Make your mom proud of you this
She is counting on you!
Katherine and Dan
Doing More with less is an opportunity not a curse
I gave up pop (soda) for Lent. Now, I love Diet Dr. Pepper in particular. It tastes great. In the middle of the afternoon when I need a lift, I looked forward to that drink. Yum. But I gave it up for Lent to see what would happen. Could I be comfortable without those bubbles, that peculiar taste?
I did this once before. That time I couldn’t get the idea of Diet Dr. Pepper out of my head. This time was much easier. Occasionally I had an urge but for the most part I went through the six weeks without a problem. This time I did not have the urge for pop (soda) that I did before. Maybe I broke the habit. I got more creative to find refreshing snacks to replace my beloved Diet Dr. Pepper. After Lent I have no desire for a Diet Dr. Pepper at all. I am pleasantly refreshed with a nice ice tea or ice water.
It got me thinking about living within restraints. When I gave up pop for Lent I created a restraint and learned to live within that constraint. It was easy. It inspired me to seek out alternate snacks for the afternoon.
Constraints come to us voluntarily or involuntarily.
Give up cigarettes. Stop eating red meat. Give up sweets for your diet. Exercising instead of being a couch potato. These are voluntary constraints we impose on ourselves. Losing your job or retiring are involuntary constraints that change the way we live. We have to adjust our spending or we run up debt.
It is possible to find these constraints refreshing or invigorating. The adjustment requires creativity.
I found this interesting article the other day that reinforces this idea of working within constraints, “The Weird Strategy Dr. Seuss used to create his greatest work (and why you should use it too)” by James Clear. Evidently Bennett Cerf, founder of the publishing firm Random House made a bet with Theo Geisel (Dr. Seuss) that he could not write an entertaining children’s book using only 50 different words. Working within that constraint, Dr. Seuss wrote the best seller, Green Eggs and Ham, which has sold more than 200 million copies. He rose to the challenge!
James Clear offers ways that setting limits for ourselves (constraints) can be invigorating. He says:
- Constraints inspire creativity. If you are looking for a job or working towards a promotion you work with what you have. You make lemonade out of lemons. You find ways to reach out to people who can help you. One recent client started writing a blog to get his name out there. Another wrote a paper on a topic that interested him and pertained to his work. Then he blasted his article out to all his contacts and used it to leverage appointments. Get creative within your constraints.
- Constraints force you to get something done. Set goals. One client made a personal goal to have 10 meetings per week. Do you know how many calls he has to make to have 10 meetings per week? A lot! I write 2 blogs per week. Each blog takes about an hour. That means I have time constraints if I want to get everything done. But I get it done because I have to. Set time limits and create a schedule. You will be shocked how much more you can get done.
Recognize the constraints in your life and use them to grow and become more creative. Practice doing more with less resources and see what happens?
If you liked this blog, check out this other Interview Doctor info:
Getting Something Done – How to Schedule your time during a job search
The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time
The Job Search Marketing Plan – Declare to the World how you will find your next job!
Graduation Celebration: What if you don’t have a job yet?
Sure, we know. Your folks are on you back. You know you screwed up. You should have nailed down that job before school ended but you didn’t. Now what?
Actually I did the same thing when I graduated from college a million years ago. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do with my history degree from Northwestern University. My parents understood but I knew they wanted me to get started with my life.
Don’t panic! Enjoy the party then finish up closing up last minute details.
Then get down to business. The job search business. Be prepared to devote at least 8 hours a day to your new job, finding a new job.
Be clear about what you want. I had to figure out how to use my history degree to create a career. Saying “I will do anything” will not work. Be specific about something.
Find the people that do what you want to do and talk to them. Connect with those people on LinkedIn and reach out to have coffee. Have lots of coffee as you meet people who do what you want to do or can introduce you to people who do the work you want to do.
Find companies that employ people who do what you want to do. Find them on LinkedIn and by asking people for names of other people you should meet.
This kind of activity is called “networking”. Do it often. Finding a job is a question of numbers. You have to talk to a lot of people to find the job you want.
In the long shot category are techniques that many recent college graduates depend on:
- Entry level jobs are often posted in job ads. Spend a little time each day looking for ads in your field and send in your resume. Although the odds are against you, it is still a possibility. Just don’t depend on ads.
- College career centers sometimes can be helpful but don’t count on it.
- Stay in touch with professors in your major. That is another longshot but still worth doing with a bit of your time.
We are describing a solid job search. This is hard work but eventually this method will work. It worked with me a million years ago. It works for experienced job seekers today. It will work for you too!
In the meantime, congratulations!!
Start with Responsibilities: Do your Responsibilities Relate to Your Goal?
