Success Stories Part 1

Once you know what the hiring manager is looking for, it is time to point out how you are the best qualified candidate. How? Share your success story. Challenger, Gray and Christmas- among others- teach that there are three basic elements in a good success story. First the situation, then what action did you take, and finally what was the result .

S-A-R

S – Situation

A – Action

R – Result

Success Story

I believe that the success story needs to be short, sweet, and told in a way that allows the hiring manager to see you doing the same for them. Short and sweet is so important especially in telling the first two elements S & R. Most people have a short attention span today. Just think about the average TV commercial for the Super Bowl. Ads are sold in 30 second spots― why? because average Americans can focus their attention only that long before their minds begins to wander.

The situation is essential to keep brief since it sets the stage. Be general in terms of the problem. State the situation so that it is clear that the company had the problem not you. Don’t be too specific. Don’t confuse the interviewer with a lot of needless data. Believe me, the data is more important to you than it is to the interviewer.

The action should be brief as well as spoken in terms of “I.” What did you do to solve the problem? Again, keep it general and brief. You want the interviewer envisioning you doing something similar for the company. You want to share just enough info so that the interviewer understands that you really are experienced.

The result is the coup-de-grâce of the success story. This is where you want the interviewer to be because this proof in numbers of your ability to do the job. It’s the story’s conclusion. Here you can go into more detail and tie in numbers, dollars earned, time saved, happy customers, or team accomplishments. The terms and numbers you share depend on the interviewer’s need or problem. This is where they see you doing this for their company.

The goal of all good storytelling is to bring the audience into the story. Get them to identify with the narrative and see you doing the same for them. When you are general and not detailed the listener- the interviewer- is then able to fill in the elements of their situation and the action in terms that fit their world. Don’t disturb this by talking too much or using too many particulars.

Next time we’ll talk more about how to build and practice your stories so that you are prepared for the interview. We’ll also look at specific examples and how to know which stories to use.

Networking: Make a List

Many people in transition know that they need to network but don't know where to start? Well, just like Santa you need to make a list of everyone you know. Yes, everyone… your friends, family, people you know through your children’s extracurricular activities, everyone!

People say that they don’t know many people. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you get their names down on the list. Yes, written down on a physical list. It doesn’t matter if it is on paper or in an Excel spreadsheet, but it really has to be captured so you can work from it.

Some of my clients have confided that they are ashamed about being out of work. In some cases this is the first time they have lost their job in 25 or 30 years. You have to be past that -- you need to let people know that you are looking for a new job. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard stories that sound something like this: “If only I’d known… we had a position that would have been a perfect fit, but I didn’t know he was looking.”

Make the list and keep adding to it. Everyone you meet goes on the list. Then all you need to do is call them up and set up a time to meet with them in order to describe your skills and abilities and what kind of opportunity you are looking for.

Some people are close by and others are out of town. If you can, you want to meet with people face to face. You can also talk to them over the phone, but that isn’t as effective as being able to look someone in the eye when you’re talking to them.

You should easily be able to make a list of 50. A friend told me that I was nuts, she said,"You are an extrovert. I don't even have that many names in my address book and email list put together, and I have a big family." What I mean by "people you know": How about the plumber? The school principal and teachers? The guy who comes to fix the furnace? Anyone you've ever spoken to at a conference or business meeting? You might write down on your list your daughter's friends parents, e.g., "little Becky's folks." Then later look up their name and contact info.   Getting down all the names is the important thing. You'll find that  your list can quickly grow into a 150 names and more.

Its important not to make judgments about whether or not they will be able to help you. Simply get them down on the list. Later you'll talk to them and find out if they can help you in your job search. The next step is how to talk to folks and asking for their help and assistance in your job search. That will be a future topic for the blog.

Custom Resumes vs. A "General" Resume

When it comes to resumes, your resume is a tool: it's marketing material. It is not designed to get you a job; it’s function is to layout your skills, abilities and experience in order to get you an interview.

