New Year's Eve

Here it is: New Year's Eve.

I was listening to my husband, his friend and his brother this week, and in the middle of their conversation on the poor state of our economy and the possibility of a crash like we've never seen before, I reminded them of this:

It's important to be careful, and to take into consideration the possibility of negative outcomes when we make decisions about our futures.  But in the end, whether we have money or not, what will keep us happy is to be surrounded by the people we love, to display confidence and to be personally optimistic.  Those were the biggest lessons learned when I was out of work beginning in June 2008 to September 2009.

My wish to all of you for the New Year is that you be surrounded by people you love, that you continue to be confident and to inspire, and that you never lose your optimism.

Happy 2012!

The 10 Red Hot LinkedIn Tips for Job Seekers

Someone in one of my groups tipped us off to this excellent article.  To summarize:

1. Get connected to 250 people on LinkedIn - that's the gasoline in the tank
2. Join 50 LinkedIn groups - that's the engine oil
3. Post a daily status update - that will keep you top of mind with your connections
4. Participate in three group discussions a week - to be heard and recognized as a smart person
   
• HAPPENLink is a good place to be heard and recognized as a smart person, too
5. Search and save job searches - this is like having your own virtual assistant scouring for jobs 24/7
• It's a good idea to do the same in Indeed.ca and Eluta.ca
6. Download LinkedIn JobsInsider toolbar - this will tell you who you know who know people at the company you want to get a job at
7. Follow the companies you are interested in working for - you will get notified of new hires as well as people who move on, among other things
8. Search for people you know at the companies you apply to - it's a great way to find out if you have a first level connection who knows someone you can contact
9. Optimize your profile for your keywords in your headline, skills and job titles - use the keywords for skills, knowledge and abilities that your future employer is looking for
10. Spend at least one hour a day on LinkedIn - you have to put some time in if you want results

Job seeking is work.  And it involves taking some risks: reaching out to your connections, making statements and arguing your point in a group discussion, exposing yourself to potential employers.  It also can be a lot of fun.  Go for it!

Micheline and the Boarder

When I was 6 years old, my father left CFB Petawawa to spend a year in Egypt as a Blue Beret.  In those days, men in the armed forces spent a whole year away from their families on their tour of duty overseas.  My mother moved to Montréal to be close to her parents and siblings, and rented a duplex in proximity to an English-language school where I could complete Grade 1.  My mother, the oldest girl in the family, was godmother to her second youngest sister, Micheline, who must have been 20 years old at the time.  We called her Mimi.  She came to live with us. 

It was so exciting to have her with us.  In the eyes of a 6-year-old, she was sophisticated and worldly.  She was gorgeous and vivacious.  She had silky long hair that was curled and teased to the heights of fashion, and she wore black liquid eye-liner in a precise stroke across her eye-lid.  She seemed to never don the same dress twice.  She was so glamorous.

And she had boyfriends.  They took her out to dinner and she went to see movies late at night.  I loved getting up in the morning to hear all about them.  She had gone on a movie date with my father’s younger brother and I distinctly remember listening to her tell my mother all about Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, the story of an aspiring nun who ended up happily married to a man with many children.  How risqué was that!

In addition to having Mimi with her, my mother kept a boarder.  I don’t remember very much about him.  He had a room in the basement, never shared our meals, and kept largely to himself. 

One evening, he came up to the kitchen where my mother and Mimi were chatting together after my sister and I had been put to bed.  Slurring and weaving a little, he demanded my mother’s car.  Surprised and afraid, she could only tell him the truth: it was out for maintenance.  The boarder became frantic and brandished a gun, raising his voice, insisting that my mother hand over the keys to her car.  My mother, normally a woman of action, was paralyzed with fear for her daughters tucked in bed. 

Mimi told the boarder he could have her car keys instead if he let her get them from her purse in her room.  My mother pleaded with Mimi not to, but Mimi insisted, telling my mother everything would be okay, that it was only a car.  The boarder squared off, the gun still in hand.  Once he had the keys, off he went through the door leading from the kitchen to the garage.  Mimi pounced on the door to lock it and dialed 0 to get the operator who would transfer her to the police. 

I remember this because the car alarm went off and made such a racket, it woke me up.  The boarder was stuck between a locked garage door and a locked kitchen door with nowhere to go.  My mother and Mimi crouched together with me and my sister in the room furthest from the kitchen until the police arrived.

As it turned out, the boarder had no priors.  His gun wasn’t even loaded.  He was just upset and confused, on drugs, and wanted to escape.

That night, my aunt Mimi became a heroine – a glamorous, sexy, brave, action heroine who bested the boarder – and the story has gone down into the family annals. 

