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Your Career: How to Nail a Job Interview using Instagram..Instagram is One of the few Resources that Provide an Actual Inside Look into a Day in the Life at a Particular Company

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If you don’t have an Instagram account, you might want to consider setting one up — especially if you’re in the market for a new job.

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Cameron Laker, CEO of the recruitment solutions company Mindfield, tells Business Insider that organizations are starting to use Instagram as a platform to display company culture.

He encourages job seekers to follow organizations they are interested in, as it can give them “an amazing insight” into what it might be like to work there.

“You’re seeing the employment experience through the eyes of the employees,” Laker explains. “Job seekers love it because they know exactly what they’re getting themselves into when they come in for an interview.”

With the increasing emphasis that hiring managers are placing on personality profile and fit, understanding company culture can give you a leg up in a job interview.

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Instagram is one of the few resources that provide an actual inside look into a day in the life at a particular company.

Starting your interview prep on the social media platform will help you figure out whether you’d be a good fit and can better prepare you for questions the hiring manager might ask. It will also help you decide what questions to ask the employer in the interview — and the hiring manager will be impressed by your deep understanding of their culture and your well-researched questions and responses.

Job seekers are not the only ones benefiting from using Instagram. Employers are using it as a key marketing tool and as a platform to announce job openings.

“Everyone that’s really progressive in the recruiting space is starting to use this as a tool to showcase their culture,” says Laker, including his company. “They’re also starting to find creative ways to turn job postings and job announcements into photos or short videos.”

NOW WATCH: 7 clichés you should never use in a job interview

Businessinsider.com | April 28, 2015 | 

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-nail-a-job-interview-using-instagram-2015-4#ixzz3Ydr2bH5l

#Leadership: 8 Ways To Get Your Career Unstuck…You’re Bored Out of your Mind & Can’t see an Obvious Next Step Within your Current Employer

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You’re bored out of your mind and can’t see an obvious next step within your current employer. You might be stuck behind an ungrateful boss, or perhaps you’ve just been doing the same job too long. No matter the details, that feeling of “being stuck” saps your energy and makes you feel like there is no hope for your career.

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“THBPBPTHPT!” as they say in the cartoons. That’s sheer nonsense. You just need break out of your rut. Here’s how to get started.

1.) Practice irrational optimism. Your first challenge is to escape the negative mindset that’s enveloped you. So, whatever it takes, create brief periods of time – an hour or an afternoon – during which you are irrationally optimistic. Forget about all the things that you perceive are holding you back. Just picture yourself as an incredible success, perhaps five years from now.

Read inspirational books. Watch movies and documentaries about people who overcame huge odds. Go to see inspirational speakers. Until you foster some optimism, you’ll be blind to the many possibilities that await you.

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2.) Create your bucket list of jobs. Make the longest possible list of dream jobs. These are NOT necessarily your next job; they are jobs you would love to have, in a perfect world. Think ridiculously big. Head of the World Bank. Publisher of The Washington Post. Founder of the next Google. Author of the #1 bestselling leadership book.

You don’t have to create the list in one sitting. In fact, you’ll get the best results if you keep adding to your list over an extended period of time.
3.) Fill in the details of your bucket list. As your list grows, look for patterns. Are you drawn to certain types of challenges? Do you crave prestige? Are all of your bucket list positions in education, while you work today in pharmaceuticals? Look for clues about what excites you and makes you feel energetic again.
4.) Rethink your image. Go find a mirror, and ask yourself whether you look and act the part of the positions at the top of your list. To make it easier for others to picture you in such roles, what do you have to change? Don’t limit yourself to just your appearance; look at your social media profiles, your resume, and even the ways you interact with others. You might even want to lease a new car.
Now, start to make some improvements. Take your time, and do it right. Shift your image in a positive direction.

5.) Proactively make new contacts. Use your bucket list as a guide to the type of opportunities you desire, and use LinkedIn and personal contacts to significantly expand your network. Go far beyond the people with whom you associate today; they have the “old you” image in their heads.

In my experience, you can reach much higher and further than you think, as long as you approach people with professionalism and confidence. Use these new contacts to learn about bucket list opportunities. I don’t just mean find jobs; I mean learn what it really would be like to be president of a private school, or on the board of a leading non-profit.

6.) Make a step-by-step plan. At some point, create a short version of your bucket list. These are the positions you actually want to pursue. Using the knowledge you gain from your expanded network, create an action list for pursuing these positions. Make it as specific as possible, because little tasks are easier to execute than big ones. “Use LinkedIn to find authors who went to my college” is an actionable item. “Look for ambassador jobs” is so big it will paralyze you.

7.) Rely on weak connections. When your big break comes, the odds are it won’t come from someone you’d name if you had to list the 50 people you know best. Most opportunities come from people at the very edges of your networks, such as the new contacts you’ll be making in #5 above, or from someone you haven’t spoken to since 2004.

8.) Say what you want. By the time you’ve gotten to #8, you’ve developed optimism and have upgraded your image. You’ve dreamed big and have filled in the details of how to get from Point A to Point C (your Dream Job after your Next Job). You have a growing list of new contacts.

All that’s holding you back is you. Don’t bury your dreams. Day after day, tell people what you really, truly want to do. Share your dream with them, and one of them will make that dream come true.

