May 21, 2010

How to Avoid the Job Search Struggle

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a road sign saying career change ahead

Here’s the common long way to do your job search: (afterward, I’ll show you the fast way)

1. start sighing, and begin your job search (sighing every so often to spur you on)

2. find and read tarted-up job spec ads designed to promise you a wonderful career doing wonderful things with wonderful people (ensure you don’t think about your long future ahead at all – instead picture yourself working in that role for just one day in the near future, nod your head, and follow their application instructions)

3. jump through the hoops they lay out for you, with your tongue out and panting if you like, make sure your hope is turned up to maximum

4. tart your own CV/resume up to match the big promises they made on the exciting job ad.  Create a new ‘you’ that makes the real you feel slightly inadequate and uneasy – ask your mate who works in a different field to check it, for some reason.  Spelling or something.  Get ready for him to say “yeah it’s fine”.  Thank him for his role in your bright future

5. realise you don’t understand cover letters properly.  Google to find a lame article that states the obvious and doesn’t really help you any further.  Make sure the article is off one of those vague ‘how to’ sites, because that’s where everyone else goes

6. wait to be accepted for interview.  Know full well that you really should keep job hunting, but instead decide to relax a little in case you get the offer on what you’re waiting for.  You don’t want to waste your efforts after all

7. fail to get the offer.  Get a bit annoyed at them for judging you like they have.  They probably didn’t even read your resume properly, idiots.  Tell your mates that the competition is high for this sort of thing.  Ensure you don’t even consider the limitations to how you come across once your colourful personality has been drained of it’s colour and you’ve been squashed into black ink on white paper, like everyone else

8. repeat steps 1 to 7 quite a few times

9. get an interview offer from one company and start getting nervous because you’ll have to pretend in person that you’re the star you wrote about in your resume. Check your resume again to remind yourself how you must act when you meet them

10. attend interview and act your way through it.  Whatever happens, don’t think about the 4 grey walls you’re working hard to secure a position between for the foreseeable future.  Ensure you do wonder what the people who work there are like, but don’t ask to meet any of them in case you look nosey

11. fail this interview, and a few others, go back to step 1 and repeat until you get accepted by one eventually

12.  discover to your astonishment months down the line that this isn’t what you thought life was all about.  Wonder why your life has come to this.  Come up with some reasons why your colleagues are annoying.  Tell your friends all about it

13.  get caught crying, but pretend it’s something in your eye so that your work friends don’t laugh at you


Or, you could go about your ‘job search’ this way:

1.  starting with a clean slate, identify your perfect career. Know exactly what it is – you can find your perfect career using my e-course

2.  identify who you most want to work for, and what you could do for them, whether they’re employing people or not right now. Research them thoroughly using contacts, the media and relevant websites.  Find out what’s ahead for them, what challenges they may be up against, what their competitors are up to,  and where you could probably add value. Note this

3.  know that because you’re aligned perfectly to do this sort of work and provide this sort of value to this sort of company (because you’ve planned thoroughly and arrived at this conclusion) then securing employment with them is going to be much easier than it would be applying for any other position anywhere else, and certainly much easier than the conventional job search process.  You’re a round peg in a round hole

4.  use Linkedin or similar social networking sites to locate a decision maker who’s as close as possible to your desired role and who might connect you to this company.  Learn about them as best you can.  Then start working for them right now, from home if you can.  Huh?  Come up with some plans, ideas, or improvements to something related to this person or the organisation, if you can.  Provide them with some relevant value somehow.  Demonstrate what you could do for them, just as a taster.  You love doing this anyway, so enjoy yourself.  Now’s also a good time to gather any comments or testimonials from other people who you’ve done similar work for.  Anything to back up your case

5.  contact them and share what you’ve been working on with them, and your testimonials if you have any.  Offer to work for them for free for 1 or 2 weeks.  This is less time than you’ll likely spend on your conventional job search, and it’s more enjoyable and productive too.  Tell them it’s your perfect career, and tell them why you’ve singled them out as being the best company to work for (and why you chose them over their competitors).  Tell them (or show them) that you’re practically born to work for them, and ask to work either for them directly or for one of their direct reports, for free, for 1-2 weeks

