"People will never forget how you made them feel"

I was just sitting around waiting for summer weather to arrive in Minnesota, and was browsing a book I like called “You, Inc.” The author, Harry Beckwith, has a few paragraphs on what people value, and I think it is relevant to the networking and interviewing parts of job search.

He calls it “What people Value” and he summarizes from research that shows that where people put their money is what they value. For example, oddly enough on the average people don’t tip any more for prompt efficient service at a restaurant than they do for poor service. However, they do tip more for a server who makes them feel good.

This may sound trivial, but it is not. It is Maya Angelou’s quote that you may have heard, “People will forget what you said; people will forget what you did; but people will never forget how you made them feel.” So, as you interact during networking or during an interview, remember to treat each person in a way that will make them feel good. Listen carefully. Recall a good experience you had together. Show sincere interest. Smile with a twinkle. Touch them on the arm. Think of what makes you feel warm and good when someone does it to you and do that toward others. And most of all, find someting about them that you appreciate and show it.

Good luck,

Mike

The Body Language of Confidence

 As a hiring manager I know how important body language is for assessing someone’s state of confidence and positivity, but as a job seeker, do you know how to use this to your advantage? I was just watching a great TED talk by Amy Cuddy called “Your body language shapes who you are.” http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html  

She has some simple suggestions to use before a job interview that will help you not only project confidence, but actually FEEL it. Research shows that when people feel confident they adopt body postures that are expansive and that take up more space. They are noticeably spread out and almost celebratory. For example, holding your arms outstretched above your head in a sort of victory pose. Arms on hips in a Wonder Woman pose. Leaning on a table like you own it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other side of the coin is that when people feel powerless, fearful, or insecure they tend to make themselves smaller by holding their arms folded or close to their body. They stand with feet crossed and they hunch a bit. They look downward more, and they make small gestures instead of grand ones.

 

     

What is important about Amy Cuddy’s research is that the mind-body connection is a two way street. Certainly our body often reflects how we are feeling inside. But more importantly is that how we stand, sit or gesture directly affects how we feel inside. So, we can turn things around by acting as if we feel confident until we do. It only takes a few minutes.

So, Amy Cuddy’s suggestion for job interviews are:

1)      Ahead of time go into a private area and stretch out your arms. Stand tall and spread out. Take up space. Act bigger and more expansive than you may feel. This will communicate to your brain to start feeling more confident.

2)      During the interview adopt body positions and postures that take up space. Make slightly larger gestures and own your space. This is no time to be a shrinking violet. Sit up tall, lean forward make eye contact. Act like you belong there, and soon perhaps you will.

Go get ‘em tiger.

  --Mike Powers

Asking Powerful Questions

The question is a very powerful tool. It is deceptively simple but can evoke profound effects if used to our advantage. We often get ourselves stuck with closed-ended questions that get basic facts or yes/no answers. Here are three types of questions that you may find useful to propel you toward something useful. (Thanks to ideas from a book by Vogt, Brown and Issacs called The Art of Powerful Questions for inspiring this Blog.)

Questions for focusing attention

·       What question, if answered, would make the most difference to your job search?

·       What attracts you to certain parts of the job search process?

·       If you dig a little bit, what hidden opportunity might you discover in your present situation?

·       What assumptions do you need to test or challenge in your thinking about job search?

·       What would someone who knows and loves you say about your situation?

Questions for connecting ideas and finding deeper insight

·       What is starting to take shape for you? What are you noticing that is positive in recent events?

·       What is in the center of your life that you need to stay connected to?

·       What new connections could you make that will really help you out?

·       What seems easy for you during this process?

·       What has been the most interesting discovery for you so far?

·       What is it that you would love to discover soon?

Questions that create forward movement?

·       What will it take to move to the next level in your job search?

·       What brings you the most positive energy during the job search process?

·       What is possible here and who can help me get what I want?

·       What seed can I plant today that will make the most difference in my future?

·       Who do I need to have a conversation with to go to the next step?

·       What have I been putting off that I can do now to get some momentum?

