Career Management

Vote for YOU and Your Ideal Career

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

Tomorrow is Election Day and time to vote. As you’re choosing a candidate, think about your own career choices. Did you choose your current career or did it choose you?

 

Perhaps you started in banking during college and moved up. Now you are out. Maybe you were recruited by an investment firm during college. Now you are out.

 

While times are tough, you still have a choice.

 

You can choose to whine and complain about the economy and your crappy career situation OR you can choose to take this time to find a career that is ideal for you.

 

Maybe you fell into the role you’ve just been downsized from – and you hated every minute of it. I worked with one client who had been with his company 25 years before being downsized. “I hated every day I was there,” he told me. “What?! But you worked there for 25 years!” I said. “How did you make it through?” He said, “Why, I took it one day at a time.”

 

How horrible to hate going to work, especially when the typical employee works 2080 to 2600 hours a year. And works an average of FORTY YEARS (or more).

 

Here are some action steps you can take right now and vote – vote for YOU and your ideal career – one that you are passionate about! One where you can say, “WOW, I love going to work!”

 

1.    Choose a new career. If you’re burnt out on your current career or, like my client, hated the 20+ years you’ve worked in the industry, take some career assessments to find a new direction. Here’s a link to some freebies.

 

I also recommend taking more in-depth assessments for greater and more detailed results – to help you identify what makes you tick, how others perceive you, and what might be the ideal work environment for you.

 

2.    Choose your attitude – and make it a positive one. I recently worked with a client who’d been downsized. I’ve rarely met a more positive person. Here he was in a difficult situation, family, main provider, and unfortunately in a declining industry. How did he view his situation? Why he had more time to spend with his family. He had time to help his children with their homework and watch them learn new things. He had time to take some classes and improve his skills. And he had time to research and pursue a new, more lucrative, and stable industry. That’s how he viewed things. How are you viewing your situation? You’ve got a choice.

 

3.    Choose to rebuild your network – the right way. “Know anyone who’s hiring” is not an effective way to rebuild your network. Here’s the right way: Personal Branding Sound Bite.

 

4.    Choose to learn new ways to network. Yes, networking events, social gatherings, and professional organizations are still an excellent way to network. How about the latest tools like online networking? Do you know how to use LinkedIn the right way? Have you updated your bio? Wondering what Twitter is? Check out this self-study class: Rock Your Network® Online for the latest.

  

5.  Choose to take control of your personal brand. The challenge for most professionals is that they lack the discipline necessary to define their personal brands. As a result, their peers select it for them. Unfortunately, the personal brand others select for you will not always be the personal brand you would have selected for yourself. Take action now.

6.  Choose to recession-proof your career – where you are. See my blog post below: Top 10 Tips to Recession-Proof Your Career.

7.  Choose to volunteer. In the words of Zig Ziglar, “If you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get what you want.”

Now is the time to cast a vote for YOU and your ideal career. What choices will you make this time around? It’s up to you. And you’ve got a choice.

 

Want more tips for Job Action Day? Check out QuintCareers and its chosen bloggers. Enjoy!

 

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© 2008 • Wendy Terwelp • All rights reserved.

Wendy Terwelp has helped thousands of clients be rock stars at work since 1989. A recognized expert on networking, both online and off, Wendy has been featured in The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Fast Company, The Business Journal, Monster.com, Careerbuilders.com, and more as well as numerous radio shows. She has published hundreds of articles on the web and in print. Are you ready for your next big gig?®

Learn more> http://www.knocks.com.

 

Top 10 Tips to Recession-Proof Your Career

Wendy Terwelp 6 Comments

“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.” -Theodore Roosevelt

Now is the time to take on extra responsibilities on the job and move out of your comfort zone. Here are 10 tips to help you recession-proof your career:

1. Speak up at the next staff meeting. Make a positive contribution to the conversation and share your ideas. Don’t wait until something happens and then say, “Gee that was MY idea.” How would anyone have known?