Bruce Kasanoff is a ghostwriter and speaker.

Forbes.com | April 28, 2015 | Bruce Kasanoff

Your Career: 7 Dangerous Assumptions That Derail The Older #Job Seeker…Job Search is Different for the Older Job Seeker, & Stereotypes do Exist.

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Donna asks: How do you get taken seriously when you’re job hunting in your mid-60’s?

Calita asks: How do I find a fulfilling job? I am 53.

Nancy asks: How does one find work/jobs for people over 40 who are labeled overqualified but under-experienced in their field? 

OlderWorker

I host a monthly radio show to answer career questions, and these are just a few recent ones from older job seekers. More than any other demographic, when I get a question from an older job seeker, it often includes a mention of their age or something age-specific in their question.

Many older job seekers I encounter feel stereotyped due to age – not taken seriously as Donna mentioned; or overqualified yet under-experienced as Nancy mentioned; or needing to do something different than the typical job search, as Carlita implies by adding her age to qualify her question.

Job search is different for the older job seeker, and stereotypes do exist. Here are seven assumptions that I’ve heard firsthand as a recruiter trying to fill positions and presenting older candidates. The seventh assumption is one I hear from older candidates themselves (and it’s the most detrimental one):

1- You’re too expensive
If I present an older candidate and don’t have the compensation numbers right at my fingertips, the prospective employer will automatically assume the person is out of budget. Most of the time, once I explain the compensation history and why this role makes sense (whether from a compensation perspective or for other reasons, and ideally both), the prospective employer stops to listen and we can rationally review the candidate on his/her merits.

Job seekers: You want to present your background in a situation where there is dialogue and not just a gut reaction. This means someone needs to refer you — a recruiter, an existing employee, or you refer yourself by directly contacting the employer. If you just forward a resume, you’ll get the adverse reaction with no one to represent the other side. Are you networking enough to get to decision-makers who can pass you onto the interview rounds?

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2- You’re not tech savvy

I was recently hiring for a marketing position, and the hiring group kept dismissing my older candidates for limited digital, social media, and video skills. Of course, the older candidates would have less digital in proportion to their overall experience because they had so much more overall experience! These skills would only have been in demand within the last few years so they are relatively underweighted overall. Once I reframed the experience, the group was more open to all candidates. As it turns out, the hire was a younger job seeker, but an earlier hire for this same group in the same role was an older candidate. This group was not deciding based on age though they had initial reactions based on overall experience.

Job seekers: This type of gut reaction about technology savvy is very similar to the compensation issue. You need to present a broader picture, and ideally you make your case in a back-and-forth dialogue, not just the resume. Are you marketing a complete picture to the decision-makers so they can make informed judgement calls?

 

3- You’re out of date

It’s not just technology tools that need to stay updated but communication styles, presentation styles, and how business gets done. I worked on a President search for a non-profit, where key hiring criteria were innovation and visionary thinking. Older candidates were absolutely considered for this role because its executive nature required a track record and years of experience. However, the hiring team didn’t want to see resumes written in last decade’s aesthetic. They also didn’t want to hear stodgy language. (One candidate used the phrase, “Back in the day…” This did not go over well.) When I think of three recent hires in executive roles who were older (late 50’s and early 60’s), they were all dynamos – incredibly energetic, incredibly well-networked, incredibly current on news and trends. Stodgy or out of date would never cross your mind with any of these three.
Job seekers: Up-to-date is about attitude and presence, as well as knowledge. You do need to stay current in skills, network and expertise. But you also need to appear current. This doesn’t mean you need to run out and translate your marketing material and interview responses into slang. There is never a good reason for someone over 40 to use the word, “cray.” But take a hard look at your marketing material, live communication and presence. Are you too stiff and formal in your language, dress, and energy you exude?

 

4- You’re inflexible

When I hired for a marketing analytics job, one of the hesitations about the older candidates was whether they would adapt to how much analytics had changed in this era of Big Data. The employer was a legacy institution in a traditional industry, so you could find people who had done this job for decades. But the role was changing. There was definitely the initial assumption (that gut reaction again) that older candidates would be inflexible and not adapt to these new changes. As it turns out, the candidate who was hired was an older candidate over 40 – she had a track record of implementing new solutions at her earlier company so inflexibility didn’t become an issue.

Job seekers: There might be an initial assumption that doesn’t go in your favor, but it can be overcome. Are you taking an objective look at your resume, social profile, networking pitch and interview responses against possible objections, such as being inflexible, out-of-date, or behind on technology? Are you providing compelling evidence that points otherwise?

 

5- You won’t respect a younger manager

I heard this assumption from one of the most progressive, forward-thinking people I know. If he has this stereotype, there are other young managers who think managing an older hire will be tougher. Interviews are already anxiety-provoking situations, what if the older job seeker’s regular case of nerves is interpreted as discomfort with the younger manager?

