Right Attitudes » Ideas for Impact » by Nagesh Belludi

A large number of professionals continue to mistakenly subscribe to the notion their organizations are responsible for managing their careers. They suppose that their Human Resources departments or their bosses would create their career paths and guide them at each stage.

Predetermined Job Ladders?

Certain organizations–the military, the police force, for example–may offer predetermined job ladders. It is customary in these organizations to award promotion based on length of service, training completed, or, to a lesser extent, on-the-job achievements.

Other organizations offer ‘development programs’. (Refer to this list of Leadership Programs offered by General Electric.) Essentially, these programs comprise of a series of rotational assignments across diverse functions of the corporation. For example, the manufacturing-leadership program at a capital goods company may involve four six-month assignments–one assignment each in supply chain management, shop-floor operations, production capacity planning and manufacturing finance. These development programs enable an apprentice to be exposed to a broad range of functions and gain valuable experience. Even with these programs, though, you are expected to pursue a longer-term assignment in one of the functional areas at the end of the rotations. Beyond that, employees are expected to manage the rest of their careers.

You Manage Your Career

Your career growth is solely your responsibility– it not the organization’s or your boss’s duty. You should be responsible for planning your own career, continually evaluating goals and implementing initiatives for your professional growth.

Here are a few suggestions to help you establish a roadmap for the skills, expertise and experience you need to get where you want to be.

• Research for job opportunities at your company and in other organizations. What skills are recruiters looking for in potential employees?
• Study the profiles of successful people in your industry. Why are they successful? What are their academic backgrounds? What are their career paths? What professional associations do they belong to?
• Reach out and network. Meet as many people as you can by joining professional associations and maintaining regular contact. Studies have shown that 70-80% of all executive jobs are found through professional networking.
• Seek a mentor’s help. Request a member of your management team or industry association, a retiree or a local business owner to help you understand your strengths and interests and develop a career plan in your chosen industry.
• Volunteer and be known. When you volunteer on cross-functional committees for product improvement or professional development, the decision-makers can get to know you, your skills, abilities and career interests. Such exposure will help them consider you for challenging assignments.

Related Articles

• Getting Recognition to Help Career Advancement
• How to Network

***See other articles related to network, networking, Ideas for Impact, mentoring, job hunting, career success, job ladders

Hurriedly-Prepared Résumés are Often Inadequate

Recently, I participated in a career fair at a large university. I staffed my company’s booth and collected résumés for interviews my colleagues would conduct later this month.

In collecting résumés, I observed that a fair number of students’ résumés had lots of errors: spelling mistakes, clutter, poor organization, and so on—overall, incoherent portrayals of their credentials and achievements.

Disappointedly, I asked a few students when they had prepared their résumés for the career fair. Not surprisingly, most students responded with a “over the weekend” or “earlier this morning” answer. “Last night, I looked at the résumé I had prepared for last year’s career fair and updated it,” one student revealed.

Overcome Procrastination: Keep Your Résumé Ready

For many of us, preparing a comprehensive résumé is an overwhelming—if not the most difficult—element of the job-search process. We feel intimidated by the challenge of discussing our credentials and achievements, presenting them in a manner that will impress hiring managers—and do all this in just one page.

The result is that we often procrastinate on preparing or updating our résumés. When we need to prepare a résumé ahead of a career fair or when we discover a lead, we tend to put something together in haste and expect it to work efficiently. We do not realize that our résumés may compete with hundreds of other résumés for every job offer out there.

Update your Résumé Frequently

• If you are in college, revise your résumé at the beginning of each semester. Add relevant details from the past semester: particulars of your part-time work or course projects and update details such as your GPA or aggregate scores.
• If you work, update your résumé after each quarterly-performance review with your supervisor. Add relevant details from your projects and assignments from the recent past. Every year, after your annual-performance review, update your résumé thoroughly.
• Review each section of your résumé critically and question yourself, “Is this section relevant? Is there anything more worthwhile that I could replace this section with?”
• Review the details in each section and ask yourself, “What else could I add to this section? How could I better present this detail?”
• Get your résumé critiqued. If you are at college, consult a career counselor at your college’s career centre. If you are employed, show your résumé to colleagues, mentors, or others who may represent the intended audience for your résumé. Request them to critique every detail and make sure they understand details of your achievements.

