As a reminder, the Networking Brief is used when you want to tell people what you are looking for in your next step.  Don’t expect them to take out a piece of paper and jot down salient points.  It is your job to let them know with your personal commercial and with your Networking Brief.  This leaves the guesswork out of the game. The Networking Brief lets the recipient know exactly how you can be helped.  It is a one-page document that is easier for the recipient to keep on hand. 

A Networking Brief includes:

• your contact information,
• short summary (similar to your resume),
• several bullet points about why you are good,
• types of positions and industries you are interested in,
• connections you hope to make
• names of target companies if relevant (and which this sample so nicely shows).

A Networking Brief is not a resume. It does not include names of companies you have worked for or the names of your schools.  I would like you to use a filter when writing it.  That filter is:  does the recipient need this information to connect me with the people who can be most helpful to me?

Please use the links to see the new sample.  Remember, this might not be the right style for you but I did want you to see it and I do thank the person who has allowed me to share it.   See Network brief john jones final

QUOTE

“More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject.”  Peter Drucker

PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories.  Once a month, I will choose one commenter to contact for a free one half hour coaching session.

HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching   

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

• If you interview for a great job and do not get it, ask yourself what that job represented to you and seek out those qualities in alternative jobs.  Don’t let one “no” get in your way.
• If you have a job that is not the dream job, perhaps you can gain satisfaction by volunteering in an area where you dream of working.
• If you don’t know what your dream job is, you can do informational interviewing to see what others like about their jobs.
• If you do not have a job at all, perhaps you can find temporary, contract or consulting work.  It is something to put on your resume and bring in some income.  It can also be fun.

 You might also ask yourself why you work at all.  When I was a single parent and the sole support of three children, what I did was not as important as why I did it.  This allowed me to have what others might have thought were some pretty crummy jobs and still feel good. The jobs themselves were not the focus.  So, unless the “why” puts unbearable pressure on you, go back to the basics and think of why you work. 

QUOTE

“Love the One You’re With” is a 1970 single by folk rocker  Stephen Stills. Stills wrote the song after being inspired by the tag line — “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with,” which was a frequent remark by musician Billy Preston.

PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories.  

HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com

 www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching    

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching

 Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

• What is your interpretation of the job search “game”?
• Is it accurate?
• Does it help you?
• If your search has been frustrating, who can you talk to check out your interpretations?
• What is your favorite job search tool?
• What other tools might you be ignoring?
• Do you understand the “rules” of the game?  (FYI, those sometimes unwritten rules do include networking.)
• Are you incorrectly taking losses to heart?

QUOTE

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”  Albert Einstein

PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories. 

HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching               

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

• Accountability groups—the synergy of the group drives you to action.  Find one in a local job club or form one with others you know who are in search.
• Boards of directors—even if only in your head.  Instead of interpreting job search results by yourself, do it from the filter of a pre-chosen group of people you admire.  You can even arrange for an actual board of directors to give you advice and feedback.
• Use family members and friends as an accountability group by e-mailing them where you are in your search.  Outline highs, lows and areas where you are trying to improve.  This not only holds you accountable but it keeps their inquiries from making you uncomfortable.  It puts you in charge.

QUOTE

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  Albert Einstein

PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories. 

HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching               

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

I have also heard the “weakness” question being asked as:

• What would your manager say is your greatest weakness?
• What would your peers say is your greatest weakness?
• What would your direct reports say is your greatest weakness?

Once again, we don’t have to bare our souls.  If Bill Clinton, when President, could say “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” to the Grand Jury, then we too can choose our words carefully. 

We never want to end by admitting a weakness without showing how we have made changes. 

QUOTES

“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories. 

 HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com 

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching    

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

A good book along these lines is Loving What Is:  Four Questions that Can Change Your Life  by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell.  You might also refer to Katie’s web site, www.thework.com. 

SOME NEWS TO SHARE

This week I was delighted to be included among “50 Brilliant Business Coach Bloggers” at www.onlinedegreeprograms.com.  Here’s a link: www.onlinedegreeprograms.com/blog/2010/50-brilliant-business-coach-bloggers/.

It’s always rewarding to have one’s work recognized, and that’s the kind of reward I want for you, my readers, in your own work lives.

QUOTES

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”   Lewis Carroll

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”  Lewis Carroll

PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories. 

 HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com 

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching    

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

• What is your motivation to work? (It might be the work itself and it might be to support yourself and your family.)
• When were you most energized at work?  (Since it is difficult to get what you don’t want, you need to find work that will make you happy.)
• However, if you are currently employed but not finding the work fulfilling, how can you change your perspective to make this work satisfying at least in the interim?  (The work might not change but you can choose to change, which can shift the dynamic.  I find that many people who are not happy at work, take it out on the job by withholding some portion of their effort or themselves which then comes back to bite them in less than stellar reviews.)

 POEM

To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

from Circles on the Water  (Knopf, 1982)

PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories. 

HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching   

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching 

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

I have heard clients say that they feel lost or empty.  For those of us who have been highly goal-oriented, job search might seem that way.  However, this might not be bad.  Fields that lie fallow for a time are better able to support growth.  If you were burned out by your last job or succession of last jobs, what is this time period telling you that you need? 

