Category Archives: Focus

Your job search is mortal combat: win every time

Posted on June 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

If you job hunt (or go to work) expecting mortal combat, where the other guy must lose, you will fail.  If you have a strong attitude that, “The company, my manager and I are going to win big,“ you will succeed.  In job search mortal combat you must defeat the real enemy every time. You will lose every time if you fight your allies.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly combat.  (Plato)

Are companies idiots for not hiring you?  Is every interviewer prejudiced?  Let’s look at your job.  Do you assume that your workplace is run by fools?  Do you know more than your boss?  Do you hang around the complainers and whiners at work?  Are you the ringleader?  Are people out to get you?

People really may be out to get you if you have a bad attitude.  A hiring manager wants someone who will help and support him.  Promotions come to people who help raise team spirits and achieve goals.  Raises are given when a person is worth more than they are being paid.  The manager interviewing you for a job will get a feeling how you treat your current boss.  Your attitude will come through in the interview.

So how should you treat your current boss?

She should be your ally.  In mortal combat, you help your allies.

Often you have to train your manager.  She doesn’t have your perspective on problems.  You need to constantly bring things to her attention that she may not know. You need to train her patiently, the way you would like to be trained.

Would you like to get pats on the back for the good things you do along with the occasional pointer on how to correct a mistake?  Do the same with your boss.  Positive reinforcement sets the stage for your negative comments to be heard.  Take an attitude check today.  Are you saying 5 positive things for every negative you voice?  Keep track.

Are you job hunting?

Can the interviewer tell how you engage in destructive mortal combat?  Is that why they are avoiding you?  Do you treat your current manager as your best ally?  If the right attitude shines through, they will hire you.

Business really is mortal combat.  You have to plan on winning every time.  Are you going to defeat stupidity with perfect logic and rapier sharp attacks?  No, you will lose.  Do you plan on patiently helping everyone learn, grow and win?  Your victory is assured.

An attitude of constant improvement will win. Constant carping criticism loses every time.

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Something To Do Today

Keep a notepad with you.  Make two columns.  Put a check in one column for every positive thing you say.  Put a check in the other column for every negative thing you say.  Do the positives outstrip the negatives by 5 to 1?

Every Friday document your week at work in your job journal.  What are your quantifiable achievements and failures?  Make an upbeat report for your manager in a format she can use.  Turn it in whether she asked for it or not.

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Posted in Attitude, Focus, management, Promotions, Raises

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How to find out what you want to be, do, or pursue

Posted on May 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

I went to a Boy Scout camp where a fire company put on a rescue demonstration.  They had 3 cars.  One by one they ripped them apart using hydraulic tools.  Right then I decided that I want to be a fireman when I grow up.  I was 49 and ineligible, but I’m willing to dream.

A friend told me that he was the fastest machine operator at the plant where he worked.  They always put him in the job that would challenge him the most. If there was a bottleneck, he’d clear it up.  He also cried at times because he hated the work so much.  He studied to take up a different profession for 8 years.  He struggled with very low paying jobs, serious health problems, and a wife and kids he solely supported.  Finally he started working as a Mechanical Engineer at a major DOD contractor.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.  (Aristotle)

Why do people stay in jobs they hate? No one is legally bound as an indentured servant or slave anymore.  Why do people need help finding what they like to do?  There are a lot of reasons.  Fear, money, social pressure and unexplored possibilities can all be reasons.

You are a slave if you believe you cannot change.  You are free when you think about, study for, and work towards a change for the better.  So take a little time today and write down a list of things you always wanted to do.  Make a list of jobs and careers you might enjoy.

Need help? Every university has a department to help students discover what they would like to study. The internet has sites to help you choose a career.  Every state run job center will give you interest and aptitude tests for free.  Friends and family are always happy to tell you where to go and what to do when you get there.

You may want to consult a career coach or a consulting coach.  For example, I work with people who want to be consultants to help them have a viable business without worrying about where the next client is coming from. Others help you figure out and pursue your best and happiest career.

It is worth taking time to find out if you really want to be a fireman, mechanic, professor or plumber.  If you start working towards a career goal you can always turn back later and be better off for trying.  However, you will never get anywhere without taking the first steps to think about, study for and work towards a change.

