Category Archives: Focus

A new way to find a job: Spaghetti networking

Posted on April 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare, now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.  (Robert Wilensky)  Sending a million random emails is not networking either.

A new way to find a job: Spaghetti networking

Take the box of spaghetti in your kitchen.  The spaghetti is hard, aligned in rows, carefully packed, ready for a mission.  Now throw it in a big pot of boiling water.  Stir it up.  Keep it stirred. In ten minutes you have noodles ready to eat.  Now put it all back in the box.  It doesn’t work, does it?   Try to get all those noodles aligned again. What a mess. If you add some more uncooked spaghetti and cook the two together you get a mess with some pasta that is ready to fall apart and the rest ready to eat.  So start a new pot instead.

How is this mess like networking?

  1. Plan your networking.  Write a plan. Figure out who should be contacted.  Practice what you will say.
  2. Now start networking. Like cooking spaghetti, every lead will do something different.  Each one will take its own path and change over time.
  3. Give your network 10 days to work.  Check it and stir it up with phone calls halfway through.  Make more phone calls, and where it makes sense, personal visits after 10 days.
  4. Figure out what happened.  Where did the leads go?  Some got you closer, some didn’t.  Investigate the noodles or network contacts.  Why are the starts and ends different?  Are there patterns you can exploit? This really is like investigating cooked spaghetti noodles.  It seems useless, but in this case an evaluation can give great insights.
  5. Follow through with all leads that are working.  Eat the pasta.  Keep working with the networks you have started that are going somewhere. Set a plan when to follow up.  Don’t let that network turn into a congealed mass of pasta left out in the bottom of a strainer with no water.
  6. Take what you learned.  Plan a new network.  Avoid the temptation to wing it.  Write a plan.  Get a fresh pot of water boiling.  Write down what you will do different.  Who is on the new list?  Practice being different. Learn. Do better.
  7. Do it all again.

Networking is not easy.  It always starts out neat and planned.  It always ends up going all over the place, where you least expect it to.  Don’t try to randomly network.  Sure it may work, but it will take a lot longer than it needs to and you will drop a lot of promising leads. The trick is to learn, continue to plan, and make it work.

Something To Do Today

Make a networking plan.  If you need more networking hints, look up “networking” at

http://www.howtoreallygetagreatjob.com/blog/archives.aspx .

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Tomorrow:     Calls to companies

Later:              Intelligent use of recruiters

Get famous, get a job

Sneaky no good cops set a trap for me

Katrina, FEMA and who’s in charge of you

A surprisingly great trumpet appeared

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Posted in Finding jobs, Focus, Networking, Time management

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Your scarcest resource hunting a job or working

Posted on April 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.  (Will Rogers)

Time.

Studies show that the Japanese “salaryman” puts in more time at the office than American “workers”.  They also show that American “workers” spend more time working. The “salaryman” spends a LOT of time around the water cooler and playing solitaire.  Americans work.

Time is your scarcest resource.  Every minute you use or waste is gone forever. You can’t save time and use it later.  The next hour will be gone in 60 minutes no matter what you do.  That’s a scarce resource.

In your job search are you a “salaryman” or a “worker”?  The “salaryman” job hunter spends his time seeking out new internet job boards and looking for new newspaper ads. It isn’t a total waste of time.  But it quickly becomes redundant.  The same jobs and agencies seem to be in all the boards and ads.

The “worker” job hunter uses the internet job boards and newspapers as a part of his job campaign.  Some researchers say that between the job boards and newspapers, only 25% of jobs are filled.  So spending 25% of your time on those methods makes sense.  The rest of the jobs are filled before they are advertised. So if you want to get a really great job you have to look where most of the really great jobs are filled.

Most really great jobs are filled by networking, calls to managers at companies that aren’t advertising, recruiters, and getting famous.  I’ll be talking about these methods in a few days.

Something To Do Today

In your job search are you spinning your wheels?  Keep track of what your job search time is spent at, and what you find.  If you keep turning up the same useless leads over and over, you need to change your attack.  Time is too precious to waste in ineffective repetitive motions.

