Posts Tagged ‘Human Resources’
People who lose jobs in this economy feel crushed inside. Even if it wasn’t their fault, it’s a loss that has to be grieved, and in order for healing to take place we have to realize that with every loss, there is an even greater gain. People in your social media network will come to your aid if you are humble, and ask nicely. In social media we make friends. Our friends get us through life.
My fans, friends and followers know more about me than my friends in real-life because I am in constant contact with them. With that said, everyone has to realize that Twitter, and Facebook are not your inner dialogue. You can shoot yourself in the foot by acting like a martyr, or behaving like Debbie Downer for an extended period of time.
Your Social Networks Are Not The Place For Your Inner Dialogue
Reputation management: Everyone talks about it, but how many people want to do something about it, or care enough that they stop posting images, and words that are image killers?
Carole King said in her song: I’m going to wake up in the morning with a smile on my face, and show the world all the love in my heart, and people are gonna treat you better, you’re going to find…that you are as beautiful as you feel.
This is something I believe with all my heart. Abe Lincoln once said most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be. Therefore, our social media image is colored by our attitude. Our attitude has an impact on how we behave, and the consequences that we find in our lives.
I’ve seen people commit brandecide (my made up word for suicide on social media networks). Without even knowing it, you ruin your reputation, damage friendships, and make an ass out of yourself. If on the other hand if you are professional, upbeat funny, sweet, kind, helpful, and compassionate people will like you. You will have more followers, friends and fans.
In the final analysis, embrace your dear friends you’ve made on social media, continue to build those relationships, but if you feel the need to rant, to be negative, or bash someone do it on the phone, or email your trusted friend.
Remember social media fans, your outlook and attitude color your the world you see around you. Your attitude has an effect on your the quality of your work, your productivity in life, your relationships. Maintain a positive attitude, and watch life improve. While you have no say about what happens to you, you have a choice about how your respond.
Attitudes on social media are contagious. Is yours worth catching?
Use Social Networks to Network, Prepare, and Get Your Confidence Before Your Next Interview
Don’t Fear The Job Search:
There are five best practices that job seekers can use to work through the jitters. Butterflies. We all get them. According to speech experts, the number one fear reported is the fear of public speaking. The second is the fear of dying, so in essence, some people would rather die than speak in public. Apply that figure to your job search, and you could probably double those numbers. People who are unemployed are frightened, and rightfully so. Job hunters have to face the reality of economic insecurity on top of the valid concerns of being able to muster up the courage to interview with experience and poise. Here’s a few top tips to help you get over the fear of making a presentation during a job interview. Even if all you are doing is interviewing with an individual, or a panel, there are strategies that you can apply to help you.
- Breathe: Harness the power of breathing to center yourself before making your interview presentation.
- Print out the job description. Place it side by side by your resume. Write out a script of bullet points in the form of sound bites.
- Practice rehearsing your the bullet points that you wrote, and get comfortable articulating your strengths and value proposition.
- Focus: don’t let your nerves throw you off balance during the interview. If you are facing an individual, read their body language, and adjust your responses accordingly
- If you are facing a panel in an interview, breath, center your focus, and make eye contact with each person around the table. This will help you both read the unspoken signals, and refine your presentation in real time. Remember, you are always presenting-particularly in a job interview. You may not be standing in front of an audience with your slide deck, but you most definitely are building that relationship to establish your credibility, build trust, and ultimately be asked back for a second interview.
Each organization varies in their hiring cycle. The smaller the organization, the shorter time of the hiring cycle. Typically large companies require more buy-in from different people in their respective departments. The levels of approval up the chain of command varies from company to company. As an outsider, dear job seeker, you may not be privy to that information. Follow the lead of the interviewer. Listen to the recruiter, the hiring manager, and the executives from the phone screening interview to the final interview. Your chances of getting the job offer, and getting hired will increase if you respect the company’s hiring process. Depending on the level of formality, consider asking for the job. Or at the very least, let the interviewer know how interested you are in the company and in the job. The best way to overcome fear is to be 100% prepared.
That’s my advice for day. I leave you with the following song. I like to listen to empowering songs before I make a presentation, or interview. This song is by the Moody Blues (compliments of youtube.com)
Maybe you have a song you like? Listen to it, be prepared, and go get ‘em tiger. You can do this. You can get that job!
Disclaimer: The views expressed on the blog are strictly my own. Thanks to youtube for the video clip, and google images for the artwork.
The Halo Effect: Employers Don’t Rush To Judgement!
I met Peter Mancini recently at the Geek Breakfast in Nashville. He is an IT Professional who struck me as a very smart man. We discussed both the conscious and unconscious bias that often clouds the visions of an interviewer. I now give you our guest post author, Peter Mancini.
