Ahull Unfurled

Career Management in 10 minutes or less

You can forge the direction of your career with short, strategic conversations. We often only think about our careers once a year as a new year resolution or a performance review. Yet we know that frequent feedback, sharing information and asking for help are the keys to growing and developing our careers. If you keep a mindset of service to others its easier to find career help. While you may be looking for opportunities, you also are constantly creating how others see and remember you. Here are 8 ways to start a conversation that takes 10 minutes or less:

1) Ask your boss what you can help with to support her this week.

2) Attend a meeting of interest to you. Share your interest in the topic with at least 3 people, including the speaker.

3) Notice when a colleague is struggling and offer a shortcut that would save them some time.

4) Ask your friends, parents, siblings, or cousins to explain what they do at work and why its important. Explain what you do in a way they can relate to.

5) Chat with your boss about what’s going well and what you’re looking forward to doing.

6) Ask about others’ interests, what resource or information they need and if you can help get it.

7) Notice the thought leaders in your organization. Ask them about current trends and talk about the impact for your organization.

8) Ask your boss what skills or knowledge you could develop that would be helpful to your team.

9) Start a conversation by sending an article or website to your boss or colleague and request to discuss it for 10 minutes.

Did you notice that none of these involve sending your resume? That document is always handy to have up-to-date in case this 10 minute conversation leads to a chance to work on a committee, task force, project, etc. Getting to know and being known by others develops your relationships and [drum roll,please] your network.

I’m sure you can think of other ways to start career conversations and I’d love to hear them!

8 Tips to Become a High Potential Employee

How do people get the best projects? How do they get the opportunities and promotions? How can you be a “high potential employee?” Many organizations identify people who have the potential, ability, and aspiration for successive leadership positions within the organization. Often, these people are given opportunities that focus their development as part of a succession plan.

Here’s what organizations look for:

How do you handle unexpected changes?
How do you deal with hurdles? Are you derailed or motivated to find an alternate solution?
Do you take charge rather than sitting back and waiting for someone else to lead?
Do others willingly accept your direction and decisions?
Do you listen to and assist others?
Do you consistently go above and beyond in your results?
Do you understand your organization’s ‘business’ and your your division’s role to support its mission?
Are you paying attention to the trends that impact your organization and your profession within it?

If you have all of this, you still may not reach your goals alone. Find an advocate who can help you identify areas for improvement and growth. They can advise you on how to attain the training required to close any gaps, and help to open doors for new opportunities. Look for someone in a leadership role that embody the qualities you aspire to have. Watch and listen (don’t stalk) to how they handle themselves in a variety of situations. Let them know your goals and types of opportunities you’d like to tackle.

All of this comes down to not waiting to get noticed. You have to connect the dots and speak up for yourself in appropriate settings.

Your References – Care and Feeding

Many of us set a goal for new employment this time of year. Along with updating the resume, online profiles and reconnecting with people, make an appointment with yourself to consider your reference strategy.

My what? My references are my former employers, right? Not necessarily. Yes, potential employers traditionally want past bosses, but they often check with others. Nearly all have already googled you and looked at social media sites. After all, would you list anyone that wouldn’t speak well of you? And you may not want your current boss to find out you are leaving through a reference call.

From the hiring person’s point of you, you can do the job, but they want to know, “Can you do the job with Us?” The interview and reference check is all about “will you fit in” as well as “are you who you say you are.”

Choose your references based on the potential new job and employer. Select people who know your work and contributions that are relevant for the potential job. This can include your previous bosses, but also people you interacted with to get things done. Include similar relationships in any of your volunteer work. Sometimes these are more relevant to the new job! Let the potential employer know your relationship (not relatives) to the names you provide. Check to ensure your references will be available to take a call. Do the legwork to provide current contact information.

Give them a heads-up – don’t let your reference be caught unprepared for a reference call. At minimum, remind him/her of a few of the great things you did while working together. Tell him/her the type of opportunity you ow want and why you want this particular job. Be sure she/he has a copy of your current resume to know what you’ve done since last working with them. Let them know who will be calling, the time frame and anything about the job that will give them context for their comments. Use this conversation to catch up with them and learn about their career progress and how you may be of assistance to them.

If you think a reference may not paint the rosiest picture of you, or you don’t want your current employer know you are looking, address this in the interview. Be honest but don’t bad-mouth or place blame. You can provide context and framing for what the reference-checker might hear. If you don’t, your potential employer may never tell you that the reference is why they rejected you. The time to speak up is before they place the call. Offer a performance appraisal or other people that they may contact to get the assurance they need.

