Tag Archives: Jobseekers

Workplace Culture Caution

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Workplace culture unfolds to be what it is due to interactions of several influences. Included among these affects are how leadership and managerial styles project specific decision-making approaches, the modes of communication present, and guidance behaviors displayed by management and mentors. In addition, organizations may attempt to adhere to mission statements or other codified value declarations to drive operations, policies, and procedures. Workspace design can also matter when assessing the safety, comfort, and efficiency of the workplace. Further, diversity and inclusion, learning and development, and work-life balance initiatives can make a difference in employee attitudes.

All of these factors are important, but I will argue that the quality of employee engagement internally within their workplace and especially among each other’s colleagues is chief among the impacts shaping workplace culture.

Workers in an organization or business typically make up the bulk of bodies at the workplace. For any establishment to be successful several conditions must be evident among the members of this cohort. We know that the type of work being performed must feel meaningful and purposeful; that there are prospects for career growth or advancement; that positive and productive behaviors are recognized and reinforced; that employees feel a significant degree of empowerment and autonomy to make their own decisions; and that workers feel transparency and fairness is always evident in how decisions are made and performance evaluated.

The collective psychology of employees plays a crucial role in whether organizational prosperity is achieved or not. But workers should not expect managers to be the sole kingpins of whether their progress is favorable or not. Sure, poor leadership can sink the ship. However, workers themselves are also critical to workplace positivity, or lack thereof.

Poor or even dysfunctional workplace culture results from a series of mishaps and inadequate calculations caused by management or workers or a combination of the two. But it is the workers I want to stay focused on at this time. In particular, I want to address the phenomenon of a workplace culture that is misguided psychologically with the cause originating from the employees themselves.

I will use an example from my own professional past to help make my point. I worked for many years in an environment that praised egalitarianism. Equity was baked into system. We bargained for contracts collectively. There was no compensation differential between men and women. Unionism was strong. To be clear, I think these are all great traits and would not trade any of them away. But this equity-based culture produced an unintended liability that to my knowledge has never been resolved.

Workers largely prided themselves on staying in their own work lane — working collaboratively at times, but mostly performing a solo function that required a lot of stamina. We were all pulling oars, which meant we needed to work mechanistically. To have someone stray off course because they wanted to be too creative, or too much of a leader, or too, well, different in the way that they wanted to handle their job, then the mainstream raised their shackles. Questions of, ‘Who-do-they-think-they-are?’ and ‘Looks-to-me-like-they’re-trying-to-suck-up-to-management?’ began to get buzzed about.

Homogeneity was culturally rewarded. Divergence and distinction were not. Inbred psychological unsafety and insecurity had too much of a hold on the group. There are many other scenarios that embody cultural breakdown. The journey to worker psychological unsafety can come a number of different ways.

So, once a consensus of stakeholders recognize there is a problem, how then best to remedy it? One suggestion is for the workforce to consider adoption of an agile mindset. Let me explain. About twenty years ago a group of software development engineers instituted an Agile Manifesto, which they believed would strengthen an organization’s ability to produce. Agility was their reaction against an overly bureaucratic and rigid process which they claimed slowed production and innovation. Being agile meant introducing flexibility and adaptability to the process, leading to greater invention and dynamism.

The agile movement has since found applications in many other areas of operations, including HR, sales, customer service, project management, employee management, and elsewhere. The changed frame of mind an agile approach ushers in has demonstrated value and it can as well in employee-to-employee relations.

Among the benefits an agile process brings is to address how to handle internal conflicts within the group so that each group member can function efficiently and securely. What is encouraged is open communication, give and take, question and answer, working the problem, and acting and reacting with respect for each participant and the process. What is discouraged is staying rooted in unchanging and low-production practices and in censoring one another. The anticipated outcome is a shift to a workplace of high psychological safety and greater production.

The scaffolding necessary to transition to a cultural change of this magnitude is beyond the scope of this essay. However, for many workplaces it can happen and needs to happen. A workplace saturated in creativity, managed risk, and mutual regard beats a workplace steeped in fear and survival any day of the week.

 

Knowing When It Is Time for a New Job

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is common for a worker to know at different times throughout their working years that they have hit a rut. Their energy is leaking, enthusiasm is waning, anxieties are building, and performance is suffering. Questions arise in the self-dialogue pointing to serious doubts about their job. Eventually, the feelings of dissatisfaction mount and the worker becomes faced with a dualistic and existential choice concerning their job — should they stay or should they go.

In this piece I would like to review the signs and the nature of employment discontent in hopes that an analysis of the topic may yield a useful suggestion or at least a degree of solace for those undergoing job disgruntlement. Given my encouragement of purpose as a prime motivator for what leads to job satisfaction, I turn to writer and speaker John Coleman, who examines the value of purpose in work and life, to see what his latest thinking is on the subject.

Feeling purpose is fundamental to work contentment. Without it our efforts seem to be adrift and our self-confidence diminishes. Coleman highlights several indicators to be mindful of while on the job. These signals carry meaning concerning the problem of work frustration. When they are present one should consider themselves forewarned. What follows is an amalgamation of considerations from Coleman’s writing.

Avoidance: We all have the odd day when we do not feel like going to work. But if this feeling is becoming chronic and frequent, then something about the job is amiss. Procrastination is a form of indecisiveness. Postponing or hesitating to make important decisions because your heart is not into it or you are fearful about possible outcomes is a sign a change needs to be made.

Growth: As we spend considerable time on a job we generally enjoy noticing the skill development and emotional lift that comes from feeling we are growing both as a subject matter expert and as a person. Building mastery in an area should be a cause for celebration. If it is not, then it probably means growth has stalled and you no longer feel as if you are providing employer or customer value.

Achievement: Related to the issue of growth is the concern about whether your original career goals for this job have been achieved. If they have, perhaps your job is no longer delivering adequate challenges or breakthroughs. Periodically, it is a good idea to reflect and assess if the objectives you set for yourself when initiating the employment have been met or not. If so, why are you staying in your role?

Workplace: Could the work environment in which you are functioning be the cause of your job angst? It is possible that an accumulated toll could be robbing you of your energy and enthusiasm due to a workplace which is toxic, unnecessarily stressful, or encouraging you to operate in ways contrary to your values. It is imperative to feel that you have and can sustain integrity and a positive character at work.

Maybe the change you need, if any of the above difficulties arise, does not require necessarily leaving your current employer, but could instead involve trying to practice what Coleman describes as “job crafting”. It is worth exploring with your employer if they can give you a degree of latitude to make adjustments to the way in which you meet your employer’s goals.

Having a manager that is willing to engage in some employee development with you such that you can continue to satisfy the responsibilities for which you were hired, while also remediating the liabilities causing your discontent, could be a win-win.

Life is too short to feel stuck in a job that does not bring happiness. You owe it to yourself and your career to be placed in a position in which you can thrive.

 

 

 

 

 

Strengths and Weaknesses Revisited

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As I write this piece the calendar is about to flip to the year 2024. Therefore, my thinking is that this is a good time for careerists to revisit the perennial topic of how to communicate one’s strengths and weaknesses in the context of their professionalism.

How one self-perceives their strengths and weaknesses factors significantly into the impressions left upon others whose opinions of you may matter in how well you achieve success on the job. Typically, we think of the strengths and weaknesses question as one that comes up in job interviews and to be sure it still does. More on that later. But there are other instances during which an authentic and well delivered message about your capacities and limitations is pertinent.

Supervisors, colleagues, customers, and other stakeholders want to know what they can reliably expect from you and in what areas they should adjust their assumptions about you. We are called upon on a daily basis to promote ourselves on the job. How we perform is always being assessed by someone. The more consistently we are able to capitalize on our strengths and manage our weaknesses the more likely we can control the construction of our professional reputation and benefit our careers.

The narrative we deploy to reinforce our daily demonstrations of strengths and weaknesses builds both our prospects among those who entrust in us and our professional credibility. Getting these statements right matters.

It is during job interviews when a well formed response to the questions of what are your strengths and weaknesses is traditionally most anticipated. So, let’s take a look at how best to craft your reply in an interview situation.

First to strengths: As counterintuitive as it may seem, take the focus of your strength proclamations away from you as a person and instead direct them toward the needs of your employer, customers, and any other concerned parties who desire your expertise. Your goal is to solve people’s problems not pump up your ego.

How do you discover what the needs are of an organization to which you are applying? Study the job description. The specifics you require to align your skills with their demands should be right there. Executive communications specialist Joel Schwartzberg suggests that you convey each strength in four parts:

  • A label for your strength
  • A factual example of that strength being applied
  • The result of that application
  • How much you are energized by utilizing that strength

Now to weaknesses: Again, referencing Schwartzberg, he proposes to reframe the negative term “weaknesses” into “challenges”. This alternative name redefines what might be thought of as an innate characteristic flaw into a difficulty which can be remedied through purposeful interventions such as training or dedicated practice.

When selecting weaknesses/challenges to disclose to the interviewers be careful to not pinpoint a job requirement which is fundamental to the position. If you see yourself drawn to such a job essential as a challenge example, then rethink whether or not you should be applying for this position. Once you have settled on two or three challenges, present each one in three parts:

  • A label for your challenge
  • Relatively low-level effects that might result from the challenge
  • How committed you are to improve

Keep in mind that the interviewers, and by extension your colleagues, managers, and customers, are most interested in whether you can meaningfully collaborate to augment the operation. If you can use the strengths and weaknesses questions to drive home an understanding about your areas of expertise, leave the impression that you are earnest about professional growth, and communicate that you are candid and forthcoming about what motivates you, then you will have done your career a big favor.

You do not need to be thought of as perfect. Rather, you want to be deemed as dependable and trustworthy.

 

 

When Considering an Encore Career

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I recently attended a high school reunion. This was not the typical high school reunion, which is attended only by alumni from your graduating year. I attended a private all-male boarding school in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, which operated from 1926 until 1971, after which time it closed.

So, reunions for this school include any surviving alumni from any year during the time the school was open. This most recent 2023 reunion included alumni ranging from the graduating year of 1948 until 1971.

As you can imagine, nearly all of the attendees are now retired from their careers. But not everyone. As I chatted with a number of alumni I found that among those not fully retired there were two distinct categories of workers.

There were those who continued working at their primary careers, but at a more reduced or dialed-down level, meaning they were not putting in the same amount of time or handling the same degrees of stress as when they were full time employees.

Then there were those who desired to continue working, but at some type of work which was either very different or tangentially related to their former employment. This latter category is sometimes referred to as an encore career.

One of the great benefits of both our current labor force and our prolonged healthy lives relative to previous generations is that we have an option of pursuing an encore career. Establishing one, however, brings a new set of challenges that an older individual needs to be prepared to confront.

Just because you present yourself as an experienced and reliable resource with a long track record of accomplishments does not mean you will automatically be seen as a shoo-in for the new gig. In fact, the case most often seems to be that your age decreases your chances of being accepted. This requires that initiating an encore career be done systematically and attentively.

To begin with do not shy away from being old, but instead embrace it and spin your advanced age as a positive. You have gained a lot of work experience, solved many problems, and built an in-depth skillset.

Emphasizing your general tenacity, dependability, and trustworthiness can go a long way to gaining stakeholder and customer trust, which in many cases is as important or more critical than expertise alone. People who will need your services or who will want to join with you in delivering services want the comfort of someone they can rely on. Gaining that trust early on is crucial.

Another key to attaining trust is to highlight connections between your past successes and what you are promising to deliver in your new role. There will be overlaps in type, quality, or circumstances linking accomplishments previously achieved with intended future benefits you propose to supply.

One way to identify and credibly discuss these junctures is to prepare responses to some of the toughest questions you could get in an interview or from prospective customers during a vetting process. If needed, gain assistance from trusted contacts who can be skilled in playing the skeptic forcing you to justify your claims.

Through rehearsal, anticipate the concerns from others whose trust and support you will need to succeed in your encore career and heighten your authenticity by eliciting how your past performance has prepared you for future challenges.

Also, throughout the longevity of your career you have hopefully cultivated and maintained relationships with work related individuals which span generations. Being able to depend on younger professionals who can vouch for your excellence can go a long way in polishing your new brand.

Show others that you are not just a monument to legacy ways of operating, but that your instincts and inclination are toward continuous learning and improvements with an attitude of welcoming new problems to solve. Demonstrate how you are still passionate about the work you want to do, even at this late stage in life.

 

 

 

Career Passion and Wellbeing

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is a conventional understanding, sometimes expressed explicitly but often simply assumed, that if we are to work for a living, then our efforts yield richer rewards if we have a genuine passion for our career choice. Passion, we are told, is the greatest motivator. It is what compels us to willingly throw ourselves into our work and to perform at our finest with no external stimuli needed.

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”, is the way the maxim goes. What could be better than to feel such fervor for your career?

It is easy to see how management would be delighted to have workers who are “naturals” at fulfilling functions necessary for the prosperous advancement of a business or organization. Such employees will require few if any performance incentives. They are self-motivated players who embrace being subject matter experts. In their hands, productivity should reign without the problems associated with someone displaying less ardor for their work.

Workers who view their careers as vocations rather than as jobs are a precious resource for any enterprise. Managers who realize this will do what they can to facilitate conditions designed to enhance employee wellbeing and sustain the valuable assets they have. Conversely, managers who see very dedicated employees as a never ending supply of production and who develop an attitude that these workers will always go the extra mile, because to go above and beyond is inherent in them, could very well find they have squandered an advantage.

Even for those for whom their work is their calling, respect and care must be regularly demonstrated by management if this talent is going to remain committed to the organization and to do their best work. The results of a research study on the topic of wellbeing released by Gallup, Inc. in July 2023 reveal pertinent findings that leaders should know if they are serious about holding onto their best and brightest.

To start, Gallup finds that only one in four workers think their employers are concerned about their wellbeing. This is true in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and France. The abysmally low number is historic as well. Except for a brief period at the beginning of the pandemic, when many workers thought management cared about their health and welfare, this only ~25% who feel cared for has been the norm.

It is simply good business for management to genuinely support their best workers. To quote from the authors of the Gallup research, employees who believe management is dedicated to their wellbeing are:

  • Three times more likely to be engaged at work
  • 69% less likely to actively search for a new job
  • 71% less likely to report experiencing a lot of burnout
  • Five times more likely to strongly advocate for their company as a place to work
  • Five times more likely to strongly agree that they trust the leadership of their organization
  • 36% more likely to be thriving in their overall lives

These powerful statistics strongly suggest that structuring a workplace so that all employees, and in particular the most valuable talent, are emotionally and substantively gratified goes well beyond just being a nice thing to do, but actively works toward fulfillment of an organization’s mission.

Wellbeing in general involves not just career, but other social, financial, and health related factors. And of course, it is ultimately up to each individual to shape their lives so they are living optimally. However, given the amount of time and energy careers require, this is an area of life demanding special attention. Wellbeing should be a fundamental organizational issue as well as a personal responsibility.

Even the best employees deserve to know they are truly valued. To operate as if it is totally up to each person to independently feel fulfilled by others while on the job, leaves the workplace vulnerable to low productivity and weak competitiveness.

Innovative Journeys: Unlocking Opportunities for Creative Recognition

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The world of creativity is a realm brimming with boundless imagination and innovation, yet the journey to being discovered often proves challenging. Emerging artists, fashion designers, and makers confront the daunting task of standing out amidst a sea of talent. Fortunately, there are strategies that can illuminate the path to recognition. Leslie Campos of Well Parents unveils seven proven paths that creative minds can tread to claim their spot in the spotlight.

Why an Online Presence Is Essential for Creatives

In the digital age, an online presence acts as a creative’s virtual storefront, open 24/7 to the world. A captivating website serves as a central hub where admirers can explore their portfolios and learn about their journeys. Social media platforms amplify their reach, enabling direct engagement with an audience that resonates with their artistry. A curated online portfolio showcases their work’s evolution, providing a snapshot of their creativity and growth.

The Importance of Networking for Creatives

Networking is a cornerstone of success in the creative industry, and industry events serve as fertile grounds for making connections. Conferences, trade shows, and exhibitions allow creatives to interact with peers, mentors, and potential collaborators. Showcasing their work at these events positions them in front of a relevant audience, leading to exposure that can propel their career forward.

How Competitions Elevate a Creative’s Profile

Competitions aren’t just about winning trophies; they’re gateways to recognition. Participating in renowned competitions places a creative’s work on a prestigious pedestal, catching the eye of judges, fellow artists, and industry experts. Even if they don’t claim the top prize, the exposure garnered from competing can lead to invaluable opportunities, solidifying their position within the creative landscape.

The Power of Collaboration in Fueling Mutual Creative Success

Collaboration is a potent catalyst for creative success. By teaming up with fellow artists, designers, or makers, creatives can tap into new perspectives, skill sets, and audiences. Collective efforts amplify their reach and introduce their work to fresh admirers. Collaborative projects also nurture a sense of community and mutual support, reinforcing their position within the creative ecosystem.

How Community Events Can Propel Creative Careers

While the digital realm is expansive, local exposure should not be underestimated. Participating in pop-up shops, art fairs, and community events fosters connections with neighbors and fellow creatives. This local support serves as a foundation upon which national and international recognition can be built. The media attention garnered from such events often serves as a springboard for further exposure.

The Role of Workshops and Courses in Enhancing Creative Skills

A creative mind is a constantly evolving entity. Engaging in industry-specific workshops and courses refines skills and expands professional networks. Learning from established experts and sharing experiences with peers fuels personal growth. The insights gained from workshops empower creatives to adapt to evolving trends and challenges, ensuring they remain at the forefront of their field.

Reaching the Right Audience at the Right Time

Technology is a beacon of opportunity for creative professionals. By embracing customer data management systems, this is a good one to consider. Creatives can personalize their interactions with admirers, enhancing engagement and loyalty. Informed decisions based on data insights streamline marketing efforts, ensuring their work reaches the right audience at the right time. This technological approach revolutionizes how creatives connect with their supporters.

The path to creative recognition is a multifaceted journey, but with these seven proven paths, emerging artists, designers, and makers can pave their way to the spotlight. By crafting a powerful online presence, participating in industry events, embracing collaboration, seeking local exposure, expanding horizons through learning, and leveraging technology, creative minds can rise above the noise and shine brightly. As they embrace these strategies, they empower themselves to confidently navigate the creative landscape, ready to claim their well-deserved place in the limelight.

Image via Pexels

 

Job Changing Considered

Posted on by Bill Ryan

For most of us, careers are built from a series of job moves. Sure, there are those who begin a life of dedication to a particular vocation from which they never deviate. Others may find they spent their entire careers as a business founder and owner whereas others may experience an entire career employed with just one firm. However, for most of us, we will construct our careers as a migration from one opportunity to another. This necessarily involves job switching, an exercise requiring dexterity and proficiency.

There is certainly incentive to switch jobs currently. An economist at Glassdoor, Daniel Zhao, has data from the Atlanta Federal Reserve showing that job switchers have realized 7.7% wage growth since November 2022 compared to 5.5% wage growth for those who have remained in their jobs. Also, as economist Adam Blandin of Vanderbilt University points out, there are about two job vacancies for every unemployed person. And many workers know from experience that job changes are one of the best ways to enhance not just pay, but career prospects. All told, it is a suitable time to consider a job switch.

There is risk in job hopping, however. Downsides can emerge when we find ourselves in a worse situation than the one we left. In general, pitfalls occur when the new job is less stellar than we anticipated. Another snag is when the new job is less stable, as in you find yourself more exposed to layoffs. Obviously, it is important to not stumble and face regret when transitioning from one job to another. Therefore, a job switch needs careful planning. Let’s look at some of the key points to consider.

Planning for change should be deliberate. It begins with a deconstruction of your current work performance and how you have worked in recent positions. This task analysis seeks to identify those aspects of your work which energize you, bring you feelings of success and accomplishment, and align with the production metrics of your employer or target market. Conversely, being clear on those work facets which drain you of energy, leave you feeling unfulfilled, and fail to consistently meet production expectations should be revealed. Such an inventory can be converted to a plan which becomes your North Star when implementing the job shift.

Be targeted when pursuing new employment opportunities. Do your research of both the employers and the industry space they play in. Know how they fare in meeting market demand and fending off the competition. Of course, there is an assumption here that their industry is your industry and presumably you know the economic viability of your professional field. If you have not conducted a SWOT analysis in a while, now is the time to do so. Illuminate as best you can the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats inherent in your industry.

Examine potential future employers like a private investigator. Google and study company employee reviews of which there are now many, reach out on LinkedIn to employees to get their take on what it is like to work there, and leverage your own professional network to get the inside scoop. When you get job interviews, ask them questions about employee engagement, career growth prospects, employee turnover rates, and their performance review program, including the metrics they use. You are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.

Examine your decision-making style too. Reflectively challenge your assumptions. Assess where faulty decision making has led you astray in the past. As executive career coach Susan Peppercorn says, cognitive bias or more readily accepting information that matches your existing viewpoints, can impair quality decision making. Accept that claims made by the potential employer which sound good to you may carry hidden risks.

As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. But as you tread into the dicey, but conceivably rewarding world of job change, be as prepared as possible.

 

 

American Business Needs Good Teachers

Posted on by Bill Ryan

A disturbing trend could befall the quality of job candidates available for business hiring in the not too far distant future. We are at risk of finding that the pool of potential hires may be deficient in language and mathematical processing skills and in their ability to think critically relative to past generations. Why might this be so? Simply put, the United States is now experiencing a shortage of highly qualified teachers. And there is no end in sight of this problem. 

A weakening of the teaching profession consequently leads to more students receiving less instruction and lower quality education. It is hard to imagine how a nation that is unable to educate its children adequately can expect to succeed commercially, especially in a globalized economy. Yet, this is the situation the U.S. is now facing. 

Tuan Nguyen, Chanh Lam, of Kansas State University and Pula Bruno of the University of Illinois in an August 2022 paper entitled Is There a National Teacher Shortage? revealed there are 36,000 vacant teacher openings and 163,000 teaching positions being occupied by underqualified instructors. They contend these are conservative estimates. 

Josh Bleiberg, an education professor at the University of Pittsburgh, claims the quantity of qualified teachers is falling nationwide and the few states seeing an increase in certified teachers are still not able to keep up with growing enrollments. 

One does not have to look too deeply to see why this is the case. Professor Bleiberg’s research discloses that teacher wages, when adjusted for inflation, have been mostly stagnant from 2000-2020, while student caseloads have been consistent. 

Also, during this time teachers and administrators have witnessed an expansion of accountability initiatives designed allegedly to improve teacher proficiency. Although some accountability measures are necessary, too many have been based on student test scores, leading to needless stress, system gaming, and dilution of curriculum. Making maintenance of teacher credentialing more rigorous with no corresponding compensation increase is bad business. 

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that students earning bachelor’s degrees in education has gone from 176,307 in 1970-71 to 104,008 in 2010-11 to 85,058 in 2019-20. And this decline is before the pandemic. 

We cannot underestimate how negative Covid has been for the teaching profession. The terms and conditions of teacher employment degraded overnight. Concerns about their own health and safety while trying to manage instruction remotely or in super-spreader classroom environments while also dealing with students who had experienced the loss of family members has been extremely detrimental. Many older and more experienced teachers chose early retirement rather than risk their physical and emotional health. 

Moreover, we now have the politicization of education and use of teachers as punching bags by those who claim students are being brainwashed with various culture war issues of a racial or sexual nature. Let’s throw in the risk of school shootings and we can see why a national problem exists. Given the relatively low pay, high productivity demand, health and safety risks, and politically oriented pressure it is no wonder many otherwise great teachers are saying, No Thanks! 

This is not just a problem for one industry. It is a potential loss for our economy if we have ill-prepared students growing up to become our available workforce. It is in the best interests of business to recognize the looming threat and to get on board attempting remediation. 

As a nation, we can start by accepting the value teachers provide and offering them the prestige they deserve. Teachers are much more of a resource than they are an expense. It is past time to honor them for being the assets they are. From there we can tackle issues of adequate compensation, reasonable employment conditions, and greater self-determination. 

It is for the greater good of our economy, our country, and our children that we get this right. 

Reconsider Your Career

Posted on by Bill Ryan

There comes a time with all of us when we find ourselves reconsidering our career. We question why we still cling to the rationale that prompted us to settle on this career in the first place. Perhaps another bad day at work sparks doubt or your hesitation results from something deeper like a recognition of insecurity or uncertainty with the line of work you have chosen. If repeated reflections of your career role continuously point to a feeling of dissatisfaction, then it is time to act. 

The measures I am suggesting need not be sudden and radical ones like going into work tomorrow and quitting your job even though you do not have other employment lined up — although that might be an option in your case. Rather, I would like to outline a mental and emotional approach you can use to assess your situation and formulate possibilities from which future career-oriented decisions can be made. 

Unknowingly, you have already taken the first step. That is, you have acknowledged with yourself that something is wrong with your career. Stay with this insight for a while. Clarify as much as possible what is off. There could be multiple reasons behind your discontent. It will be useful for you to know as much as you can about what is not fitting. Repeating a dysfunctional pattern going forward is unhelpful and to be avoided. 

From there, attempt to visualize an ideal career position for yourself. Beware of overly restricting your imagination. Instead, allow yourself the freedom to perceive energizing possibilities in which you can express your innate talents and leverage your developing expertise. When you inevitably think about an imagined choice as, “But that is something I’ve never done before,” try to shun what might be your usual response of instant rejection and instead play with the concept as an intriguing challenge. Be open to surprising yourself. 

When brainstorming, integrate remembered examples of when you were successful. Compile your greatest hits both big and small. Look for the through line which connects these events. Is it your ability to solve stubborn problems, to be adaptive when innovation is called for, to persevere when others around you are jumping ship, to lead others even when your job title says nothing about management? There will be patterns aligned with what you are good at doing. These can be guideposts to inform you while you consider new career opportunities. 

Another avenue of thought to factor into your self-examination has to do with emerging trends. It is no secret that the world is changing. Set aside for a while your career history with its experiences and the present state of your chosen industry to forecast where your fields of interest are heading. Look for possible intersections consisting of your expertise and developing areas of growth in need of aptitude. Refreshing changes can come from leaping off your steppingstones of familiarity onto novel and steep inclines that have just enough footholds for you to master the climb. 

As fresh and exciting career potentialities take shape the time will come to assess your skillset. Are you stagnated by practicing the same tasks repeatedly? Do your imagined career possibilities call for skills you need to develop or acquire anew? Jolting yourself into expanding your capacity may prepare you for a better future but may also help you to snap you out of your current doldrums. Maybe there can even be the prospect of being able to hone new competencies while in your existing job. 

We spend way too much time with our careers to tolerate having them less than stimulating. If you are content with what you are doing, then congratulations on being part of the joyful minority. However, for the rest of you, give yourself permission to consider and act on a change to bring more purpose and fulfillment to your careers and lives. 

A Coming Workforce Transformation

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Career prospects for women during the economy of the past couple of years show significant disillusionment. By the end of 2020, 140,000 jobs in the U.S. which had been held by women were lost in female-dominant industries like education, hospitality, and retail according to Business Insider. The National Women’s Law Center reported in 2021 that about two-thirds of all minimum wage jobs are held by women. Unemployment rates remain high for women of color and women with disabilities. 

The past years have also not been encouraging for professional women seeking to secure leadership positions, particularly in highly capitalized businesses. Julia Boorstin of CNBC reported in 2020 that of the 500 largest American companies only 6% of CEOs were women. Not only that, but there is this occurrence of women being placed in CEO positions of troubled companies struggling to hang on. The phenomenon is known as the “Glass Cliff” problem. If the ship cannot be quickly righted to profitability, then it can be easier for some to say how a woman was given a chance to show leadership, but it just did not work out. 

McKinsey reveals another stunning circumstance. The proportion of women in jobs declines as the amount of responsibility embedded within these jobs increases. Women make up 50.8% of the American population, but account for 47% of entry-level positions, 38% of management assignments, and 33% of senior management occupations. For every 100 men who move into management roles, there are 85 women who do so. 

The history of women in the workforce facing discrimination, unequal pay, and harassment in one form or another is a painfully long one. However, there are some other statistics which curiously suggest more positive changes may be coming for women in the workforce. 

The writer David French points to some recent education stats showing men are slipping in acquiring the schooling necessary to stay highly qualified and competitive for the good jobs, and for leadership roles particularly. For example, at the end of the 2020-2021 college academic year women comprised 59.5% of the overall student body, the highest ever, and men only 40.5%. This data is from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. 