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Something To Do Today

Make a list of every hobby you have attempted.  List every subject you have studied.  Rank them all as “liked”, “don’t care” and “disliked.”  Look for a pattern.  You may be surprised.  Take an interest test or two.  They’re actually fun.  Many are free.  Contact me.  I can help too.

Next:  Mortal combat: win every time

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Posted in Attitude, Focus, Perseverance, Quitting or Fired, talent

“Ash breeze” can fix your job search

Posted on May 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

Sometimes your job search just isn’t working.  Fix your job search using what the old sailors called “ash breeze”.

You won’t go anywhere in your sailboat if you are becalmed, no wind.  Sailors on the old 3 mast boats used to dread finding themselves where there was no wind.  There are places in the ocean where you can go weeks without a breeze.  The old mariners often had only one way out, “ash breeze.”

When becalmed, a rowboat full of men would be sent out tied to the front of the ship.  They would take their ash wood oars and start rowing.  Progress was always painfully slow.  Any breeze would move a ship faster, but “ash breeze” was better than dying becalmed.

Are you becalmed?  Are you stuck in a company or job that just isn’t getting you anywhere?  The book, Carry On Mr. Bowditch, is the story of one of the greatest mariners of our age.

Bowditch was stuck in a nowhere job.  Born in 1773, with little formal education and  apprenticed to a storeowner, Bowditch became an expert bookkeeper.  He wasn’t where he wanted to be.  He studied mathematics and astronomy on his own.  Eventually he became a sea captain, author and educator.  He received an honorary PhD for his accomplishments.  His book on celestial navigation is still used at the US Naval Academy.

The most important thing you have is your attitude.  Couple attitude with an intense desire to better yourself and you cannot be stopped.  Start preparing now for the job you want to have in five years.  Learn what you need to learn.  The more you work on YOU, the better your life will get.

The harder I work on me, the better my life gets.

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Something To Do Today

Read the book, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, by Latham.

Tomorrow:  IBD and what’s hot

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Posted in Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus, Perseverance, talent, Time management, Training

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Is your job search evolving or going nowhere?

Posted on May 20, 2014 | Leave a comment

If you kill time, you’ll murder your future. In your job search, are you comfortable doing the same thing over and over?  If you are getting interviews, you are doing a lot right.  If you are not getting interviews, you need to add something different.

Here is an example of people with potential dying early because they weren’t challenged.  You won’t die from boredom, but I bet you can learn new skills and look for jobs in a new way.

Down Syndrome vs down syndrome part 3

Up until the 1980’s it was common to put babies with Down Syndrome into asylums.  They never learned to read, talk, be toilet trained or do much of anything.  They seemed to be content.  They would sit in the corner and rock or wiggle their fingers in front of their eyes.  Most died before the age of 21.

The singing cowboy Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans had a baby with Down Syndrome, which they refused to put in an asylum.  Dale Evans wrote a book about the child’s two years of life.  She began a revolution.   Most kids with Down Syndrome, like my daughter Merrilee, now learn to read to a fifth grade level, are toilet trained, and live to be at least 50.

Merrilee would sit in a corner and rock or wiggle her fingers in front of her face if she didn’t have something more interesting to do. We have to purposely work at it.  We have to provide something better than rocking in the corner. Are you doing the same for yourself?

Job seekers with down syndrome often end up doing something equivalent to rocking in a corner.  They find an essentially useless, brainless task and concentrate on it.  They don’t want to think.  They just want to be doing SOMETHING. Or they find a task that looks like it should be useful, but is producing absolutely nothing, and they do that.

Do you keep submitting the same resume online to hundreds of jobs with no result?  Do you mail a resume to all the ads in the paper without getting an interview? Do you scan websites for jobs and never find one?  Do you just watch TV because it is less painful than trying to get a job?

You really do have amazing potential.  Sometimes discovering your talents is painful and difficult.  Worse, trying to get paid for those talents the first time, before you have “experience”, can take the wind right out of your sails.

Try something new.  Make a completely different resume and submit it a few places.  Call a few companies and ask for the person who would be your new supervisor.  Do some serious networking by having friends critique your resume for you.  Study interviewing skills at the library.  Read, “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie.  Read “Acres of Diamonds” by Russell Conwell (Google for it)

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Something To Do Today

Try something new.

