Want a Fired-Up Workforce? Try This!

 

What if I told you that the company you are at today is the company you would retire from? Would you laugh? Look at me sideways? Raise an eyebrow? Probably. Why? Well, because many people throughout the course of their careers, are looking less for a long-term employer and more for the next best thing. If this was a dating column, we’d call this the “shiny object syndrome.” While slightly different, the same fundamental rules apply. You are offered a relationship, it’s good for a while, both parties are happy, but  after a while things start to get mundane, routine, stale, and the opportunity next door starts to look a little better. New and unexplored territory is now the currency du jour.

While many employers fight tirelessly to keep employees committed for the long-haul, others have understood that the desire to change careers is not going to be quenched by throwing extra benefits at employees, and for some companies, the best resolutions is to actually not fight this phenomenon, but to embrace it.

I am going to conclude my series on the LinkedIn Talent Connect seminar this post because it will be inclusive of my final take away, which is condensed into elements specifically contained in The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age.

Before I dig into this philosophy, I honesty have to commend Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh for their work on this book. It is not only insightful, but I think a brave, potentially controversial, and necessary phenomenon that has been underexplored until now. While I believe companies have taken bit-part concepts to make steps toward this effort, I had yet to see this information presented in a way that is easily applicable to a variety of organizations.

When I finished my Master’s of Science in Human Resources in December 2012, my final research was on Gen Y employees. As a Gen X-er and Digital Immigrant, I knew that in order to make change in my lifetime, I would have to spend a great deal of time understanding ideas that were not native to me, but made perfect sense to up and coming talent. I would not only have to engage with talent of my own generation, but I would have to be adaptable to the trends of talent who at some point will be 20, 30, or 40 years junior to me. In my extensive research, finding real solutions posed to be a bit of a challenge. Everything reported appeared to be based on emerging trends, but no one was talking so much about how to solve the problem. The question of how to retain employees spending fewer years at a company was often left unanswered, and the problem remained because it seemed like no one was offering solutions, they were only offering band-aids.

The Alliance is not a band-aid; however, I genuinely believe that this is a solution for the talent conundrum. Instead of fighting the battle against longevity, it proposes accepting it to maximize the time an employee is with your company by giving them meaningful projects for a designated period of time. At LinkedIn these periods are defined as “tours of duty” and can last for varying lengths of time depending on the role and the individual.

While it may be a novel concept to consider a “tour of duty” as a method superior to the benefits of a long-term employee, let’s unpack what this really means in terms of benefits.

1.       Relationship

A tour of duty is not just employment; it is a relationship, and more importantly, a partnership that a company can establish with someone for a lifetime. When employment in a traditional company ends, there is often resentment from one or both parties. Perhaps Jane A is disgruntled that she didn’t get the promotion offered, so she leaves your company unhappy. In a “tour of duty” Jane would have agreed to a specific timeframe for her current role, accomplished those goals, and once those goals were met, she could then decide to enlist for another tour, or with the support of her company, find a tour with another organization. Upon leaving the company Jane is not disgruntled, but rather she is a success story of your reputation as both an employer, and an ambassador (read: marketer) of your service or product. 

2.       Engagement

A tour of duty is ultimately an experience where employees will be highly engaged for a period of time because at the outset of the alliance, they sit down with their manager to discuss not only the company’s goals, plans and vision, but what the employee’s goals, plans and vision are as well. The company’s goals are achieved while the employee simultaneously develops professionally; a win-win situation for both parties.

3.       Production

As a company, employing nothing but engaged employees, excited to come to work and create the best possible product will send your production through the roof. If you work in a traditional environment, stop and look around right now. How many people are around you who are really excited about what they are doing? How many people are dead weight, doing their jobs to get to Friday? Imagine if you could replace each of those individuals with a vibrant employee, daily committed to achieving their absolute best in that role? What if every one of your employees took ownership of their role, and had the freedom to improve processes? Do you things might start to look differently? I think they would.

While what I’m sharing might cause some skepticism if your company is not particularly adaptable to new and cutting edge ideas, let me encourage you to continue to explore ways you can start networking with others in your industry that have made the change. When I started working in my present organization, I reached out to an individual who was a bit more experience using the same ATS we used. He worked for another company and had no financial gain in helping my team, but he was open, shared with us, and as a result, we created a great professional relationship. What I have found is that within the Talent Acquisition community, people want to help others. We’ve all been in a company with fewer resources, and we’ve all just been starting out, praying someone would just throw us a bone.