6.  Polish yourself up, make a plan to knock their socks off, get plenty of feedback and over-deliver to them for 2 weeks (loving every minute of it because it’s your ideal career).  Give yourself some good reasons to feel proud.  Ask to meet the decision maker for lunch at least once a week.  Ask questions, and seek problems that your boss and colleagues suffer from that you could solve.  Make as much impact as you can and as many contacts as you can whilst working there. Be very nice to everyone.  You’ll do this almost automatically because you’re so passionate about what you do.  Passion like that can’t help but shine through.  Don’t forget to tell them that you’re really keen to work for them full time and ask how you might go about getting full time employment there

7.  Get the good work you’ve done noticed by the decision maker somehow.  Try to work out a plan or job role that you could take on moving ahead with this company.  Have the conversation with the decision maker to work out next steps, and ask for more contacts

From that strong position, you’ll most likely find that you land a job in your perfect company in your perfect career in much much less time than you would have spent doing a conventional job search.

If not, you’ll have the experience to build upon by repeating the process with another company.  If the decision maker turns you down for now, they’ll almost certainly write you a glowing appraisal and give you further contacts to help you along your way.  But only if you ask for this.

Almost everything about this process makes more sense than doing the conventional job search which is tiring, and hit and miss.  You’re playing a different game this way – a game that you can win.  You’ll increase your chances, get in a stronger position, and you’ll get your ladder up against the right wall.  All you then have to do is climb it.

The Great Career Escape will help you find and get in to your ideal career and provide you with plenty more ideas like this to help you create a highly rewarding living.

May 3, 2010

How to Leap Ahead in Your Career

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Hand holding chess piece

I’m going to show you how you can make a huge leap of progress in your career.

I meet plenty of people through my work, all at different stages in their career.  It doesn’t take me long to decide which of three general attitudes they have towards their work:

1.  There are those who think they’re on a moving walkway in their career.  They think that just because they’re employed in a certain position, that all it takes is time for them to move up the ranks, and that in 30 years they’ll be in a successful, senior position.  It happens to some, but not to most (how can it work for everyone when there’s only a few places at the top anyway?)  If that’s you, then you can leap forwards in your career by understanding my next point…

2.  There are those who realise that there’s no moving walkway, and that no one owes them anything, that it’s not a fair playing field they’re playing on, and that they won’t get their ‘turn’.  They realise that if they want more back from their career, their employer or their life, then they’re going to have to get up and make it happen themselves.  You have to earn what you want.  Their priority is to get their hands on what they need to learn, and then put it into practice as fast and effectively as possible. They can leap forwards in their career by learning how to learn twice as fast (they need their employer to provide them with something like this) and learning how to manage themselves effectively to apply what they learn fluidly and consistently.

3.  There are those who just don’t care.  They just potter along.  They just go to work because, well you have to don’t you?  They’re in the wrong job.  Because when you’re in the right job, you do care.  You’re compelled to make things happen and do a great job, because you enjoy doing just that, and you’re proud of the results you create.  Unfortunately, those who don’t care about their career progress because they’re in the wrong job are unlikely to be reading this blog post.  So you might need to point them towards what they need, which is this.


Join the Queue?

Brian Tracy says that you only have to do 2 things to get to the front of a queue, or to advance your career:  ‘Get in line and stay in line.’

The truth is, you don’t have to stay in line where you’re at.  You can jump the career queue, and the beauty is, it’s a fair jump too. You earn the right to jump the queue by becoming more valuable to those who pay you (and to your colleagues too).  And it’s not a single line anyway.  It’s a mass huddle of people.  It’s a crowd.  It’s like a chess board full of pieces, and you can move like a knight.  You can jump people sideways, if you like, to get to where you want.