Shortly thereafter, we gave up that duplex apartment and my mother moved us in with her sister Pierrette and her husband with their young baby, reassuringly across the street from Grand-maman Rose’s apartment.  She felt more secure there.  As a typical 7-year-old, I had forgotten all about the boarder - I was just happy to be closer to my cousins and my fun-loving grandmother.

Post-Interview Thank You Notes

Someone asked me a question about thank you notes, and I got carried away with my response.  However, despite the wordiness, I thought it would be worthwhile to share it here.

First of all, I hope you are all asking for the job while you are still in the interview. I do that towards the end of each interview (if I want the job, of course).

Now, about the content of the thank you note.  I bring something up that impressed me from our discussion: a particularly good question on which we had some thoughtful exchanges, attention to a particular function in my field and an approach that I might value, a juicy challenge that I think I can help with.  Keep it very business focused.  Avoid saying something like 'I felt we had an interesting exchange.'  Feelings are subjective.  It is more appropriate to say, 'Our exchange about (problem) has captured my attention, and I find myself generating a series of ideas to tackle it productively.'  Identifying a problem and your interest in finding a workable solution is business oriented.  Letting them know you are ready to contribute is a wonderful way of reiterating your interest - and a great way to ask for the job.

If you are engaged in an interview process where appointments follow each other very closely, sending a Send Out Card will not work because the card will arrive days after your third or fourth interview.  Keeping cards to deliver immediately doesn't always work for me; I need to think quietly about what happened in the interview before I say anything, and to pare down my wordiness (witness the length of this blog!).

In an email, I can write three paragraphs about something meaningful, and it will get timely attention, even if it's zapped out of the recipient's mail box sooner rather than later.  Three paragraphs won't fit in a card.

But the usefulness of a card or note goes beyond the card itself. 

First, it is a very personal and classy touch.  No matter if you remain in the running for the job or not, it will distinguish you as an interested, thoughtful candidate, and that's the kind of reputation you want to build for yourself.  It's a small world out there and you're always on display.  Thank you cards and notes show you in a very positive light.

Second, writing your "thank-yous" allows you to articulate positive things about yourself, the opportunity and the people who interviewed you.  When job seeking, staying positive can be difficult, and it's key. As an HR professional interviewing at all levels, I have met candidates with all kinds of attitudes.  It shows when you aren't positive, so cultivate it whenever you can.

Third, it makes you articulate whether you want the opportunity or not.  Is it too hard to find something positive to say about the interview, the process, the approach, the job, the people, the challenges?  If so, you have some private thinking to do.  Be gracious; send the card or note anyway.

And don't spend too much time feeling guilty if you didn't write a card or a note.  Sometimes, it just isn't going to happen and obsessing about 'doing it wrong' won't get you anywhere.  Sometimes, you just have to move on.

I hope some of these thoughts resonate with you.

Memories of a Great-Grandmother

My daughter prepared a short speech for a school competition and chose for her subject her great-grandmother, my Grand-maman Rose.  She features a couple of stories that I fondly remember being told when I was a very young girl.  I’m not surprised my daughter heard them too.  Here is her re-telling, translated by her from the original French.

* * * * *

I come from a big French Canadian family. I love my family… Er, well most of the time when they’re not nagging me…

But the most precious moments I spend with my family happen during our vacations when all my family (the French side because my father’s side does not speak French) reassembles around the big table well decorated by my grandmother Gisèle. During this time (rather brief if you ask me), we're at our loudest. We tell stories one after the other and we often cut each other off and everyone bursts out laughing! My God, I never laugh as hard as when I’m with them.

Grand-maman Rose at 85, always smiling

However, my favourite stories are those of my great grandmother Rose. Only measuring four feet ten inches, she had and raised fifteen children! At the time my family wasn’t very rich eh? Fifteen children? Ouf. No problem though! Grandma Rose has everything under control and she had fun doing it.

While she wasn’t taller than an average tween, if she had to take the train she never had to pay. Why?  Well, when she got onto the train and the ticket master came over to take her ticket, she told him her father had it and that he was in the smoker section, at the compleeeete end of the train. So, the ticket master went all the way to the back of the train and by the time he got back to tell her he couldn’t find her father, she was already gone, having had all the necessary time to get to her stop.

Here’s another example. To have fun she would enter really fancy and chic stores with her young girls and try on all kinds of different clothes, creating a little “fashion show”. When she was finished, she thanked the employees for their help, and clack, she left, without buying anything. She only wanted to have fun with her family. My great grandmother Rose was an ingenious person.

She loved to have fun with her family, just like me. So, even if she is not with us anymore, she will always be in my heart.