You will hear that you need to customize your resume in order to get it seen by the hiring manager. This is a very compelling statement especially if you have applied to many job postings and received zero responses. You think, "It must be the resume that has failed to get anyone’s attention; therefore if you customize your resume you’ll get more interviews."

But what are the facts? For any posting an average company may receive 200 applications and as many as 500. Crain’s Chicago once reported:

The new Wal-Mart Stores Inc. location opening Friday in suburban Evergreen Park received a record 25,000 applications for 325 positions, the highest for any one location in the retailer’s history, a company official says.

So if this is true, will a customized resume fair any better than a good general resume? The competition is staggering. What will really make the difference is having a person on the inside of the company get your resume flagged and separated from the 200. This is where networking comes in.

I suggest that a single strong "general" resume used in concert with networking or drilling into a company will serve you better than customizing your resume for every job posting. What if a company is using an electronic tool to cut down the number of resumes. In this case does a customized resume help when no human set of eyes are going to review the resume?The software's selection criteria is based on key words which should already be in your "general" resume. If not then you can update your resume to include missing key words or experience.

Utilize a well written "general" resume containing the accomplishments, experience and appropriate key words will save you the time of customizing your resume for each posting, time that would better be put to use networking. Plus, with a dozen or more customized resumes you have the added issue of keeping track of who you sent which resume to.

Network with people working at companies and businesses that are in the position to recognize your skills and abilities. Spend that time with people that can see the value you represent as a future employee. When you realize that only about 20% of jobs are advertized in news papers, the Internet and with recruiters, customizing your resume for every application is a lot of work, time and effort for such low probability of your resume being selected and reviewed.

Transition Requires Structure

In his book Sheifgab the World, noted author and public speaker Conor Cunneen, through his alter ego Finbarr Kozlowski asks the question: When you find yourself in transition, what’s missing… what’s different for you during transition?

The easy answer is everything is different. I always counsel my clients to work from a calendar. “To plan your work and work your plan,” I tell them. I share with them specific examples of what needs to be included in the daily and weekly schedules. This includes an outline to use. I stress planning, scheduling and balancing the day/week.

Something that I cover, but can always stress more is the importance of sleep, diet and exercise. Namely, taking care of yourself – taking care of your body and your mind will have a positive effect on your psyche and your attitude. Actually, having a good attitude begins with taking care of yourself. To paraphrase Finbarr from Sheifgab the World… if a battery-powered toy runs 24/7, after a while what happens? How can you do an effective job search if you’re not recharging your batteries and taking care of yourself? Make it a priority as you structure your day; schedule taking care of yourself; write down exercise from 7 to 8 Monday, Wednesday and Friday on your calendar.

I recently had the opportunity and pleasure to listen to Stedman Graham, best selling author of You Can Make It Happen. His book outlines a 9-step success process. He highlighted the power of changing one’s thinking. He stated many times during the 90 minute presentation that reading is essential to change your thinking. He built on that saying that changing your thinking changes your feelings. Changing your feelings changes your habits. And then changing your habits changes your life. Structure time to read into your day. Reading books on personal, spiritual or professional growth give your mind more of what it craves. Books challenge us, confirm us and open new possibilities for us to investigate.

Mr. Cunneen and Mr. Graham are making a similar case about feeding yourself positive discourse and good behaviors every day. They definitely agree that this will have a positive impact on your job search not to mention your life.

Structuring your life to include time for rest, exercise, family, plus time spent with a good book is essential for a positive attitude and as a result a successful job search. 

Success Stories: GMA & Diane Sawyer

This past week Diane Sawyer left ABC’s Good Morning America to take over the World News anchor seat. You could say that Ms. Sawyer is in transition. I point this out because of what the Diane Sawyer and staff put together for the last show on GMA. They developed a montage titled: “My Time on ‘GMA’” which included interviews with heads of state, US Presidents, celebrities and just regular folk. It displayed major stories she covered as well as cute and clever incidents that happened to her while on the show.