Just follow these steps:

1.  work out what position you want to be in and why (make it a position you really care about and will be proud of)
2.  work out what value you’d need to provide to who (and how often) in order to earn the right to be in that position
3.  work out what you need to LEARN and then APPLY in order to provide that value
4.  learn it
5.  apply it
6.  repeat

Of course there are plenty of stumbling points along the way, and there are ways to move through these steps faster, more easily and enjoyably too. If you’ve got a question for me related to this, please post it below or email me and I may blog my response.

April 2, 2010

Employees: Earn More for Less Effort

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People often say ‘you get out what you put it’.  Rubbish.  You can get loads more back than you put in, if you ‘put in’ to the right places in the right ways at the right times.  Whatever you’re currently getting out of your work, you can almost certainly get much more.

How?

I learned this lesson from Michael Gerber in the book ‘The E-Myth Revisited’.  It applies to business owners, but equally applies to employees too.  Michael Gerber mentions that whilst working in your business, you should also be working on your business.  As well as doing the day to day stuff that you get paid to do, you should be giving plenty of attention to strengthening, organising and growing your business too.  You should be planning ahead, deciding which way you’ll move and ultimately building a money making machine that’s as near to self-perpetuating as possible.  You should build your business to free yourself.

How Do You Do it as an Employee?

Whilst working in your career, you should be working on your career.  Few people do.  They don’t want to spend the time.  But it’s an investment.  If you take a little bit of extra time to think ahead, plan, choose your direction, and try to ‘build’ the value you provide in to something as near to self-perpetuating as possible, then you’re on to something rewarding.

If a business owner can strive to build a money making machine that eventually frees themself, then why can’t you as an employee?  Have you ever thought about it?  Can you stop selling your time and instead work out how to still give high value by somehow bottling up the value you provide?  When you’re explaining things to others, or teaching them, can you bottle up your words so that they can listen again if they need to and so that your words can reach others, freeing you from saying them again?  That’s so easy to do these days, but few people do it.  And that’s just one example.

For every task you do, how can you work in such a way that your efforts can be re-used when you’re not there?

Think about it.  Get some answers.  Write them down and schedule to try them out.  And enjoy what comes of it.

P.S. The smartest way to earn more for less effort is to get in to the right line of work in the first place.  Working on your career means purposefully steering yourself towards the highest rewards you want by exchanging the best of yourself.  My new site ‘The Great Career Escape’ helps you do that and you can create a free account: http://thegreatcareerescape.com

There’s also a free ebook on the home page which you might find interesting..

March 17, 2010

Become Indispensable

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I sent this post out as a newsletter back in 2008. For those who missed it, it’s worth a look:

My advice this month was given to me 10 years ago by a colleague who I deeply respected.  It still holds true and I often think about it.  He explained to me that to increase your value and earn more money, and increase the chances of continuous employment you should purposefully become indispensable to your employer or your customers.

He explained that often there is money to be made in the jobs that most people don’t want to do or can’t easily do.  He explained that in every organisation there are certain important areas in which few people, if any, are expert.  And that if you make it your mission to become the expert in any of these areas, then you’ve just made yourself instantly valuable.  Especially if you can create value and impact in your work that no one else can.  That’s when they need you.

When you reach that level, people keep coming to you.  Word of mouth soon travels when you can do something truly useful (and relevant) that no one else around can do.  You (and the value you provide) get free advertising.

With that of course comes bargaining power.  You should become more in demand, so long as you choose the right area to become expert in.  And with that, your (employment) price can go up.

But you must not get complacent!  Times are changing so fast these days that it’s healthy to assume that whatever niche area you are expert in will become obsolete in the next 5 years.  So you must keep learning of course, and keep an eye on which areas to dominate as THE expert.

Give this some thought.  It could change your career and your lifestyle forever.  And of course, if you want to become indispensable fast, then you should learn how to learn fast and self manage effectively so that you can put what you learn into practice in the right way at the right times.

Finally, it’s much easier to become indispensable when you’re in your ideal career. Are you?  If you’d like to find your ideal career because you’re not happy in your current one, drop me a note. I might have a surprise for you.

Help Yourself and Your Organisation

Since 2003 I’ve helped businesses and corporates in the UK and Australia grow high value engaged employees who:

  • learn fast and adapt quickly
  • become highly productive
  • think like a business

Here’s what they’ve said.

