Great article on why resumes disappear when you submit them to large companies. It also gives you some hope for getting through all the filters. Here’s the link.
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Sometimes I forget to look at a resume and pretend I am a receptionist. This morning I talked with a very qualified friend who hasn’t been able to get a job. I took 10 seconds to look at his resume as if I were a receptionist or HR screener. There was a huge error that probably got his resume deleted time after time. This is a 3 minute video on what I saw. Here is a hint about your future job: Banks are not spending on core systems. Banks spend money on IT where they expect to get the biggest return. This article plows thrugh the 6 main areas where banks will spend their IT dollars in 2012. If you want a job or promotion in a bank, make yourself irresistible because you are an expert at Regulatory compliance or customer experience/channel optimization. Those are two areas that can apply to other places besides banks. Two or three times a month we get a call from a person who wants to leave their job primarily because the counteroffer that he or she agreed to three or four months earlier had, agonizingly, not worked out. Their approach is usually accompanied by an attitude of anger, disappointment, and disgust that they are back looking for a job with more determination than ever. The perceived promises in the counteroffer they accepted didn’t materialize and they are really committed to leaving their job . . . this time. “Buying” an employee back when they try to resign, a counteroffer, rarely works out, even in the short run. Ninety-eight percent of the time, the employee leaves within six months, and often with more acrimony than the first attempt. Counteroffers rarely work out because:
Here is a job hunting secret for the holidays. You can use holidays and vacations to give yourself a serious job boost. All you have to do is follow the advice in this video I made on cyber monday. Career plans often fail because people don’t know what they really want. Do you want security? Challenges? Thrill rides? The hottest technology today is the Amazon Kindle Fire. It is simply a small computer. Its rise was carefully planned. The most significant pieces of the plan included a snazzy look, rugged portability, and simple secure paid download of books, movies and music. Amazon, the creator, has a plan to continue making money forever. Now is the perfect time for Amazon’s hottest talent to abandon their jobs with the Kindle division. Now is the time for Amazon’s best job-security conscious talent to move in and take over. Why? Because the market will be saturated with Kindles. The Kindle is becoming a commodity. Prices are dropping. Even the music distribution system has stronger competitors like Apple. Kindle is no longer innovative genius. It is now a cash cow. Cash cows are less exciting, but fairly secure for employment. Kindle and other once hot products like Apple’s iPod, iPad and iPhone are no longer what the bold innovators want to be working on. They need a new challenge. Kindle is now the perfect product for the long term managers. Of these 4 products, only some aspects of the software are cutting edge now. All the rest is in maintenance mode. Your career plan will be a rousing success if you focus on your personal growth curve. Do you want to innovate and take outrageous chances for outrageous reward? Do you really want technical challenge? Is your goal to make enough money, but have a lot of free time for your skiing? When you know what you want, you can plan your career successfully. However, what you want will change time and time again. So you need to be prepared to change your career plan as you see changes beginning in yourself. Your personal growth curve will tell you how fast you are getting to where you want to be in your career. Career plans work. They work when they are reviewed every year or more often. They work when you review your real personal desires at the same time. Career plans absolutely fail when you think you want what someone else has. You have to want what you really want.
The difference between psychobabble and useful psychology is never obvious to everyone. Some self help books are dangerous. They actually help people AVOID helping themselves. Many others just depend on you. Let’s compare a self-help book to a match. I can light a match on a window, my pants, a fingernail and my teeth. Some people can barely light a match using the strike pad on the matchbox. If someone cannot light a match on their teeth, it doesn’t mean the match is bad. It doesn’t mean the person is bad either. It just means they can’t light a match on their teeth. Using a self help book can be a lot like lighting that match. Just because a book works for someone else, but not you, doesn’t mean the book is bad or that you are bad. I have a whole list of books that helped me at various times in my life. But, that was because they were the right book at the right time. If they are of no use to you, wait awhile and they may be. The difference between psychobabble and useful psychology is often timing, need and preparation. Here are some books that I’ve found exceptionally useful. All are available from Amazon. They are in no particular order.