Developing a Thick Skin

As managers and leaders, we all have had to deal with employees and colleagues who become emotionally involved in business conversations with co-workers.  Sometimes, the emotion comes from a context of economic downturn and job uncertainty.  Other times, it comes from the stress of having to support ambiguous mandates.  Most of the time, it's got to do with not cluing in to a co-worker's favoured communication style, leading to misunderstandings and unclear business relationships.  These situations and many more like them diminish the ability to focus on identifying the issues and interests at hand.  We get caught in the merry-go-round of defending ourselves.

I read an interesting blog submitted by Dr. Ada recently suggesting that part of our toolkit to improve resiliency in the face of various pressures and frustrations in the workplace is to grow a skin like a rhino. She reminded us to  "Take a clue from Eleanor Roosevelt, the “thick skin” lady. Don’t take things personally. She said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." What others think, feel, say, and do is rarely about you. It is more about them. If you take things too personally, you will suffer needlessly at the hands of those who believe they can feel good only when they make someone else feel bad."

So what can you do when you have to have business conversations with these people and find yourself being defensive?  When someone criticizes me or my work, and when I remember to put my rhino skin on, I use this script: "You think I am being (insert the hurtful comment)?  That's interesting.  Can you tell me what you mean?"  I listen carefully to the response. This invariably leads to an improved understanding of how I or others are perceived, leading to more fruitful communication.

An adaptation of this script also works in meetings when someone else or their work is being criticized: "You think this project is (insert comment here)? Can you tell me what you mean?"  The question re-focuses us all on the issues and interests at hand by tabling potentially valid objections, and eliminates the need for anyone to be defensive.

If this openness doesn't show immediate results, that's OK.  Not everyone catches on right away. Be persistent.  You may not be able to change someone who can only feel good when they make someone else feel bad; you can only work at consistently changing the focus away from being defensive. Eventually, the focus on exploring all objections, issues and interests will become the norm in your workplace. 

I'm curious to hear how you "put your rhino skin on".  Share your story below in the comments.

Resources for the Entrepreneur

I wanted to share the website for Small Business Enterprise Centre in Brampton.  It offers a wide variety of services to existing entrepreneurs as well as budding entrepreneurs.  If you are not a Bramptonite, don't despair; similar resources exist in other municipalities of the GTA.

I was introduced to SBEC by another networker who had her own consulting business, went corporate and - following a down-sizing - returned to operating her own consulting business.  I knew nothing of being an entrepreneur, and learned more than just the basics by attending the seminars put on by SBEC.  Heck, just 'taking a peek' at the reading material they have available always had me there for 2+ hours.

Here is a sampling of the seminars they conduct regularly:

• Introduction to Entrepreneurship (free)
  
• Exporting Seminar (free)
• Introduction to Marketing
• Introduction to Business Planning
• Canada Revenue Agency: HST Seminar
• Start up Financial Plan
• Understanding Social Media
• Ask the Experts: 30-minute sessions for existing businesses

SBEC has an impressive list of resources on-line and offers an amazing line-up of youth programs for the young entrepreneur. 

Their blog is Foundations for Small Business

I hope this piques your curiosity and - maybe - gives you the courage to launch your own enterprise!

Grand-maman Rose’s Ninetieth Birthday Celebration

When Grand-maman Rose turned 90, her children organized a grand party for her. As luck would have it, her birthday was on a Sunday that year. None of her children were working. I can’t remember any of my cousins being absent. No-one was missing. This time, though, the babies were ours, leaving our parents free to indulge in as much silliness as they wanted.

The party was set up in a church basement, one that we often reserved for our large family get-togethers. At 90 years old, Grand-maman Rose had more than 100 direct descendents. All of us together with our spouses (the current ones), a few friends, and the family priest, and the room was full and noisy and alive.

When Grand-maman Rose arrived, she was rolled in by her sons who had built her a throne on wheels topped with a canopy.

Grand-maman Rose flanked by my daughter in the pink dress and her second cousin, my son in the white shirt, and Oncle Raymond with a cigarette in his hand, and his grand-daughter on his knee

The entertainment committee had a full slate of talent to show off. Grand-papa Meno, gone 16 years before, couldn’t serenade Grand-maman Rose with her favourite songs and monologues. But Tante Mimi or Yolande or Pierrette would begin a song, and three seconds later we were joining in. Many texts and poems, produced for just this occasion, were appreciated by all. Great-grand children showed off their talents, and if one hadn’t prepared but was moved to participate, there was room in the program for it all. No-one was left out. It was fun and funny, touching and tender, unpolished but so sincere.

The best part of the show was put on by Yvan. Yvan trained with the Cirque du Soleil when it first started up, then joined a troupe of mimes and clowns, with its brand of acrobatic theatre. In the years leading up to Grand-maman Rose’s birthday, he was often out of town, producing or participating in shows all over Europe and the Pacific Rim countries. We were all so happy to have him with us. I was especially pleased he was there. After all, he was part of my gang of cousins from our growing-up years.