Furthermore, the 2020-2021 school year showed a decline of 1.5 million students relative to five years earlier. 71% of that drop was in men leaving U.S. colleges and universities! For a reason I cannot explain, men’s attendance has fallen such that they have become a minority cohort in higher education. Can a drop in men’s career prospects relative to women, including in leadership, be far behind? 

One does not have to look far to notice an unmistakable correlation between levels of education and career success. Acquisition of knowledge, skill, experience, contacts, and confidence are all derived from furthering one’s education. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent data concerning earnings and unemployment rates by educational attainment show median weekly earnings for those holding only a high school diploma to be $781, but with an unemployment rate of 9%. The bachelor’s degree college graduate in comparison earns on average $1305 per week with an unemployment rate of 5.5%. 

To be sure, the traditional four-year college degree program model is under serious review, as it should be, by those who foot the high cost. More targeted and lower cost education and credentialing options are providing increasing competition to legacy college and university programs. That’s fine. But if men think the good jobs and leadership positions will always be waiting for them as in the past, while women are actively preparing to compete and hold those occupations for themselves at rates superior to males, then men may be in for a rude awakening soon. 

As women gain more of the good jobs and leadership roles, they are likely to open more doors for other women to participate more fully in quality education and work opportunities. As education attainment shifts more to women, so too will their employment and leadership strength. 

Career Advancement and the Management Myth

Posted on by Bill Ryan

An odd convention has fixed itself into the career psyche. It involves widespread practice that when a worker has demonstrated specialized competency and efficiency over a period of time, then the next step in that person’s career must naturally be an elevation to a management position. A causation is assumed linking proficient performance with an ability to lead direct reports. 

This assumption may be oversold, resulting in the selection of many managers who find themselves unhappy and detached from what they do best. 

Surely, there are many cases when a stellar individual contributor turns out to be an excellent manager of workers who does what they once did. As managers, they know intimately the challenges their subordinates face and having been skilled in addressing them formerly they can guide teams with heightened awareness and credibility. A once knowledgeable and experienced provider, who is also an inspiring leader, is a great combination indeed. 

Unfortunately, there are times when the “advancement” of a well-versed individual contributor to management is misplaced. During these pandemic times, it is no secret that many workers are reassessing their roles. This includes managers. It is not uncommon for some managers to feel a nostalgia for work that was more purposeful and fulfilling compared to being supervisory. They remember the satisfaction they felt at being an excellent contributor, and with reflection, may realize they like that better than being a boss. 

However, we are ingrained to think hierarchal. Once we have moved up, it is considered a disgrace to move back down. What will people think if I give up this management post and return to a job I once had? That will be seen as a demotion, right?  

Thoughts like these would discourage many managers from reversing course. If the future of one’s career is a choice between continuing in a less than satisfying management role or risking possible shame by returning to a former position, then one is very likely to feel stuck. This is not a good place to be. 

One thing helping with such a conundrum is the fresh post-pandemic attitude allowing for workers to search for more meaning in their work. Just as there is now more evidence of hiring managers being more accepting of job-hopping over the past two years when they look at resumes, there may now be greater acknowledgment of managers leaving to search for greener pastures. 

Reframing your traditional ideas about hierarchy may also help. Get out ahead of any perceived criticism or doubt from others by publicly admitting that returning to a role, which again makes possible more autonomy and the practice of mastery, is a better fit for yourself than management. It is possible to state that your career and the organization can both profit from such a move. This can be communicated in a way which is both believable and face-saving. 

Leadership, as well, can be viewed with old-fashioned limitations. Management jobs need not be the only way to lead. An individual contributor who trains and mentors colleagues through sharing of expertise and proven methodologies can have a greater leadership impact than someone who is overly consumed with analyzing productivity metrics of direct reports. By claiming you prefer to lead more by guidance and coaching than the old management job allowed for, it can help to substantiate your re-entry move. 

Then there is the possibility of retaining your management position on the hierarchy by proposing a new strategic venture that better incorporates both your individual contributor and management values. From your perch within the organization, you may be able to see more creative ways of approaching potential opportunities, which call for just the right fusion of skills you can provide. 

Greater agility does not just benefit organizations, it enhances careers as well. If you are questioning your contributions due to limitations placed on you by being a manager, the time may be right for a change. 

Career Adaptability in a Time of Economic Resilience

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As a people, we habitually want to return to normal after a sudden disruption. To seek stable ground after a storm is what we are hard-wired to do. The pent-up desire to reclaim regularity throughout this pandemic is palpable. We want so much to snap back to a 2019-era lifestyle that it may be hindering our capacity to plan for what increasingly looks like an uncertain future. 

A combination of Covid’s aversion to disappearing and more general workforce changes promote doubtfulness in the minds of many about future economic, and by extension, career directions. Questions as basic as, will my job be permanently home-based and remote, or will my job, which is centered on being face-to-face with many people, forever now to be risky? These are existential questions. 

Career resilience, or the ability to navigate one’s professional life through the turbulent vicissitudes of the 21st century employment environment, is not a new topic. Remaining nimble and adept enough to reapply one’s skillset to changing situations has been advised by career professionals for years now. Of course, such advice has most often been given in the context of technological automation and cross-market globalization. 

The unsettled world of Covid, however, only adds to the urgency. Emerging variants of the virus and the patchwork way nations and regions respond to the emergency leaves Covid-fatigued people feeling discouraged that we can get past this anytime soon. Optimism rises and fades like the graphs of infection rates. As far and as wide as we can see, the economy is being buffeted by winds of Covid-generated incertitude. Career resilience becomes but a subset to the larger challenging phenomenon of economic resilience. 

The National Association of Counties identifies economic resilience as, “a community’s ability to foresee, adapt to, and leverage changing conditions to their advantage”. The U.S. Department of Commerce is more blunt in its description. Commerce questions an entity’s proficiency to endure and to rally from a severe disruption, and its ability to avoid crises in the first place. The take-away inference is that acceptance of the proverbial new normal and requisite mitigation planning is to be standard operation. 

The interests of non-entrepreneurial workers are served when employees understand the sustainability planning and related past practices of the employers for whom they work or want to work. If an employer is overly relying on luck to get them through or is in denial about change occurring, these should be warning signs. Do not let the miscalculations of others derail your career. 

What we want to see instead are signs of employers envisioning and assessing risks to their markets and assets. These are sometimes known as steady-state actions. From there they should be prepared to deploy a response strategy when crisis strikes.  

Included in this overall approach can be interventions such as sustainability budget planning; diversification efforts to reduce exposure to high risk sectors; gardening of workforces which will ride out disruptions and not quickly bail; alignments with business, government, and educational resources to keep forecasting and preparedness skills sharp and ready; and agile management capable of shifting available talent to meet unexpected needs effectively. 

Continuity planning for an organization or an individual share certain processes. Key among them is to know the weak areas. Where are the shortcomings? How can they be managed or strengthened? Which metrics apply to indicate success is being achieved? 

Another key process is in knowing the threat indicators early on. Take advantage of utilizing a natural or trained inclination to be preventative and farsighted. 

Above all, establish systems, procedures, and habits, which have resiliency built into them. Facing turmoil requires a degree of fortitude. Until Covid is somehow controlled worldwide the economic and career challenges related to the virus will continue. Confronting the menace clear-eyed and purposeful is a potent response. 

Workers Are Flexing Their Muscles

Posted on by Bill Ryan

An unmistakably big story in the 2021 career space has been about what is being dubbed “The Great Resignation” or “Turnover Tsunami”. Of course, I am referring to the throngs of workers in both the relatively high paying knowledge economy, but also in the lower income sectors, like hospitality and retail, who are leaving or not returning to their pre-pandemic fields of employment. 

A whopping 40% of the global workforce has left or is planning to leave jobs this year. The U.S. Labor Department has never seen such an acute spike in resignations in the twenty plus years it has been tracking such statistics. 

The popular media has for months now been pumping out pieces referring to the phenomenon and the suspected reasons behind it, such as higher savings rates thanks to government financial assistance, fear of catching the virus at work, insufficient childcare options for working parents, and a growing realization that a lot of hiring is now going on.  

However, the monumental reason for this employment churn appears to be a dignity factor. The Covid pandemic is allowing for a massive reassessment, and by extension, a realignment of what truly matters in one’s work and life. 

Shelter-in-place directives, social distancing, and closed office buildings, restaurants, and stores shook people’s mindsets in numerous ways. Many front-line “essential” workers who were heralded as heroes early in the pandemic are now either burnt out or tired of the abuse they get, like healthcare workers. Many well compensated workers ensconced in jobs pertaining to information flows and the means of production are bailing from positions because of the stress levels and long hours. Those on the low socioeconomic end feel abused, disrespected, and exploited and are not going to take it anymore. The number of workers and the type of worker taking the employment shift plunge are both expanding. 

This spectacle is causing economic hardships for a range of stakeholders from business owners to customers. The flux in employment is helping to fuel in part the larger pandemic-related worldwide economic convulsion. Shouldn’t we all be really concerned about this dramatic and disruptive turn of events?  

Yes, we should be, but not of fear for the interests of the wealth holders becoming suddenly inconvenienced, but in support of workers who are all in different sounding ways and from different points of view collectively saying they want and expect fair compensation, respect, and a voice in how their careers are going to develop. This brief period in history may be seen as a possible inflection point in the 21st century morphing of work and career into something different from the way it has been in the past. 

I come back to the three intrinsic motivators for professional workers eloquently described by Daniel Pink about ten years ago. Pink wrote and spoke about the need and quest for autonomy, mastery, and purpose as to what gets successful and satisfied workers out of bed in the morning. We are more motivated and driven to perform well at our jobs when we feel we have relatively free rein to innovate and produce, when we feel we are developing a skill or talent, and when we feel that what we are doing at work matters in a value sense. 

It seems to me that what many of these job searchers are looking for comes very close to what Pink is describing. Combine dignified levels of compensation with workplace cultures that honor worker autonomy, mastery, and purpose and a job can become more satisfying and sustainable. 

I get that some just want a decent job and not a career, but what makes an employee want to stay and thrive is fundamentally not very different between a highly educated contributor and an hourly employee. Dignity and respect can go a long way. 

How Students Can Get Their Career Started on the Right Foot

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I am pleased to present a Guest Article from Leslie Campos of Well Parents. For more information about this wellness resource targeted for parents please visit https://wellparents.com.

High school and college students can’t wait to launch into a career and start gaining real-world experience. However, when graduation nears and it’s time to start applying for jobs, most students don’t know where to start. Before the job search begins, students should take these steps to get their professional life started off right. Below, we explore some ideas that can help you start off your own career planning on the right foot.

Building Strong Credentials

New graduates lack work experience to put on their resume, but that doesn’t mean they lack experience. Without career positions to highlight, recent graduates should focus on internships, apprenticeships, volunteer experience, and extracurricular activities to demonstrate their relevant experience.

Listing roles isn’t enough. Applicants should highlight skills and accomplishments from each role, focusing on skills that are related to the job they are applying for. Many of these will be soft skills, but that’s not a bad thing. Employers can always train an entry-level employee in the technical skills they need for a job, but instilling soft skills like communication, conflict resolution, and leadership is much harder.

To further hone your capabilities, an advanced education might fit the bill. Programs like WGU’s market-responsive online business program brings relevant, real-world knowledge to the table, and you can even flex the course load to suit your needs. Explore your options to find industry-relevant, practical programming that will give you the advantages you need.

Networking

Outside of developing their resume, networking is the most important thing students can do to set themselves up for a successful career after graduation. Networking with professors, campus staff, fellow students, and alumni is a good start, but students should also look beyond their school’s walls for networking opportunities.

Internships are ideal networking opportunities for students. An internship is a way to develop hard skills needed on the job, but more importantly it’s a chance to meet potential employers, learn about career paths in a field, and gain strong references for a future career search. Naviance recommends college students pursue internships as early in their college career as possible rather than waiting until senior year.

Crafting a Strong Resume

Skills and a strong network alone won’t land recent graduates in their career of choice. Entry-level workers also need strong application materials that appeal to today’s hiring managers. A strong resume is partly about content, but design is equally important. A resume and cover letter that are visually appealing and free of errors demonstrate an applicant is diligent and detail-oriented, skills every employer wants in their staff. At the same time, students should be wary of sacrificing professionalism for the sake of design. For first-time job-seekers, premade resume templates are an essential tool for creating a resume that balances good design with a professional appearance.

While filling in a resume template, applicants should be sure to include keywords from the job posting they’re applying for. Many companies use electronic applicant screening systems to find resumes with keywords that pertain to the job. Monster explains how to select keywords along with other resume tips for recent grads.

Pursuing Non-Traditional Career Paths

Pursuing a college degree and a white collar career isn’t the only path to economic success. Many recent graduates find they are better suited for entrepreneurship or a career in the trades.

Entrepreneurship is a challenging route for people without real-world experience to build off of, but many recent graduates are finding success in starting online businesses such as ecommerce businesses based in dropshipping. These types of businesses require much less start-up capital than traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, making them more accessible to young people with limited financial resources. As long as entrepreneurs can deliver unique value to customers and build a strong website with good customer service, they can find success in online business.

The trades are another field in high demand. High school students can enter the trades without a four-year college degree and earn an income comparable to their college-educated peers. As NPR reports, trades such as construction and plumbing are experiencing labor shortages in much of the US, so students interested in this path face little trouble finding opportunities.

The transition from student to professional isn’t an easy one. The shift is made even harder when students don’t know the right way to land the job they want. While these tips can’t guarantee students will land the entry-level position they’re aiming for, they’re the necessary first steps toward a successful career.

 

Image via Unsplash

Employment Struggles for Older Workers

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It’s happening again. One of the perverse hallmarks of the Great Recession ten years ago was the expulsion of many older workers from the workforce. A significant number of experienced employees found themselves forced into sudden unemployment or premature retirement. Many never fully recovered financially or emotionally and their careers were left scarred and lacking in dignified closure. 

The current Covid-induced recession is again presenting similar employment hardship for mature workers. Since March, the labor market has shed many senior-aged men and women, who possess both high and low skill levels. In other words, this elder layoff is widespread. 

Unfortunately, this is not turning out to be simply a temporary furlough for these workers, but rather a longer-term separation marked by an acceleration of egregious trends. Again, as during the last recession, newly trending labor shifts are weakening older workers’ employment security. 

Previous examples included labor-saving technologies and increased workloads for younger and less expensive staff, which combined to lessen the management need to restore previous personnel levels. Once again, mature employees find their bargaining power diminished when facing dismissal and rehiring. Weak or non-existent unions, the rise of the gig economy, and continued lenient enforcement of age-discrimination laws, not to mention the harmful economic disruption from Covid, leave senior workers feeling increasingly insecure and inadequate. 

The New School’s Retirement Equity Lab studies the factors impacting the quality of retirement, which necessitates an examination of when a retreat from work is chosen or forced. Their assessment of the plight of older workers is sobering. Even for those older workers who have not yet been laid off there is considerable uncertainty about their futures. This cohort more and more knows they are less employable than younger workers. Those over age 55 often realize that if they were to quit their current jobs the chances of transitioning to a job that is comparable or better is doubtful. For many, it becomes prudent to stick with a less than satisfying job, then to risk unemployment. 

Relatively robust earnings have traditionally been an expectation for long-term commitment to a profession and/or an employer. Seems fair, right? However, these days when an older worker is rehired after a job loss hourly wages are typically lower than with the former job. Workers aged 50-61 receive 20% less pay with their new job while workers 62 and older see a decrease of 27%. In addition, once a worker hits their fifties, periods of unemployment after a layoff are longer than for workers aged less than 50. 

The growth in ambiguity and low confidence older workers face add to the weakness of their bargaining power. Employers know in most cases that they have the upper hand with older workers, except for those situations in which the worker possesses a unique or hard to find skill. This is unfortunate. A lifetime of work deserves value and respect. Retirement in the modern era should be a reward for the toil, dedication, and achievement for decades of work, not an imposed isolation or banishment due to the vicissitudes of employment economics. 

As the Retirement Equity Lab points out, policy makers may need to intervene with schemes designed to lessen the hardships for prematurely laid off older workers. For example, employers could offer rainy day or emergency savings plans through payroll deductions, which become available when needed to augment unemployment benefits. Or the federal government could step in with a guaranteed retirement account savings option to supplement what retirees receive from Social Security. Of course, more stringent enforcement of The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 would help immensely. 

Careers for many are a vocation and a calling to develop mastery and contribute to society. For others, work is simply a means to a paycheck. Either way, growing old should not be viewed as a liability or a deficiency to take advantage of. 

Distributive Work Gets A Boost

Posted on by Bill Ryan

One of the significant consequences foisted upon the economy during the Covid-19 outbreak has been the rapid scaling of work completed outside of the office, i.e., at home. What is commonly known as remote work, now increasingly being referred to as distributive work, has been increasing over the past twenty years or so. But in its short history it never has experienced a shot of practice like it is getting now. 

My guess is that distributive work is conventionally thought of across most businesses as secondary in its productive impact relative to being onsite, not unlike the way online courses have tried shaking off their reputation of being course lite. However, the severity of social distancing to break the chain of virus transmission is forcing the knowledge economy to rely on high quality distributive work to stay alive as never before. Indeed, it is in the knowledge economy, comprised of smart and skilled workers producing goods and services worldwide, where distributive work holds its greatest promise. 

It may be useful to know the thoughts of someone who has pioneered and cultivated distributive work for years and is now a leading voice in the movement. Matt Mullenweg was one of the founding developers of WordPress, the digital content management system, and founder of the diversified internet company Automattic with ~1200 employees distributed over 70 countries. He continues to not only evangelize distributive work but leads a set of companies that practice it daily. 

He is also convinced distributive work need not be just an off-the-shelf option management reaches for during times of disruption, but a model of productivity capable of surpassing the performance of traditional office-setting work. 

Mullenweg promotes worker autonomy as key to motivation and efficiency and is much more concerned with worker output than input. While retaining some in-person collaboration, but in a much more reduced and targeted manner, he recognizes the impediments of cramming a lot of people onto a single site. A myriad of distractions such as office politics, intrusive co-workers and managers, long off-topic chats with co-workers, shared facilitates, a narrow set of expected in-house behaviors, and a feeling of having little control over likes and dislikes from the office temperature to the smell of someone’s lunch can all negatively factor into the worker feeling a lack of autonomy. 

With that in mind he identifies five levels of distributive work from low to high effectiveness. To quickly summarize: 

  • Level 1, which is now old-school, has workers using telephone and email offsite to augment their work, but with the belief that the “real” work is done at the office. 
  • Level 2 is an attempt to recreate the office elsewhere by use of VPN and conferencing software to supplement voice and email. Most business is still mired in levels 1 and 2. 
  • Level 3 demonstrates an intentional effort to adopt the best software and equipment available to share knowledge seamlessly and transparently across the organization. This can include good lighting, microphones, and communication tools like Zoom, Slack, and P2. 
  • Level 4 places a premium on asynchronous and written communication, meaning to move away from an over-reliance on live interactions. The goal here is to improve the quality of decision making even if its pace is slowed. 
  • Level 5 is where production capability is shown to be measurably improved over traditional work methods. 

Mullenweg contends the manufacturing factory model of all employees looking busy at the same time and in the same place does not always translate well into the cognitive economy. By valuing quantifiable and qualitative output primarily and providing workers with the means necessary to cooperatively join forces across distance the “workplace” can be not only redefined but rendered more fruitful. 

Looking for a humane and profitable opportunity amidst a global contagion may be difficult. Perhaps, refining distributive work is one such occasion. 

Careers that Create Value

Posted on by Bill Ryan

We want our careers to be fulfilling, sustainable, and enriching in several ways. Beyond obtaining desirable compensation other paths involve intrinsic satisfaction with an important one being a belief we are contributing to making the world a better place. When reflecting on how effectively our careers are performing toward achieving such a lofty but worthwhile goal it may be beneficial to determine if value is being created as a result of all the hard work we do. 

A way to begin this career assessment is by asking ourselves if our professional pursuits add prosperity to society as a whole or detract from it. Simply put, we are either creating wealth or we are just transferring it from one party to another. By wealth I am not restricting myself to capital alone but refer more broadly to a wide range of functional and emotional life improving gains. Creating value powerfully addresses the needs of many consumers and by extension the greater society, whereas orchestrated wealth shifts benefit a relatively small segment of society. 

Economists identify rent seeking as a concept pertaining to the practice of acquiring shares of wealth created by others. Visualize the ubiquitous economic pie. Value creators are best at growing the pie’s size. Rent seekers in contrast are adept in figuring out ways to grab more slices of the existing pie. Rent seeking is expressed in various forms, for example corporate monopolization, opaque government subsidies, reduction of competitiveness, and exclusive resource ownership. 

In short ask yourself, does my career serve the greater population by expanding the pie or is it designed to assist relatively few, generally wealthy people, by shifting more slices their way? 

Diving more deeply into defining value creation we can look at the elements that comprise value. A few years ago, several marketing strategists from Bain & Company, the management consultancy, comprehensively identified four kinds of consumer needs that can be met with combinations of thirty different “elements of value”. They arrange these four domains and corresponding elements into a pyramid for easy comprehension. Their rationale is that by appealing to the right amount and configuration of consumer needs business will grow and customers will be retained. 

I suggest applying the same model to our careers. If we can assert that our work enhances people’s lives by producing value elements, we should be able to feel confident we are creating value. 

To summarize this model, recall another pyramid, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. You may have run across this visual in one college class or another. That pyramid is structured to display a progressive arrangement of psychological needs ranging from base requirements such as food, water, and warmth to an optimal state of self-actualization. 

The Elements of Value Pyramid, on the other hand, presents the four fundamental clusters of consumer needs: Functional, Emotional, Life Changing, and Social Impact. Within each category are the elements that describe the nuanced values of products and services as perceived by the consumer. For example, Functional needs include value elements such as reduced effort, time saving, improved organization, and cost reduction. Emotional needs include items like anxiety reduction, therapeutic value, attractiveness, and fun. Life Changing needs contain motivation, providing hope, and affiliation. The Social Impact need is solely comprised by self-transcendence, which means a paradigm shift in vastly improved personal growth. 

We do not have to match in scale the impact realized by such power value creators like Steve Jobs, or Kia Silverbrook, inventor of high-speed color printing technology, or Sally Fox who developed a means of mitigating pollution found to be inherent in the bleaching and dying of cotton. Rather we can distinguish those discreet and profound ways we do make lives better every day by adding beneficial features to people’s lives like enhanced speed, quality, convenience, customer service, etc. 

Careers that create value are what make this a better world. 

How Neurodiversity May Improve Your Workforce

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Trying to recruit and retain talented workers who can assist in producing and delivering high quality products and services, leading to business growth and enhanced profits, has always been a formidable challenge. Typically, hiring teams seek individuals who not only most closely match the letter of the job description, but who also are predicted to be a good fit for the organization. In other words, companies want employees who can execute at what has been determined over time to be an optimal level that is consistent with the firm’s performance culture. 

Let us set aside for the purpose of this piece an admittedly huge hiring consideration, talent and ability, and ask might there be an inherent and unforeseen flaw in settling for only those candidates who appear during the hiring process to be consistent with traditional workforce practices and operational structures? By limiting a hiring search to simply those foreshadowed to be team players, could organizations be potentially restricting their chances of introducing and benefiting from innovative thinkers and value-added achievers? An increasing number of talent managers and human resource departments say this conventional thinking may indeed be a liability. 

There is a largely untapped element in the general candidate pool that may deserve a closer look. This cohort is becoming known as the neurodiverse. Neurodiversity refers to those workers possessing conditions frequently labeled as disorders, including autism, dyslexia, attention deficit, and social anxiety. You might be inclined to think that these types of job candidates should be weeded out of the search process due to their disruptive potential, but others are taking a chance at reframing the common perceptions of the neurodiverse and noticing positive traits where others see possible burdens. 

So, what might be favorable attributes of co-workers who may be seen by many as idiosyncratic, standoffish, ambiguous, or just plain different? Consider for a moment an organization comprised of workers who think largely in terms of doing things the way they have always been done. Change is minimal because it is seen as disorderly and therefore unnecessary. Risk aversion and homogeneity are commonplace. Company culture and individual behaviors are driven by such values and will perform accordingly. 

Sounds like a possible recipe for competitive disaster given current market requirements for innovation and agility. Neurodiverse employees could bring fresh perspectives and abilities not typically present to the work site. 

Neurodiverse skill sets can include high levels of intelligence, pattern recognition, systemic approaches to problem solving, exacting attention, comfort with repetition, deep-dive analysis, and even customer facing. Numerous industries can use resources with these skills, particularly technical and data-oriented ones. 

Another advantage can come from workers who are not motivated by office politics and the phrasing of opinions and conclusions in a group-think manner. As hard as it may be to hear, sometimes the straightforward truth is the best information to be communicated to colleagues and management. Neurodiverse employees may be best at delivering such news. 

Of course, recruiting and positioning neurodiverse talent can present difficulties, perhaps novel ones, for human resources and other department managers. Rather than using traditional interviewing it may be useful to set up teamwork simulations, case studies, or actual problem-solving sessions to see how productively all candidates function.  

Strategically integrating personnel who may provide unique services, but also potential breaches of protocol, could require careful planning, diplomacy, and tact. Flexibility and nimbleness, characteristics in short supply in many established organizations, may need to be adopted by company culture. 

We have reached a historic point where differences among people are more accepted than in the past. In fact, this seems to be a desirable attribute of the millennial generation. Developing such an ethic could aid businesses while also fostering more humane treatment of all people. 

Thoughts on Career-Long Learning

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As has been frequently reported, the nature of work is undergoing profound changes due largely to automation, technology, artificial intelligence, and globalization. This exacerbates fears among students and workers of how to succeed in an ever-transformative economy and contributes to the current and expanding situation of a workforce not possessing the skills required by modern and future-oriented employers. 

To keep up with groundbreaking changes in employment requires an educational approach to training and learning that is flexible, relevant, and targeted to the capricious and volatile state of the economy. At present, traditional education institutions of high school and customary higher ed bachelor’s degrees appear to be lagging behind innovative industry methodologies like short-term credentialing and user-responsive professional development. Businesses recognize the value in foresight and pliable learning strategies necessary to uphold a workforce prepared for unpredictability. 

Education systems are not known for their elasticity and capacity to adjust to change. Take a typical public high school curriculum, the stage through which most American workers first pass on their way to employability. Has there been much reorganization in the basic course load or method of earning a diploma since the mid-twentieth century? I think not. This is an area where increased pressure to innovate is warranted. 

Beside a reassessment of curriculum relevance, another key concept we can hope for from high schools is that the message is getting through loud and clear to students that education does not stop with a diploma. The modern world is one in which continuous learning needs to be embraced if there is any hope for enjoying the fruits of professional mastery and robust compensation. Linking the pursuit of happiness with the pursuit of learning is a valuable lifelong lesson. 

To this end, workers will benefit from a more accommodating and welcoming world of pathways designed to prepare entry-level professionals, upskill existing workers, and assist career changers in a manner consistent with the metamorphosing economy of work. In addition to an acceptance of the importance of career-long learning is to realize credentials matter. 

From a college degree to a professional license to an industry-specific certification, possessing evidence from a reputable instructional source, in which a worker can demonstrate training and education within an area of expertise is critical to advancing one’s career. The challenge becomes how to best earn pertinent credentials in a time effective and affordable manner. 

Career, employment specialists, and economists are suggesting several practices to ease credential acquisition. Kelsey Berkowitz is a Policy Advisor for Third Way’s Economic Program and has looked closely into this issue. Among the suggestions she makes is to: 

  • Increase the amount of credential stacking that is available. In other words, design short-term credential modules that can be combined into larger certifications or degrees. This could provide highly relevant on-demand training while also providing a means for adult workers to achieve higher education goals in more easily managed steps. 
  • Develop more apprenticeship programs. Evidence exists, particularly in Europe, of the effectiveness of industry-based programs that onboard entry-level workers and within a year or two produce trained and credentialed employees committed to the profession. 
  • Recognize prior experiences related to work by offering credit. It is not unusual for individuals to gain skills and insights applicable to their current jobs from events that occurred before being hired. Examples include acquired knowledge from the military, school programs, previous jobs, or other situations where pertinent learning took place. 
  • Streamline onerous licensing mobility. Twenty-five percent of all workers today are in fields requiring a professional license. However, in too many instances licenses are not reciprocal across state lines, creating burdens to reacquire licenses for those pros relocating to a new state. 

