Collective Genius!

Getting the Job You Want

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Q: How do you get the job you want? A: Send off your CV. Right? Well.....

I'm going to be suggesting that the traditional way of sending off a CV (1) speculatively to organisations (2) in response to advertisements, is not always effective. A more proactive approach is in either of those cases to send the CV but attach a value proposition letter. Be clear that this is a lot more than just a ‘covering letter’. And the most proactive approach is to actually write (value proposition letter + CV) to the organisations you would like to work for even before they start advertising.

Choose your organisation. Choose the organisation you want to work for. How do you know about them; by reading. Read your main business press, your vertical market press and begin to note the organisations at which you would like to be employed.

Once you have a target, think what they want from you? If you are HR, how can you help reduce the number of good people leaving? If you are Marketing Director, try and put a number on the improved return you will bring to the marketing budget. Write a concise letter. Good help with these skills is available from Jeffrey Fox and also my book. Now send those letters and leave a couple of weeks then follow-up. Be polite, be persistent.

As with so much of the good advice Curt offers: think differently and you can get some different results.

Good luck. I'm Nicholas Bate. Visit my blog sometime. Nicholasbate.typepad.com

One Habit You'll Always Treasure

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In one way, it might have been easier to post sooner to this aggregation of advice for graduates - I could have chosen several other things to have advised on.  However, I'm not at all sure I could have done so better than my colleagues here.  As I pondered what to write about (beyond the things you've already read), I thought of several things, but I kept coming back to something that has made a difference in my life - and I can guarantee it will for you too.

As you finish school (whether High School, College or advanced degrees) you may be thinking something like . . .  "Whew!  I'm done with books - I'm done with reading.  Enough of this formal education, it's time to move on!"

Apparently, you aren't alone in thinking this way.  According to statistics from the American Booksellers Association,

58% of American adults haven't read a book after high school,  And if you are a college graduate and thinking a bit smugly about those statistics, the same study found that 42% of university graduates never read another book after high school.

Now, let's think about what you are thinking now, as a fresh, new excited graduate.  You want to have success.  You want to be happy.  You want to see the world and reach your dreams.  All of us want those things - and some people will achieve them.

Which person, holding all else equal, has a better chance of reaching their goals, earning more, seeing more and being more:  The people that stop reading, or the those who don't? You know the answer.  Oh, and if you are thinking about the person you know or the story you read about the person who never reads but has had amazing success, forget about them.  You can find an exception to any rule.  Those people are the exceptions.  And if you say, I'm not a very fast reader, don't worry about that either.  Remeber that the tortoise won the race.

If you want to improve your chances of reaching any of your goals, make reading a lifelong habit.  Reading will give you new ideas, new knowledge, and it will keep your mind active and open to opportunities.  Put another way, reading is a competitive advantage.  If you want to move further faster, you do things to gain a competitive edge.  Reading is one of those edges.

Here's a way to start your habit.

Talk to someone you admire - maybe it is one of your professors, a mentor, a parent, a new co-worker or your new boss.  Ask them what they would recommend that you read.  If they don't read, ask them what kinds of things they wish they had learned when they were at your stage of life.

Make a list of the titles they give you, or go to a good bookstore (or Amazon) and research the topics they suggest.  Then pick one book.

If you can afford it, buy your own copy (even if it is used) - if you really can't find the few dollars required, use the library.  Over time you will be glad you had your own copy so that you can mark it up, write in it, etc.  (You'll be surprised how much more fun it is to write up and underline the book because you are interested than because it might be on the test!).

Once you have your book, read ten pages.  Then read ten pages tomorrow.  Of course, if you want, read far more, but make sure you read ten pages.  When you do this, you can read most non-fiction books (which are mostly 300 pages or less) in a month.  Before you are done reading, pick up the next book on your list, or one that is referenced in the book you are reading.  When you finish one, reward yourself and read ten pages of the new one.

There is your habit:  Ten pages a day.

Anyone can find time for ten pages a day.  In fact in your life you will find that the busiest people are often the most active readers. Ten pages a day will be about 12 books a year.  If 42% of college grads (0r 58% of H.S grads) never read another one and you read 12 a year, who has the competitive advantage?

Ten pages a day will be a habit you will soon treasure.  You will look back often (and actually very soon) and smile on the wisdom of this advice.

......