He mimed his whole show, using our children as volunteers in his skits. He did an amazing balancing act, and other bits of silliness requiring great strength and skill that succeeded in awing us while still making us laugh. He juggled balls and pins and rings. He even got Grand-maman Rose to help him juggle.  She sure wasn’t shy about flinging those pins and rings at Yvan. And she had pretty good aim, too.

As the show slowed,  Yvan reached into his pocket, brought out a long, skinny balloon, blew it up, twisted it into a hat, and put it on his head. He reached for another balloon, and made a sword that he tucked under an arm, and a poodle that he tucked under the other. More and more balloons took shape. He needed a helper, so he waved Oncle Raymond onto the stage. Oncle Raymond, taking the cigarette out of his mouth to make smart-aleck remarks, was given the balloon shapes to hold as Yvan made more and more of them. Oncle Raymond couldn’t hold his cigarette between his fingers without dropping the balloons, so he put the cigarette back in the corner of his mouth as his arms filled. The little ones, our children, were seated in the front row, enthralled, as the balloon shapes piled up in Oncle Raymond’s arms. I could see they were all coveting one.

Then Yvan stopped. With a large wave of his arm, he presented Oncle Raymond and the balloon shapes to the crowd... and halted. He craned his neck toward Oncle Raymond, pointing to the cigarette drooping at the corner of his mouth. Yvan gestured for permission to take the cigarette out of his mouth, which Oncle Raymond granted with a raspy laugh.

And that’s when, the burning cigarette held in the tips of his fingers, Yvan turned to us: Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole and me. He grinned wickedly, and with a quick stab of the cigarette on each balloon, Yvan burst them all.

Our children in the front row were stricken, breaking into wails or tears.

But Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole and I, we roared! This was triumph! This was our revenge for the burst balloons on New Year’s Eve 30 years earlier. Yvan had succeeded in getting Oncle Raymond back for the nasty trick he’d played on us when we were 7, 8 and 9 years old.  We laughed uproariously.  Our children, distraught and confused by our glee, could not be consoled. 

I think Yvan spent the next hour making balloon shapes for every kid in the room.  He made whatever they wanted.  But neither he nor we could wipe the silly grins off our faces for the rest of the birthday celebration.

Balloons

I had way more cousins than anyone else I ever met. I was the fifth grandchild and part of the Joanne-Daniel-Diane-Yvan-Denis-Chantal-Lison-Carole group. The younger cousins were just taggers-on: the brothers and sisters we couldn't always avoid.

The year we were 7, 8 and 9 years old, the corner store sold balloons for a nickel. They were tough to blow up, and we had to ask our young Oncle Pierre and Michel for help. But once they were blown up, they were marvellous: long, fat balloons that we could use as hobby horses, or swords, or witches' brooms. And they had swirls of colour down their lengths, making them much more exotic than the uni-coloured balloons we usually got. The cousin who gave up a nickel's worth of sweets for this balloon made us all jealous.

That was the year we all got a balloon as a gift on New Year's Eve when we assembled at Grand-maman Rose’s. We were excited, battling with our swords, scoring goals with our hockey sticks, floating in the sky on our magic brooms. The lead-up to midnight was filled with fun and food and races up and down the corridor. There was music and dancing with plenty of partners to go around. The house got hot and smokey, but the beef barley soup and the rice krispy squares kept coming.

The hinge moment – the moment of solemnity – came at midnight, when we all gathered together in the living room and my eldest Oncle Adrien asked his father to bless us all. The children and women all knelt, the men all in the more manly one-knee pose, and Grand-papa Meno gave us our blessing.

I call it the hinge moment because what came before was a crew of children full of energy and a crew of sober, watchful adults; what came after was a crew of grumpy, tired children and a crew of merry adults whose babies were asleep and whose drink or three gave rise to increasing silliness.

That year, Oncle Raymond’s silliness took the shape of a dare: whoever put their balloons on the tip of his cigarette without it bursting would get a nickel. And the lure of that nickel was great, as evidenced by the line-up: Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Yvan, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole and me. Oncle Raymond laughed his raspy smoker’s laugh as one after another the balloons burst.

Our precious gifts gone in an instant! There were no more hockey sticks, or hobby horses, or witches’ brooms. The fun was gone. We were inconsolable, wailing into our parents’ shoulders. I remember a glower or two thrown in the general direction of Oncle Raymond – but since he’d played the same trick on his own children, also inconsolable, the glowers weren’t very effective.

Oncle Raymond laughed at our expense and we were helpless in the face of his mischief. There was just nothing we could think of to get him back, and we sent him our black thoughts for weeks. The balloons lost their magic, and we reverted to getting penny candy from the corner store.