If you think I might help you or your organisation, then either get in touch, or put them in touch with me.

March 8, 2010

How You Limit What You Earn

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The problem a lot of employees have during their work is they get paid to perform a specific set of actions, so they rarely tend to do anything outside of these.  Why should they if they’re not getting paid to?  That’s the common mentality.

Unfortunately, the deal they’ve agreed to keeps them firmly in place, and for many stifles their potential value and input.  Neither they nor their employers get the rewards they’re capable of creating.  The thinking is set, the actions are set, the pay is set and the rewards are set.  And all the while the thinking is set, the others won’t really change.

Entrepreneurs and business owners are ‘free’ to move in any direction and know that they get paid more for thinking of new things, innovating, creating and acting way beyond a specific set of actions.  They know they need to look for problems and solve them.  They know they need to make order from chaos.  They know the pay and rewards come in the medium to long term.

The same rules and laws however apply to employees.  Don’t let your job description and pay limit and determine what you do.  Start thinking outside of what you’re paid to think.  Start looking for problems to solve, and create more order within your team or department and more order for your customers or those who pay you.  Ask yourself how you’d run things if you were the big boss?  Then, don’t just keep your ideas to yourself.  Use them to add more value, and steer things so that you earn yourself more rewards.

March 5, 2010

Big Decisions: Taking Risks

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Most people seem to throw around the idea that you must be a big ‘risk taker’ to make it in business.  It’s a viral message passed between people who haven’t thought about it enough.  Unfortunately it gets passed on to some poor hopeful who is rather risk-averse.  He definitely doesn’t want to risk making himself happier in life, in case it all backfires and he’s miserable.  So he chooses to stay put in his less-than-fulfilling job for the rest of his life.  Oh, the irony.

Let’s not pass this viral message on any longer until we’ve thought about it:

First up, everything you do, every decision is a risk.  So you’re a risk taker.

Second, you’re in business if you’re earning a living.  Whether you’re ‘making it’ or not in your career is for you to decide.

So the idea doesn’t mean all that much anyway.  It just means that you have to make some hard decisions to ‘make it’ in your career.  Yeah we know that.  The thing about risks, is they’re on a scale.  Low risk is still a risk.

And the thing about the majority of successful entrepreneurs and businesses is that they didn’t all take huge risks, despite things appearing that way.  That’s why they succeeded.  They took risks, yes, but they tipped the odds in their favour by researching, measuring, thinking and planning ahead.  It might look like a big risk to the casual observer.

Of course the real big risk takers, many of them failed.  Those who didn’t research ahead, think it all through, measure and act on the data.  You don’t hear so much about them as they tend to keep everything quiet.

Your job is to discover and decide where the risk vs opportunity is relatively low in your career decisions.  Then to do whatever you can to tip the odds even more in your favour.

If you let me drop you by helicopter in the centre of the bush in Australia, you’d be taking a huge risk.  But how could you reduce that risk?  You’d check I could pilot a helicopter first.  Then you’d learn all you can about bush survival.  You’d practice various life saving techniques perhaps and play out various scenarios in your mind to increase your survival.  You’d study a map of the area and take it with you, with enough supplies.

When well prepared, the risk is lower.  The opportunity and potential benefits may seriously outweigh the risks.

So learn, study up front, do your market research and plan contingencies and fallbacks for those big decisions you could make.  And if you don’t have a big decision ahead of you and you value the short time you have on this planet, go ahead and find one now, quickly.

March 3, 2010

Smarter Learning: The ‘Theory’ Rash

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A lot of people come out in a rash when they hear the word ‘theory’.

Theory is boring isn’t it?  We want the fun, hands on, useful practical stuff.  What you may not consider though is that the practical experience came before the theory (and will come again if we apply it).  The theory, usually, is developed from noticing cause and effect over time.  The theory is the learnable set of rules or observations that we can translate into action and results again.  Well…that’s the theory.