2. Schedule a review with your boss. Make her aware of your valuable contributions. It’s not bragging if it’s true AND your boss may not be aware of all you do. Track your results now. Go back into your emails and see how many customers praised your work. Create a “me file.” Want more tips? Read: Revealing Your Personal Power in the Workplace.

3. Anticipate the needs of your coworkers — and other departments. You might be in product development, but you just read a good marketing article that’s on target for your company’s goals. Send it to your colleague in marketing with a brief note, “Saw this and thought you might find it helpful. Thanks for the hard work on the launch of the X project!”

4. Build bridges to other departments. When I worked in the newspaper industry there was a disconnect between advertising, production, and editing (reporting). I created a bridge simply by asking questions and learning more about the other departments. Cross train if your company has a program.

5. Provide genuine compliments. “Nice shoes” is OK, but “Wanda, your help on the gizmo project was invaluable. The fact that you were able to land coverage in Wired magazine, WOW!” is better. Good compliments are specific — and genuine.

6. Mentor the newbie. What tips can you provide that will help this person succeed in your organization?

7. Take a class and build your skills. But then you won’t have your MBA until you’re 40 you say? Yes, but you’ll still be 40… Why not have the degree?

8. Become a thought leader in your industry. Start a blog. Write a whitepaper. Speak at your next industry conference.

9. Network inside and outside the company. Take an active role on employee improvement teams, volunteer groups, and professional organizations.

10. Shake things up. Think of at least one thing you can do right now that would save your department money, streamline operations or improve morale. And just do it! “But it’s always been done like that” is old thinking. “How can I improve this” is new thinking.

Bonus: Build your brand! Increase your visibility the right way to attract opportunities to you. Now more than ever, you’ve got to be noticed. (And I don’t mean that picture of you dancing on the table on MySpace.) Google yourself now to see where you stand.

Want more tips? Visit our newsroom.

Can Social Networking be Good for your Career?

Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

Courtesy of VistaNews by Sunbelt Software:

We’ve all heard the horror stories about how posting the wrong thing on MySpace or FaceBook can come back to haunt you at work. Stories abound about people who have been fired because of something they said on a social networking sites. From a sheriff’s deputy in Florida to a Wal-Mart cashier in Michigan to a teacher in Pennsylvania, they all have one thing in common: they all lost their jobs because of the words they wrote or the photos they shared on MySpace. You can read more about those individual cases here:

http://www.vistanews.com/LR1Z5P/080820-Wesh

http://www.vistanews.com/LR1Z5P/080820-Fox-News

http://www.vistanews.com/LR1Z5P/080820-Reputation-Defender

And of course, they represent only a sampling of those who have met the same fate. There are no statistics readily available regarding the number of workers fired for “inappropriate online behavior” but in a 2007 Forrester survey, 58 percent of companies interviewed reported that they had written policies restricting the use of social networks and almost 5 percent said they had fired someone for violation of those policies.
http://www.vistanews.com/LR1Z5P/080820-MySpace-Fired

Social networking “no no’s” for employees range from divulging company secrets online to personal behavior that puts the employee (and thus the company) in a less-than-professional light. A teacher in Florida was fired for placing an “inappropriate photograph and comments” in his MySpace profile. A Goldman Sachs trader lost his job because of his FaceBook “addiction” and for posting a warning letter from his employer on his FaceBook site. A store employee in London was fired for writing an obscene remark about his company on his FaceBook site. And a university newspaper columnist was fired when comments he made on the social networking site resulted in students starting a campaign to have him removed from the paper.

Just do a web search on “fired FaceBook” or “fired MySpace” and you’ll find story after story along these lines. And for the most part, these cases only make the news when someone gets fired. Who knows how many others out there have been demoted, suspended, received pay cuts or have otherwise been disciplined by their employers without losing their jobs?

Many of those who have been fired or disciplined have protested that their employers’ actions were unfair, and some see it as a violation of their “right to freedom of speech.” What they don’t understand is that the constitutional protection of the first amendment prohibits the government from censoring your speech (that’s why it starts out with “Congress shall make no law …”). It doesn’t extend to private employers.

