Category Archives: Accomplishments

Are you bragging, or stating your worth?

Posted on January 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

Want to get hired? Prove you are the best option.

Employers look at resumes for three things to do the initial screening for greatness: 

  • Basic job skills
  • What you have accomplished
  • What you caused others to accomplish

Basic job skills have to be easy to find on your resume. Prove you can type, program in VB.Net, sell, do accounting or design widgets. Make it so those skills will not be missed by a receptionist who has hundreds of resumes to dig through.

What you have accomplished is often harder to come up with. 

What you caused others to accomplish is even harder to remember and very hard to prove.

Figure out the effect you had on others. Keep track of people you have trained, processes you speeded up and money you saved. It will set you apart. Most people won’t track those things because they are taught to be “humble”. There is a difference between bragging and stating how good you are at something. There is nothing wrong with reporting how well you do your job. Correctly convincing an employer to hire you because you will make him more money is a great idea. Don’t shy away from proving what you are worth. 

The people, teams and companies you have helped are a great indicator of just how great you are. Accept it and take advantage of it.

Something to do today

If you have not started a job journal, today is a good day to do it. Start tracking all the people you help. Keep a tally sheet with the number of people who drop by and ask for help each day. Figure out how you make the workplace better. Track it and report it.

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How to get tire tracks up your back

Posted on July 30, 2021 | Leave a comment

“I want to find a place where I don’t have to work so hard anymore. I’m 6 years from retirement. With my experience, I should be able to get top dollar for my next job.”

Do you see the absolute logical disaster in that statement? He wants to work less, slow down preparing for retirement, and be paid as much as ever. I hear these words at least once a week. They are the prelude to disaster. This guy may get another job, but he will be fired if he “doesn’t work so hard anymore”.

No one wants to pay you to relax and take it easy. They want your best effort. They want miracles. If you decide it is time to slow down, then step down to do that. If not, someone who wants to work hard is going to leave tire tracks up your back. He will run right over you to climb his career ladder. Your boss will cheer him on and give him your chair. 

Bmw, Fast, Speed, Drift, Car, Tire, Burn, Smoke

A lot of people complain about age discrimination. There is a fair amount of it, but more often the problem is that the young guy is obviously determined to excel. He commits to hard work. His record shows 50, 60 and 70 hour weeks. The older person literally says in an interview, “I’ve learned how to work smart and not hard. I don’t need to put in more than 40 hours a week anymore.” The boss who is putting in 70 hours a week will not believe the old guy can do it. Even worse, often the older guy has a history of declining output. 

Who would you hire? The person whose output is increasing, or decreasing? 

Especially if you are over 40 (or 50, or 60) like me, you have to show in every second of your interview that you can outwork, outlast, and outperform any of those young guys. Your message is that they don’t know the meaning of accomplishment. If you prove you won’t relax and take it easy, you’ll get the job. It doesn’t matter who you are competing against. If you relax, you’ll get tire tracks up your back.

About the last two weeks

This series is about what makes or breaks a job hunt. Reality and the real world. My list of the reasons people get a new job or struggle includes:

  • Do you have a Helium II attitude?
  • Are you hurting?
  • Are you ruthlessly exploiting your advantages?
  • Are you measuring up to the competition?
  • Are you using outdated or overly niche skills?
  • Are you really worth 10x what you’re paid?
  • Do you carefully curate how people perceive you?
  • Are you continuing to polish your skills?
  • Will you work hard, or get run over?

Think about your job search. Just think. And then take notes about your conclusions.

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus, Followup, Promotions

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Cover letter with impact

Posted on March 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

Tree hit by lightning

Your cover letter can have incredible energy.

The best cover letter I ever heard of was a clean sheet of paper that literally only said,

“I can do that job.”

The resume beneath it was thoroughly read. The candidate was carefully considered. A cover letter can have no greater success.

I always read the first sentence or two of a cover letter. Unless I am intrigued, I never read more. I don’t have time to read that you work hard, like people, are a team player and deserve a chance. Everyone says that. It just proves you are average.

I thoroughly read cover letters that have useful gems in the first sentence. I keep reading sentence after sentence until it gets boring. A cover letter masterpiece has me convinced to do an interview before I see the resume. It extracts 2 or 3 gems from the person’s background and displays them briefly. I want those gems. I make a decision based on those gems of information.

