December 25th: Merry Christmas
I want to wish all of my website readers a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS. May the joy that is found in the wonder of Mary’s baby boy, Jesus, fill your heart with peace like you have never known, good, cheer that makes you smile just because, and the knowledge that you are indeed abundantly blessed. This Christmas, hug yourself and give yourself, even 5 minutes of love and acknowledgment
for all that you have been through this year with HIS help. Congratulations on all of the professional strides that you have made, “WINS” that you have had, and tough times that you have endured for they have brought you VALUABLE lessons and experiences. We will be back on Carla’s Pearls with some great tips to help you maximize your success next year.
With love,
Merry Christmas!
Figuring it all out: November 15, 2009
The question for this week came from several readers, all of whom asked, “what if I don’t know what I want to do with my life professionally? How do I figure out what I REALLY want to do?”
While it may seem that most people have known all of their lives what they really want to do professionally from the time that they were young children and they simply followed a plan straight to the top, the truth of the matter is, most people don’t REALLY know what they want to do when they finish high school, college or even graduate school. Most of us figure it out along the way as we gain experiences in different internships, jobs, or by talking to other people about what they do and conducting follow up research on those professions. If you are lucky, you will start to crystallize your goals while you are in college or graduate school and experiencing summer internships. If this does not happen during those years, it may take a few jobs before you can start to discern what you really like, dislike, and would like to focus on. Here is an exercise that you can use if you are trying to figure out what you would like your career to be or if you have made the decision to switch careers and you are trying to figure out the next step.
You will need 3 blank sheet s of paper for this exercise.
On the first piece of paper, answer these questions, “If money was no object and I told you that I would pay you whatever you want to get paid, what job would you do every day? What job content would get you excited to get out of the bed every morning to run to that job? Describe the content, describe the people that would be involved at the job. Describe the environment that you want to work in. Is it a formal environment where suits and traditional business attire are required or is it a dress down, casual environment? Describe how people work together, how the relationships interact. The aforementioned questions are targeting the questions, “What is the dream job? What is the nirvana opportunity for you? If you don’t know what the specific job is, then identify certain qualities that you like, i.e., the job involves working in teams, working alone. Does it involve problem solving or project management? What industry is it in- medicine, entertainment, operations, marketing, and academia? Does it involve being on call, or working specific hours? Does it require a lot of writing, no writing, a lot of presenting, no presenting or public speaking, etc. ?
On the second sheet of paper, describe the skills, the experiences, the knowledge that you need in order to qualify for the dream job. If you don’t know the answer to this question, then you should do research on your own and you should try to talk to people who are currently doing the job or parts of it. If you don’t have direct access to someone who is doing the job, use your network to gain introductions or go to conferences where you can hear the experts speak about the proficiency needed to do well in that job or seat. You should understand what you need in order to be successful in the seat that you aspire to. For example if you want to be a banker, you need strong analytical and quantitative skills. You need to perhaps, have a few prerequisite classes in finance, accounting, or economics. If you want to be a film maker, you need to know something about films. You need to know where and how to access good properties that would make outstanding films. You may need to know producers, directors, or sources of financing. If you want to manage a large group of people, you should know something about leading and motivating people. What knowledge, skills or experiences would make you an attractive candidate for the dream job?
On the third sheet of paper, ask yourself, “what classes, jobs, or experiences do I need in order to acquire the skills or experiences that I need to get the desired job? What people do I need in my network to introduce me to the right people that can give me the knowledge or the experience, or exposure needed? Or that might be able to provide me with the dream job? How do I get in their way, make sure that I intersect with them? Where do I need to be geographically to get this opportunity? If you want to do popular filmmaking or you want to be in film financing, you may need to be in Los Angeles, whereas if you want to be exposed to the most deal activity in investment banking, it might be most expedient to be in New York. If you want to be in politics, it is probably most advantageous to spend some time in Washington to build out your network of political personalities. If you eventually want to manage a large group of people you may want to take classes about leadership or human resources management. Better still, you may want to get a job that will give you the experience of managing a small team where you can gain essential management skills that can prepare you for the bigger opportunity.
Once you have done this exercise, you have an answer or maybe several answers to what career might be appealing to you. You also have some idea of how to start to pursue it. On page one, you identified the desired job, on page two, you outlined the critical skills, networks, and experience needed to be an attractive candidate for the dream job and on page three, you have articulated the classes, academic credential, people and location that are required for you to go after the right skills or networks that will connect you to your desired opportunity.
Choosing the Seat and the House - 10/27
Choosing the Seat and the House
The most frequently asked question of the week: “I am not feeling satisfied with my job, I don’t feel like I am reaching my potential, being a valuable contributor. Is it time to leave? How do I know when it’s time to move on to another opportunity? “
I have been asked over and over again, even in this tough economic climate, how do you know when its time to leave a particular employment opportunity? I recommend that you do a simple three question analysis. Before I start with the questions though, let’s get a few definitions out of the way.