But every so often, as year after year we cousins met, reconnecting on Mothers' Day or New Year's Eve, or sometime in the summer, the subject of those balloons would come up. There would be a moment of surliness. It was a memory our younger cousins didn't share. They didn't understand why we would glower at Oncle Raymond. Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Yvan, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole and me - not one of us forgot.

Cousin-ness

As an army brat, I was the envy of my many cousins.  I lived outside of Montréal: Petawawa, Valcartier, Esquimalt, Germany.  And I travelled: New Brunswick, Québec, Ontario, British Columbia, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Italy, Switzerland.  And I was trilingual: French, German and English.

But I envied my cousins.  They all lived in the same city, and were often together.  They treated this togetherness so casually.  For me, every trip, every stay in Montréal, was magic.  At family gatherings – around Easter, Mothers’ Day, New Year’s Day – surrounded by Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Yvan, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole, I was immersed in my cousin-ness.  It was joyous and transcended temper and moods and childish hurts.  I wasn’t the new kid in town. I wasn’t a stranger.  I was family.  I belonged. 

In the summer, we congregated on the city sidewalk in front of the row of triplexes with their postage stamp front yards and their exterior wrought iron staircases curling up to the second storey front balconies.  These apartments were sought after, with their three bedrooms, double living rooms, formal dining rooms and large kitchens.  Grand-maman Rose’s place was even better because she had a corner apartment on the second floor.  That meant each room had a window. 

When we got bored with playing cops and robbers or 1-2-3 red light or skipping rope, we would clamber noisily up the staircase, burst through the front door and follow the long corridor that bisected the front bedroom tucked under the third storey stairs and the double living room, exploding into the dining room, and then through the short hall to the kitchen where Grand-maman and the adults assembled with the babies.

They made us wait for meal times, but sometimes there was a treat.  The best was getting a dime each for a visit to the corner store to choose penny candy, or two chocolate bars, or five long ropes of red liquorice.

We’d slowly walk back to someone’s house, comparing our haul of candy.  Then we’d sit on the front steps, and savour that candy.  Together.  All the cousins with a few neighbours thrown in for variety.  But mostly Joanne, Daniel, Diane, Yvan, Denis, Lison, Chantal, Carole.  And me.

Various and Miscellany Advice for Job-Seekers - Part III

I started talking about an early Saturday morning job-seekers meeting I attended recently where I found myself interrupting people's stories to interject comments.  Several seem to be obvious, but evidence that they need to be repeated keeps cropping up.  I have given you some comments in Parts I and II about personal presentation, introductions and résumés as well as about interviews, recruiters and listening for feedback.  Here is the last installment:

Follow up e-mails or phone calls
You can't guess if the recruiter or the hiring manager is going to appreciate your follow-up e-mail or phone call.  They might find you very resourceful, or they might find you annoying.  It's a risk either way.  But hey, job-seeking is not for the faint of heart.  Just do what feels right for you.  If your approach is not working, examine the possible reasons for it.  Do you sound desperate or arrogant or tentative?  Use the leaving-yourself-a-message to try to figure that out.  In any case, if it's not working, back off.

Back off and move on
If it's not working, back off and move on.  You need to focus on what’s happening in your search.  That means you have to be pushing several activities concurrently, otherwise your pipeline will be very empty.  That might be why you find time to dwell on your lack of success.  Remember that success is defined by how you deal with failure.  So get busy filling your pipeline.

Fill your pipeline
You can fill your pipeline by
- applying for jobs
- targeting specific recruiters
- targeting specific companies
- attending networking events
- catching up on your technical reading
- attending industry events (where you are likely to meet employed people in your field)
- updating your training
- having informational interviews
- finding new trends in your target industry

Every time I went to an interview and they asked me what I did while I was "off", I was able to tell them what an amazing time I was having, books I was reading, the groups I was chairing, the interesting people I was meeting, and the things I was learning about myself.  My interviewers were invariably impressed with how up-beat I was; my sense of the possibilities was infectious.

The really, really obvious stuff
And then, there's the really, really obvious stuff: make your résumé public on Workopolis, Monster.com and monster.ca, and Careerbuilder as well as on those sites that cater to your area of expertise.  For example, I had my résumé on all reputable HR recruiter sites.  Join groups in your field on LI.  Make sure you subscribe to job posting lists or are on distribution lists of all the groups that share job postings in your field.  You should also have your résumé on the Company web-sites that you are targeting.  Don't forget to subscribe to eluta.ca and indeed.ca.  Did I really need to say this?

Go to the well, lean on the rock
Go to the well to fill yourself up.  Your well can be your family, your friends, your favoured activities.  It may also mean new friends and activities.  And lean on your rock for support and understanding.  Your rock may not be your spouse.  In the beginning, mine wasn't for me.  He was so nervous about our dwindling funds, it was hard to manage my own see-sawing emotions, let alone his.  I had to temporarily find myself another rock.  And yes, I am still happily married to the same man I was married to before the job loss.  He is still my main rock.