Mentioned on Kevin's Blog - with links to other erlevant advice and materials on developing your reading habit

Advice to the Class of 2006

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     Adopt humility as a mindset--humility toward your own achievements, toward your fellow man, especially toward our Mother Earth.  Recognize that you are launching into life with a lot of new knowledge, but with little wisdom, for wisdom comes only with age and experience.  Rekindle your imagination; it is central to your exercise of humility, your understanding of self, your gathering of wisdom.

     Armed with these three crucial weapons, go out into the world and achieve your goals, relieve the suffering of others, be a major player in saving this Earth, this right little, tight little island which is mankind's only nest.  And remember through all your trials and tribulations, a fine sense of humor is the saving grace.

Take time out

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What's the most important thing you need to know at this new start to your life? To take time out. No I don't mean go clubbing, although if that's your thing you'd better leave time for that also. I mean to take time every day, every week, every month and every year for some inward reflection. Spending time with yourself is the only way you will truly get to know yourself, what's right about your life, what's wrong with it and whether you are following your bliss. You need to open your awareness to others. Give yourself the opportunity to slip out of your day-to-day world into a contemplative state that will thin the boundaries between yourself and everyone and everything else. Over time, this will give you a depth of understanding that will add great richness to your life.

How do you do this? Start off by spending ten minutes alone each day meditating. If you follow a religious belief, look into the contemplative and mystical traditions and practices of your particular religion. For example, people are sometime surprised to find out that Christian tradition has as rich a meditative history as, say, Buddhism. If you are not religious, try this:

Find a spot where you can sit undisturbed at a desk or table for ten minutes (warning: you may have to get up early...). Make sure you don't have to worry about when the ten minutes is up. I do this by setting the timer on my CD player to have some gentle and beautiful music come on (the Bach solo cello suites by Yo Yo Ma are wonderful). Gather together a candle and/or incense stick, a hardback notebook and pen especially for these sessions, and some writing that attracts you. (No, not the latest Patricia Cornwell, try a book of poetry! Or if relevant you can use sacred scripture from your particular religion.)

Sit down, light your candle, open your notebook ready. Steady your breathing, shut your eyes for a few seconds and become aware of your physical self sitting, waiting, open to experience. Open your eyes and look at the writing. Pick a paragraph at random and read it. Absorb it. Notice which one or two words resonate with you today. Write them down.  Close your eyes again or gaze into the candle. Let those one or two words sink down into you, hold them there, absorb their meaning. Distractions will pop into your mind. Don't worry about it: when you notice you have become distracted, gently refocus your attention. Then write what the words mean to you.

No-one else will see your notebook, so you can feel free to write without fear of ridicule or whether what you are writing and observing is "right". There will be times when you cannot quieten your mind and cannot hear what the writing has to say to you. What you are reading will seem to shine with truth one day and be dull as ditchwater the next. Experiment with different reading sources, but don't give up on something that you feel a mysterious antipathy towards: it may well have something to teach that you are resisting. Over time, this practice will become an oasis of peace and understanding in your day, and will give you the energy and focus to live the right life for you.

It would also be wonderful if you could take at least one actual retreat each year. Spend a few days physically removing yourself from the world and all its distractions. There are retreat centres of all kinds in every country. Be a little bit wary of anything that seems very "wacky"; don't be taken for a ride by those cashing in on the hunger for spirituality. But be open to new experiences. Personally, I spend time at a Benedictine monastic community where I can follow the rhythm of the monastic day, pray, read and walk through the beautiful wooded grounds. (You don't have to be Christian to go there, and the same is true of many religious retreat centres.)

Whatever else you do or don't do, setting time aside in this way to hear what speaks to you will provide invaluable challenges and rewards throughout your life, and an underlying sense of peacefulness.

Be happy!

Cross-posted on Learning, earning and yearning.

Grad-YOU-ation

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You are about to initiate one of the most important projects of your life:  YOU.  You are now both project manager and executive sponsor of this project.  Some of you already have defined your "project scope" to the nth degree of detail and know what you want your end product to look like.  Others of you are utterly incredulous that you even made it to graduation day (in which case, you may need to look up "utterly incredulous" in the dictionary.  Go ahead.  I can wait).  You will eventually learn to accept accountability for this project's results.  Sure, stuff is going to happen to you that you would never think could happen.  And you'll deal with it.  Because that's what project managers do.  It won't be easy since the project is YOU, but you'll find a way.