Many folks operate under the mistaken assumption that they can’t legally be fired unless they’ve done something wrong. But even if you can prove that your social networking behavior wasn’t a violation of any company policy, that doesn’t mean they can’t fire you for it. In most states in the U.S., employment is “at will.” That means an employer can terminate your employment without any reason at all – as long as the reason isn’t discrimination against some protected class (race, color, national origin, age, gender, religion or disability). There are exceptions in the case of unions and employment contracts, and there are also state and federal laws that prohibiting firing an employee for refusing to commit an illegal act or for taking medical leave. Firing a worker for what he or she posts on a web site doesn’t fall under any of those protections.

Because of all this, many people have decided that the best protection is to stay away from social networking entirely, and you can hardly blame them. But is that a little like deciding that the best way to protect yourself against the risk of electrocution is to cut off all the power to your home? Does it make more sense to learn to use social networking more wisely – and perhaps actually enhance your career status and opportunities in the process?

Social networking is all about getting to know more people, making contacts – something that can be very valuable in many lines of business. The trick is to cultivate the kinds of contacts that can help you advance in your job, rather than hurt your chances. That means 1) hanging out in the right places online, and 2) presenting yourself in the right way in those places.

First, then, you should be careful about which sites you join. MySpace and FaceBook are seen by many employers as the equivalent of online singles bars or at best, somewhat juvenile past times. Please don’t write to tell me how wrong this perception is, because when it comes to the impact on your job, it really doesn’t matter whether the perception is accurate or not if your boss (or your boss’s bosses) see it that way. If you want to be seen as a professional, you’re probably better off joining more business-oriented networking sites such as LinkedIn, and/or those that are specific to your occupation or industry.

Whatever sites you choose to join, make sure your profile reflects the qualities that you would present to a potential client or employer – not some fantasy life that’s better positioned for attracting a date (you just might find that this professional approach ends up attracting a higher quality of date, as well). It might seem obvious that posting suggestive photos or recounting the details of how drunk you got at last weekend’s party might not be good for your career, but people who should know better continue to do those very things – and then seem surprised when they find themselves on the “fired over FaceBook” list.

Now you might think that you can have your cake and eat it, too, by showing off your “professionalism” on the business-oriented sites and indulging your “wild side” on the “friends-oriented” sites, but that’s likely to backfire on you in more ways than one. Both the boss and your new romantic interest may very well look at both profiles, and inconsistencies just make it look as if you’re leading a double life – something that’s not likely to sit well with either.

Think you can get around it by using a pseudonym for your less savory profile? It might work – but maintaining a false identity isn’t always easy, and most of the social networking sites prohibit using false names or giving false information in their terms of service. If you’re found out, you could get kicked off the site – or much worse. In at least one case (as we discussed last month in the editorial Are You Breaking the Law by Lying Online?), criminal charges have been brought based on accessing MySpace under a fake identity. Is it really worth the risk?

Of course, some of the social networks allow you to control who can view your site, so you could always make it private. However, this might cause as many problems as it solves. Some employers will conclude that if you’re keeping your site hidden, that must mean you have something to hide.

The proper use of social networking has benefited many careers. As a self employed writer and consultant, I’ve gotten some great referrals from people I’ve connected to on LinkedIn. I know folks who have been hired by new companies or gotten promotions at least in part because of their astute use of social networking. As with any other technology, it’s neither inherently good or bad – it’s all about how you use it.

Tell us about your experiences with social networking. Has belonging to SN sites helped you to become better known in your field and enhanced your career? Have you gotten into trouble at work because of your social networking activities – or have you worried that you might? Do you think it’s unfair for employers to read employees’ social networking profiles, or is it a legitimate part of evaluating your character and fitness for the job? Is a social networking profile relevant to some jobs and not others? Do you have less respect for a colleague if you find out he/she has a MySpace site? If that site were restricted so that it’s not viewable by the general public, would that make you suspicious that it contains inappropriate content? Share your opinions at feedback@vistanews.com

Back up your LinkedIn now – or else

Wendy Terwelp Leave a comment

Well, Jason Alba sure is on a roll. One of his readers’ LinkedIn account got deleted – and she could not recover it! I don’t know about you, but if you’ve got great connections and awesome recommendations like mine: www.linkedin.com/in/wendyterwelp take action on Jason’s tips now!