If you explore beneath shyness or party chit-chat, you can sometimes turn a dull exchange into an intriguing one. I’ve found this particularly to be true in the case of professors or intellectuals, who are full of fascinating information, but need encouragement before they’ll divulge it. (Joyce Oates)

To discover gems in your background, ask yourself:

  1. Why haven’t they filled this job already?
  2. What are the most critical job skills?
  3. Which of those skills is hardest to find in the job market?
  4. What have I done that proves I am way better than average?

Now craft a single short sentence that shows you are exceptional.

Create 3 more on different subjects.

Now write several short cover letters based on those sentences. Make sure each sentence in the letter proves you are extraordinary.

I would be intrigued by your gem filled letter. I would decide to interview you before I even looked at the resume.

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I know 4 people who have gotten jobs without a cover letter, and whose resume only said, “I can do that job.”  The only thing else on the resume was their contact info.  Do you say too much?

Something To Do Today

Hand your cover letter to a friend who is somewhat distracted. See how long it takes them to look like they are slogging through the letter. That’s where the boring stuff starts.

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Posted in Accomplishments, Focus, Resumes

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How to tell if you should be a CEO

Posted on November 9, 2017 | Leave a comment

Woman on a ladder of success

Is your ladder to success helping you climb the right wall?

Too many people climb the ladder of success, only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall. (unkn)

Should you be a CEO?

Jim just took a job as a manager of a small company.  He’s been a CEO before.  He took the lowly manager’s job because he likes it better than being CEO.  He didn’t even put his CEO experience on his resume. He got the “lowly” job he really wants because he left the word CEO off his resume.

I can tell you the same story, with the exact opposite twist, of technicians and engineers who worked their way up the technical ladder, only to finally figure out that they should have quit and gone to work as the CEO of a small company.  These are guys making $150,000+ as technicians.  Not bad money at all.

There’s a way to find out if you really, truly, in your gut would like to be a CEO.  Get a couple of practice jobs.  First, become a team leader or manager where you are. Also get involved in your local or national trade association.  While you are at it, volunteer to head a charity organization.  Your local school has a PTO, swim team boosters, band boosters, etc.  The YMCA, Boys and Girls Club and Scouts all need people who are leaders. Another great way is to run for the school board, town council or state legislature.

Leading any of these organizations will help you see if you like management.  In them you need to set your own goals and agenda.  You need to persuade people to work with you.  Selling others on your ideas is essential. You’ll also build a network of people who can help you become a CEO.  You’ll get to show true executive leadership.

If you talk to CEO’s, you’ll find that many of them evaluate executives in their own and in supplier companies by how they perform in volunteer posts.  Being a CEO isn’t just telling people what to do.  It also includes creating a network that will draw talent and contracts to your company.

If you want to be a CEO, get started now.  There are teams, associations, charitable organizations and political organizations looking for leaders.

And pay attention.  Being CEO may not be for you.

Something To Do Today

If you have any desire to be a manager or a leader, make a list of places where your leadership

could have an effect.  Go out and get started in those organizations.  You could easily be the “CEO” in 2 years.

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Later:                          3 critical words on your resume

email exploitation

Absolute proof it is time to leave your job

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Focus, management, talent

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Learn job search success – from a baby

Posted on November 8, 2017 | Leave a comment

A baby doesn't over think it.

Any win, no matter how small, makes a baby happy.

You may not have searched for a job for years.  You need to learn something from a baby.

If you touch a newborn baby’s cheek, its head turns in that direction.  Often the head goes back and forth as the baby tries to find and suck on whatever touched its cheek.  A baby old enough to try to grab something reaches for its goal and misses.  The baby’s hand goes past the object, then corrects too far the other direction, then again goes past the object. Eventually the baby grasps the object victoriously and smiles.  The baby doesn’t cry because he over-corrected five times or only has one toy in his hand. He coos in triumph.  It is time to enjoy this feat, not worry about the next challenge.

Job hunting triumphs come often.  Getting a job is always the cumulative result of a hundred victories.  Those victories should be celebrated over and over in your mind. Yes, you need to notice that you failed to finish the next step, but you shouldn’t focus on a defeat and exclude the victories leading up to that step.

If you send out 100 resumes and get 3 phone calls, you succeeded 103 times!  You sent out 100 resumes, a feat many job seekers never equal.  You also got 3 calls from your resume.  It worked.

You called 10 recruiting shops and 1 invited you in for an interview.  10 calls is a great adventure, and one success in 10 calls is wonderful.  Securites salespeople often make 200 calls in a day with absolutely no success.  Getting one interview is great.  Making 10 calls is a victory.

