Category Archives: Focus

Proof you are really good at getting the job

Posted on December 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

When you don’t get a particular job, sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and think about past successes.

Very few jobs are awarded to the only candidate considered.  In most situations, even internal promotions, at least 3 candidates are considered.  For the majority of outside hires more than 10 resumes are reviewed.  You never have a chance of getting the job.  But somehow, you eventually win.

Look at your current or last  job.  Who were the competitors? Why did you win? See! You are good at getting the job.

Now look at the next job you want to have.  What can you do today to give yourself the winning edge over the other candidates?

Goals can be used to give you that winning edge in an impossible competition.  Yesterday I talked to someone who spent $6000 last year to finish his degree while working full time.  Now he not only can win the jobs he looked at more easily, but he can look at a whole new level of jobs.

Set a goal to give yourself an unfair advantage in you next career move.

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser — in case you thought optimism was dead.  (Robert Brault)

Something To Do Today

Figure out when you can spend some time with your goals every day.  Just sitting with a pen and paper for 15 minutes each day can change your life if you are thinking about where you want to go.

Make sure the goals will give you a tangible advantage in your career.

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Have a great New Year.

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Posted in Attitude, Focus, Perseverance, Time management

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The most common bad career goal

Posted on December 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

The only thing worse than not reaching your goal, is reaching it.

The most common bad career goal

As a recruiter I talk to some people who are miserable that they reached their career goals.  Of course I also talk to those who have reached their goals and are loving it, so they set new ones.  What’s the difference?  Setting the right goals. What is the most common career goal?  I do/do not want to be a manager.

It is a terrible thing to climb the ladder of success, and find out it is leaning against the wrong wall.

I want to be a manager

This is the biggest misery making goal I see.  As a programmer, accountant, salesperson, or engineer you get to regularly do something concrete.  You can see what you did.  It is obvious.  Managers often work a whole week resolving problems and dealing with emotional issues.  At the end of the week, they often cannot point to a single thing they really accomplished.  When someone quits, it is their fault and their responsibility to fix the problem.  Then someone else quits.  They also feel isolated from their coworkers. Managers have to discipline, give raises, and fire people.  It gets lonely at the top.

It can also be the perfect job.  Some people thrive as managers.  If you want to be a manager find out if you will like it.  Lead some projects.  Lead a team.  Reflect on what it will really be like if you no longer “get your hands dirty”.  Ever.

I want out of management

It’s funny that this too is a common bad career goal.  Be honest, do you really want to get back to the daily production grind, or is your current position the problem.  Sometimes you have to change what you are doing, change your boss, or change your company.  If you loved management in the past and did well, but you are no longer allowed to succeed, getting back to a production job isn’t the solution.  Figure out what else must change, and change that.

Being a manager can be great if it fits your personality and you are in the right place.  Before you get out of management, make sure you should be out.  You can volunteer for a project leader job where you go back to work in the trenches for a while.  Get your hands dirty in a temporary assignment to see if that is what you really should be doing.

Be careful that you set goals you will be happy with. See if you can try out that promotion or production job before you take it full time.

Something To Do Today

Figure out when you can spend some time with your goals every day.  Just sitting with a pen and paper for 15 minutes each day can change your life if you are thinking about where you want to go.  Figure out how to try out your goals.

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Have a great New Year.

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Posted in Attitude, Focus, Raises, talent

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I am doing what I suggested yesterday

Posted on December 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

I took time yesterday and today to go through my goals, rewrite some, add a couple, and remove some. I did it again today.  I will do it every day this month.  Yes, that includes on Christmas Day.  I want the gifts I get from goals.

Funny thing is, I found a list of things that would make my business expand rapidly if I did them daily.  I moved that right next to my goal list.  I will be reviewing both lists.

I store my goals, research notes, articles, talks I have given, and anything else I want to have for the future in Microsoft OneNote.  That way I have access to my archive anywhere there is a computer.  I store the information in the cloud.  If I update it from a library computer, it is updated at work and everywhere else.

