Talking Story

Starting new conversations in the workplace!

Along with your talent, bring me Fresh You

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You may be surprised to learn which I’ll value more. As an employer, I desperately want you to dazzle and surprise me!

Giving up is not an option

I’ll back up. I’m thinking about work, and about jobs (so what else is new”) and in particular about unemployment, and how so many people who still want to work are giving up. They’ve stopped looking, and have stopped trying to get hired, and I wish they wouldn’t. I get that it’s been hard on them, but what are they waiting for once they stop?

If you’re one of these people I’m talking about, I think you have to keep looking (assuming you don’t want to start a business of your own; that’s different.) Go for the job you want, and when you’re sitting with the person who can hire you, have a Fresh You conversation with them. Turn into a hot prospect.

Bosses aren’t necessarily the ones who define jobs

Not all the jobs they think they can offer, and not all the jobs they should be offering.

And every hiring manager I know will admit that when they have a “hot prospect” and “super attractive candidate” sitting in front of them, they make some kind of hiring work-around happen. Those get to be the most exciting, and satisfying days they work within their job!

Yeah, you have a lot of competition. So…

BE the competition

There has been enormous shift in The World of Work due to the Great Recession of recent years, and as a result, scores of people still struggle to find their place. Age and generation don’t much matter: They know it will be a new place. Even if they secure a job title similar to one they’ve held in the past, it is highly likely the work itself will differ, for expectations will differ.

That difference has both good and bad associated with it, however you still have so much choice, and you still must know this: So much spun from both good and bad will depend on you. You (i.e. your Ho‘ohana) can be the catalyst of whatever work will follow, and whatever Work’s Worth will be created in the future.

Hiring is happening. I notice that news programs have been presenting the employer’s viewpoint lately, and in doing so they continually stress talent, and their need for skilled, educated labor as opposed to entry-level employees. These needs can be unfulfilled, much to the disappointment and dismay of many employers, and reasons vary. The one I’d like to focus on for the moment is fear and intimidation; people who have been out of work for a while (or who remain too comfortable in an existing job) fear they are simply not good enough, and they haven’t the talent the employer is probably looking for.

‘Probably?’ How in the world do you know? You can’t be sure of what someone else may, or may not be thinking. To guess is a cop-out. If you’ve already had a bad experience or two, that employer wasn’t a good match for you to begin with, and it’s a good thing you didn’t get sucked into a workplace that is beneath your worth.

What’s For Sure trumps Probably

You cannot stop yourself from re-entering The World of Work — or stop yourself from trading up to a better opportunity — by guessing about The Probablies. You have to have the conversation and find out What’s For Sure. And why not give them a Fresh, Enthusiastic You to think about?

Education and experience is highly subjective

On the other hand, innate talent and enthusiasm is definitive. Fresh You is distinctive, and highly attractive.

Tim Burton-ness in Bright Blue

Unless someone has been immersed in a consistently value-driven work culture for a very long time (itself pretty rare), the worth assessments of talent, education and experience barely match up between people’s definitions. That, after all, is what most of a job interview is about, isn’t it; it’s a determination to learn if both company and candidate speak the same Language of Intention, or have the best potential to do so in the shortest amount of time — the 90-day probationary period is designed to answer all remaining questions about your match (at least it should be. If you’re in one now, have a LOT of values-based conversations whichever side of the table you sit!)

When employers say they are looking for ‘skilled workers’ they’re taking a shortcut: It’s a deliberate move with screening out those who aren’t hungry enough, enthusiastic enough, and self-assured enough to demonstrate that they bring way more than just their education and past experience to the table: They can learn whatever will be required of them. Even the greenest high school graduates bring those two e’s with them; education and experience are simply tangibles they need help articulating in workplace language. All people (and I mean You) also bring talents that are still to be explored, and talents are flexible and pliable; your talents can be molded to a company’s needs and expectations. What must match from day one however, are your values (for that course, turn to Managing with Aloha!)

Get back out there! The world is waiting

Along with your talent, bring Fresh, Enthusiastic You to an interview, and believe me, you will get hired. Employers will invest in helping groom your talent and skills because they know you’ll be a bankable investment and not a gamble.

The workplace is changing, and it always will. That means you need to work on your self assurance and sense of confidence way more than anything else: Education and experience have a much shorter shelf life. You, on the other hand, can be forever fresh and new.

Time to Take 5? Related posts in the Talking Story archives:

What is the Professional Brand Equity of a Manager?

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A short excerpt from Managing with Aloha if I may, for I think it introduces today’s posting quite well. Today I offer a follow-up to what I posted here two days ago. Let’s drill deeper into this concept of personal branding for Alaka‘i managers and leaders.

What should managers be?

