How Long Should A Job Search Take?

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Liz Ryan has a great article over on the Forbes website entitled, “How Long Should A Job Search Take?”.

Liz writes:

“I hate to think about the number of times I’ve sat on a panel and heard a fellow panelist say “As a job-seeker, you have to prepare for the long haul. It could take months and months to find the right job.”

Every time I heard that I kept the fake plastic smile pasted on my face, because I’m an actress. I was raging inside.

I am sick and tired of hearing standard brainless job-search advice repeated like it was gospel, including the line ‘Expect to spend months looking for your next job.’ “

She goes on to say:

“When you teach people to be passive and wait patiently for a broken system to grind its way along, you disempower them.”

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Jan Ramroth http://ow.ly/TVvvF
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Jan Ramroth http://ow.ly/TVvvF

Liz is absolutely right.

It’s funny how we routinely defer to the advice of the so-called ‘experts’ – and often to our own determent.

I learned early in my career not to listen to the ‘experts’.

At the first Recruiting Firm I worked at, I remember returning to the office after the long Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend.  I was surprised that the office lacked its usual buzz.  It seemed like no one was on the phones.  The office was quiet.

I walked over to Dan, one of the Sr. Recruiters and asked him what was going on.  Dan looked up from the newspaper he was reading and said to me, “Kid, it’s the Holiday Season.  No one is going to be hiring between now and New Year’s Day.  Everything is going to be quiet. You’ll just have to sit tight and wait for hiring to pick up again after the Holidays.”

Unfortunately, at that time I was broke and had a young family to support. I did not have the luxury to sit around and wait.  So I did the only thing I knew how to do – I got on the phone and just “smiled & dialed”.  And you know what – that December was my best month billing as a Recruiter.

And – going forward – for every year thereafter – I found that December is always one of my strongest months for the year.

After that experience, I decided that I would ignore the advice of the so-called experts. I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for business to pick up. I was always going to go out and make something happen.

And my experience as a Recruiter mirrors Liz Ryan’s advice to job seekers.

In the article, Liz advises job seekers that they should not just sit around and expect their job search to last a certain predetermined amount of months because some so-called expert claims that is the case.

As Liz writes:

“You have way more influence on your marketability, your job search and your career than you think you have.“

Humans Are Underrated – Geoff Colvin’s new book

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I read an article this morning on Fortune magazine’s website entitled, “Humans Are Underrated”.  The article is adapted from Geoff Colvin’s upcoming book by the same title.

The article discusses Geoff’s premise that technology continues to grow at an incredible pace.  Computers are able to perform increasingly complicated tasks that no one ever anticipated them having the ability to perform.  Computers are beating Grandmasters in Chess.  Computers are starting to drive cars. It seems everywhere we turn – computers are replacing human.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Kumar’s Edit http://ow.ly/Q4ztT
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Kumar’s Edit http://ow.ly/Q4ztT

But there is definitely hope…

According to Geoff – humans should stop trying to beat the machines at the tasks that machines are designed to do. Instead humans should focus on developing the skills and abilities that are distinctly human.

He goes into more detail in the article regarding what are the specific skills and abilities that we need to develop to not only survive but to thrive in the future.

It is an incredible read….

I am waiting to get a copy of the book – and I will blog about it in more detail at a later date.

But if you have time – wander over to Fortune’s website and read the article.

You’ll be glad you did….

People Without Facebook Accounts Are ‘Suspicious’

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I had written an earlier post about How To Clean Up Your Social Media During The Job Search.

And this is still a good idea…

But while cleaning up those ‘crazy party photos’, some job seekers may be tempted to take their clean-up to the next level and simply delete their Facebook account and shut down their entire social media presence.

That however, may not be such a good idea….

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Marco Paköeningrat http://ow.ly/MZBVs
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Marco Paköeningrat http://ow.ly/MZBVs

According to author Kashmir Hill in her Forbes magazine article entitled, Beware, Tech Abandoners. People Without Facebook Accounts Are ‘Suspicious’.