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Tomorrow:     Short term rewards

Later:              What motivates me

Waiting for the “help wanted” sign

Networking

Calls to companies

Intelligent use of recruiters

Get famous, get a job

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Posted in Accomplishments, Finding jobs, Focus, Job Boards, Promotions, Time management

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Politics (is networking)

Posted on April 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.  (Henry Kissinger)

You have to understand office politics to understand networking.  Here is an example.

“Don’t get Joe in the IT planning office upset.  He can delay any project by 6 months.  Now that I think of it, he can kill any project.  He’s politically connected to everyone in the company.”

Everyone, including the boss, who lets Joe “get away with it” think they are doing what is best for the company.  And they really may be.  Often you don’t see the power struggles at upper levels.  When someone becomes the traffic cop and decides which projects get done and which get delayed, it is because of their networking ability. They know how important each person and project is.  They know the alliances between leaders and departments.  They know who has the “golden” projects that take precedence over all else.  They know what combinations of projects are also essential.  These political “beasts” are the ultimate networkers.

CEO’s cannot take the time to make decisions on every project.  They tell others to make decisions.  Those people, in turn, tell others to make decisions.  Inevitably resources become scarce.  The scarce resources can be clerks, programmers, salespeople, floor space or money.  The person who controls the scarce resources becomes the center of a very strong network.  They have to bow to the will of many people, but control the projects of others.  They are often the most abused figure in a company.  Occasionally they are the most abusive, for a while.

There are several things to learn from these people.

  1. Controlling scarce resources gives you power
  2. Dealing with that power can get you entrenched, promoted or fired
  3. You always control one scarce resource, your time

The first two have just been discussed.  The third point is fodder for several more days. Politics may get ugly, petty and mean.  It may also preserve the company you work for.  Instead of avoiding politics, network.  Through building a network you will find out who to worry about and who to avoid. Politics always includes networking.  Networking can help you rise above petty politics.  Networking can help you get your projects done.

Something To Do Today

If you dare, ask around.  Find out who the political masters are.  Ask them to lunch and find out why they got their reputation and power.  You may be surprised at their attitude.  They may be visionary, vindictive, or both.

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Tomorrow: Your scarcest resource

Later:  Short term rewards

What motivates me

Waiting for the “help wanted” sign

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Posted in Focus, Networking, Promotions, References, talent

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How to motivate your friends to help you find a great job

Posted on March 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with enthusiasm.  (Winston Churchill)

Would you recommend someone for a job if you were sure they would fail miserably?

Do you want to work with someone who is unable to deal with problems?

No one else does either.

On the other hand, it is fun working with someone who is trying to learn, who goes the extra mile on the job, and who wants to do what they have studied.

If you are excited by your possibilities, your friends will be also. That’s how you motivate your friends, be excited.  For example:

We place a lot of programmers in new jobs.  The ones who are so excited that they create programs in their spare time always find jobs.  It doesn’t matter if they ever went to college.  Their enthusiasm gets them jobs. They love programming.  Employers love them. Everyone who knows them is going to bat for them.  People they don’t know call them up to see if they can help them find a job.  Their enthusiasm is contagious.

On the other hand are programmers who took courses in programming in college.  They passed their courses. Programming doesn’t excite them. It’s just a job. If their college degree can’t get them a job in programming, they’ll never look at a computer again.  For them there is nothing exciting.  Their friends and contacts hear them complaining about the jobs they supposedly turned down.  There is no way they are going to get a strong recommendation for a job.  Sure enough, the job market stinks for them.

Motivate your friends.  Find out what is exciting about the jobs you are applying for.  Do the job for free for a charity.  If you are a computer technician, go looking for broken computers and tear them apart.  Put together a network in your basement. Offer to teach at your library or a nursing home.  Salesperson? Do what my partner did, became a charity “hit woman”.  Get the job of calling on businesses for donations.  You will talk to a lot of leaders of industry.  And guess what?  If you do a good job, they’ll be impressed.  Your friends, family and acquaintances will see what you are doing.  They’ll tell other people.