I had an executive make it to the final list of 3 candidates for a high level job.  Another candidate was chosen.  All he could see was that for the 7th time in 3 months he had failed to get the job. He could not focus on some delightful facts:

  1. He was referred to me by his network.
  2. His resume was very good.
  3. I thought highly enough of him to recommend him.
  4. He got the first phone interview.
  5. An executive flew across the country to interview him.
  6. He came to the facility he would lead and passed 6 more interviews.
  7. He made it to the short list of final candidates.

What a monumental chain of victories!  This was a phenomenal set of accomplishments.  Yet, he couldn’t see his successes when the process was done.  All he looked at was that he missed the final cut.  He got depressed and self critical.  It got so bad that I couldn’t recommend him to another company.  He took a job he dislikes with a company he doesn’t respect.  That job lets him stop the pain of focusing on his occasional failures. He was not desperate financially.  He was desperate to win because he stopped seeing his successes.

Watch a baby closely the next time you have a chance.  Notice their absolute delight in grasping a rattle or teething ring.  They are thrilled and fling their chubby hands around with the object they won.  Nothing could be more glorious.  Right now they are focusing on success.  They aren’t worried about the next step.  They got one thing right.

Take the time to relive your successes every hour of your job search.  You will find your attitude soars.  You don’t make the cut?  Relive every successful step getting there.  Include finding out about the job, applying, getting a call, arriving on time, etc.  All those are feats showing your prowess.  Go ahead relive them in your mind. You deserve it.

Something To Do Today

Get your job journal out.  List the 3 jobs you have gotten closest to winning.  Even if it was just making a phone call or sending a resume.  List all the steps you executed successfully to get to that point.  Include all the little ones.  Relive those successes.  “You done good, little fella.”

Next:            Why not go for the CEO job ?

Later:           3 critical words

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Perseverance

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Hirers hate resumes without clear facts

Posted on October 31, 2017 | Leave a comment

watch distorted by being underwater

Does your resume make it hard to see the most important facts?

Facts would be nice

Even job seekers with great experience hide their best qualities.  Here are a few ways they do it.

No facts, just brag

Do you say, “I am wonderful, amazing, lovable, creative, entertaining, and good????”.

Stephen King, author of more than 30 best selling horror books, wrote a book on writing.  He says, “Get rid of adjectives.”  This top author refuse to write, “She stealthily crept down the spooky staircase which creaked ominously.” Instead of using adjectives, he just tells what his character does, “She crept down the stairs.”  He says the toughest thing he has to do in his writing is to remove all the adjectives. Just give the facts.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.  (Mark Twain)

You say what everyone else also says

I’m still waiting to see a resume that states:  “I hate to work hard.  I disrupt every team. I am a pig.  I never take initiative.  I lie constantly.  I never hit my deadlines.”

I actually get that have half a page that states: “I work hard.  I am a team player. I am neat.  I take initiative.  I am honest.  I do assignments on time.”  Those paragraphs never give me any facts, so I don’t read them.

Set yourself apart

What I really want to know is: What is different because you were there?

Set yourself apart from the other 40 people applying for a job.  Use every inch of your resume to state things you have actually done.  State facts like:

         I carried a beeper and was on-call for 3 years.

         I worked late for two months to help a different team finish the Simpson Project.

         I received an award for having the neatest desk.

         I kept our biggest customer from losing $500,000 by shipping their widgets overnight, without being authorized to, because my boss was on vacation.

         I estimated my last project at 715 hours and completed it in 690 hours at $4,000 under budget.

Think about what your new boss REALLY wants

Would you rather hire someone who says, “I work hard” or someone who says, “I carried a beeper and was on-call for 3 years”?

If you write your resume like Stephen King writes his novels, you’ll get more interviews. Give the facts about what you’ve done.  Let the hiring manager use a red pen to add comments to your resume like: hard worker, takes initiative and hits deadlines.

Something To Do Today

Grab your resume and a ruler.  How many inches of text describe you without giving facts?  Many resumes have more hot air than facts.  Literally.

As fast as you can, cut your resume down to nothing but facts.  Add facts in bullet points.  Don’t worry about the relevance of the facts.  Act quickly.  See if you can create a long “facts only” resume in less than half an hour.

Now take a break until tomorrow.  Then fix that resume so that it can be used.

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Soon:                  Wrestlers in feather boas

Later:                  Corrections – a newborn’s grasp

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Posted in Accomplishments, Resumes

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Useful career plans

Posted on April 12, 2017 | Leave a comment

marines and airplane taking off

Which direction is your career going?

So how do you get the promotion or raise you want?

