellar qualifications, and exemplary track record to date, you’re leaving a lot to chance — and will more than likely lose out to those less-talented candidates who outhustle you via a series of shrewd, savvy, highly proactive self-promotional efforts.

Does substance, then, truly count for nothing?  Of course not.  It’s far easier to market a “product” that stands up to scrutiny and actually delivers what it promises!  But again, the point is that most products aren’t going to sell themselves, and for better or worse, the job market as a whole is allowed to be completely apathetic to the fortunes of the individuals within it.  There is no referee or higher power deciding whether one candidate is more “worthy” of a killer job than another candidate.

So if you’ve got any lingering entitlement notions, it’s well past time to jettison them — and get busy selling yourself!

“Hail Mary” Cover Letters Don’t Work!

If you’re in the market for a new job, it’s imperative that you give off winning, confident signals to everybody you encounter and that you remain highly conscious of how you represent yourself in every professional interaction.  This includes all forms of written correspondence, as well, whether they involve sending a cover letter to a prospective employer, writing a LinkedIn “Request for Introduction” script, or e-mailing the friend of a friend for networking purposes.

Unfortunately, one doesn’t see a lot of confident communication these days in the job market arena.  I routinely receive e-mail notes, for example, that make a very poor first impression — and send off signals that the individual in question is lazy, ambivalent, sloppy, and/or extremely desperate in terms of how they’re approaching their next career move.

Here’s a quick case in point I received just the other day:

“A friend of mine recently forwarded along a newsletter relating to jobs that you have listed or identified as available. While I am currently employed, I am in a commission-based position in an intensely volatile industry. I would love to find a position that will allow me some security and consistency in my income. However, I don’t know that I am qualified in fields for which you secure placement.

I am a mortgage loan officer and have been since the late 1990’s. Prior to that I was broker of two real estate branches and had managed the relocation and property management departments before taking over the broker’s position. I am not looking for another position with a lending institution as a mortgage loan officer, but would not be averse to working in the lending industry in a non commission position. Of course, I am willing to step out of the lending industry and into other fields of endeavour if that option is available to me after all these many years in such a specific industry.

I have attached my resume to this e-mail. If you feel that you maintain job postings within your business structure that would allow you to be of assistance to me in my quest for a more secure job, please let me know. I am willing to extend my commute range into King County for a secure position and I am most certainly willing to learn new skills and try new fields of employment in which my existing skills can be applied.

I’m not very good at the whole job hunting thing, so I really do defer to your judgement on whether or not you feel your company can help me. If not, do you have a suggestion of another employment organization which might be more in line with my skill set?

My thanks for your consideration and assistance in this matter.”

Is this letter atrocious and without redeeming value?  By no means!  I’ve got an Outlook folder I could share with you that contains far worse examples of e-mail communication than this piece.  This one is actually pretty darn good, at least in terms of politeness, length, and grammar.  I chose to use it for illustration, in fact, for the very reason that it’s not a total train wreck like so many pieces.  Instead, I think it’s pretty average in terms of what people tend to be sending out there, and will therefore make for a more valuable teaching opportunity — since the mistakes it makes (in my opinion) are much more subtle ones.

So what the heck is so terribly wrong with this note, you may be wondering?  Well, for starters, the person writing it appears to be mistaking Career Horizons for a staffing or recruiting firm, as evidenced by phrases such as “I don’t know that I am qualified in fields for which you secure placement.”  This single sentence, at the end of the first paragraph, suggests that the author didn’t actually take the time to visit my website or figure out what I do before sending their note along.  This is a cardinal sin in today’s world.  Given the competition level out there, and the ease at which a simple web search can turn up everything you need to know about a company before you contact them, it just doesn’t cut it to show a lack of familiarity/understanding with your audience.

