Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Do You Know What You Do Really Well

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Do You Know What You Do Really Well At theSilkRoad annual Connections conference, I heard a great session on driving a purpose-driven culture byStacie Mallen. Stacie is a VP of HR forUlthera, Inc., a manufacturer of a device that is used for non-invasive, non-surgical lifting and tightening of the skin. Stacie started the session by handing out hedgehogs (stuffed, not real). She wanted us audience members to think about our purpose in work and life, illustrating what is known as the Hedgehog Concept in Jim Collins’ Good to Great. Collins told the story of the clever, devious fox and the simple hedgehog. The wily fox keeps coming up with new ideas to eat the hedgehog, but the hedgehog beats the fox every time by doing his one trick: curling up into a thorny ball. The hedgehog knows what it does really, really well. It keeps doing it and keeps winning. I earned a toy hedgehog in the session when I expressed my true purpose as providing concrete guidance to others based on my own work experiences. I do this well, and I’m most successful when I don’t stray too far from it. Finding Your True Purpose Your true purpose is found at the intersection of three things: What you are deeply passionate about What you can be the best in the world at What drives your economic engine In instructing us how to find purpose â€" both for ourselves and our organizations â€" Stacie cited the work of Roy Spence, author of the bestselling book,It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What Your Stand For. Spence has helped organizations such as Southwest Airlines, BMW, the University of Texas, Wal-Mart, and the Clinton Global Initiative achieve greatness by obsessing about purpose. Southwest Airlines, for example, worked hard not just to lure customers away from older airlines but to also offer affordable air travel, democratizing the skies. Likewise, Wal-Mart brought goods that were once distant luxuries to rural families. Spence wrote: “Purpose is a reason for being that goes beyond making money, and it almost always results in making more money than you ever thought possible. Especially during times of great economic uncertainty, purpose is the key to creating and maintaining a high- performing organization, deserving just as much attention as strategy, execution, and innovation.” For advice from Stacey on taking action on the organization side, check out the rest of the post at the SilkRoad blog.

If You Dont Have A Sense of Humor, Get One - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

If You Dont Have A Sense of Humor, Get One - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career You will not succeed without a sense of humor. Many CEOs have told me they see humor as a test to whether they want to work with and be around a person. Good leaders aggressively seek out an amusing angle in dealing with others, whether through light humor in a serious situation or the careful use of irony. A person with humor mainly takes the doubt level down a notch and the trust level up. Bringing appropriate fun to serious and not-so-serious situations also makes you a formidable force. In a recent study people under twenty-five and women of all ages were determined to be the least humorous in our society. Yes, I know there is a desire for both of those groups to be taken seriously; the irony is if you take yourself less seriously, people take you more seriously. The most important reason for being good-natured is that it allows you a gentle way to speak difficult truths. If you want to get away with saying what needs to be said, use fitting humor.  One recruiter told me, A  sense of humor is not a luxury â€"it’s a vital organ for survival Seeing the funny side doesn’t mean you have to tell and forward jokes or add a smiley face to your e-mails. Nor is humor to grandstand and draw attention to yourself. Humor is being human and personal. It: -shows insight into human nature -makes life and work more pleasant for you and others -creates a relaxed, friendly environment; encourages others to do the same -is a great equalizer across barriers of title, position, and role -increases your likeability and improves connections -saves time in developing affinity -mitigates frustration -diffuses emotion -improves morale -lowers blood pressure, yours and others you work with As one executive put it,  â€œLaughter gives you an instant vacation.”

