Finding a Job and Social Media

Searching and applying for a job has changed over the years. With the advent of Social Media the concept of your work life and personal life is blending. Whether or not you are aware of that may be a different story.

The traditional resume is quickly becoming obsolete. Everyone has a great resume. The probability of you getting an interview based on your resume alone is small and becoming smaller.

The saying, “It is not what you know, it’s who you know” is still very relevant. Networking plays a key role in everything you do not just when you are searching for a job. This is one area where social media can make job hunting either very easy or very difficult. If you are well connected whether through Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin you may not even need to search for a job, the job could come to you. If that does not happen, it could and will most likely still be a deal maker or breaker.

An Example:

I am an employer looking to fill a position and your resume made it past the initial filtering process. My first step will be to do a Google search for your name, if I don’t receive any relevant results I may include the city where you live. I will then look for you on Twitter, Facebook and Linked in. Think about those results, how crucial do you think they are?

Let’s say you are applying for a project management position. My search brings me to one of your tweets about project estimation techniques. That is valuable content, now let’s say that project estimation technique tweet brings me to your blog and I see an article that you wrote about this. The likely hood of you now getting an interview has greatly increased.

Now let’s look at what happens if my search brings me to one of your tweets about that crazy Friday night you had a couple weeks ago. What if my search leads me to a tagged Facebook photo of you while you were in the middle of that Friday night? At that point the probability of you getting to the next step has greatly decreased.

What do you do about this? Let’s first look at what you don’t do.

Twitter

Do not tweet anything you would not want your employer or parents to read from an unprotected twitter account. Those tweets are search-able and can be read by anyone. If you insist on tweeting about your Friday nights you should seriously consider using a protected twitter account. This is an option that Twitter provides where your tweets will no be search-able or viewable by anyone but your trusted followers (who you must approve!).

Facebook

This is similar to twitter, be careful what you post. With Facebook you have another dimension because other people can tag photos of you or post onto your wall. Yes you can untag and remove posts but only if you know about them. The solution to this potential PR issue is Facebook lists. You can create a list and include any of your friends. The custom privacy settings will then allow you to selectively set permissions for who sees tagged photos of you, who sees wall posts or even who can see your phone number. The key is to make access minimal by default, then make different lists for different purposes. This will also allow you to target your communication. You have the option of posting to different lists.

TO DO

• Provide valuable content from your blog, Facebook account, twitter account and other sites!

• Comment on other valuable content with a meaningful response

• Monitor your name on the web to make sure you are being portrayed the way you want.

• Connect with people through social media that are interested in your field, make those connections which are so important.

See the video version of this on SsZ.tv .

Posted by Brian Lawrence.

How to Deal with Email Effectively and Efficiently

Do you find yourself spending too much time dealing with emails?

Are you often side tracked by an incoming email alert?

All of us have lost productive time due to email interruptions at one point or another. This article will look at a three step approach which will help you to more effectively and efficiently deal with email.

We will accomplish this by utilizing a TPS solution, you will find that you save more time at work by stopping the email mania and focusing on tasks that matter.

Time Box

Set a schedule for yourself. Check your emails two to three times a day. Limit that time slot from ½ hour to an hour. Only check email during that time.

Do not check in the morning if at all possible.  By avoiding checking email in the morning you will be able to focus on your most important tasks and hopefully complete them before being sidetracked by email.

Most email clients have an off-line mode so if you need your email client open during the day for references you can work without being interrupted. The best solution however is to simply close that email client and only open it during your time boxed email allocated time.

Prioritized list

Keep a list of ACTIONABLE items and prioritize that list so when you are not in your email checking time slot you know what to work on. Put your daily list together at the end of the day for your next day so when you start your day you are focused. Make that a habit.

When you checking emails (in your time boxed slot), go through each email and  if any email requires work that will take longer than 2 minutes, put that task on your list and prioritize it. Get to it later if there are more important tasks to get to first.

Your prioritized list could be a spreadsheet on your computer or simply a piece of paper.

Simple & Short

Treat your emails like a TWEET.  Create a rule for yourself that limits your emails to a maximum of 2 paragraphs. Make sure your email only addresses one topic at a time.