The need for instructional and training flexibility will become increasingly necessary in order to keep a nimble and ready workforce. Let us reform learning to better address this imperative. 

A Call to Appreciate the Direct Care Workforce

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Rebecca Bryant, the president and CEO of Lakes Region Community Services, a New Hampshire social services organization, penned an impressive opinion piece in the March 1-14 issue of the New Hampshire Business Review that concretely highlighted the plight of direct support professionals, those who care for the elderly and disabled. To this cohort I would also add childcare workers. 

As a whole, this segment of the New Hampshire workforce is underpaid, under-appreciated, disrespected, and lacking in the placement of esteem they deserve as employees tasked with providing key services to needy populations. 

Why is this? Unfortunately, social services have historically been viewed as somehow less urgent or worthwhile than economic pursuits resulting in manufactured goods and services supporting commercial viability. The money has not flowed to caregivers. Since money appears to be a solid metric of worth and value the unmistakable conclusion drawn is that giving care to young children, old citizens, and the disabled just does not carry that much weight. 

Interesting. Economics is all about the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services to improve lives. How is it that the life improving work of caregivers is different? 

Many would say that the individuals who make up the direct care workforce are generally under-educated with many also coming from low income backgrounds. Thus, the thinking goes they are not meritorious or qualified enough to receive living wage compensation. The time has come for us to stop assuming there is a causal relationship between low valued work and low paid workers in the direct care context. 

We are faced with a contrarian situation of low paid workers toiling through high valued work. Even though low paid direct care services continue to attract, albeit at inadequate levels, those willing to work for low pay in order to do something they like and are good at doing is no reason to continue the practice. It is time right a wrong. 

Let us first look at the root of the problem. Direct care services are historically performed by women. Presumably, they have been drawn to this work, because of the longstanding social and cultural expectations for women to nurture others. It is fair to say that women have performed laudably with direct care services for many years. The benefit to society is immeasurable. 

However, as we know, compensatory equity has been and continues to be elusive for women. “Women’s work” has rarely if ever received reparation on par with what men make. Let’s be honest. Traditional views regarding remuneration says that an occupation primarily composed of women will not be seen as worth paying much for. 

It took men becoming teachers and nurses to spur the evolution of living wages in those fields. Regardless, it should not take a replay of that model to boost the earnings of competent and hardworking direct care service providers, whether female or male. 

There are two reasons for a balancing of resources to occur. Firstly, we should recognize that high quality care directed to those among us who are not or can no longer be high producers is virtuous and enriches lives. This alone should diminish any resistance to fair pay. That said, there is another factor to consider: unequivocal changes already underway to reshape the nature of employment are ushering in a reevaluation of what it means to “work”. 

Many jobs will be refashioned and eliminated as automation and artificial intelligence increasingly impact the economy. Labor directed to personal care may emerge as progressively appreciated employment. A paradigm shift recognition of the value added to society by direct care givers may finally remediate this excessive pay disparity. This transformation in attitude is needed. 

In a state ranked third for the percentage of the population growing old you would think New Hampshire would be intentionally reaching out to strengthen its direct care workforce. We have a chance now to show the country how fair pay for our direct care providers can be accomplished. 

Weaponizing Employment Against the Poor

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Albert Einstein elegantly once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting different results. This adage comes to mind when we see that yet again work requirements are being used as a bludgeon to combat Americans who live in poverty and who need safety-net programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), HUD housing assistance, and if President Trump has his way, even Medicaid. 

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has recommended work requirements for the most extensive welfare programs and the current administration has mandated that federal agencies alter their presumably lax welfare program standards. These moves are premised on the continuing notion that the poor are a drain on federal resources due to their laziness, recklessness, and lack of ambition. So here we go again, concluding that the poor are so, solely because of their own deficient behavior and must be made to work harder to receive assistance from this government. 

It is not that simple. 

Is this work requirement approach fair that those recipients of aid (excluding children, elderly and disabled) should be made to show an attempt to earn their government supports, which allegedly incentives people to not be poor, or is this a kick to the poor and disenfranchised when they are already down? 

It is worth examining a few of points about welfare work requirements: 

  1. According to the US Census Bureau the 2017 poverty rate was 12.3%, a 0.4% decrease from the year before. Since 2014 the poverty rate has fallen 2.5%. So, if the current trend line is a declining poverty rate why is a harsh condition like work requirements for the poor necessary currently?
  2. This effort was last tried under Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich with their 1996 welfare reform legislation. We have had a couple decades to see how that has gone and studies like those from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and in the book Making Ends Meet (Edin and Lein) show that despite short term marginal improvements in employment they were not sustainable, mostly due to necessary and increased living expenses, absorbing any work generated financial gains.
  3. Where are these jobs that the poor are supposed to get? If you have spent most of your life in poverty, chances are quite low you can pick up a knowledge-economy job quickly. We have all heard how the traditional manual labor jobs are drying up, so what is left? Lousy-waged part-time jobs with unpredictable and changeable hours is what’s left.
  4. If the government feels the need to pick on somebody shouldn’t it be the employers of vast numbers of unskilled and low-skilled who pay their workers, including the working poor, insufficient wages that in turn need to be underwritten by the American taxpayers?

Now one place where there could be political agreement is in the government providing subsidized high quality work training requirements targeted to helping the poor get the knowledge and skills needed for a globalized and digitized economy. Currently, training requirements can be in lieu of work requirements, but their effectiveness remains questionable. 

The causes and cures for poverty are varied, complex, and far beyond the scope of this piece. But if we as a society are truly interested in ameliorating the condition of poverty (as we should be!) we need to be looking for demonstrably beneficial interventions that measurably make positive differences. Requiring the poor to get a low-end job that increases their childcare and transportation costs just to prove they are not milking the system or making them pay unreasonably for a hand-up from those of us with tax paying means is not a humane way to go about it. 

Is an MBA Worth Pursuing?

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Earning a Master’s in Business Administration or MBA has long been considered both a difficult challenge to confront, but also a career boosting achievement. An MBA has been shown to increase promotion and employment opportunities and to jump start compensation. However, by the time most business professionals consider returning to school to earn the degree chances are good there is a family with children in place needing considerable attention and a mountain of bills to juggle, including a mortgage. Not to mention, MBAs can cost from $25K up to $100K in tuition, fees, and transportation costs. 

The inevitable question business managers ask themselves is, “Is this worth it?”. Don’t you hate it when someone answers such a question with, “Well, it depends.” So here goes, the answer to whether an MBA is worth pursuing or not is, “Well, it depends”. 

The value of an MBA should depend on more than compensation and promotions as alluring as those are. To obtain the most benefit from the work and expense of earning the degree largely comes down to if you think it is in your career’s interest to develop your talent in several key areas. And it turns out, these are the same attributes many executive managers look for when considering whether to hire a candidate who holds an MBA. 

You probably think I’m talking about astuteness in topics like organizational behavior, finance, accounting, supply chain management, enterprise IT systems, and economics. Of course, these and other subjects comprising an MBA curriculum are important, but what really sells the executive hiring managers are competencies like leadership, communication ability, strategical thinking, interpersonal relationships, and entrepreneurial spirit. These traits can be thought of as the building blocks to managerial excellence. Therefore, it is important to select an MBA program that assists you in developing these strengths. 

Some other useful facts about MBA programs can assist one in their decision making about whether to take the plunge or not. MBA programs most often occur over 18-month to 2-year time periods with students typically earning approximately 40−60 credits representing about 500−600 class hours of graduate-level work. Some programs allow up to 6 years to complete the program. 

A full time student must be dedicated to a concentrated approach but given that many mature MBA students are full time employees there are several alternatives. These include: 

Accelerated: Fast-tracked program with a greater course load and more condensed class and examination schedule over one year. 

Part-Time: Taking three or more years students attend classes after usual working hours, including weekday evenings and/or weekends. 

Modular: A tightly prescribed approach involving a progressive curriculum of class components presented in one to three-week segments. These programs seemed most often to be aligned with EMBA degree programs (see below) or Accelerated programs and are most often to be completed within one to two years. Also, modular often means on-site residency for the length of the given module. 

Executive MBA (EMBA): Designed for working professionals with 10 or more years of management or executive experience. These programs allow earning the degree in two years or less while working full time. 

Distance Learning: Involves classes held off-site from a campus and can include courses held via correspondence, broadcasts, videos, teleconferences, videoconferences, and online formats. 

Hybrid: Also known as blended programs these are a fusion of distance learning with traditionally styled face to face classroom instruction. 

Mini-MBA: This method combines on the job training regimens and requirements that can also be counted as credit-earning coursework toward a university MBA program. Typically, this requires a partnership between a work setting’s training program and a university MBA program. 

Finally, it is important to make sure the program you select is reputable within your industry. Not all MBA programs are of the same caliber, and you do not want to work hard only to find out later that your degree is not enthusiastically embraced by your superiors. 

It is a lot to consider but seeking this level of mastery may just lead to the breakthrough your management career needs. 

A Reason for Employment Inequality

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Much is made of the dearth of economic opportunity and income equality across the U.S. workforce. Though a perennial issue, the conventional wisdom these days more than most appears to be that there are segments of the American population for whom high paying jobs are elusive or non-existent. This belief persists despite the lowest unemployment rate we have seen in nearly twenty years. 

The primary reason, we are told, for this situation boils down to the fact that an automated, globalized, and corporate-led economy produces winners and losers — a somewhat different set of winners and losers apparently than the more nationally-based economy of yesteryear. 

Inequality, or even the perception of it, tends to raise the hackles of key constituencies such as left-leaning individuals and nowadays working class folks who find that many low to mid-skilled jobs are evaporating. These groups agree there is a fundamental unfairness to inequality, and they are inspired to fight against it, sometimes in dramatically different ways, whenever possible. 

One element of inequality that I do not see getting too much attention however pertains to the number of people with a college education vs. those without one. As we look over the last half century or so we can see that this is a significant economic phenomenon. Indeed, the discrepancy between those with and without higher education impacts a variety of inequality factors, including not just income, but housing, community makeups, cultural upbringing, socioeconomics, and social status. 

The number of working-aged Americans with college degrees is steadily rising and now is at or slightly above 40% according to the Lumina Foundation. That is ten times the number compared to a hundred plus years ago when Andrew Carnegie, of all people, claimed college was irrelevant and even damaging. Despite the high cost of college, projections are that attendance will continue to grow another 15% by 2025 (Inside Higher Ed). 

Bruce Cain, a Stanford University political scientist, points out that people with knowledge-based characteristics attributed to being college educated, such as professionally oriented behaviors, digital familiarity, an understanding of financial services, and innovative inclinations, tend to congregate residentially and in employment. In today’s world the “Haves” are most often the ones with a college education, and they like to stick with and hire others of their own kind. It is easy to see how this can appear unequal. 

Many Baby Boomers were raised with the notion that getting a college education would lead to greater economic gain. Although the message is more nuanced these days the central point remains the same. One unintended consequence of this virtue is that it also leads to economic inequality and resentment among those not sharing in the bounty. This acrimony can sometimes be heard among those who have taken an anti-intellectual / anti-education stance, such as when expressing skepticism (to put it politely) regarding the viewpoints of the “elites” and the “establishment”. 

Addressing this imbalance requires initially a level of respect and acknowledgement that we all have something of value to offer. Working toward an economic system that honors and tries to achieve an opportunity-for-all ethic could arise from such a belief. Those who benefit from the hard work and commitment of pursuing higher education can assist those for whom college has not been a viable option through assistance measures designed to encourage greater and more affordable college attendance. 

And for those not choosing to pursue higher ed? The means of providing employment training, entrepreneurial support, and apprenticeship alternatives, along with other opportunity options, could be made more available. Full employment across all socioeconomic groups should always be our collective objective. 

Sharing prosperity across all segments of a pluralistic society is a great challenge. Perhaps we need to see more committed action from those who have succeeded, many of whom profess liberal leanings, to drive opportunity-for-all programs so that no one’s economic prospects are left behind. 

Employment Skills Gap or Lack of Fit

Posted on by Bill Ryan

During the Great Recession and ever since we have heard about a skills gap in America. This is in part responsible for slow productivity, and by extension, slow economic growth. There does seem to be evidence of an employment gap. There are currently 6.2 million jobs unfilled, up from 5.6 in 2016 (Forbes); 45% of small businesses cannot find work-ready candidates (National Federation of Independent Business); and the results of a January 2018 survey of 500 senior executives found that 92% think the candidate pool is not as skilled as it needs to be (Adecco). 

There is plenty of finger pointing going on. Some of the principal criticisms include: 

The education system is outdated and is poorly adapted to preparing students for a fluid economy — one that is heavy on technical and math-based skills. 

Employers at both the corporate and small business levels are not allocating adequate resources to training and apprenticeship programs, leaving workforces skill deficient. 

There is a growing cultural bias against the machine and tool-oriented skills useful in construction, manufacturing, and the trades, discouraging younger workers from selecting those careers. 

Increased automation is creating demand for a more technically proficient job candidate than the current labor market can supply. 

Old jobs are becoming obsolete while newly created ones are being generated at a brisk pace which the economy struggles to keep up with. 

Soft skills, such as those which emphasize collaboration, communication, and teamwork are not being acquired sufficiently at home, school, and in the community. 

Job creation is so fast and unemployment so low given the robust economy that labor does not have the time or means to adjust. 

The problem is unmotivated workers who do not want to take menial jobs or work the night shift, or who like their drugs more than work, or who are spoiled youngsters used to having everything handed to them. 

It is likely that all these factors play some role in why there are so many unfilled jobs. One would think this is a simple supply and demand problem to remedy. Identify the specific skills needed by most employers and then have the education and training providers upskill students and workers to learn and master the required competencies. But apparently doing so is not so simple. 

What strikes me in the research on this topic is that there are practically no lists of specific skills that are in short supply. We can find the career areas where there are shortages, for example in nursing, industrial technicians, computer network specialists, and so on, but exactly what the elusive skills are appears to be largely a mystery.  

This suggests to me that there may not be a skills gap at all, but rather a failing in the way individuals are aligned with work for which they are best suited. In other words, there may be a lack of fit between too many workers and employment opportunities. 

This lack of fit problem is not new. Over the past century or so it has been a challenge to match increased numbers of workers with burgeoning career options. Indeed, the career development field arose out of a need to address this issue.  

What is new, perhaps, is the escalating scale and scope of unprecedented numbers of prospective workers and career opportunities. The degree of guidance, counseling, and training by schools, businesses, professional associations, and other stakeholders to better improve aligning available labor with employment demand may need greater attention than has been accessible to date. 

If true full employment is to be achieved, and with it the benefits of economic growth and widely spread prosperity, then it seems it is in everyone’s interest to insist on refining the processes whereby workers can access high quality counseling and training to best meet employment scarcity. Government, education, and business could partner more effectively to forge solutions. 

The gap we are now facing may be more of shared commitment and engagement rather than of skills. 

The Continued Evolution of LinkedIn

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The professional, business, and employment social media online platform LinkedIn is at it again, but in a bigger way this time. As individuals who regularly use LinkedIn to source talent, post jobs, display professional profiles, or network with other users we know that LinkedIn frequently tinkers with the interface to “improve” usability. It has always been a dynamic and growing service and one must assume they are doing something right with $3B+ in annual revenue and 460+ million user accounts worldwide. Not bad for a novel concept that first went live in 2003. 

The latest big set of changes has been rolling out for the past couple of months following the completed acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft in December 2016. Time will tell of course if this will be a good move for both parties. Let us hope this deal does not go the way of doomed Microsoft ventures like Nokia’s handset and aQuantive software. However, given the financial heft and prominent position in the digital services market Microsoft enjoys it is reasonable to expect that this takeover will boost LinkedIn’s standing and influence in the career and employment services space. 

Without getting into the weeds of all the many new minute interaction changes of the website, and there are enough, so that a new learning curve has appeared to get familiar with the site, it nevertheless appears to someone like me that I am increasingly finding LinkedIn to be my digital place to go to work. And I am not alone, Logging into LinkedIn.com is becoming my virtual commute to a real job. 

As in a traditional workplace there are those I work with frequently and closely on a project, those I know remotely, and those I am reaching out to as potential sources of value and opportunity. It is in these areas of taking connectivity among professional people to a more functional, transparent, and far-reaching level where LinkedIn holds great promise. 

The effects of globalization have thankfully become a hotly debated issue politically, but in the world of e-commerce impacted as it is by the powers of social media and crowd sourcing, the players are not waiting around for slow moving governments to set the rules. Global inter-connectivity and commerce is just starting to get ramped-up via international platforms like LinkedIn. It looks like we are heading into a world in which small-scaled and remote outreaches among millions of entrepreneurs, freelancers, microbusinesses, and small businesses across the planet can be exchanged 24/7. 

LinkedIn, and now by extension Microsoft, are betting on this proliferation of e-business, so much so that there is a mission to “economically graph” the world through its site. What does this mean? As Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s CEO puts it, they are committed to digitally mapping the global economy by building a profile for every member of the international workforce and for every company in the world. 

Further they intend to digitally list every available job in real refreshed time, list every skill needed to perform those jobs, and identify every school or training facility providing the skill instruction needed to perform these jobs. Facilitating an efficient, timely, and rich flow of information that connects these dots completes the goal. 

Given this infrastructure the potential for enriching current employment, business development, and career needs while also fulfilling the talent requirements for the innumerable jobs of the future seems highly likely. 

An expansive vision of the possibilities e-commerce and e-networking can deliver should be embraced. Many new careers can be made from leveraging a dynamic global economy. Engaging in international business does not any longer have to just be reserved for large multi-national corporations. If one can get a higher quality business or career solution from New Zealand rather than from New Hampshire no matter where in the world one lives, we should expect that to be the new normal and compete appropriately. 

Workforce Shortages and Your Career

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I guess it is a sign of improvement when a new problem can be seen as less egregious than a previously harder to solve problem. For much of the past eight years we have concerned ourselves with getting people back to work — any work. To a large extent that has happened. Unemployment rates and the number of workers who can say they have a job are back to pre-recession levels. So now we have the “luxury” of concentrating on a replacement problem. That is the issue of workforce and labor shortages. 

U.S. employers are struggling to find qualified workers in several fields, resulting in business expansion difficulties and by extension national economic constraints. It does not sound as bad as the employment bounce-back the recession threw at us, and it should not be. However, if left unsolved it could become another factor reducing our global competitiveness and economic growth, spurring calls for talent immigration, automation, and offshoring. 

At an individual level, the college student trying to select a major; the college graduate attempting to launch a career; the established professional looking to make a career transition; and the entrepreneur seeking lucrative opportunities, are among those who may benefit from an analysis of where the workforce shortages currently exist and where employment projections are anticipated. Although such knowledge and considerations are not necessarily paramount determiners of one’s career development, they are worth investigating to see if an alignment exists between these trends and one’s enduring or potential value proposition. 

There are several reasons for the decline in qualified workers with demographics being the big one. The aging of Baby Boomers is naturally leading to more retirements. Domestically, there are not enough replacements for these retirees. Ten years ago, 400,000 workers retired per year . That number has risen to 1.2 million today. 

Also, the older population creates increased demand in fields such as healthcare where more workers are needed than in the past. For example, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and even doctors are already in short supply and are still expected to be in the future. 

However, it is not just in healthcare where shortages exist. To be honest it does not appear that labor deficits are confined to just several industries, but rather that it is a more widespread phenomenon. Even declining industries, such as manufacturing, are experiencing acute scarcities. 

Of course, not having enough workers trained with specific skillsets compounds the problem, but largely it is coming down to some basic math. Our bench is not populated enough to fill the number of vacating positions. 

This should be good news for working-aged people. It suggests there could potentially be many fields and openings to pick from. Other benefits over time should include rising wages and continuously improving working conditions designed to retain talent. 

To best position yourself to take advantage of this general opportunity some other trend lines should be considered. The Bureau of Labor Statistics foresees service sector jobs capturing 95% of newly created positions between now and 2024. Healthcare as mentioned above, and social assistance jobs together will become the largest area of employment, surpassing government and business services jobs. 

Technical occupations will also grow in number and demand will increase looking forward. Automation will eliminate some jobs to be sure, but more likely is that technology will transform jobs that still need a person involved. The energy, transportation, and data analysis sectors are among those in need of technically trained people who can interact with and leverage technology productively. 

I do not want to treat too lightly the menace workforce shortages can have economically and socially. It is a serious issue, especially for some businesses poised to grow and expand. Yet, compared to the recessionary years, I see more opportunity here than threat for the existing workforce. This allows new workforce entries to ensure they are selecting careers that can best fit their skillsets. 

Promote Your Expertise with LinkedIn

Posted on by Bill Ryan

There are significant reasons for sharing your career field expertise with others. Doing so, 

  1. a) establishes you as a qualified and trusted resource among colleagues, management, and customers;
  2. b) aligns you with other experts, thereby enhancing your comprehension and skill capacity;
  3. c) better positions you for future career advancement opportunities; and
  4. d) brings you the profound satisfaction that comes from becoming an emerging master within your profession.

LinkedIn, the professional social media platform where we have all heard we are supposed to be present, has developed into an excellent tool for communicating, sharing, and promoting your expertise. Utilization of LinkedIn and its core features can result in you having the means of crafting a powerful and multi-dimensional message for all those seeking the sound judgment and competence you can provide. 

Given the LinkedIn development team’s commitment to dynamism and continuous improvement, today the site is a fine-tuned mechanism for you the career specialist to hone and project your know-how. Let’s review the ways this can happen. 

I predict the online profile/portfolio hybrid will eventually replace the traditional resume. I cannot say exactly when this will happen, but we seem to be headed in that direction. Easy access to your profile will be mandatory and expected. So, there is no better time than the present to start getting on with this trend. 

LinkedIn allows you to tell your professional story in the first person without the constraints of resume conventions. Fill out your profile as completely as possible. Use the Summary to introduce yourself in an engaging manner that discloses how your journey began, how your passion was ignited, and where you see the industry and your role in it headed. 

The Experience section should be packed with accomplishments — the more quantifiable the better. 

The Skills & Endorsement piece should be keyword-rich, and your headline needs to communicate your career title, not your current job title. Oh, and don’t forget a professional headshot, not a detail cropped out of a wedding picture. 

LinkedIn’s advancement in becoming a repository for work samples, slide shows, videos, and yes, your traditional resume among other valuable pieces, has been a smart move permitting professionals to now have the means to post performance evidence that can speak louder than words alone. Populate this area with artifacts that pop and make your efforts shine. Show future employers and potential business opportunities what level of quality you can deliver. 

Blogging and publishing online pieces where you expound on industry-related topics and issues of the day is now available with LinkedIn. Have something of peer interest to write and the readers will come out of the woodwork. Let this feature be a megaphone for your expertise. Clarify current trends and best practices. Showcase pertinent strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats impacting your terrain. Detail the steps that need to be taken to improve conditions. Be a regular contributor and become a respected voice. 

Perhaps, one of the strongest elements in LinkedIn is the Groups. Here is where you can boost your industry presence and generate and cultivate high value connections. Involving yourself in timely and relevant subject matter with other experts and stakeholders benefits all participants and deepens your career association. Not only can you increase your visibility, but you can amplify your knowledge to those wanting and needing to hear your input. Also, being able to contact individuals directly gives you favorable circumstances for building that all important professional network. 

I still hear from too many clients something that goes like, “Yeah, I’m on LinkedIn, but I don’t really know what to do with it.” Well, I hope this is in part, somewhat illuminating to you in this cohort. In short, if you are serious about your career, you need to be serious about LinkedIn. 

The State of Careers in New Hampshire

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The 2014 In Review: Recovery report recently released by the New Hampshire Employment Security Department and the Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau is a very detailed and informative analysis of New Hampshire’s post -recession economy.

In addition to being concerned about the economic health of my state as a citizen, I am also intrigued by the report’s implications for the careers of all New Hampshire workers. I have read the report in an attempt to identify some useful indicators in determining the current and future status of career development opportunities for the state’s workforce. What follows are my career-related takeaways from 2014 In Review: Recovery:

There are several labor market-related indicators used to view the economic health of New Hampshire. The ones I think that can be used to derive the desired career information are Unemployment and Current Employment Statistics; Employment by Supersector (broad employment-industry categories); Average Hourly Earnings; Business Employment Dynamics; and Population. When taken together a picture emerges of a state with career promise for many, but within a limited number of industries and a long-term pattern of slow economic growth.

News flash! Unemployment rates rose during the Great Recession! So where are we now? The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for this past March in New Hampshire was 3.9%, which was eighth in the nation. We are essentially tied with Vermont in having the lowest rates in New England. Nationally, the rate in March was 5.5%. Statistically, eighth out of fifty does not sound too bad. Anecdotally, the “Help Wanted” sign are reappearing in business windows state-wide.

This sounds like good news, but if we dig into the data deeper we see some sobering facts. New Hampshire has a shrinking labor force that appears to be influencing the unemployment rate. As an aging state we are experiencing a trend of fewer people participating in the workforce. This fact, combined with low rates of in-migration and limited entrepreneurial expansion, is resulting in slow economic growth. To be sure there are a few bright spots, such as in advanced manufacturing, but this is not translating into being a game changer.

In looking at employment by Supersector we see that the four most robust categories of hiring are in Trade, Transportation, and Utilities; Education and Health Services; Professional and Business Services; and Leisure and Hospitality. Among the hiring laggards are Manufacturing and Construction. When we examine earnings in these Supersectors there have been increases in Education and Health Services and in Trade, Transportation, and Utilities. Pay reductions occurred in Manufacturing and Professional/Business Services. Leisure and Hospitality held steady.

Viewing current hiring in the context of near-term economic and demographic trends, including steady or declining population growth, a low level of in-migration, relative high levels of well-off retiree disposable cash, and a listing as sixth nationally in median household income tells me hiring tendencies are not likely to change dramatically. If you intend to live for a while in New Hampshire, plan your careers accordingly. We do not have an economic climate that is significantly attracting many skilled workers from other states or countries. Therefore, competition for jobs is likely to come from other NH residents.

Taken together, all of this news may suggest that careers oriented toward a graying population, such as in certain types of retail and niche services given this population’s spending capacity, financial management and wealth preservation wishes, leisure and hospitality, and of course healthcare needs should be considered.

Beyond that, Professional and Business Services hiring has recovered well from the recession. New Hampshire businesses still need accountants, HR professionals, operations managers, and technicians among many other business service pros. Career areas to watch out for include those feeling downward pressure from an aging population, such as public school teachers facing declining enrollments and construction workers encountering curtailed building expansion.

A direction that would be encouraging to see turned around is our level of entrepreneurship. More creative ideas and risk-taking on the part of individuals willing to start businesses targeted to improving the lives of New Hampshire residents just might enhance our standard of living and boost economic growth simultaneously. Now there is a career option!

 

 

 

Preparing Your Career for a Binary Star Economy

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Career Development is as fluid a field of study and method of personal improvement as can be found anywhere. Its progressive elasticity and growing erratic nature are due to the changing state of the world of work. In an environment that requires continual improvement, adaptability, and thorough planning as does ours, long-term career design can be a difficult and uncertain endeavor. 

As discovered by ancient mariners when navigating vast and strange oceans, it helps to have a North Star to serve as a beacon and guide. As we each seek to chart an unclear and enigmatic career development landscape for purposes of changing existing careers or determining new ones, we too can benefit from a North Star. However, Binary Star may be the more apt metaphor — a system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. This is because the duality we must now regularly consider are the two interdependent powerhouses known as globalization and automation. 

The future of work appears to be heavily influenced, if not governed, by these two harbingers. In tandem, globalization and automation are in a process of modifying the way we live, and therefore how we work. The expanding utilization of technology combined with the spreading integration of people, businesses, and governments around the world is altering economic history in a way that has not happened since the Industrial Revolution. 

As paradigm shifting as the change from hand work to mass production was a hundred plus years ago, we are now witnessing a transformation just as groundbreaking, if not more. When people like Ray Kurzweil, the 67-year-old Director of Engineering at Google, predicts that by 2029 computers will be able to perform all tasks humans can now do, only better, then I pay attention — and you should too. 

