Archives for January 2007

Job-Hunting Tips #1: Your Online Presence can be an Asset or a Liability

January 31, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

MySpace is Everybody’s Space

A friend I spoke to last night mentioned an interesting experience with a college candidate he had considered for a full-time position in his organization. After determining that the candidate possessed first-class credentials, my friend searched for the candidate’s name on Google. He discovered that the candidate’s MySpace pages had contents that were in poor taste and lacked professional maturity. My friend said he immediately rejected the candidate from further consideration.
Many employers search the internet, the blogosphere and social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook for more information on job candidates. Information they gather from the internet on a potential recruit can be very helpful. Quite often, an employer can learn about a candidate’s extra-curricular activities, academic papers, recognitions, scholarships, etc. —information that may not be stated in his/her résumé. In other instances, as with my friend’s experience described above, an employer can discover content that may establish a negative impression of the candidate. Internet search, therefore, can easily provide pointers to a candidate’s talents and to how he/she may portray himself/herself as a member of an organization.

Save Yourself from Embarrassment from your Online Content

Here are three few simple precautions you can take to save yourself from embarrassment during a job search and during employment.

Clean-up your webpages. Search engines and other archival agents frequently archive content on the internet. Online content is also distributed through web-feeds, aggregators and other circulation channels. It is difficult or usually impossible to retract information you post online. However, you can minimize the chances of prospective employers discovering more information about you by getting rid of any content that may reflect negatively on you. Many professionals are usually busy or are not tech-savvy enough to do a thorough internet search. Further, do not disclose online any personal information (birthday, marital status, political affiliations, etc.) that you will not include in your résumé or mention in a job interview.
Watch what you write. You do not have any control over the information you post in public domain. Other netizens may distort or misinterpret your thoughts when they quote you or link to your content. As a rule, refrain from writing mean or crude postings, portraying organizations and individuals in negative light, bad-mouthing, plagiarizing content and posting extreme opinions on sensitive topics. Maintain a professional etiquette when posting comments on others’ blogs, in newsgroups and other interactive services. If necessary, use a pseudonym on newsgroups and online forums.
Post insightful content that appeals to prospective employers. Discuss your personal and professional experiences and present perspectives on topics related to your career interests. Include links to your portfolio, references to papers or articles you may have published, charity events you may have participated in and other content that will supplement your résumé. Organize the details logically. If you are lucky enough, an employer may develop an interest in hiring you after surveying your site. Use a mature, professional approach to enhance your prospects for landing a job you desire.

Conclusion

Employers can eliminate candidates from consideration based on information available in the public domain. In your job search, you can leverage the networking advantage of the internet by being conscious of the professional image you project online. Generate a positive first impression that can complement an employer’s perceptions from appraising your résumé.

Inspirational Quotations #154

January 28, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Affliction comes to us all not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us, as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us, as the plough enriches the field; to multiply our joy, as the seed, by planting, is multiplied a thousand-fold.
—Henry Ward Beecher (American Protestant Clergyman)

More important than talent, strength, or knowledge is the ability to laugh at yourself and enjoy the pursuit of your dreams.
—Amy Grant

Be great in act, as you have been in thought. Suit the action to the word and the word to the action.”
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober, not to make us sorry but wise.
—Henry Ward Beecher (American Protestant Clergyman)

The finest lives, in my opinion, are those who rank in the common model, and with the human race, but without miracle, without extravagance.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)

The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
—George Boardman (American Baptist Minister)

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.
—Italian Proverb

Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader.
—George S. Patton (American Military Leader)

Judging People: Talent is more than Skin-Deep

January 25, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Perception and Reality are Often Poles Apart

At a non-profit organization, I work with two members of the support staff. Sally and Diane (names and context changed for anonymity) joined the organization five months ago and report to the branch manager.

Sally is young, energetic and talks loudly; however, she lacks initiative, has difficulty following-up on assignments and needs constant reminders. Diane is experienced, thorough at work and gets her assignments done promptly; she is quiet and has an introverted personality.

Sally recently had an opportunity to coordinate the visit of the Executive Director of the non-profit organization. The executive was impressed with Sally’s abilities and asked the branch manager to give Sally a raise with a promotion. The branch manager, who had not spent a lot of time with Sally, shared this initial assessment on Sally and agreed.

Having interacted with Sally and Diane extensively, I considered Sally’s promotion unfortunate. Diane was more deserving of promotion for her hard work, initiative and promise for advancement.

Learn to Look Beyond the Surface

Our first impressions are usually deceptive and incomplete. We tend to judge people based on their appearance, their mannerisms (smile, handshake, liveliness, etc.) and their tone. However, reality runs deeper than what is visible at the surface.