Some of you will find your project's scope changing.  You think you will have your life - your project plan - all mapped out and then WHAMMO!  You will be heading in a totally different direction than you had planned.  Some of you will like your new direction better than the old one.  Some of you will spend the rest of your life trying to get back to your old direction.  The trick is to just keep moving.

Some of you are risk averse.  You hate ambiguity and want to know all the answers to all the pertinent questions.  And they won't be there.  And you will need to learn to embrace a little risk now and then.  Who knows?  You might find you like it.  Others of you think risk is a food group.  You will take chances.  You will fail.  You will pick yourself up again.  You may fail even more grandly the second time.  Or you may experience success beyond your wildest imagination.  (In all honesty, that's what I wish for all of you.)

Your project team will change over the course of the project.  Right now, you may have mom and dad as your key project resources, helping you begin your greatest project.  At some point, a spouse or life partner will join your project team and propel you forward in your greatest project.  At the same time, though, you must remember that you are on their project team helping them do the same thing.  You will have to come to grips with the fact that it's not all about you.  Eventually, many of you will add children to your project team, and in so doing start new projects that will be even more adventurous than your own.  Children are a very precious gift, and they require a lot of attention.  Just don't lose sight of the fact that you are still project manager and executive sponsor of the YOU project that is still going on.  Your children will be watching how you manage that project, and they will look to you for how they will manage their own project when their time comes.

You will need numerous skills on your YOU project.  You will need courage to know when to speak up.  You will need tact to know when to shut up.  You will need creativity to splash carelessly into the great unknown.  You will need problem solving to analyze that same great unknown to determine if it's right for you.  You will need the ability to assess the details around you, all the while needing to see how those details fit into the big picture.

Unlike the projects I manage, the YOU project has only one status report.  At the end.  It will be the most important deliverable you will ever create.  It will tell what you've accomplished while you worked on your project.  It will also tell what legacy you left for other project managers.

Good luck with your YOU project.  I hope our paths cross in the future and I will get to be a part of your project, just as you may get to be a part of mine.  You will be a great project manager.  Just believe in yourself and CARPE FACTUM!!

Timothy Johnson (www.carpefactum.com) - Seize The Accomplishment!

Remember Your LAPELS!

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This world is an amazing place, and no doubt you will encounter many people in your life that tell you things can't be done. DON'T LISTEN TO ANY OF THEM! If you want to do something, DO IT! If you don't do it right the first time DO IT AGAIN, and keep doing it until you do it right.

Don't live in anyone else's definition of success. Only you know what will make YOU happy. Just because some of your classmates will drive a BMW or Mercedes within moments of graduation doesn't you mean you need to. The $40-$400k they spend on a car is better spent invested in your personal growth and in meeting the people that can help you figure out what it is you're passionate about.

Contrary to what you may think, commencement is not the end of your learning journey, rather it's the BEGINNING of your journey towards personal greatness.

My advice to you can be summed up in one word: LAPELS. Remember your LAPELS!

Merriam Webster defines a lapel as: the part of a garment that is turned back; specifically : the fold of the front of a coat that is usually a continuation of the collar. If you have worn a coat, you have touched and seen a lapel. The LAPELS I talk of will not be on your coat, but will be of your life.

The L in lapels is for learning. As I mentioned, learning doesn't stop with graduation, rather it begins. You have laid the foundation for the life you want to lead. Now the journey begins! While you may never be back in the formal classroom setting, you will learn something from every person you come in contact with, from every TV show and movie you watch, and every book, magazine, newspaper, and blog you read. Be careful what you invest your time in, because there is only so much you can quickly recall. If you spend all of your time reading celebrity news magazines, and only a little time on your personal growth, you will fill your head full of useless information and be able to only talk intelligently about Brangelina. On the other hand, if you spend your time learning to be an expert in your chosen field, you will advance much faster than those who only know about the top headlines.

The A is for attitude. You've heard the old saying "Attitude is everything." BELIEVE IT! The better your attitude, the higher you will soar. Take the time to find some good in everything  you encounter, and then share it with those around you. This isn't to say that life will be easy, or that having a positive attitude is simple. It's not. It takes hard work, and constant attention. I can assure you, people will find a way to spend time with you and to help you out. If you're negative,  people will find a way to run away from you and not help you. "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone" is good advice.

P is for People. People are the middle part of your LAPEL. People are the heart and soul of how you can be successful. Seek out people more successful than you, and help them be even MORE successful. The more people you can help, the better you will feel, and the better you will be. Love people with all your heart, and find ways to always learn more about the people in your life. Do little things for people, and don't worry if they ever do anything back to you. There's no greater joy than to help someone that can never return the favor. Give back to your community, and help everyone be successful, and soon, you too will be successful, or at the very least, you've at least helped someone else.