It is not just the prognostications of one man that matter (and he has some doozies), but the unmistakable short and long-term trend lines indicating rapid proliferation in new and disruptive technologies and business models (think Airbnb, Uber, SaaS, MOOCS) and increased activity in what the International Monetary Fund refers to as the four basic aspects of globalization: international transactions; capital movements; migrations of people; and knowledge dissemination. 

Ask yourself, how well do your career plans hitch themselves to the forces of globalization and automation? It is wise to look for some connection. Enough current work is already being made redundant and new ways of organizing work tasks are in the process of being discovered. If I was as prescient as I wish I could be, I would now present a neat and tidy list of specific and guaranteed jobs of the future. But alas, I am not that farsighted. Nevertheless, here is what I think will help in preparing for the Brave New World and strengthen our decision making as we move forward. 

Paramount is the need to remain optimistic in the face of uncertainty. Pessimism and hand wringing will not fortify us against ambiguity. Those who will find success are those with a positive attitude allowing themselves to see and grasp an opportunity others do not or cannot. 

We also need to get back to having big ideas. The Hoover Dam, the Golden State Bridge, and the Empire State Building were all built during the Great Depression. Winning World War II, constructing the Interstate Highway System, and launching six crewed moon landings followed. Today we are all in a twist about whether to extend health insurance to the uninsured and whether to fund bridge repairs. Big problems exist that need substantial solutions. Let us find our lost courage to make grand proposals and realize lofty outcomes. 

Free thinking of the type that stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship also needs to be encouraged. This has always been America’s strong suit and it demands continuation, if not invigorating, in an ever-competitive global economy. Our schools for one can do a better job of transitioning from the mechanized industrial-aged model to one more consistent with a broad-minded enterprising ethos. 

Business dedicated to sharing, rather than old fashioned consumption and disposal of resources is becoming fashionable — and profitable. Making money by sharing homes, cars, locally grown foods, breweries, office spaces, etc. is becoming increasingly common. Disruptive of legacy business models to be sure, but isn’t that the way it is going these days? From an ecological viewpoint, an economy that utilizes resources in common with others may in part reverse the throw-away trend of the last half century. 

Reframing our attitudes and ways of thinking about the binary impact globalization and automation is having on our economy, careers, and ways of life may be the best approach we can profitably take away from this economic conversion. 

Finally! Get Prepared to Be Hired!

Posted on by Bill Ryan

This has certainly been a long time in coming. The hiring picture is the brightest it has been since the economy was in danger of “melting down” in the late 2000s. A strong pattern has developed showing robust monthly hiring numbers. Employment has increased by an average of 336,000 jobs per month over the past three months. The national unemployment rate is 5.7%, down from a recession high of 10.0% in October 2009. In New Hampshire, the unemployment rate stands at 4.0% — the lowest rate in New England. Could things be better? Sure. But given what we have collectively gone through, this is news to celebrate. 

So, where is the hiring occurring? In looking at the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment Highlights report, gains are being found in retail trade, construction, healthcare, financial activities, manufacturing, professional/business services, and leisure/hospitality. Statewide, according to the New Hampshire Economic & Labor Information Bureau, the strongest hiring is in healthcare, wholesale/retail trade, utilities, transportation, construction, hospitality, manufacturing, and professional/business services. The Society for Human Resource Management sees strong job growth in healthcare and technology. In other words, unless you are in the oil and gas industry, most sectors are looking great indeed. 

There are even signs of mass hiring being planned. Fire example, Home Depot announced on February 10 that they intend to hire 80,000 additional workers for the Spring season. 

However, those of us involved in job transitions need to be aware that the road to the next great gig is not paved with yellow bricks. The conditions of competitiveness that applied during the tooth and nail employment scramble of recent years are still to be put into use today when presenting yourself to potential employers. 

Business leaders will continue to be cautious and strategic about whom they hire. It should be accepted that these executives are clear on how they have or want to achieve and maintain success in the marketplace and that they will want only new hires who fit their profitable paradigm. Therefore, let us view this new boost of hiring from the perspective of the key decision makers as we prepare to introduce ourselves for their consideration. 

I recommend assuming the following: 

Just like any of us who shop for quality we tend to return to those sources that have consistently provided value in the past and that have earned for us a reputation for reliability. Employers are no different. So, think, from where might you be reliably sourced? Perhaps it is your current or former employer, your alma mater, someone “in-house” where you would like to work and who is in your professional network, or possibly a retained or contingency recruiting firm with which you have worked in the past. Aligning yourself with and promoting yourself from an identifiable source is tactically sound. 

A smart employer who does not want to burn through several bad hires (and the expenses associated with them) will take the time to specify key selection criteria for positions to be filled. The more detailed and definitive the job search candidate is about what comprises the value proposition contained in their marketing collateral, i.e., their resume and LinkedIn profile, the more likely a solid match can be established between the position and the candidate. This can save both parties from wasting time on lack of fit. 

Those companies and organizations with a grapevine stature of fair, honest, and dependable lines of communication among all employees, customers, and other stakeholders are also more likely to keep candidates informed throughout the hiring process, compared to those obnoxious firms that never seem to let a post-interviewee know what their status is. (Let’s face it, these outfits that have positions to fill, request applications, conduct interviews, and then leave those who followed the process in limbo should be called out on it.) Assume that if a business has a good reputation for communication, then at least you will know where you stand if you apply for a job with them. 

Times are as good for the job searcher as they have been in a long time. If you have been holding your nose in a less than satisfying job for years, the time has come to take a serious look at transitioning. Just know that planning and implementing a wise approach to this all-important change with an eye to employers’ hiring methodologies is the way to go. 

Keeping Your Workforce Productive and Happy

Posted on by Bill Ryan

When assessing the state of our careers we quickly turn to determining how satisfying our workplaces are. After all it is hard to feel our careers are on track if the place where we work is lacking in some fundamental ways. Since each of us is ultimately responsible for growing our individual careers as optimally as possible we rightly feel justified in influencing our workplace environment to be the best it can be. 

Also, business owners and organizational executive directors naturally care a lot about the productivity of their respective workforce. It is certainly no secret that a happy workforce is a productive workforce. Therefore, it is in the direct interests of bosses to facilitate their workplaces to be environments that increase satisfaction, and by extension, production. 

The question then naturally arises as to what are the steps that need to be taken to create and sustain a positive workplace? Ideas can be derived from a variety of spots, including in-depth research done by organizations such as the Society for Human Resource Management, but other sources of opinions and suggestions can come from surveys, blogs, and LinkedIn threaded discussions that give a more candid and authentic perspective into the issue. 

My eavesdropping of the chatter reveals several consistent themes centered on values such as respect, flexibility, equity, stability, fairness, and jocularity. When we listen to the concerns about women in the workplace, for example, we find that work-life balance competes strongly with income. Accenture, the management consulting firm, concludes that women prefer work-life balance first, money second, and recognition third. Given that women make up 47% of the national workforce, their opinion matters a lot. 

Google still holds a reputation as one of the best places in the world to work. It topped a recent survey of 6200 companies conducted by Great Place to Work, a global consulting firm. So, what is it about this place? Yes, we know about the perks such as massages, horseshoe pits, and slides that take you from one floor down to another, but is that all there is? 

Well, it certainly helps that every employee is a stockholder, and a share is worth north of $500, but there is also a community culture that encourages giving, growing, and being bold along with supports for creativity and risk taking not apparent in many other places. Google management has made a science of calibrating the right mix of benefits and cultural values resulting in high retention rates and maximum productivity. 

But it is expensive to offer Google-esque perks to employees. For most companies and organizations, it may be worth noting the coming changes to the workforce, so that benefit and culture changes can be considered knowledgeably and possibly implemented without breaking the bank. For example, the definition of workplace stability may be undergoing a change whereby more workers may be thinking of freelancing, temp working, and short-term contract working as the new stability. Flexibility becomes key. 

Another workplace condition to prepare for will be the increasing number of older workers who cannot or do not want to stop working. What might this cohort want? We can start with respect for their historic knowledge and proven dedication to employers along with wellness programs, good lighting, and diminished information overload. 

Another key morale enhancer may involve candid discussions of how technology is used. It is great when tech increases productivity instead of being a distraction or job killer. However, many employees will become increasingly distrustful of how management leverages technology given its workplace disruption potential, so bringing employees into conversations about the role of technology could show worker respect. 

Yet, the most apparent ideas to foster great workplaces are quite old-school and effective. Most of us simply want to trust the people we work for, have pride in and recognition for our accomplishments, and enjoy the people we work with. Is that too much to ask? 

New Hampshire’s Career Outlook

Posted on by Bill Ryan

In reading about the current and projected employment picture for New Hampshire we can draw some conclusions about which careers are likely to thrive going forward. Such information can be particularly useful for workers and residents who have decided New Hampshire offers a desirable lifestyle and who therefore intend to live and build their careers in the state for the long-term.

The local sources I like going to in order to find the information necessary for getting the state’s big employment picture include the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies, including anything written by NH economist Dennis Delay; The Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau from NH Employment Security; and of course regular reading of the New Hampshire Business Review.

By looking at these resources over time impressions are formed about the direction our state is going with regards to employment and careers. This is very helpful when advising clients, students, and others about where their energy should be directed in making career choices, whether at the start of a career of during the evolution of an ongoing one.

A couple of points help frame my outlook about career decision making in New Hampshire. One is that we are not a poor state. In both Median Household Income and Per Capita Income we rank 6th in the country. Secondly, we are a graying state in that our demographic trend favors an aging population. In general many of our young people go elsewhere to build their careers and there is not a robust in-migration of youth coming here to live and work. My own adult children form a case in point. One lives and works in LA and the other is just outside of Boston. My takeaway? Jobs that serve an older and somewhat affluent population should be considered.

Another trend of note is how strongly linked New Hampshire’s economy is to Massachusetts. When our friends to the south do well, so do we. Fortunately, many of Massachusetts’ numbers are looking good. The bad news is that NH has lost its former status of being a place with lots of job growth. The Boston area is attracting population and jobs more than NH is.  It is not appearing as if we have the same level of economic prosperity relative to metro Boston, but some of their economy does spill into NH, at least as far north as Concord.

So with all that said where are the relatively bright industry sectors NH residents and workers can look to start and develop careers?

For reasons having to do perhaps with our state’s high percentage of college educated workers we see sectors such as business services offering opportunities. Professional services, for example consulting, accounting, architecture, engineering, company management, and staffing services are high paying jobs that have recovered beyond what we lost during the Recession.

Another sector showing an increase in jobs beyond those we lost during the economic downturn is leisure and hospitality. Tourism remains strong in NH, especially when the unpredictable weather cooperates. So food servers, hotel and inn staffing, and related jobs will be around for some time.

Health services would appear to be stable if not growing due in part to the aging population. Nursing, home health aides, dental hygienists, medical assistants, medical secretaries, and physical therapists are examples of positions likely to grow.

Computer system design and other IT and technical jobs have a bright outlook. Computer user support specialists, computer systems analysts, computer-controlled machine tool operators, IT administrators, and software developers are career areas with a future for now.

Also now with the foreclosure crisis having largely abated carpenters, plumbing, electricians, and other building trades, while not necessarily very strong, are seeing some resurgence.

Beware though of many manufacturing and government jobs, including in K–12 education. They are shrinking.

New Hampshire still offers a great environment in which to raise a family, enjoy nature, and build a career. And those factors looking forward are not going to change.

 

 

 

 

The Future of Careers

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The official U.S. unemployment rate is down to 6.1% (in New Hampshire 4.4%). This is the lowest it has been since September 2008, the month we all realized the U.S. economy was in a tailspin. The raw number of employed workers has also recovered from the start of the recession. 

So why do we still feel in a funk about the employment recovery clearly underway? Perhaps it is because the recovery is taking so long. Or maybe it is due to the poisonous political relations turning into a national fratricide. It could also be the growing mainstream realization that capital has become densely concentrated among a relative few while the middle class feels its power and influence waning. 

I think all these developments play significant and disturbing roles in our continued malaise. However, there is another factor tugging at our collective insecurity. It is an insidious threat running just below the surface and not yet apparent to most, except for those who see their jobs and careers steadily dissolving. Call it automation, robotics, technology, or robo-sourcing. Whatever you call it, the reality of machines replacing people in the workplace is as historic as craftsmen and artisans being replaced by factory workers during the Industrial Revolution. 

I am not talking about just low-skilled jobs which do not require much education being erased. We all know that has been going on. The news is that computers are becoming better at replacing mid-level jobs and there is no end in sight to this trend. 

Here are some examples of a possible near-term future: Why hire a paralegal when computers can research and collate case histories and precedents? Let’s reduce family expenses by eliminating auto insurance, since our new car is autonomously operated. Who needs mid-managers when employees are now empowered by sophisticated software to give them direction? 

Examples such as these (and there are plenty more) of automation reaching into and killing traditional careers will become more numerous. No wonder we feel unsettled. Uncertainty for our jobs is the new certainty. 

Every great story involves individuals or groups trying to handle adversity with the goal of regaining equilibrium in their lives. Among the great stories of our age will be how working people adjust, manage, and flourish given the challenge of ubiquitous career disruption. This will not be easy. There will be a lot of anguish, questioning, indecision, and yes successes as we share in the development of a new economy characterized by new rules and choices. 

How we as individuals adapt to a world in which technology handles all the work tasks comprised of rote, logical, ordered, and sequential attributes will be centered around one fundamental question —What can people do that computers cannot do? 

In answer to this question there appear to be at least two areas in which people are superior to machines. One, people can be creative, innovative, and novel. We have viewpoints and experience leading us to devise new and exciting ways of doing things. We can make decisions and present new perspectives as opposed to merely accomplishing tasks and computations. 

Secondly, Hollywood movies about falling in love with operating systems aside, people can relate emotionally with other people. We can touch feelings, inspire and comfort others, understand, bless, and believe in other people. To date no automaton can do that. 

Careers subsisting on creativity and human contact will survive and thrive. They are already the basis of many careers currently and jobs requiring facility in these areas will likely expand. We will have our machines, but above all we will still need and have each other. Maybe even the Creative Arts could experience a boom the likes of which we have not yet seen. Time will tell. 

So yes, we feel that despite the hopeful employment numbers we are not very hopeful. Since we are not going to return to the past let’s start looking forward to and planning for a future that will certainly be different, but not necessarily bleak. 

Mid-Career Considerations

Posted on by Bill Ryan

So, you’ve reached mid-career. How can you tell? I would say there are three signs: Your age is north of 40 but is less than 55; you have developed a substantial skill set in a particular field of expertise; and you have established a solid and growing base of enduring professional relationships. So now what? Engage in complacency? Cruise to retirement? Be satisfied with inertia? 

Mid-career is actually a very good time to appraise where you have gotten to with your career and where you see yourself headed next. Most long journeys require a time or two to pause and reflect on how you are navigating things and calibrate as needed. Given that many careers are now approaching 40 years in length it certainly qualifies as an odyssey in need of careful attention. 

Since we live in a time when there is always some new trend, phenomenon, practice, or competition coming down the pike we cannot risk becoming too smug with our career status or else we risk becoming outdated, irrelevant, and unemployed. It is probably best to have an advancement, expansion, or improvement plan of some sort. By this I mean a strategy designed to differentiate yourself from others in your field to leave you positioned for realizing outcomes of your own choosing. 

Mid-career is a great time to set meaningful and achievable goals for yourself. Ambitions that take you in the direction of stimulating engrossment, a sense of purpose, continuous professional mastery, and durable autonomy. Your career objectives should move in the direction of capitalizing on your strengths and interests while accommodating your weaknesses. And they should have long-term prospects. If your career is headed for obsolescence, now is the time to plan for a more enduring future. 

In general, you do not need to re-invent yourself or propel yourself on a course in which there is a lot of daylight between what you want to do and what you have done. Usually, the task before most mid-level careerists is simply to get especially good at what you do. Strive toward becoming a genuinely great mechanic or insurance executive or golf course superintendent. Be clear what passes for success and value in your industry and align your efforts and abilities with those indicators. 

For those areas where you do not excel, find and utilize the people and resources that can help you compensate or counterbalance so that you are still coming out ahead. 

It is worth evaluating how you are doing in the soft skills department as well when pondering your career at the mid-way point. You know what I mean by soft skills, that constellation of personal attributes like communication, social habits, friendliness, attitude, and so forth, which most people will remember you by. If pervasive anxiety makes you grouchy at work, or you wear your stress on your sleeve too often, or you are consistently misunderstood by co-workers, then work on remedying these inhibitors. Career progress is measured by hard and soft skills alike. 

Among the relevant factors to accompanying your career refinement strategy is looking at how well you are taking care of yourself physically and mentally. Sound fitness, diet, sleep, and mindfulness practice can keep you energized for the career work ahead.   

Since there really is not that much difference between work and life, maintaining health allows you to approach everything you do with vitality, confidence, and positivism. With these traits it becomes easier to learn new things, interact with other healthy people, and grow professionally. 

Mid-career is a great time to take stock, plan for the times ahead, and make the moves that matter for your career. You make plans for most other things. Here is a plan worth making for yourself. 

Seven Must-Have Transferable Skills

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As career adjustments and job switching pick up pace, resulting from a somewhat improved employment picture and with the trending migration from long-term employment with one employer to a more free-lanced economy, the need for establishing and cultivating transferable skills becomes more important. 

Transferable skills are those capabilities one develops in one employment context that has currency in another. For example, a teacher may find that her or his skill in curriculum instructional delivery translates well to a training & development position in business or that a police officer’s ability to confront behavioral conflict situations with the public translates well to managing order and productivity among a large retail workforce. 

Transferable skills are most often not specific and discreet competencies, such as being able to make a metal forming roll in a tool and die shop, but rather more general qualifications that lend themselves to a variety of expressions. Convertible skills describe proficiencies that have value across a diverse set of employment situations and for this reason are skills the aspiring employee should know about and develop. 

Here is my list of seven transferable skills each worker with a proclivity for a lattice rather than a linear career should work to expand and refine to increase their chances of customizing their career the way they want. 

  1. Making Quality Decisions — Knowing how to make high impact and consistent decisions that take into proper perspective and consideration relevant information and that balances risk appropriately is a strong skill appreciated almost anywhere. Decision theory is like game theory, involving a durable ability to rationally reach an optimal outcome. If you are making decisions based mostly on fear and inertia, then you have something to work on.
  2. Solving Problems — Name me a business or organization that does not have a significant need for someone who can find resolutions to perplexing problems both big and small. Refining a problem-solving approach that is orderly and technique-based with a track record of success is best. Being able to cite examples of accomplishments as performance evidence of your steady problem-solving methodology is even better.
  3. Persuasion and Negotiation — What is the thing most workers hate about their boss or irritating co-workers? It is when they bully and intimidate to get their way rather than engaging in a thoughtful and genuinely persuasive argument. And yes, although it does not appear to be practiced by members of Congress anymore, reaching compromise through good-faith negotiations usually yields outcomes that satisfy the greatest number of stakeholders.
  4. Analysis — Being able to examine a task, phenomenon, procedure, or problem can go a long way to interpret the meaning of data or to determine the best course of action. By reducing complexity to constituent parts, a better understanding and new prospects can result. This can be useful when trying to assess and grasp the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a venture, business, or mission.
  5. Synthesis — Conversely showing the skill of combining, mixing, and merging ideas or materials into new and novel concepts and products is the basis of innovation and creativity. Sometimes perspectives need to be reframed so that new and different viewpoints can emerge, from which a competitive edge can arise. Freeing up and training the mind to develop unusual, but valuable means of expression allows organizations to provide improved ways of doing things.
  6. Collaboration — Working in concert with colleagues and stakeholders increases productivity, more efficiently achieves quality outcomes, and effectively reaches shared goals. The process of sharing knowledge and reaching consensus is essential at a time when the means of production grow ever more complex. Let’s face it, having a workplace where people get along and work together is energizing and spiritually uplifting, dare I say even fun.
  7. Networking with Talent – Ambitious and competitive employers know that having talent in their organizations is a good thing. Now, if that talent frequently interacts and learns from other gifted individuals then there is a value-add. When you fertilize your career with esteemed people who you respect and who respect you there comes an increase for the mastery of your career and perhaps even the bottom line for your employer.

Is the Resume Being Replaced by the LinkedIn Profile?

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is no secret in the career and employment fields that LinkedIn, the professional online networking social media site, has become a huge game-changer over the past ten years. What used to be thought of in the early days of the mid-2000s as the professionals’ version of Facebook, LinkedIn now sports close to 300 million users worldwide and has become the expected place for all professionals to display their work experience, qualifications, and credentials. 

When job hunting it has become typical to send recruiters, hiring managers, and networked contacts a link to your LinkedIn profile, which is great as a professional landing page.  This page not only presents your skillset, value proposition, and work history, but also your collection of peer and client recommendations — valuable stuff when self-promoting. Incidentally, LinkedIn can be your ongoing source of professional networking and development via the high quality interchanges going on in the Groups feature. 

Given that LinkedIn is a must-use site for recruiters sourcing talent for positions they are trying to fill, to not be present on it is akin to a self-imposed exile in a jobseekers’ no-man’s land. 

If LinkedIn has become so standard and dominant, then a reasonable question to ask is, has LinkedIn eclipsed the resume as the foundational piece of collateral all professionals need?  Well, it certainly may come to that in the not too far distant future, but in my judgment, it is premature to call the resume deceased. And here is why: 

We are used to resumes and so they persist. For as rapid as change appears to be in our world, including in the career development space, many things evolve quite slowly. People are not always so fast at ditching a tried-and-true practice or method just to latch onto the latest thing. 

Adoption rates of new ways of behaving can often be quite slow. Why, for example, are we all not webcamming now when speaking live to friends, family, and clients? The technology is here. But most of us still use the telephone for most of our synchronous communication. 

Sure, LinkedIn is great, but it does have formatting limitations. The user is confined to a strict structure that can at times be frustrating to customize. Even though the resume has a lot of conventions that should be adhered to, it does nevertheless offer more presentation flexibility. An educator’s resume will typically be structured differently from an IT pro’s resume, but on LinkedIn the content sections are locked in place no matter who you are or what you do. 

A huge and growing practice by business regarding the processing of resumes involves the use of applicant tracking systems (ATS), the scanning software that determines if resumes are to be categorized for further consideration or rejected, due to how well they are or are not a fit for an open position. 

Resumes must be written and submitted with this automation in mind. And since resumes must be keyword-tweaked for different positions to increase chances of being blessed by an ATS, that potentially means frequent customization. You can only have one LinkedIn profile at a time, whereas you can have multiple resume versions simultaneously. 

The truth is, if you want to be searchable by talent seekers and have the requisite complement of professional pieces to show you are serious about employment availability and advancement, you need to utilize both platforms. It is not that one is more important than the other, but rather they have both become very important. 

If you go through a process of preparing a great resume, then it’s not a heavy lift to also rephrase that content in producing a great LinkedIn profile. Your career can be rewarded for covering all the bases. 

May Luck Be With You

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Striving for quality and building a solid record of achievement in one’s profession is what rightly motivates the most successful among us. Impressive and valuable companies, organizations, and careers can be the result of targeted and sustained execution of talent and skill. 

Indeed, when I work with clients a substantial amount of my effort is in helping individuals define what specific capacity they have for realizing achievement. The premise being that if one knows succinctly what they are best at producing, then they can more effectively promote their value to those most willing to pay for it.  

At a social and political level much is made about creating and maintaining economic conditions whereby motivated individuals can freely apply their aptitude and inventiveness to achieve professional success. It has become deeply ingrained in the world view of many that a near-divine correlation exists between incentive and success. Such belief drives our national self-perception and serves as the basis for many of our political debates and battles. 

I am hardly able to dispute the sanctity of a system whereby private production in pursuit of profits leads to economic success for many. It clearly does. But I would suggest that in our zeal to elevate the virtues of expected and proper economic behavior in a market economy we not neglect to consider the power of luck. 

Those of us who have the great fortune of realizing economic success tend to believe quite strongly that it is solely the result of our smarts, hard work, competitive abilities, and willingness to take risks. Undoubtedly, these criteria and others have played a significant part in our individual success stories. Many of us take the extra step in proclaiming with unwavering certainty to all who will listen that if they too follow the conventional and tried-and-true capitalist formula of business measures, then advancement, prosperity, and happiness await them also. 

What is seldom if ever said, however, is that economic fortune in the capitalist sense is often, perhaps always, as much a result of luck as it is savvy decision making. If we are true in assessing ourselves and taking stock in how we got to where we are we must acknowledge that, in most cases, we have not been tripped up by big impediments beyond our control. 

Bad things happen to good people. And these bad things often have nothing to do with how we behaved or acted. They simply just happen. Someone runs a red light and smashes into your car. You discover your 7-year-old daughter has cancer. A greedy businessperson causes the company stock and your pension to collapse. The list of unfair and uncalled for misfortune goes on and on and on. 

If we have attained great professional things, then we deserve to pat ourselves on our back for all we have accomplished. We should also thank goodness that we have been lucky. And when we evangelize about what it takes to be outstanding, we should keep in mind that not everyone’s life circumstances follow our own.  

Many among us have been presented with great adversity not of our own making. Fortune is not always an equal opportunity employer. Where and when and to whom one is born and raised can make a huge difference in one’s future. 

Sure, overcoming adversity is to be greatly admired. We all have heard the stories of people who have been terribly knocked down by misfortune only to rise, dust themselves off, and go on to accomplish great things. These are the stories that inspire all of us. But in assisting everyday common people to succeed economically we need to be mindful of not only practices that correlate with success, but with the compassion and kindness needed to create conditions whereby all have a chance and helping hand to succeed when needed. 

A great society is not measured by how many prosperous citizens it has, but by how effectively it assists all its citizens to flourish. 

When Did the Job Seeker and Employers Become Mortal Enemies

Posted on by Bill Ryan

In my last piece I shared with readers the perspective of a long-term job seeker who had engaged in the job search process and the employment success she eventually found. Of course, for many others who ultimately get hired, “success” can often mean being underemployed or taking a pay cut from their previous position. It is a difficult pill for too many to swallow. 

For this piece a very different job seeker viewpoint, that of Linda Norris. As you will see the arduous hunt for employment can leave the searcher questioning what has gone wrong with the selection process. For many trying to obtain employment today, it has become an agonizingly slow, frustrating, and demoralizing slog. Below are the comments of an actual job seeker with a professional background and what she has found to be the new normal. In short, a daunting and often frightening search for work.
 

In years past, a job seeker would create a clear, concise resume, purchase a few local and city newspapers and apply for new jobs. The process would continue with a few phone calls, one to two interviews, a salary discussion with dual party agreement and a few distributed benefits brochures. The candidate would agree to the new job description with all its trimmings, dress professionally and start their new job. 

Then the internet arrived and the race for every company to get their job postings online. This worked for several years, until the arrival of Big Data, job coaches, job recruiters, job boards and concierges, job consultants, online job applicant profiles, pre-pre-employment online testing, candidate profiling, and other assorted job seeker tools that employers now use to weed out, but not hire candidates. 

Job seekers today must sort through a maze of confusing, conflicting, often out of date job boards and misleading employer web pages. There are lengthy job applications, which consume hours and hours of job seekers online time and resources. 

We are expected to willingly participate in online Pre-employment testing, Pre-Candidate quizzes, candidate profiling, multiple resume and document uploads, software testing downloads, Skype interviews, video conferencing from home, and multiple, time-wasting phone screens. 

Many job application interviews run into 5-hour stretches. These multiplex, invasive candidate selection processes are like the torture methods used in the Middle Ages. While the job seeker is not actually tortured physically, they often are intellectually. 

Once the online job seeker profile is completed and submitted, then there is the Candidate’s Application, EEO statement, resumes/documents to upload, the Pre-employment tests, applicant’s job scorecard and the applicant’s dashboard to be reviewed. After that there is ongoing, internet searches of the applicant to gain insight to their inner thoughts and deeds. If they have a Facebook page, a Google page, etc. this too is evaluated before the candidate can be hired. If the candidate rejects social media, then that rejection is also interpreted. 

Educational GPAs are evaluated, from grade school to college. The amount and fluency of foreign languages spoken or not spoken, is a criterion for hiring a job seeker. The candidate’s neighborhood, city, and state are also used as criteria for hiring. Driver’s license numbers are requested on applications, so that driving records can be interpreted, even library cards, overdue books, and fees paid are subject to interpretation by a future employer. 