Your references are precious along your career. Maintain your professional relationship with them through networking and appropriate social media throughout the year.

Happy New Work!

Mid-Level Contentment – Is There a Problem?

“I love my job. I’m excited to get up and come to work every morning! Yet, I’m being pressure to move into management. I’ve taken the management courses and don’t want to do the administrative chores required in those roles. What should I do?”

Career management is a continuous cycle of assessment, exploration, planning and taking action. It’s foundation is in cultivating your awareness and reality of the various elements that contribute to your own personal definition of career success.

You have reached your career goal in your late 30’s and would like to stay right where you are, doing the hands-on work. Great! If you know a role is not a good fit for you, don’t create misery for yourself and others. What else helps you define success?

Moving “up” is not the only way. Fulfilling careers are often a series of lateral, exploratory and even a step down moves to learn a new function or skill set. Staying in the same role may have plenty of options as projects end, new ones begin and others need to be maintain. Short-term assignments, details or voluntary roles are ways to not only stay challenged, but also to develop new skills, enhance your visibility and value to your organization.

Meanwhile the world continues to spin:

Most managers are responsible for developing their employees and may be measured in terms of staff promotions. You’ll need to help her meet that requirement by demonstrating new skills and learning. Pay attention to conversations of new ideas and potential projects. Let your boss know that kind of assignments you really enjoy. Ask what you need to learn to continue being a key person on her team.

You will soon reach the ceiling of her pay grade/scale. Are you comfortable with the lifestyle it provides you? Will it be enough to maintain you in the future? I don’t advocate chasing the dollar, but this reality check may shed a new light.

You may find that your skills erode with changing technologies and updating processes. Don’t get left out by not staying up to date.

Avoid being targeted for a downsizing: Be “indispensable” not by hoarding knowledge, but by feeding your passion for your work and mentoring others. You are a “go to” person who can lead an informal learning group to challenge and help them learn. Others may see you as “stuck” so show your contributions: historical knowledge of projects and systems that can prevent or fix problems and justify needed change. You also know “the ropes” which includes organizational and personal political savvy.

When you enjoy your work, you are a joy to be around!

What’s Your Professional Development Strategy?

The most frequent responses I get to this question is #1 Strategy: keep getting a paycheck and hope to get promoted;#2 Strategy for Free Agents: Keep current contract(s) or get new clients.

I consider these non-strategies. Too many people approach learning something work-related as a task they have to do to keep their jobs or maintain a profession credential. They need an external incentive and are not motivated by curiosity or a desire to improve processes, services or products.

For those that enjoy keeping up with trends and new thinking for the sake of contributing to making their work better, they often:

Surf the net for bright shiny topics
Read blogs, take webinars that look interesting
Join professional associations, attend occasional gatherings
Actually participate in professional associations by not only attending, but also volunteering for projects or committees.

OR…

You COULD spend a few minutes to think about your long term work/career goals and what professional credentials or skills and competencies you need to keep up-to-date. Do you need to create or update your brand? Using this as a foundation, you can select and focus on those activities and opportunities that will give you the best bang for your buck.

“My profession doesn’t outline specific continuing education requirements. How do I do that?” There are a couple of options:

Pay attention to the issues and trends that are driving business decisions for your organization and department. Cost-cutting will always be a factor, so look at how you and others could achieve organizational objectives faster, better, cheaper? New laws, regulations and technology changes tend to change the way things get done. What could you become the go-to person for? What interpersonal skills could you develop to improve your professional relationships in an increasingly diverse workforce? Check both the internal and external websites to see what your organization values. Many organizations have resources that outline career competencies and for creating your personal development plan to contribute to their highly competitive knowledge bank.

If you want to make a career change, map your steps to making that change and set up your support system to achieve it. Updating your resume will be a part of it, but first, you might have to do some research beyond surfing job boards. Identify required credentials or knowledge through job descriptions and taking with people in the roles. Use your social media to connect with others in that line of work for a reality check and advice and to stay on their radar when opportunities come up. Build your experience by volunteering.

Is time that you invest in yourself to enjoy a more rewarding career?

Ask For a Raise the Right Way

As many of us go into performance review season, we anticipate a monetary outcome. Yet 43% of us never ask for a raise.

You don’t know, if you don’t ask!!