Be excited.  Do your job for free because you love it. Help others and demonstrate your love of your desired job.  You will motivate your friends and mere acquaintances to help you.

Something To Do Today  

Really evaluate how you have been acting.  Are you a member of the “beef and whine club”?   Find something you enjoy doing that is related to the job you want.  Do it with enthusiasm for free.

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Posted in Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus, Networking, Perseverance, References, talent

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Intriguing cover letters

Posted on March 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

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.

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 Focus, Resumes

Change what you associate pain and pleasure with

Posted on February 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

I got this from Sandi in an email today and had to share it with you.  Your job search is marketing of yourself.  She is a marketer.  Her ideas about deciding what causes you pleasure or pain directly relates to your job search. — Bryan Dilts

Change What You Associate Pain And Pleasure With

By: Sandi Krakowski

You may not realize it right now but you are, at this very moment, being motivated and influenced by two things. These two things literally control how you make decisions, when you’ll make them and quite frankly, IF you’ll make them at all… or sit in limbo.

Many people go through their day, all day long, without ever giving much thought to these very important two things. Myself included! It’s not like I get up in the morning and take a conscious thought of how these two things are motivating me…. but they are. Deep inside my subconscious mind, inside your mind as well, these two things are moving everything… forward, backwards or even holding at a standstill.

What we associate pain and pleasure with is the single greatest motivator in everything we do.

I’m here to tell you that 8 years ago this month I made a decision to CHANGE on a very conscious level what I personally associate to pain and pleasure.

Maybe you’re like me and you’ve always thought it painful to get a critique on something. Coming from the childhood I did where I was motivated nearly every single day by my performance, it was obvious that pain was directly attached to any kind of critique or opinion. And let me say this, this kind of underlying belief did NOT help me as an entrepreneur and thriving business owner.

If you associate pain to any opinions, suggestions, input or critiques, because maybe you didn’t have the loving, nurturing and caring support you deserved as a young person growing up, you will do anything to avoid these at all costs. Here’s the startling part, you’ll do it without even thinking.

You’ll ignore suggestions.

Fear critiques.

Hate when someone asks you to wait because something else must come first. You can see where I’m going with this.

However, 8 years ago I began a process of growing my life and my business simultaneously that caused me to make a decision to change this underlying belief. Now I am extremely happy when my mentor or someone I ask for input gives me critiques, wisdom and advice on how I can improve. It also changed something else in me very dramatically- who I’d listen to when it came to input on my business. I’m now very cautious, in a very good way, who has the privilege of speaking into my life and giving me suggestions for my business.

Listening to the postman and his thoughts on what we should do to grow our business to the next level, or letting that person who has never made millions of dollars, let alone even thousands of dollars in an online business give me their ideas is now attached to pain. And rightfully so. I don’t want the critique and input of someone who hasn’t done what I am seeking to be exceptionally good at! I do however pay more than six figures per year to get the best in the world to give me their thoughts. Because I associate extreme pleasure to moving to the next level!

So my question for you today is this- who are you taking input, ideas and suggestions from?

If you let someone at Walmart that you bump into, or let’s get a little more personal, that relative of yours give you input on whether to invest into your business the first thing they’ll say is, “Can you afford it?”

Newsflash, we were more than $450,000 in DEBT when I invested into my business! I didn’t consult with my checkbook to determine whether or not I could ‘afford’ to invest into something that could change my entire life and business. That kind of mindset comes from someone who has a fixed income anyways.

Trying to build a bigger future on your current income is a faulty business model!

No, I listened to the input of multi-millionaires who reminded me that to increase my own skill and to develop what is necessary in business it would take some sacrifice. It would take a commitment to “be here a year from now” and to not give in the first time hardship came. I sold things on eBay, learned to cook very inexpensively so I COULD do whatever it took to always have a mentor.