Transition or job search means that we have to bring in a whole new set of attitudes as well as skills.  What made us successful in prior jobs might not be what is needed in search mode.  I can remember one of my two wonderful daughters-in-law telling me about holding a payroll training class shortly after the birth of her first child, my first grandchild.  She told class participants that something was a “no-no”. 

So we need different mind sets, different skills, different vocabularies during transition.  When you are with groups of others in transition, stop the circular negative talk about the economy, the search, the unfairness.  Find someone who has successfully made the transition and ask questions about how they managed.  Ask questions similar to the following:

1. What helped you the most?
2. What do you wish you had known early in the search?
3. If you had to do it over, what would you do differently?
4. What did you learn about yourself?
5. What advice can you share with me about my search? 

QUOTE 

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

~ David Wagoner

 PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories. 

HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com 

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching   

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching 

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

Your answer will have three parts: 

• Situation (what happened),
• Action (what did you do)
• Response (what was the result for the company or client). 

You are being pushed to think of a specific example.  Speaking in generalities (“Oh, I always take care of clients.  It’s one of my strengths,”) will not work.  On one assignment we interviewers were to ask candidates, “Tell me about a time you didn’t get along with a coworker.”  If your answer was the general comment of “I get along with everyone,” you failed.  At the very least, you missed an opportunity to promote a key skill.

I worked on a recruitment project with a group trained by government psychologists.  We were instructed to give no positive feedback to candidates because it would mean that we might be giving unfair advantage to one over another.  This “no positive feedback” extended to not using the words “thank you” or “okay.”  We were not to smile or nod our heads.  So don’t take it personally or think you are not doing a good job, if this is the case.

For most of the interviews that I conducted either by phone or in person, I asked at least one or two behavioral questions.  I would talk to the decision maker and ask what traits he or she wanted in the eventual hire and then formulate a situation for the candidates to react to.  The responses then became a large part of my feedback with a recommendation of which candidates to further consider.

To recap, some interviews might be strictly behavioral and some might be regular interviews with a few behavioral questions.  In either case, it is best to be prepared.

So how to prepare?  When you have an interview set up, look at the job posting and make a short list of traits that you think the employer will want.  A few possibilities might be:  leadership, initiative, customer service, proactive problem solving, teamwork.  Then think of a story to show how you have the desired quality.  Write it out in situation, action and result form.  Prepare examples in that form—situation, action, result–for each of the traits you think might be required. 

It would be best to use a different story for each question.  So the rule of thumb is, “don’t repeat a story even to different interviewers within a firm.”  They will compare notes. 

Mistakes I see clients make are:

• Getting so lost in the details of the situation that they run out of time for the important part which is how their actions brought about a good result.
• Using a story which does not have a good result for the company or the company’s clients.
• Being so team-oriented, that they forget to showcase themselves.
• Rambling because they weren’t prepared.
• Repeating the same story. 
• Making up a story. 

This preparation is helpful even if you are not asked a behavioral question.  There are some interviewers who have no clue how to interview and so ramble on because they just don’t know how to question or because they like the sound of their own voices.  If the Clueless One rambles about how the firm needs leadership but doesn’t ask you any questions about your abilities, you might interject with an example of your leadership.  You could introduce this with, “May I tell you about a time when I demonstrated leadership similar to what you are saying is needed here?”

QUOTE

 Just to be clear, this is an example of a rambling bad answer. 

“I’m a people person, very personable. I absolutely insist on enjoying life. Not so task-oriented. Not a work horse. If you’re looking for a Clydesdale I’m probably not your man. Like I don’t live to work, it’s more the other way around. I work to live. Incidentally, what’s your policy on Columbus Day?”
You, Me and Dupree (2006) – Randy Dupree (Owen Wilson)  

PLEASE COMMENT

 Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy hearing about the most difficult interview question you have been asked.

HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com 

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching  

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching 

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.

Your e-mail and voice mail are important links to those who have jobs to offer.  Does your e-mail system let you know when a message is undeliverable?  If not, do you double check to see if you have the address correct?  

Is your voice mail message professional?  A least favorite is, “I am not here.  You know what to do.”  Is your message brief and to the point?  I am sure your children are charming but not on your voice mail message if you are in search mode.  Your religious holidays are not of interest to the caller.  If you have a choice, make and receive calls from a land line because it can be clearer.  And finally, be very aware of background noise whenever you make a call or leave a message:  turn off the TV and stereo, and step out of the room if there are other people around chatting away.  The only sound the other party should hear is the sound of your own voice. 

QUOTE

“If e-mail had been around before the telephone was invented people would have said “hey, forget e-mail-with this new telephone invention I can actually talk to people.” www.thinkexist.com

PLEASE COMMENT

Once again, I would appreciate any experiences, comments or questions that will help other readers.  I would particularly enjoy some humorous experiences and success stories.  Once a month, I will choose one commenter to contact for a free coaching session.

HOW TO REACH ME

jill@careercoachjill.com

www.careercoachjill.com for career coaching   

www.limitlesshorizon.com for personal life coaching

www.leadercoaching.org for leadership coaching

Thanks to tech guru David Behrens (http://neptunestudios.net), and editor M. C. Pastoret.