The big problem with theory these days is that it becomes out of date faster than ever.  Often, it no longer applies.  Things change so fast that we’re forever playing on a different playing field.  Or it applies to some people and not others.

So what can we do about it?

1.  Learn to recognise the theory or laws or rules that are timeless first of all.  Even then, be careful.

2.  Stop learning new theory and instead upgrade your learning ability.  Learn how to learn fast.  It’s a learnable skill.  You’ll need it moving ahead.  You’ll be forced to do it sooner or later, so you might as well cash in on it now and build your skill.

3.  Purposefully question everything you learn and ask yourself if it’s up to date and resonates well with you, whilst also being accurate and credible.  A hard one to answer sometimes, but do your best.  Definitely ask yourself these questions.  People can deliver up to date theory now online faster than ever before.  You can learn from someone’s actions that they took just hours or even minutes ago.  We’re all pulling together these days and sharing our own personal experiences.  It’s there if you look for it and connect to the right people.

4.  Remember that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

5.  Finally, my advice is track down 2 or 3 resources that are trustworthy, useful, enjoyable to learn from and help you keep up to date in your field or work.  They’re your ‘heartbeat’ in your work from now on.

Follow those steps and your ‘rash’ will disappear.

February 19, 2010

How to Fly High in Your Work

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This post is about flying solo in business, but the same ideas apply to you in your career too.

If you’re flying solo in your work or thinking about flying solo do you know clearly what sort of flight you’re going on?  Have you thought about:

  • where you’re flying to?
  • why you’re flying there?
  • what you’re going to do when you’re there?
  • how you’ll make your flight enjoyable?
  • what turbulence is ahead?
  • your flight safety and what to do in an emergency?
  • your fuel efficiency?
  • what sort of plane you’re in?

I offer this as a word of warning.  I meet plenty of people who work for themselves.  Some fly solo to get away from a bad or frustrating situation.  Some fly solo because they feel they have no choice.  Some fly solo because they just fancy it.  Some fly solo because they come into money via other means.  Of the business owners I’ve met like this, many haven’t known clearly where they’re going.  Some haven’t even seemed that bothered about the purpose of their flight.  Many have had a very bumpy flight.  Some have nose dived.

The business owners I meet who are flying high (or even looping the loop or victory rolling) tended to start differently.  They chose a different sort of flight.  They chose an important flight for them personally to make.  They plotted a course to fly to a specific large group of people quickly and help them.  They knew the common enemy of those people, and they flew to save them because they were strongly compelled to and knew they were the person to do so.  They knew they were skilled, strong, proud and passionate to save those people from their enemy.  And they knew the personal rewards it would bring them.  They also made a point of planning their flight thoroughly, looking for turbulence ahead (and knowing that there will be turbulence), doing safety checks and checking their radar and dials regularly.  They’re the business owners I’ve met who are making a difference and winning their battles against the common enemy.  They’re the heroes.

Flying solo is one thing, but choose your type of flight carefully.   You’re not in a stunt team – don’t fly to impress.  Don’t glide either.  Don’t fly to escape, or because you can afford your own airplane.  And don’t plod along on autopilot either.  If you’re going to fly solo, fly to make a real difference to people that you care about because you’re the best person to do so.  Choose a mission and fly as the hero to your chosen niche market, nothing else.

What mission and flight are you really on?  Do you need to land and plot a new course?

February 12, 2010

Make Your Employer or Customers Pay You More

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Ok, you can’t make them pay you more, but you can make decisions and act to provide more value to those who pay you.  In time you can then justify asking for more money, if you earn it.

Your goal should be to always make your ‘customers’ (or boss, or employer) SMILE.

That’s it.  Clear and simple.

Look after them, and they’ll look after you.

And if you deliver and they’re not smiling then change something to make them smile.  Do that every time and you can ask for more money.  At all costs, don’t leave the transaction without them smiling.

I just tried to exchange a shirt to a local clothes shop.  It had labels on, was unused and I had the bag and receipt.  “We don’t do exchanges”, she said.  I wasn’t left smiling.  I won’t pay them more money – it’s too risky.  Neither will I recommend people shop there.  In fact I’ll tell people to avoid the shop.  They clearly don’t strive to make their customers smile.