Tomorrow:  Ash wind and sailing

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Posted in Finding jobs, Focus, Job Boards

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How to get that job they don’t want to give you or don’t have

Posted on May 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

You may get a job by thorough persistence.  Don’t be pestilential and persistent, be pleasant, nice and thoroughly persistent.  Let me demonstrate.

My daughter Merrilee has Down Syndrome.  Her IQ is 43.  She has a lot of advantages over job seekers with down syndrome.  Job seekers with down syndrome accept what happens to them fatalistically.  My daughter with Down Syndrome got an extra half chromosome that makes it impossible for her to be fatalistic.  For example:

Merrilee loves cartoon videos.  We limited the time she spends watching them.  We locked them in the boys’ room so she couldn’t get them.  Yet she showed up with a cartoon video in her hand while I was at the computer or reading and handed it to me almost every day.

How did she get the video?  She knew that eventually one of her brothers would leave the door unlocked or the key down where she could get it.  She checked the door several times a day.  Not obsessively, just whenever she went by their room.

She can’t talk clearly, but I knew when she handed me a video that she wanted me to play it.  She gave it to me when I was busy so I wouldn’t go upstairs to lock the room.  I would hand it back and say, put it on the TV stand.  She did.   10 or 20 minutes later she brought another.  This went on until I played a video for her or put the videos away and locked the boys’ door.

She is how you should be in your job search. If I tell her, “No,” she’ll be back.  If I lock the boys’ door, she’ll be back.  She’s gentle and loving.  She’s quietly persistent.  She’s not unreasonable.  I want to help her.  She does what I ask when I tell her to put the video on the TV stand.

A job seeker with down syndrome sadly lacks Merrilee’s gentle persistence. Job seekers who feel down, just give up at the first, “No.”  There may not be a job today, but there might literally be one tomorrow.

Be persistent.  Don’t give up on the job or promotion you want.  Figure out how to gently and kindly get your qualifications before the decision maker.  Be reasonable, persistent, helpful and nice.  Take your resume to HR every time they ask.  Ask what you can do to qualify for and get the job.  Then do what they say.  After a month or two, try again.

If you make yourself qualified and have a great attitude, eventually someone will leave the door unlocked.  Someone will quit or the department will expand.  If you are kindly persistent and not irritatingly pestilent, you’ll have a great shot at the job.

You can’t have the blessing of the extra half chromosome that Merrilee has.  However, you can develop her persistence, love and patience.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.  The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.  (Coolidge)

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Something To Do Today

Is there a promotion you really want?  Are there companies you really want to work for?  Go to your job journal and write a plan for getting what you want by being persistent in a nice way.  Decide how often you can try again.  Set appointments on your calendar to try again.

Tomorrow:  Down Syndrome vs down syndrome part 2

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Posted in Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus, Followup, Networking, Perseverance, Promotions, Raises

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Giving your way into a job.

Posted on April 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

Do you know how hard it is to get an administrative job with a symphony orchestra?

A symphony administrator told me how to do it.  A woman called him and asked for a job.  He said, “I can’t hire you, there is no budget.”

That’s not the end of the story.  She said, “I’ll work for you for free.”  It was a wage he could afford.  She did a great job for 3 months and went back to school.  What do you think will happen when she applies for her next job and has experience and great references? 

You can’t afford to work for free.  Not forever, anyway.  Can you do it for a few hours or days?  Over the weekend?  Helping people out of a bind is a great way to network your way into a job.  They will feel compelled to let others know how much you helped them.  In the programming and computer networking field it is a very common way to work yourself into a company.

I can point to specific examples where this worked for accountants, secretaries, company presidents, salespeople, office managers and more.  These were jobs worth anywhere from $6/hour to $250,000/year. These people all helped someone who mentioned they were snowed under with work.  After a few hours they offered to come in the next day.  After 2 days they said they’d help out the next weekend.  The boss, owner or chairman of the board heard about it and hired the person.

If you are unemployed, what’s the damage?  If you have a job, why not spend some of your evening and weekend time helping out with something you don’t normally do?  I know people who got promoted because they came in a few extra hours to their regular job to help their boss out on the boss’s project.