Personal Branding Interview Michael Watkins - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Branding Interview Michael Watkins - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke to Michael Watkins, who is the international bestselling author of   The First 90 Days and his latest book is called Your Next Move. In this interview, Michael goes over how to succeed on the job in your first three months, tips for career transitions, opportunities that exist at a time of massive change and much more. Do you know if youll succeed at your job after 3 months? Your success or failure won’t be cast in stone at the 3-month mark, but significant momentum will have built up in either a positive or negative direction. You either will have built personal credibility and begun to generate some positive momentum, or you will have dug a hole for yourself and set up some vicious cycles that will be hard to reverse. People very quickly reach conclusions about whether you are effective and ineffective. Once these opinions harden, they will focus on evidence that supports their assessment (the so-called confirmatory bias). Why is the 3 month mark the breaking point? Often it’s not. The break point could come earlier or later. However the first 90 days is typically enough time for knowledgeable observers to make good assessments of whether a leader is on a good or bad trajectory. It’s therefore a good planning horizon and also a good time to take stock and make adjustments. What are your top three tips for a successful job transition? “If you don’t own your transition, it will own you.” It’s essential to be proactive and to begin planning for a successful transition as early as possible, ideally before you are formally in the new role. Too many people taking new roles are dangerously passive in terms of how they approach the first few months. “Effective learning is the essential foundation.” Early on, newly appointed leaders should focus on “organizing to learn.” This means figuring your what you most need to learn, from whom you can best learn it and how you can be most efficient at extracting actionable insight. “Focus on securing early wins.” By the end of the first few months, you need to make substantial progress in energizing people. This means identifying and solving some key organizational problems. It also means pursuing the right kind of wins in the right ways, being careful to factor in the culture of the organization. What opportunities exist at a time of organizational change and how can you take advantage of them? This is a tough question because it depends on what “time of organizational change” means. If you mean the organization is in trouble and your have been brought in to fix the problem, then crisis provides opportunity. You typically have more scope to drive change in a turnaround situation than you do if the organization is in better shape. That’s why, unfortunately, that proactive change is so much harder than reactive change. Can you name a few hurdles that any leader will face upon transition? Moving out his or her comfort zone and embracing the adaptive challenge. I always ask the leaders I work with, “What are things that you are good at and enjoy doing that you need to do less of?” and “Are there things that you don’t like or don’t feel competent doing that you need to do more of?” Avoiding the temptation to come in with “the answer. Even if you are 100% sure that you know what needs to be done, you still need to build awareness and support for your plan. Otherwise you risk creating unnecessary resistance.   Staying focused on the “vital few” priorities. There typically is so much going on in transitions, and it’s all-to-easy to take on too many things and get spread too thin. So focus, focus, focus. What went into the branding of your books since they all look similar? I believe that focus and branding go hand-in-hand. My work is all about making successful transitions into new roles. So both the form and the content of the books reflect this. I also wrote Your Next Move to be a complement and companion to The First 90 Days so they really fit together. Also I think my publisher has done a great job with the titling and visual design for the books. Dr. Michael Watkins is the worlds leading expert on accelerating transitions.   He is author of the international bestseller The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at all Levels, which The Economist recognized as the on-boarding bible. There are 500,000 in print, 420,000 copies sold in English, and translations in 27 languages. Recently it was named one of the best 100 business books of all time.   Michael is the Chairman of Genesis Advisers, an executive on-boarding and transition acceleration company located in Newton, Massachusetts. Previously he was a professor at IMD in Switzerland, INSEAD in France, the Harvard Business School, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He has designed award-winning programs in accelerating transitions, Future Enterprise Leadershipâ„¢ development, negotiation, and corporate diplomacy.   Michaels new book is called Your Next Move: The Leaders Guide to Successfully Navigating Major Career Transitions.

Help Your Candidates Prepare Their Social Media Profiles for Job Searches

Help Your Candidates Prepare Their Social Media Profiles for Job Searches It’s no secret that during the hiring process, employers will check a candidate’s social media presence to get a more detailed glimpse into their personality and how they want the world to perceive them. In fact, according to a survey of hiring managers, 93% said that they   will review a candidate’s social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) before making a decision on whether to offer them the job â€" with 55% reconsidering a candidate based on what they found. While most social networks do have privacy settings, there is alarming number of people who either do not use them to their full potential or simply do not know they exist! With this in mind, it’s important for recruiters to instruct candidates on the best practices for their social presence early in the recruitment process. Do their profiles give a good impression of them as a potential employee of that organisation? What to avoid   in social media profiles The survey revealed that the following on a candidate’s social media accounts can all have an impact on an employer’s impression of them: References to drugs “Sexual-related” posts Racism or sexism Bad language References to guns References to alcohol Poor spelling and grammar Political affiliations These can all damage a candidate’s success during the hiring process. Tips for advising your candidates There are many things that recruiters can suggest to their candidates to improve their social media presence, and leave employers with a lasting impression for all the right reasons: Make the candidate aware that their profiles may be checked by employers and encourage them to maximise their privacy settings. The default privacy settings of many social media sites are set relatively low. By changing their settings, your candidate will be able to closely control what people see on their profiles. Regardless of privacy settings, profile photos and banners are often still visible. Ensure that your candidate’s are set to something appropriate â€" a drunken selfie is not a great first impression! Ask your candidate to go through their profile and delete any questionable posts or tweets, just in case. Twitter unless your profile is set to private, all of your tweets can be publicly viewed Instagram â€" all posts can be seen by the public unless you adjust your privacy settings Facebook â€" Use the privacy settings to edit who can see your posts. Also consider removing your profile from search engine results and limiting the audience for old posts to protect your posts from before Facebook upper their privacy settings Asking your candidate about their social media accounts may seem a little intrusive, but making these small suggestions will ensure that a prospective employer will only see their professional skills, and could stop your candidate being rejected because of something seemingly innocuous   in their private life. If in doubt, ask yourself whether YOU would hire a candidate based on their social media profiles. If the answer is no, then advise them to make the necessary changes. Infographic courtesy of  Oscar-tech.com.