Concluding Thoughts

By updating your résumé frequently, you can reduce the anxiety of preparing an impressive résumé at short notice. With reduced stress, you can focus on preparing for the other aspects of your job-search process—researching specific companies represented at the career fair or preparing to sell yourself to interesting companies.

***See other articles related to resume, resume tips, job search, career, interviewing

A number of résumés list two or three professional references. Others may contain a variation of the phrase “References available upon request.”

Neither is necessary. Here are four reasons.

1. References are pertinent only during the later part of the job-search process: after a potential employer has interviewed you and desires to check others’ impressions of you prior to extending you a job-offer.
2. As a candidate, you would want to be the first person to describe yourself to the potential employer. You would not like the employer to contact your references beforehand and form an opinion of you ahead of your interview.
3. If you post your résumé online (on your college’s career website or at a job-search site such as monster.com,) you would not want to make public your references’ contact information.
4. Employers understand that you will give them a list of references when asked for.

Best Practice on Résumé References

Listing references is not the best use of space on a one-page résumé. Eliminate the list of references or the “available upon request” phrase from your résumé.

Instead, on a separate sheet of paper, prepare a list of two or three professional references. For each reference, include name, contact information and a phrase about the nature of your relationship with the reference. Bring this sheet to your interview and present it when the potential employer asks for references.

Use the valuable space to enhance your résumé either by adding further details of your accomplishments or by increasing white space around various sections of your résumé to make it more visually appealing.

***See other articles related to resume, resume tips, job search, career, interviewing

A job candidate that I once interviewed claimed credit for a new customer-service strategy across her company. Following the interview, in speaking with her references, I discovered that the candidate was responsible just for implementation of a corporate-wide initiative only in her particular facility. She had done this job exceedingly well; however, the initiative was not her idea, nor was the new IT-system installed to support this initiative, as she had claimed. Further, her work was restricted to her location only. Clearly, the candidate had overstated her achievements. She had likely used too many ‘I-I-I’ answers.

One of the persistent problems with the job interview process is that candidates tend to exaggerate their achievements in their résumés and in interview discussions. Interviewing is, therefore, one of the toughest managerial-tasks: in the 30-or-45 minutes of a face-to-face interview or a telephone interview, it is very difficult to identify specifics of a candidate’s achievements and place them in a border context. A job candidate can easily distinguish himself or herself by helping the interviewer with this challenge.

Avoid Too Many ‘I-I-I’ Answers

In the modern organisation, a lot of work, and consequently, success, is a function of circumstances—of opportunities available and teamwork. Success is often about being in the right place, at a right time, with the right people and doing what is right.

When interviewing, distinguish yourself by clearly demonstrating an understanding of the role of respective contexts in your projects and their successes. Justify your achievements while acknowledging others’ contributions. Use constructs such as “the marketing manager had this great idea. I teamed-up with him, conceptualised the idea and executed the new initiatives in my engineering organisation.”

Too many ‘We-We-We’ Answers are Bad Too

On the other hand, interviewers from specific backgrounds tend to use too many we-answers. Cultural upbringing may encourage these candidates to display humility, be modest in discussing achievements and consequently avoid I-answers where possible.

I can think about numerous instances when I have requested interviewees to stop using we-answers and describe achievements specifically in terms of what the candidate did–by using the I-answers.

Balance is Key

Acknowledging the circumstances and clarifying context of successes helps interviewers develop a broader perspective of your achievements and understand your credentials easily. By carefully balancing the I-answers with we-answers, you can

• demonstrate humility and respect for the contributions of team members
• establish the bounds of your contributions and claim credit you deserve for your achievements.

***See other articles related to career success, interview questions, interviewing skills, job interviews, job search

Consider the interview-question “Tell me about a time when you were criticized. How did you react?”

Or, a poorly-worded equivalent: “How do you handle criticism?”

In response to such questions, job-candidates frequently answer in the second-person: “When you are criticized, you need to … Instead of getting defensive, you must listen and understand the significance … Ask how you can improve ….”