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Something To Do Today

Do you know someone who needs help?  Seize the opportunity.  Go on in and see if you can help.

Tomorrow:     Giving 30 seconds away can get you a job too

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Posted in Attitude, Finding jobs, Focus, Followup, Networking, Perseverance

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I Really Saw A Crab Do What People Do

Posted on March 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

Our family had stopped for lunch on a pretty little beach in Hawaii.  A family was there fishing.  The father was throwing a net and had some crab pots out.  The kids were fishing with a stick and a hook.  They invited us to join them.

Eventually the crab pots were brought in.  There were 3 crabs in the pots.  The dad grabbed the crabs with his bare hands and plopped them in a bucket.  I was 9 years old at the time and I remember telling all the adults that those crabs were going to get out.  I was scared.  They showed me how a crab can grab a stick with those claws.

One crab did get part way out once.  An adult came over and knocked it back in.  Other than that once, it was never a problem. You see crabs won’t let another crab get above them.  They pull them back down into the bucket. 

As a recruiter I’ve interviewed a lot of people who are like those crabs.  They complain about how unfair things are.  I can get lists of offenses they have suffered at work.  I can also get ingenious methods of retaliation they used.  They concentrate more on what they want than how to help the business make a bigger profit.  They expect someone to appoint them to lead and for everyone to meekly do as they say. 

Frank Fox told me, “Leadership is 90% seized and 10% granted.”    I’d say opportunity is also 90% seized and 10% granted.  Networks?  90% seized and 10% granted.

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Something To Do Today

Look at your work group, church, friends, etc.  Who always decides where the group is going for lunch?  Who picks what you are going to do?

Who decides where you will meet?  How do they seize that control?  Write down some thoughts in your job journal.

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For a few days:      How to network at the top.

Creating networks

Seizing opportunities

How natural leaders do it even if they have no titles.

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Posted in Attitude, Focus, Networking

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What if there are 6 ads and you really want the job?

Posted on March 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

You see 6 ads for one job you really want.  It is so good you would quit you’re your current job just to apply.  What do you do?

High Priority Jobs

Getting your resume into the hiring manager’s hands is your quest.

First gather information. 

Is there anything that makes you think the writer of one of the ads knows the hiring manager personally?

Check the date on all those ads.  When were they posted?  What day did they appear?  List when the company and each agency first advertised.  Did an agency advertise before the company itself?  They may have a close tie to the hiring manager.  Have the ads been going on for months?  The company is either getting a little desperate, has decided not to fill the job, or the job is full but recruiters haven’t bothered to pull the ads yet because they are still getting lots of calls.

How are the ads different?   Does one include a lot more in-depth information?  Is another extremely short?  Look closely.  Do any of them make you feel like the writer talked to the manager?  You want to talk to someone who has the hiring manager’s ear.

Second work your network.

Call the people you know at the company, or invite them out to lunch.  Call up recent employees. Connect on LinkedIn to everyone at the company you can.

What can you find out about the job?  Is there someone who can personally take your resume to the hiring manager?  How about to the hiring manager’s boss?  This is still the research phase.  Don’t give anyone your resume yet.  You only get to submit it once.

Is there a recruiter you trust?  Find out what information they have.  If they can bypass HR (Human Resources) or have other great connections then work with them.  For instance, there is one company I work with that requires all recruiters to submit resumes through their online system.  But I call the HR manager and tell her when my candidates go in so she can immediately extract them.  She is afraid of missing a truly hot candidate.  Other people who submit themselves are first sorted through by the receptionist.

You really do have to quiz recruiters about their connections.  If you answer a particular ad when there are 6 ads out there, you have a right to ask why you should send a resume in through them.

Third decide how to apply.

If the job is not exciting, it doesn’t matter how you submit your resume.  Just do some quick cosmetic changes and submit it through an agency or the HR department.

For the job that really turns you on, figure out who should submit your resume.  For any company it could be you, a friend, a recruiter or an acquaintance.  Choose in this order:

  1. Someone who can hand your resume to the hiring manager and personally recommend you.  It doesn’t get any better.
  2. Whoever can get your resume past HR and talk to the manager.
  3. The person that can talk to the HR manager or screener and get you past the first cut.
  4. At this point all submissions really are equal. Do it yourself, have an employee there submit you to HR or let a recruiter you trust and who gets back with you do it.