Many performance reviews do not include a compensation conversation. Its important to discuss what’s going well, what to improve and what’s coming next to set goals. Talking about money overshadows that conversation. Salary increases may happen only at the beginning of the fiscal year. Check your organization’s policy and procedure. Then see what type of exceptions are made.

Best case scenario – your boss wants to surprise you with the reward of a raise. Let her have that pleasure of showing how much she values your contributions.

The usual reality is your boss doesn’t want to discuss money any more than necessary. Budgets have been tight – she had to fight to just get the minimum for her staff. High company profits don’t necessarily tie to salary increases due to business strategies.

Your strategy needs to take both scenarios into account. Take time now to prepare the justification for why your work merits increased compensation. Your manager will need this to go to bat for you. Unless you are covered by a contract, longevity isn’t necessarily a reason – that’s just stamina!

A salary increase is a business decision, not about your personal financial needs and wants. Leave your anger and fears out of the conversation. Guilt trips don’t work either. Lead with the facts:

#1 When so many of us are now doing the work of formerly 2-3 jobs, documenting your efficiencies and how much money you are saving the company is the math that your boss needs to justify a raise. Remind her of the over and above things you’ve accomplished. Describe the challenge, what you did and the result, including who benefited and how. What potential problems did you prevent?

#2. Salaries are determined around a variety of factors: the industry standard for the skill sets (not just job title), what the competition pays, geographic area, value of the work in your organization and internal equity are the major ones. Here are a few ways to determine your worth:

Check professional associations which often do salary surveys.
Compare date on several online sites such as Career Onestop, Salary.com, Vault.com, Glassdoor.com and Jobstar.org
Survey job postings similar to your job and their salary levels. Check a variety of job boards to get the range.
Ask recruiters and other knowledgeable individuals:

“I’ve been researching ‘XXX’ positions in the ‘YYY’ industry, especially in the ‘ZZZ’ region. So far, I have been unable to find good recent information on the salary range for ‘AAA’ positions. From your experience, what is the salary range from ‘new-to-title/first-time hires’ to the ‘very experienced pros’? What would you say is the average salary? What factors determine where in the salary range a person is placed?” ” Who else would you recommend I talk with?”

#3 Don’t wait until a performance review to start the discussion. Learn when budget negotiations happen in your organization, generally six months before a new fiscal year. That is when jockeying for scarce salary dollars begins.

This great infographic has additional tips from Florence Lewis on the critical salary discussion!

8 Things to Discuss for Asking Salary Raise

3 Reasons + 5 tips to Update Your Resume

Here are 3 reasons why September is a good time to update your resume:

Its nearly time for your annual performance review and you want to position yourself or a raise.
One of your contacts approaches you with a great job opportunity and needs your resume, now!
You learn that your job is in the re-organization, or you are on the RIF list.

What you should include:

Your accomplishments since your last update: Did you initiate or work on a special project (both work or volunteer)? Be specific and quantify your results as much as possible. Did you surpass goals? Save time and/or money? Go above and beyond? Who benefited from your efforts?
Awards or recognition you’ve received. Recall both the verbal and e-mail props.
Gain new skills? List training, conferences you attended or certifications you earned.
Have your career goals shifted? If your focus changed since your last update, go through your entire resume to be sure everything is strategic and relevant.
Is your contact information up-to-date? Be sure you have a professional email address (not your employee email) and a mobile phone number that only you answer. Check that outgoing message. Is it something you’d want a prospective boss to hear?

Keep you resume or CV up-to-date to be ready for your next turn in your career!

Cash or Cachet?

You find a great job opportunity but discover the salary is lower than you expected.

Several years ago, I was thrilled when I could tell people I worked for The Washington Post because I no longer had to explain who, where or what they did. Then I moved briefly to a very large organization that will unfortunately always be cited for some of the executives’ egregious business dealings. Now I get to work with rocket scientists and engineers and others that make space exploration and earth’s climate knowledge possible at NASA.

For many organizations, there is a “wow” factor that lasts far beyond the initial on-boarding. Whether this is a name-brand organization, or one that has special significance to you, you have a warm sense of pride when people ask, “Where do you work?”

Would you be proud to tell people what your employer produces? Whether it’s financial services, diapers, or food safety policy, can you take pride in being a part of that business?

There is also the resume-building factor of working for an organization that is held in high esteem. Consider the organization’s reputation: There is the public opinion developed by news and public relations, its financial progress, awards and contributions, stories of what it’s like to work there, leadership, its professional thought leaders and more. Would that be important for your future career opportunities?