I understand EverNote, Google Keep, and other note or research keeping tools are available. Here is a link to a quick comparison of tools. I use OneNote because I have it and love it.

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How to make goals work instead of destroy you

Posted on December 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

Goal: 1. To score one point; 2. To win a game; 3. To win the championship; 4. To win at life; 5. To win eternal life.

Now is the time to prepare for a great New Year.  December 31st is too late.

Some people avoid goals because they do no good.  Others set goals and excel because of them.  A whole bunch of people set goals and it doesn’t make any difference.

Avoiding goals can help you feel less discontent.  If you never think about what you are capable of and strive to excel, you will feel less discontent.  Maybe.  Or you may just feel that the world is a rigged game.  That YOU can’t win, while others you know “get lucky”.  By avoiding goals, you are likely to become at least a little cynical.

Successful goals come in all sizes.  They can be goals for today, this week, this month, and this year.  I set goals of all those sizes, and larger.  I even have goals for what I want to achieve beyond this life.

Here is what I am going to do for the rest of this month.

One of the ways to make goals work for you is to think about them daily.  Set aside 5 or 15 minutes a day.  Have your list of goals, a sheet of paper, and a pen.  Spend that time writing down things you can do to reach your goals.  Make interim goals you can accomplish today.  Think about the things you can do, the way you can change what you would normally do to accomplish a little more.  For me, thinking about my goals every day is the most important thing I can do to reach them.

While I think about my goals, I change them.  They become more real to me.  My expectations change.  Sometimes I discard them because I see a better goal.  To me, that is motivating.  I am excited to see something even better I can strive towards as I go down the path I am on.

Spend some quality time with your goals every day.  Savor their flavor. You’ll be surprised what a difference it will make.

Something To Do Today

Figure out when you can spend some time with your goals every day.  Just sitting with a pen and paper for 15 minutes each day can change your life if you are thinking about where you want to go.

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Now is the time to prepare for a great New Year.  December 31st is too late.

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How to get your pay above $125K

Posted on December 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (George Bernard Shaw)

I talked in depth with salespeople earning over $200,000 per year.  I asked, “How did you get into the position where you won’t even consider taking a base salary under $100,000?”

The answer is very simple he said, “It is all in how you position yourself.”

I talk with accountants, programmers, managers, salespeople, engineers, and others every day who would never take less than $100K.  Others doing similar jobs can’t conceive of earning over $40K.

The difference is that the well paid people are always trying to develop the skills and experiences that are rare.  One salesman said, “I’m highly paid because of who I can get in to see.  I can talk to people in research laboratories and CFO’s of companies all across America.  I know how to get their attention and sell to them.  In Philadelphia there are thousands of salespeople who sell well in Philadelphia, but can’t or won’t sell in New York or Boston.  If you are competing with a thousand salespeople for that Philadelphia only job, guess what?  You may think you are worth $200K, but there are at least 500 other people willing to do it for $50K-$80K.  You will never get paid $200K because you have positioned yourself wrong.  Too many salespeople have positioned themselves to sell in Philadelphia for $50K.”

The same applies to computer programmers, managers, accountants, and even call center technicians.  I know a lot of people earning over $100K because they have looked at their business carefully for years.  They constantly ask, “Why is Joe earning more than me?  What jobs are paying big bucks?  What do I have to do to get there?”

First you need to position yourself at entry level so you can get experience. Then you have to see where the rare talent is.  What are people doing that earns them the money you want to earn.  Then you need to educate yourself, volunteer to help on projects, and get involved in decision making.  Eventually you will work up to the rarefied air of the best paid people in your field.

So how are you positioning yourself?  How will you be positioned next year?

Something To Do Today            

Make a list of 5 people who are doing what you want to do and earning what you want to earn.