Recently I had a nice conversation with Margo Rose about long term unemployment. We were at a meeting of technologists and this subject had been on my mind for sometime, actually due to a book I was reading. When she mentioned to me about candidates who were long term unemployed I had to stop and say that there is no such thing. By that I didn’t mean that people certainly haven’t been suffering from the economic situation. What I meant was, it was a label that defined a trait that could be easily misconstrued for something significant but which isn’t. We talked about the Halo Effect, Matthew’s Rule and a few other subjects. Here is what I had to say.
Technically, I too had been long term unemployed. I quit my day job in April of 2009 and left the safety net of a paycheck for a career teaching, lecturing and consulting on a subject I dearly loved. The pay I’ve made in the 2 years since hasn’t been nearly equal to what I made before but my personal growth has been excellent. One looking for “jobs” on my resume would see they cease in 2009. However, is that at all related to who I am as a person, what I am capable of and, more importantly, my own sense of self worth? The answer, simply, is no. It has no connection and I think a lot of people have forgotten that – especially those who lost their jobs post the 2008 depression.
The Halo Effect is what is known as a cognitive bias. It is an error in reasoning and we are all prone to suffer from it. We have to be reminded that “all that glitters is not gold” or to not judge a book by it’s cover and yet we do it on a regular basis. Cars do not go faster because they are painted red with white racing stripes. The baseball team that spent the most money on players doesn’t always win the game or even the most games during the season. There are so many ways in which we can draw a conclusion from something that is not a valid indicator. Hiring managers are statistically shown to prefer people who are in better shape, taller and so forth. This is hiring managers as a group. Individually you will see biases all over the place, but for the sake of argument the most likely bias is towards societal norms of beauty. Such individuals are picked out because of the incorrect conclusion they are harder working, smarter and more capable. I have to tell you, the most talented people I’ve ever known were people “central casting” would pick to play criminals and eccentrics.
I was reading a wonderful book called “Everything is Obvious” by Duncan Watts. I suggest anyone reading this article read that book. He talks about a study on the inverse Halo Effect. In this study several groups were given a task to do. They were graded on the task. Then they were asked to give a self evaluation of how their team did. In terms of team work, effort, and so forth the teams that did the best gave themselves the best scores and the teams that did the worst were very self-critical. This is what you might expect given the results. However the Ah Ha! moment comes when the big reveal is – the team scores were given out randomly. In other words the self evaluations had a high degree of correlation to what people were told and not how they actually felt about their performance.
The take-away lesson here is that we as people are prone to look at our results and incorrectly assign our worth and effort to those results. If you define yourself as long term unemployed and think there must be something wrong with you because you have been unemployed a long time – think again. It has nothing to do with you. The economy shrank a great deal and in doing so a large number of very talented people were put on the street. They can’t find jobs because there aren’t enough. Further, because of the Halo Effect, some hiring managers are thinking the same thing and preferring a person already with another job over you. The unfairness goes further. Many companies have hiring freezes in effect. When one person leaves a job for another job they don’t fill the first job back up – it is lost from the economy. So even though a new job was created, it was at the expense of another job. If they had hired you, the economy would be one job bigger and thus closer to being functional again. By hiring the other guy the net effect is close to zero. This can be related to the Matthew Effect – from the line in Matthew’s Gospel which crudely translated says “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” It is no coincidence that job creation seems stymied.
So if you are not long term unemployed, what are you? This is a funny question. Be yourself. You are a person who is talented, has life experience, job experience and skills. You have opinions and new ideas. Participate in your industry as a resource. Your new life, while you wait to find that job and get back to your planned life, is full of amazing opportunity.
What I’ve done in two years is learned new skills such as PHP and Python Programming. I’ve learned website design and used that to communicate a lot of interesting ideas. I can now tell you about the Central Limit Theory of statistics and create a QQ plot. I’ve been involved in meet ups via Meetup.com and everywhere I’ve traveled I’ve found interesting ones to participate in. I’ve helped establish 4 startups. Each one of them failed but I learned extremely valuable lessons from them. I volunteered my time in Search and Rescue. I’ve given lectures on topics I knew about or learned about. I now shoot Expert at the range. I’ve created art. I’ve made new friends and networked.
You have a powerful resource. It is called time. People are sad they don’t have time for things they want to learn or do. You have more time than anyone else and you live in a country that has fantastic resources such as the public library and an uncensored Internet! I’ve found I’ve been able to fill almost every hour of my time to the point I have to choose carefully the things I do so that they advance me in some way. Use your time to read, to write, to explore, to learn and to be a better person. It is a tremendous opportunity to grow and to become enlightened.
When you do these things you have success and growth and you can get past the issues of the inverse Halo Effect. When you have confidence and accomplishments to talk about you will impress employers more. You have not failed because you tried to find a job and didn’t. You only fail when you think that not having a job is somehow indicative that you are not worthy. I am telling you right now – you are worthy, loved by someone, full of potential and talented.