E is for Energy. Find out what gives you energy, and do a LOT of it. Find out what drains your energy, and find a way to STOP DOING that. If you have to do something that drains you energy, look deep into that task and see if there is anything in it that can give you energy, and see yourself doing the task for that reason and that reason only, and see if it doesn't give you more energy. If you can't find anything about the task at hand that gives you energy, see if you can find someone that it does give energy to, and trade them for something that you love to do. For instance, I am not a reports guru. Reports do not excite me in the least. I have found that there are some people who LOVE report. I enjoy being around people, and I enjoy talking to people. I am able to leverage my energy for people to have someone else do much of my reporting, and I take care of the hostile customers. I get my energy fix with people, and my co-worker gets his with his reports. If you're willing to learn about people, you will find out that they are not all the same as you, and are willing to help you if you help them first. Energy begets energy, so give it and get it!

The L is for Likeability. Be likeable! People want to be around likeable people. Heck, you want to be around likeable people. The more likeable you are, the more likeable people will be back to you, and the more likely they are to help you. Tim Sanders wrote a whole book about likeability, and after doing the research, he found that high "l-factor" people are more likely to be successful, REGARDLESS of the business they are in. Take the time to learn to be more likeable, and you will be more successful, regardless of how your definition of success.

Last but not least, the letter S in LAPELS is for SMILE! Smile at everyone you see, especially yourself. See how many people smile back. Notice how much better you feel, just because you're smiling more. Never underestimate the power of a smile.

In conclusion, I challenge you to never stop learning, have a positive attitude, focus on people, find what gives you energy, be likeable, and SMILE darn it! Make it a great day, today, and every day! I wish you good luck, God speed, and encouragement on your journey. It's a great one, so take it one step at a time, and remember your LAPELS.

Phil Gerbyshak


Technorati Tags: graduation, advice, lapels

Lazy Advice to This Year’s (or Any Year’s) Graduates

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I want you to make a list of what is most important to you. Please give it enough thought so that your list has at least five items on it.

If “making money” is on your list then you can stop reading my advice. I can’t help you. Either you are hopeless or you didn’t think (or haven’t yet thought) deeply enough about what is truly important in life.

If you are entering the so-called “real” world or if you are extending your stay in the “unreal," here is my advice:

Fall in love.

Not necessarily with another person, although that is nice, but fall in love with some area of knowledge. Don’t study a subject or take some job just because you think you can make a lot of money at it. Pursue a direction because it inspires you, because it feeds your soul, because it challenges you and causes you to grow as a person, because it advances the human condition.

If you study something or pursue something for the money that it may bring, you may make your money, but you will end up being one dull, unhappy dude and, the truth be told, quite unfulfilled because the money that you thought would be great, will turn out to be not enough. I can guarantee it.

Here is a sad truth about money. If you chase it, you will never think you have enough of it. Chasing after bucks (or quid or euros or whatever) will never fulfill you as an individual. NEVER.

Instead pursue your passion. Love something with all your heart and soul. That is the key to great success. By loving something, it reveals its secrets to you. By loving something you discover subtler and subtler truths. Power, my dear friends, resides in that subtle. That power will deliver the success you would like to have. Success (defined however you like – in terms of wealth, name, fame, power, love, health, happiness, knowledge, and any combination) comes as a side effect of doing what you love.

So studying or pursuing law/medicine/accounting because of some desired future salary will doom you to a lifetime of hard work and drudgery. And emptiness.

But if you do what you love, you will never work again. And I promise that you will be happy, powerful, healthy, wise, and enormously rich in all that matters.

www.lazyway.net

Job Schmob - Have Some Fun

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Confession - I am a Baby Boomer. Born the last year of the baby boomer generation, 1964. As a coach and trainer, I have heard the regrets of 1000s of successful professionals. The most common theme?

I wish I would have waited to get so serious about work. I wish I would have played more.

I have a great life, but share the same reflection. If I were doing it all over again I would play more, travel more, explored several businesses before getting too focused on work. I have a nephew in his early 20s. He just got married. He and his wife are taking a year to explore America before settling down and starting a family. Wonderful!

If you have the means, travel the world. If you don't have the means, work for a travel company for a while and travel the world. Volunteer for organizations.