Fourth get your resume perfect

Put the bullets on your resume in order of importance.  Put a few key words in bold to make sure the screener and manager sees them.  Get rid of bullets, lines and sentences that do not apply to the job!!  A two page resume is fine for most jobs, but the second page may never get read.

Do the 10 second test with several people.  Hand your resume to a few friends and ask them to read it for 10 seconds.  Time them.  Take it away in 10 seconds.  Ask what they remember.  Do they mention your most important qualifications and accomplishments? If they do, it’s a winner.  If not, change it.

The 10 second test is critical because most screeners and managers give all the resumes a 10 second review to try to find the best ones first.  They will probably throw out your resume without further reading if they can’t see what they want in that first 10 seconds.

Fifth submit and follow up

Submit your resume.  Call up and find out what happened two days later.  Did your resume arrive there?  Did the manager see it yet?  When will he decide?

You really want that job? After your two day follow up call send a thank you note. Give them a nudge, short and friendly.  It is amazing how a thank you note can get someone to personally try one more time for you.

Keep calling back at least weekly.  Sometimes it does take a couple of months to fill a job.  Keep your candidacy alive until it is pronounced dead by someone who knows.

Take Your Best Shot

If you really want a job.  Go all out.  There may be 100 applicants.  In some cases there may be 1000.  Use personal contacts to set yourself apart from the herd.  Make sure your resume instantly says, “I’m qualified.”  And follow up in case you somehow get missed.

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Something To Do Today

Start prioritizing all the jobs you can apply for.  On your written list make sure the jobs you crave stand out.  Treat them differently.  It is worth the extra effort.

Next week:  Recruiters and the hair on the back of your neck.

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Posted in Finding jobs, Focus, Followup, Job Boards, Networking, Perseverance, Recruiters, Resumes, Time management

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How to be sure of your career direction. Can you?

Posted on January 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

It can be difficult if not impossible to know where your career should go.  It’s not that you can’t pick a direction, it is making sure it is the right direction.  You may climb the career ladder of success, only to find out it is leaning against the wrong wall.

Here is a great article on how to figure out where you should go.

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Posted in Focus, management, Perseverance, Promotions, Quitting or Fired

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What a big house or a great job costs

Posted on January 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

I was at a gorgeous house.  It had radiant heating, an indoor basketball court and swimming pool, wonderful view, and enough room for anyone’s desires.  I loved it.  The hosts were generous and kind.  Then I decided to tally up the cost of owning a house like that.  My estimate is $24,000 per month without mortgage payments.  Owning that great house had a price tag that I can’t ever see myself paying.

Last week I also talked with people in jobs that paid $100,000 – $250,000 per year.  They are wonderful jobs.  Nice offices, private secretaries, authority over others, and a sweet lifestyle come with the jobs.  They are leading financial and accounting people. 

There is a price those people pay.  First is education and certification.  Then comes an apprenticeship with 60-90 hour weeks for months at a time during peak seasons.  Without that apprenticeship with the “right” companies, they would be earning half of what they are.  The “right” companies now means choosing from 4 major CPA firms and toiling there for at least 4 years.

With all that hard work, we still need to mention another 5-20 years of always putting in 50+ hours per week. There is a very high price for those jobs, and there is high pay. Many people try to get around the education, certification, and apprenticeship.  Notably, a few people make it without those exact experiences.  But those who get around it are either obviously geniuses, or have worked even more to rise from obscurity to notoriety than the path I outlined would have taken.

If there is a high and mighty job you want, there is also a price to be paid for it.  Go ahead, get that job.  As you earn that job, make sure that you always understand the price of the next step or two in your progression.

Both a big house and a great job have fine rewards.  They also have their own unique costs.  It can be worth it.  Is it worth it for you?

Something To Do Today            

Invite to lunch a person who has the job you want. Ask them about the price they paid in the past and they price they pay now for that job.

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Later:  What may happen in the next recession

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Posted in Focus, management, Perseverance, Promotions, Raises, talent, Time management

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