Know what you are looking for. Develop evaluation criteria and write them down. For instance, assume you are looking for a project manager to lead a new product development. Write down what skills and attributes a good project manager should possess. What should be the ideal background? Would you like the candidate to have had experience leading projects of similar size and scope? Did the projects complete on-time and within assigned budgets?
Do not judge people because you share common characteristics. An example: A hiring manager I worked with sometime ago brought a candidate onsite just because the candidate’s resume listed membership in the manager’s favorite charitable group. None of the other interviewers was impressed with the candidate’s leadership skills (among other attributes). The hiring manager realized his mistake and remarked, “I thought everybody that participated in [activity] with [charitable group’s name] was a natural leader.”
Check the opinions of others who may have had different perspectives in other contexts. For instance, in job interviewing, talk to all the references that a candidate provided and ask specific questions about the candidate. Talk to independent references wherever available. In particular, seek objective people who have long experience working with the candidate.

Conclusion

As professionals, we are often required to judge job candidates based on an hour of interviewing or induct team members based on minimal acquaintances. Hence, judging people for their talent and personality is a vital skill for managers. To discover others, we need to go beyond perceptions and learn more about their experiences, thoughts and actions to understand them better.

Question: Do you have interesting stories about judging people from perceptions? Please share them in the comments section.

Is Showing up Late to a Meeting a Sign of Power?

January 23, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

Blog reader Devan from Kuching, Malaysia asks:

A new executive in my company habitually arrives late to meetings and appointments, even if he can be on time. Could he be trying to show off his power?

Devan, I am not sure. It is never easy to form an opinion based on a few observations.

It is true that power can corrupt: a few ‘powerful’ people tend to grow more oblivious to what other people think when they gain more power. Others think more positively about power and grow more generous as they gain more responsibilities.

The desire to feel important drives some to have other people wait for them before starting meetings or, worse, to restart the meeting upon arriving late. This is irrational behavior.

Is showing up early to a meeting a sign of weakness?

Another prevalent belief is that showing up earlier is a sign of vulnerability and that showing up later gives an ‘control’ in the proceedings of the meeting. Or that, showing up earlier is a sign of being too organized or overly anxious about the outcome of the meeting.

In reality, being punctual and organized in keeping appointments is a sign of respect for the value of others’ time and a critical component of professional behavior.

Inspirational Quotations #153

January 22, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.
—Thomas Szasz (Hungarian Psychiatrist)

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
—William Blake (English Poet)

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Be neither a conformist or a rebel, for they are really the same thing. Find your own path, and stay on it.
—Paul Vixie (American Scientist)

In actual life every great enterprise begins with and takes its first step forward in faith.
—August Wilhelm Schlegel

Just because something is tradition doesn’t make it right.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo

To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.
—Sam Keen

Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.
—Malcolm Muggeridge (English Journalist)

There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in stranger’s gardens.
—Douglas William Jerrold (English Dramatist)

Inspirational Quotations #152

January 15, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.
—Brian Tracy (American Author)

Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.
—Alice Walker

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.
—Alice Walker

Examine the contents, not the bottle.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

The moment avoiding failure becomes your motivation, you’re down the path of inactivity. You stumble only if you’re moving.
—Roberto Goizueta (Cuban Businessperson)

Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

To get to heaven we must take it with us.
—Henry Drummond

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.
—George S. Patton (American Military Leader)

Throw a lucky man into the sea, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth.
—Arabic Proverb

Two Essential PowerPoint Slideshow Tips

January 14, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

‘B’ for Blank Screen, ‘W’ for White Screen

Powerpoint slideshow: Presenter should be the focus During a presentation, when you are running a slideshow in PowerPoint, you may want to divert the attention of your audience away from the contents of your PowerPoint slide. When you are answering a question on a topic unrelated to a current slide, you may not want the audience to focus on the illustrations or graphs on your slide. Instead, you may want to be the focus of their attention.

If you press the ‘B’ key or the ‘.’ key during your PowerPoint slideshow, the screen will go blank. This will enable you to redirect your audience’s attention to yourself and your talk. When you are ready to continue, press the ‘B’ key or the ‘.’ key to resume the slideshow.
Alternately, press the ‘W’ key or the ‘,’ key to display a white screen. Press the ‘W’ key or the ‘,’ key a second time to resume the slideshow.

In general, it is always a good idea to have a blank screen to help get your audience to focus on you when beginning or concluding your presentation, introducing yourself or answering questions. The later versions of Microsoft PowerPoint end with a blank “End of slideshow, click to exit” screen by default.

[Number] + Enter to Transit to a Particular Slide

As with all communication processes, your PowerPoint slides and verbal presentation should consist of a logical flow of ideas and supporting material. Unfortunately, presenters often overlook this necessity.

Presenters habitually transit to a prior slide to show a graph or some data— “As I said in slide four…let me go to slide number four…here it is… .” Alternately, they sometimes transit to a further slide or to a slide in the appendix— “Edward, I am glad you brought that up…in fact, I included a chart in the last slide…let me show it to you now… .”

Moving to a prior slide or a further slide (by using the ‘Page Up’ or ‘Page Down’ keys) can distract the audience. If you must transit to a particular slide, hit the slide number and press ‘Enter.’ Note down the current slide number to use when you want to resume the slideshow. Refer to your handouts or a printout of your slideshow for slide numbers.

Additional

In the PowerPoint slideshow mode, hit the ‘F1’ key to access a list of keyboard shortcuts you can use during slideshows.
My article from November, ‘You, not Your Slides, are Your Presentation,’ offers tips on engaging your audience during public speaking.