Use other communication mediums for information that will take more than 2 paragraphs such as meeting minutes.  Mediums such as wikis or file shares work well for that.

Remember  - TPS

If you have seen Office Space then it should not be hard to remember TPS.

Use this acronym to help you remember and remind you how to effectively and efficiently deal with emails.

Time Box
Prioritized List
Simple and Short

See the video version on SsZ.tv.

Posted by Brian Lawrence.

Career / Life Mind Mapping

Have you taken the time to really think about your professional, financial and career goals?
Have you taken the time to brainstorm who your networks are, what really drives you and what your areas of interest are?

Mind mapping provides the opportunity to really THINK about those questions and about your life and your career.

A mind mapping technique that I find useful is what I call the Micro/Highlight/Macro approach. This three stage approach can be broken down as follows:

• Micro - focused brainstorming on key areas
• Highlight – examine each focused mind map and highlight the most two to three most important
• Macro – Create one mind map that contains the highlighted items down in stage 2 

Stage 1 - Micro – Focused Brainstorming

Identify the key high level areas that matter to you. You are going to create an individual mind map for each one.

The following suggestions may give you ideas.

Your Network

• Who around you do you consider Key Players
  • Those who make decisions which could directly affect you
• Who around you would you consider advocates
  • Those who would recommend you if asked
• Who around you would you consider a blocker
  • Those who could become a roadblock for you

You could also categorize your network into personal / career / field / etc.. whatever comes to your mind.. write it down.

Financial Goals

• Do you have a financial goal.
  • Earn x $$ a year
  • Earn/Save x $$ amount total – Napolean Hill in his book “Think and Grow Rich” suggests that you put down an EXACT amount because that will have a more definite effect on your subconscious mind.
  • Invest x $$ amount

Areas of Interest

• Do you have hobbies
• Technical Domain
• Domain

Skillset

• Knowledge you want / GAP in an area
• Experience needed in certain areas
• Communication skills

Professional Goals

• Write a book
• Publish a white paper
• Position
• Short/Long term

Anchors

• The idea behind this comes from the Career Anchors Self Assessment.

Personal

• Children
• Home
• Car
• Friends

• Education back to school?

• Hobbies (Learn to play an instrument?)
• Community Involvement

Stage 2 – Highlight

Look through each of your focused/micro mind maps. Highlight the top 2-3 from each (Use a marker/ highlighter).

Stage 3 – Macro

This is where you combine all highlighted information from the focused mind map you just created.

I find it is most useful to use a piece of paper because the affordances of paper make it easy to quickly brain dump to the paper. If you would prefer to use software, there is free software available which is useful. One such free tool is FreeMind.

You may also download this pdf template that you can print out. This has the suggestions from this short to help with the creative process.

Now What?

Now that you have your career life mind map you can use this as a guide when you make decisions. If you do not have a written career plan, that should be your next step. Use this mind map as input into the thought process when coming up with your career plan.

During this process you most likely identified gaps, put a plan into place now to address the most important ones.

Place this mind map in a place that you will see and is easily accessible. Redo this at least once a year to keep the data relevant.

See the video version of this at SsZ.tv.

Posted by Brian Lawrence.

First Year Advice for the Young Professional in the Corporate World

Your First year in the Corporate World can be challenging and exciting. This article focuses on four guiding principles that I use on a daily basis.

My background:

I started working in the corporate world as an intern in 2002. I had a 6 month internship (co-op). After my 6 month period was over I was asked to continue working on a part time basis. I then spent a lovely 2 years or so working mornings while attending school in the afternoon and nights. Before graduating in 2005 I had already received a job offer. Over the years I have had several different positions and worked in several different areas. From IT lab administration, software technical feasibility prototyping, demo extensive development, production code development, unit test framework & automation development to technical project management. My role now is a Scrum Master (Check out http://DevelopAgile.com for more information about agile & scrum).

Through-out my time in the corporate world, I have consistently relied on these principles. This has also led to other opportunities such as participating in elite corporate training programs, participating in several management/leader trainings, to taking part in the launch of two different employee-run organizations. These principles are as follows:

TRUST is KEY

Earn your managers trust immediately.