If anything I’ve written thus far is connecting with you, then please visit www.thealliancenetwork.com,  get the book, or at least visit youtube.com where you can see a load of videos from the LinkedIn Talent Connect 2014 San Francisco.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this information, as always please feel free to reach out and keep exploring!

#1 Reason People Keep Coming to Work

If someone asked you what the number one most important indicator is for recruiting and retaining top talent, what would you say? Good pay? Great benefits? Time off? Flexible schedules? While these are all contributors to a great overall package, the number one necessary element is actually meaningful work.

At the LinkedIn Talent Connect conference I attended in San Francisco, this was a theme that continued to appear through the course of the three-day event, and I found this concept to be really interesting to explore, so I chose if for my #5 big take away from Talent Connect. You can see my previous Top 3 take always on my blog at www.highgearcareer.blogspot.com

I wanted to write specifically about this topic because I think that meaningful work can happen in a few different ways, and sometimes I think that people can find it challenging to connect their day job (manager’s included) to something that would be meaningful or inspiring. So, below I have listed a couple different ways to be able to create meaningful work regardless of what your day job is.

1.       Create meaningful work by setting specific learning objectives with your job.

Co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, recently authored a talent management strategy he calls The Alliance. In this method he addresses how to keep your employees engaged for periods of time or “tours of duty” by openly discussing their long-term goals, which may not be inclusive of a long-term career with the company. However, in order to keep them engaged in achieving the goals of the company, the manager and employee discuss what professional development goals can be achieved during the designated tour. This is a great tactic because the company wins the loyalty and productive efforts of an employee for a designated period of time, and the employee gets to create new opportunities for themselves by exploring new skill areas: win-win for everyone.

 

2.       Create meaningful work by leveraging your company’s resources to achieve your personal goals.

Matthew Kelly explained how a waste management company effectively used company resources to help employees achieve personal goals in his 2007 book, Dream Manager. After realizing the significant challenges and expenses accrued with the high turn-over rate in his company, the team in his company conducted some research around why people were leaving. When they discovered that the reason people left could easily be remedied with a minimal investment by the company things started changing.

 

It all started with a simple survey and a bus. By alleviating the cost associated with the drive to the plant by providing a bus to shuttle employees in, the leadership learned they could retain workers who were otherwise put out by that expense. First the company providing a bussing service, then financial counseling. Before too long, employees were achieving personal goals like homeownership. How was this possible? The management in this story noticed that through the investment in a full-time employee (the Dream Manager)to help employees achieve their personal goals that retention improved, turnover reduced, and productivity sky-rocketed.

 

While not every company may have a dream manager on their staff, this story has become widespread in talent management circles, and employers are becoming increasingly aware that offering this type of benefit provides massive returns on the investment.

 

What if your company does not offer a dream manager? Well, then it leaves more responsibility on the individual to seek out resources. If your company is not in the habit of offering these types of programs, see if there is an opportunity to mentor underneath a manager who could unofficially provide you with the right guidance to help in a similar way.

 

In my career I have been fortunate enough to connect with some incredible talented professionals, but it has never been as a result of my working for a company with a Dream Manager type of program, but rather it has been as the result of my persistence to learn more and be the best at what I do. People want to help hungry people. It doesn’t matter if you’re hungry for a sandwich or starving for information, people want to help others, and if you reach out, I promise you will find people interested in sharing.

 

3.       Create meaningful work by connecting to your company’s mission.

This is kind of a no-brainer, which is why I saved it for the last point. While, in theory, it’s ideal to only accept jobs in organizations where you share a mission or common vision, let’s be real. Sometimes in life you accept jobs for other reasons: maybe it’s for the money, maybe you are geographically tied to an area.

When I lived in San Diego, I spent some time working for a health clinic, and there were a number of people who worked there who conveyed the importance of the work we did as an attractor for employment. Many long-term employees had been recipients of care at the clinics as children, and several times when people left, they would immediately want to return.

Sharing a mission has the direct benefit of essentially finding joy in your work because you understand that while your role may not be directly deploying the mission of the company, it contributes to that greater work being accomplished.