Job seeker: You have to put your younger hiring managers at ease, which means you have to be at ease interacting with them. Work on your nervousness — for any reason. If interacting with a younger manager is at all an issue for you, start working on this now, well before you get to the interview part of your search. Spend time with younger professionals, and not in a mentor/ mentee relationship, but in a social, peer-to-peer relationship. You should be doing this anyway because interacting with people at all levels provides the strongest networking opportunities and the broadest information pool. Do you have multiple, substantive relationships with younger professionals?
6- You don’t really want to be here

I hear this one almost as frequently as the compensation objective: why does this person want this job? Desire for the role is very important to the prospective employer. They want to know that you 100% want to do this job, in this company, in this industry, right now. If you don’t know enough about the job, company, and industry and don’t have a genuine reason why you’re making a move now, then they may assume it’s for a secondary reason – e.g., you need the money (your 401k hasn’t recovered from the recession), or you want a job where you can coast till retirement.

Job seekers: How excited are you about the jobs you are interviewing for?

 

7- If I don’t get the meeting, interview, callback, or offer, it’s because of my age

This last assumption is not from the employers but from the job seekers, and it’s the most dangerous of them all. You aren’t getting interviews and assume it’s an age issue. It might also be that your search is too passive and reliant on resumes! You aren’t landing networking meetings and assume ageism rather than that you’re not contacting the appropriate people or you don’t have a compelling enough approach or you are not following up enough. You get interviews but no callbacks and blame ageism rather than work on your interview technique. You get callbacks but no offers and blame ageism rather than practice your negotiation skills.
Job seekers: You do have to approach your job search differently when you’re older. You have to get past some of the gut reactions listed above which means more networking and active looking over passive techniques like resume submissions. You need to build into your marketing, interview responses and presentation contrasting evidence to counter negative assumptions.

This means taking an objective look at your marketing, interview technique and presentation, and proactively figuring out what to highlight and what to refine. But all of this hard work will be meaningless if you feel the goal of getting hired is unreachable so you exhibit low confidence or carry a chip on your shoulder or seethe with anger and frustration. Simultaneously, you need to both address the possible age issue in your preparation but then drop age as an issue in your attitude and demeanor.

For more career advice (for all ages of job seeker), check out SixFigureStart® free toolkits on Negotiation, Networking, and Personal Branding, including a free download for entrepreneurs.

 

Forbes.com | April 20, 2015 | Caroline Ceniza-Levine

Your Career: 7 Things To Do At The Start Of Your Job Search…Here are 7 Things To Do to in the First Week of a Job Search

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The Deloitte CFO Signals Survey shows continued optimism among CFOs, forecasting significant growth in earnings and hiring. When CFOs are bullish, my recruiter ears perk up because CFO’s hold the purse strings. Anecdotally, I’ve been getting a lot of calls from my recruiter colleagues about openings, especially recruiting openings. When recruiters need to be hired, that means the company is anticipating increased hiring in the near term.

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If your résumé is hard to read, no one will.

If your résumé is hard to read, no one will.

I’ve written before about the improving job market, and both the Deloitte survey and my current experience support the same conclusion. If you’ve been thinking about a job search or if you got discouraged before and are waiting to jump back in, get your job search started ASAP. Here are seven things to do to in the first week of a job search:

1- Block time on your calendar

A proactive job search will take several hours per week – 10-20 if you can manage it. These hours won’t magically appear without you protecting your calendar. Job search requires focus, so pick time when you are still fresh. As you get busier in your search, remember that you will need more time and you will need time during normal business hours, so block out extra time now so your colleagues don’t claim it for their own meetings.

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2- Pull together your “example” list

For your resume, online profile, cover letters, interviews, and networking meetings, you will need to outline your value proposition. The best value proposition is backed up with examples. Go year-by-year from undergraduate through today, and itemize the roles you played and projects you worked on. Include volunteer and extra-curricular activities as well.

The most recent examples will carry the most weight so don’t panic if you can’t remember the distant past. (You still want to include the past, however, because there may be a unique story to tell about a skill, personal quality or accomplishment that happened to be early in your career!) Your examples might repeat – that’s ok as you’ll pick just the most substantive ones. Some examples may not be that exciting or have tangible results – that’s ok as you only need a handful. You’re looking for the stories that will form the backbone of your networking pitch, your correspondence, and your interview points.

3- Do a resume data dump

If it’s been a while since you’ve written or updated your resume, then you might have severe writer’s block as you try to remember what you’ve done, including dates, titles and other factoids, as well as write it in resume style.

This can be overwhelming and cause you to procrastinate on this very important marketing tool. Instead, write your resume in prose. Or dictate it into a recorder. Or take your example list from above and attach dates to it. These data dumps won’t be a proper resume but they’ll get the facts out there, and then you can edit for aesthetics, wording and format.

4- Focus on your LinkedIn headline and summary

A comprehensive LinkedIn profile is different than a resume, but initially your LinkedIn can be a simple chronology for education and experience. You can play around with these other sections later. Most importantly, start with your headline and summary. The headline is what appears under your name (mine says “career expert, executive coach, recruiter, author, speaker and comedian).

Yours can be your current title if that’s descriptive of your role and scope, or it might be your industry expertise, years of experience, functional expertise, or some combination. The summary is the first box people see, and it primes the reader for everything else that follows. (It may also be the only thing people read before deciding whether to call you in or agree to your networking request!)