What does all this invasion of a candidate’s privacy have to do with a new job? How does all this over-detailed, invasive micromanaging of a potential candidate’s lifestyle prove abilities to an employer? 

Why has the job seeker been placed in the position of being a mortal enemy, all for want of a job? 

Leave No Stones Unturned In Your Job Search Strategy

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Barri Wyman, formerly of Keene, NH is the kind of employee every company would want. She is hard working, loyal to her employer, dedicated to keeping up with the changes in her profession, and consistently driven to bring about a high quality work product. 

However, the Great Recession has not been kind to valued workers like Barri. She, like millions of other Americans, was laid-off and has spent many anxious months trying to find work in an employment market with few jobs, especially for the mature worker. 

Barri recently landed a great job. Although it involved a pay cut, she is pleased that the new position utilizes her years of experience while offering challenges and opportunities for professional growth. I asked Barri to share what she has learned from a long hard job search and below are her thoughts and advice for today’s job seekers. 

Have you heard the expressions, “Leave no stones unturned” and “thinking outside the box”? These suggestions ring true for managing a successful job search!  

Your most critical resource for landing the right job is your network of direct contacts with potential employers and agencies who know your capabilities, your work history, your work ethics and your value as an employee. Grow this network constantly through in-person and online business networking opportunities. Introduce yourself and ask your existing contacts for introductions. To build a network, I recommend attending every function you can manage in person that even remotely connects you to new people. Don’t just go to job fairs. Network heavily in every imaginable way – in person, through LinkedIn and other professional online networks, local chambers of commerce, volunteer work, talking to people you meet when out and about socializing – leave no stones unturned; be creative and use “out of the box” approaches; and be very, very courageous and assertive.   

Always research companies you are following and/or applying to and search for people in your business and/or social network who have direct connections to the company and are willing to be a spokesperson on your behalf. With hundreds of people applying for each position, employers and agencies appreciate recommendations from individuals whose opinions they respect; it’s the most effective filter of the applicants. Otherwise, you are dependent upon your use of the exact buzz words in your resume and cover letter that company is using as an applicant filter, and you still may not make it to the top of the list. 

Your network of contacts should involve a two-way relationship; don’t just “take” – offer your contacts something of value to them in reciprocity. Stay in touch frequently and always thank these people for their support. Hand-written thank-you notes and help with projects continue to be important and take more effort than just a quick email or online thank you message. And always follow up an interview with personal thank you notes to everyone you met. Even if you don’t land the job, they will know you valued their time; they will remember you, and they might lead you to another opportunity. 

“Leave no stones unturned” in your job search resources; follow specific companies and apply directly through their websites; check public and unemployment job boards for opportunities, then start following those companies that post jobs, and apply direct if you can; ask for referrals from your business connections; and, seriously consider working with agencies for temp-to-hire or temp jobs that can also lead to full hire and/or new business connections. Spend at least six hours daily Monday through Friday pursuing all these resources and keep track of what you’ve done so you can keep checking in until you land a job you like.  

Create and maintain a list of your skills, experience and accomplishments with real “stories” that support your claims. When preparing for an interview, fine tune a copy of the document to fit the job you are interviewing for and review it to have the information fresh in your mind. There’s no worse feeling than drawing a blank when asked a question! 

The job search, especially if you are unemployed, is a bit nerve wracking, but it is also a tremendous learning opportunity in many ways and opens new insights and connects you to people you might never have encountered otherwise. 

Six Characteristics of Success in the Modern Workforce

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Entering this twenty-first century, post-Recession, globalized, and digital workforce can be daunting. Whether you are young and just entering the job search fray, middle aged and trying to maintain or build upon your competitiveness and value, or mature and desperate to stay relevant, securing meaningful work that is well compensated is still a major challenge. 

Just look at the principal obstacle facing us. Job creation is anemic. Sure, it is better than a few years ago, but way too many workers are either underemployed or have given up looking. While Wall Street booms, employment lags. Anxiety remains high for even the employed who still seem reluctant to leave jobs they have, but do not like, for fear of not finding anything better. Why is this? I see several reasons at play. 

  • More and more wealth and power are continually concentrating on the very rich and they do not appear incentivized to be creating many jobs with it. 
  • Perhaps because of #1 the incomes and purchasing power of the middle class is shrinking, which depresses both demand, supply, and jobs. 
  • Globalization has increased competition and innovation, meaning if you are not an over-caffeinated go-getter, you are finding yourself at the back of the line. 
  • Technology expands productivity with fewer workers needed to produce than in the past. 
  • The nature of many jobs is changing. New and ever-changing skills and knowledge bases are in increasing demand. 
  • Government is being constrained to help. There seems to be nothing government can do anymore that is welcomed. Imagine trying to start a Roosevelt-like CCC program today? There would be a revolution from the political Right. 

What’s a job seeker to do? To begin with realize it is tough, but not hopeless. There are characteristics I believe it is wise to possess that will increase your chances of being seen by employers as valuable and desired. These traits transcend most careers and specialty areas and have as much to do with attitude as with training and education. Here is my list of must-have work style attributes for the times in which we live: 

  1. Stay Connected: Build and cultivate your network however you can. Meet face to face, connect on social media, join and participate in groups, volunteer, email and text, and outreach, outreach, outreach. Isolation can be a career killer.
  2. Stay Optimistic: Project hopefulness and positivity. Downers are a turn-off for people, especially co-workers and bosses. Sure, there is a lot going on to depress us, but being angry and negative rarely builds dreams or improves challenging situations.
  3. Stay Confident: Showing a can-do spirit prepares a person for difficulties and inspires others. Confidence, along with its cousinsself-motivation and goal-orientation, generates an energy that leads to high quality outcomes.
  4. Stay Technologically Current: Be curious about the skills and products surrounding us and which define our times. Keep an eye on the latest innovations that will shape our future. Resist the urge to be a luddite who thinks the old ways were always the best ways. Truth is the good old days were not in many cases.
  5. Stay Diverse: Accept and thrive on a multiplicity of ideas and perspectives. Get energized by all the richness inherent in different viewpoints. Varying ideas come from the mixed gender, ethnic, racial, and multigenerational makeup of workforces. The more sources of input the higher the likelihood of success.
  6. Stay Educated: Embrace lifelong learning as a key to staying abreast of current trends, best practices, and what works in your field. Continuous training and education enrich you professionally and will make you more of an asset to employers both current and potential.

Reframing the dismal jobs picture as an opportunity to better your employability and improve your position as a valued employee is one way to cope and perhaps succeed in the modern workforce. 

The Declining Middle Class and Its Jobs

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The middle class is being displaced and with it the jobs typically held and performed by labor. This trend is threatening the way of life for millions of Americans and could change the economic, social, and political fabric of the United States. 

There are two principal occurrences underway driving this phenomenon with no end in sight for either: 

  1. The migration of low and mid-skilled jobs to developing countries with cheaper labor compensation.
  2. The automation or robo-sourcing of tasks typically performed by minimally skilled employees.

If you are now in a job that can be outsourced or automated start making plans immediately for an employment change, because chances are your job is not going to be around much longer. 

This is a good news/bad news story for business. As more relatively lower-skilled workers are finding themselves increasingly irrelevant their erstwhile employers are finding productivity does not suffer as a result. On the contrary productivity is increasing.  

Outsourcing and robo-sourcing are growing in popularity among business owners because they increase productivity and decrease costs. Good deal for the bottom line…bad deal for labor. Look at the stock market. It booms while the employment numbers generally lag. 

Much of what has historically made the middle class possible has been the availability of mid-level jobs — those that require more skill and knowledge than menial tasks, but not the more sophisticated, analytical, and critical decision-making work performed by well-educated executives. Manufacturing is where many of these jobs used to be found. But the decline of U.S. manufacturing means the loss of mid-level blue collar work. 

Thankfully, there are still mid-level service sector jobs in healthcare, hospitality, retail, the trades, and elsewhere. Unfortunately, these jobs do not often satisfy the middle-class standard of living we have become used to. The jobs are hard to come by and many of them do not pay very well. 

The labor movement is in trouble. The collective strength of labor, which in the twentieth century helped assure decent middle-class compensation and placed the worker in a position where he and she could share in the fruits of production, has been significantly weakened. These days unions only represent about 12% of the workforce and the competition for fewer and fewer good paying jobs is growing fiercer. Even government work is drying up.  

The guy with only a high school diploma is competing against cheap labor from overseas and increasingly robotics here at home. This is not a solid negotiating position to be in for finding and retaining a decent paying middle class job. 

There are no quick fixes or easy answers for the middle class. Sure, aspiring to great paying management and executive work can and should be a goal for many, but realistically that is not for everyone. 

Sustaining a viable middle class will require availability of mid-skilled employment that can be achieved with mid-level education, say the equivalent of an associate or bachelor’s degree. This type of employment should also pay a salary between minimum wage and executive compensation. What a critical mass of those jobs will be moving forward is unclear. But if we are to be more than a nation of haves and haves-nots in the 21st century, then we had better figure this one out soon. 

Career Web Services Review

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is no secret the Internet is where people go for almost everything from house hunting to car buying to job searching. Although I, and most career advisors, will not tell you to sit for hours searching for jobs on Indeed.com and CareerBuilder and call that a job search, there are nevertheless some interesting and potentially beneficial job search related services popping up on the web besides job boards. 

Here are four applications that attempt to combine and leverage well tested and proven job search best practices with the ease and power of Internet use. Conceptually I find these apps promising, but I want to be clear that I am not endorsing them. At best I have dabbled in them and do not claim to be a power user. But as more of our functionality, including career development, becomes digitized it is worth seeing what the entrepreneurial class is cooking up out there. One never knows where the next great Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn will come from. 

  1. VIZIFY — In this age of versatile multimedia it can seem odd we still place so much on a black & white paper or word-processed document called a resume. Vizify asks why don’t we spiff up that boring old doc and present it instead as a visually more appealing graphic display? Here is an opportunity to import resume and online profile data, essentially your value proposition or professional brand, into a graphical bio. This can then be included on email signatures, QR codes for business cards, and online profiles to show a brighter side of you. For job candidates looking for placements in more hip work settings this may have possibilities.

[Vizify was acquired by Yahoo! in 2014.] 

  1. JOBS WITH FRIENDS — Here’s a cool idea. We all know (or should!) that networking is the best route to go for finding meaningful employment. I recommend to clients they spend at least 70% or more of their job search time outreaching to contacts in their networks in searching for employment opportunities. Jobs With Friends identifies all your social media connections and friends and gives you tools for finding who they list as their employers, what the current job openings are where they work, and a means of asking for referrals from them to give to their employers.

[Jobs With Friends is now a service offered by CareerCloud.com.] 

  1. PERFECT INTERVIEW — Although this is an array of multimedia interactive interviewing solutions for job seekers and HR departments there is one feature, I’d like to focus on called Interview Coach. Ever notice how being videotaped can be a great learning tool? Watching yourself played back teaches you more about your performance than any other method. Interview Coach places you in front of your computer and webcam, shoots tough questions at you from professional interviewers, and records your responses. You get to see how you answered and can then better refine your interview technique.

[This service is still alive and well in 2022.] 

  1. VIZIBILITY — Here is a service that totally gets the future of career development and brand management tied into one’s online identity. Vizibility tries to cover all the bases by offering the user data analytics to show how often you are being searched, mobile business cards, ways of finding common social media connections, your Google ranking, online identity sharing, and other ways to help you push your profile to potential high value decision makers. If you believe exposure leads to opportunity, then check this one out.

[Vizibility is now vizCard, maker of digital/mobile business cards with analytic features.] 

As clever as these and other services are I think it is best to view them as tools to help the job searcher implement tried and true practices such as networking, self-promotion, and determining what efforts are time wasters vs. what has value. It is hard to imagine at this point that good old face-to-face communication can ever be completely replaced by web-based services. But meanwhile, have fun seeing how career and software-as-a-service development merge in some innovative ways. 

Careers are Idiosyncratic — and that’s a Good Thing

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I had an opportunity last week to hear Dr. Temple Grandin deliver the keynote address at the National Career Development Association’s annual convention, held this year in Boston. And am I glad I did! The animal science professor and autism rights activist definitely has something to say, not only to career professionals, but to all of us. 

I have only recently learned of Temple Grandin from hearing her being interviewed recently on NPR. That piece made me stop and ask out loud, “Who is that?” 

She clearly has a message and delivery style that is out of the mainstream. However, beyond her unique and unconventional look and enunciation is a powerful exposition about individualism and the priority we should all place on honoring people’s differences when assisting in career decision making. 

Temple Grandin has become a renowned spokesperson for the humane treatment of animals and for encouraging tolerance and civil behavior directed toward individuals impacted by autism — a reality she has lived with for 65 years. Her advice for the mainstream of society goes far beyond telling us to be respectful and kind to people who act, speak, and think differently from the norm. 

Dr. Grandin is putting us on notice that the talent diversity necessary to fuel an innovative workforce and culture requires us to encourage and cultivate the very idiosyncrasies so many of us shun and dismiss. 

It is no secret that STEM careers are all the rage. Many of the most lucrative and potentially available jobs for the future lie in industries seeking employees and contractors strong in science, technology, engineering, and math. To those of us not immersed daily in these jobs we tend to think of STEM work as heavily rules-based, formulaic, and straight forward. 

It is helpful to have been reminded that American ingenuity results when deep scientific knowledge and creative thinking merge. The development of the light bulb, integrated circuit, Internet, and many other inventions came from just such thinkers. NASA is chock full of geeks and nerds. Think about it. Where would we be as a nation without them? 

Although it may be human nature, there is a downside to building a society that places too strong a premium on conformity when it comes to career development. You do not have to be on an autism spectrum to sense the fear, insecurity, and lack of self-confidence that can come from the pressure to think and behave like everyone else around you. In so many ways we give each other the message that to be different is bad, but to conform is good. 

Yet our American value proposition as a key player in the global workforce is defined by our inclination to be innovative, inventive, and groundbreaking. This cannot be done unless a holistic individualism is encouraged and enriched. 

Careers flourish when individuals engage in purposeful work leading to mastery. Careers are also undergoing dramatic shifts and transformations as the global economy and technology change the employment landscape. Allowing for and encouraging creative ways of combining, expanding, and morphing careers helps to assure we Americans continue to have economic viability in a rapidly changing world. Embracing individualism, even when it is outside of the norm, can pave the way for successful careers and a competitive economic edge. 

Temple Grandin’s call for acceptance and advocacy is positive and relevant for our time. Let us join in giving power to all the people. 

Know What Your Performance Evidence Is

Posted on by Bill Ryan

“Hiring me will add value to your operation.” 

“I am prepared to take on the biggest challenges and come out a winner!” 

“You can count on me to tackle all obstacles and generate profit growth simultaneously.” 

Having the confidence and drive to be strongly competitive in this dog-eat-dog hiring climate is great. The meek unfortunately do not appear to be in the lead in inheriting this earth in any way that says employment success. Reaching out, promoting, in short, selling yourself is as combative as ever in employment and those with the stomach and skill for it can come out ahead. 

But making claims of greatness can be as fragile as a house of cards in the wind unless there is substance to back up your superlative declarations. You cannot call yourself a star performer if there is not some credible performance evidence to show in fact you can do the things you said you could do. 

Knowing what counts as solid performance evidence in your field and being able to clearly cite examples of your achievement in these areas boosts your standing among those making hiring decisions. These deciders can be listening about your performance affirmations at a networking event, job fair, or in an interview. They can be reading about them in your resume or on your LinkedIn profile. However, it is that they learn about those valuable accomplishments of yours that scream, “I’m qualified!”, the better off your career can be. 

So, what really matters in the work you do? Is it meeting quotas, raising profits, mitigating threats, improving lifestyles, expanding market share, stopping hunger, bringing joy to others, elevating student test scores, saving lives, or any number of the important things that show you have done what you were hired to do? We all have a rather limited set of crucial outcomes or objectives to realize in our jobs. Knowing exactly what they are and keeping track of your attainment of these goals is a good place to start identifying your performance evidence. 

Examples of execution carry more weight when they are quantifiable. Numbers can take a statement from subjective to objective, from opinion to fact. But be strategic about the quantities you select in your power statements. 

Now let us say that I am trying to prove to stakeholders that I am an excellent retail store manager. Do I talk about how demanding it is to track inventory, handle customers, and make good hourly-wage hires. That may all be true, but they do not speak to key performance indicators. Instead talk about numbers of units sold and employees supervised. Mention specifically how much you reduced operational costs and grew annual sales. Point out the increased percentages of surveyed customer satisfaction ratings and improvements made in associate training sessions. 

If vetting a candidate, which would you rather hear or read about concerning that person’s accomplishments: 

“Reduced expenses related to manufacturing operations.” or “Reduced costs, inventories, and cycle times of manufacturing operations, resulting in 52% – 68% gross margin increase, 4% –10% annual inventory turn increase, and 25% cycle time decrease.” 

Or how about this: 

“Managed operational and capital budgets.” or “Furnished operational and capital budgets for 18 commercial properties, comprising over $30M in expenditures for over 3.5 million square feet of space.” 

Not all professions embed the collection of performance data into their jobs like sales, financials, and medicine, among others. Sometimes it may be necessary for you to do your own quantitative logging, even if it is retrospective. 

Sure, it is a hassle, but in less than an hour, and maybe with some help from those who know your work well, you can compile a generous list of quantitative achievements from your recent past. This information can then be presented as demonstrations of your good efforts and workplace worth. 

Communicating in terms of performance evidence to hiring managers and recruiters strengthens your position as a job search candidate. So, go ahead and announce with confidence your capabilities and potential, but reinforce the message with the important deeds that count. 

The Changing Face of Workforce Talent

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Finding and retaining talent for your company or organization used to be relatively straightforward. You inquired about availability of valuable workers from your network, posted job descriptions on widely disseminated job boards, or hired recruiting firms to provide you with temporary or temp to hire personnel. Chances were that eventually the talent you desired was discovered and incentives were applied to keep them with you for the long haul. 

But today we notice forces are at work modifying this process and causing those who source talent to change their game plan. The makeup of the workforce is becoming more global, mobile, independent and less local or rooted in one spatial location. Also, and critically, their long-term loyalty to any one employer is more tenuous. To find the expertise employers need to remain productive, innovative, and competitive means having to adjust methods for finding such moving targets. 

And it is not just the workforce that is changing. Employers’ talent demands reflect the shifts occurring in business driven by the rapid expansion of global and technical interconnectivity. Businesses increasingly need to dial up and down budgets, priorities, and the size of their workforces quickly and efficiently. Agility is a survival skill. 

With that in mind new types of employee-employer relationships are being formed which are often characterized by highly valuable, short-term, project-based connections that are mutually beneficial. The organization gains profitable contributions from their talented associates and the valued participants benefit from career enhancement. 

Given the changing nature of business and of employment both parties are becoming more cognizant of the types of exchanges called for and are positioning themselves to make the right connections when needed. The range of associations goes from fully employed individuals to outsourced service arrangements that satisfy small but critical parts of the larger organizational need. Partnerships, independent contractors, and more engaged outsourcers are playing a greater role in how business is done. 

For the job searcher and those committed to developing their careers, awareness of the ways business and work itself is transforming is crucial. Even though most of us have been brought up to think traditionally about employment — few job changes, development of a single skill, and living near your place of employment — a problem arises if we do not see how the other options mentioned above are becoming available, possibly preferred. We are approaching a time, if we are not already there, when designing a career around portfolio type assignments is as prudent as striving for full time employment with few different employers. 

Global skill markets with their individual players are as diverse, multi-functional, and ready to produce as any talent pool has ever been. The technology that exposes, promotes, and defines them, based primarily on a keyword-rich social media model, means that a fluid and robust recruitment industry can play an important role in facilitating valuable connections. We already see the expanded use of LinkedIn, essentially an international expertise database, becoming a primary means of sourcing talent. This and other human-technological applications are sure to boost the effectiveness of employer-employee matchmaking. 

The importance of mobility and lack of geographical tethering is also worth noting in the way workforces are evolving. Talent can be secured virtually from anywhere that has an Internet connection. Many projects can be advanced using contributors from a variety of places around the world. Although physical face-to-face collaboration certainly has its advantages it is by no means the only way to produce at a high functioning level. Cost alone may sometimes dictate that remote collaboration be activated. 

A flatter operational arrangement seems to be one way of describing the changing face of the workforce. Businesses need talent and talent needs businesses. Sure, this has always been true, but what may be different this time is that the parties are on more equal footings. A clever and spry talented professional has a greater chance of experiencing a nimble career when he or she can negotiate with potential employers from what may be becoming an enhanced power position. 

Rethinking Career for Mature Workers

Posted on by Bill Ryan

In general, we think that getting old has many more downsides than upsides. What with declining health, reduced relevance, and being closer to death perhaps among the most egregious. And as has been noted many times in the past few years, the rapid and widespread ejection of many older workers from the workforce has left many feeling depressed and inconsequential at what they feel is a premature conclusion to their careers. 

Aging and career do not have to be oil and water. Rather, let us view the career of the mature worker as needing serious reform as they look toward a future in which work can still be engaging, satisfying, and lucrative. Fortunately, one of the great advantages of aging is a growing realization to make one’s remaining years count more than ever before. This can be a powerful motivator to approach life and career with renewed vigor. 

A process to reestablish a derailed career later in life begins by accepting that the old rules for finding work do not apply much anymore. Being overly reliant on searching for job postings that may be a fit can waste too much time. Instead, direct yourself toward conducting a thorough self-assessment. Identify all those traits, skills, qualifications, and most importantly experiences, which when combined define you as an asset. Leave nothing out of this list. If needed, query those who know you well to see how they perceive you. 

At this point reflect on this rich attribute inventory with the goal of selecting what Dick Bolles, the author of the perennial What Color Is Your Parachute, elegantly calls your favorite skills and your favorite experiences. This is when a cognitive exercise becomes emotional in nature. By recognizing the most energizing of what you have done and can still do, you appreciate what is possible in your future work. 

Making the most of your remaining work years is made possible by acting on your strengths. We do not have to accept a bitter end to our working years. Alternatively, we can construct a career made meaningful by capitalizing on the best of what we have to offer. But a significant part of doing so involves remembering those changed rules I mentioned earlier. There is a good chance the best of you may not fit neatly into a single job for which an employer will compensate you. 

Multiple income streams result from orchestrating a variety of work lines that together make up your favorite performance characteristics. Investigating and implementing various means of monetizing your sweet spots can lead to a satisfying hybrid career. 

There are some things to keep in mind about patching together multiple income streams. For example, you need to remain quite flexible in dovetailing your diversified ventures. Determining what can be scaled up and down due to parameters of time, money, and energy will place you in the role of being your own career choreographer.  

Achieving a degree of sustainability with each stream may take time but think how rewarding it will be when you get there. Having this new career be enjoyable is what it is all about. This life puts a new twist into the notion of being your own boss. 

I started this reframing of career for the mature worker by suggesting a self-assessment. There is no better time to reflect on where you have been and how far you have come, than near the end of your “productive” years. Now is the time to give yourself permission to approach life with a different flavor and approach than has been done before. Allow yourself to feel free, mix it up, and experiment. Benefit from all you have accomplished. Exhilarate at being at the top of your game. 

Is It Becoming a Women’s World?

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As an aging male with 60 years of perspective, I cannot help but note the huge change American women are undergoing in terms of their career options. As women have demanded and experienced a shift in social, political, and economic power sharing there is a wide and growing range of work choices available to them. 

I still remember how odd I thought it looked to see my first uniformed female police officer and big rig female truck driver and woman on a construction crew. It is not that I thought it wrong, but it did seem out of place. Growing up in the 50s and 60s I basically thought as a young person that work for women outside of the home was limited to being a secretary or an elementary school teacher or a nurse. 

Now women seem to be in nearly every profession, including the running of companies. In retrospect, I suppose observing the integration of women into traditional male jobs was my first eye opener to cultural change. It has since only increased in pace. 

For those of us who think increased equality among citizens is a good thing, then the news is great. The power structure long dominated by male viewpoints is yielding to a more balanced approach enriched by ideas contributed by women. Conventional wisdom suggests this is leading to a society that is fairer and representative of every person’s interests. 

While I applaud this historic development and in no way wish for a regression, I also notice an angst and relative lack of direction on the part of men. In general, while the career prospects for women are expanding men appear to be more adrift with their changing role. Here are some of the signs I see: 

  • Men took a greater unemployment hit during the recession than woman. Jobs requiring brawn like construction and traditional manufacturing were being shed faster than jobs requiring nurturing and education like healthcare and business services. 
  • Women now outpace men in receiving college degrees. In a world that is going to rely only more on an educated workforce, this bodes well for those individuals embracing higher learning. 
  • The trend in leadership roles is to become more gender neutral. As women move more into management and executive positions it displaces the men who formally held those spots. 
  • The competition field for securing jobs is getting deeper. Not long ago, men had to form job search strategies that pitted them against other men only. Not anymore. Now men must compete against women. This is not a comfortable place for many men to be. 
  • The nature of work is changing in that physical strength, the greatest value point men have traditionally had, is increasingly less in demand. Technology, mechanical engineering, and robotics are already handling much of the digging, lifting, and carrying once done by strong men. And as time goes on, there will be even less need for physical strength on the job. 
  • Increasing numbers of men are wanting to spend more time with their kids. Men putting their careers on hold or at least slowing the pace of development in favor of parenting seems to be becoming quite acceptable among the children of Baby Boomers. How this choice is seen by hiring managers once the man wants to re-engage with the workforce is still unclear, but potentially damaging to his career. 

How this all turns out is hard to say. Perhaps work is becoming completely gender neutral, and we will no longer think in terms of male and female jobs. But for men who like things traditional, facing these employment adjustments may be rocky for the foreseeable future. 

Make Music When Tooting Your Own Horn

Posted on by Bill Ryan

One of the most difficult practices for people to pull off when advancing their careers is verbal self-promotion. Known commonly as the elevator pitch or the power statement, this self-promotional introduction can have the strength to leave a lasting impression about you with an influencer, or by contrast leave you forgettable. 

Being able to professionally introduce yourself to decision makers or those connected to them, when your objective is to seek employment or career advancement opportunities, is an important practice to master. Typically, there is often not much time to make a strong impression when opportunities to do so come about. People are busy. Time is short. If you cannot communicate relevance and practicality to the listener pointedly and in the moment, then you run the risk of being boring, extraneous, or even a nuisance. 

As if this is not pressure enough, think how awkward and stressful it can be to make a sales pitch about yourself if you are introverted, shy, or lacking in confidence. Well, that describes a whole lot of us! No wonder so many of us take feeble solace in saying, “I don’t like to toot my own horn.” 

We have convinced ourselves that to not display traits about ourselves is a virtue. We may even blame this weakness on our parents. “I wasn’t brought up to make a spectacle of myself.” True, to not draw attention to yourself is preferred in some social situations, but it does not help us to make a mark in our career development. 

Your professional introduction summarizes your expertise and value to the workplace. Making one need not be a major hurdle or social faux pas. There is a way to compose, practice, and eventually master the introduction. To make the spiel impactful, it should be short, perhaps 30 to 90 seconds, and rich in content. To begin follow a simple formula. For example: 

My name is

. 

I am [use job title or subject matter expert descriptor]. 

I have

years of experience as a
. 

Add Power Statement 1. 

Add Power Statement 2. 

By Power Statements I mean a line that includes a competency and an accomplishment. 

Let’s look at an example: 

My name is Jane Smith.  

I am an expert in dental office management. 

I have thirteen years of experience as a dental office manager, including eight with a $2M practice. 

I am highly organized. For example, I was fully responsible for all ordering of supplies, negotiating with dental supply vendors, and conducting inventory control. 

I am also great at personnel development, having hired, trained, and evaluated all seven of our non-medical staff. 

These pitches can contain your soft “human connection” skills, or they can highlight your innovative solutions to significant problems, or they can describe how you added value.  

So, now that we have a professional introduction framed out, we must make sure it does not sound too clinical. If you come across resonating as too rehearsed and scripted it will sound so — and not be impressive. Practice making these points as a real person would sound. Recite your pitch to others without worrying about word memorization and get feedback. Is it sounding natural? Is it coming across smoothly and genuinely? 

Another interesting approach is to begin your intro with a question. Questions have a way of focusing our attention at the outset. For example, “You know that stress you feel every spring as April 15 approaches? My name is Jim Smith and I’m a Tax Preparer…” 

For those of us who are not naturally smooth-talking salesmen, who can have just the right persuasive words roll off your tongue at just the right moment, you will need to prepare and practice. Developing a strong professional introduction can help accelerate your career. So go ahead, toot your own horn and make music while doing so. 