An usher at the movie theater I worked at wanted to become the lead usher.  After the movie started he would always be the first to grab a broom and start sweeping the lobby.  Once he even told me I was sweeping too early so that 30 seconds later he could grab a broom and be seen by our boss as the boy with the most initiative.  He got the job.  I got laid off.  He had a career plan at the tender age of 14. (He was also a little deceitful, which he didn’t need to be.)

A useful career plan needs to have the long term goals we talked about yesterday as well as much shorter term tactical objectives.  If your 1 year goal is to get promoted to team leader, you have to work every day at short term plans to get there.  If you want to become a partner in your firm, you have to do something different from the crowd every day.

The biggest secret to daily, weekly and monthly career plans is to set yourself up to act like you already have the job you want.  Start acting like a senior technician by getting certifications and asking your boss to allow you into design meetings. Pretty soon you’ll get the promotion.  A partner in most firms is required to be either a leader/manager or a rainmaker/salesman.  If you want to be a partner, act like one.

To start taking over the job you want, you have to have a clear idea of what the job entails.  Your first career plan should be, “I will find out what the job I want entails.”  Make sure you find out what the most successful inhabitants of your target job do. What makes the most successful people different? You should generate a weekly and monthly written plan of how you will find out more about the job you want. Put it in your job journal.

Now write a weekly and monthly plan of how to educate yourself for the job.  List the courses you can take, certifications you can get and books you can read.  Ask the people you admire for advice. The list should go in your job journal where you can add to it later.

Finally, write that weekly and monthly plan on how you will take over the job.  90% of authority is seized, 10% is granted.  Go out and take over some responsibilities.  Even if you are reprimanded for over reaching, your initiative will be noticed.  A plan written in your job journal will focus your efforts.

Remember that boy who wanted to be lead usher.  He was always the first person out in the lobby cleaning up. He wanted to show initiative.  To advance in a technical, managerial or sales position you need to show the same initiative.  You need to be the first person seen doing important jobs.  Make a plan and do it.

Something To Do Today

Just today, seize authority.  Find some important job and make yourself the custodian of that job.  Be the first to start doing it, direct how it is to be done, or ask one of your subordinates to do it.

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Next:     What is “the next big thing”?

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Focus, Promotions, Raises

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The secret to useful goals

Posted on April 11, 2017 | Leave a comment

evolution of man and goals

Goals should help you BECOME, not help you GET.

One the most important lessons I have learned is:

In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.

Useful goals

One famous study showed that people with written goals coming out of college earned several times more than people without written goals. But, look at yourself.  If you still have the same written or unwritten goals you had 10 years ago, you are the exception.

Goals change. The real secret is to have specific written goals and expect them to change.

You will do better if you are striving to BECOME something much greater than you are now.  The world reshapes itself around you when you refuse to take the path of least resistance.  If you set 20 year goals that inspire you today, you will enjoy life more today and next year.  Your goals will change because you have grown to the point that you can see more important goals.  You will develop a vision of your future that is clearer and brighter than you have today. That is a good reason to change your goals.

A part of the goals secret is to have goals in the areas of your life that matter most.  Money is important. Job and career goals are essential for progress.  You also need goals about your family growth, social maturity, physical fitness, emotional strength and spiritual development.

For example, your goal could be to run 2 miles in 15 minutes in 2031.  If you really think about that goal, you need to strengthen your legs and knees, not pound them into arthritis.  That goal could inspire you to include bicycling, swimming or rowing in your fitness regime so that your knees will last throughout your life. That goal may change to being able to swim a mile in 2031 because of changes in your health.

A social goal could be to have a network of 1000 people who are leaders in their own field in 2031.  To get there you will have to have intermediate goals of recognizing, getting to know, helping, tracking and staying in contact with those people.  A goal like that would also be a great help to a career goal to become CEO of a company. Later your social goal may change to having a network of 2000 people who will help you fund medical research, and it may include all the same people as your original goal.

Remember, goals change.  The 20 year goals I just mentioned would be great goals for a computer technician, salesperson or CEO.  If you open your mind and see into the future, you will be able to pick out goals for the year 2031 that will help you now, and still matter in 2031.  If your goals are important to you, you will find you achieve most of them in much less than the 20 year, 5 year or 1 year horizon you set.

Something To Do Today

In your journal first make a list of the most important overall aspects of life.  I suggest: money, career, social, physical fitness, emotional and spiritual.  Then list a goal you can work towards BEING in 20 years, 5 years and 1 year.  Each goal should fit in with all the others.  Goals are about becoming better as the world shifts around you.

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Next:     Useful career plans

Later:              What is “the next big thing”?