Here they are:

Here are two absolute must-do’s, right now, on LinkedIn – and they will take less time than it takes to read this blog post (so do it now!):

  1. Export your contacts. Simply click on Contacts, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on Export Connections, and follow that process. Just leave everything at default and you’ll end up with your connections in a .csv file, which opens in Excel.
  2. Export your profile. You’ve probably put a fair amount of thought into creating your profile, right? What about any references you have gotten? Simply click on Profile, then find the grayed-out icons above your name, and click on the adobe pdf icon. This exports your profile, including recommendations, into a very nice, presentable document (kudos to whoever at LinkedIn did that formatting, it is very well-done!). Here’s an image of where the icon is:

These are the two most important things for me to grab, if I knew my LinkedIn account might go away. (1) Who I connected with, which includes e-mail addresses very every single contact, (2) my recommendations (I can always rethink and recreate a profile, but those recommendations are priceless!).

You can follow the rest of Jason’s story about this here.

Resumes: When Hobbies Count

Wendy Terwelp Leave a comment

Hobbies on resumes? You have got to be kidding! I thought that went out in the ’70’s.

They did, when people put their hobbies like this:

Hobbies: Reading, Writing, Bicycling.

Who cares? No one, and that’s why they went out. But here’s a way to make them “in” again. If you list hobbies, make sure they are relevant to your targeted career (your audience) or differentiate you in the right way or are truly a part of your personal brand.

For example, I worked with an IT consultant who wanted to relocate. He was a young person with three years’ experience in IT. In his previous life though, and while working his way through college, our IT consultant had a side job – as a rock climbing instructor. How cool! Here’s a person who takes risks, who is athletic, and has a life outside a dimly lit screen. We added this job to his resume. Result? He sent out two resumes and got two offers. He called me while on the road – in his new company-paid car – and said, “Wendy, all they talked about was my rock climbing! Can you believe it?”

Here’s another. I worked with a nurse (RN) who had experience and wanted out of staff nursing. She wanted to transition into pharmaceutical sales, but she technically had no sales experience. In addition to her many transferable skills (like terminology, physician connections, etc.), we added her “hobby.” She was a competitive marathon runner. And she had placed in the top three for a variety of marathons more than once. She also competed worldwide – and had run a marathon in Prague. Again, GUTS. This hobby demonstrated that she was very competitive, had drive, endurance, and played to win. Good traits in sales.

And my own experience (albeit a while back), I was a newspaper reporter. I covered the HOG (Harley Owner’s Group) rally in Milwaukee. Yep, dressed like a biker and interviewed Harley owners from around the globe. Awesome! My story got nominated for a national award. I put this on my resume when job hunting. Got called by a recruiting firm. They had heard about me before, and now it was time to interview. Guess what? The guy interviewing me owned the Harley parked outside. We talked about the article and Harleys for about an hour. I then met the operations manager and the president and got the offer. Here I had my portfolio with my performance evals and records, and they wanted to talk about Harleys. Later, I asked about that. They said, “Wendy, we already knew all about you. We know that when so-and-so took over the old office, people were still asking about you for two years. We knew about the performance records. That’s why we kept calling. But, we needed to see if you’d be a fit for our team. Well, after you talked with so-and-so about Harleys, we knew you would fit right in.” Old “so and so” was my boss for a while. When he left, I got to be boss – for that department. 🙂

These stories are not just about hobbies, but rather a culture fit within the organization. In the employment biz, we call it “right fit.” Think about this, the average person spends 2080 to 2600 hours per year at work! Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy being there?

Challenge: What are your hobbies? Are they relevant to your career goal? Would they be a differentiator for you? Do they demonstrate your brand? Your attributes that are hot selling points for the role? If so, take a risk. Add it to your resume.