Even if you’ve done none of the things I list above for the last 2 years, other than sending out hundreds of unanswered resumes, it’s not too late. Start now and build up your networking, learning and so forth. It is not a bank and no one will judge you that you weren’t doing it before. I can’t sit on all of the good things I’ve done and stop doing them because the value exists only in the present. I have to be the person who does them, always. You can be that person too. You will find that you 
have been thinking a lot of thoughts in the last year or two that you can mine those for ideas for exploration. Suddenly your past has value that you create in the present. Stop calling yourself unemployed. Start calling yourself someone who does what you love to do.
Imagine if this cloud were outside your window right now-don't just watch. Act. Compassionate Social Media.
Don’t be a storm-watcher, be a rapid responder. Spring into action if you can. The HireFriday Community is proactively recruiting career professionals to participate on an emergency rapid response team. If you are a recruiter, candidate sourcer, resume writer, executive coach, or human resource professional, and you’d like to be on our brand new task force, please contact me immediately.
If you are interested in pressing into service, and you have a background in career services, please comment below. My colleague, Moises Lopez is developing a volunteer list, and we will be in touch with you. We are on the precipice of hurricane season. We need a team of grass-roots volunteers with fresh ideas, skills, and knowledge, and a willingness to press into compassionate action. That is after all, what Compassionate HR & Social Media is all about-so spread the word and join us, won’t you?
Think Like A Recruiter
THINK LIKE A RECRUITER
Oh, go job yourself. That’s right, I said it…find that job, go get it. It’s there, it’s within reach. There’s jobs large and small, big and tall. Even if it seems out of reach, that job is just inches beyond your fingertips. Never lose sight of the fact your skills have value. They may need to be sharpened. If they do, take that class, enroll in that apprenticeship, consider that vocational college certification. Just do it: Go job yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you that just because we are still in the midst of a inflationary recession there are no jobs to be had. You might have to look a little harder.
So, here’s my suggestion: THINK LIKE A RECRUITER.
SEARCH FOR A JOB JUST AS A RECRUITER WOULD SEEK YOU-HERE’S MY SPECIAL TOP TEN TIPS FOR SECURING YOUR NEXT JOB
- Smile and Dial. Call all the companies you want to work for, and identify the hiring manager, or business decision maker (usually the receptionist can tell you who that person is so ALWAYS be nice to the receptionist.)
- Find someone in your contact network who can make a referral into the company where you want to be.
- Construct a simple boolean search string. Go to google, and in the search window type (intitle: job or in url social media community manager) “manager of digital media” I use this example to demonstrate that the job social media community manager might also be called digital media manager, or manager of new media services. Your current job title may not be the same in other organizations. Find out and search for it. For more information, follow @Shally @DaveMendoza @MaureenSharib @LevyRecruits @MarieJourney & @JimStroud. Their blogs and websites are well worth the read.
- Copy and paste the url into a google doc for tracking. Date, and time activate the document so it tickles your calendar for follow up. (This idea came from Marie Journey.)
- Get inside a recruiters head, and figure out what is he or she looking for–look at the job description they send you–parse your resume into bits, and pieces to accurately assess the relevant information. Remember, most employers want to know: will you do the job well, and will you be a good fit. A recruiter is paid once you are placed. Furthermore, they might have to refund their fee if you leave within the first 90 days to 6 months. Remember: there is a vested interest for to you out well. Go the next step, ask yourself? Will I fit? Do I want to do this job? Will I stay? Don’t waste your time if the answer is no.
- Be the square peg in the square hole. If you don’t have the best qualifications for the job, a recruiter may not consider you, and send your resume on to the client. So, when applying for a job on your own, ask yourself, “if I were recruiter, would I hire me for this position?” Do I have the skills, knowledge, and abilities to do this job really well? Can I deliver on the promise I’m making in my resume? The answer better be yes. If it isn’t, move on to the next job description.
- Track the dates you will follow up on a calendar, be assertive not aggressive, persistence pays off in the end.
- Be stealthy, lean and mean. Recruiters are on their A-game, I suggest you do the same. Use the internet to identify all you can about the company. Most annual reports are online, as are the names of the company’s executive. For instance in Cincinnati, The Business Courier publishes “The Business Book of Lists.” You can find just about anything in the resources at your local library.
- Make friends with someone that’s really good at internet research. Ask them for advice. Ask them who they know. Ask them what they read. Most people love to talk about themselves. Give them a chance to do so, and listen. Listen for interest cues, find out what their needs are, and then suggest a way you can help them fill them.
- Be a closer, and seal the deal. Persuade the individual with whom you are dealing with that you are indeed precisely the person they are looking for, and leave them with the impression that they can’t do without you. Be the solutions provider, be the resource. Most of all be helpful. People just love helpful people. Helpfulness is contagious, make sure people want to catch it. Do these simple things, and you will be on your way to securing that new position.
Don’t believe a word I say. Go out there and try this for yourself. Take what you like, and leave the rest. Some of these ideas might work for you. Go ahead and read all you can from my colleagues. Check out this video if you have any doubts. It proves my points.
Now go out there and job yourself.
Your job search pal,
HR Margo
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