How Hard You Should Work

January 12, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

People are surprised when I tell them I put in 70 to 75 hours of work every week and get about five hours of sleep every day. The typical responses are “Your Company makes you do that much work?” Or, “Doesn’t your boss realize that is a lot of work?”

The New World of Work

We live in a world characterized by intense competition, globalization, greater volatility than before, and demands for higher personal effectiveness. To be successful in the new world of work, we cannot stipulate the specific number of hours we should put in every day. Our accomplishment in these hours, not the number of hours, is the yardstick of our performance assessment. In fact, a 65 to 70 hour workweek has become the norm for getting ahead in leadership roles.

What Works for You

My guideline for how long you should work is, “Work as many hours as you think you need to achieve your goals, realize your aspirations and be happy.”

Note the emphasis on individuality in the above statement. Not everybody faces the same kind of demands; not everybody is equally productive. Nor does everybody have the same kind of aspirations. The number of hours you should work should depend on the opportunities you face and what you intend to do with them. It is a choice you have to make—a choice between components of your personal and professional lives.

If you are an entrepreneur, you may need to work 80-90 hours a week developing your idea; this involves sacrificing out-of-work activities. If you have an eight-to-five job, wish to spend lots of time with family and attend all of your son’s football games, you may work as little as forty hours a week, the minimum expected at your workplace. However, this may involve slower job growth. If you are a stay-at-home mom, and would like to put your engineering skills to good use, you may find a job that will allow you to work out of home. Make the appropriate choices and chart your life course on what works best for you.

Links

A year-2002 study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation concluded that the average American employee works 46 hours per week; see reference.
General Electric’s Chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Immelt is regarded as one of the hardest working executives in corporate America. An article written by Geoffrey Colvin of the Fortune magazine in September 2005 quotes Jeff Immelt saying he works 100 hours a week. See this article for insights to Jeff’s disciplined work style.

Inspirational Quotations #151

January 8, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Climb high, climb far.|Your goal is the sky, your aim the star.
—Unknown

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn … and change.
—Carl Rogers (American Psychologist)

By depending on the great,|The small may rise high.|See: the little plant ascending the tall tree|Has climbed to the top.
—Sakya Pandita

Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.
—Pythagoras (Greek Philosopher)

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.
—Plato (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you could n’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that ‘s just the place and time that the tide ‘ll turn. Never trust to prayer without using every means in your power, and never use the means without trusting in prayer.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (American Abolitionist)

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

There is no gathering the rose without being pricked by the thorns.
—Panchatantra

There is one art of which every man should be a master—the art of reflection.—If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all?
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

Expressing regret or apologizing: A critical component of leadership

January 7, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

Marshall Goldsmith, one of the world’s leading executive coaches, will release a new book on leadership skills next week. In ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There,’ Marshall focuses on interpersonal skills essential to lead people to get ahead in our careers.

In the current issue of the Business Week magazine, Marshall offers previews of two of the twenty critical interpersonal skills he covers in his book: (1) clinging to the past, and, (2) refusing to express regret.

On Refusing To Express Regret

Here are highlights of Marshall’s write-up on apologizing. Read the full article on Business Week magazine’s website.

Many of us have difficulty with expressing regret, or apologizing; we think apologizing means we have lost a contest. Refusing to apologize causes as much ill will in the workplace, and at home, as any other interpersonal flaw. [My note: I paraphrased the first sentence.]

Apologizing is one of the most powerful and resonant gestures in the human arsenal–almost as powerful as a declaration of love. If love means, “I care about you, and I’m happy about it,” then an apology means, “I hurt you, and I’m sorry about it.” It compels people to move forward into something new and, perhaps, wonderful together.

The best thing about apologizing is that it forces everyone to let go of the past. In effect, you are saying: “I can’t change the past. All I can say is I’m sorry for what I did wrong. I’m sorry it hurt you. There’s no excuse and I will try to do better in the future.” That’s tough for even the most cold-hearted to resist.

Making Mistakes is Human Nature

We all err from time to time. Our reaction and follow-up to our errors and missteps reflects greatly on our character. Recognize your slip-ups, express regret and say ‘Sorry.’

Humbly admitting mistakes and apologizing is a critical component of leadership, both in our personal and professional lives. Admission of mistakes and careful distillation of lessons learned, in fact, can strengthen the bond between you and the people around you.

Archives for January 2007

MySpace is Everybody’s Space

Save Yourself from Embarrassment from your Online Content

Conclusion

Wondering what to read next?

Perception and Reality are Often Poles Apart

Learn to Look Beyond the Surface

Conclusion

Wondering what to read next?

Is showing up early to a meeting a sign of weakness?

Wondering what to read next?

‘B’ for Blank Screen, ‘W’ for White Screen

[Number] + Enter to Transit to a Particular Slide

Additional

Wondering what to read next?

The New World of Work

What Works for You

Links

Wondering what to read next?

On Refusing To Express Regret

Making Mistakes is Human Nature