Best Answers use the First-Person

In answering interview questions, the best way to impress an interviewer is to relay your credentials and accomplishments in terms of personal success stories—first-person answers alone achieve this effect. Use constructs such as “I did this …,” “my team discovered that …,” and so on.

Answering questions in the second-person amounts to advising the interviewer–that can be a turn-off.

And, by using the second-person, you sound disconnected from the topic of your answer; you cannot relay a personal experience that provides clues to the specific skills the interviewer is looking for in asking a particular question.

In interviews, use first-person answers exclusively: present lots of ‘I’ answers and the occasional ‘we’ answer. Do not answer in the second-person.

Further Reading: The ‘Point of view’ page on Wikipedia offers details on the narrative first-, second- and third-person styles.

***See other articles related to Interviewing skills, verbal communication, job interviews, interview questions

Method Study and Critical Examination

Method study is a practice of examining methods of doing work: work-flows, processes, etc. The key component of method study is ‘critical examination.’ Author Michael Armstrong describes critical examination in his ‘Handbook of Management Techniques.’

Critical examination uses the questioning approach to find out what, how, when, where and, most importantly, why and activity is carried out, and who does it. From this analysis, two fundamental questions are posed: (1) Does the activity need to be done at all? If so, (2) Are there any better ways of doing it?

The questioning approach for critical examination is described in the following chart. This chart is also available as a hand-out (PDF download) for quick reference.

Call for Action

A great degree of professional work–in engineering, management, finances, and other functions of the modern corporation–involves analysis of products, procedures and systems. Here, thought-processes involve asking, and seeking answers to, a series of questions.

In my role as an engineer and manager, I carry the above chart of questions to meetings and brainstorming sessions. The chart helps me ask the right questions on the intent of a process or system and gain a big-picture perspective for my work or task at hand.

Download the critical examination handout, post it at your cubicle and refer to the chart for help on asking the right questions.

***See other articles related to ideas for impact, context, perspective, big-picture, career success, thought-process

Jeffrey Immelt on Keys to Great Leadership

In an interview in the Fast Company Magazine, General Electric’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt reveals his checklist of leadership skills. Perhaps the most significant of these skills is the understanding perspective on one’s job.

“Understand breadth, depth, and context. The most important thing I’ve learned since becoming CEO is context. It’s how your company fits in with the world and how you respond to it.”

The Problem: A Narrow Outlook of our Work

As I elaborated in a previous blog article, we get busy doing and fail to devote time for deep thinking. We concentrate on the minutiae of our work. We forget that these tasks are a part of a larger canvas–an element of a large value-addition process. If you are a metallurgy scientist, your work may be a part of the large value-addition process of converting raw material into turbine blades for jet engines that power large aircrafts. If you are computer programmer working on a small software module, your work may be a small component of software that enables customers to trade stocks directly from their cell phones.

Call for Action: Understand the Big-Picture

The key to understanding the broader aspects of your work is to make a special effort to learn more than what is in front of your face. In addition to understanding the boss’s description of your task or a work-procedure, you need to ask why you need to do what you have been asked to do. Begin by asking the following questions.

• How does your organisation make money from what you do? How does your company make money to pay you?
• How do you fit into the value-addition chain? What are the steps involved? What is the flow of information, money and materials?
• Who is the end customer? Why does he/she need the product or service your organisation is building? What is the fundamental problem the customer is trying to solve? How does you work solve this problem?
• How will the customer use with the particular product or service your organisation is developing? What other features can your organisation add to your product or service to help the customer? What else can you do to help the customer?

Employees who understand the broader context of their jobs and embrace the big-picture perspective of the value-addition process are more inclined to grow quickly because, in addition to technical skills, their repertoire includes the wide-ranging commercial viewpoint of the fundamental problems at hand.

***See other articles related to ideas for impact, breadth, depth, context, perspective, big-picture, career success, promotions, career performance

[Note: Jeffrey Immelt’s photo from the biography at the General Electric Company’s website]

Your résumé is your personal advertisement. The purpose of a résumé, therefore, is to sell you, not to describe you. In order to grab a recruiter’s interest and create a positive impression within a few seconds, your résumé should be comprehensive and tidy.

One-page résumés are appropriate for college candidates (entry-level candidates, to be more specific,) and candidates with less than ten years of work experience. Such candidates rarely have substantial accomplishments to justify a résumé of more than a page in length.