I hope you’ve been able to find a way to create meaningful work for yourself or your employees. If you found any recommendations useful, please feel free to let me know.

Check back tomorrow for Take Away #6

Stop Coming to Work Drunk

I love the title of this blog-post because I find it a great piece to publish the day after Halloween. Before I frighten anyone, or mislead you to believe that it’s a common (or acceptable) practice to come to work drunk, I should provide the disclaimer that I do not mean physically coming to work drunk, but rather, the cognitive function that happens in your brain when you are sleep deprived.

The keynote speaker for the LinkedIn Talent Connect 2014 event in San Francisco was Arianna Huffington. For those who may be unfamiliar, Huffington is founder of The Huffington Post, and not only is she an incredibly talented writer and journalist, but she has started an important conversation about avoiding burnout in the workplace.

After the 2013 Lean In empowerment movement, women are becoming increasingly more passionate about pursuing engaging work that both accommodates their personal lives and enables them to advance. While we are instructed to “lean in” by Sheryl Sandberg, Huffington counter-instructs “leaning back” to avoid burning-out.  This does not mean that she is proposing that men or women should be less engaged in their work. However, she is saying that people need to do a better job taking care of their health and not sacrificing important things, like sleep, for working at a reckless pace, working late into the night, and not taking time to rest.

Now, back to coming to work drunk. Huffington shared that scientific evidence now shows that in terms of cognitive performance sleep deprivation has the same impact as coming to work drunk. She shared in her speech, “I had dinner recently with a man who bragged ‘I had 4 hours of sleep the night before.’ I wanted to say, if you had slept 5 this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.” Huffington continued to draw parallels between the importance of sleep and clear decision making. I have included a graphic from Harvard Business Review, above, that shows the relationship between performance and alcohol consumption, and performance and sleep deprivation (additional links below).

She continued with examples when leaders, like Bill Clinton, admitted to making terrible mistakes while operating on sub-optimal amounts of sleep. She provided examples of hard working Talent Acquisition professionals with aging requisitions, desperate to find their perfect candidate (very relatable).  She confessed that her own worst hiring decisions were made when she did not have enough rest. When we are not well-rested, we “shut up the intuition, that voice that is telling us things about the red flags that may not be in the resume, that may not be in what the candidate is saying, but that you know, in that sense that we call intuition, that goes beyond our rational brain that something is not quite right, that is not the right fit. Every time I have overruled that part of my mind I have made a mistake.”

As a Talent Acquisition professional I can absolutely relate to these examples. But, I don’t think that you have to be in my field to take away a good lesson from this talk. Many of us have been overworked, burdened with more to do than time in our day. Instead of working longer, what if we made the best of our productive time, instead? What would happen if we prioritized self-care and sleep?

I imagine you are saying you don’t have time to sleep a full seven or eight hours per night. I get it, I have felt that way, too. Several months ago I decided to give it a shot, though. I read Huffington’s book, Thrive, this past summer, and when I decided to give myself the gift of a full night’s rest, I realized that I woke up refreshed and productive. When I sat down in the morning, I accomplished more work in less time than when I was dragging myself in after a sleep-deprived night. I would encourage others to also try this practice. I know that we all have a lot of work to do, and creating a consistent sleeping pattern does take time, but it also provides a bounty of rewards for increased productivity, creativity and clear cognitive function.

Check back tomorrow for Take Away #5 from LinkedIn Talent Connect San Francisco 2014.

To view Arianna Huffinton's keynote speech Click Here

For additional information on performance related to sleep deprivation and drinking, Click Here and Here

 

Want to Accelerate Your Recruiting? Make Your Recuiter Your BFF...

Now before you think I’ve fallen off the deep-end, give me a minute to explain.  I’m not saying that you need to be BFFa with your recruiter in the sense that you need to spend weekends together, braiding each other’s hair. What I am saying is that if you are a manager, one of the jobs you will face over-and-over again is hiring people, and by getting tight with the person who will provide you talent, you will dramatically reduce your time-to-hire.

You may be the best hiring manager in the world, but eventually people will leave and you will need to replace them. If you are like most hiring managers, you then rush like mad to find a replacement; you spend less than 5 minutes chatting with your recruiter, you complete the requisition, then you cross your fingers and pray that a perfect genius will just magically find your job posting, and that it will match exactly what they’ve been looking for.