In the article, Kashmir writes:

Anecdotally, I’ve heard both job seekers and employers wonder aloud about what it means if a job candidate doesn’t have a Facebook account. Does it mean they deactivated it because it was full of red flags? Are they hiding something?

While she admits that people may be avoiding social media for any number of valid reasons (e.g. the person finds social media too addictive and prefers to avoid it), she goes on to write:

But it does seem that increasingly, it’s expected that everyone is on Facebook in some capacity, and that a negative assumption is starting to arise about those who reject the Big Blue Giant’s siren call. Continuing to navigate life without having this digital form of identification may be like trying to get into a bar without a driver’s license.

So job seekers not only should not shut down their Social Media presence – they should continue to maintain their various Social Media accounts.

And in fact – in this day and age – not having a Social Media presence may actually hinder you during your job search.

 

How Managers Should Say Goodbye to Your Employees

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Kevin Chou over on LinkedIn Pulse has a wonderful post about how to say goodbye to an employee who is leaving for a position at another company.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Reynermedia http://ow.ly/LPaKq
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Reynermedia http://ow.ly/LPaKq

Kevin writes:

“As founding CEO of Kabam, I take a certain pride in saying goodbye to my employees. But not in a Donald Trump-like “You’re Fired!” way.

When I do my job right, Kabam employees rapidly grow their skills and advance their careers. An unfortunate bi-product is Kabam employees also rise to A-list status with industry recruiters. Retaining high performers is almost as difficult as hiring them in the first place, and sometimes we lose people to other companies. When that happens, saying goodbye is bittersweet. I don’t like to lose valued employees, but I am proud to have given them the opportunity to grow in their careers and become even more marketable.”

Kevin’s words echo the sentiment of a good client and good friend of mine.  About 15 years ago, he said to me:

“Being a good manager is a lot like being a good parent.  A good parent spends time with their child preparing them for the future.  They teach them, challenge them and help that child to grow.  And at some point, the child will “leave the nest” and venture forth into the world.  While the parent will obviously has some degree of sadness when their child leaves – no good parent would ever attempt to stop the child from leaving.  Instead the parent will possess a sense of pride in the future success of that child and rightfully feel that they have helped play a role in their future success.

Good managers should act the same way.”

Sage advice indeed….

 

 

Mark Zuckerberg – The One Question He Asks Before Hiring A New Employee

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Interesting article over on ABC News re: Mark Zuckerberg’s hiring philosophy.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Jason McELweenie
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Jason McElweenie

The Facebook CEO is quoted as saying:

“I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person…It’s a pretty good test.”

I agree with Mark’s assessment.

One thing I was told early in my career as a Recruiter was that a good way to judge how a Hiring Manager’s competence was was to see who they hired.  Competent managers tended to hire strong candidates. Incompetent managers tended to hire weak candidates.  The reason for this – competent managers want to bring strong, accomplished employees in their departments because they feel that strong employees make for a strong organizations.  Incompetent managers see strong employees as a threat.

So while you may not agree with everything Mark Zuckerberg says, or you may not agree with every change in policy on Facebook, you have to admit that Facebook is a well run company.  And Mark Zuckerberg’s hiring philosophy is a good reason why.

Peter Drucker on the Importance of Focus

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Peter Drucker was a legendary Management Consultant who passed away at the age of 95 in 2005.
He was the author of classics such as “The Practice of Management”, “The Effective Executive” & “Drucker on Management”.
Forbes magazine deemed him “the founder of modern management”.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Isaac Mao http://ow.ly/IaclN
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by © Isaac Mao http://ow.ly/IaclN

One of my favorite quotes of his appears in his autobiography, Adventures of a Bystander.

Drucker wrote:

“Bucky Fuller and Marshall McLuhan exemplify to me the importance of being single-minded.  The single-minded ones, the monomaniacs, are the only true achievers.  The rest, the ones like me, may have more fun; but they fritter themselves away.  The Fullers and the McLuhans carry out a ‘mission’, the rest of us have ‘interests’.  Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.”

We are all too often guilty of loading too much on our plates.  We waste time on Facebook or Twitter.  We binge-watch episodes of House of Cards.  Or we spread ourselves too thin when we decide that we are going  to start a garden, and train for a marathon and learn Spanish – all within the next 6 months.