Additionally, you’ll notice that the letter reveals a complete lack of clarity on the individual’s part in terms of what they want to do next.  In fact, it’s worse than that.  By including statements such as “I am willing to step out of the lending industry” and “I am willing to extend my commute range” and “I am most certainly willing to learn new skills and try new fields of employment” it suggests that the person doesn’t really understand how the job market works in these modern times.  There are millions of people right now, sadly, who are willing to do just about anything to find steady, stable employment.  Such a sentiment is therefore of no real value to employers — and even less so to recruiters, were it actually the case that I happened to be one, as the author originally thought.  Companies simply aren’t looking for people who are willing to do something or who will try to do something; they are on the hunt for folks who actually can do something that’s useful, productive, and beneficial to the bottom line.  So figuring out the useful solutions you can offer is critical before engaging in any serious outreach to employers or the staffing community.  The market isn’t going to figure out what you want to be now that you’ve grown up, I’m afraid.  That decision is your responsibility!

Lastly, while a relatively minor issue, I did notice that there are two typos in the letter (I left them in there as originally written) — and I also think it’s pretty obvious why including a clause like “I’m not very good at the whole job hunting thing” is probably not the best idea.  Sure, as a career coach, it’s understandable that most of my potential clients would feel this way, and I appreciate the honesty at one level, but it still concerns me that a person would reveal this much vulnerability, confusion, and lack of confidence when writing to somebody they haven’t met before.  It makes me suspect they’re allowing these emotions to “leak” into other aspects of their job hunting effort, as well, which could account for a big chunk of the lack of success they’re likely experiencing.

At any rate, given the importance of written correspondence in the job search process, I’m hoping it was useful to provide this quick analysis around a pretty ‘typical’ type of letter that people might send out to recruiters, employers, and networking acquaintances.  These letters, for the variety of reasons I outlined, are not likely to produce a positive result.  As one of my clients said the other day, they are essentially “Hail Mary” passes where the person is just throwing all of their problems down on paper and hoping somebody out there, somewhere, will be able to solve them.  It’s just not going to happen.

So instead of trying to get ahead by playing on peoples’ sympathies, seize control of your communication and infuse it with the level of confidence, clarity, and self-respect that I’m sure you deserve.  Even if you don’t have a clue about what you want to do next, you can still show that you’re in control of your destiny by saying things like “I’m in the process of researching my next career move and would therefore like to sit down with you for 15-20 minutes, if you’re available, to bounce some ideas off you and get your feedback on the game plan I’ve put together for making a successful shift into a new field.”

Make sense?  See the difference?  Feel the change in tone/attitude that comes across?

P.S.  And in the off-chance you’re reading this blog, and happen to be the author of the above letter, let me know!  I’d be happy to extend a free coaching session to you in exchange for the usage of your text…

Book Review: Surviving & Thriving in the HR World (Jim Suthers)

Gosh, something must be in the water!  Tons of my associates and colleagues around town have announced to me that they’ve just started the process of writing a book.  I’m almost tempted to do so myself, to keep up with the Joneses, but then I remembered that I have an extremely short attention span and my efforts would probably peter out after about 10 pages.  So blogging is more my speed, at least for now.  I did notice, however, that Bellevue College actually has a “Book Midwife” on staff who teaches people how to bring their thoughts to market in written form.  Should the day ever come, I may need her services…

At any rate, I digress.  What all of this is leading up to is the fact that one of my friends, Jim Suthers, DID recently give birth to a new book that is designed to pass along his years of hard-fought HR Management insights to those who might be looking to make a name for themselves in the human resources field.  Entitled “Surviving & Thriving in the HR World”, this book is a short (110-page) power-packed work where Jim “calls it like he sees it” in terms of some the positive/negative behaviors, games, and shenanigans that take place in the typical workplace — and how a savvy HR professional should deal with them.

The things I liked most about the book?  For starters, rather than complicating the process of management, and the art of working with people effectively, he brings us back to a set of really basic, but critical, concepts such as displaying integrity, giving and getting respect, practicing common courtesy, and portraying a professional image at all times.  Having started his leadership career in the Marine Corps, you can clearly see the influence of this experience in his corporate success philosophy.  Additionally, he backs up his beliefs and contentions with numerous examples from his own storied HR career, such as the time he ignored the protests of a manufacturing manager and personally stopped a mechanical punch press for safety reasons (i.e. it was cutting off the fingers of workers at an alarming rate…) or the time his commitment to meeting everybody in the workplace led to his discovery that the company custodian actually held numerous product patents — and was working in this seemingly “menial” capacity because he claimed to “do his best thinking while he swept floors.”