5- Ping three old contacts per day

If you reconnected with three old contacts every day for the duration of your job search, you would have rekindled ties with almost 100 people in your first month alone. Do not limit yourself to contacts that you think are relevant to your search. Reconnect with people from your alma mater, first internships, all the way up to your current affiliations. Reconnect with people from old trade associations, volunteer stints and hobby classes. Just say hello.

If you feel like you need a reason, tell them they popped up on your LinkedIn or Facebooksuggestions for people you might know. This outreach practices networking overall – you’re not ready to pitch for a job so don’t bother limiting yourself to job-specific contacts. You also clean up your database. Finally, you don’t know who people know. You might find that your rowdy frat buddy is now at a company you would want to research. Reconnect now on a friendly, non-job related basis. Then, if you do need to ask a question later on, you have already reconnected.

6- Skim business magazines for articles that catch your attention

While you’re working on your marketing and shoring up your personal connections, you also want to be mindful of the external market. The job search is a meeting of the minds between candidate and employer. Who are these employers? What are their concerns (that will prompt them to hire you)? What are the innovations happening in the industry (that will color what hiring managers are looking for)? How do your interests translate into roles that companies will hire for?

To get this information you need to know about business. It’s unrealistic to think you will read every business publication cover-to-cover – it will take too long and may actually be a form of avoiding a more active job search. But at least look at the headlines and start getting familiar with what is trending and what you are interested in. For your interests, read deeper and incorporate specialty publications and industry blogs.

7- Rest and reflect

You will burn out and sour on your job search if you don’t take a break. You also might spin your wheels or go down the wrong path if you don’t stop to reflect on how your actions are contributing. Build in active and engaging breaks each week – a walk in your favorite park, a movie, a yoga class. Don’t spend a lot of money because you want to take breaks repeatedly throughout your search.

Troubleshoot your search to ensure you are focusing on the right things and giving attention to all areas. The activities I mention above are internally-focused (your schedule, your marketing) and externally-focused (your network, market research). Aim for a balance of internal and external. If the internal comes more easily, make sure you schedule external activities so you don’t only do one half of a search (like the job seeker who edits their resume over and over without ever sending it out).

Purposefully, I haven’t listed anything about applying for jobs or reaching out to contacts about jobs specifically. In the first week of a search, you’re not ready to pitch for jobs. You don’t want to get called in with a sub-standard resume or no examples to share or no knowledge of the market.

That said, I also limited this preparation period to one week (this is a suggestion which is aggressive I admit) to ensure you don’t prepare, plan and analyze for too long before going after actual jobs. If you have more time for your job search (a long severance, a cash cushion), you might take more than one week for this kick-off. But not that much longer – you want to network and interview sooner than later to get real-time feedback on how you’re perceived in the market.

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is a career and business coach withSixFigureStart. 

Forbes.com | April 16, 2015 | Caroline Ceniza-Levine

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Your Career: What to say When the Hiring Manager asks, ‘Why should we hire you?’…Before you Arrive at the Job Interview, you Should have a General Sense of How to Communicate This

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We recently solicited readers to submit their most pressing career-related questions.

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With help from Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of “Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job,” we’ve answered the following: “What should I say when an interviewer asks why the company should hire me?”

Taylor says this question is likely the single best opportunity you have to seal the deal in the job interview. “But because it’s so broad, it can also lead you down a slippery slope if you’re not concise.”

When interviewers ask this question, they want you to convince them that you’re the best candidate for the job. To ace the response, you must do your homework on the employer and job description so you can align your skills and experience with their specific needs.

“This is an opportunity to say, ‘You need X, and I am the best person for the job because of Y.’ You want to convey that not only are you a safe choice with minimal risk — but also a great choice,” says Taylor.

Before you arrive at the job interview, you should have a general sense of how to communicate this, she suggests. “One useful technique is to have three major points in mind on why you’re an excellent choice. This is a default framework you can come back to in the interview to sell yourself. It will become more refined as the interview proceeds.”

Here’s how to answer the common “Why should we hire you?” interview question:

Listen for real-time cues.

“As you hear the finer details of job requirements, jot down some key words from your background that will help you provide a targeted response once the hiring manager asks this question,” Taylor says. “If, for example, organizational skills are paramount, you may jot down certain related software programs you use.” As you make minor notes, still try to maintain good eye contact and stay in an active listening mode.

“Since you now have more data on the real requirements, it’s time to turn up your pitch a notch,” she says. For instance, know your unique selling proposition. What makes you particularly qualified for the job among your peers? What does the firm present publicly and in the interview? How does your unique background align with their mission? “If, for example, the company’s advertising tagline is about service excellence, you can address how your customer service expertise resulted in quantifiable results, such as in expanded business, training you provided, or client recognition you received,” says Taylor.

interview, meeting, work, jobStrelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design/flickr

Focus on key points.

1) Offer the big picture. This is a general overview of the overall match, says Taylor. “You’re setting a general comfort zone here.” For example, you’ll want to talk about: how long you’ve been doing X at what types of companies; your applicable specialty areas; technical skills; training; and education. “Maybe you’ve been promoted frequently or have been given increased responsibility or staff — which objectively attest to your big picture value,” says Taylor. “Share that information.”