 

In essence, it was five minutes of video success stories. While she already has her next job and doesn’t need to use her success stories to help sell herself to a new boss, it is clear there is a great deal she has to feel proud about.

 

One of the positive things about being in transition that my clients have point out to me is realizing that they were really good at what they did on the job. If you haven’t done so, take an hour or so and write a history of your work experience. Highlight events that you are most proud of. Get a hold of co-workers, bosses and employees and ask for stories they remember. Also refer back to past performance evaluations and draw out different accomplishment, successes and lessons learned from your career.

 

All this will serve you well in your job search and especially as you prepare for your interviews. You will realize that you are the star of your show and just like Diane Sawyer, co-workers that you have left behind do miss you. Plus, the people you’ll work with in the future cannot wait to hear your stories about how you’re going to be successful with them.

 

We’ll talk more later about the psychology behind success stories and how to use the success story in an interview. 

The 80/20 Rule

In another life I ran QA organizations. That’s Quality Assurance and not question and answers. One of the tools I used back then was the Pareto Analysis which utilizes the adage: for many cases, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Of course this is more commonly called the 80/20 rule.
We use this rule in two ways in a job search. First and most evident is that most of your results are going to come from about 20% of your effort. But! And that is a big but, you don’t know which 20% will produce the results you are looking for. So you have to do 100% of what is needed for a job search. It is also important to point out what works for one person in job transition may not produce the same outcomes for another person.

Now the second way the 80/20 rule affects your job search is in understanding the job market. Behind all the numbers of job loss and unemployment rates is this truth. These numbers bear out with statistical analysis done by companies like Challenger, Gray and Christmas. The fact is that the job market is divided into two different and unequal pieces. First there is the advertised job market and then the larger hidden job market.

The hidden job market is represented by the 80% of this pie chart. But we need to be aware of where or how to find opportunities in the hidden market. The second pie chart shows that we can find these hidden jobs through people we know and people we don’t know yet.

Of course through networking we become aware of jobs through strangers: in fact, that is a primary goal of job search networking. I tell my clients that they need to begin talking to friends. Asking for help in your job search is all it takes. Wait a minute, ask for help? I am an American, I don’t ask for help.

Isn’t that the truth! As a people, in a general sense, we hate to ask for help. Who hasn’t heard the joke about the guy driving around lost not willing to stop and ask for directions. Ouch, it's so true it’s a punch line of a joke. But this is just what we need to do to be successful in job search.

People love to help and will help until it hurts. The trouble is that they don’t know how to help the person in transition. So you need to tell them by saying "I’d really appreciate your help and advice". Who doesn’t want to give advice? That’s all it takes.

A note to the reader

It is really exciting putting this blog together and I thank those of you that have commented to me here or via email, Thank you. I hope this helps you on the path to gainful employment.

In looking at the layout of this blog I realized that I am doing serial posting which is out of order when posted. I am writing these articles in parallel and publish each once they are complete.

For this I ask your indulgence since this will force the reader to bounce around. The random order of these articles is because they were originally written for clients and groups that I work with.

In closing, I’m really enjoying putting this wisdom down for you and anyone in transition. I cannot claim the elements of this blog as solely my wisdom since I have gleaned it over the years. I expect with the help of my dear friend Alice Dechene, who has graciously agreed to edit these entries they will only improve in the future.

Cheers,
Thomas

Transition: What I am becoming? (part 3)

We are talking about transition -- what I called the becoming phase. And remember, people like things to be predictable... so let’s start here.

Job and life transitions are not predictable and therefore stressful. One example, in 1999 a high tech worker looking for a new job found that job in a matter of weeks. In 2002 the time-line went from weeks to months and in many cases over a year. I’ve spoken to clients that said they never saw that coming. The economy shifts like an earthquake; one moment everything is fine, great and the next all hell breaks loose. Sadly, many of these same clients told me that they chose IT as a career because this was never supposed to have happened. Technology was a safe field. I went to work there because there was suppose to be job security. Yet, every industry has a similar story.