And then you get the job

And then you get the job.  You are excited.  You are happy to work hard.  You are so relieved that it feels natural to put in extra time and effort. And ... you wake in the middle of the night, swamped with a wave of certainty that you will lose this job, too. 

Well, thank goodness it’s impossible to sustain these kinds of feelings, because it sure would be hard to get back to work every morning!  It’s normal for self-esteem to be shaken periodically.  Make sure you save time to go back to the well and lean on that rock.  Firmly close any book of pain you might have lying around open.  Put that book back on the shelf – it does have its uses, but not now.  And open the notebook you keep of all the compliments you have gathered from people you trust and respect.  Read that.  Read it again.  And enjoy your new job.

Thank you for reading these three posts on Various and Miscellany Advice.   I hope it helps you or someone you know.  I look forward to your anecdotes and stories of what has worked for you in the land of Job-Seekers in the comment section below.

Various and Miscellany Advice for Job-Seekers - Part II

I started talking about an early Saturday morning job-seekers meeting I attended recently where I found myself interrupting people's stories to interject comments.  Several seem to be obvious, but evidence that they need to be repeated keeps cropping up.  I have given you some comments in Part I about personal presentation, introductions and résumés.  Here are more:

 

It’s the interview that gets you the job
If résumés get you the interview, it’s the interview that gets you the job.  To get the job, they have to like you.  They already know from your résumé that you have the knowledge, skills and abilities - although if they are diligent they will check this out.  Now you need to prove to them that you are a fit.  To fit, you need to solve their problems.  If you don't appear engaged and knowledgeable as well as approachable, you won't win.  Here is how you prepare to succeed:

• Answer all of the 64 Toughest Interview Questions.  Every. Single. One.  Write out your answers.  Use the STAR format (situation - task - action - result).  If you're a talker, get to the point immediately by using the RATS format (result - action - task - situation).  Figure out which questions are easy for you.  Spend extra time on the questions that scare you.  (Google 64 tough "questions", download the PDF version.)

• Once you have worked on the scary questions, phone yourself and leave the answer on your voice-mail.  This serves several purposes: Do you ramble on longer than 2 minutes? Do you enunciate and speak clearly?  Do you use appropriate vocabulary?  Do you sound confident and upbeat?  If you identify problems with this, keep on practicing and refining and practicing until your responses sound fluent, not canned.

• Some interviewers are not practiced.  If you are fluent in the 64 Toughest Interview Questions, without robbing the interviewer of his role (he needs to remain in charge), you can provide your STAR responses in the course of the interview as great examples of how you contributed in the past to solving similar problems that face the interviewer.  Use (or create) the opportunity interviewers offer at the end of the interview to showcase those really strong and pertinent STAR responses.

Most people don’t bother with this tip.  It is the single most important thing that you can do for yourself.  It is what you can control, so don’t leave how you represent yourself to chance.

Eliminate negative speak
Eliminate negative speak.  If you need to let off steam, do it with a trusted family member or friend.  In public, DO NOT EVER speak of anyone in a disparaging manner. 

Treat recruiters with respect
And as you eliminate negative speak, treat recruiters with respect.  This applies to corporate recruiters as well as to recruiting firms.  They may not call you back, and you'll never know if it's because they're overwhelmed with work or because they don't want to give you the bad news.  Unless you call them.  Keep it professional.  No whining allowed.  Of course, if you insist on shooting yourself in the foot...

Ask why
If you find out you didn't get the job or the interview, ask why.  This is the best source of feedback you can ever get.  The people you are asking have seen you in action and can provide valuable insight into the manner in which you represent yourself.  If you don’t ask, you will never know.  If you ask, your recruiter or the hiring manager will feel obligated to give you a response.  They may frame their response diplomatically, so examine that response carefully.  Be brutally honest with yourself on what you can do better.  Then go back to practicing those 64 tough questions.  See It’s the interview that gets you the job above.



Stay tuned for more Various and Miscellany Advice.   In the meantime, I welcome your anecdotes and stories of what has worked for you in the land of Job-Seekers.  Feel free to comment below.

Various and Miscellany Advice for Job-Seekers - Part I

I attended an early Saturday morning job-seekers meeting recently and found myself interrupting people's stories to interject comments.  Several seem to be obvious, but evidence that they need to be repeated keeps cropping up.  Here are some of these comments, with more to follow in subsequent posts:

You are always on display
You are always on display, even in networking get-togethers.  Others who attend may be unemployed, and the atmosphere may be informal, but please spend some time on grooming.  Those of us who become employed may very well remember you not for your qualifications, but for the raggedy jeans you always wore, or the Saturday sweat shirt.  Always dress the part of a conscientious job-seeker.