Dont Hunt for Employers,Let Them Find You!

Don't Hunt for Employers,Let Them Find You! Photo Credit â€" Pixabay.comIf you’ve just entered the job market, you might already be panicking about whether you’ll find a place at one of the top companies. Is there even a space available?You’ll stress and panic, filling out your CV, writing multiple cover letters and hunting for interviews. For a great opportunity, you might travel halfway across the country. Even though your odds of getting the job is only about one in a hundred. Does that make sense?We don’t think so, and that’s why we have some advice on this subject. Don’t spend your time chasing employers. Instead, set up an environment in which they feel they should be chasing you.1. Setup A Website Or A BlogPhoto Credit â€" Pixabay.comevalYou can use a blog or a website for two purposes. You may want to set it up as a sort of elongated CV. This can contain all your career history, plus photographs. You can also include past achievements and things that might be of interest to potential employers. For instance , you might post content related to your time working voluntarily in a third world country. That’s one possibility.The other is to set it up as an insight into who you are and what you can offer. Write about your passions to show that you have initiative and the type of openness that employers are drawn to. Remember, if you set up a blog you need to make sure that you are using SEO and stay away from tactics that could earn you a penalty. To do this, research 2016 Google updates and find out how they could affect site owners.2. Get on LinkedInNext, you’ll want to setup a LinkedIn profile. This shows potential employers the experience you have and where you have worked in the past. If you don’t have much experience, you should still use a Linkedin profile.It will allow employers to easily find you and offer you temporary positions. You can use this to quickly build up experience and grow your business profile. Remember, you must think of your LinkedIn profile as a marketing pla tform. It needs to sell who you are and what you can offer.3. Work With RecruitersPhoto Credit â€" Pixabay.comYou should sign up with at least one recruitment agency. They won’t just forward any career opportunities that come their way. Instead, they will also recommend you for positions with employers that they think are a good fit. Having an agent can get you through doors that would otherwise be closed. It’s a great idea if you don’t have much experience.Or, if you didn’t get the best qualifications, needed for top positions. You’ll be using the service of a company who knows how the job market works.4. Use Social Media WiselyPhoto Credit â€" Pixabay.comFinally, you should be using social media but not just for personal use. Have two accounts and make sure that personal accounts are private. Your business Twitter or Facebook should be what companies find when they search for you online. This will create the right image and ensure that you look professional. It will put you a peg above other people who you might be competing with.

Tales From the Networking Community

Tales From the Networking Community I just finished reading Tales From the Networking Community and really enjoyed Dan Williams simple, yet powerful statements about networking. My favorites are:Building trust is not an event, but rather comes with frequency How true! Generally, introductions into another persons network dont happen after one encounter. The relationship must afford you consistent visibility and you must remain top of mind with your contacts in order to solidify the affinity, gain credibility, and eventually broaden your network.Networking is like farming; it requires an ongoing process of activities to grow, it requires a leap of faith, and it cannot be done alone. Without proper nurturing, nothing can grow. Like children, your network requires a lot of attention in order to remain healthy and prosperous.Networking has very little do do with personality. Networking is all about a learned set of skills and having a systematic process to exercise those skills. People are not born knowing how to network. Anyone can learn the strategies for creating successful relationships, but they have to be willing to do the work. And it is a lot of work!

R/EngineeringStudents Guide to Resume Writing - Be Better Than Your Previous One

R/EngineeringStudents Guide to Resume Writing - Be Better Than Your Previous OneFor students who want to get their resume noticed in the latest job market, one good way is through having a resume or CV or letter of reference. But are students going wrong in knowing this? Yes, they definitely are!The fact that students and engineers need to employ skilled labor in this era means that employers are likely to not be very impressed with resumes that look casual and is written in bad English. They would be likely to deem your resume as something that has no merit.For this reason, having a CV or a resume will only work if you're able to write it well. And that's where The R/EngineeringStudents and its Resources guide to resume writing comes in.With this resource, you'll be able to get yourself on top of the list of future employers, thanks to this free resume writing guide from the R/EngineeringStudents. So why not take a look at what you can do with this guide.First of all, you'll learn h ow to properly format your CV. These are two vital skills that every employer will want to see in your resume, so it's best to learn them from an expert.Secondly, you'll learn how to edit and customize your resume. These aren't the words that just pop out of your mouth when you make mistakes. And this is something that you need to learn.If you're the one in charge of creating your resume, then these resources are the ones that you need to learn. Why not see if you can get the help of these helpful tips, then you can make sure that you have a good resume without having to spend a single penny.