Telecommuting and the Innovative Environment

Posted on by Bill Ryan

A very interesting and potentially watershed story has emerged in recent days in business news. It concerns the top-down working conditions decision made by the recently selected CEO of Yahoo! Marissa Mayer. Ms. Mayer has announced that telecommuting among the company’s employees is to be eliminated. Although this decision was intended for internal dissemination only, it quickly leaked to the rest of us and has sparked a rapid and vociferous debate about productivity and innovation in cutting edge companies — and by extension to the rest of us. 

To be clear, I have been and continue to be an enthusiastic proponent of any workplace practices that promote creativity, collaboration, autonomy, productivity, and civility. Among the exciting changes emerging within the post-industrial workplace has been employer recognition to adopt flexible working conditions, many of which achieve these very goals. 

Common examples include open concept “office-less” workplaces that promote interaction and sharing, remote working via technology whether from home or other places conducive to production, and work settings that include benefits like childcare, gyms, and ping-pong tables. 

The underlying management belief in these types of arrangements is that workplaces should be results-only-work-environments, encouraging employees to produce individual and even idiosyncratic styles, if measurable deliverables are realized. 

A management approach embracing an attitude that trusts its employees to be value-producing when they are given freedom to choose schedules, environments, colleagues, and problem-solving approaches is the trend in working conditions. So why has Ms. Mayer, a product of Google, Silicon Valley, and data-driven decision making, made the move to eliminate one of the fastest growing flexible workplace practices, telecommuting? The apparent answer is to re-establish a lost culture of innovation. 

Innovation has become the holy grail of business, particularly in the fast-paced Internet-based industry of services and content. Yahoo! was once a big player in the early days of the web. It was one of the first to establish one-place shopping for search, email, news, shopping and much more.

Since its mid-1990s launch, however, it has been losing market share to much bigger innovators such as Google, Apple, and Amazon, who currently dominate the web. Yahoo! is in trouble. Survivability is in doubt. 

So, is corralling all employees back to the ranch going to reinvigorate an innovative edge and competitive advantage or is this a desperate move based in fear that if old fashioned business standards are not reapplied the company is going to sink? Time will tell, but this story does raise the question of what it takes to create work conditions that inspire workers to innovate and produce at optimal levels. 

Encouraging high levels of creative performance in any workforce will result from valuing original problem solving and adaptability. When management applauds new ideas, the exercise of imagination, and learning from rather than avoiding mistakes, then innovation flourishes. 

For most of us, unlearning the way we were educated can lead to more creativity. Our schools were designed to produce workers for the industrial age, not the much more sophisticated information age we have only just entered. Sameness, rigidity, and compliance characterize the way most of us were educated. Assessment methods have been little more than a means of measuring accountability or adherence to these standards. 

This outdated education model is often replicated in too many businesses that value hanging on to tradition more than innovation. As a result, innovation is often stifled at a time when it is needed most to stay competitive and relevant. My concern with Yahoo!’s latest move is that it appears to be a reach for an old-styled accountability practice during a time of anguish. It is as if the thinking is non-traditional workforce practices are not giving us a competitive advantage, so let us go back to what worked in the old days. 

I have no doubt Marissa Mayer will use data over time in determining what works and what does not work for fostering innovation at Yahoo!. For the rest of us we will have an interesting experiment to observe with lessons to be derived for the future of business and the facilitation of innovative workforces. 

Internet Privacy and Our Careers

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Social media appears to be growing in functionality beyond being just a way for friends to share interests. Marketing professionals, for example, generally accept that getting their product or service shared and discussed among connected individuals is now a solid and preferred part of any business’ promotional plan. Facebook and Twitter have become an essential part of many marketing campaigns. 

The power of social media is also playing a factor in career development. Sharing career related tips, job openings, employer reviews, and more is occurring among trusted peers. But perhaps the most powerful advantage of social media is the way it exposes individuals to those sourcing and background checking talent. Each of us has the option of crafting our information and building dynamic profiles that reinforce the professional brand we wish to project. 

In fact, we are at the point where not having a robust presence on social media places us at a distinct disadvantage in advancing our careers. Remaining in the digital shadows could very well mean we do not get found by the very stakeholders we need to have find us to move forward. This phenomenon is particularly a problem for the older end of the workforce, who still do not accept or who harbor a mistrust of social media and its implications. 

Despite the growing advantages of leveraging social media for talent searchability it does raise a significant social issue that is increasingly becoming relevant, the value of individual privacy in the digital age. A disconcerting correlation is now evident — the more we increase our Internet presence the more we diminish our privacy. 

The web is becoming ever more invasive. Cookies that track our Internet use, location tracking apps, and other user-identification functions means others can and do store and re-purpose data about us. Simply using the Internet engages us in personal data sharing of some sort even though we rarely or ever give anyone permission to collect and use our personal information or Internet-use behavior. 

Maintaining some semblance of personal privacy in the Information Age may soon become the next big civil rights issue. What we now know is that keeping a relatively unregulated Internet yields individual privacy rights in favor of those with some degree of economic power and capital, i.e., big business. So, what is new? Power always seems to concentrate on the haves vs. the have-nots in an unregulated environment. In time we will see how it all turns out. 

There is a legitimate concern when we use websites for information gathering and research purposes that our personal data or web use is collected and tracked behind the scenes. The use of social media specifically is intentional sharing of information about us. When we essentially advertise ourselves online via social media, we have a harder time crying foul when we are found out. 

Each of us needs to weigh the potentiality of an Internet display with the concurrent erosion of anonymity. Although this is a very personal decision, the reality is that being searchable is a best practice in job searching and recruiting. 

Controlling what is known about you online with a professional-looking profile and website is the recommended way to go. Applying a 20th century concept of privacy to these times is not practical for career movers. At least to some extent we need to get over the privacy angst. However, each of us does need to advocate for stronger opt-in controls of what is displayed about us online. There should be options beyond no web involvement at all and full unregulated exposure. The Internet should serve us, not the other way around. 

Are Job Boards Worth Your Time?

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Job boards, such as Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed, and SimplyHired are getting a bad rap these days. The word is out that job boards are no longer effective or relevant for job searchers. Their image problem can be summed up in the words of a client who recently said to me, “C’mon, have you really heard of anyone getting a job from Monster?” 

It was not that many years ago job boards were seen as the next great thing. Instead of going to newspaper classifieds, job seekers could now go online to these supercharged job listings that held many more postings of descriptions from all over the country. Not only that, but they were being constantly reviewed by recruiters searching for talent. I remember speaking to a recruiter in 2008 who told me most of his day was spent trolling Monster and CareerBuider. They certainly were an improvement on the old and restricted methods available pre-Internet. 

In the meantime, however, the job searcher experience has deteriorated using these sites. Users now find themselves flooded with cheap emails from for-profit “career” schools asking them to spend money they do not have or from New York Life and Aflac and the like trying to convince them to become 100% commission salespersons. Oh and of course, starting your own franchise for whoever will really change your life for the better. Right! I have gotten to the point of recommending to clients who heavily use job boards to dedicate an email address to their job search, so that their regular email does not become inundated with this junk. 

Another concern for many regards posting their resumes to these sites. Yes, many more eyeballs will be on them, but maybe not all the eyeballs belong to people you want to see them. In particular, is the worry about contact information. Of course, you need to have a way for potential employers to reach you, but do you want your home address seen by a large anonymous audience? This is one of the reasons why more and more people, particularly women, are opting out of having their mailing addresses included on their resumes. 

Probably the biggest problem is that many jobseekers think sitting at the computer for a few hours each day submitting their resumes for positions that have great sounding job descriptions, but for which they have no networking connections at all, is job hunting. It may feel like you are doing something valuable, but the truth is very few jobs are acquired this way. Too much time can be wasted, and your frustration increased. 

So, are job boards passé? Not necessarily. They still have practical uses. I often recommend they be used for research. For example, individuals who are either trying to enter the job market or who are hoping to transition to some different type of employment can find the job descriptions included on job boards revealing. By finding appealing descriptions you can more easily determine how you are a fit for such jobs. Does your list of qualifications closely match the required skills for the job? If not, what can you do to reinvent or improve your professional status? 

Another great use of job descriptions on these boards is to use them for harvesting relevant keywords. When tailoring your resume, it is important that it contains keywords like those contained in the job description you are targeting. Alignment of what you have to offer with what a potential employer needs is key to securing an interview. 

And yes, sometimes people do find jobs on Monster. I place it far below good networking and even outreach to recruiters in effectiveness, but it can happen. In general, I recommend spending about 10% of your job search time looking at job boards, 20% getting the attention of recruiters, and 70% on effective networking. 

The challenge for job boards is to stay relevant in the ever-changing world of job searching and career development. Time will tell if they can do it. 

Ten Best Career Development Practices for 2013

Posted on by Bill Ryan

A couple of years ago I penned a piece called The 10 Best Career Development Practices. It remains one of my most read blogs. But in the time since it was written I have come to feel that this list needs some slight adjusting. A combination of more time delivering career development services on my part along with a growing recognition of the realignment occurring with effective career practices leads me to revise this list. What follows is my 2013 take on the ten most advantageous steps a professional person can do to enhance their career. 

  1. Know Your Professional Value — Conduct a self-assessment resulting in you feeling comfortable, confident, and focused about your value proposition. Think of yourself as a subject matter expert with reliable and consistent qualities that set you apart from the competition.
  2. Develop the Three Capitals — Consistently be involved in building and growing your intellectual, social, and emotional capital. This leaves you well informed, well connected, and energized about your profession. Career growth is a 3-legged stool. For balance, work on all three simultaneously.
  3. Write a Strong Resume — The document that most anchors and communicates your value proposition is the resume. Although its primary purpose is to secure an interview do not forget that its overall marketing potential can be crucial.
  4. Prepare Intriguing Cover Letters — Making that first impression is of course key. Promoting your own skills while aligning them with the potential employer’s needs and following up with a great resume may open the all-important door to an interview.
  5. Engage in Networking — Yes, who you know and who knows you does matter. Most of the high-quality employment arises from referrals among trusted contacts. The best way to get to a hiring decision maker is to know them in the first place or know someone else who knows them.
  6. Manage an Online Profile — Recruiters and hiring managers tend to fish where the fish are. If you are not in the pond, then you will not get caught. The Internet is the pool where talent is found and investigated. Additionally, being online helps you to share your brand, build your network, and cultivate your professional relationships.
  7. Engineer Your Job Search Process — Knowing what comprises a truly comprehensive job search involves implementing a complex set of procedures. Understanding what techniques can motivate you and using an organization tool like a career management CRM can make the process much more manageable and successful.
  8. Use Power Statements and a 30-Second Pitch — When introducing yourself to high potential professionals realize their time is tight and attention spans probably short. Making impactful statements that leave you remembered and hopefully valued requires an economic delivery.
  9. Conduct Informational Interviews — A research technique that assists you in building intellectual and social capital is the informational interview. Seeking out and conversing with professionals who can provide useful information you can use in determining the direction of your career is a powerful tactic.
  10. Perform Well in Your Job Interview — This age-old conundrum is as elusive as ever for many, but it does not have to be that way. Preparing without cramming by rehearsing your upcoming performance such that you dovetail your background knowledge with the potential employer’s needs is well worth the effort.

You may have noticed that developing a career is an ongoing pursuit not limited to the times when you receive a pink slip. It helps to get over the natural but inhibiting desire to be complacent with a single job or relatively unchanging career.  

For those not held back by inertia, but rather eager to enter the career fray this list of practices should help the career-oriented individual form a continual improvement strategy. 

The Continued Growth of the Independent Worker

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Among the workforce phenomena already underway prior to the recession, but which has picked up pace since, is the increasing role of independent workers. These soloists are typically defined as part- or full-time workers who do not violate the employee-defining guidelines set by various state labor, revenue, and employment security departments. 

They are called by a variety of names, such as independent contractors, consultants, freelancers, self-employed, temporary, on-call workers, and even solopreneurs. Whatever you call them, their ranks are growing. 

In September, MBO Partners, a service provider for independent workers and companies that hire them, released their second annual “State of Independence in America” survey. What they found was that the trend toward project or portfolio work was increasing across all demographic cohorts of today’s workforce. Conditions appear to be coalescing that allow for growth in this non-traditional employment sector. 

My own speculation is that the combination of more workers accepting, perhaps begrudgingly, the new normal of an uncertain economic environment both domestically and globally, in combination with affordable technology improvements, is allowing for expansion of independent contracting. 

Time will tell if independent contracting is a sustainable, non-cyclical, and viable career option. However, this survey reveals some interesting points of transition within a population historically used to finding economic security by way of a single employer. Nearly 17 million workers operate as independents currently, up one million from last year. Projections are that 23 million will be their own boss in five years. 

The number of independents who claim satisfaction and reduced anxiety with this career choice is also growing. Many in fact intend to hire employees as resources allow, suggesting that independent contracting may be a gateway to larger entrepreneurial ventures. 

The GenXers, those aged 33 to 49, seem to embrace this concept the most out of the demographic groups measured. Given their relative vitality coupled with some years of actual work experience they are more open to taking control of their career and lifestyle destinies, certainly more so than their employer-loyal parents. 

Perhaps somewhat counter intuitively, the Gen Y (aged 21–32) workers appear to have a more mixed view of independent working, at least for now. The difficulty they have been facing in recent years entering the workforce and gaining valuable work experience may be skewing their attitude. After all, independence may not be a choice for them, but simply their school-of-hard-knocks reality. 

Many Boomers (aged 50–66) on the other hand have their own reasons for resisting migration to this level of work autonomy. In short, they were not brought up this way. Rather, dedication to an employer who in turn provided economic security has been their norm. But increasingly this generation too is seeing the benefits of more self-reliance and determination as evidenced in the survey. Increased flexibility, less workplace politics, more control over scheduling, and greater opportunities to practice their individual skillsets on their terms is being seen as attractive. 

I see significant advantages for our collective careers in encouraging individual economic independence. Although it may never, and perhaps should not ever, entirely replace the traditional employer-employee relationship there is nevertheless value in workers adopting a more flexible and adaptable economic position within the general workforce. 

Maybe we could start preparing our youth by insisting that our schools replace some of their course load, which is of marginal importance for the mainstream, like algebra and medieval history, with financial literacy and entrepreneurism.  

And Boomers, accept it. You are being ejected from the traditional workforce sooner than you expected. Your choice is becoming the pasture or carving a niche that matters to the marketplace. 

Change is only going to become more exponential, not less. Preparing yourself for independent contracting may be the best way to position your career for it. 

A Call for Future-Oriented Education

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Encouraging and supporting a high quality system of educating both youth and adults is fundamental to our being a thriving and competitive country in today’s global marketplace. A nation that would short-change its schools and training opportunities gets what it pays for — an unmotivated and unskilled workforce. 

But the role of educational institutions is under pressure to change not just some of its practices, but its core mission. Preparing citizens for the future is not what it used to be. Historically, it was accepted that a relatively limited set of skills were needed to fortify a person for the world that awaited. We had the canon of reading, writing, and arithmetic (still important, of course) and threw in some knowledge to encourage citizenship. However, beyond that, students were largely on their own to determine which of several career paths they would choose. 

Not so in the 21st century. Even a bachelor’s degree may not be enough to suffice for an entire career. The nature of work and professionalism is changing too rapidly. In fact, it is estimated that today what one learns in college will in many ways be outdated before the student loans are paid off. Even the so-called blue-collar jobs are becoming more technical and require skills and certifications that did not exist in the recent past. 

Also, blue collar no longer equates to low skill. To think that achieving a certain level of education will be adequate for almost any career today is shortsighted and rooted in old-fashioned ways of thinking. 

For those dedicated to teaching, training, and helping people learn, this news is good. It means your job never ends. Education is ongoing. Learning is lifelong.  

The ones who most need to reframe their thinking are all the rest of us who need to wrap our arms around the reality that obsolescence will always be nipping at our heels and that learning, relearning, and unlearning are now constants. Complacency is the greatest threat to our careers. Growing accustomed to changing skills and demands is the greatest benefit. 

Workforce growth is linked to sophisticated skill development. However, according to the U.S. Labor Department there is a lack of talent in the STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), healthcare, and business. One thing this recession has made clear is that economic recovery is not about recreating conditions whereby people can return to their old jobs. It is much more about realizing that successful long-term employment is in preparing a workforce capable of performing in relevant jobs of the future. And that future is now. 

Companies that do the hiring are increasingly concerned about the lack of necessary skills available. This problem is now as egregious as other competitive issues such as location, transportation of products, and procurement of materials. 

The problem grows larger when you look out over the legions of unemployed and see that three-fourths of them only have a high school education. If you want to be a player in the workforce of tomorrow, you must accept that a high school diploma is not enough. Be ready to get higher ed, vocational ed, or other skill training however you can do it and know that learning will be continuous. For many of us this will be the only path to living the lifestyle we want. 

Schools should start getting this message to students at a young age. Society needs to shake loose this notion that education is something you do before living. Rather, it is what we do as part of living. A thriving, dynamic, and competitive nation is one that is always learning and adapting. 

Communication Can Enhance Your Career

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Every line of work can benefit from a workforce that knows how to communicate clearly and effectively. A free and comprehensible flow of information among colleagues, across departments, and between customers and companies leads to optimal productivity and profitability. Conversely, poor communication diminishes competitiveness and the quality of service. 

Normally we think that mastering a specific skillset is the surest way to advance one’s career. Obviously, the better you can advise clients on financial plans the better a financial planner you can be and the greater your command of building cabinets the more proficient a cabinet maker you will be. But a competence that is of equal importance in boosting your career across all industries is the mastering of communication. 

Speaking, listening, writing, reading, and viewing are the typical communication methods that come to mind when defining what communication is. However, if we investigate these activities more carefully to see how they can affect workplace functioning we can be more mindful of how to enhance our careers by increasing the quality of work done for our employers. 

I was introduced to a blog recently posted on onlinecollege.org in which the writer does an excellent job of identifying twenty-one communication mistakes to be avoided at work. Whereas all these weaknesses should be noted as important, there are some themes that stand out to me warranting further elaboration. 

Taking the time to self-examine the role our individual egos play in how we communicate is well worth the effort. Look at how often we get consumed by trying to save face at work. No one wants to be seen as incompetent, which is natural, but this can lead to poor communication habits. For example, think of all the times we did not ask for clarification or help on a project or task, because we did not want to look stupid or weak. 

“I’ll figure it out on my own”, we may tell ourselves only to find out that we went too far off on a tangent instead of getting to the heart of the problem to be solved. Rather, requesting clarity or assistance can be approached from a position of competence and as part of commanding style. 

In writing resumes for clients, I sometimes come across performance reviews that they share with me. Here is a communication error I see managers complain about a lot — overuse of email. It may seem that we can increase the quantity of communication with email, but that does not always translate into quality. Getting on the phone or meeting face to face may take more time, but in many situations, it means better listening is occurring, leading to more cogent points being made by both parties. 

Determining who is in the loop and keeping them abreast of developments in a timely manner is a sound practice. Participants on a project work best with open collaboration. It is fine for there to be a moderator but using the “Reply to All” feature in all forms of communication is often the best policy. 

Good communication promotes strong teams. Given the workforce evolution toward greater teamwork, applying co-production communication techniques is a win/win for employees and employers alike. 

Perhaps the most harmful communication mistake is going negative. So many workplaces are drama factories in which grown adults communicate with the level of sensitivity and self-awareness found in a junior high school cafeteria. Put a bunch of insecure and immature egos together in the same building and watch out. Management can have a big task ahead trying to herd the cats. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. probably addressed this issue best when he advised that before we say something about someone else, we should test the comment by applying three conditions: Is it true? Is it fair? Is it kind? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then it is best to keep it to yourself. 

Getting ahead with your career can often be little more than becoming a strong communicator. Do that and you will be noticed. 

Tips for Women in Compensation Negotiations

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Negotiating terms and conditions of contracts following a hiring offer can be a daunting experience for everyone. It has been noted by many observers, including women, that women have not been as savvy as men in negotiating compensation packages. This has resulted in depressed wages for comparable work being performed by men. Breaking that mold has been hard. In many ways “business” has been set up to be a man’s world with male behaviors dominating the way business is conducted. 

One of the biggest impediments for women has been the inclination to not cause what they perceive as conflict. By asking for optimal compensation, they too often feel they are rocking the boat and making waves. Throughout much of their lives they are making peace and taking care of others, which does not necessarily prepare them for the give and take and struggle of compensation negotiations. 

Here are some tips that I think will help to balance the situation and benefit women in their career development. 

  1. Negotiating is a combination of art and science. Doing your research prior to negotiating is very important (which I will get into more below), but the art is equally important and has to do with body language, eye contact, authoritative voice, and the general vibes you give. I believe one’s interview and negotiating stance is enhanced by accepting that both domains deserve attention.
  2. When being given a job it is expected that you will be thrilled about being offered the position. I would caution against letting exhilaration dictate too much of your negotiating posture. Try for a little detachment internally and in negotiations with the new employer, such that you do not lose sight of a degree of objectivity which can strengthen your hand.
  3. Be clear on what you want as components of your overall compensation package. In addition to salary try placing an emotional and financial value on things like vacation, personal leave, and sick time; a telecommuting option; a degree of work autonomy; bonuses; a desire for a results-only-work-environment; appraisal methods; etc. You may be willing to dial salary down to ratchet some of these other benefits up.
  4. You are in a better negotiating position the clearer you are about “internal equity”, i.e., what the employment market supports regarding your position. Many mention going to Glassdoor.com and Salary.com, which is fine. But I would expand the search to include Vault. com; The Occupational Outlook Handbook on bls.gov; onetcenter.com; and most importantly Pay Scale. Pay Scale does a great job of providing detailed salary reports for a variety of positions. They offer a free customized one for people who are starting to check them out. I recommend ordering one of these. You will feel better armed with data.
  5. Yes, ask for relatively high compensation but without eliminating you from consideration or causing them to rescind the offer. Support the request with as many examples of transferable and related accomplishments from current and past experiences as possible in addition to tactfully communicating that you want to be lured away from your current compensation package where you now work. This is your “value add” pitch.
  6. You may want to consider asking for performance benchmarks, perhaps in six months, communicating to them you would like the entertain the notion of a “raise” in the near term, if it is looking like their final offer may come in a bit low for you.
  7. Keep in mind the long-term career benefit when negotiating the short-term details. This job may mark a turn that can lead to career development benefits in your chosen field far into the future. This development potential may outweigh some “lost” benefits you may experience over the next year or two.

Women are already making significant gains in education and employment in this fast-growing and knowledge-based economy. It only makes sense that compensation should follow. 

Expertise Drives the Future of Employment

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Everybody wants a job. You want to go out, get hired by somebody, perform some pre-determined tasks, get paid, and go home. Simple, right? It’s the way it has always been. 

But hold on a moment. The news is that working at a job will not be the same for much longer. The nature of the job is undergoing a radical shift as we become more of a knowledge-based economy. We are being told those who do not keep up with how employment is changing will be at a disadvantage in the employment marketplace going forward. 

Because American workers are having to engage much more directly with global competitors, companies are required to shift the way they structure operations and employees are being forced to face a new definition of what being successful means. 

The knowledge-based organization and its talent force must be more agile to meet growing business demands. They need to learn fast, communicate clearly, and adapt to change. The old method of presenting a long list of past experiences on your resume as evidence that you have current value is giving way to demonstrating that you have just-in-time needed expertise that can be applied from day one. 

It is expertise more than experience that separates the future oriented worker from the old-fashioned one. If you can link your past experiences to applicable expertise that is desired now, then great. You are ready to move forward. But if you think that just having a long history of meeting the same type of responsibilities in a similar manner over time is going to separate you from the pack, then think again. 

Legacy skills are taking a back seat to modernized specialized skills. Preparing for a world that honors creative and deep specializations expressed within cross-functional teams, which are not limited by borders and silos, is the future for the successful worker. 

Becoming specialized is not anything new, but it is becoming increasingly important. Traditionally we have looked at our interests and early skills, matched them up with a pre-existing list of career options, and made a choice about what we would do for work.  

But increasingly it is too hard to fix a list of stable careers. Technology is generating new specialties both directly and indirectly all the time. From mobile branding experts to global collaboration facilitators, the brave new world is characterized by more speed, more innovation, and greater challenges requiring novel solutions. This can also mean blending your skills into new and valuable hybrids that reflect both your interests and what sells. 

Refining a set of skills, collecting quantifiable and qualitative data as evidence of proficiency, and continuously scanning the employment horizon for companies coveting your expertise is the strategy to best position yourself for opportunity. 

This strategy is helped enormously by logging your accomplishments. Each professional should have a portfolio or running record of their achievements, summarized in a resume, telling the story of how expertise has and is developing. There is a big difference between telling what your expertise is and presenting confirmation of what it is. 

Much is said about the importance of well-functioning teams in the workplace and with good reason. Shared and collaborative expertise enhances the strength and competitiveness of organizations. Merging common and related spheres of expertise not only benefits companies, but each of the internal players as well. Organizations that encourage continuous learning, demonstrate a culture of agility, and hire innate potential over raw experience increase their chances of attracting and retaining a high level of expertise in their workforce. 

So, instead of everybody wanting a job we may soon see everybody wanting a project requiring their specialty. Adjusting your perspective now on what a job means will help your upcoming employment prospects. 

Making a Resume Recruiter-Ready

Posted on by Bill Ryan

As is the case with most industries, the profession of resume writing is trending in new directions and undergoing changes. As writers, we know that to make resumes effective for their primary purpose, getting the job candidate an interview, we must please not only the job searcher, but perhaps more importantly the recruiter or hiring manager viewing the resume. 

Career Directors International, a global professional organization for career professionals, recently published their 2012 survey of hiring authorities, so that we in the business can track the latest preferences of recruiters, hiring managers, and others who source talent when viewing resumes to make hiring decisions. 

As one who wants to present my clients in the best possible light to these stakeholders, what they think and want matters to me a lot. In sharing some of the more salient, and frankly unexpected, findings of the survey, we can also review what many believe to be conventional wisdom, or should I say old fashioned thinking, about the construction of resumes. 

At the top of the list is the notion that resumes need to be one-page only. Only 6% of the respondents felt that way (21% did regarding blue collar resumes) with 34% preferring two pages and a surprising 37% feeling that length is not an issue if the content is quality. 

Given how busy these people are you would think they would want as brief a document as possible, but apparently not so. Let us not assume this means they want pages of verbose fluff. Three-quarters of the respondents already think that there is too much embellishment in resumes, and they want less irrelevant wordiness, not more. 

Functional resumes are the type that are focused on skills and competencies rather than chronological work histories. They are often used by people who have gaps in their work experience or who are just entering or returning to the workforce after a long absence. General thinking is that recruiters do not like them because of the perceived lack of consistent work experience. But a whopping 72% said “yes” or “maybe” they would consider interviewing a candidate with a functional resume and without a first-impression employment history timeline. Looks like what you can do might be starting to trump your longevity at work. 

One of the big challenges in resume preparation is writing the professional summary that serves as a lead in grabbing the attention of the reader. It should tightly communicate brand, strength, and achievement. The question often is whether to include one, and if so, should it be short or long. 

Again, a surprise finding is that 43% are fine with a longer summary version, 18% with a shorter version, and only 17% saying to skip it entirely. A combined 61% of respondents are therefore saying to have a professional summary. The unexpected part in this response comes in that reading a longer summary is okay with busy people. I am getting the message that good information is desired even for those with full schedules. 

Finally, there is a tendency to include new elements into resumes, such as links or QR codes to social media profiles or to present resumes as web-based videos. My assumption has been that most recruiters do not like straying too far from predictable, if not traditional, resume styles. Two-thirds said looking at external links is something they would consider, but only 13% would bother with video resumes. Sounds like putting time and energy into your LinkedIn profile may get more viewership than your self-promoting YouTube video. 

The bottom line is that there are few, if any, certainties when it comes to preparing your resume for competition. What is in today probably will be out tomorrow. But one absolute appears to remain: Having a resume that communicates high quality accomplishments and core competencies and that speaks to the position to which you are applying. 

Is There Really a Talent Shortage?