While I wish it was always that easy, I can attest to the fact that finding talent takes time, and that recruiters who find talent fastest, do so because they already know exactly what you are looking for. If the only time you ever see your corporate recruiter is at the holiday party, then the information I’m going to share is going to be a little revolutionary, and I hope, open your mind to the opportunity that may potentially exist for your company and process.

One of the keynote sessions I attended at Talent Connect this past week in San Francisco was a riveting presentation by Express Scripts' Senior Director of Talent Acquisition Jennifer Shappley and Vice President of Talent Management Melanie Curtis. They shared about the change that occurred in their organization when they transformed the role of recruiters to HR Business Partners. You can see the entire video here: http://youtu.be/JoAtjPNKpwQ.

Instead of the traditional methods that many in corporate environments are accustomed to, Shappley and Curtis implemented an HR Business Partner role where their recruiters were a real part of each business segment of their organization. They didn’t just communicate with managers when it came time to fill a job, but they regularly engaged with hiring managers on a consistent basis, sat in on their team meetings, attended and contributed to client pitches, and genuinely understood each role they needed to fill as well as the dynamics of each individual team.

So, for my Big Take Away #3 from Talent Connect, I am going to share the Top 4 keys to Success in Implementing an HR Business Partner Relationship. 

1.       HR Provides the Talent: Before you can engage in an endeavor of this magnitude, you must ensure that your company needs to have the right talent in the right place. For a true HR Business Partner, you cannot simply fill the role with a recruiter, your organization must have someone who can manage relationships, think strategically, contribute to many business arenas, AND find and source great talent.

 

2.       Shared Outcomes: In order for HR and the Business Team to help each other, there must be shared interest in achieving the same goals. The recruiter needs to be viewed as an extension of your business that is also a talent partner who can help the business succeed.

 

3.       Relationships: The relationship from order-taker to strategic business partner is critical in making this transition. This information is supported by a study from Bersin by Deloitte’s High Impact Talent Acquisition Report 2014, which supports these findings, “Developing strong relationships with hiring managers is the top driver of talent acquisition performance.”

 

I want to take an extra moment to reflect on this point because for every business initiative I discuss in my blog, admittedly, there are several associated with cost, but this is something that recruiters can do within a business that costs nothing. Even if you are remote from your hiring managers, you can Lync or instant message them, send them email, connect through LinkedIn… whatever. Creating relationships doesn’t cost your organization a penny, but you have to start with a desire to accomplish that which supports the greater good of the organization, and a genuine desire to cultivate those relationships.

So what does this mean from a practical stand-point? Well, at ExpressScripts, they reduced their time-to-fill metric by 60%! Imagine if upgrading your recruiting team meant that your time-to-fill had the same impact. I would think those results would support this type of initiative.

4.  Consistent Process: Whenever I work in a company, the first thing I do is analyze the recruiting process. Typically I am provided a map of the existing process, which includes an interesting design of a lot of confusing elements, and my first project is to align the recruiting process to the business strategy, and creating a simple, easy-to-follow system. The ExpresssScripts team supported this concept and included that there are times when the process will be adaptable to exceptions, but that overall there will be a consistent practice of customer service and ease of recruiting that the system provides.

 

Whether you are a Talent Acquisition Professional, Recruiter or a Manager, I think that there are some valuable take-aways here for you. I hope you found this information helpful. Please feel free to comment below.

Tomorrow, in lieu of posting a LinkedIn Talent Connect Take-Away, I will be posting some fun and festive Halloween posts from my HR team, and will resume my Top 10 list from LinkedIn’s Talent Connect on November 1st.

LinkedIn Talent Connect Take Away #2: Maximize Recruiting Programs

As a Talent Acquisition Professional (aka “Recruiter”), one of the most frustrating things I face is when a hiring manager brings in a candidate from an agency, and when the candidate shows up for the interview they run into a former co-worker. Of course the hiring manager adores the candidate; they get along well with the team, and pass the assessments with flying colors. The company, now, is then doling out 25% of the candidate’s salary when, instead, we could have paid that an employee a referral fee.
 Now don’t get me wrong, I am stoked to have the new addition to the team, but I always feel a little defeated when we use an agency when we could have acquired the same individual through other means.  