Healing the wound

Healing the wound of a layoff

In any group of job seekers laid off from the very same company you will meet very different reactions. This is normal isn't it? We all have different relationships to an employer or a job. Some feel devastated to be laid off while some are disappointed, and others are nervously delighted. A few are downright overjoyed. Other feelings are disoriented, dazed, numb, furious, guilty, hurt, or sad.

No matter what the reaction is, it is important to heal any wounds quickly because there is a risk that these emotions will "leak out" during networking, or worse yet during an interview! Saying something negative about your previous employer is a major mistake, because the interviewer will hear it as a comment on you, rather than on the employer. They will not be sympathetic.

I can't emphasize enough that no matter how justified your feelings may be about the reason you were laid off, or the manner in which you were laid off, you need to resolve those feelings and put them behind you before you move into your full job search.

So, how do you resolve them? How do you heal a sizable wound?

Consider this: the opposite of LOSS is not GAIN, it is ATTACHMENT. The reason a layoff hurts so much is because we have an attachment to that job, organization, team, salary, status, title, responsibility, etc. It is the cutting of those attachments that hurts so much and causes the pain. The most important goal is to re-establish your sense of wholeness without that job.

As you process what it means to be whole, keep in mind that you were "you" before you ever took that previous job. You were already whole. You are not that job - so you remain whole without that job. You have all of the skills, knowledge, ability, attitude, motivation, work ethic and character that you had before you lost the job. You are a whole person.

Imagine for a moment what you left behind at that previous job. Your office/cubicle, your desk, your title, your chair, your routine with co-workers, your lunch pattern, your customers/clients. None of these are truly part of YOU. They can all be replaced. You haven't left anything of yourself behind. Be sure you realize that fully. Become aware of all of the wonderful parts of yourself that you have within you. They are still there - hold on to them, because you will need them during the job search and in your new job.

Let the other stuff go - let them drift into a memory and you will feel the lessening of the attachment and the lessening of the emotions as well. Do this exercise a few times until you feel you have let go of those attachments and emotions. And then focus on the future and the exciting things that lie ahead. Whatever you do don't keep telling yourself the "story" of your layoff, because that story had an unhappy ending and will only keep getting you upset. Start to tell yourself a new story that has a happy ending - you getting a new and perhaps even better job. The new story will provide the motivation and the positive feelings you need to get through this transition.

Take care of yourself,

--Mike

Beating the "Overqualified" objection

One of the major issues that "mature workers" have to face is that employers will see them as overqualified. Overqualified generally means having too much of something: more skills, education, or experience than the job requires. You might think that an employer would want to hire the best possible candidate for a given job, but the reality is that they want to hire the person with the best fit. They don't want an employee to feel above the job, unchallenged, underpaid, underutilized.

If they need a person with a BA/BS, they don't want someone with a PhD even though you might be willing to take it. If you have 20 years experience and apply for an entry level position, they probably won't give you a look.

I heard a new story last week. A job seeker said he was so prepared for a job interview that he really thought he had nailed it. When he was rejected, the feedback he received was that he was "too enthusiastic." I never heard that before. Could it have been another way of saying he was too old, or too qualified? Who knows, but too enthusiastic? Wow.

How can you overcome these objections? Some advise taking some skills or experience out of your resume. This may work to some degree and might be worth a try. I recommend applying to smaller businesses or non-profits. They tend to be less rigid about job descriptions and more willing to utilize all the skills you can bring them. If you can manage projects and can also maintain a website, this might be an extra that you can bring them that they don't currently have. Finding out about these potential needs through your networking and research can give you leg up.

You also need to make sure you address the over-qualification question even if it doesn't come up directly in the interview. If you have been a manager and are applying to be an individual contributor, explain why you want to make that career change. If you can allay their fears and doubts, you may open their minds to welcome you into your new job!

Welcome to 2012

Holiday Greetings,

A new Year is upon us, and it is the time when we sometimes think of our New Year's Resolutions. The most popular resolutions typically read like the index of a self-help book. You know how they go: Lose weight, exercise more, get on top of finances, do taxes earlier this year, etc.