Posted on by Bill Ryan

There are some common claims being tossed around in the national self-diagnosis now occurring of why hiring is not significantly picking up. Declarations such as employers are learning to do more with fewer employees and that there is too much economic uncertainty to risk hiring employees, especially after how bad businesses were hurt at the start of the recession, are two assertions often heard. 

There is another claim that does not get quite as much play but is starting to be heard often enough. It is that employers cannot hire as much as they would like because there is a talent shortage. 

Apparently, the workplace is changing so rapidly that schools and the individuals attending them cannot keep up with newly designed job descriptions, many of which contain specialty requirements. This seems particularly true in industries such as IT and engineering.  

However, the alleged shortage is occurring throughout the workforce — or so many employers tell us. We can easily be left with the impression that growth in innovation is now so exponential that it is the fault of our lagging workforce not preparing themselves briskly enough for the new world order. 

So, is there really a talent shortage? Upon closer examination it may be that employers are unwittingly perpetuating a shortage and dampening hiring as a result. 

Yes, employers do feel there is something wrong with the candidate pool. And that something is that candidates are not qualified enough. If there were more qualified candidates, there would be more hiring. This seems to be their charge. It must be the candidates’ problem, right? 

But let us look at how the employer landscape has changed for potential employees. Employers are extremely cost conscious because of the recession. This has caused them to reduce and consolidate their workforces. Specialty hybrid positions have been created to produce more multiple-skilled positions than existed pre-recession. Therefore, when an opening occurs, a candidate is supposed to be specialized in not just one skill set but in more than one. Obviously, the pool of likely candidates just shrunk a lot. 

Let us dig a little deeper. Among the costs being saved is in reducing or eliminating training and development. Why spend on onboarding when you can hire plug and play defacto independent contractors for specific projects? With no onboarding activities the expectation is that candidates must be ready to produce with little to no ramp-up time. This may discourage candidates from applying or is the cause of early departures once hired.  

Another issue employers must contend with is the huge number of applicants sending in applications. A screening process must be used that selects out all but the “best”. This increasingly means use of applicant tracking system software. Two issues with this type of software. One is that it is not always very nuanced enough or sophisticated. Second, use of even the most effective software requires skillful and dedicated HR use, another area seeing cost cutting. 

Potential talent is being screened out. A related issue for employers is maybe they could at least let applicants know that their application was received and processed, then they wouldn’t be left wondering if their application ever made to you, reducing the number of times they apply for the same position. 

Sure, the workplace is changing, and it is important for candidates to keep skills current and to apply to only those positions for which they are qualified to succeed. But employers also have a responsibility to examine their hiring practices to see if they are contributing to not only their own “talent shortage”, but also to the stubbornly low levels of hiring nationwide. 

To State the Obvious

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is time to start stating the obvious. This is not your garden variety recession. We are not likely to bounce back to either the levels or type of employment that we had prior to 2008.  

Yes, I know technically we are no longer in a recession, because we have not had two consecutive negative growth quarters since 2009. To be precise we are in a period of sluggish GDP growth. But to most Americans it feels as if the recession that started in December 2007 is still with us. This has gone on longer than it took the U.S. to defeat Germany and Japan in World War II! 

Since we are stating the obvious, let us dispel a myth. No, the recession and its length are not Barack Obama’s fault. Carrying on with that thinking takes us off reflecting on what is really going on and how we need to adjust. Does anyone out there really think that if John McCain and Sarah Palin or even Mitt Romney had won the 2008 Presidential election that the economy would be all that much different today?  

What we are experiencing is much bigger than Republicans vs. Democrats and their ideologies. The world is undergoing a fundamental transition, a realignment of wealth and power, and we Americans better be ready to compete in the emerging global economy unless we want to be yesterday’s story. 

My principal economic concern has to do with joblessness. A society that does not have most of its citizenry gainfully employed is a society experiencing too much hardship. My principal concern is not that we are relinquishing our former status of disproportionately over-consuming the world’s resources. That was bound to change sooner or later. Much of the rest of the world is catching or has caught up to us in terms of living standards. America now must share more resources, like oil, and that is part of the pain we are feeling. 

But back to employment. Some fundamental job-related trends were underway before the recession and have been accelerated by it. For example, increasing self-employment, more engagement in project or portfolio work, and a pick-up in the passive candidate or hidden job market (think networking). Realizing these trends and getting-with-the-program, as it were, will help job searchers prepare. 

Note that a growing trend is not to sit for hours scrolling through postings on job board sites and electronically broadcasting your resume willy-nilly. To be clear, I am not saying do not try to get your defined message and brand out there, but do not think that sitting at a computer alone is a well-rounded job search. It is not. 

Securing fulfilling employment is no more complex than weight loss. Want to lose weight? Eat fewer calories and exercise more. Want to advance a career? Develop self-marketable expertise. As simple as this sounds, we all know it can be profoundly difficult to implement. Just as we know to not fall for diet fads, we should also know to avoid simplistic messages, especially from politicians, who proclaim we can return to old patterns of employment. 

A globally competitive workforce requires intelligence, foresight, creativity, and resilience. You are at root your own boss. Examine the landscape before you and take appropriate action. Rely as little as you can on the benevolence of corporate deal makers to pave the way out of the employment malaise. If your skills intersect with commercial needs, great. But if you find there are no doors to open, then you may have to build a door. 

Americans have traditionally thrived, because of independent and innovative thinking. These times call for as much of that as any other time in our history. Do not wait for monthly Labor Department statistics to energize you. To state the obvious, get out there and make it happen. 

Confronting Age Discrimination in the Workplace

Posted on by Bill Ryan

By now it is conventional wisdom that age discrimination against hiring workers 50+ years of age has become excessive in recent years. Examples are becoming too numerous to count. 

Here is one. I just heard from a client the other day about a directive he had heard about from a friend which was given where the friend works and was issued by an HR manager that went something like, “Give me all the names of employees over the age of 50.” The inference was clear. They were being targeted for something. Tell me. What do you think it was for? A bonus for loyalty, hard work, and willingness to slog for long hours? I doubt it. It sounds as if they were being rounded up like cattle to be sent to the slaughterhouse. 

The conversation about what to do for this cohort of clients is generating chatter among career counselors and coaches for good reason. We are finding that a lot of clients are experiencing age bias and want to know what to do about it. Some of the advice I hear and read being shared is of the obvious type, such as do not list a work history longer than 15 years and do not put any graduation dates on your resume. I have to say, no matter who it is, I do not like putting any year that begins with the number “19” on a resume anymore. 

Other advice that I like has to do with how the mature worker presents him or herself. Show energy and a positive attitude. Keep your body looking decent by controlling weight, taking care of yellow teeth, and retaining the healthy look that comes from not eating poorly and drinking too much. Have a professional photographer take the picture that is placed on your online profiles, so the vigor and glow show through. 

Some parts of aging you cannot control. Employers seem to fear higher health care costs, because of the relatively advanced age, for example. But of the things you can control as you mature with your career you should. Keep a portfolio or log of achievements, particularly those of the past 10–15 years. Be able to demonstrate that you have made solid contributions that matter to employers now and are likely to be valued for the foreseeable future. 

Never stop building your intellectual and social capital within your profession. Be able to show that you are on top of current trends and best practices. Have well-founded opinions about the future of your industry. Know what are the issues, challenges, and likely solutions that will face your profession in the coming years. In other words, stay relevant. And keep building and cultivating those professional relationships, keeping you in the game. Participate in discussions and presentations that continuously give the impression that you are engaged. 

A workplace characteristic that is highly valued now and will be going forward has to do with the skill employees can show in collaborative teamwork that is not limited by arbitrary boundaries and which breaks down silos. Flatter organizations are less departmental and more creative in the way experts interact. 

Although evolving organizational structures may be new, try hard to resist the temptation to think they are bad. Get with the program. One of the great raps against the older worker is their resistance to change. Rather, you should dive into these innovative ways of communicating and sharing to show that you not only embrace inventive ways of working, but that you can also bring a perspective to the conversation and strategic planning discussions which others may not be able to. 

No doubt about it — it is tough out there and likely to remain so for the older worker. If you are one who does not want to retire earlier than you thought you were going to, then combat this trend with some steps that will keep you active and connected for years to come. 

Retail Sales as a Possible Career Choice

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Lots of people work in retail. Whether one has chosen it as a career or is parked there temporarily as they try to put their career plans together, retail employment occupies the time and energy of millions of employees. 

Retail is viewed simultaneously as both career-lite by some and then again very seriously, particularly for managers and people passionate about the product they are selling. Trying to determine if long-term work in retail is right for you requires a bit of contemplation and planning. 

By retail we generally mean selling products in a brick-and-mortar store. How much longer this will last is uncertain. On the one hand it is obvious that millions still love to “go shopping”, i.e., getting into a car, driving to a store where you can browse, selecting items to buy, packing them into the car, and taking them home. 

But buying products is migrating much more to an online shopping practice that leaves the driving to UPS and FedEx. Come home from work and there awaits the product you ordered two days ago from your phone while watching TV. Even Best Buy, which appeared victorious when defeating Circuit City in the consumer electronics war a few years ago, is now in trouble. Are they being challenged by another big box outlet? No. They are being threatened by Internet shopping. 

So, expecting a long career in retail is like expecting certainty in any kind career today — do not count on it. But does that mean devoting your career to selling products is a dead end? Not necessarily. Let us look at a company that knows a thing or two about the Internet, but that also performs retail selling at a high end. 

Apple Retail Stores, yeah, the computer guys, manage to create a superior shopping experience for consumers. Ever walk into one of these glass and white steel shops? They are as clean and antiseptic as the spacecraft on 2001 A Space Odyssey and occupied by intelligent, enthusiastic, and hip salespeople. Apple has done a great job of not only creating a compelling store, but they have mastered providing high quality customer service and an overall attractive customer feel.   

They have a way of dividing and training their sales teams into Experts, Specialists, Geniuses, and Creatives. Experts determine what you need and then send you to Specialists who understand the products inside and out or to Geniuses who are real live human tech support. Maybe a chat with a Creative is needed so that you can truly geek out with someone who knows your Mac at a higher level. Together they work to deliver the revered Apple brand at the most personal of levels while leaving the consumer feeling that they are being well cared for. 

It is possible to work in high quality retail as our friends at Apple have shown. And it stands to reason that this model could work with other products as well. Perhaps a way to look at a career in retail is to think about which of these Apple-like categories you may fall into and then hone your skill in one or more of these select selling areas. 

Combining product expertise with person-to-person outreach to consumers looking for solutions can develop into a wonderful career, whether it is in a real or in a virtual store. 

Reflections On My Business

Posted on by Bill Ryan

With this, my 100th blog posting since opening my career development business Ryan Career Services LLC in January 2009, I am compelled to stray from my usual pattern of offering career advice to instead summarizing how the business experience has been for me and to reflect on what I have learned from this venture.

Following a 31-year career in public education, which I left in 2008, I was primed to try something completely different — an entrepreneurial enterprise that capitalized on strengths I had developed as a teacher. Primarily, to assist each individual to become the best they could be.

I had been working on the concept, including the writing of a business plan, for three years prior to formally offering career counseling, coaching, and resume/cover letter writing services. Although I felt qualified to deliver a superior experience for clients I found myself faced with two big uncertainties:

1. Was there really a viable market for these services just waiting to be tapped into?

2. What impact would the start of the most serious economic recession since the Great Depression have on the success of my business?

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard from people that “so many must need what you are offering during these times!” But what I found instead was that I was competing against the need for people to make sure they had food and shelter as the unemployment rate continued to rise.

The first year had an expected financial loss. I was not naïve enough to think a profit was to be realized at the outset. Despite the anxiety associated with launching a business, however, what I most feel now about that first year is profound gratefulness for the clients I did have who placed their trust and dollars with me.

I had two goals for year two. One was to increase my knowledge and skill and to refine my expertise. This did happen and continues to this day. I wanted to strike a balance between what service I could credibly provide with what service clients most wanted. I did get closer, but realized that this would be an ongoing process. What I learned from teaching came to mind — there is no pinnacle of perfection. You always keep learning.

The second goal had to do with trying to build a positive cash flow. Quite simply I wanted revenues to at least match expenditures. I achieved that point by the end of the third quarter and have never looked back.

Two significant lessons from year two included:

1. Half of my time was being spent on marketing, which I found interesting, but had no experience with at all. I can say, however, that I became impressed with the power and cost effectiveness of pay-per-click campaigns on Google AdWords. That along with continued optimization of my website has strongly increased my exposure.

2. The realization that career development was becoming more technological, in that how a client appeared online correlated more and more with the success of their career and employment prospects. It was during this time that I added a third leg to my stool, that of Online Profile Management. I became committed to being a go-to professional in this early stage industry.

By year three I reached an important milestone by earning one of the nation’s most prestigious resume writing credentials, the ACRW or Academy Certified Resume Writer. This has boosted not only my writing capacity, but my client base. Consequently I also found my writing going into two additional areas along with resumes and cover letters: LinkedIn Profiles and Professional Biographies.

Financially, I set a specific revenue-to-expense ratio goal to reach by year’s end that I again hit by the end of Q3. I began paying myself for the first time and found that my first big uncertainty from the start was no longer one. I became convinced that there is a market for these services.

But there was another significant risk to take. I knew I would get to this at some point and the beginning of year four, my current year, was the time to take it. I had always envisioned the business becoming one that drew in clients from around the country and that I would not be too reliant on just one geographical region, like New Hampshire. I knew that my lifestyle was starting to shift to one that involved more travel and living for extended periods in other places beyond NH. I have always felt that technology gave me the tools to merge a mobile style of living with the ability to continuously bring in work no matter where I was — as long as I had an Internet connection.

The past three months gave me an opportunity to test this concept out. I just finished living in Los Angeles for the winter, which is about as far away as one can get from NH while still being in the U.S. What have I learned?

1. The writing services are much more mobile than counseling. I provide resumes, cover letters, online profile, and professional biography writing services to clients from around the country who I never meet face to face. Many times we may never even speak on the phone. Email is an incredibly efficient means of conducting this end of the business.

2. How to offer career counseling and coaching from afar remains elusive. Despite Skype, webcams, and video conferencing technology the adoption rate for utilizing these tools into a counseling context is slow. For the issues that are raised in these types of sessions, the preferred means of contact is still face to face. I am still working on figuring this one out.

3. Marketing on a national level can be a lot more expensive than on a state or regional level. Google AdWords is based on selecting geographies to showcase your ads. That is no longer as relevant to me as before, even if I pick multiple locations to post ads. Pay-per-click with sites that are more national and targeted to professionals, such as LinkedIn, may be more appropriate. I shall see.

Financially, I have lost ground as I try to shift to building a more national client base. But I am confident that I can make this work eventually.

The other challenge that I have faced is to develop a resume writing tutorial service that is usable from my website for those clients who want to try their own hand at writing a resume, but who need a teacher to guide them. I have begun working with a web developer who has experience in course management software. I hope to have this up and running by the end of year four.

In closing, I have to say that my basic premise, which has always been that the quality of one’s life is tightly linked to the character of their work, has been reinforced by working with hundreds of clients to date. As the saying goes, do what you love and you will never work a day in your life, still holds. I feel very fortunate to be playing a small role in helping people reach that goal.

 

 

 

Success and Happiness

Posted on by Bill Ryan

We have all been taught that if we toil, apply ourselves, and put our noses to the grindstone that we can attain success which leads to happiness. Contentment, we are told, must be preceded by success, which in turn must be preceded by hard work that is often associated with not being happy. This cause-and-effect paradigm is an American truism harkening back to our earliest past. And it continues to find widespread expression, particularly with a bullying management style that implores workers to row harder. 

But could it be possible that the success/happiness formula should be viewed in reverse? Rather, happiness begets success. There is a researcher and writer named Shawn Achor who postulates in his book The Happiness Advantage that conventional thinking has this cause-and-effect sequence wrong. He is instead promoting the notion that happiness forms the groundwork for success to occur. Achieving a grand objective like finding deep satisfaction from one’s work can best be reached by approaching your job from a positive place to begin with. Having a more enlightened outlook and energized perspective is preparatory to meeting your goals. 

The brain may be better suited toward intelligence and innovation when the emotional state is uplifted. Possible routes to greater success become apparent with a more resilient and stress-free mind. If we consider for a moment that Achor has this right, then it begs the question of how we are all so off track. We as a culture seem to have accepted the belief that negativity, in the form of unpleasant exertion, sets the stage for a better life to come. 

I think of the mythic entrepreneur who works day and night to launch and grow a business and then retires many years down the road, living with the gratification of a job well done. Working “day and night” sounds unpleasant, doesn’t it? But for the truly successful it may not be. The difference between finding success and just getting a job done may come from the level of positive thinking present in the individual. 

The problem with thinking of success in a traditional sense is that it is so elusive. When we successfully reach a work quota, then management sets a higher goal. If we increased revenues by 18% this month, then we need to hit 22% next month. The goal post is always being placed just a little further away, the bar is raised just a little higher to meet success. Attainment becomes fleeting, a temporary waystation on the road to something bigger and better. This set of circumstances has really become the norm in these post-recession days of workplaces always trying to do more with less. 

Perhaps our competitive nature has us on edge in ways that detract from the preconditions necessary to approach our objectives. When work becomes a slog, our positivity slips away and the “success” we achieve may be of a lower quality than is otherwise possible. Maybe it is time to think that having a more positive attitude makes us more productive. 

If an elevated level of positivity leads to a more productive and higher quality success, then how do we get to this starting place? Reframing your perspective may be the place to begin. Note the good stuff around you, appreciate what is right, favorable, and agreeable in your daily life and in the work you do. Being kind to others whenever will raise your mood and influence your behavior. Take the time to be healthy and make lifestyle choices that are potent for your mind and body. As counterintuitive as it may sound, you may have to work at being positive. If we over-focus on the negative aspects of our work or feel happiness is to be delayed until success is found, then we may never really get there. 

Happiness need not be a dreamy far away goal. Instead, it may be a state of mind that we continually build upon no matter where we are in the success cycle. 

Preparing For the Changing Workplace

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I recently read an article in a statewide business news publication written by a respected and intelligent business pro who was also an obvious Baby Boomer. In it he directed a subtle jab at LinkedIn, the social media website dedicated to professionals, and with it a not-so-subtle poke at social media in general. 

Although I agree with his point that time is too valuable to waste on frivolous or trivial matters, I do not think this necessarily applies to social media. But what struck me more was the tone of the piece, which I place as another example of a problem older generation workers have in succeeding in today’s job market. 

As I have indicated in the past, we are living through a period of age bias when it comes to hiring mature workers, many of whom were laid off aggressively during the recession. To date, much of this age cohort is struggling to get re-employed. A key reason for the reluctance to bring mature workers back on board, despite their vast experience and accumulated wisdom, is because they are not keeping up with, and in many cases resisting, technological changes that are largely being driven by the generation of their children. And with each passing day it is this emerging younger section of the workforce that is setting hiring policies. 

Rapid innovations of a technological nature seem to fall into two main interrelated areas: Information Search/Management and Interpersonal Connectivity. Efficiently reaching out to grab the data you want when you need it and connecting to people you need to when you want them is driving much of the hardware, software, and web-based applications currently available and under development. 

The necessity of achieving this efficiency is reflected in many workplaces today and that is expected to grow in time. As a result, the current and future workforce is expected to be adept with the tools and apps of information management and connectivity. Just as many employees now are expected to use email and word processors, a similar familiarity is becoming expected with various types of social media and Internet navigation. 

There is no question that keeping up with these new demands can be daunting and intimidating for some, particularly for the older folks among us. When we look at the younger generation and see that their daily use of Facebook and smart phones is as common to them as telephone and television are to us, it can leave us feeling out of touch. 

One option often taken by older workers is to develop an attitude that the way young people act is superficial, misguided, or even wrong. We think that we got by just fine without these gadgets and that these changes are not necessary. Now does it sound familiar from our distant Boomer past that an older generation just didn’t get the younger one? 

The larger issue is accepting change. Adaptability is one of the most important and employable traits a person can have, especially during the time of exponential change we live in now. Unfortunately, older workers are too often feeding the perception that we are not adaptable and even potential impediments to innovation. When we observe a now common practice and describe it as a bandwagon or fad, we place ourselves out of the new mainstream. If you are trying to present yourself as relevant in today’s workplace this is not a message you should be broadcasting. 

The challenge for mature workers is to merge their attributes of solid work ethic, tenacity, and big picture viewpoint with the obvious and fluid developments of conducting business in the modern era. We do not have to necessarily embrace and personally adopt every new practice, but it is in our interests to at least try to understand the trends that underlie them. 

When you think about it, Baby Boomers were the ones who once prided themselves on agitating traditional thinking and setting out to create a new world. If any generation should be able to show flexibility and have an appreciation for new ways of doing things it should be them. 

Networking For Introverts

Posted on by Bill Ryan

One of the most disheartening things for an introverted job seeker to hear is that networking is by far the most effective means of finding new employment. 

Networking conjures images of energetic engagement in small talk or worse yet, meaningful conversation with total strangers! It might not be so bad if the introvert could just position themselves in a designated spot and gregarious people could walk over one at a time and begin the dialogue. But, of course, insult must be added to injury, because it is often necessary for the introvert to commence an outreach to others. 

One of the great paradoxes of our time is that despite all our technologically remote connectivity, a valuable face to face relationship is more important than ever in career development. Looking for work by just visiting online job boards and social media sites is not good enough. You still must know how to mix it up with real people to get ahead. 

Introverts are, well, reserved. They can be much better at avoiding networking events than they are at attending them with the greater challenge being to turn them into productive job seeking sessions. I should know. I am by nature an introvert and have been spending a lifetime learning how to not let this potentially negative side inhibit me professionally. The good news is that introverts can learn to turn their inwardly focused attributes into networking strengths. 

Let’s begin by looking at some common traits introverts typically display that can come in handy with networking. Here is one. Introverts really value close relationships, and a few deep ones are better than lots of superficial ones. They do this by caring for the welfare and happiness of others. Time is spent being good listeners and asking probing questions to make sure they clearly understand the perspectives of others. 

Another one is that people with introverted tendencies usually prefer structured and goal-driven contact with others, particularly in a work-related context, which job hunting is. So, planning the outreach such that it is designed to cover specific topics, answer targeted questions, and contact a pre-determined number of people are measurable ways of satisfying that a purpose is being achieved with the networking effort. 

Getting back to introverts having a few close connections. Take a trusted companion along with you to a networking event. Have them be your moral support, your sounding board, and your feedback loop, so that you can get through this and maybe even grow as a result. 

Finally, put your research skills to use. Introverts are good at digging for data online and in print. Study up on the people you want to know better and share tidbits of knowledge with them, leaving the impression that you care about your new contacts and what they do. 

Whether one is extroverted or introverted it is good to push yourself out of your comfort zone on occasion. By doing so we learn and grow. Being adaptable is an important survival skill for the 21st century. And this skill cannot be strengthened by hiding in a shell. Introverts can and do adapt to challenging situations just like everyone else. Finding that zone, which allows you to build purposeful relationships can be some of the most rewarding, albeit not the easiest, time spent during your job search. 

The Six Biggest Blunders of Job Applicants

Posted on by Bill Ryan

With an uptick in hiring expected this year the combination of those trying to get back into the workforce and those currently hired but wanting new positions will mean that hiring competitiveness is likely to remain high. 

Yet not every job seeker apparently knows how to compete. Common complaints can be heard from company interview teams, HR personnel, and recruiters about what kinds of job applicant behaviors lead to rejection. If your goal is to make a potential employer say, “You’re hired!”, then be aware of what turns them off and resolve to bring your A-game to the interview. 

Following are six frequent blunders I read about from those looking to align talent with employment: 

Blunder #1: Being Sloppy with the Basics: Examples are having a poorly thrown together resume, showing up late for and/or carrying a cup of coffee to an interview, and not being truthful about claims of past work that will easily be found out during a background check. Also, do not talk trash about your former employer. Nothing says “troublemaker” like an interviewee going on about what a jerk their last boss was. 

Blunder #2: Not Doing Your Homework: It is hard to believe, but there are people applying for jobs with companies they know nothing about. Compare that to the applicant who can cite statistics, market advantage, and the mission of the company. Having a sense of the culture matters, too. Walking into a casual creative work environment wearing a Brooks Brothers could be a “Whoops!” moment. 

Blunder #3: What Can You Do for Me?: I hope you still are not applying for jobs thinking that a company’s first concern is the health of your career track. You are going there to serve them and meet their needs. Addressing the gaps, shortages, threats, and obstacles that impede productivity are what matter most to hiring managers. Go prepared to present yourself as the value they crave to help them be successful. 

Blunder #4: Not Preparing for the Interview: Do not try to wing it. Interviews may be stressful, but they are not rocket science. Describe your well-rehearsed value proposition; be able to give examples of how you were a star performer; be ready to cite a couple of past weaknesses you are improving; and be quick on your feet to tell how you would handle a hypothetical challenge thrown at you. 

Blunder#5: Doing All Job Hunting Online: I still hear this a lot. People’s idea of a complete job hunt is going to online job boards and posting their resume, then waiting for the interview requests to roll in. This should be a small part of the search. The bigger effort should be to shoe-leather your network. Get and stay in touch with the rich set of contacts you should have built up to see what opportunities they may have. Do not forget to reach out to them with offers of help as well. 

Blunder #6: Not Presenting Yourself as a Professional: Demeanor, comportment, body language, being well spoken, and projecting confidence all play an important part in how you are perceived. When your game is off in any of these areas it shows and works against you. The belief is that the more competent someone is it will show in how they hold themselves. Haven’t you noticed how true this is? 

Increased hiring, if in fact that is what we are starting to experience, should not translate into not having to work exceptionally hard for those new jobs. On the contrary, it means you just need to be sharper than ever before. 

How To Deal with Three Sticky Interview Questions

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The good news is that you have been called in for an interview! But wait just a minute! The bad news is that you have been called in for an interview! 

The long-awaited interview can be your ticket to a new and better job, but it can also be an anxiety producer that keeps you up nights worrying. You are going to be called on to perform at a high level by people who may determine the course of your career and therefore your future. There is no easy way to say it — this is a critical chance to show them what you are made of. 

Getting into the proper mindset is important. First, know that you need to prepare for the event. Second, realize you cannot memorize and rehearse every move you are going to make. (Translation: over-preparation can hurt you.) Third, you are going to have to rely on some confidence, instinct, and self-knowledge. 

Preparation for an interview involves a few basic things. Among them is researching the potential employer, which will make you better able to align your skill set with their needs. Also, anticipate that you will need to communicate with a positive attitude, subject matter expertise, interpersonal skills, and problem-solving ability as well. 

But knowing the type of questions you may be asked is one of the best ways to prepare. The purpose here is to see if you are a good fit for the open position. This is accomplished by directing questioning to see if you have the required skills, knowledge, and abilities to perform optimally. To determine this, interviewers usually select questions that are behavioral and situational. 

Behavioral questions are designed to analyze actual instances that you have faced in the past to see how you performed. A school principal may be asked how they handled an irate parent of a student, for example. Situational questions are similar except that the context is hypothetical. So, a structural engineer may be asked what immediate steps she would follow if metal fatigue was identified in bridge supports. 

But an interview team is probably going to want to get a general sense of your overall character beyond just your specific qualifications. There are three questions that often come up to elicit this: 

#1: What is an example of a time you made a real difference for your employer? Even if you felt that you were just a cog in a machine, being prepared to explain why you were a good cog will help your cause. Telling how you increased production, saved costs, and handled unique challenges are ways of answering this question. Have a pertinent story or two prepared to tell. And I do mean story, not just a short one or two sentence response. 

#2: How do you deal with conflict on the job? No matter the industry, one of the most common complaints of management involves employees, including managers, who cannot get along with colleagues or customers. Poor communication and mismatched personality types lead to lost productivity and poor morale. Having examples of how you did not contribute to and even improved a negative social climate at work will show you to be the team player every employer wants. 

#3: Why did you leave your last job? Be honest. If the reason is because you truly see the next opportunity as an advancement for the new employer and your career, then the question is a softball. But if you were terminated, then answering honestly becomes more challenging. Still, do not come across victimized. Focus on what you learned and how it has made you grow and explain how you are now even better prepared for adding value to their operation. 

Here is your chance to shine, not shake. Do your part to turn the interview into a golden moment. 