So instead of asking yourself what is a safe career, ask yourself, "What do I need to do that will bring happiness?" "Where do my strengths and interests fit best?" For people of faith this is the other kind of vocational question. "What is God calling me to do?" "What can give my life fuller meaning?"

I was talking to a friend who told me that she was a teacher because of the security and the predictable salary increases. She went on to say that she likes teaching but it isn’t not her passion. She knows she makes a difference in the lives of her students, but she does it because she needs to work to bring money into the household, nothing else.

I asked her a question, “What if the government decided to pay women for staying home and raising the best families possible; would you have passion for that?” It may be that, at least one reason she is a teacher is because it is the closest thing there is in the work world to her true passion, motherhood. What is God or the universe, calling you to do? What is your true passion?

Once you learn this answer you'll then have new energy. Notice I am not saying that it makes it easier. But, knowing what you are passionate about and going after a job or role that incorporates that passion will give you energy to do the job search.

Talk to someone about this. If you don't have a coach, get one and work with your coach to identify your strengths and talents and you will see where that takes you.

Transition: What I am becoming? (part 2)

The transition process is a classic Birth – Death – Rebirth cycle (Stepping between worlds) where job loss is the death event. We see job loss as an end. I suggest to my clients that it is a loss and deserves time for grieving. Yet, what follows is the transition to the next thing, a rebirth. The time between is truly hard for people – we are not good at being between things. You’ve come from a state of: “What you were,” moving into a state of, “What you are going to be” This syndrome is not so uncommon. Normally you graduate from 8th grade and you’re going into 9th grade. Then bang! you’re a Freshman in High School and there is no looking back. I suggest that transition is like going from 8th to 9th grade without a three month summer break.

What makes transition such a scary thing? There is no time-line and the next step isn’t a guarantee. Someone may very well say "No" to you. Transition is full of rejection, where your ego can really take a beating.

Job and life transitions are not predictable. Of course you can plan and work the plan but there are far too many variables out of your control. People like things to be predictable, which is one of the reasons people stay in the same job year after year even when they have grown tired of the work… it’s safe and secure but it is also predictable.

I suggest looking at transition as a phase in life, call it: “Your Becoming Phase”… You’re no longer X and you’re not Y yet? You’re becoming – meaning… you’re free to ask yourself “What do I need to do to fit into the world?” Where do my strengths and interests fit best? If money wasn’t an issue what would I do to make the world a better place?

These are great topics to investigate and a coach can really help. In the third part of this discussion we will talk about the bigger questions that you can address in your becoming phase.

The SYSTEM of Job Search Isn't Fair

   The simple truth is that the players, organizations and activities involved in the area of employment and hiring are not there to help you find a job. This job search system or simply “The System” is set up to comb through candidates or to eliminate resumes. This is very different from finding the right person for the job.

So often I listened to clients and others in job search say, but I was perfect for the job and I didn’t even get a phone interview. How can that be? Let’s take a look at The System…

A company finds that they need to hire someone. A manager needs to fill out a requisition to hire. Let’s say there is enough money in the budget and the manager makes a good case for the hire and the requisition is approved. What happens next?

Most companies have a formal procedure for hiring in order to comply with state and federal employment regulations. HR (Human Resources) is called into the process. They check a database of candidates and the position is advertised internally. If this fails, the posting is then advertised outside the company. (Note: only about 20% of jobs are advertised.) This can involve print media, online service or an outside recruiter (AKA Headhunter). The result here is hundreds of resumes.

HR processes the resumes and presents to the hiring manager five or six “good” candidates. In a stack of 200 resumes what are the odds of any specific resume being chosen? Depending on where your resume is in the pile of resumes no one may ever see your resume.