Some suggestions I would invite you to consider are:

1. Attend our Job Search Workshops. Get some new ideas, hear what others have been doing, get some motivation, learn something new. Our monthly schedule of workshops is available on our website.
2. Take a training class. If your computer skills are lacking, this the time to let the Dislocated Worker Program pay for some classes to learn some new computers skills, or any other useful skills that could help you win that new job.
3. Set up a LinkedIn Account or at least revise it to make sure it stays current. Add 20 new contacts.
4. Attend one of the many local Job Clubs to do some valuable networking and learning. Click here for a Metro list.
5. Spend some time volunteering somewhere you can use your talents, help others, learn something, network, get out of the house! Here is a website that will help you enter your location, skills and interests and it will tell you what’s available: http://www.volunteermatch.org/

Best of luck in the new year, and let's hope the Mayan's were wrong in predicting 2012 to be the end of the world.

Get the most out of LinkedIn for your job search.

First of all I want to re-emphasize that LinkedIn, social networking and regular networking are not just for job search! Having said that I realize that it is often true that most people don’t pay much attention to LinkedIn until they are unemployed. The title of Harvey Mackey’s book “Dig your well before you’re thirsty” should tell you all you need to know about the necessity of networking throughout your career, not just when unemployed. Here are a few tips to help you use LinkedIn well.

• Having a half-baked LinkedIn profile does not serve much of a purpose at all, so make sure you spend some time to get a robust profile developed. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and should continually be tweaked, updated, re-branded and improved as needed. It is an ongoing process.

• Your Professional Headline doesn’t have to be your Current Job Title. It can highlight the important stuff you want people to know about you. But remember it is confusing to potential employers if they see “seeking new opportunities” in your headline, while you still have a job listed under current employment. Delete your “current job” if you are unemployed. Otherwise it looks like you are a disloyal employee.

• Get a few really, really good recommendations that highlight your strengths. You don’t need hundreds (nobody will read more than a few anyway), but some good ones can bring attention to your value.

• Include a picture unless you have a pretty good reason not to. And make it a photogenic one. Digital photography is cheap and easy these days. If it takes 200 tries to get your smile just right, who cares? It needs to be in focus, good resolution and well lit. A bad photo is worse than none at all. It’s like a typo on your resume. Speaking of typos, LinkedIn doesn't provide a spellchecker yet, so be sure to either use the spellchecker that comes with Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. If you use Internet Explorer you can add a free spellchecker. Here's how:

     1.Go to the Tools menu in Internet Explorer and select Manage Add-ons.
     2.Click the "Find more toolbars and extensions…" link in the lower left of the popup window that appears. You'll land on the "Internet Explorer Gallery" website. Click the "add-ons" icon (a puzzle piece) at the top of the page.
     3.Type "spell check" in the search box on the right and then hit Enter.
     4.Select the spell check product and click the "Add to Internet Explorer" button. Follow the instructions provided to complete the process.
     5. When you go back to your profile, you'll see any misspellings underlined in red.

• Use the Status Updates to let your network know what you are up to and to feed them some links and articles and events they might be interested in. I am always appreciative when someone clues me in to a great article I might have missed otherwise.

• Reach out to your contacts when you notice they got a promotion or switched companies or completed a degree, or did something notable. It always feels nice to be noticed and appreciated.

• Select some targeted companies to “follow.” Following a company will trigger an email to you whenever something notable happens inside that company. You will hear when someone has left the company (this is a peak into the hidden job market), or when someone is promoted or when they have a new group of new hires. This can be useful information.

• Join some LinkedIn Groups in order to be visible in your industry/occupation, and to your network. It also gives you a link to people who are not directly among your contacts, but who may be a useful contact.

• Keep building your list of connections. It is best if you have connections that you actually know and who can come to your rescue if you have a need. But don’t be overly strict, since part of the power of networking is in the unknown. You never know how a connection can become important.

• Help others in your network when you can. What goes around, comes around.

• Don’t ever lie or misrepresent yourself. This should go without saying, but sometimes the temptation is strong to give yourself a better title at a previous job or to amplify your status in some way. Your connections will know. I know a fellow who was a V.P. of IT who now claims he was the CIO. There’s a difference, and people know.

• And don’t waste people’s time with cute videos of puppies and other non-professional items. LinkedIn is different from Facebook and Twitter for this very reason. It is more like a water-cooler at work than a bar. The conversation is mostly professional and work related.