Seat = the content of what you do every day; it is your specific job.
House = the place where you do your job, a company, an organization, a school, a hospital, etc. It is the environment where you work.
If you don’t feel like you are contributing at your highest level in your career or your specific job and if you want to understand if it is time for you to pursue something different, ask these three questions:
DO I STILL LIKE MY SEAT? Am I still motivated every day to do what I do? Do I still like the content? Am I still learning, adding to my personal intellectual and experiential tool chest? Am I fundamentally inspired by what I do every day? Does it still fit with my personal agenda (Chapter 2 of Expect To Win)
DO I STILL LIKE THE HOUSE? Do I still like the environment that I am working in? Is the environment supportive of me, enabling me to continue to be a value added player? Am I still learning from the people around me? Do the people and/or the organization motivate me to want to give my all? Are the organization’s values still consistent with my own? Do I have a platform for growth?
Is there one person that seems to be at the heart of my inability to be a value added player in this HOUSE, in this particular SEAT?
If you are not feeling that you are playing at the top of your game or you are generally not happy with where you are, examine the following:
If you have asked the above questions and you determine that you love your SEAT, and then check whether or not you are in the right HOUSE, the right environment. If you love the job, but don’t feel like you are supported by the environment, then you are likely in the right SEAT, the right job, but you may be in the wrong environment and need to change the HOUSE.
If on the other hand, you examine the SEAT and you go back to your personal agenda, and you realize that you have learned everything that you intended to learn in that seat, you cannot add to your intellectual or experiential tool chest by staying in that seat, then you have likely conquered the job content and you are not inspired to add more value. It is most likely time to figure out what is next for you to conquer, for you to learn, it is time for a new SEAT.
If you have examined the situation and you love the content of your job, you are still motivated to find ways each day to do a bang up job, and you like the people, the environment, the platform and opportunities that you have ahead, yet you are still feeling like something is not right, you are not operating at your maximum capacity, then more than likely, the problem is not the SEAT or the HOUSE, it is a person. Now it becomes easier to figure out what you need to do: devise a strategy to get around that person. There is not a person born that you cannot get around. Studies show that most people, particularly women, tend to leave jobs because of one person. If you have an agenda, and you have found your optimal seat and environment to work in, you CANNOT let one person deter you from maximizing your success and executing your agenda. Work diligently to use your network or develop one to work around them. You generally only want to leave a specific job, when you are no longer learning, and you are fairly certain that there is no opportunity with a new SEAT or within the HOUSE, to operate at a higher value, to contribute more value to the organization and to yourself.
Having an agenda and understanding WHY you are in the SEAT that you are in and WHY you have chosen the HOUSE that you are in, will help you to keep focused on maximizing your success and avoid making emotional decisions that can cause you to interrupt your journey of maximizing your success.
Successful Interviewing
October 2, 2009 by admin
Filed under Blog, Pearls, Reader's Mail
The question that I have received most this week is, “How do I successfully position myself for a job that I believe I can successfully execute but where I have not had previous experience? “
Answer: Understand what the buyer (prospective employer) is buying beyond prerequisite experience!
One of the keys to successful interviewing is understanding what the buyer, the prospective employer, is buying. Anyone that is interviewing candidates is looking to buy the skills that will be needed to successfully execute the job. They are buying talent. The key to matching up your interests, capabilities, or eligibility for the job is understanding what skills you are selling and how they are compatible with what the buyer is looking to purchase. While previous experience is certainly a plus it is not always a must to get the job. If you understand, what the buyer wants to purchase or in other words, the skills that are required to successfully execute the job, then you can position your strengths to fit that requirement.
For example suppose you are applying for a job with an organization that reviews grant proposals and allocates money to people or organizations that apply for the grants. Your job would be to read, review and analyze the grants and make recommendations to your boss or a committee on which grants to fund. Let’s also assume that you have not had specific previous like this, but you have had other experiences that give you the skills that are consistent with the key success factors of the position. The key here is to understand what are the characteristics of a person that would be successful in this kind of job or what this buyer (prospective employer) is buying. The skills that the buyer wants to boy or the profile of a person that would be successful in this job would be someone who is a fast learner (this is a new area and you may have to get up to speed quickly), has great analytical skills (you will likely have to analyze the proposals in a certain way or evaluate or grade them), takes direction well from others (there is likely to be some limited training, so you have to be focused and able to learn from others), can handle large volumes of work, cool under pressure (as there will be deadlines), is self motivated and goal oriented. If you have evidence on your resume, or in your past experiences that clearly demonstrate that this profile is consistent with who you are AND you can tell that story in a compelling way, then you can position yourself as someone who has a high probability of being successful in this job, even though you have not had specific experience in this area. You are very competitive for this position. This is not the kind of position where you have to have specific technical training like you might need if you were applying for a computer programming or software development position.
Remember that the interviewer has an important job and that is to hire the best candidate for a position that the organization MUST fill. Your job is to make the interviewer feel that he or she is making a mistake if they don’t choose you!