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2) Discuss your accomplishments. This is your opportunity to talk more specifically about a couple of specific projects that showcase your related skill sets and experience. “Results are what count, however, so be sure to mention how the contributions helped your company, and how your expertise could similarly make a significant impact for them,” says Taylor. But remember to be concise!

3) Communicate that you have excellent people skills. If you have a few soft skill attributes that you feel would be an asset to the position (such as team player, motivational leader, strong work ethic, reliable), tell them.

“By addressing the low turnover in your department, for example, you underscore that you have strong management potential,” says Taylor. “Oftentimes, slightly stronger people skills trump minor weaknesses in technical expertise. Unlike technical skills, it’s virtually impossible to teach attitude.”

interviewFlickr/AIGA Austin

Prove you’d be a great investment.

“Every manager wants to be assured that you’d offer a good return on investment,” she says. “They want to mitigate risk and avert being in the hiring doghouse. This is your chance use bottom line examples of why the company will benefit from hiring you. What are some specific, applicable accomplishments that illustrate this? Where possible, give dollar percentages or raw numbers (sans inflation).”

For instance, did you:

  •  reduce expenses by a certain percent or dollar figure?
  • streamline certain processes?
  • develop new programs that increased revenues?
  • reduce turnover?
  • secure new accounts or expand on existing business?

“This is not to downplay your overall awards, recognition, kudos, soft skills, and overall success; they still support your market value in a credible way,” says Taylor. “A combination of the two is ideal.”

resumeAIGA RALEIGH/flickr

Be enthusiastic.

“Once you’ve made a solid argument for your skills being a good match, there’s one more factor needed in the mix,” says Taylor. “Show your excitement and enthusiasm for the position. No matter how good you look on paper or present facts, illustrating that you’re genuinely motivated and want the job is a key contributing factor.” After all, this is a good reason to hire you, too. Just make sure your zeal doesn’t slip into the category of desperation. You want to convey that you want the job, not need it.

Be as specific, but brief, as possible.

In selling your great attributes for the job, a few words of caution: When given a sweeping question like this, it’s easy to go into long-winded tangents — or wax on about the time that you developed the equivalent of the Internet of Things for your employer. “Be conscious of brevity and don’t exaggerate,” Taylor suggests. “One, it may be highly transparent; two, it may be deflated in a reference check; and three, if not caught (and eventually hired), you could find yourself in over your head.”

By doing your homework, paying close attention to the input your given, and conveying confidence in performing to the employer’s expectations or beyond, you’ll likely present a winning case, she concludes.

Readers: Want us to answer your questions related to your career or job search? Tweet Careers editor Jacquelyn Smith @JacquelynVSmith or email her at jsmith[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][at]businessinsider[dot]com, and we’ll do our best to answer them.

 

Businessinsider.com |  April 16, 2015 | Jacquelyn Smith 

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-say-when-the-hiring-manager-asks-why-should-we-hire-you-2015-4#ixzz3XVVsBx4J

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Strategy: 4 Techniques that will Make you a Better, more Confident Negotiator… Use your “BATNA” as a Secret Weapon. It Stands for the “Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement”

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Whether you’re looking to nab a deal with a new client or ask for a salary increase, you could benefit from learning some proper negotiation technique.

Interviewer

As Google HR boss Laszlo Bock notes in his book “Work Rules!,” a reluctance to negotiate may also be a major factor on the persistence of the gender pay gap in the US.

In an oft-cited Carnegie Mellon report from Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever from 2003, they found that among the university’s recent business school graduates, 57% had attempted to negotiate a higher salary in their first job, while only 7% of women did.

And even if you’re an aggressive negotiator, you may be making some common mistakes.

We spoke with University of Michigan Ross School of Business professor George Siedel, who has taught negotiation classes around the world and the Coursera course “Successful Negotiation,” to learn how anyone can become a better negotiator.

Here are four essential tips.

Listen.

A negotiation isn’t simply offering a deal and accepting either a “yes” or a “no” after a chance to persuade the other side.

“Good negotiators are the ones who walk into a deal in listening mode,” Siedel says. He recommends that you ask plenty of questions to understand where the other side is coming from and what they’re trying to get out of the deal.

You should be trying to gain the upper hand through the accumulation of knowledge regarding the deal at hand rather than just focusing on the sound of your own voice.

 

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Ease into it.

“You need to know the other side before diving in,” Siedel says, adding that Americans traditionally have a harder time than people of other cultures accepting this.

If you and your team are meeting with representatives of another company, consider meeting them for drinks or dinner the night before the negotiation. If it’s just you and you’re going to see your boss to negotiate a raise, ease into it with some chit-chat. It’s about building trust and easing tension.

Siedel says that his friend moderated a border dispute between Peru and Ecuador. This friend had the two nations’ prime ministers enter a room to talk and two generals do the same. After a long time passed, the two generals returned looking upset. They told Siedel’s friend that they wasted their time chatting about the medical condition that both of their daughters had rather than discussing the topic at hand.

He responded by telling them that their discussion was actually a huge success in moving the negotiation further, since they realized the other side was human rather than just a rival.

Go in with a clear sense of what you want.

“The richest people in the world go into a negotiation knowing exactly what they want,” Siedel says.