Bottom line – Drucker’s advice is prudent.

If we really want to accomplish something that is important to us, whether it is building our careers or raising a family, we would be better served if – instead of ‘frittering’ ourselves away – we focused our time & energies on that one “mission”.

When we are focused & diligent – only then we can succeed…..

 

 

Warren Buffett’s Career Advice

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Warren Buffett is a legendary investor without peer – but the Oracle of Omaha can offer some sage career advice as well.

Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by Aaron Friedman http://ow.ly/HDTa1
Image Courtesy of Creative Commons by Aaron Friedman http://ow.ly/HDTa1

According to a post on the Lifehacker site:

“Fortune magazine drops in on a Q&A Warren Buffett offered to 150 business students, and the advice dispensed by the Oracle of Omaha on investing and money in general is elegantly simple. 

When one student asked Buffett how to best spend his free time to further his investing knowledge, Buffett avoided generalized advice and told him to stick to what he knows. Fortune paraphrases:

For most people, the bulk of their income is going to come from earning power in their chosen profession. Therefore, from the standpoint of building wealth, free time is better spent sharpening one’s professional skills rather than studying investing.“

Warren’s advice is prudent.

But how many of us actually do this?  How many of us actually spend our free time doing things that will enable us to get better at our jobs and make us more marketable?

As a Recruiter, I often hear people lament about how their careers are stagnant, or that they are not earning what they think they are worth.  But when I ask them what are they doing to invest in themselves and get better at their jobs, often there is no response.

Maybe – if we are really serious about developing our careers – we should follow Warren’s advice and spend more time developing our professional skills and less time following other pursuits.

Maybe we should all start investing in ourselves.

 

2014 – America’s best year of job growth since 1999

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2014 ended up being America’s best year for job growth since 1999 according to a post by Matt Egan and Heather Long on the CNN website.

According to the post:

“More than 2.95 million jobs were created last year, according to the latest figures from the Department of Labor.

It’s encouraging news as the U.S. tries to put the Great Recession and sluggish recovery solidly behind it. Many economists expect 2015 to be equally as strong, if not better, for job seekers….’American businesses are on a hiring binge,’ said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. ‘It clearly suggests the economy is on a much stronger growth track than the first four years of the recovery.'”

But the news wasn’t all good.

The article continues:

“While job growth continues to pick up steam, wages have not. The government said average hourly earnings fell slightly in December from the previous month.”

Nevertheless, while wage growth has been negligible, the overall jobs situation is still much stronger than it has been in years.

And that is good news for all of us….

7 Signs You Should Leave Your Job

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As we enter a New Year, now is a good time to review your current job situation.

Time Magazine’s website has a great article on this very topic entitled: 7 Signs You Should Leave Your Job (Sooner Rather Than Later).

The article’s author – Camillo Cho – lists the following signs:

  1. You’re Living the Status Quo
  2. You Don’t Get Feedback
  3. You’re Not Learning
  4. There’s a Constant Exodus
  5. There’s Regular Re-structuring
  6. Headhunters Want You
  7. It Feels Like Time to Go

You can read more detailed explanations regarding the 7 signs in  the complete article on Time’s website here.

If none of the above listed signs apply to you, then you should definitely stay where you are.

But if you find yourself nodding in agreement as you read down the list, it may be time to polish up the old resume…

Jobs Outlook for 2015

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According to economists, the job market will continue to strengthen in 2015.

Paul Davidson, in an article in USA Today wrote:

A strengthening labor market will not let up this year, economists say, with job growth approaching or exceeding the estimated 15-year high reached in 2014.

Later in the article, Davidson writes:

This year, many economists expect low gasoline prices and rising household wealth to drive consumer spending, offsetting weakness overseas and helping the economy to grow at least 3%, vs. an estimated 2.4% in 2014.

That, along with more bullish employers, should power average monthly job gains to 250,000 to 300,000, says Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for The Economic Outlook Group.

This is definitely the type of news we all enjoy hearing….