We also took an inventory on what we were spending our money on…. and made a conscious choice… pain and pleasure, remember that?….to associate pain with not moving to the next level. This motivated me to avoid whatever held me back. PERIOD.

It took a “Balls to the wall!” approach when it came to my business… which means in plain English “Do the things that make money for crying out loud” and don’t sit on Facebook all day chatting about the cutest things you can find on Pinterest and how “one day” I’ll pay cash for them when my business that I’m building on free tools finally grows.

It is my personal conviction that when someone says to me that they cannot invest into their skill set because of a layoff at work, or a down turn in their personal economy, they simply do not understand what it takes to build a business. They are still locked in a corporate mindset that says, “This is how much we earn and this is how much we can spend because it won’t change unless someone else increases my pay.”

YOU my friends have got to associate pleasure with doing the work and increasing your own paycheck because YOU have made a decision to not settle for less.

If you want a pay increase, you are going to have to make sure your skill set lines up with what commands and directs a pay increase! And you’ll need to associate PLEASURE with the entire process.

You can’t take on a typical a college degree mindset, where it becomes painful and tedious to study and learn things. Stop. Check that thought. Is this your belief? Change it!

You must flip that and begin associating pleasure to learning and more pleasure to activating what you learn!Attach PAIN to staying the same way, associate deep internal pain to doing things as you’ve always done them. You are being motivated every single day by what you associate pain and pleasure to.

This is how you pay off debt, you change your habits, you make decisions correctly and quite literally, you change your life.

The question becomes, will you do what it takes?

ONLY you can decide. For those who are ready? I’m here to take you to the next step. Come on over to my Facebook page right now and tell me that YOU have made a decision to do whatever it takes!

http://www.facebook.com/sandikrakowskibiz

With love,

Sandi Krakowski

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Posted in Attitude, Focus

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Trying the trick at the end of this post may get you a job

Posted on February 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.  (Mark Twain)

12 words is the most that people will read on a billboard.

(That was 12 words.)

1 ½ or 2 inches of print
is what most people read
at a glance.

12 to 15 seconds is all the time a resume normally gets in a screener’s hands before it is trashed or put in the “review” pile.

3 critical words can make or break your resume.

How to get your point across in a resume

Worry about the first 3 words people read in every paragraph and bullet point.  Those are the critical words that have to drag the resume reviewer into the rest of the line.  Think of the hiring manager.  What action, accomplishment or benefit can he see in the first 3 words?

Can’t do it?  Get a thesaurus, or use the one in your word processor.  Find the main word in that paragraph, find a high impact word to replace it with, and put that word in the first 3 words of the paragraph.  In most cases it is better to break any paragraph over 3 lines long into bullet points.  Long paragraphs are intimidating.  Reviewers don’t want to read them.  Make sure you worry about the first 3 words in every bullet point.

3 words can make or break your job search.  Work on them.

Here is the real trick to having a great resume

Take an electronic copy of your resume and delete everything except for the first 3 words of each paragraph or bullet point.  Leave the spacing and formatting the same.  There will be a lot of white space and blank lines.  Print it out. Put it face down on your desk.

Come back tomorrow and look at the skeleton you created.  What is its impact?  Fix it.

 

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Posted in Accomplishments, Focus, Resumes

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Why not go for the CEO job? Really, here’s why NOT to

Posted on February 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

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

Why not go for the CEO job?

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.

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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Posted in Accomplishments, Finding jobs, Focus, Promotions, talent

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How to count your job search victories

Posted on February 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

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.  Stock salesmen 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.

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.”

 

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Posted in Attitude, Focus, Perseverance

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Top 2 areas banks are growing for IT

Posted on January 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

Here is a hint about your future job: Banks are not spending on core systems.

Banks spend money on IT where they expect to get the biggest return. This article plows thrugh the 6 main areas where banks will spend their IT dollars in 2012.

If you want a job or promotion in a bank, make yourself irresistible because you are an expert at Regulatory compliance or customer experience/channel optimization.  Those are two areas that can apply to other places besides banks.

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Posted in Finding jobs, Focus, Uncategorized

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