At some time or another, every child is asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’ve never heard one answer, “I’d like to be a manager.” I didn’t.

Yet I now believe heart and soul that it is a calling to be a great manager. Unfortunately, greatness is rarely achieved, and thus examples are rarely talked about. Children don’t hear inspiring stories of managers often enough to want to be one.

Even in Hawai‘i, where the fanciful romantic concepts of the Aloha spirit are marketed and draped like charm bracelets around the hospitality industry, managers are thought of as babysitters. They are not really considered the ambassadors of the Aloha spirit, although that spirit is what they seek to peddle, and their profession is not thought of as particularly noble.

Why is this?

—From the Introduction to Managing with Aloha, Bringing Hawai‘i’s Universal Values to the Art of Business

I wrote that back in 2003, and though I’d like to think we’ve made a dent in the effort to answer the question it poses with the Managing with Aloha movement, I feel we still have a long way to go. Perhaps this concept of a personal brand for managers and leaders can help us make more progress.

Imagine different. Imagine confidently stated worth.

Imagine Brand Equity. Imagine it for a professional Art of Aloha manager and Alaka‘i leader.

Remember this question from a past Sunday Koa Kākou here?

I was laid off recently, and while it was upsetting, I can’t say I was surprised, for it was obvious that the company couldn’t afford to keep me and the others who were let go (all of us managers). I’ve been looking for another job for about three months now and it’s been tough: I’ve just found an hourly position that will help me get most of my bills paid, but I want to get back into management and I’m going to keep looking. Any advice? The rejection has been grueling.

At the time we talked about something slightly different [Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch]. We talked about fulfilling an employer’s biggest need. After my last article here however, I hope you are now thinking about fulfilling your biggest need too, that of banking your personal brand equity: Seven Ways to Assess Your Personal Brand Assets Beyond A Job.

Isn’t ‘personal equity’ a fabulously compelling concept? So, imagine different.

Imagine going to a job interview as a candidate wanting a managerial or leadership position (in the conventional way most people see them —as positions versus the Alaka‘i roles of a calling to manage, and a calling to lead): That part is realistic about what simply is ‘still the way it is’ right now. However, imagine what could be different —and completely under your control.

Imagine handing the hiring interviewer a business card you’ve printed with your name, and “______ Manager and Leader” directly under it, with that blank filled in with the best-articulated word or phrase which describes your personal brand in each of those Alaka‘i roles.

Wow. Imagine that the hiring interviewer flips your card over, and will next see a listing of the personal values and professional strengths which itemize your ‘Core Qualifications,’ further fortifying that critical first impression of the brand message you are there to convey in the interview which will follow. Double, triple wow!

I’d hire you on the spot, and figure out where to best place you later, and I haven’t even ventured a guess yet as to what brand naming filled in that blank space.

Professional Brand Equity has Personal Value Credibility

Sorry, I am not going to give you a list of clever market-ready words and phrases to choose from in filling in that blank. I don’t have to IF you did that 7-question personal brand asset assessment exercise I gave you two days ago; you know exactly what to fill in, or at the very least, you are well on your way to discovering it.

I’ll help you a little bit, by telling you what would be on my calling card as an example. Mine would say “Ho‘ohana Manager and Alaka‘i Leader” for I believe that is

  1. What I do,
  2. What I deliver as a product and service, and
  3. What I coach others to do if they desire to.

Why? I believe that teaching others to manage with Ho‘ohana (as the deliverable of Managing with Aloha-branded work) and to lead with Alaka‘i (with the objective of visionary value-alignment to sense of place) is what I do best: It ‘employs’ my personal values, it capitalizes on my strengths, and it turns my mana‘o [my core beliefs and convictions] into something worth building a personal legacy on. In business-speak, it can finance my life via a legacy I can market for sale into a true win-win for me and for my prospective customers. Knowing what my personal brand equity is, I can now convert it into a business model (as I have done) which can potentially keep financing my ‘Ohana long after I am gone (if my model remains generation-relevant in the future).

I don’t call it ‘my personal brand equity’ out loud, but I do speak about it all the time; can’t help myself; that is what I sound like, and what I talk story about. I don’t draw ‘my personal brand equity’ on flipcharts and whiteboards, but in my head I visualize more which is related to it all the time; can’t help myself; that is what I consistently see, and imagine in the future, just like I did in the beginning of this post.

So as you can tell, if I gave you a list of clever market-ready words and phrases to choose from in billing in that calling-card blank, it would likely end up being about me, and not about you. I gave you that 7-question exercise last time so you would first focus on YOUR values, YOUR strengths, and YOUR assets.

Trust in who you are, and celebrate it. Give in to it. Whether for yourself or for an employer, find work which aligns with your personal brand assets, and allow your now-fulfilled values to put your behavior on the good auto-pilot that others feel they can count on —isn’t that what credibility is all about?