Yesterday I wrote a blog about my #1 Big Take away from the LinkedIn Talent Connect conference, so as promised, here is my second big take away from Talent Connect: Tips to Maximize Recruiting Programs. One of the break-out sessions I attended was called Relationships Matter: Develop a Productive Employee Referral Program. The panel was facilitated by Kara Yarnot of Meritage Talent Solutions and included contributions from Teresa Keeler of Owens Corning, Becky Mohr of SapientNitro, Julie Barker of Appirio and Jennifer Rice of Cisco.

The information provided by this group was very informative, and whether your company is getting started with an Employee Referral Program, or you are hoping to be the introducer of some innovative ways to switch-up your plan, I think the following information is beneficial. Below, in no particular order, were some great ideas I took away, and thought I would share with you.

1.       Use Technology to Connect with Talent by Leveraging Employee Contacts: There are several platforms in existence now (I am posting the list and links below)  that will pick up key words in your job, match them to the LinkedIn profiles of people connected to your employees, and recommend that the employee refer the candidate. Your employees have to opt-in to this, so it is not for everyone, but would certainly be a helpful way to avoid the frustrating situation I explained above.

2.       Non-Employee Referral Programs: People who do business with your company (customers, vendors, and even competitors) all know great people. Vendors typically get to know your company culture very well. What if you incentivized them for making a referral? Great idea, just be sure to check with your finance department first.

3.       Recruiting is Everyone’s Job: While Talent Acquisition teams can do their best to source candidates, identify quality talent, and post jobs on every site imaginable, there are interactions that every hiring manager has on a day-to-day basis with people in the public. I remember when I lived in San Diego and was hiring entry-level talent; I would always keep my eye out to see who was really good at what they were doing. I frequently handed out my business card to counter-people, wait staff, and pretty much everyone who I met who I could see as a potential fit for my company. Was it my job to do guerilla recruiting? Not exactly, but I like to think I’m somewhat of a talent hound, and so anywhere I go I keep my eyes open. Encourage your managers to do the same. Their next customer service or entry-level employee may be someone they are already having interactions with every day, they just have to keep their eyes out.

4.       Open Communication to Referral and Referrer: Many times when I communicate with candidates who have been referred I will circle back with the referrer so they know I made the connection. Even if someone is not a fit for a particular role, but they were referred from an employee I will send them a personal message. Just because they are not qualified for a role doesn’t mean that something else won’t be a fit for them in the future. Communicate openly and build the relationship, so there is an opportunity for future conversations.

5.       Recruiting on the Company Scorecard: While this approach varied by company, the key take away was that managers were informed about new or hard-to-fill positions. By including Talent Acquisition in the manager’s meeting, teams are able to contribute additional ideas for sourcing talent and sharing jobs, and finding the candidate became a collaborative effort.

 

Check back tomorrow for take away #3 from LinkedIn Talent Connect.

For more information on Employee Referral Systems visit:

GooodJob

Choozer

RolePoint

Careerify

Referral Link

Zao

Zalp

EmployeeReferrals.com

Simppler

LinkedIn Talent Connect Takeaway #1

Have you ever been to an industry or professional event, convinced that you were going to network, learn, get inspired, and grow, only to return home after days away feeling like you sat in a week-long sales pitch? I know I have, so when I decided to attend the 2014 LinkedIn Talent Connect, I was both excited, yet skeptical. Since I'd never previously attended a LinkedIn event I wasn't quite sure what to expect, so I thought I would share my experience.

To give you some background information for those who may be unaware, LinkedIn is not only a great social networking tool for maintaining relationships with former co-workers and contacts, but it is also a great place to connect with other professionals in your industry and career field. In my field, Talent Acquisition, LinkedIn is a great partner because I can post jobs, reach out to people interested in new opportunities, and help build my personal and company brand.

For the last several years, LinkedIn has invited Talent Acquisition professionals across the nation (and now the world) to participate in an inspiring event that educates those of us committed to finding and retaining talent. They bring in leaders in the HR/TA field to share best practices, tell stories of overcoming corporate challenges, and most importantly inspire those of us who work within this practice area.