Do this by getting assignments done before they are due. Ideally your manager will learn to have a “fire & forget” mentality. They give you task and forget about it because they KNOW it will be done.

Earn your peers/team members trust.

You need to be known as the person that gets the job done. Do not ever say, “It is NOT my job”. That type of thinking will leads to failure. It IS your job, if you don’t know how to solve the problem, find someone who does.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

I have had interns work for me in the past and the interns that make the long lasting impression, the ones who get that position before they graduate are the ones that have that winning, passionate attitude.

If you take interviews as an example. The people who leave an impression on me during an interview are the ones that have that twinkle in their eye. If I have a choice between two people, both have relatively the same skillset, the person who has the passion will always get the job. In certain cases, it is possible that the person with weaker skillset will beat someone with better skillset if there passion and attitude sells them.

Gary Vaynerchuk often speak about attitude and passion. A great quote from his book “Crush It” is “Skills are cheap, Passion is priceless”.

INVOLVEMENT is ESSENTIAL

The reality is that it is not WHAT you know, it is WHO you know. Networking is extremely important.

Get involved with as many employee run organizations or niche focused organizations as you can. Attend as many educational lunch & learns or networking events as you possibly can fit into your schedule. These types of activities will often give you more ROI than you can imagine.

Think back to high school, it was those people who were involved in extra curricular activities that generally got into a better school and received the scholarships. The same is true in the working world, the more you get involved the better.

Involvement also adds that extra moral booster to your day. Even if you have the best job in the world and you absolutely love what you do.. everyone needs something more to keep that boost going.

LEARN OR LOSE

A quote from Donald Trump’s book “Think Like a Champion” is “I learn something new every day”.

That must be your approach. Make this a habit, stop watching just one hour of television and instead learn. Read a self help book, read blogs related to your domain, spent that hour learning something that you can use to benefit yourself or your work.

Learn from your mistakes. It is said that Benjamin Franklin failed 10,000 times before he finally had one of his greatest successes in his life, the invention of the light bulb.

Look at a failure as an opportunity to learn. How can you do it better the next time.

Some other good habits to get into is performing a monthly SWOT analysis of yourself every month.

A monthly retrospective is also helpful. Look back on your month, what went well for you that month? What didn’t go so well? Identify some action items that you can use to continuously improve your performance.

REMEMBER – TAIL

Trust is Key
Attitude is Everything
Involvement is Essential
Learn or Lose

See the Video version of this at SsZ.tv.

Posted by Brian Lawrence.

Knowing what you don’t know by looking through the Johari Window with 360 feedback glasses

Is it important to know how other’s in your company or personal life perceive you? Is there value in seeing yourself through the eyes of another?

This short will look at the Johari window and how to find out what is in your blind spot through a 360 degree feedback exercise.

Why is this important?

• Discover your weaknesses
• Discover gaps otherwise unknown to you
• Discover perception problems that you didn’t know existed

The Johari Window

A psychological tool that Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham came up with in 1955 to help people understand themselves and how other’s perceive them.

The Johari window consists of Four quadrants.

• The Open quadrant ? peers and yourself are aware
• The Hidden quadrant ? peers are unaware, you are aware
• The Blind Spot quadrant ? you are unaware, peers are aware (* 360 will help us here)
• The Unknown quadrant ? no one is aware – subconscious

360 Degree Feedback

The definition of the 360 degree feedback is to get feedback from all around you (360 degrees).



This feedback exercise can be done in several different ways.
There are 5 key steps:

1. Select the avenue of feedback, this could be:

• Spreadsheet or document with questions
• Online 360 feedback survey system
• Personal meeting with the participant

2. Select the participants
This may include your:

• Peers
• Boss
• Boss’s Boss
• Direct reports
• Friends

3. Get the data

Send the spreadsheet, document, url to the participants
Have the meeting

4. Analyze the feedback

Combine all feedback together
Identify weaknesses, GAPs, issues

5. Determine action items and put a plan into place based on the results of the exercise.

The important part is that you get that honest feedback so that blind spot becomes less of a mystery to you and you identify those keys improvement areas to address.

See the video here on SsZ.tv.