I also enjoyed some of the numerous relevant quotes throughout the book, many of which I’d never seen before.  Two of my favorites were:”When you step into a turnaround situation, you can safely assume four things: morale is low, fear is high, the good people are halfway out the door, and the slackers are hiding.” (Nina Disesa, Chairwoman of McCann-Erickson Worldwide) and “I will pay more for the ability to handle people than for any other ability under the sun.” (John D. Rockefeller, Sr.)

As for some gentle criticisms of the book, or at least advice that might help match it with the right audience, I think it’s safe to say that the lion’s share of the material Jim presents isn’t necessarily specific to management in HR but could apply equally to any front-line management position, in general.  So anybody thinking that this is a how-to training manual that goes into detailed depths about the HR function might be surprised to find that the contents are high-level, and strategic, as opposed to debating specific methodologies for administering workers’ comp plans, writing employee handbooks, or conducting employee investigations.  I also suspect that most veteran HR practitioners will also have learned many of these same lessons, themselves, through their own workplace experiences and adventures.  Still, it never hurts to be reminded of some of the essential behaviors that lead to success, or to compare the wisdom of another successful senior HR leader with your own.

All things considered, I admire Jim for taking the time to distill his decades of experience down into this punchy, no-holds-barred publication — and if any of you end up reading the book and would like to chat with him further about his ideas, or how to become a true “player” in the HR field, just let me know!  I’d be happy to make an introduction and have a hunch I could convince him to let you pick his brain over coffee…

All’s Fair In Love & Job Hunting?

In today’s job market, one of the biggest frustrations many professionals face is the feeling that they are being “penalized” by employers unfairly for various aspects of their career that haven’t been under their direct control, such as when a past employer of theirs goes out of business within a short period of time — or when the management of a company makes it impossible for them to perform their job duties successfully and accomplish meaningful results.

Additionally, there are cases when people are able to land a consistent number of interviews, but things always seem to break down around the offer and reference-checking stage — leading the candidate to think that perhaps one of their references is “damning them with faint praise” or not saying something all that flattering about their credentials.  One of my favorite Dilbert cartoons, in fact, portrays an HR person responding to a reference check by saying “Our company’s HR policy prohibits me from commenting on that employee’s past performance. But I’ll give you a hint: my opinion of them rhymes with ‘mazy loron’.”

So how do you fight back when your resume and recent job history seem to be working against you?

Well, one new option you could consider is a new web-based service called CareerExcuse that will gladly fabricate your entire work history, and back it up with references, for a nominal fee!  You really have to see this site to believe it — and while at first I thought it had to be a joke, all of my research seems to suggest that it actually is a legitimate service (if one defines that term very loosely) that was created by some frustrated job hunters who saw a need in the market — and are trying to fill it.

“But wait,” you ask, “surely one can’t just make a whole bunch of outright lies on their resume, can they, and get away with it?”  Well, probably not.  As the folks at CareerExcuse explain in the FAQ section of their site: “We can’t guarantee that you won’t [get caught and fired] and [we're] not liable if you do.  If you get the job in the first place..we did our part. It’s up to you to act responsible after you get the job.”  As for the legality of engaging in these tactics, their response is: “No, Since a resume is not a legal document, it is not illegal to misrepresent on a resume.”

Hmmm.  Not sure if I’d pin all of my future career prospects or reputation on the one-line, typo-ridden opinions of a website with a murky moral compass, but hey, that’s just me!

At any rate, even though part of me still suspects this is somebody’s attempt at a joke, or some wacky psychology experiment that a team of undergraduates cooked up, somewhere, I couldn’t resist passing along the resource just so you could all marvel at it.  God bless the Internet and the infinite creative lengths that people will to go to try and make a buck!

P.S.  And while I don’t think I could keep a straight face, I’m halfway tempted to call the company up and say “I’m thinking strongly about using your service, but before I do so, would you mind if I spoke to a few of your references?”