Now go invite each one to lunch.  Whether they accept your invitation or not, ask them for help.  Ask them how you can join the rarefied company at their level.

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Focus, Negotiating, Promotions, Raises, talent

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5 things I do to stop procrastinating

Posted on November 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. (Peter Drucker)

An old friend laughed when she read my article on procrastinating.  She knows I am a king at procrastinating.  She mentioned how I paid my kids to help me stop procrastinating.  The first one to call me after 3 p.m., and ask if I had met my goal for telephone calls that day, got paid.  It was cheaper than having a boss take 50% of my commissions.

I am an expert at procrastination.  The only way I have been able to beat that problem is to think about it….then set up motivators.  You need to do the same thing with your job hunting duties.

There are certain things that help me stop procrastinating:

  1. Guilt
  2. Rewards
  3. Getting checked up on
  4. Momentum
  5. Brain games

Guilt

If I make a plan that I know will succeed, and don’t follow it, I feel guilty.  Simple.  I pray for help, come up with a plan to reach my goal, and am goaded by guilt.  (Why don’t you write down a plan for finding a job. You’ll feel guilty for ignoring it.)

Rewards

One month I earned a membership at the Climbnasium by making a placement.  I basically don’t buy much of anything unless it is a reward for reaching a goal.  At the end of this month, I get a “prize” if I call 30 new people every work day.  I’ve used trips, shoes, clothes, a car, computer accessories, a camera, lunch, and leaving before 5 p.m. as rewards. (You can set up a reward for sending out 10 resumes, or making 5 calls.)

Getting checked up on

I mentioned paying my kids to call me and check up.  I’ve had my wife call at noon when I was having a lot of problems procrastinating.  I have kept daily charts of how many new people I call, how long I am on the phone, and other important daily accomplishments. Having a helper or just having to check up on myself every day is a big help. (Try making a chart for how many ads you respond to, or how many networking lunches you have in a week.)

Momentum

Funny thing about starting, it’s easier to keep going after you get some momentum.  The first 3 calls I make every day are to people I already know who are actively looking for jobs.  That gets the phone to my ear.  After those 3 calls, it is much easier to make the other calls to people I have never talked to before. (To start your day you can send out two resumes thru Monster first, then send out two resumes to companies with no openings, then call the two companies you sent resumes to yesterday.  Get momentum going.)

Brain games

The most effective thing I have done to get me to make calls is a simple brain game.  I have 50 dollar coins – 40 are gold colored, 10 are silver.  Every time I call a new person I noisily drop a coin into a cup.  Silver coins are for sales calls, gold are for recruiting.  It reminds me that every call means money.  It works for me.  At the end of the day, if I only have 20 or 25 calls, I can see how close I am to my goal of 30. It is a brain game that really motivates me. (What is a brain game you can use for job hunting?)

 

Procrastinating the most important parts of your job search can be a major problem.  Figure out what you can do to get working on the important things every day.

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Tomorrow:     Mental hygiene

Cover letter anesthesia

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Posted in Finding jobs, Focus, Followup, Networking, Perseverance, Time management

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3 reasons to procrastinate in your job search

Posted on November 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Procrastination isn’t the problem, it’s the solution.  So procrastinate now, don’t put it off. (Ellen DeGeneres)

What to learn from procrastinators

My son and daughter put off doing their summer homework.  When they only had 3 weeks to get it done there were more problems.  They also had band camp taking up 10+ hours a day. After they procrastinated the hard part of summer that long I was telling them…..

“Procrastinating can be a good thing.

“First of all, I hope you procrastinated to get important things done.  If you did, then you used your time wisely. Use this experience to learn to do first things first.  (That is very important for job hunting.)

“Second, you should be letting less important things stay undone now that you are up against a nearby deadline. Learning to NOT do good but less important things is just as important as doing “first things first.”  (Job hunters often do repetitive, less productive, easy tasks. Stop it. You don’t have to do them.)