Before entering the negotiation, determine your target point, which is your ideal situation. Balance this with a reservation price, which is the point that you won’t cross. If you’re in a position to sell, this would be the minimum you’re willing to part with your assets. And if you’re in a position to buy, this would be the maximum you’re willing to spend.

Don’t be caught off guard by anything the other side proposes, and don’t get manipulated beyond your limits.

Have an alternative prepared.

One of the fundamental aspects of Siedel’s course is using your “BATNA” as a secret weapon. It stands for the “Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement” and refers to what you have to fall back on if the negotiation results in no deal.

If you’ve got a strong BATNA, you should let the other side know. In the course, for example, Siedel says that if Ford approaches a supplier it may say that if they do not agree on a price Ford is happy with, then it will take its business to one of five other suppliers it is ready to go to. If you can’t use your best alternative as leverage, refrain from explaining it to your opponent.

Siedel also recommends trying to find your opponent’s best alternative (or lack thereof) so that you can attempt to use it against them.

If you’d like to go beyond the fundamentals but don’t have time for Siedel’s class, you can check out his book, “Negotiating for Success: Essential Strategies and Skills.”

Businessinsider.com | April 14, 2015 | 

\http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-be-an-effective-negotiator-2015-4#ixzz3XNbDEjDb

Your Career:How To Look For A Job Without Your Boss Finding Out…The Conventional Wisdom Says that You Should Keep your Job Search a Secret from your Employer.

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The conventional wisdom says that you should keep your job search a secret from your employer. If your supervisor finds out, she will think your head is no longer in the game. She’ll stop giving you choice assignments, she won’t pick you for the team that’s prepping for the presentation at the annual meeting in Aspen, she won’t send you to the industry conference in Hawaii and if you have a salary review coming up, she won’t advocate for a raise.

pt_1277_19104_o

 

In this story I’ll tell you how to protect yourself from these bad outcomes. But first I must note an alternative scenario: She could realize that she’s in danger of losing you and offer you a raise and a promotion so you won’t leave. That’s happened here at Forbes more than once.

Nevertheless, in most instances it’s wiser to keep quiet about your job search until you have an offer letter in hand. At that point you can give your current bosses a chance to keep you. Also many people embark on a job search only to realize that the position they have is better than the new opportunities they discover. If you want to stay put, it’s usually best not to rock the boat.

Example: Greenwich, CT career consultant Debra Feldman, who works mostly with C-suite executives to put together search strategies, had a computer programmer client at a Chicago data analytics firm. He was the president of his company, which was taken over by Nielsen. After the acquisition, he found himself pulled into endless meetings instead of pursuing his true love, coding.

Feldman helped him run through several opportunities, including a job in India. But he realized his job wasn’t so bad and had irreplaceable perks, like the fact that he could bicycle to work. After a six-month search he decided that he didn’t want to make a change after all. “He decided the grass was really not greener,” says Feldman. “He figured out that he could manage internally to shift to a different situation where he was happier.” If he had let his job search get out into the open, it could have damaged his status at his old job and made it tougher to make that lateral move.

But there was an upside to his search. He did what we should all do all the time: He got out and networked with influential people in his field, building relationships that could bear fruit in the future. “The best kind of stealth job search is to develop contacts who will recruit you,” says Feldman.

In other words, if you’re great at maintaining your professional network, you won’t have to engage in the difficult and time-consuming process of seeking out contacts in companies where you might want to work, laboring over so-called “pain” letters that lay out what you can do for those companies, imposing on people and convincing them to take time out of their busy days to meet with you.

Instead those great opportunities will come to you and it will be much easier to take the advice I’m about to dole out below. Example: Our crackerjack young career writer Jaclyn Smith had stayed in touch with another top Forbes writer Jenna Goudreau, who had become the careers editor at BusinessInsider. Jenna came to Jaclyn and offered her a great new job that Jaclyn took. It even happened to me once when a former colleague recommended me for a position at CBS News that I sometimes regret that I turned down.

Here are tips for keeping your job search secret. Some of them may seem painfully obvious but Feldman says that people routinely fail to follow them.

1. Don’t use your work email or phone. I admit I’m guilty of this, blithely assuming that my employer isn’t burning up time searching through the 50-100 emails I write a day. But I’m being a fool. My boss could easily detect my actions and use them against me.

If your phone is not company-issued, go ahead and use it but if you have a company BlackBerry, buy yourself a personal phone. Hillary Clinton may claim it’s a pain in the neck to have more than one email address, but even I, one of the world’s most tech-challenged people, have figured out how to get both my gmail and Forbes account on my personal iPhone and Macbook Air (full disclosure: the Genius at the Mac store actually set it up for me).

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  1. Use headhunters but swear them to secrecy.Most recruiters are discreet but it doesn’t hurt to be crystal clear about wanting them to be careful not to reveal your name until things get serious. The recruiter could be working for your present employer.

3. Don’t use sick days for job interviews. I had a long argument with Feldman about this. Call me unethical but for a colleague who never gets sick or takes personal days I don’t see the harm in saying you’re under the weather on a day you have an interview. But Feldman insists that not only is it wrong, you could get caught. “It’s a benefit, not an entitlement,” she says. “What if your boss wants you to conference into a meeting by phone at 10am? Are you going to say you’re too sick?” Take a vacation day or a personal day. You don’t have to explain yourself.