Career Poll: Job Application Statistics – Curse or Blessing?

There’s no question about it — both candidates, as well as companies, are frustrated by the quirks, inefficiencies, and challenges embodied by the current version of the “hiring game” that exists in the job market.  Candidates, of course, are fed up with the massive depersonalization of the process and the difficulty of getting any type of meaningful feedback or communication from the companies to which they’ve applied.  And on the flip side, companies are finding their HR departments (if they even have one) horribly bogged down by the number of inbound resumes, phone calls, and other time-eating activities that crop up, even when trying to fill a single, low-level position.

So at one level, everybody is hoping that somebody will invent a new mousetrap that solves all these pesky issues.  Despite several websites purporting to achieve this, however, and to have “revolutionized” the entire hiring approach, the process is still largely the same as it’s always been.  Companies run ads.  Hundreds of candidates send in their resumes.  And then all bets are off in terms of how the employer handles things from that point forward — and the level of communication they engage in with both the qualified parties they’re interested in interviewing, as well as those folks whose qualifications didn’t make the cut.

Unfortunately, I don’t see any massive paradigm shifts on the horizon that lead me to think this process is going to get substantially smoother or less problematic for all involved.  Every now and then, however, I do come across something a little new under the sun — and a slight adaptation in terms of how employers are managing things.  In the particular case prompting this blog, I was alerted by a client recently that certain government agencies (or at least the City of Bellevue) are now providing FULL TRANSPARENCY in terms of reporting back, via their website, how many applications they’ve received for a particular position and where in the actual process (e.g. application date, 1st Interview, 2nd Interview, Hired…) each candidate stands.  I haven’t seen this kind of functionality before on a website, so I’m betting most of you haven’t, either.

At any rate, here’s a screenshot from the City of Bellevue’s hiring portal that shows you the type of information that would show up if somebody were to throw their hat in the ring for a random Maintenance Worker Aide position I pulled up…

Interesting, eh?  At any rate, with so many people complaining about the “black hole” effect and wondering where they stand in terms of their submission for various leads, along comes an automated reporting tool that actually tells you these things, point blank, as a candidate.  So this got me to thinking whether most job hunters would embrace this idea with open arms — and value this kind of feedback from EVERY company, if it were available — or whether they’d find it frustrating, intimidating, or depressing to see how many competitors have sent their resumes in for various opportunities.

Care to vote on the issue?  If so, here’s a little insta-poll that will allow you to do so…

5 Tips for Ensuring Great Coaching Results

Yesterday, I was enjoying a wonderful “wrap-up” phone call with a client of mine who recently landed a CEO job here in the area.  This individual had some very flattering things to say about my firm’s support of his job search process and the breakthroughs he was able to achieve along the way, which is always nice to hear.  It was near the end of the conversation, however, that he made the statement that I found most interesting.  Essentially, his comment was “My only regret, Matt, is that you didn’t kick my butt even harder along the way and force me to do the things I needed to be doing!”

This observation got me thinking, and after mulling the topic over all day, I thought it might be helpful if I were to share a couple of ideas about how people can optimize their success working with any type of “coach” in a professional capacity — be it a career coach, life coach, executive coach, or professional adviser of any similar variety.

For starters, it’s important to realize that good coaches are able to wear a TON of different hats in terms of how they approach the relationship with a client and the type of assistance they’re able to provide.  Depending on the situation, they can function as your own personal cheerleader.  Or mentor.  Or taskmaster.  Or thought partner.  Or confidant.  Or campaign strategist.  Or sounding board.  Or copy editor.  Or devil’s advocate. Or  conscience.  Or even possibly your priest, as one of my clients once characterized our relationship!  (let me assure you, though, that this last designation is one that I don’t feel even remotely qualified to fulfill…)

So whether you’re seeking out a great new coach to work with, or simply looking to maximize the productivity level with your current adviser, the key is to THINK REALLY HARD UP FRONT about the ideal role or roles (pick from the above menu or create your own!) that you need a coach to play in working with you.  You’ll find that some coaches are deep specialists in one particular area, while others have a more generalized bag of tricks and can truly “meet you where you’re at” no matter what role you need them to play.  And while most good coaches will ask lots of clarifying questions up front, or can instinctively figure out how best to work with you, it never hurts for you to initiate some dialogue around this issue right from the outset — informing the coach about your specific needs and guiding them on how to work with you most effectively, based on the lifetime of knowledge, insight, and awareness you’ve amassed about yourself.

