Category Archives: Raises

Salary negotiation and gender judo for women (and men)

Posted on July 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

Women have to be careful how they ask for a raise.  Sorry, there are just some prejudices that can cause trouble.

In this article they give several salary negotiation tips that work great for women, and also great for men.

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Posted in Negotiating, Raises

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Your sunshine collection can get you a raise or a job

Posted on July 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

Memory is a fickle thing.  When you are depressed, you can hardly remember cheerful times.  It is a good thing you know how to write.  Keeping track of little things can change your entire career.  Your job journal can be a lifesaver when things get rough. It is your sunshine collection.

Every time someone compliments you, write it in your job journal.  If they like your smile, clothes, attitude, car, clean desk or hard work, write it down.  When someone thanks you for your help, write it down.  Joe Smith says you are more expert than a CPA with a PhD?  Write it down.

Take a second to write down what they said, who said it, and what the circumstances were.  That is sunshine collecting.

Every Friday you should be writing in your job journal what you accomplished this week.  You should also record problems that relate to your job so that when the problems stop, you can show how well you fixed things.

That’s good, but not enough.

Emails and letters that compliment you should be put in your job journal too.  Sunshine collecting is taking the time to collect and write down what others say you do well.  Then when you are mad at Bob, you can go back and find out what he likes about you.  That can change your whole day for the better.  It can keep you from exploding or quitting.

Sure, your sunshine collection can be a big help in a job performance review or job search.  But if you collect sunshine it will do great things for your career whether or not anyone else knows about it.  It will help you remember how good you really are.  It will also help you remember how good other people are.  That’s important too.

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Something To Do Today

Listen for compliments, kudos and attaboys.  Write them in your job journal.  They’re stored sunshine so get a yellow highlighter and mark them too.

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Tomorrow starts easy networking week.  Low effort, high return network tools. One high effort, incredible return networking tool also included.

Tomorrow:     A job and a promotion networking

Later:              A scissors for jobs network

100% exposed job networking

Double your chances after an interview

Linked in

The international manager roundtable method of getting a job.

 

How to close an interview

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Raises

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Like your job search, even lasers have to focus

Posted on June 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

Careers and lasers are not naturally focused.  Your career focus will determine whether you have the career you want, or the one that is most convenient for your boss and coworkers.

Lasers, by nature, are also unfocused. A common misconception is that the light comes out of a laser in a tight beam.  It does not.  If you take a laser pointer apart you will see a simple lens just in front of the laser. Because of the light’s coherence and origin, the light can be focused into a tight beam. Coherent light waves all marching in step come from a laser naturally.  Focus has to be designed into it.

Most people laugh at the idea of a company president becoming a janitor.  I know two people who decided to do it.  They decided to change the focus of their lives.  Both make a lot of money as janitors because they are focused.

Do you need a focus for your career and job search?  You may be capable of being a manager, worker, company president, and janitor.  With 4 resumes you could apply for each job in a coherent manner.  You could also interview for each and present yourself as the perfect employee.  But should you?

What are your talents?  What do you do better than others?  What do you want to learn?

Inability to get ahead in a career is often caused by a lack of purpose or focus.  You are happy to float to wherever there is an opening today.  Everyone always tells you what a great team player you are.  The trouble is that your raises are small and you get passed over for promotions.

So you decide to get another job.  You apply for every job you can.  Your new job is outside of the field you were in before.  Once again you float into whatever needs to be done today.  Your career goes nowhere.

Do you WANT to go nowhere as fast as you can?

Stop today.  Focus on a goal.  What is the next job, responsibility, or promotion you want?  Turn down urgent requests to do something else.  Stop letting the minor inconvenience of other people decide what you will do.  Focus on a goal.

One way to tell if you are focused is to count how many people YOU ask to help YOU reach YOUR goal.  Ask for help.  Network.  Talk to people doing what you want to do next.  Get their advice.  Focus on one goal.

But what if you are unemployed?  It still works.  Decide on a specific job, title or assignment you want the most.  Find people doing that job.  Ask them to help you figure out how to get to that job.  That’s networking.  That’s laser like focus.

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Something To Do Today

Talk to someone doing the job you want for your next job.  Ask them the steps you can take to get the same job.

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Tomorrow:  Why lasers work – part 3

Later:  What time is it?

Put your feet up on his desk.

Sunshine collecting

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Posted in Finding jobs, Focus, Quitting or Fired, Raises, Resumes

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Your job search: the poker game

Posted on June 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

If you look at every job search decision, action, and result as a measure of your worth, you are setting yourself up for massive failure.  In this article a world renowned poker player talks about evaluating decisions based on the information you had at the time you made the decision.

There may be absolutely nothing you can do to win a job you are perfectly qualified for.  If one of the other candidates is married to the boss’s daughter, you lose.

In survival, you control what you can control, and let God take care of the rest.  In job hunting, interviews, negotiations, and job performance, you control what you can control and let go of the rest.  You can’t win every hand.

This is a great article on poker and business.

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Posted in Counteroffers, Interviews, Negotiating, Quitting or Fired, Raises

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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 promote yourself at work

Posted on May 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

This slideshow is aimed at women, but very applicable for men.  You need to learn the best way to promote yourself.  No one wants to be called “A legend in his own mind.”  But you want to be noticed and rewarded for all the things you make work.

Here are some hints on how to do it.

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Posted in Accomplishments, Promotions, Raises

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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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What can I do to double my income?

Posted on January 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

Here is the truth no politician, few economists, few teachers want to tell people, and that few people want to hear: certain jobs are only worth a certain, maximum number of dollars per hour, whether you’ve been there doing it for one year, ten years, or thirty years. Longevity does not necessarily merit more money because the individual’s length of time on the job does not necessarily increase the real value of getting that job done. (Dan Kennedy)

Many helpdesk people would be happy to get their income up to $35,000 per year. They are doing a helpdesk job that requires a few months of education and some ability with computers. 

I am doing a search for a helpdesk person who will earn $75,000.  If I can find the right person, they will be hired in 2 weeks.  There will be no quibbling about the salary.  It really is just a helpdesk job.  But this job requires experience setting up security between servers and applications.  This helpdesk person is going to be helping experts. 

I know CPA’s who are Controllers earning $45,000 per year and others earning $250,000 per year.  Some of those $45K Controllers work longer hours than the ones earning $250K.

The difference is that the people earning less are easy to replace. They have prepared themselves only so much, and demand only a little from their jobs and themselves.  Those earning the big bucks have taken risks, educated themselves, taken responsibility, and proven that they will make or save a lot of money for their company.  

How you double your income is to prepare yourself for a job where you will be hard to replace.  And you will have to be willing to change jobs, if not companies. You have to become a people person and a problem solver.  If someone believes you will make them $4,000,000 in profit this year, they will pay you a $250,000 salary without blinking.  If you work for a company with total revenue of $250,000, you couldn’t possibly be worth that much in salary.  If you can be replaced by a smart person with a month’s worth of training, you will probably earn less than $40K, no matter how good you are.

You can double your income.  I have seen it done in one or two years by people earning $20K and $100K.  It took, training, people skills, hard work, focus on what’s important, and earning or saving their company a lot of money.

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Posted in Accomplishments, Attitude, Negotiating, Promotions, Raises, Time management

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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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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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