So tell me, what would your calling card (not business card) say?

More reading from the Say “Alaka‘i” archives on:

~ Originally published on Say “Alaka‘i” ~
What is the Professional Brand Equity of a Manager?

Securing employment today requires more homework

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2010 Update: I made the decision to bring Say “Alaka‘i” here to Talking Story in late May of 2010 when the Honolulu Advertiser, where the blog previously appeared, was merged with the Star Bulletin (Read more at Say “Alaka‘i” is Returning to the Mothership).

Therefore, the post appearing below is a copy of the one which had originally appeared there on January 18, 2009, so we will be able to reference it in the future when the original url it had been published on is no more…

Hibiscus

Securing employment today requires more homework

Preface:
Welcome to Sunday Koa Kākou. Sunday is the day I answer questions you send to me. If you have a question connected to management and leadership, leave a comment here, or email me.

From the Say “Alaka‘i” mailbox:

Up to today I have written 26 articles for this blog, and one has emerged as the runaway winner with the number of follow-up questions and frustrations being emailed to me: Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch. I’ve answered some outlying questions and concerns individually, however there is a common thread with the challenges you are sharing with me too, and so I’d like to tackle it in our Sunday Koa Kākou today:

I did not say this was easy. You’ve got to do your homework, and be best in class.

“No one is hiring!”

As we can expect, my article has delivered the most value to those who still have their jobs, but find they must now continually prove their worth to their employers: This is not a time where it’s a good strategy to stay under the radar and just get by.

It’s much tougher for those of you who now find you are out of work completely, especially those who haven’t been “shopping the job market” for quite a while: You’ve found that a lot has changed, with technology and generational demographics being two of the more formidable learning challenges. [This past Tuesday’s Job Competencies for 2009: Let’s figure them out, was written to help you recognize others.]

Unemployment levels both nationally and in Hawai‘i are climbing steadily, and I keep hearing from you that “no one is hiring.” I know it’s tough, but that isn’t exactly true; much fewer people are hiring, and they can be much more selective now; it’s the simple rule of supply and demand. It is currently frustrating and frightening for many on the supply side of the equation because we’re in a recession, and consumers of nearly all products and services are holding on to whatever cash they can —and in turn, this affects their willingness to hire, adding to their cost burden.

Thus, Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch came from the approach of helping potential employers understand why they shouldn’t take the option of not hiring you —the talented, savvy, perfect answer for their needs you— as what could be an even bigger cost and long term risk for them.

The right boss for you, IS hiring

You have to find him, or her.

Let’s go back to this: Why do you suppose my “create and pitch” advice could more easily be taken by those already in a job?

They know the ropes. They already know of the information that someone considered an outsider to the company doesn’t, and they have the insider’s past experience with how best to use that information. They have leverage. If you aren’t yet an insider, you have to do a lot more homework, and if you want to get in, you’ve got to be the one who does that homework best.

What “don’t apply and fill” also alludes to, is this: You can’t talk someone into hiring you, if you simply are not the person they need or want. So before you secure an interview, you have to find out all you can about those two things: What do they need, and who do they want?

You’ve got to be brutally honest with yourself too: If it’s probably not you, keep looking. Don’t take it personally and let it get to you; you’re just not a match, and you belong somewhere else.

In today’s economy, “I can be that person” is probably not good enough. This is the critical third question: Are you that person right now?

For right now, and in all employment situations where there are more job-seekers than job-givers, all potential employers have the luxury of suspending their training budgets, and hiring people ready to hit the ground running with little more than short orientations.

At first it may not seem like it, but this is good news: The right boss for you wants you to find them. You’d be surprised how they can make a job happen when they feel their perfect candidate unexpectedly walked in the door. They know that if they are right about you, you will end up paying your own wages by earning your keep —and then some. (And if they don’t, they’re not smart enough in business to deserve you anyway. Keep looking.)

Seek a company 1st and a job with that company 2nd

There is one sure-fire way to save yourself a lot of the frustration of job rejection. Make sure you are choosing the right company first.

When I was hiring, I was always impressed with the candidate who arrived for an interview having done a lot of their homework: They already knew a lot about my company and my needs, and they had prepared great questions for me. In essence, they already knew we were a match, and they were ready to work: They used the interview to make sure they had complete clarity on all my expectations. Their questions demonstrated what they already discovered, but could further build on.

In an interview, “Is this what you need?” questions are humble and clarify. “I’m the man (or woman) for this job, and this is why you need me” statements are presumptuous and too aggressive —even when they’re true.