Your Elevator Speech
Your elevator speech has to be tempting.  You only have 30 seconds, so say what you are passionate about.  Sure, you are leaving a lot of great stuff out of the speech, but if that 30 seconds is packed with what you are passionate about, you will have captured your audience’s attention and – guess what – they will clamour to know more about you.  Don’t forget to return the favour and listen to what they are passionate about.

Functional résumés don't work
Functional résumés don't work.  This is because they seem to hide a multitude of sins, like gaps in your résumé or how old your actual experience is.  As an HR professional, I sometimes pass these résumés along if the experience or educational qualifications seem to fit, but hiring managers are usually just as frustrated as I am.  It's too much effort to figure out if you are worth bringing in to interview or not.  So make it really easy to be chosen.

If you don't know how, get help
If you don't know how to explain gaps or the age of your experience, get help.  Your job-seeking network can point you to some excellent resources. Feel free to leave a comment below, and I will be more than happy to make recommendations.  By the same token, if you are nervous about interviewing, get help.  There is no shame in being smart in your job search.  I’m an HR professional, and you’d think I had the interviewing thing down pat.  I didn’t.  I got help.  Now I am a much stronger interviewee.

Résumés get you the interview
Speaking of résumés, they get you the interview.  If you are experiencing a lot of activity, chances are your résumé works.  If you are not experiencing activity, get help.  See If you don't know how above. 


Stay tuned for more Various and Miscellany Advice.   In the meantime, I welcome your anecdotes and stories of what has worked for you in the land of Job-Seekers.  Feel free to comment below.

Gérard

In the summer, my aunts and uncles would spend all their time outside. This was a good thing for Grand-maman Rose since she always had a baby on her hip and loads of cooking and washing to do to keep the household going.

Gérard was a popular boy and was always good at any games going on in the park where he played with his friends from the neighbourhood. Although not many of them had been to the pictures, Cowboys and Indians were all the rage. The game was a bit of hide-and-go-seek, with house rules that included whooping and hollering (to stay in character) and using borrowed rope to tie up the unfortunate captives.  Indians divested themselves of their shirts, Cowboys didn't and they were off.  The game lasted for a good while with the kids using the trees and shrubs and walkways to hide and ambush their prey. 

Supper time came and the kids went home.  Gérard scrambled off, because being late meant going without.  Having spent the day outside, he ate with dedication.  It was only as his appetite was sated that he heard his mother remarking on the thunder clouds and wondering where the heck Raymond was.  She paced from her seat to the kitchen counter to the balcony window, becoming increasingly worried about Raymond's absence.

Gérard froze.  He hurried through his meal and he fidgeted in his seat, waiting until everyone was done - only then would he be excused.  "Hurry, hurry, hurry up!" he chanted to himself as his brothers and sisters took their time finishing the meal.  They sat around while the skies opened and the rain hit the hot summer evening in sheets.  The thunder clapped and the lightening flashed, and finally, with a worried frown and another look out the balcony window, Grand-maman Rose sent everyone off to their evening activities.

Gérard bolted out of the kitchen, down the hall and burst out of the house. Unheeding of the rain and the mud, he raced back to the park where his little brother Raymond, shirtless, was tied to a tree.  Gérard untied him and Raymond, afraid of thunderstorms, was shaking so hard he couldn't put his shirt back on. Gérard hustled his brother home, threatening to clobber him good if he told Grand-maman Rose anything about being tied to the tree.

Raymond, already frightened enough by the storm, took a tongue lashing from his mother and was promptly packed off to bed.

Gérard confided the story to Grand-maman Rose years later.  She smiled at him mischieviously.  "What?" said Gérard.  "When I found your wet clothes in the pile of laundry that night," Grand-maman Rose said, "I figured you'd learned your lesson!"

What Helps You be More Effective as A Manager?

I received this question not long ago and after reflecting on my personal experience, I came up with two things in particular that makes me a more effective manager:

The first is the learned ability to recognize people.  People are always surprised when their managers take notice of what they are good at, what they enjoy and what they do well.  They are even more surprised when their managers find ways to celebrate these talents.

I mention that this is a learned ability, and will emphasize that it is a significant skill to learn.  Marcus Buckingham in his book Now, Discover Your Strengths explains this in its greater work and life context.

The second is the willingness to remove obstacles from the paths of those who report to you. Exercising your privilege as a manager to engage in streamlining processes with other managers, as well as exerting the muscle that comes with your rank, to make your employees' work easier, is your job.  It's not your job to be manipulative or to pull rank; I am referring to the judicious use of your station, in a way your employees can't, to get things done.

These single two actions, executed with sincerity, have earned me the loyalty of not only my employees, but my union stewards and my co-managers, too.

I would be interested to hear what helps you be more effective as a manager.