I’ve heard HR people complain about the volume of resumes they have to process. If they find six appropriate candidates in the top of the stack are they really going to keep looking through the rest of the stack? A company's formal hiring process is there to mitigate the risk of legal complications - not to find the “right person.”

I've really simplified this but you can see that long before an interview can be scheduled you have to do something to break out of The System and get yourself noticed. This is why networking is so important; it's a numbers game or a lotto and the odds are stacked against you. Beat The System: become excellent at networking.

-- Edited by Alice Dechene

Be positive about finding the next job.

 Ever see a kid opening presents on Christmas morning – they are full of excitement about the presents under the tree. I remember the first Christmas that my daughter was cognoscente of Christmas presents. She was jumping and shaking and carrying on about Santa and the Tree. “Hurry, hurry, hurry Daddy Santa came!”

She didn’t know what was under the wrapping paper, but she was sure it was just what she wanted. She had a positive idea and visualized the end result. This is the perfect attitude for people in job search. Have a positive idea of the job you want. Visualize it with an expectation of when it will happen. Will that make it happen? I don’t know; some folks believe that we all have the ability to attract to us the things that happen in our lives. They call it the secret. Others are convinced that prayer is all important. “Ask you and you will receive…

I won’t go as far as to tell you how or what to believe, but I am willing to tell you that you need a positive attitude for a successful job search. From Zig Ziggler to Denis Waitley, to Tony Robbins, they all agree that you’ll only hurt yourself if you have a negative, defeatist attitude. In fact, I think you will lose out all together if you attitude is full of doubt and misgivings. If two people are interviewing and one of them is a negative, sad sack and the other is upbeat and positive, who am I going to like better? Who am I more likely to hire?

Is there more to it than that? Nope! If you are depressed and down in the interview you’re going to lose. I’ve heard people in job transition say, “Why bother, no one is hiring, I heard it just the other night on the evening news!” Instead of the news, listen to positive things, inspiring music, PMA recordings, read up lifting books; anything to overcome the negative messages out there. Job search requires you to be and stay positive.

      I heard a speaker once tell the audience that a person in transition has to have the enthusiasm of a puppy when the doorbell rings. Anyone who has a dog will tell you that anytime the doorbell rings the dog takes off running for the door. It’s as if whoever rang the bell is there for them. No matter how many times the doorbell rings the puppy is just as enthusiastic as the first time. Even when the puppy is old and doesn’t move so fast, if the doorbell rings the dog takes off for the door.

           This is the attitude everyone in job search needs to maintain. Every contact, every networking event, every job lead is going to turn into an offer for your next job. Then, just maybe when the doorbell rings it will be someone with the perfect job lead.

Transition: What I am becoming? (part 1)

My brother, a survivor of job loss, recently asked me if I had seen the movie "The Rookie" starring Dennis Quaid. I had and he reminded me of a point in the movie where the star realizes that sometimes you need to do what you were meant to do. What an insight. So often people are in careers because they simply ended up doing the job they do and not because they always wanted be a “fill in the blank.” (Clerk, doctor, engineer, Indian Chief, teacher)

Many of my clients reported this to me as we talked about their career. They share that they

really didn’t have a passion for the job but simply did it because it was the job they had. Often they felt trapped because they rose in the salary structure and couldn’t afford to change. But

now that the job is gone they now had the opportunity to ask the question: “What do I want to do?”

It’s a question of vocation: What was I meant to be? Sometimes, if I have nothing to loose, then I have everything to gain. “I cannot do this anymore so what can I do?" is the question many are faced with. I would ask my clients what they wanted to do when they were teenagers. What keeps us from focusing on the dreams we had as teenagers? The answers to that are as numerous as there are people being asked the question. What’s important to realize is that job transition is the perfect time to ask the question.

One of my heroes is Joseph Campbell, an authority and a life long student of myth and mythology. He once told an interviewer he believed that a success in life comes from following one’s bliss. Doing what you love or what you are best at will lead to success.