I’m always looking for more great books to read. I’d love to get your list of the most life changing books you’ve read. Something To Do Today Make a list of books you would like to read. My personal “to read” list currently has about 40 titles. I read and listen to 1 to 6 books a month. The hottest industries, the startups, the best employers, and the places where people are way ahead of the rest of the world are easy to find. In the last few years a handful of people I know have become multimillionaires. They set out to do it. People I have placed at their companies have gotten bonuses as high as half a million dollars. These companies were started and sold after only a few years. One was for $200 million, the other for $400 million. Not bad money if you can get it. One company sells ads on the internet. The other started out processing healthcare claims but quickly changed to selling prepaid credit card processing. The company founders and key employees made a lot of money because they found “the next big thing.” For each company that reaches this level a hundred startups fail. Still, half of the startups are absorbed into the successful companies that put them out of business. The best people in ALL of the failing companies find jobs in the best companies. People with experience in “the next big thing” are rare and not wasted by their industry. Failure is actually seen as a mark of accomplishments in hot new companies. The best way to find what “the next big thing” is in your field is to ask. When you have one minute alone with managers, top technicians and salespeople, ask them. I guarantee that they have spent a few minutes trying to figure it out themselves. They also will want to show their expertise by sharing their vision of the future with you. In your job journal write down what you are told. You can review the lists you come up with occasionally and extract some gems. Another way to find the next big thing is to subscribe to weekly and monthly trade journals. Many are free. Again, go to the managers, top technicians and salespeople. Ask them, “Which trade magazines do you read?” Have them give you the web address or the “free subscription” card that is included with the latest issue. Get your own subscription. Once you have a few choices for the next big thing, exploit your knowledge. If you are an adventurer, get involved in the beginning stages of “the next big thing.” If you are more security oriented, look for an opening where there is already solid revenue, but lots of growth potential left. The job you take could be at your present company. Find out if they are planning to fund a startup division or if they already have something going. The other alternative is to get a job in another company. Chasing “the next big thing” is not an easy life. There are fantastic rewards and great challenges. There are also company bankruptcies, mergers, acquisitions and layoffs. But, I’ll say it again, the best people in those hot expanding fields are always absorbed into the competitors. It is scary, but not as dangerous as it sounds. Now, go do some dreaming. It never hurts. In your field what is “the next big thing?” Do a survey. Ask everyone you have a one minute conversation with what “the next big thing” will be. Most career plans don’t include the most important element in job advancement. Let me show it to you. An usher at the movie theater I worked at wanted to become the lead usher. After the movie started he would always be the first to grab a broom and start sweeping the lobby. Once he even told me I was sweeping too early so that 30 seconds later he could grab a broom and be seen by our boss as the boy with the most initiative. He got the job. I got laid off. He had a career plan at the tender age of 14. (He was also a little deceitful, which he didn’t need to be.) A useful career plan needs to have long term goals, as well as much shorter term tactical objectives. If your 1 year goal is to get promoted to team leader, you have to work every day at short term plans to get there. If you want to become a partner in your firm, you have to do something different from the crowd every day. The biggest secret to daily, weekly and monthly career plans is to set yourself up to act like you already have the job you want. Start acting like a senior technician by getting certifications and asking your boss to allow you into design meetings. Pretty soon you’ll get the promotion. A partner in most firms is required to be either a leader/manager or a rainmaker/salesman. If you want to be a partner, act like one. To start taking over the job you want, you have to have a clear idea of what the job entails. Your first career plan should be, “I will find out what the job I want entails.” Make sure you find out what the most successful inhabitants of your target job do. What makes the most successful people different? You should generate a weekly and monthly written plan of how you will find out more about the job you want. Put it in your job journal. Now write a weekly and monthly plan of how to educate yourself for the job. List the courses you can take, certifications you can get and books you can read. Ask the people you admire for advice. The list should go in your job journal where you can add to it later. Finally, write that weekly and monthly plan on how you will take over the job. 90% of authority is seized, 10% is granted. Go out and take over some responsibilities. Even if you are reprimanded for over reaching, your initiative will be noticed. A plan written in your job journal will focus your efforts. Remember that boy who wanted to be lead usher. He was always the first person out in the lobby cleaning up. He wanted to show initiative. To advance in a technical, managerial or sales position you need to show the same initiative. You need to be the first person seen doing important jobs. Make a plan and do it. Just today, seize authority. Find some important job and make yourself the custodian of that job. Be the first to start doing it, direct how it is to be done, or ask one of your subordinates to do it. I have uploaded my latest seminar on How to ACE the phone interview. It is free and about 40 minutes long. You can find it by clicking here. |
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