Enhancing Your LinkedIn Profile

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Establishing a solid LinkedIn (LI) profile is the first step to managing your overall professional online profile. If you are in the market for a new job, it is helpful to know that recruiters are all over LinkedIn looking for talent. Not being present at all on LinkedIn is a big mistake in today’s technical and connected world. But almost as bad as not showing up is having a mediocre or shoddy profile. It screams of a lack of professional effort. So, to make the most of your LI profile building time here are some tips that will leave you looking sharp. 

Before starting enhancements, you should know about a couple of privacy controls. If you are like most busy people, you may be thinking that you will chip away at your profile improvements piecemeal when time allows. But as any LinkedIn user knows, you get periodic updates that show the activity levels of your connections. Now there may be occasions when you do not want your LI world to know that you are upgrading your profile too frequently. It can give the impression that you are looking for other work, which may be off-putting to your current colleagues. If this issue is one of yours, then look for the “Turn on/off your activity broadcasts” link in the Privacy Controls sections of Settings. 

You also have the option of selecting who can see your activity feed in the same Privacy Controls area. You can choose from everyone, your connections, your network (connections plus group members), or “Only you”. The latter essentially eliminates anyone from seeing your editing activity. 

With activity viewing determined, you are ready to start tinkering with your Introduction field: 

  • Headline: This is important. It should begin with a short description of your professional expertise rather than just listing your current job title and employer’s name. Make this headline searchable by selecting key words that home in on your specialty. 
  • Picture: Do not just crop a decent looking detail from a larger JPG. Get a headshot taken by a professional photographer. 
  • Connections: Sure, the more you have the more connected you look. But do not just invite anyone to be a connection. Choose from people who you respect and vice versa. Quality professionals provide more opportunity than a stuffed ballot box. And I must admit that I have a gripe when one’s contact list is closed. Shouldn’t a viewer be able to see who your connections are? After all, networking is what LI is all about. 
  • Recommendations: Try to get at least three. These do not have to be essays either. Well written and complimentary short paragraphs can be just fine. 
  • Website links: You can include up to three. Your employer, a professional organization that you belong to, or better yet, your own website can all be included. 
  • Public Profile link: Go into settings and customize this to show your name without any of the trailing digits. Consider placing this link in the contact data section of your resume. 
  • Twitter feed: Short timely tweets interfaced with your LI account keep the Profile fresh. 

Once your Intro field has been polished it is time to tackle the meat of the profile: 

  • It is good to have a look that more closely resembles a well written resume, i.e., including quantifiable accomplishments. Collecting and communicating quantifiable achievements should come through strongly in your Summary and Experience sections. Always be careful to avoid just very basic responsibilities and tasks, but rather include accomplishments and results as much as possible. 
  • There are some great additional sections that can be included such as Skills, Honors and Awards, and Volunteer Activities, among many others. Try to at least add a Skills Section. 
  • Blogging or micro blogging with Twitter can keep the Profile even more dynamic and show your connections that it is being frequently updated. It also adds to the impression that you are a subject matter expert. It is not that hard to have your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages all updated simultaneously. 
  • Do you like to make PowerPoint presentations? You can design one about yourself and post it for viewers to play. 
  • Groups are one of this tool’s most powerful networking features. Joining and participating in groups allows you to learn from and influence others. It is a great way to get known by others. 
  • The Education section is straight forward enough, but if you are 45 years old or older be careful of the rampant age bias going on in today’s world of work. You do have the option of not including your graduation date. 

With a good LinkedIn profile in place, you will find that it is easier to promote yourself in a competitive employment climate. 

Meeting the Needs of Employers

Posted on by Bill Ryan

When searching for any new employment opportunity many of us tend to view the process as one focused solely on what is best for us as individuals. It certainly makes sense that we would want what is best for us, especially when it comes to such a time and energy expender as a job is. Too many of us are stuck in draining and unfulfilling jobs as it is. But by concentrating too much on what employment can do for us we may drift away from considering enough of the other side of the equation — what potential employers need from us. 

Satisfying employment is a win-win fit between employee and employer. Workers get to ply their trade in what for them is the most conducive environment for generating production and the front office gets to optimally benefit from this productivity. The sooner new job seekers understand about what paycheck providers want from their workforce the greater will be the chance of finding a fit. 

In general, employers are interested in three things: 

  1. Making money 
  1. Saving money 
  1. Becoming more efficient and competitive with achieving #1 and #2 

If you cannot address these needs concretely your chances of getting hired are slim. 

A huge contributor to the poor hiring situation these days centers around costs. Companies have become aggressive about trying to do more with less. We have all heard about how those not laid off are being squeezed by taking on the workload of those who were. And you are not only competing with other applicants for jobs, but also with cost saving procedures, equipment, and technologies. Being good is not good enough anymore. You need to convince hiring personnel that you are great. 

Think of employers as consumers out shopping for the best deal. Their logic is not different from any of the rest of us. We all want the most value for the lowest price. As demeaning as it may sound, to employers we are commodities. They won’t “buy” us unless we are seen as a valued acquisition. Being able to promote yourself as a potentially valuable possession has become Job Search 101. Fitting your value proposition firmly with their value longings is more important than ever. Once job aspirants accept this Darwinian reality the more likely they can get hired. 

Sure, when assessing an employment opportunity go ahead and think to yourself, “Here’s what’s in it for me,” but communicate to them, “Here’s what’s in it for you.” Be an answer to their questions while building emotional, social, and intellectual capital for yourself. Their goal is to succeed in business. Your goal is to succeed in your career. The two objectives need not be mutually exclusive. 

For job seekers to practice a little solution selling is not a bad idea. By focusing on solutions rather than features you can appear more appealing. Knowing clearly the threats and weaknesses faced by an employer best positions you for an outreach to them. Adequately researching a potential employer and tactically disclosing that you have done your homework in your cover letter and interview while emphasizing how you will address the three points above is smart to do. Do not just be assertive, be relevant. 

Preparing for a work search has always been strategic for the ones who got the best jobs. They have applied best practices. We can all learn useful lessons from watching how they operate. Savvy career advancers know how to promote not just their best qualities, but how they bring resolutions to the fundamental challenges of running a business. The basic strategy begins with this — believe in and champion yourself as someone they cannot do without. 

What Is Behind “Occupy Wall Street”?

Posted on by Bill Ryan

“At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress.” — Theodore Roosevelt, 1910. 

As any student of history knows, there is a relatively limited set of macro issues that ebb and flow in various manifestations over the long-term. This quote from President Roosevelt, a Republican, from 100 years ago seems tailor made for describing the discontent expressed by the current Occupy Wall Street movement underway today. Despite the movement’s excessively grassroots and decentralized focus it is an example of a long-held view that reemerges occasionally in American history — that concentration of wealth among a few and the consequent constricted distribution of resources can get the masses riled. 

The economic dislocation being experienced by so many over the past three years is starting to be seen from a perspective not generally voiced during this Great Recession until quite recently. That being the economic downturn is largely the result of intentional manipulation by the richest segment of society (the 1%) to protect their financial interests at the expense of everyone else (the 99%). 

 This is a dramatic change of view, which may have more political implications in 2012 than economic ones. It represents a possible shift in popular thinking that until now seems to have been dominated by hard right conservative ideology stating government is more to blame for the bad times. 

Even astute political observers did not see this one coming. Although the future of the movement is uncertain, now that the Occupy protests are here it is not all that surprising they are occurring. The two Americas made up of the haves and the have-nots seem to be becoming more starkly divided. Many of the nouveau-poor are not just experiencing temporary employment and financial setbacks, they are seeing their worlds turned upside down. The rules have changed, dreams have been shattered, and the new normal is much more insecure and harsher than in the past. 

If the discontent was somehow being shared across all classes and economic strata, then the anger might have been more muted. But it is not. Those who have slipped down the ladder are instead seeing the “swollen fortunes of the few” (another TR phrase) being enjoyed by people, many of whom seem to be culpable for creating this mess in the first place. 

Although the Occupy protesters can sometimes be seen as having a muddled message and questionable tactics, for example letting their energy be diluted by directly battling police (part of the 99%) more than the 1% they claim to oppose, there are elements of the current political narrative that do seem to be instigating their clamor. Here are three main motivators of Occupy Wall Street that I am hearing from their sympathizers: 

  • The Bush tax cuts for the rich must be maintained, because they make it possible for the rich to create jobs. Really? These tax cuts have been around ten years. It is hard to say they have been stimulating much job growth as of late. 
  • The more vigorous and vocal Tea Party movement promotes shrinking government thereby encouraging the growth of the private sector. But for all the wealth generation potential of the private sector they were also the ones involved in selling over-speculative housing-related investments and encouraging bad mortgages. In other words, greed and self-interest can rule in the private sector over the concerns of the commonwealth. 
  • No one from Wall Street has yet been sent to jail even though the collateral damage to the economy has been far worse than any robbery. This charge has some genuine weight. 

Shared sacrifice and wealth distribution appear to be what is called for by Occupy Wall Street. Whether a legitimate demand or not, this belief has become a new variable injected into the national conversation about how the Great Recession began and what kind of America will emerge from its wreckage. 

Ten Economic Trends That Can Drive Career Choice

Posted on by Bill Ryan

A prominent type of article or blog in the career development field, and indeed in popular culture, is of the “hottest careers of the year” variety. You know the kind, “Hottest Careers of 2012”, “Coolest Jobs for Today’s College Grads”, and “Present Day Must-Have Careers”.  

These make for interesting reading, but they do not represent a best practice approach for choosing careers to begin or to transition into. By the time someone gathers the training and education to move into a “hot career”, chances are that it could have gotten lukewarm in the meantime. 

I think a better approach in determining careers that may have some significant employment longevity comes from identifying longer-term economic trends. Although the pace of change is accelerating in the world of work, as it is around the globe in general, there are some directional swings that appear to be long lasting, if not fundamental, for the foreseeable future.  

Separating flavor-of-the month crazes from structural underlying movements can result in higher quality career decision making. If you are going to invest lots of time and money in preparing for a career, it is reasonable to expect some return for your efforts. 

Marrying individual talents with macro changes in the economy can lead to a higher degree of employment sustainability in an otherwise fluid and fickle world. But reader beware. I do not tell you how to convert these trends into careers for each of you individually. Without inventive and visionary thinking on your part, dovetailing your skill set and education into these sweeping changes will not magically happen on its own. 

Just as there are many jobs today that did not exist ten years ago, there will be many niches ten years from now that are not present today. Although not intended to be an exhaustive listing, what follows are ten economic and social trends I see as having great potential for driving career creation. 

  1. Aging population and care giving: The ubiquitous Baby Boomers are now retiring, or will be soon, at a rapid rate. Healthcare is obviously to be impacted, but so are industries that can take advantage of relatively high disposable income coinciding with their material downsizing.
  2. Growing Latinization: The language and cultural influences of Southern Europe are catching up with those of Northern and Central Europe in America. The melting pot is developing a distinctly Latin flavor that will affect industries across the board.
  3. Workplace cost controls and data driven decision making: Getting smarter with information was beginning before the recession and has now become a field in and of itself. Opportunities abound for those who can elevate efficiencies through sophisticated means of analyzing and drawing cost saving conclusions from data.
  4. Globalization: Economic interconnectedness already affects our daily lives and will become only further intertwined as sovereign economies morph into new and different multi-national configurations. Goods and services competing on a more global scale will require nimble, flexible, and intelligent business practices.
  5. Wireless, Mobile and Cloud Computing: There are no signs of technology reaching a plateau. On the contrary, the speed of innovation and the integration of new functional utilities appears limitless.
  6. War on Terrorism: Unfortunately, war in the 21st century may be endless. Terrorism will ebb and flow and violent conflict is now more at a citizen vs. citizen level rather than at a nation-state level. Security and international relations will continue to be in a heightened state.
  7. Organic Food Industry: Healthy eating at an affordable price from foods grown locally is likely to continue expanding. Sustainable and high-quality agriculture is becoming increasingly valuable to more and more consumers.
  8. Audiology: We are bombarded with sound continuously. And we have very effective means of shooting it into our ears. Tell me this is not going to affect the hearing of an aging noise-saturated population.
  9. Simulation Engineering and Robotics: Training, education, and gaming are just three activities that will benefit from more refined means of simulation. Resource, time, and cost savings will arise from greater use of fabricated experiences that leave end-users with an enhanced empiricism.
  10. Genetics in Healthcare: A revolution is in its infancy with molecule-specific treatment of disease and super-informed healthful advice. Ancillary industries resulting from knowledge of the human condition at a cellular or deeper level are boundless.

Long-term job seekers, start your engines! 

Holding On and Letting Go

Posted on by Bill Ryan

My thoughts are with the long-term unemployed. Those who for a year or more have desperately been trying to find work but who remain unsuccessful. For those of you who truly want work, but are continually not being recognized for your potential, the burden is heavy. Among the tragedies that can befall someone, such as the loss of a loved one or divorce, becoming chronically unemployed is a significant life challenge that only time, and persistence can heal. 

There comes a time when options seem few. Employers are learning how to cope with 1% – 2% GDP growth. Many of the jobs that existed for a few years are not coming back. And competition for the few jobs that are available is stiff. You need to be worried about your skills atrophying and your networks drying up. Politicians spend too much time in a debating society and do not seem to admit that the economy’s problems are largely beyond them. The world now seems like a hopeless place. 

But there is still you. Despite your inability to control external conditions no one has yet taken away your ability to perceive and respond to this situation. Whether you wanted it or not, this is a time to take stock. To reach deep down to see what you are made of and to get in touch with an inner strength you seldom have needed but do now. 

A big part of coping with the loss of employment is determining what to psychologically hang onto and what to let go of. What I mean by that is profoundly recognizing the value of what is most important in sustaining you as a self-reliant individual. Being able to rise above adversity and to not let it tear you down. This is your main goal. 

What and who in your life most helps you to do that? Perhaps it is family and close friends, people you serve who are less fortunate than yourself, or your community and its services. Fortifying actions that you take such as systematically following through with best job search practices despite the lack of immediate reward and keeping as current as possible with professions for which your skill set is a match are positive things to do. Be in touch with what still energizes you when it seems that most things around you are draining. These are worth holding onto. 

Equally important is observing what needs to be let go. It is possible that our egos are clinging to notions and long-held beliefs or perceptions that make this transitory time more difficult than it needs to be. For instance, linking your self-worth too tightly to your former job title and the status it brought you, still believing that you are entitled to the salary you received in 2007, seeing the world as one big competitive us-against-them environment, or keeping relationships with people who too often display self-defeating ideas can rob you of the positive energy you need most at this time. 

Do not be afraid to reach out. There are many who can be very constructive and are passionate about assisting you. Also, consider helping others in the same predicament as yourself. 

Self-reflection at the level that identifies what to hold onto and what to let go of may need to become part of your daily routine. This is best done while walking, running, or sitting quietly. Drinking and drugging tend to cloud the mind too much. Try to develop a greater degree of mastery over your mind that can come from purposeful contemplation. The benefits of doing so can last long after this very difficult time. 

Let Us Please Place Job Creation as Number One

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I noticed the day after President Obama’s big jobs speech before Congress on September 8 that Mark Zandi, the often cited Chief Economist from Moody’s Analytics, praised it. True, he is an old-style Keynesian, but he is among the most respected economists in the country, so he deserves a listen to. Among the benefits he sees from the American Jobs Act are:

  • Confidence would return to the public and therefore a stabilization of the economy would result.
  • Just under 2 million jobs would be created with the unemployment rate being cut by a percentage point.
  • GDP growth would be two percentage points higher next year.
  • The $450 billion price tag would be paid between $250 billion in tax cuts and $200 billion in spending increases.
  • If passed, another recession could be averted.

It has little chance of being passed by the Republican controlled House. Now that would be fine except that it is not clear what the Republicans are offering for immediate stimulation to employment. In fact, it seems that they do not like the word stimulation.

We are being asked to encourage reduction of government, which will in and of itself release an explosion of private sector expansion and economic growth. So the private sector that seemed to play a rather large role in creating the Great Recession is going to lift us out of it because government is diminished? Really?

If there was a credible plan to create jobs by Republicans aside from the usual cut taxes for the rich and reduce regulations I would be all ears. I want jobs to start growing as much as anyone and I really do not care which ideology produces them as long as they get created. But now that one of the two major political parties has been shanghaied by the Tea Party, who does not place job creation as their number one priority, we are not getting a full collaborative effort from all sides.

I will give the Tea Party credit for sounding the alarm on the growing Federal debt, which if left unchecked would constitute major economic problems, including unemployment in just a few years. However, what are they contributing to the debate of job growth now? Not much from what I can hear.

They seem more committed to eliminating the President’s job than in generating new ones for Americans. They are a one trick pony. Just reduce debt and morning in America will return. They seem to think that managing the Federal budget is no more sophisticated than balancing the family checkbook.

Perhaps most troubling is the Tea Party’s reluctance to negotiate and compromise with those who have a different viewpoint. They are so confident in the righteousness of their position that working across the aisle is seen as weakness and capitulation. There is value in decisions made as a result of consensus. And now is a time for our leaders to work together to expand employment. The Tea Party strikes me as an impediment rather than as a serious partner.

I guess we’ll never really know if Mark Zandi’s ecomomic predictions will come true. Probably the most President Obama will get out of that speech is a reelection campaign position. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate stays in the 9% neighborhood.

Perhaps government really cannot effect economic change and private capital (which the private sector is not releasing) is all that matters. But don’t we elect Federal leaders to solve national problems? And isn’t that best done when collaboration occurs? This climate of polarization during a time of national crisis is very disheartening. We should demand something greater from those we elected.

Regulating Your Digital Footprint

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is not news that people go to the Internet first for information on just about anything these days. But it may be news to some that this includes recruiters, hiring managers, and just about anyone else who is trying to locate talent for their businesses and organizations. 

About 90% of all recruiters and 50% of all employers perform web searches before making a hiring decision. If you are trying to find a new job, transition to a new career, or seek new business opportunities you need to have a presence online. Can you imagine anyone in 2011 making a claim of professional greatness and not being found online? It is unimaginable. 

Your digital footprint refers to all the web information there is about you out there. It can come from many places, including social networking media, profile and biography pages you may have established on your own or that exist on employer and association web sites, blogs, forum and message board postings, chats, and even political or religious contributions that you have made. Even if you are committed to not being online, it is hard not to find yourself there somehow. 

If you are serious about regulating your digital footprint — and you should be — there are five things to strive for: 

  1. Your presence should exude self-confidence and be in multiple locations.
  2. A positive professional image should be displayed.
  3. A consistent and keyword rich value proposition should be present across all platforms.
  4. A clear and memorable career brand should exist.
  5. There should be no digital dirt or negative unprofessional content about you found in searches.

Above all, never assume that anything you write or post online is anonymous. 

Begin regulating your online presence by seeing what it looks like now. Google yourself in quotation marks and find every reference to you on the first three search ranking pages. Assess what is being shown about you. Is it positive or not? 

It is highly probable that you are sharing your name with others. Note how often this happens. You may even find that old information once confined to paper has now been converted to digital format and is available online. 

Now that you have a baseline, get started managing. There are three fundamental steps to establishing a digital footprint that you control: 

  1. Have a well written resume with a distinct value proposition that serves as your image anchor.
  2. Build a basic online by completing profiles on Google Profiles and ZoomInfo.
  3. Set up a business networking presence by having active accounts with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

All the above-mentioned websites are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rich meaning that they will rank high during web searches. 

There are additional sites and features to consider opening accounts with such as MyWebCareer, Google Alerts, Reputation.com, Vizibility, Ecademy, and BrazenCareerist. Taken together these will give you a lot of power to control your cyber appearance. 

Some management techniques to know when using these sites include: 

  • Fill your profile with tangible competencies. 
  • Be aware of the privacy settings, set them accordingly, and check them frequently for usage changes. 
  • If sharing a name with someone, differentiate yourself, such as “John A. Smith, Senior Marketing Executive”. 
  • Use headshots taken by a professional photographer. 
  • If you cannot remove digital dirt, then bury it by creating enough multiple positive presence points that the bad stuff gets lower search rankings. 
  • Untag yourself from friends’ Facebook tags. 

Follow these suggestions and you will be well on your way to managing what the online world will learn about you. And you don’t have to be a control freak to want or need that level of self-authority. 

Education and the Unemployment Rate

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I read a couple of interesting statistics the other day in a National Journal article about the widening talent shortage among many American companies. The first was a citing about a study done by ManpowerGroup, a Milwaukee-based workforce consultant, showing that 52% of employers cannot recruit skilled workers for their open positions. The other stat, this time by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that of the 9.2% of Americans currently unemployed, 78% of them have only a high school education or less. 

These numbers are surprising, and they tell me a couple of things worth noting regarding our stubbornly high unemployment rate. One is that the rate might not be so high if Americans would get educated and trained in areas of shortage and need. The other is that thinking you are going to get ahead in the 21st century with just a high school education is not preparation for the future. 

The public and their proxy the media love to play the blame game for the high unemployment rate. It is the Democrat’s fault or the Republican’s fault. It is greedy Wall Street or lazy Europeans and so on and so on. Instead of finding fault, perhaps we need to hold up a mirror and look into it. We could lower the unemployment rate and all the misery associated with it significantly if we would further our education in strategic ways. Education is one of the best ways out of this mess. 

I rarely hear or read the mainstream media report about this lurking education gap as being a contributor to the unemployment rate and I pay attention to a lot of news. Why do you think that is? Why is the national anchorperson hesitant to say that too many of the unemployed are lacking in the right kinds of education? Perhaps there is a concern that to say so might be perceived as elitist or that someone’s feelings may be hurt. There is an elephant in the unemployment room that is being ignored and not fully discussed. And we as a country do ourselves no favors to avoid it. 

We should address this issue head on. If we could be delivered news we could really use such as where the human resource shortages are and what is involved in preparing to fill them, we could be much better informed. Let us hear more reports about the skills deficit for a change instead of this constant obsession about budget deficits. Let us agree that without a vigorous push for high quality education at all levels, then our chances of competing in the world marketplace are greatly diminished. 

School districts and universities need to be more engaged in this conversation as well. Of course, their mission is to provide a broad range of learning opportunities to the greatest number of people. But by not identifying and shifting resources to address critical shortage areas of the economy they are denying our workforce significant solutions needed now. Academic advisors and counselors need to work more aggressively to align emerging talent with areas of employment need. 

Let us try harder to see education as the benefit that it is. There is too much of an attitude that views education more as a cost than as an investment. Education can provide individuals with practical skills, a critical thinking ability, and confidence to succeed. It is among the best self-help techniques society can do for itself. 

We can do more to reduce unemployment than to just wait for banks, corporations, or government to release more money. We can be smarter about creating a congruence between hiring gaps and workforce development. 

Looking At Work Experience Gaps on Your Resume

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Among the abundance of things worrying the job seeker today is the work history gap on your resume that occurs when there is a break in the employment chronology brought on by any number of reasons— most often by having been laid off. 

Conventional wisdom has been and continues to be that having a period during which you were not employed is a detriment to finding future employment. The well-founded fear is that a hiring manager will check to see if there exists an employment gap when reading your resume, and if finding one, will instantly draw the conclusion that this indicates you are a flawed candidate. 

Being seen as out of work is still very much considered a stigma, which is unfortunate given how much unemployment was foisted upon so many. But this is the reality facing job searchers. Gaps in your resume’s employment experience section make finding a new job even more difficult. 

Obviously, avoiding gaps is recommended when rewriting or updating your resume. However, lying on your resume by stating false employment that did not really exist to fill in time is not recommended. So, what can be done? 

Job and career counselors typically advise that employment downtimes be accounted for with some type of professionally meaningful pursuits, such as schooling, training, interning, or volunteering. Furthering your education can be advantageous but has that annoying consequence of costing money at a time when it is in short supply. On the other hand, offering an organization or company free work in exchange for useful experience is cheaper and potentially a powerful way to approach explaining in the future how you spent your time between jobs. Let us examine the options of interning and volunteering more carefully. 

First, to clear up some semantics: By interning I mean engaging in a non-monetary exchange, whereby the intern provides a novice-level professional service and in turn receives a documented benefit from the organization, such as professional oversight or instruction. I see volunteers as providing a service which is either an organizational need or enhancement, while expecting little to nothing in return except for an emotionally satisfying feeling and/or for the opportunity to list the experience on one’s resume. 

If considering interning, check to see that the organization has an established policy, and if so, that you agree with its terms and conditions. If it does not, either look elsewhere or get involved with the development of a new intern policy, thereby giving you a say in the arrangement. Note, volunteering can raise complications for both the volunteers and the enterprises taking them on. 

In general, the considerations from both parties should be focused on whether the tasks being performed by the volunteer are compensatory or not. The rules are defined by state labor law, employment discrimination legislation, and by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The latter essentially puts the kibosh on volunteering with for-profit private sector companies along with federal, state, and local governments. It is just not allowed. 

Most people’s professions linked to the private sector or government would appear to present a challenge to the volunteer looking for a place to offer services. Fortunately, the FLSA does not deter you from volunteering in public, charitable, or religious facilities. So, perform whatever service feels right in those cases. 

When approaching any kind of organization about interning or volunteering, especially one that also hires employees ask the following questions: 

  • Would your service in any way violate the FLSA or state labor laws? 
  • Would you be displacing or replacing an existing paid employee? 
  • Would you be performing work that is normally paid employment? 
  • Will the intern or volunteer duties require a contract or to be documented in some way? 
  • Do you have control of your hours and level of work intensity free of coercion? 
  • To yourself ask, “Is this worth it to me?” 

Filling in that troublesome work history time gap on your resume is worth some effort. If the reason for the absence is elder, child, or personal care, or possibly even bereavement, then insert it in the professional experience section as a “job”. But if the gap occurs because you were let go from your previous job and it is taking you six months or more to find another, then consider interning or volunteering. Just go into whatever you do with your eyes wide open. 

The Job Interview

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Job interviews are about as eagerly anticipated as root canals. Even if you have been out of work for a long time and are desperately wanting to reenter the workplace, the necessary step of performing well during a job interview can be daunting. Interviewees tend to think the practice is akin to an interrogation or grilling, the result of which can be a harsh judgement, like getting voted off the island. They can be stressful enough to make even the most seasoned professional anxious.  

The job interview can be a faulty procedure and not always reliable. We have all heard of how someone can shine during the interview only to lead the employer to feel buyer’s remorse once the candidate is on the job. Notice how subjective interviews are. One wonders if there should be a more objective way of identifying talent before the job offer is made. 

For most hiring situations, however, there needs to be a subjective screening component. The interview provides just that and is not going away anytime soon. Think of it this way. The interview provides a much-needed opportunity for dialogue, in other words, a two-way conversation. Here is a chance for each of you to check each other out. It will help the pre-interview jitters if you can go into it feeling that you have some control over the situation. Even if they offer you the spot you do not have to accept it unless the potential employer passes muster with you. Go with some questions prepared that show you are inquiring about them.   

But, of course, the harsh truth is that you must convince a hiring manager or team of interviewers that you are a fit for the position and the organization. If you have not had an interview in a while and are wondering what to expect from an upcoming one, you might be helped by considering some likely scenarios. I have had many clients brief me on how their interview experiences have gone and here is what I can confidently generalize about them: 

  • Go into an interview prepared. To think you can wing it, no matter how professional and experienced you are, is taking an unnecessary risk. 
  • Be ready to talk about yourself as a relatively short introduction. Here is where you present your value proposition. This intro should also describe how your skills and qualifications are a fit for the position. 
  • Know and be prepared to describe how much onboarding and induction training you will need. You are a cost to the employer. They may want to know how much expense you may be at the start of employment. 
  • Have a response to the dreaded, “What are your weaknesses?” question. I recommend having two weaknesses to which you are ready to admit. But frame them as challenges you are actively managing. Have at least one example for each, describing how you have recently and positively addressed the challenges resulting in good outcomes. 
  • Show that you are developing your career by having specific short and long-term goals to share. 
  • Get ready to talk about how well you work both independently and as part of a team. 
  • Be able to furnish information about the employer. Let them know that you have researched them and have a couple of questions designed to learn more about them. 
  • A large and likely category of interview questioning is known as behavioral questioning. This is where you talk about how you handled or would handle realistic situations and challenges on the job, whether fabricated or actual from your past. Always think of presenting your answers such that it is clear how you added value to the circumstances. 

There will likely be more questions than these, but by preparing and having responses ready for typical questions you are fortified for what may come.