I found this 3-day event to be engaging, entertaining, educational and informative, but instead of just tweeting "Great event" to Jeff Weiner, I figured I'd break it down to share what I learned in 10 great take-aways. Each day over the next 10 days I will share 1 big take-away from the event to share with you.

 

Takeaway # 1: Rock My Profile

One of the great things about this event is that in addition to the keynotes and breakout sessions, there were resources to help with things like improving your own LinkedIn profile (including a space for new headshots, and a team of LI professionals to show you how to zhoosh up your headlines, summaries, etc).

While I consider myself a pretty robust LinkedIn user, I still wanted to sit down and learn about what I could do to improve.

#1: Headshot- Since I already had a decent headshot this wasn’t an issue for me, but for those of you who think of LinkedIn as more of a social networking site than a professional networking site, you may want to reconsider the pic of yourself in a sombrero, unless of course you work at Chevy’s (or are hoping to be recruited by Chevy's, perhaps).

#2: Headline- This is an area where I needed some help. I used to just write up my job title and call it good. But after reviewing my profile with a LI pro, I realized that it was redundant to have my job title as my headline because it was already listed below. Instead, my pro recommended that I change my headline to inform people of why I would be reaching out to them. Now they know: Connecting with Top Performing Talent! Maybe if you are a job seeker, your headline would be something that highlights your most recent, notable accomplishment in your current role. The headline should concisely capture the attention of someone quickly reviewing your profile, but specific enough that someone looking for your skills would know they've found their match!

#3: Summary– My summary used to be a vague list of skills I used in my job, but now I have it updated and broken into 3 specific parts:

• My Story: This tells people where I came from and how I got to where I am today.
• Present: These are things that I am working on now, and in general really interesting bits about what is happening at my current company. For example, I mentioned that our current VP of Human Resources just got recognized as one of the North Bay Business Journals’ 40 Under 40 Executives.
• My Mission: This section should include your goals, mission, and what you are trying to accomplish. I updated mine to include a link to my blog: www.highgearcareer.blogspot.com and a video about working at my company.

While you may not be able to get tailored advice from simply reading this article, LinkedIn has a robust YouTube channel with not only all the sessions from Talent Connect, but yes, also videos on how you can Rock Your Profile: http://youtu.be/Ep2nq_oRYLI

I thought this particular offering because not only are people like me and you interested in how to present ourselves online, but now I can share this information with you all as well.

Check back tomorrow for my second big takeaway from LinkedIn Talent Connect.

Before you pat Yourself on the Back...

 Before you pat yourself on the back, don’t forget this simple, but critical step.

You know those times in your career when things just seem to be going right? Maybe the project you worked so hard on is finally wrapped up, the presentation you spent weeks preparing for goes off without a hitch, the client you were wooing finally signs the contract, and the goals you set for your department are all achieved on the same day. You feel pride, you feel power, you feel like dancing on the ceiling, and in honor of your efforts everyone you know is going to give you a high-five and buy you a drink. Congratulations! But, before you go shooting off the top of a bottle of Cristal, do this one thing…

Write it down!

Before you eye roll and move onto the next article, just hear me out. Many people who are in the habit of setting and achieving goals are also in the habit of writing the goals down. Why? Because they understand that when you write something down, a lot of great things happen:

·         You acknowledge your desires,

·         You can break down large goals into achievable steps,

·         You motivate yourself to take action,

·         You generate ideas for other goals, and

·         You feel successful.

The list can go on and on, but the point is that there are a million reasons why you would want to write your goals down. Fewer people write about the aftermath, however, because once the goal has been achieved, then game over, right? Mission accomplished… sort of.

Following are a few (potentially) compelling reasons for why you will want to write down your goals after they are completed:

1.       It will remind you of your process.

 

Many times as we are going through the process of achieving goals we forget the challenges that have come along the way. For example, when a woman has a baby, the labor is difficult and painful, but as soon as they see their baby, they are overcome with so much joy that when they introduce their child to the world, they are beaming with pride, not complaining about all the sweating and pushing and screaming.

 

Or, think about a time when you lost weight and were finally able to zip up those pants that had been tucked away in the back of the closet. There were a lot of days that you said “no” to treats you wanted to eat because what you really wanted was the satisfaction of losing weight instead. When everyone compliments you on how fantastic you look, you don’t complain, “I gave up so many desserts… every day I skipped the whipped cream on my Pumpkin Spice latte...” No, people say “thank you” and move along.