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Focus, Perseverance, Time management

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5 steps to accelerate your job/career growth curve

Posted on December 8, 2016 | Leave a comment

motorbike-438464_640-pixabay

Now thats a job growth curve!

When I started at EDS I was learning at an incredible rate.  Pay raises came quickly and easily.  By my third year things slowed down.  By my fifth year I settled into a dreary cycle of little new personal growth and cost of living raises. I managed to get assigned to a new team using a new technology and my growth accelerated for a year, then it dropped back to the dreary level. That’s an example of my personal growth curve.

How fast you are growing to get where you want to go is your personal growth curve.  Once you stop growing you are flat-lining.  In hospitals flat-lining means there is no pulse, you are dead.  In your career, flat-lining means that your career has stopped completely and the business world is starting to pass you by.

To get growing again you need to learn, get new responsibilities and get recognized.  At EDS I volunteered and pestered my managers for the chance to use new technology.  Since no one else had a clue and I had read a couple of books on the subject, I got to become the “owner” of that technology.  Preparation and repeatedly selling myself to my managers preceded my advancement.

Whether you want to grow as a manager, salesperson or technician, you need to follow these steps:

  1. Find out what is going to be needed IN THE FUTURE
  2. Study and prepare to fill that future need
  3. Sell yourself repeatedly to get the new responsibility
  4. Excel at your new job
  5. Start over

Step 1 and 2 can always be done at your current job.  Often they will pay for the training and help mentor you.  Step 3 should be attempted with your current company. Sometimes it just can’t be done where you are.

Companies have their own growth curves.  At a company that is flat-lining, your chances to grow will be limited.  While you are preparing to grow, open your eyes.  Is your company ABLE to let you grow?  Do you need to move to a company that is changing its growth curve while you change yours?

A job change becomes a career enhancing move when you move to a company whose growth curve will allow you to accelerate your own growth curve.  If you are willing to learn and grow, you will have growth in your career.  If you are willing to change jobs when necessary to re-accelerate your career growth, your future has no limits.

Something To Do Today

What is going to be needed in the future?  What interests you?  What will help you accelerate your growth curve?

Don’t expect your boss to magically know what you fail to tell him repeatedly. Expect him not to understand.  Even if he sees you doing something new he may not recognize what it means or its usefulness unless you have told him five or six times in the last six months.

Each Friday is the time to write down what you did this week and this month in your job journal.  Give a report to your boss in a format he can use for his own reports to his boss.

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Later:

How many times have I got to tell him?

Useful career plans

What is “the next big thing”?

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Focus, Promotions, Raises

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How to find the biggest trick for success where you work

Posted on July 28, 2016 | Leave a comment

Are you trying to be successful doing the work that successful people throw out? What successful people refuse to do? Then hard work won’t help you.

Man pushing huge straw bale by hand.

How can you succeed doing all the wrong stuff?

This true story is about more than salespeople. It is about accountants, programmers and managers too.

Paul, beginning his job in sales, told me, “My manager seems to be able to make a sale every time we go on a call together. All the people we visit want to buy. He sells as much as everyone else in the office put together. When I take the leads he gives me, I can’t get them interested at all. What am I doing wrong?”

Paul was doing nothing wrong. His manager was visiting only high quality leads. Paul was visiting everyone that his manager didn’t pick for himself. His manager got the golden leads and Paul got the brass. Worse, Paul refused to look for the best quality leads in what he was given. He just went out and visited everyone.

Successful salespeople, accountants, programmers, managers, secretaries and septic tank cleaners all know what sales leads, jobs, duties and knowledge are most important.

Pick out the most successful person you know who is doing the job you want. Invite him out to lunch. Ask him, “What do you do that is different from less successful people?” Take notes. Don’t let him stop with one quick answer. Ask about what he reads, what he does, and the jobs he refuses to do.

If you really pry, you will find out that he no longer does a lot of things he used to do. Ask him, “What have you stopped doing because you no longer have the time to do it?” You’ll find that successful people really do work differently. They are picky. They find ways to get drudge work assigned to others. They study particularly difficult problems so that they are assigned the most interesting projects. They also invite themselves into meetings where thorny issues are discussed. They go prepared with fresh information. That’s how they get reputations as problem solvers.

If you want to become a guru, act like one. Do what the gurus do. Just as important, find a way to get out of the work that successful people throw away.

Something To Do Today

Make that call to a successful person doing the job you want next. Find out what they attribute their success to. Also find out what they no longer are doing.

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Perseverance, Promotions, Raises, Selling

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