Grand-maman Rose

Grand-maman Rose was born in rural Northern Ontario in 1908 and lived to the age of 91.  She lived long enough to see 100 direct descendants: 14 children pictured here, 35 grandchildren and 50 great-grandchildren.

Robert, Raymond, Gisèle, Gérard, Yvon, Yolande, Claire, Adrien, Grand-maman Rose, Grand-papa Ivanhoe, Albert, Micheline, Pierre, Michel, Muriel, Pierrette.

It was a rare moment when all her children were together.  Adrien, the oldest and an ordained priest, and Albert, attending the seminary, happened to both be home from their religious communities one weekend in 1948.  Grand-maman Rose took the opportunity to gather up her family, dress them to the nines, and have this portrait taken.

Not one of the girls had curly hair, and rags were used to create the look Claire, Pierrette, Micheline and Muriel all share.  My mother clearly remembers how efficient her mother was at twisting and tying the rags so the girls would be at their best on Sunday.  She remembers her father admiring all his girls in their finery, calling them his princesses.

In those days, there were no jerseys or rayons, no nylons or polyesters, no wrinkle-free synthetic fibres.  Your Sunday best had to be ironed. And if you wanted your look to last, you had to sit carefully on the skirt of your dress, hitch your pant legs just so, to avoid having a crushed or rumpled look.

This portrait is a testament to the rigour and discipline Grand-maman Rose held herself to -- and the discipline she meted out to her children often enough.  I have no doubt that all my aunts and uncles knew there would be heck to pay if a hair or a pleat or a collar or a sock were out of place, until the picture was taken.

As an army brat, I didn't live in Montréal with my slew of aunts and uncles and cousins.  Every visit was a treat: the noise, the laughter, the ready-made cousin-companions, the games, the food, the parties.  I think I ended up having a copy of this portrait because I wasn't always there -- that and the fact that Grand-Maman Rose was my god-mother.  I like to think she favoured me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that she found a way to make us all feel that way.

Job Seeking Advice From a Friend

Ron was in transition for 33 months - partly because he had too narrow a focus on jobs, but also because he had a few diversions along the way.


He summarizes here some lessons he learned:

Maintain a positive attitude. You can't keep yourself motivated when you are always feeling negative. You might think you should avoid being around negative people, but these are people you can play a role in helping.

Continue to be Active. Volunteer with a NFP to reinforce that, whatever your employment position, you still have something of value to offer others.

Expand your Job Search Scope. Be open to contract work or consulting. They're a great way to maintain skills or develop new skills and it helps fill a void on your resume. Along with volunteering, it also gives you something concrete to talk about when an employer asks you what you've been doing since you left your last position.

Technology is Not Just for IT Folks. Social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook are now important parts of your job search toolbox. I undertook to learn more about CRM and Six Sigma and now feel better prepared for this new role.

Develop your Personal Brand. It's tough, but in a competitive job market, you have to be able to articulate what makes you a better candidate than the others. And you need to leave people with some kind of simple metaphor or slogan that helps keep you top of mind. If they can't remember who you are, they probably won't ask you back for the next round of interviews.

Continue to be Active. I hear people who say they're on LinkedIn and it isn't doing anything for them. They're probably not contributing to group discussions or answering questions that allow them to interact and connect with other LinkedIn members. Take a good look at an active LinkedIn member's profile and activity as a model.

Interact with Other Professions. The A-Team I belonged to had senior people from Finance, HR, Corporate Law, Operations, IT and Sales/Marketing. I learned a lot from my fellow members and the discussions about business issues helped give me insights into the challenges facing other professions and were just plain intellectually stimulating. I found this broadened my outlook, allowed me to ask some more challenging questions during interviews and enabled me to present myself as being well-rounded, not just a sales and marketing guy.

Have Something in Reserve. Broaden your interests to develop some activity you can carry with you into retirement. For me, it's my band. We've had an opportunity to develop our skills and become more accomplished as an ensemble, so that's yielded some satisfaction. It's also something we all see as our retirement program. And it's fun.


Thanks so much, Ron, for articulating some of the key solutions to keeping interested and open while job seeking as well as sharing a few tips for keeping sane, too.

A New Adventure

After gingerly dipping my big toe into the cold lake of blogging, I am ready to take the plunge.  So here I am, perched on the end of the dock, bouncing on the balls of my feet, swinging my arms, taking a deep breath, scrunching my eyes, and with a sudden push, I spring up, arms stretched above, briefly arching, hitting the water, slicing into it like an arrow.

It's done. I'm in. I'm IN!

I don't intend to always dive in like an arrow. I intend to jump in, slide in, cannon-ball in, paddle in, laugh with my eyes open until I just fall in, sink in, float in, slip in.  And I intend to love every minute of it.