As children, we will do what we want, play with the toys we like and ignore the things we don’t enjoy. Then in adolescence things change and we feel like things we do are wrong or don't quite fit… no matter how hard we try to please people we feel inadequate. Somewhere along the way someone says to you… “Grow up, do what you need to do.” "Be an adult!" How sad... However, imagine what could happen if the child heard, “You need to do what makes you happy and makes the world a better place.” Today a person in transition needs to ask themselves, “What can you do to be happy and make the world a better place?” and if Campbell is right success will follow.

So if you find yourself in transition between jobs or another life transition, take a moment to think about what you wanted to be when you were a kid, what really makes you happy and what are your talents. We'll discuss this more in part two.

"Why Me?" Just isn't Important in Getting a Job

There seems to be a common frame of mind in my clients who are going through a prolonged time in transition between jobs. If fact, this actually affects the vast majority of people going through any kind of transition from being let go from a job to retirement.

Over and over people in transition find them selves stuck and growing depressed because they have lost confidence in their ability to achieve a goal. Whether it is finding the next job or learning new role in life, their confidence is shaken and their thinking becomes filled with doubts.

Face it, transitions are difficult. If you were let go from a job, the natural question is, "Why me?" Many of my clients would tell me that they couldn’t understand why they got canned when someone else is still there. I can think of a story from one person who brought in and closed a $4.5 million deal and a week and a half later got the ax. In another client’s story their whole group was released while there was all this work that remained to be done. It doesn't make sense to the person in transition.

It is common for humans to see the world in terms of ourselves. Why me? Add to this the condition that self doubt is a natural element in transition or any kind of change. This becomes a problem when self doubt becomes stagnation especially when coupled with depression.

The sad truth is that most people are laid off for reasons they’ll never know. They lost their job because there number was picked or they were in a department that was believed to be expendable. After talking to thousands of people over the years, I come to the conclusion that nothing you did or could have done would have changed the outcome. Often a person can cite a series of corporate decisions that led cutbacks and layoffs. "Why me," if it was someone else's fault.

I have often told my clients that they were probably right, but that doesn’t matter… it’s in the past and you need to focus on the future. Do not focus on what happened, but focus on what you are going to do to be successful in your transition. Simply, "Why me" thinking leads to anger and/or depression. This leads to all kinds of negative behaviors which will negatively impact your job search.

Dropping "Why me" from your thinking will make a difference. Be positive and let go of the negative thinking that will hold you back. Do the things that will help you have a positive frame of mind which people will see and take note. Focus on your goal and leave the past behind.

Positive Attitude in Job Search (part 1)

Is Life Better With Feathered Underwear?

I like Zig Ziggler when he says, “Anything you can do; you can do better with a positive attitude.” If you are doing a job search this is a very important point. Years ago when I was in job transition a fellow asked me how I kept a positive attitude. I replied, “I wear feathered underwear.” He became upset by what he considered a flippant answer and said, “Fine if you don’t want to tell me, fine!”

The easy answer is I choose to. What’s the alternative? I have more energy with a positive attitude than I do with a “stinkin’ thinking’ attitude.” I remember something a QA Manager who I worked with once told her team: “We interview for our jobs everyday, in the work we do, the results we produce and the attitude we bring to the job.”

How can I top that?

A friend of mine, Joy Maguire-Dooley has a voicemail greeting that says positive attitudes are infectious. I realize that I may be influencing a future job lead with my positive attitude today.

There is an old sales adage that goes something like; people do business with people they like. I think this is even truer with job search. People hire people they like. So much has been written on the importance in making a good first impression.

Ask yourself: if a hiring manager has three people to choose from, who are they going to hire? The person they like best… the person they feel will be the best fit for their team. This is why I suggest to my clients to wear feathered underwear and always have a smile on your face.

Smile, have a positive attitude and help people like you. The feathered underwear is really optional.