Great interviews helped me see that the candidate was convinced my company was what they needed and wanted. They built up my ego (in being smart enough to already work for this highly desirable and intriguing company) and they got me to listen very intently. Now, having secured my rapt attention, they were working on helping me arrive at seeing what my company needed and wanted, and how they were my answer. They were working on part two: Specific job options.

I could see how it would be if we worked together all the time: Our partnership had already started.

If you are an employer looking to hire right now, I welcome you to chip in here:
What, and who are you looking for?

There are 2 Decisions Made with Every Hire

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2010 Update: I made the decision to bring Say “Alaka‘i” here to Talking Story in late May of 2010 when the Honolulu Advertiser, where the blog previously appeared, was merged with the Star Bulletin (Read more at Say “Alaka‘i” is Returning to the Mothership).

Therefore, the post appearing below is a copy of the one which had originally appeared there on January 6, 2009, so we will be able to reference it in the future when the original url it had been published on is no more…

Hibiscus

There are 2 Decisions Made with Every Hire

We are continuing our job-hunting discussions on Say “Alaka‘i” this week” some help for managers who do interviews today: There are 2 Decisions Made with Every Hire

And whichever chair you might be sitting in, you only get to make one of them.

I always ask managers to make a big deal out of hiring, for it IS a big deal: It’s important to the person applying for a position, and it’s important to the organization. When hiring is done right, everything else seems to fall into place too. Conversely, a hiring mistake is one which will often cost you for an awfully long time. For a manager, selecting the people who will work on their team is one of the most critical decisions they make.

However it’s important to understand that the manager doing the hiring only gets to make one out of the two decisions to be made.

The hiring manager gets to make the first one: Will I make a job offer to this candidate or not?

However, the candidate receiving the job offer gets to make the second decision, and I’d argue that’s the one which is actually much more important in the grand scheme of things. The candidate gets to decide if they accept the offer, or keep looking for something else.

Decision #1 is about the job offer.

Decision #2 is about the job acceptance or rejection.

Do you know what the biggest hiring disappointment is?

It’s when a manager gets his or her heart set on a terrific prospect, excitedly makes an offer, and then gets this response: “Thank you very much for the offer, however I’ve decided to take another position with a different company.” When that candidate had left the interview, they weren’t excited enough and the manager completely missed seeing the signs.

Here’s another disappointing scenario, and a more costly one.

The candidate accepts, but within six months to a year they start looking for another position to trade up to, whether inside the company or with another one, because “the job just didn’t pan out to be all that I thought it would be.” The basics might have been covered in an interview, but basics are not enough: What are the reasonable expectations with growth, progression, and future change? A candidate can’t leave an interview guessing, wishing and hoping, but still unsure.

Managers often forget about these less fortunate possibilities, and they neglect to use the interview time wisely. They drill the candidates they interview, ready with question after question that has to do with their job offer, but if that candidate is to be considered, have they had the time to interview the manager about the organization? Have they asked the questions you hope they are interested in, about vision, mission, and values (beyond product, service, skills and knowledge), so that if they are hired, they are completely aware of all they have signed up for?

If you conduct interviews…

…cut the time you allocate for it in half, allocating each half to covering the conversation required for each of those two decisions. Be sure the candidate asks questions of you: You want them to be inquisitive, you want to know how much homework they’ve done researching your company, and you want to be able to gauge both their interest and anticipation of the job’s requirements.

Too-short interviews astound me: I fail to see how anyone can interview a candidate for less than a full hour, and besides, it’s somewhat disrespectful ”“ I don’t care what the position is all about, an interview is a big deal, and it should be treated as such.

Equally mortifying to me is when candidates are scheduled for two or three interviews and you can barely tell them apart at all: There is no progressive conversation planned, and the same questions are asked over and over again, just by different people. Do you really expect them to change their answers?

One more suggestion:

Tell the candidate that you fully realize they have a decision to make too, and that if the interview results in an offer being made, you hope they will make the right decision, for it’s important to you both. Start the interview that way, laying out the expectation for the conversation to follow. Your company cannot be all things to all people: Hiring decisions are about fit, and you might have a great person applying for a position who is not a great candidate for the role they’ll need to fill. Tell them you’re assuming they’ll be honest with you, and you want their partnership so that you both get that puzzle piece on fit placed correctly for both your sakes.

The best strategy a manager can have when preparing for an interview is to assume you ARE going to hire that person. Think of that interview as setting the tone for every conversation you will have with them on each working day going forward: Work on the interview together and establish a relationship of partnership from the get-go.

Worst case scenario you don’t make an offer, and they tell everyone else how exceptionally they were treated anyway. And you never know when a candidate will leave you stating that they are not a good fit for a job opportunity, but they know someone else who is…

This past Sunday we talked about a different scenario…
You’re the applicant, and you’re hoping to secure a management or leadership position: Job-hunting? Don’t apply and fill, create and pitch.