“Third, your quality should be high now, and you should pay attention to what works and doesn’t work for shortcuts.  Now is when you learn how much research is essential, and what research is just being done to avoid the hard work. Now is when you find out you really can do a quality job in 8 concentrated hours rather than 4 full leisurely days.”  (Job hunters often research a company for hours when all they need to know is that it is in the same industry.  They do heavy research so they can make less phone calls and send less resumes, which is more painful than surfing the internet.)

Think about all the schoolwork, studying, and commercial work you have procrastinated and gotten done at the last minute.  How much time did you save by having your back to the wall?  How many tasks that were more important have you gotten done?  What tasks just disappeared with time?

Now apply those lessons to job hunting.  Give yourself tight deadlines to get tasks done.  Instead of procrastinating, give yourself too little time to get tasks done, then fit them in the time you have given yourself.  Learn from the times you procrastinated.

Something To Do Today

Be your own boss.  Set a goal for how many companies you will call today.  That is a high priority job search activity.  How many resumes will you send out on ads?  How many resumes to companies in your industry or geography?

Learn from your prior procrastination.

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Later:                   More procrastination

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Posted in Accomplishments, Focus, Followup, Perseverance

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How a budgeting problem can help your job search (or job)

Posted on September 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

I was overspending by 20% every month. I had an absolutely fixed income.  So I bought a notepad and kept track of every expense.  In one week it was obvious where the money went.  In a month it was unavoidable.  The truth? 20% of my very limited income was going for lemonade from cozy little shops in Murcia, Spain.

Your time is very limited.  You only get 24 hours a day.  You can’t buy more time. Do you really know how you use it?

Buy a small notebook.  Exert incredible discipline for one day or one week.  Every time you shift tasks, write it down.  A phone call is a shifted task.  An internet link can be a shifted task.  Write it down.

It may help to create 15 minute intervals on the paper and write down what you did for each 15 minute period.

Now get out the chainsaw.  What was really REALLY productive?  Do you spend 2 hours daily trying to avoid offending people by chatting amiably or reading their useless emails.  Cut out the unproductive stuff.

Make sure you do what is important.  Education—essential. Networking—critical.  Talk about the NCAA tournament with Larry—don’t kid yourself.  That email of funny things kids do—delete it.

I did a 2 month experiment.  Years ago I took all my job openings off the internet.  I found I was spending hours each day with email that wouldn’t do any good.  Instead I found alternate sources of good candidates.  In the recruiting business that is taking a chainsaw to your daily schedule.  Nothing neat and clean, I just cut 25% of my schedule off with a chainsaw.  It worked.

I did a new experiment.  For two months I posted jobs to minor job boards.  I wanted to see if things have changed.  I used logs, discipline, and experimentation to see what worked best.

Your job search and your day at work can probably use some scientific discipline too.  Track your time occasionally.  See where your time is being spent and where the greatest return on your time is.

Create the time log.  Keep it for a day or a week.  Get your chainsaw out.  Cut off the termite riddled, least productive part of your schedule.  Use the time you save to get the most useful things possible done.

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Something To Do Today

Create a time log.  Use it for your job or your job hunting.  Keep it. Analyze it.  Chainsaw it.

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Later:             Unbelievable networking facts.

Take unfair advantage of those networking facts.

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Posted in Focus, Time management

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The 4 things high wage earners do, some for only 40 hours per week

Posted on September 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

It is not just know the “4 Do’s” to earn a lot of money.

Do it.

Do it right.

Do the right thing.

Do it right now.

One of my managers told me, “Bryan, you don’t work hard enough.  I put in 60 or 70 hours a week. Even if I’m just in here filing microfiche, I’m getting more done than you.”  I couldn’t answer him.  I was too amazed.  He took my silence for the deep pondering of a well taught student and left. I’m grateful he couldn’t read my mind.