Play more relates to your choices for work as well. Now is NOT the time to take a job based on money. Seek and do jobs that are fun and that light up your curiosity. If you focus on the work that makes you want to jump from bed every day, you can and will be able to determine how to make a good living. It is harder to turn a well paying job into one that is also very satisfying.

Remember, study after study finds that wealthy people are not happier than those with modest incomes. At the beginning of your career focus on having fun. Try not to rack up credit card debt because this will only increase the pressure to take higher paying work that might not be a good fit.

Experiment - explore your ideas.

• Think you might like to invent a gadget for outdoor explorers? Great, give it a try.
• Want to create a new type of video game? Try getting an entry level position at a gaming company. If that fails, work in a game arcade for peanuts and get lots of great ideas for your game.

The mid-life crisis is the time when we reevaluate and reconnect with our passions. We wonder how our lives got so off track and long to rekindle our dreams. The kids are old enough to fend for themselves and now it's our turn. You don't want to wait 20 years to find yourself - take the time now.

If you could take the next year and do anything you wanted, what would you do? Try to make that happen. There is plenty time to get serious about upward mobility.

Relax.

Play.

Lisa Haneberg
www.managementcraft.com

Get a Phd in Flexibility

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Way back in time, before the bust of the dotcoms, I was a project manager for a web development company. I had never been a project manager before I got the job but I convinced them I could do it because I had run my own business for 12 years. But in reality, I had no education, no training, and no experience. What I had was flexibility.

With 50 employees at the company, we took a poll of college degrees. Only 10% of us were working in the area of our degrees. In the project management area alone, we had a medical illustrator, a French historian, a biologist, a high school teacher, a barber, and me, a writer.

Where I am now is not at all where I thought I'd be after college. When I graduated with a degree in Computer Science, I thought I'd write compilers. Instead, I worked in corporate America maintaining a customer record system where I discovered I preferred writing the instruction manuals to writing programs. I used my techie background to transition into technical writing, and never programmed again.

But the transition wasn't easy. Finding a job was ? everyone wanted a tech writer who was truly technical, but the mental change was not. I had rushed through college in 3 years, I had student loans, I had declared to the world that I wanted to be a geek. It was hard for me to leave the programming job because it felt like admitting I had been wrong about my education, all that studying, all the expense. It felt like it had all been in vain, I had wasted time and money, and I couldn't get a do-over. I had one chance and I blew it. 

I'm glad I got over that and moved on to work I truly enjoy instead of staying trapped in work that was so unsatisfying to me. Now I view a college degree as a launching point but not at all an indicator of what work you?ll eventually do in your life. Your degree may dictate where you start out but changes will come -- to you and what you want, to the marketplace, to society -- and if you let flexibility, not your degree, be your guide, you'll be amazed where it might lead you.

Gretchen Stahlman

The Year in Red

Gretchen Stahlman.blogspot.com

Be Better Than Average

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Chances are, you will not be employed in the field of your college studies. Or, if you are, it will not be for long. Therefore, I’m sad to say it, but your major is probably irrelevant. Employers want to see that you have a bachelors degree. But they are not necessarily looking for what you majored in. Rather, they are looking to see if you have had "the college experience." Thus, the single biggest piece of advice that I can offer is to be "better than average."

By that, I mean that you need to tap all of those other skills that you learned outside of the classroom - the other 95.3% of your college experience. Most people simply went to class, did homework, got drunk, and slept in. What did you do? Where you involved in student organizations? Were you a leader in student government? Were you a sister in a sorority? Maybe you wrote for the student newspaper?

I was once a pre-med major. Unfortunately, all I got from that experience were the handwriting skills. I ended up with a bachelors in computer science. After school, I immediately began working as an engineer for a global telecommunications company. But after four years of school and $80,000 of debt, I realized that I there was only one - yes, one - relevant class that I took that related to my job, and it was loosely related at best.

So, in the professional world, I needed to rely on the other skills that I learned in college to be better than average and make an impact - things like oral and written communication skills, leadership, networking, project management, and the most important thing that I learned in college - acute fiscal discipline (those nights of Raman noodles finally paid off!).

When you reflect about your college days, think about the stuff that you did outside of the classroom. What skills did you learn? How can you tap your past experiences to leverage them today? Because it’s those skills and experiences, that will make you better than average.

*****
Todd Brockdorf
Speaker/Writer/Better Than Average Joe
www.brockdorfproductions.com