But, you are probably wondering what giving birth and losing weight have to do with writing down your accomplishments? Well, sometimes when we make decisions, we neglect to write things down and forget some of the steps we took along the way. Sometimes it’s only after making the same mistake again that we are reminded of the error that could have been avoided had we documented the process.

This works for positive things as well. When looking at taking on a new task, if you look at the elements that contributed to your success, then you can also add those elements into the equation in the future.

2.       It will help to keep your accomplishments fresh in your mind.

 

While many people may think they can easily recall their accomplishments, consider for a moment if you have ever been in the following scenario. You get the notification that it is annual review time, and despite the fact that you’ve worked your tail off all year long, you sit at your desk, drumming your fingers, making a desperate attempt to recall what awesome projects you’ve worked on over the course of the year that would warrant recognition. Surely you’ve been busy. You work late all the time, you missed your kid’s soccer game (on more than one occasion), but for some reason you sit blankly, staring at the screen as if someone just asked you to write a dissertation on thermodynamics.

Or

You’re in an interview and the interviewer inquires, “Tell me about your major career accomplishments.” I have asked similar questions to interviewees and had candidates tell me they can’t think of any. I am typically looking at their resume, and can conceive a couple areas they could have achieved success, but the voice on the phone (or the face in person) is blank and offers nothing.

 

Being able to go back and review your accomplishments will also serve to provide you a bit of a boost in self esteem. Have you ever heard the phrase, “Success breeds success?” Its absolutely true, and when you take time to recall things that you’ve done well, then look over the list of things you have on your list of goals, the brain can actually use those positive recollections to fuel your desire for attacking the next task.

 

3.       It will set you apart from the competition.

 

If you think it’s hard for you to remember all of your projects, just think about your boss, who may have to sit down and do the exact same thing, only for every other person in your department as well. If you are able to articulate the specifics around each project your worked on, each success you achieve, each milestone accomplished, you will not only make your boss’s job easier, but you will be doing a lot more than your colleagues.  When it comes to annual review time, and you have a list of ways you’ve demonstrated you contribute, then you have taken another step in demonstrating that you are capable of high performance in other areas as well.

 

You don’t have to write a novel around each instance, but do something simple like write a page in your journal, write a blog about your experience, or even just forward yourself emails that you place in a recognition file. In my work email folders, I have one I call Success, and every time someone emails me a message related to my own exceptional performance, I file it in my Success folder. If I’m in a hurry, I will sometimes email it to myself with notes and then slide it into the folder. The point is that it doesn’t matter what format you use to keep track of your successes, just do it! You may be surprised how this small action can put your career into high gear.

3 Phone Interview Mistakes You Should Never Make... Again

 

I am on an interview with (we’ll call her) Gina. She applied for a position with my company, and so far she looks like a great candidate. Her resume is great, her assessments thus far have been a perfect match, so when we get to the phone interview, I am wildly optimistic about her as a potential hire for my company. As the interview begins, she starts off with strong responses and seems to be exactly what we are looking for, but after about 10 more minutes of conversation, I am convinced she is no longer my unicorn candidate. What went wrong? How did she go from being the lead candidate in the role to a downgraded bottom-tier applicant?

She made a few mistakes along the way that could have been avoided, and since she is not the first person I’ve interviewed to make similar mistakes, I figured this would be information worth sharing. I have been writing in my blog High Gear Career about how important it is to know a company, have passion for what you want to do, and really make sure that you are not wasting your time on opportunities you are not interested in. However, how you handle yourself through the interview process is just as important as the interviews themselves. While the items listed below may seem obvious to some, I can assure you that yes, these things still happen, so I find it absolutely necessary to commit a brief few words to explaining some phone interview faux pas for you to avoid in the future.

1.       Time.

Gina started this interview off on the wrong foot by not selecting the right time to get the interview done. I find I am pretty flexible with candidates because I work in multiple time-zones, so I expect them to maintain the same commitment to finding a time that works well for their schedule. What you want to do is find a time when you are going to be alert, aware, and present to deliver the best possible responses. Don’t schedule a 6 am interview if you are typically not up until 7:30 am, and don’t schedule an interview for after lunch if you know you will be dragging, unless you have absolutely no other options. Also, make sure that you have an appropriate amount of time set aside for the interview. You don’t want to have to cut your interview short when it’s only half done, nor do you want to be late to starting the interview. In the ideal scenario, selecting the right time for the interview will enable you to have the most energy and time to focus on the questions without being rushed to finish.