The above element, in my opinion, is the single most important factor in ensuring a great “match” with a prospective coach.  Here are a few other suggestions that come to mind, however, that might help you prosper even more from the coach/coachee relationship:

1. Prior to each coaching session, e-mail the coach your desired agenda; it’s very important to arrive at each meeting with a clear focus and some specific outcomes to achieve, so that the coach can prepare some thoughts/resources in advance and make sure the time is invested as wisely as possible.  And if you’re not sure what the agenda should be, that’s a perfectly valid question to ask your coach for help with, too!

2.  Take detailed notes or consider tape-recording the session; if you’ve got the right coach, they’re going to be rattling off a lot of great advice for you to follow in a fairly short period of time, so don’t rely on your memory alone to sponge it all up!  Coaches will take it as a sign of respect, and commitment, if you routinely write down some of the advice they provide or you bring a recording device to each session (they’re getting smaller and less expensive every day) so that you can replay the session, later, in the comfort of your own home.

3.  Reschedule a session if you’re not prepared; rather than waste everybody’s time, most coaches will appreciate it (and won’t penalize you) if you inform them when you’re not feeling prepared for a particular session and would prefer to push it back to a later date.  As long as this doesn’t become a chronic habit, or reveal a deep-seated motivational issue that needs to be addressed, rescheduling the occasional meeting will be the best move for all concerned.

4.  Do your part and don’t expect miracles; while coaches should obviously be providing you with sound advice and demonstrable value at every step along the way, don’t forget that they’re merely the coach, not the player, and that the responsibility for implementing the successful game plan (in whatever context applies) ultimately falls in your court.  Phil Jackson, for example, has played an indispensable role in helping the Bulls and Lakers win a combined nine NBA championships in recent years, but don’t forget, he wasn’t the one out there on the court playing defense or scoring the basketball!

5.  Communicate, communicate, communicate; last but certainly not least, it’s imperative that you provide regular feedback (including both positive and negative developments) to your coach as the process unfolds if you want to get the most out of the exchange.  Effective coaches need to hear about your setbacks, as well as your successes, in order to be able to counsel you effectively.  So don’t hold back or be shy about sharing your progress, even if this just means the occasional phone call or e-mail update.  Every top-notch coach I know will always go the extra mile to help those clients who keep them in the loop and demonstrate that they’re taking the process seriously.  They wouldn’t be coaching in the first place, after all, if their #1 driver wasn’t to see people land on their feet — and ultimately reach their goals!

Hopefully this list will prove useful to some of you out there, and if any of the coaches in my network want to chime in with even more suggestions on how their clients can help engineer a terrific outcome, I’d certainly love to share your thoughts!  My apologies, too, to the client I mentioned earlier who felt I went a little too easy on him.  I’ll have to work on my “drill sergeant” persona a little more in the future, since admittedly, it’s not my strong suit…

Career Q&A: Is Follow-Up Worthwhile?

“I could use your advice on how best to follow up with employers when my resume seems to go into the black hole.  I’ve tried e-mailing companies to check in, at times, in addition to calling various hiring managers directly, but haven’t had any consistent success.  So I’m wondering if following up with employers is actually productive and if so, which approach is likely to work best?”

Great question – and I assure you that you’re FAR from alone in wondering how best to battle the “black hole” effect out there in the market.  One of the new realities of the modern marketplace is that hiring has become far less personal, in many respects, and tends to follow a more mechanical process that strips out a lot of the traditional employer-to-candidate interaction we’re all accustomed to from decades past.  And without question, this “don’t call us, we’ll call you” doctrine is one that definitely causes a lot of stress among anxious professionals in transition!