4. When possible, schedule interviews when you’re not supposed to be in the office. Personally I am not a fan of breakfast meetings but that can be the best time to make a connection. Feldman says she has had several executive-level clients who have interviewed while traveling on business. “Many of my clients will coordinate their travel and meet in airports,” she says, “or they schedule a layover.” One Feldman client, now a chief information officer at a financial services company, regularly attends the World Economic Forum in Davos and had meetings there. He wound up leaving Minneapolis for a job in Frankfurt.

5. Don’t come to the office dressed differently than you usually do. We have a casual office at Forbes but in the summer I like to alternate jeans with nicer work attire like black silk pants and a blouse. If you do that, it won’t draw attention to your business look. But I’m surrounded by tattooed graphic designers and web developers who wear t-shirts and hoodies. They’d best change after their job interview. On the other hand, maybe web developers can take a page from Mark Zuckerberg’s book and go to an interview in a hoodie. Personally I’d say put on a tie.

6. When you update your LinkedIn profile, undo the “Notify your network” button on the right side of the page. I’m ambivalent about this piece of advice, since the smart folks among us update our profiles frequently to list new accomplishments and changes like promotions. But it’s probably best to play it cautious. Adding recommendations, which you should do, is a red flag.

7. Don’t tell your work friends or your brother-in-law. You need to have confidantes and ideally, mentors, to help you sort through your job search strategy and potential opportunities. But you need to make sure they can keep quiet. Work friends are dangerous as confidantes, though I’m proud to say I succeeded once in not only keeping a fellow Forbes writer’s job interview secret but convincing him he should go on the interview in the first place when Money magazine called, even though he was happy at Forbes. He got the job, which included a healthy pay hike and a step up to more opportunities.

8. Don’t post on social media. As my 18-year-old might say, “Thank you Captain Obvious,” but many of us are so Facebook- and Twitter-addicted we can’t help ourselves from blurting about what’s exciting in our lives. Even an oblique update like, “Watch this space for some exciting news,” can be a give-away. As with email, I have a hard time thinking my boss is going to waste time looking at my FB postings, though we are friends and Feldman says many bosses regularly check their colleagues’ social media postings. I’m probably being naïve, especially since I work in media.

9. Don’t print your résumé out at the office. More obvious advice that Feldman says too many people don’t heed. Go to Kinko’s or buy yourself a printer. “You need to assume a job search is going to cost you money and you can’t avoid it,” she says.

10. Get recommendations from past colleagues and managers. If you’ve been in the same job for a long time, your previous bosses may not remember you all that well. Look to colleagues and managers who have moved on from your company but know your work well, and of course tell them to keep your search on the down low. Another obvious piece of advice that some people don’t heed: Do not ask your current manager for a recommendation.
11. Don’t slack off. It can be very tough to keep up with your work when you’re looking for a job, which can seem like a full-time job itself, especially if you need to write proposals or in my business, story memos. But if you suddenly stop performing at work, people will know something is up.

If your supervisor catches you in the act, be honest and try to open up a discussion about your current role and how you might improve it. Describe the new challenges you’re seeking. That could lead to more happiness where you’re not expecting to find it.

But most important, assiduously keep up your network. Go to conferences, publish papers, establish a personal website, send interesting articles about your field to people you meet at events, grab drinks and coffee with former colleagues, and as they say, never eat alone. I confess I find this advice wearying and even somewhat unrealistic for many of us. But if you can do it, it most certainly will help your career.

Forbes.com | April 14, 2015 | Susan Adams 

Your Career: Google HR Boss Shares his Best Advice for Succeeding in Today’s Workplace…In the First 10 Years of your Career, Try a Lot of Different Things

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Since Laszlo Bock became Google’s senior vice president of people operations in 2006, the company has grown from a workforce of 6,000 employees to 60,000.  Today, it has more than 70 offices across 40 countries and receives more than 2 million job applications every year.

laszlo bock google

–  Bock says not to specialize before you turn 30.

Neilson Barnard/Getty ImagesLaszlo

In that same time, it’s secured a comfortable No. 1 spot atop several rankings of the best places to work.

Bock recently spoke about his new book about Google, “Work Rules!,” with venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Beyers (an investor in Google since 1999) for a podcast episode of Voices of KPCB.

At one point in the conversation, Doerr asks Bock to share his best career advice for a knowledge worker, and Bock has an unorthodox answer, which we’ve edited for clarity:

The conventional wisdom on how to manage your career is to specialize. They talk about the T-Model, where you finish school and you spend your first 10 years specializing, and then 10 years out you get good, and then you become a general manager (that’s the top of the T). I have completely the opposite view.

Because everyone’s doing that. So if you want to win, you need to do something different.

In the first 10 years of your career, try a lot of different things. Don’t overthink it. Experiment. Work in different companies. Be in a startup; be in a big company. Work for a branded company; work for somebody nobody’s heard of. Work for a nonprofit. You’re going to get a level of breadth that somebody who’s specialized won’t have.

Ten years in, by the time you’re around 30, you should declare your “major.” That’s when you decide here’s “what I want to be when I grow up,” and you specialize.

