Have you eaten your frog today?

February 19, 2007Wendy Terwelp 2 Comments

This arrived in my in-box today and I had to share it. Thanks Peter Crocker for a great article – something we can all relate to – managing time during a career search. 🙂

Here’s something that used to happen to me all the time, and it completely infuriated me…

I’d head into my home office around 8.15am all ready to go. I’d pop back out and boil the kettle. Open up the email, check who won the cricket, drop by a few of my favourite sites. I’d re-boil the kettle. Clear out my spam, respond to some emails and read a few newsletters. I’d finally make my coffee, ponder my non-flowering frangipani tree and check my list.

Suddenly, it would be 9.45am and I’d have achieved nothing at all!

Every time I thought, “If only I’d done an hour and a half of productive client work I’d be well into my list, feeling great and all set for a productive day”. Instead I was behind for the rest of the day.

It was when I read a book called Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy, that I realised exactly when this procrastination routine kicked in. It was whenever I was putting off working on some complex or uninteresting project.

To save you reading the book, it’s essentially based on an old saying that if the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, you can look forward to the day knowing that it’s probably the worst thing you’ll have to do.

‘Eat that frog’ is a metaphor for tackling the most important and challenging task of your day, before dealing with the rest.

Because there’s rarely time to do absolutely everything on our to-do list, productivity depends on prioritising the tasks that will make the biggest difference to your life and making sure they get done first.

Does this sort of thing happen to you? Are you procrastinating now? How do you beat it? Hop online and share your thoughts.

After that, stop mucking about and go and eat that frog!

Until next week.

Love your work,

Peter Crocker
peter@flyingsolo.com.au

Social Networking + Digital Dirt = Love on the Rocks

February 7, 2007February 7, 2007Wendy Terwelp 1 Comment

That cute, affable guy who brags of his drunken exploits on FaceBook.com may be meeting a lot of other partiers online, but he’s probably not getting added to the “friends” lists of many corporate recruiters. A recent study by the executive search firm ExecuNet found that 77 percent of recruiters run searches of candidates on the Web to screen applicants; 35 percent of these same recruiters say they’ve eliminated a candidate based on the information they uncovered.

“You’d be surprised at what I’ve seen when researching candidates,” says Gail, a recruiter at a Fortune 500 company who recently began looking up potential hires on the Web. “We were having a tough time deciding between two candidates until I found the profile of one of them on MySpace. It boasted a photo of her lounging on a hammock in a bikini, listed her interests as ‘having a good time’ and her sex as ‘yes, please.’ Not quite what we were looking for.”

“Another time I went to a candidate’s site and found racial slurs and jokes,” Gail continues. “And there was yet another instance where a candidate told me he was currently working for a company, yet he left a comment on a friend’s profile about how it ‘sucked’ to be laid off, and how much fun it was to be unemployed!”

As the amount of personal information available online grows, first impressions are being formed long before the interview process begins, warns David Opton, ExecuNet CEO and founder. “Given the implications and the shelf-life of Internet content, managing your online image is something everyone should address — regardless of whether or not you’re in a job search,” he says. Because the risks don’t stop once you’re hired.

Twenty-three-year old Kara recently took a job as a management consultant at a high-profile practice in the Los Angeles area. An Ohio native, with no friends or family on the West Coast, Kara put up a profile on MySpace in the hopes of meeting new people.

Kara was judicious in how she set up her site: “I didn’t fill out that cheesy questionnaire many people post, where you describe your best feature and say whether or not you shower every day.” she says. “I used a photo that was flattering but not at all provocative and was even careful what music I chose.”

Within a few months, Kara met many others online who shared her interest in biking and water sports. One Friday morning, Kara decided to call in sick and go surfing with a few of her new pals. That weekend, unbeknownst to Kara, her friend posted some of the day’s pictures on her profile and sent Kara a message saying, “We should call in sick more often.”

Unfortunately for Kara, her boss happened to be patrolling MySpace to check up on her college-age daughter and came across Kara’s site and the dated photos!

Mortified, Kara says she learned an important lesson — not only about honesty, but about how small the world of online social networking can be and how little control you have over any information put out there.

Not all employers search candidates and employees online, but the trend is growing. Don’t let online social networking deep-six your career opportunities. Protect your image by following these simple tips:

Be careful. Nothing is private. Don’t post anything on your site or your “friends” sites you wouldn’t want a prospective employer to see. Derogatory comments, revealing or risqué photos, foul language and lewd jokes all will be viewed as a reflection of your character.
Be discreet. If your network offers the option, consider setting your profile to “private,” so that it is viewable only by friends of your choosing. And since you can’t control what other people say on your site, you may want to use the “block comments” feature. Remember, everything on the Internet is archived, and there is no eraser!
Be prepared. Check your profile regularly to see what comments have been posted. Use a search engine to look for online records of yourself to see what is out there about you. If you find information you feel could be detrimental to your candidacy or career, see about getting it removed — and make sure you have an answer ready to counter or explain “digital dirt.”

This article, courtesy of Careerbuilder.com, was originally published as: “Warning: Social Networking Can be Hazardous to Your Job Search.”

The Seven Deadly Sins of an Interview

February 6, 2007February 6, 2007Wendy Terwelp Leave a comment

Puts a spin on the seven big ones. Have you been guilty? This info is courtesy of TheLadders.com.

Pride: An excessive love of self

You have years of experience, you’ve earned respect and accolades in your field, but any arrogance will come back to bite you. Remember that seemingly insignificant person you barked at this morning for snagging that prime parking space? Yep, that’s the boss’ assistant. Getting the brush off after what seemed to be a great interview? Right. It’s that assistant again, this time with payback.Once you’re within a mile of an interview, treat every person you come in contact with as though someday, they’ll be your boss or you’ll be theirs. Take time to warmly greet the receptionist, thank the assistant for that glass of water, and put your best foot forward to anybody who conceivably could weigh in on your candidacy.

Read on!

Oh — and be sure to send them each a thank you note! Often executive assistants are brought in for that “gut feeling” evaluation.

Typos Tank Job Opportunities

January 31, 2007Wendy Terwelp Leave a comment

Thank you Marcia for this great story. Job Seekers take note; she provides several job search examples in her full article.

Courtesy of Marcia Yudkin, The Marketing Minute:

Occasionally I encounter marketers who insist spelling doesn’t matter. “No one really cares,” their argument goes. “Typos humanize the copy, and besides, everyone knows what we mean.”

Oh, really?

* In 2004, Judge Jacob P. Hart of Philadelphia slashed the fee due an attorney in half because of overabundant typos.

The lawyer lost $31,350.

* In Britain, DDS Media had to destroy 10,000 spelling game DVDs whose cover misspelled a popular TV anchor’s name.

* A Wisconsin-based editor paid an executive recruiter $1,720 to spruce up her resume and send it to 200 potential employers, only to learn that the resumes went out containing a section of gibberish. The editor sued the headhunter for more than $75,000.

* In 2005, a trader on the Tokyo stock exchange intended to trade 1 share at 610,000 yen, but instead placed an order for 610,000 shares at 1 yen each. The firm’s loss: around

$18.7 million.

* A spell-check service whose motto is “no more embarrassing errors” itself uses “then” where “than” is correct. Will potential clients really laugh this off?

*******************

READ MORE: For additional stories about the high cost of typos and a checklist on how to avoid them, go to:

http://www.yudkin.com/typos.htm

Find out what happened when a would-be bank robber just couldn’t spell.

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Career Management

Have you eaten your frog today?

The Seven Deadly Sins of an Interview

Typos Tank Job Opportunities