So how much is that cachet worth to you?

When weighing all the factors of a job offer – salary, benefits, vacation, type of work, etc., we also consider the career enhancing aspects. I once turned down a job offer with a 20% hike in salary in a public utility because I would not continue learning my profession as well as if I stayed in my current role in a bank. The extra year I stayed in the current job gave me knowledge and experience I used to this day in my consulting business. That was more valuable to me at that time in my career than working for a high profile company.

If you are faced with an enticing job and employer but the salary is lower than you want, double-check your expectations. Your previous salary may not be relevant in this business decision. Make sure you’ve done your homework and know the salary range for this role in your profession, in the industry and in the location as well as your unique expertise and experience. There are several websites that can get your started. Then in your networking conversations, ask people to verify or correct what you think the range is based on your research.

Salary is important both now and in your future as it is the basis for benefits and future increases. But it isn’t the only thing to negotiate. Factor in the intangibles that are important to you such as work-life flexibility arrangements. If you need money now, such as for a mortgage payment, ask about a signing bonus. Another common strategy is to get agreement to revisit salary in 3-6 months when you’ve proven your stellar value to the organization. But get it in writing from not only your current boss, but also HR, in case your boss has moved on.

What’s more important to you – a high starting salary or working with a high profile organization for a lower salary that meets your overall career and work-life needs?

Strategies for Extended Unemployment

What are they thinking?! Why are companies shunning people who have been out of work six months or more? Unemployment biases stem from employers desire to avoid making hiring mistakes. This avoidance leads to making assumptions that may or may not be based in fact. Four assumptions I’ve heard are:

“If others don’t hire you, why should I?”
“If you haven’t been working, your skills are probably out-of-date.”
“If you can’t get a job you have lost the discipline of a work routine, or are lazy.”
“If you can’t don’t follow application instructions, you won’t follow directions on the job.”

I bet those got you angry! So let’s use that angry energy to change those assumptions!

Many people lose precious time because they don’t know how to effectively find their next job. Finding a job is “project management” which starts with a clear goal (the right job, not just any job) and strategies for appropriately connecting with people to let them know what you offer. There are many resources online, in your library or a career coach can help you map your job search project.
You may have made family care-taking or other responsibilities your priority while not working in the traditional manner. Think about the many skills and knowledge you’ve developed that can be of value to an employer such as patience, research, organizing, logistics, attention to detail, creativity, prioritizing, communication, and more.
Get clear on your skills, knowledge and expertise and be able to talk about what you can do for an employer. What problems can you solve? How can you save them time and money? What ideas and perspectives do you add that can help grow the organization and contribute to its mission?
Keep your skills fresh. Take free online courses, webinars, etc. Volunteer with community organizations to keep your skills in practice, and to stay in a “work” routine. Offer your expertise through consulting, temporary or project relationships.
Re-skill yourself to do the type of work you will find rewarding and meaningful.
Don’t let your desperation show. Stay positive when talking with people outside your intimate circle. Have 2-3 people who can encourage and keep you on track that you talk with on at least a weekly scheduled basis.

Address the time gap by describing what you have learned and accomplished and, most importantly, how it can be of value to the employer.

What long-term unemployment assumptions have you encountered and what are your strategies?

After the Interview – Your Next Step

The interview is over and you can take a deep breath. The people who just interviewed you spent their time and efforts to determine if you are the best fit for the role. Do you appreciate this? Then let them know.

After the interview most of us immediately begin to replay in our heads what we said, and what we wished we had said. In either case, take these thoughts and make them work for you. Craft a thank you note to (1) express your appreciation and enthusiasm for the job, (2) remind the person of your key assets for the role, (3) add an item you didn’t discuss to reinforce that you are great for the job. Send a customized note to everyone who interviewed you with a comment about your specific conversation with them. Don’t delay; send it within 24 hours.

Allison Doyle, the job interviewing expert at About.com says, “When asked about the most appropriate way for candidates to follow up, 38 percent of managers surveyed said that hand-written notes were acceptable, while 87 percent said email worked. 81 percent said a phone call was appropriate, as long as the interviewee didn’t call multiple times. Social media is another way to say thank you, with 27% of managers considering it acceptable. Only 10 percent thought text messages were appropriate.”

Don’t think a thank you note makes a difference? A well-written note shows professionalism, courtesy and can be the determining factor between you and someone who doesn’t send one.