Unfortunately, there are no simple answers or magic bullets in terms of the employer follow-up question.  As far as I can tell, every situation is unique and companies (as well as individual hiring managers) have a wide spectrum of different outlooks in terms of what’s appropriate in these situations.  In some cases, I’ve heard hiring managers say that the sole reason they hired a particular candidate is because he or she engaged in aggressive follow-up and demonstrated their sincere interest in the opportunity.  In other cases, I’ve heard managers claim to have DE-selected candidates for the very same reason, worried that overzealous job hunters might turn out to be obnoxious employees.

So in terms of how I advise people on the follow-up issue, the strategy I usually recommend (barring any “insider knowledge” of how a company views such behavior) is to follow a multi-tiered approach that seeks to capitalize on the strong upside potential of successful follow-up activity, while hedging the risk a bit in terms of the timing.  Along these lines, here are the general guidelines I typically encourage people to follow:

1) Candidates CAN and SHOULD engage in aggressive follow-up during the search process unless they are specifically instructed not to do so by an employer.  Given the amount of competition out there, and the degree of flaky behavior now inherent in the hiring process, job hunters need to cultivate a killer instinct and make sure they don’t lose offers strictly due to a lack of trying – or a lack of courage in terms of assertively selling themselves.  In fact, I advise my clients to follow up regularly with every single lead in their pipeline until they get a firm “yes” or “no” answer from the company.  Even if it takes 7-10 inquiries or more, it’s important to get closure around each lead and know where you truly stand.

2) With regard to timing, I’d recommend that people conduct their follow-up efforts in a phased, logical way that demonstrates a strong degree of enthusiasm, but minimizes the risk of coming across as over-aggressive or a corporate stalker.  In most cases, such as when sending your resume along in response to a published advertisement, I’d suggest you give the process about a week to see if they call you in for an interview.  If you don’t hear back by that point, I’d then escalate things and send a short, polite follow-up e-mail to the HR department (or whomever you initially sent the resume to) to see if a) they’ll verify that they received your materials and b) they’re willing to share the status of the search process with you.  If at that point you still don’t hear anything after a few days, then the “what do you have to lose?” factor starts entering into play and you might consider a more aggressive move such as calling or e-mailing the hiring manager directly to get their attention. You might tick somebody off by doing this, every once in a while, but the risk is probably worth takng and if you DO connect with the right person, and hit it off with them, that can make all the difference in the world.

3) As for which method of follow-up works best, I’d suggest you mix it up between phone calls, e-mail, and personal visits to see which approach produces the best results for you.  Try to play to your strengths as much as possible (i.e. do you “show” well in person? Have a great phone demeanor? Write beautiful e-mail copy?) and use common sense in deciding what technique is appropriate in different situations.  For example, if you’re dealing with Microsoft, a personal visit isn’t going to get you very far since you won’t get past the lobby.  Or if you’re pursuing a sales position, a phone call might be most appropriate since it will demonstrate your verbal selling skills and persistence to a greater degree.

** And in terms of trying to identify the e-mail address of a busy hiring manager, there’s a great tool called E-Mail Address Validator you’ll find here and you should add to your arsenal, if you haven’t already…

4) Lastly, while this should be obvious, candidates should NEVER use negative emotions to try to compel the company to action.  In other words, don’t give employers a guilt trip for not calling back, even if they deserve one, and don’t try to shame them about their hiring practices or express your anger at their shoddy communication.  Such actions may be morally justified, but they’ll be the kiss of death for your candidacy.  Instead, stay really positive, radiate enthusiasm, and express that the motivation behind your dedicated follow up is nothing more sinister than your sincere interest in the company and opportunity in question.

Again, while I wish I could give you a single “right answer” in terms of the follow-up aspect of job hunting, there are no foolproof methods and far too many variables in play for a one-size-fits-all recommendation to be effective.  Hopefully, however, the checklist above gives you at least some guidance on how you might increase your batting average in this aspect of your search, and I still firmly believe that at the end of the day, aside from special situations, the candidate who fights for him/herself is going to come out well ahead of the passive job hunter who sits around, waiting for a phone call!