2.       Location.

In my interview with Gina, she later confessed that she was at work. This is not a problem if you are in a situation where you company is going out of business, and your manager knows you will be interviewing for other positions. However, attempting to interview under the radar will require a little more creativity for locations (i.e. interviewing at home), but interviewing while you are “on the clock” is a completely unwise decision. During my interview with Gina she began whispering to someone else while we were on the call (which turned out to be a customer) and asked to put me on hold. This actually tells a little bit of a story about Gina as a candidate.

What does this simple act tell us about Gina? Well, I’m glad you asked. It says that she is comfortable using company resources for her own benefits. In an interview, everything you do and say is a reflection of not only your ability to do the role for which you are applying, but it is a test to determine if you are a good fit for a company. If you are spending time at your current company to interview for jobs now, then what are you going to do when you start working at my company? Probably the same thing. Of the hundreds of candidates I’ve interviewed, whenever a candidate needs to put me on hold it is typically the first of many other challenges that would prevent me from selecting them. It’s not because they are no longer qualified for the job, it’s because this simple act ends up being an indicator of the overall type of candidate they are.

Sometimes locations can be a little tricky because many people who are interviewing for jobs are already employed. I have interviewed many candidates over the years who have conducted interviews and taken phone calls in their cars to avoid the experience I had with Gina. The main difference in those situations is that the candidates openly shared, “I am at work and am in my car.” Having the wherewithal to inform your interviewer of your situation is actually a smart move because they can be understanding and accommodating to your situation. This can go wrong, however, if you schedule your interview for the drive home. Do not interview while driving.

Another situation you may be faced with is if you are not working and are at home. You need to ensure that you have a quiet place to have the conversation. If you have small children at home or particularly noisy animals, consider going to a friend’s home or alternate location. People will understand that you have kids, but having a conversation with a candidate when their small child suddenly wakes up screaming in the middle of the interview leaves the impression that you are the candidate with the screaming baby. Once again, understandable, but is that really the impression you want to make?

3.       Language

There comes a time in an interview when things start to go downhill, and a candidate who started off strong is now suddenly giving responses like, “um, sure,” or “ya, I guess,” or “or something like that.” When I am hiring someone, unless this is for an entry-level role, I want them to be confident in their abilities, and by using these weak, indecisive responses, they do not present assurance in what they are doing. Most frequently, candidates start strong, but after several poor responses, I can see them throw in the towel, thinking they’ve already eliminated themselves. I can even imagine them, sitting at their desks, slumped over, and thinking, “well, I blew this one.”

Amy Cuddy, body language researcher and social psychologist, explains in her TED Talk the impact of body language communication. Typically when people think of phone interviews, they don’t think of body language since the interviewer can’t see them. But, the interviewer can certainly hear them, so preparing yourself physically is going to pay off by helping you maintain a heightened state of energy for the duration of the interview. My method for this is to start strong and stay strong.

A few minutes before your interview starts stand up straight, smile big, and keep your confidence high. Standing will help you remain energized, but if you can’t stand then pull your shoulders back, sit up straight and smile just the same. This is going to sound a little odd, but keep a mirror in front of you, and become aware of your posture and language as the interview proceeds. Stay aware of your language, and respond affirmatively to questions with words like absolutely, definitely, etc. (instead of “I guess” or “sure”). If you notice during the course of the interview that you encounter a few difficult questions, make sure you still smile, look at yourself in the mirror and sit up straight (or stand tall) to avoid weak responses. Rest assured, you don’t have to get every question perfect, but you do need to remain professional and confident. This simple act, though seemingly unimportant will actually be a great tool in helping you mentally get back into the right frame of mind for finishing the interview strong.

              Next time you are offered a phone interview, really think about it before you accept the first available time the recruiter offers. When will you be energized? Where can you conduct the interview in a distraction-free location? And how will you keep the interview energy upbeat with positive communication. By getting these 3 items right, you will set yourself up for a successful phone interview.