The hardest working people I know, by hours worked, are paid about the same as others who work tightly focused and undistracted for 40 to 45 hours a week.  Both the 70 hour week and 45 hour week people are VP’s and directors. They are paid the same.

The people working seventy hours a week focus on the “4 do’s” differently.  They focus on working efficiently or hard.  They want to get a lot of work done. At the end of the day they point to the fact that they did the work of 3 people in only 70 hours.

The people working 40 to 45 hours a week also focus on the “4 do’s”, but first they prioritize.  “Do the right thing” is their focus when they plan each day. They try to avoid administrivia—the things they are asked to do that don’t really help.  Then they stay focused on getting the highest impact things done and purposely ignore a lot of the rest, or get someone else to do it.

The manager of the manager I mentioned in the first paragraph told me, “When my boss asks for a new report, I faithfully send it to him for 3 weeks.  It is always a masterpiece.  The fourth week I prepare it for him and don’t send it.  If he calls and asks for it I apologize and he has it in his hands in minutes. Most of the time he never asks for it.  I prepare it for a couple of more weeks just in case he calls, then I stop entirely.”   He was one of the most highly rated directors in EDS.

Now let’s get something straight.  45 or 90 hours of wasted time will get you nowhere.  Solitaire, internet poker and reading the news don’t count as well spent time.  You have to be doing what’s most important for 40 hours each week to beat out the person working 70 hours.  And notice that the very first manager I mentioned got there solely by putting in 70 hour weeks for years.

In your job search or your job this lesson applies.  Are you only putting in the time or are you focusing?  Are you doing the hard things that will have the biggest impact, or are you spending your time in the same online job boards praying for miracles?

Do it.  Do it right. Do the right thing. Do it right now.  Don’t get distracted.  Focus on what is most important.  Then take some time off with your friends and family.  They’re important too.

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Something To Do Today

It is time to figure out what you are doing.   Really.  Make a list of the things you do at work or in your job search each day and each week.  Think about it.  Are you consistently working on the most important stuff, or are you merely focusing on activity?

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Later:  Logs and the chainsaw massacre

Unbelievable Networking facts

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How to get your boss to focus on production, not hours.

Posted on September 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

Accomplishing the impossible means only that the boss will add it to your regular duties. (Doug Larson)

“If I stay late and am only filing microfiche, I’m being more productive than you.  Bryan, you need to put in more hours.” That is how my manager convinced me he knew nothing about productivity. I also learned what he valued the most – hours of work.

The only way to change that attitude

I didn’t consciously set out to break my manager of that mindset.  I should have. It cost me real money in lowered reviews and salary because I refused to work more hours unless there was a real need.

To fix your boss, you have to find out what hurts him.  Find out what will get HIM outstanding reviews.  If he is only evaluated on hours worked, you have to fix HIS boss.  If he gets evaluated on projects finished, revenue increases, innovation, customer complaints, referrals to the sales department, or any other factor, then you at least have a chance at changing his mind.  Ask him.  Ask his boss. Listen to what he complains about other than hours worked.

Now start tracking your performance in the areas he is evaluated on.  See if you can figure out how to help improve HIS performance reviews.  Make sure you document how bad things are, so you can prove how much you help.

Start giving your boss weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual evaluations of your own performance.  Show him what you are doing that benefits him the most.  You would be surprised how concentrating on you boss’s career can help your own. Reminding your boss weekly of how you are helping him get a raise will change your own reviews and increase your earnings.

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Something To Do Today

If you don’t have a job journal, start one.  It can be a three ring binder or a spiral notebook.  It doesn’t matter.  Start tracking your job performance.  And start writing down all the things your boss seems to be the most worried about.

This Friday you can turn in that first report to him.  He will say, “What’s this?”  You can reply, “I spent a couple of minutes putting together a list of things I accomplished this week.  I thought it might help when you are deciding on my next raise or promotion.”

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Focus, Promotions, Raises

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