Although your resume will be a chronological listing of the jobs you have held, you want to highlight the experiences that contribute to explaining who you are and what you want – experiences that demonstrate you are qualified for your dream job.
Lila’s Story
Lila is a sales manager for a large electronics distributor. She has a successful record of accomplishment of inside and outside sales. She wants to update her resume because she is afraid her job is at risk.
Her resume and LinkedIn profile were not bad. She has a nice picture and all the required LinkedIn elements to get started: a decent number of contacts and groups. She had highlighted the skills that would get her attention as a sales manager.
Nevertheless, Lila does not want to be a sales manager any longer. She wants to be a trainer. She loves to create curriculum and design and deliver training programs that support leaders’ efforts to grow and business’s efforts to improve profitability. This information was neither present nor visible in her current resume.
After long discussions about her responsibilities, we could see that Lila was a very good trainer. She has plenty of experience and plenty of demonstrated results. However, the job titles and experiences she chose in her current resume supported sales management, not training.
Lila told us about the training programs she created and delivered, identified the problems that those programs addressed, and described the results achieved by the people she trained. All this information supports her skill and justifies her transition into a new field. Once we identified this information, the resume was easy to transform.
- We put Lila’s titles, jobs, and dates in chronological order.
- We inserted her goal, Training Director, at the top of the resume so everyone looking at the resume could see Lila wanted a position as a Training Director.
- We adjusted all bullets describing Lila’s accomplishments to reflect achievements from training she delivered rather than her sales achievements. We did not discuss her sales results because those results are no longer relevant to her chosen role as Training Director.
Which of your daily responsibilities represent you in the way you want to be known in your next role? Be sure to describe your accomplishments to make yourself stand out.
What will you find if you Google yourself?
The other day I had a meeting with a fellow we will call Jose who wants to help us with an aspect of our marketing. When I got there he had opened a screen on his computer with my name. He Googled me!
I started sweating a little because I have not Googled myself recently. Here is what Jose found:
On the right side of the screen in a little box is my name, picture, my business tag line, that I attended Northwestern University and live in Canton, OH and my phone numbers and email addresses. I was horrified to discover some confidential information listed there too. Must fix that.
On the left is a list of places with information about me. My LinkedIn profile is at the very top. That makes sense because I use LinkedIn all the time. Then we find some pictures of me from various places – my publicity photos and photos of some people who are closely aligned to me like my business partner Dan Toussant and my business coach and friend Sherry Greenleaf. That makes sense.
Included in the pictures was a real surprise. There is another woman with the last name Burik who goes by Kathy. Isn’t that funny? I haven’t been called Kathy since college. I pulled up her profile and saw she lives in Erie PA. I made a note to connect with her just because.
The next listings are my Amazon author’s profile, my Pinterest account (surprising since I don’t use Pinterest much), a few slide presentations I posted, my Facebook account, and finally some blogs I wrote recently. The last listing on the first page is the link to our books, The Job Seeker Manifesto. Great! I am glad that is on the first page.
So what happens if we are not pleased about what Google says about us? A friend was haunted for years when details of his messy divorce appeared on Google. I do not want certain confidential information to be revealed.
So I Googled the answer to this question to share with you!
- Go to Google support “Manager your online reputation”: This support site contains instructions on how to remove unwanted content and control what people see. Check out the section on “Remove unwanted content and the associated search results” for instruction on how to remove personal information from Google.
- Fix social media profile information: Most of the details listed in Google come from the profile information you have listed in your various social media. If that information is correct then you have no problem. But if that information is not correct or for some reason includes too many details then you have a problem.
Go to each social media site and double check to be sure your profile shows only the information you want to share. Edit the information until you are satisfied. Then Google yourself again to see what changed.
- Double check Google-related products: The confidential information I did not want revealed was picked up on my Google+ profile. When I opened Google+ I saw that information clear as day in the “contact” section. It took me a while but I finally saw the little pencil at the top that allowed me to edit the contacts. I went in and erased the offending information. When I Googled myself again, it was gone. Thank goodness.
- Make your name unique: If you have a common name, consider including a middle initial so people Googling you will differentiate you from the other John Jones’ in the world. This will reduce the incidents of getting mixed up with another John Jones who might have a less than sterling reputation.
- Consider setting up a website with your name: It is not hard to set up a simple website plus it is a good way to include information about yourself that you want other people to see.
- Create a Google+ profile: You can customize your Google+ profile with your picture and other information that you want other people to see. You can post comments and blogs here. It is also a great place to network and connect with other people.
- Get notified when your personal data appears on the web: Google support gives the instructions on how to get notified when your personal data appear on the web. This can be useful for reputation management and for job seekers who want to track who is checking them out.