Big shops like K-Mart let you return or exchange just about anything.  They always leave me smiling in the end.  They help me get what I want.  So I buy more things there, knowing I’m looked after and left smiling.  I’d always recommend these sorts of shops.

I’m all for supporting local business, but not if they don’t support me.  And note, unfortunately in business, you usually get just one chance to get it right per customer.

Make This Useful to Your Own Work

Do you complete your transactions or projects ensuring you leave a smile on the person’s face who pays you?

Ever tried making them grin from ear to ear?

Ever done it again and again?

Maybe even every time?

That’s how you get paid more.

February 8, 2010

4 Decisions to Sort Your Life Out

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Reading time 3 mins

At the end of this post I offer you 4 decisions to sort your life and career out.  Don’t jump straight to them or you’ll fail to understand and do anything about them.

Learn to Get Whatever You Want

‘Learning’ is the key to just about anything.  Anyone can learn how to get what they want in their work or life.  Anyone can learn how to make smarter decisions, how to solve problems they face, and how to get good at what they do for a living.  But, to learn these things effectively is a huge challenge because of…

The (Flawed) System

The system keeps you in place.  The traditional educational system is hard to avoid.  It lurks everywhere, in business and organisations too.  And it feeds itself.  Graduates of the traditional educational system tend to refuel it and design and deliver learning the way it was for them.  Teachers often teach the way they were taught.  Managers often educate their teams the way they were educated.  It ‘works’ for people like them, but fails everyone else.  It maintains the status quo within it’s own bubble.  It keeps the flawed system the same.  Unfortunately then, the system won’t help you get what you want.  It won’t help you sort your life out.

No One is Coming to Save You

Individuals have to protect and save themselves from the system, because unfortunately it seems most educational institutions aren’t coming to save you.

Yes, there’s a lot of talk within educational institutions about traditional approaches not working.  Most people are nodding.  But still the tendency is to drift back to old ways and give the educators the most control rather than the learners.

How Learning Should Be

Effective learning is about learners learning and applying what they learn.  Learners are at the centre of learning.  It’s not about teaching.  There’s way too much focus on the teacher or presenter.

It’s about making the learning content available in a number of ways and styles that suits all learners, then leading and inspiring them to seek out the right ‘meal’, and swallow and apply the learning content for a win:win.

A great presentation might go like this:

“Hi folks, I need 30 seconds of your attention, if you learn how to do this you’ll be able to get these results which will mean xyz for you personally.  To learn how, here is a list of 50 resources all chosen to teach the same thing in different ways so that you enjoy learning this fast.  Check them out and pick which suits you best.  Enjoy yourself.’

Free Yourself and Learn to Get What You Want

The internet points to this idea of how learning should be.  It will change the system gradually.  But it only works when the learner takes control and frees themself from the system.

That means that you must:

1.  DECIDE what ‘wins’ you  want in your work and life

2.  DECIDE how you can improve the lives of other people or businesses (and get them to confirm this) doing what you enjoy and are best at in order to create the win:win you want

3.  DECIDE what you need to learn and apply on top of your existing knowledge, experience and strengths, to get these win:wins as fast, effectively and enjoyably as possible

4.  Seek out and DECIDE on the most effective way for you personally to learn and apply the right things.  Do NOT trust that the traditional system will help you get the wins you chose at step 1.

NOTE:  These are all DECISIONS and can only be made by YOU. No one else.  Unfortunately ‘the system’ makes these decisions for most people.  Any educators, career advisors, managers, friends, family or any one who tries to take the reigns and decide any of these for you are not helping you or themselves.  People in the wrong jobs learning the wrong things in the wrong ways aren’t creating the value they could be for any one involved.  People making these decisions for you are part of ‘the system’.  They’re part of the problem.

All my work is aimed at helping people make these decisions for themselves.  Subscribing to my posts means you’ll receive practical tips and occasional goodies to help you in these areas.  Any questions, fire away below.

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