More-experienced candidates may use two pages to describe their accomplishments. Even here, one-page résumés are recommended. Recruiters will survey the second page only if the contents of the first page are appealing.

A one-page résumé acknowledges the importance of a recruiter’s time. A two-page résumé is a sign of disregard.

Compact your Résumé

Follow these guidelines to consolidate your résumé content into one page.

• Comprehension is crucial. Recruiters hate wordy résumés. They first glance through the organization of a résumé and quickly skim over particulars in key sections. A strong, comprehensive presentation is consequently appealing.
• Avoid a tell-it-all résumé. Avoid the common mistake of providing too many details. Leave some details for discussion in a potential interview.
• Restrict accomplishments under each position held to two or three bullet points only. Weed out unimportant details. Use phrases if necessary.
• Do not cram. Do not reduce page margins and font-sizes or eliminate white space. Résumés crowded with information are hard to read.

Conclusion

A one-page résumé is usually long enough to present all the essential information concisely and captivatingly. It can easily engage a recruiter and convince him/her that your background merits further consideration.

***See other articles related to resume, resume tips, job search, career, interviewing, communication

CNNMoney offers a self-survey to help you understand if you deserve a raise. Here are the six questions in the survey.

1. If you left the company, how easy or hard would it be for the company to replace you?
2. To what extent do you have abilities or possess knowledge that most others — both inside and outside the company — do not have?
3. If your company had to eliminate departments, what would happen to yours?
4. Is your department respected by other parts of the company?
5. How much does your business or division contribute to the profitability of the company?
6. Does it look as if your business will grow or shrink in coming years?

Call for Action

In preparing to ask for a raise or a promotion, or in preparing for a performance review, you need a strong understanding of arguments supporting your desired outcome and counter-points your boss (and other approvers) may raise. The above survey questions from CNNMoney can help you start gathering your thoughts.

The key yardstick that your boss will use to appraise you is the significance of your efforts to the organisation and the perceived promise/potential you hold. Review any expectations that your boss laid-out during prior discussions. Prepare a self-evaluation by documenting your accomplishments against these expectations and their significance to the goals of the organisation. Collect evidence: try to quantify and be precise as possible. Maintain a journal of all your achievements and summarise your journal in your self-evaluation.

***See other articles related to performance appraisal, performance review, promotion, raises

Robert Nardelli, the former CEO of retailing giant Home Depot, offered great career advice in a “CEO Series” interview at the Stern School of Business, New York University, in 2003. Here is a video and a transcript of his interview.

Robert Nardelli’s on Getting Recognition

I started my career in General Electric (GE) as a manufacturing engineer in the refrigeration plant. When I had an opportunity to volunteer in the ‘feature and appearance council’ or to help design new handles, I would snap the opportunity so that I was able to get tremendous exposure to the thinking and be recognized as someone that could do functional crossover. It served me well throughout my whole career.

When GE implemented a new financial accounting system, the company was looking for someone to volunteer to be the program manager. I did not know anything about accounting and finance, but still said I will lead the initiative. Of course, this was in addition to my day job.

Such opportunities exist in every organization. You can seize those opportunities and learn through broader experiences. They gave me a base of understanding and confidence. When I faced adversity at higher positions, I felt good about my experience and abilities.

Call for Action

Getting management to recognize you for promotions and leadership positions can be challenging, especially at large companies. Career success is often said to be not about what you know but about “who you know.” In the new world of work, where competition is more intense than ever before, what really matters more is who knows you and what they know about you.

Robert Nardelli recommends that volunteering on a variety of organizational initiatives is one way to get the recognition you deserve. When you volunteer on cross-functional committees for product improvement or professional development, the decision-makers can get to know you, your skills, abilities and career interests. Such exposure will help them consider you for challenging assignments in the future.

Volunteer in your company’s initiatives, connect with other functions, broaden your skills, and, build a network.

***See other articles related to Ideas for impact, networking, career success, promotions, career performance

[Notes: (1) Robert Nardelli’s photo from the website of the Stern School of Business, New York University, (2) Robert Nardelli’s words (above) were altered for clarity and conciseness for this article.]