If you want to be a user interface designer, you’re going to be competing against a bunch of people who have been doing that for 10 years, and they’re a dime a dozen. You’re going to come in having done something like working for a historical society or having traveled the world, and you’re going to be different.

Because you’re different you’re going to have an advantage with the insight you can bring. The cool things are happening at the intersections of fields, not deep, deep, deep in a field — with a few exceptions.

And then in your next 10 years, you accelerate.

In the third decade of your career, you sort of reap the rewards. You’re C-level in a company, or you’re a founder. And you just do your own thing.

Businessinsider.com | April 3, 2015 | 

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-laszlo-bock-best-career-advice-2015-4#ixzz3XBO2DGvt

 

Your Career: 7 Ways To Get Noticed At Work…“It’s about Results… And Likeability,”

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Over the course of my work as a career coach, I’ve had some exceptional clients. While I typically help eager job hunters get more clarity and job offers, I felt inspired to work with a young woman named Amy, who didn’t fit my usual profile.

resume-mistakes-11

Amy wasn’t concerned about landing a job, she was becoming increasingly concerned about getting ahead in her job. In her words, she’d been doing “everything” that was asked of her, but no one was acknowledging her efforts, let alone rewarding them. Meanwhile, other entry-level employees were flying past her with promotions and raises.

… Sound familiar?

We immediately got down to the specifics, assessing the culture and mission of Amy’s company. I learned that it was a small company with a very casual vibe, yet Amy couldn’t even get up the nerve to speak to the CEO when she saw her in the lunchroom. When I pointed out that her hesitation to communicate was hurting her chances of promotion, Amy was bewildered.

“It’s about results, right?” Amy asked.

“It’s about results… And likeability,” I shared.

How could Amy ever going to convince her colleagues that she cared about the business if she wouldn’t make any effort to engage with the people in it?

The truth is that the people who get promoted are doing more than just getting the work done.  Studies show that how we value an employee’s competence changes according to how much we like or dislike that person.

In other words,  being really good at your job isn’t enough.

For an employee to stand out, being likeable is a huge indicator for career success. The good news is that the biggest hindrance to likeability is apathy… This means you can change how others perceive you simply by making the choice to care.

There are steps you can take right now, regardless of your circumstances that will put you back on the promotion path, where you belong:

1. Take initiative. Are there any tasks that have been lingering on your boss’ to-do list for a few weeks? Have the office plants been calling out for water that everyone’s been too lazy to give them? A great way to get noticed is by taking on a project that no one wants to tackle, but that has to get done. I’ll never forget my last corporate job before becoming a career coach. One of my employees went out of her way to make a chart of the deliverables, and it just made my heart surge. It was a job that needed to be done but I hadn’t set aside any time for it, so when she took the initiative and presented it to me, it felt like Christmas morning!

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When you want to stand out at work use your job description as a starting point, not an end point.

2. Build rapport, everywhere. People who get big things done are people who know people, but the Amy’s of the world have a tendency to think that inter-office relationship building is too time-consuming and draining to be worthwhile. I teach hundreds of job hunters around the world the networking skills they need to create contacts out of thin air, and the truth is that it’s less complicated than people make it out to be. Start with a gesture: If you’re running out for Starbucks SBUX +1.03%, offer to pick up a latte for your coworker.

Networking is about kindness, mutual support and growth… Who’s in?

Every aspect of your professional life will improve if you get to know your colleagues and making them feel comfortable getting to know you. Once you’ve broken the ice, you won’t feel nearly as uncomfortable about initiating a conversation in the elevator.

3. Participate in the office’s extracurricular activities. Needless to say, I recommend minimizing the vodka cranberry cocktails during office happy hours, but know that the boundaries of good behavior don’t end with your sobriety. Back in my corporate life, I’ll never forget my company’s Halloween costume party, where a younger member of the team proudly showed up in an elaborately overdone get-up that was so tone-deaf and inappropriate. It distracted everyone else from enjoying the evening, and the mortified CEO “joked” that he’d never be able to take the employee seriously again.

The bottom line: When it comes to office events, never put more effort into your social persona than you’re putting into your professional persona, and when in doubt, always err on the side of maturity.

My colleague’s bad costume decision is undoubtedly going to show up in his bank account.

4. Do business development. Every organization has a bottom line, and if you’re bringing in new business opportunities, you will always be seen as an asset. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been hired for marketing; it’s all about contributing in a bigger way. This doesn’t mean you need to be a walking billboard for your employer, but you should maintain a keen awareness of the opportunities that surround you, whether you’re in a coffee line or a board meeting.

5. Be a team player. Sometimes you’re the star of the show, and sometimes you’re in the chorus. Being alert to your coworkers’ needs, and offering to help when their workload is overwhelming, is the best way to establish yourself as a team player.

You don’t need to be a martyr of self-sacrifice by staying late every single night to do someone else’s work, but stepping up without expecting any personal benefit will never go unnoticed or unappreciated.

6. Never talk smack. That’s the number one way to get noticed…and get fired. Your critiques may be spot-on and your impersonation of the boss might be the best in show, but don’t resort to gossip as a way of gaining popularity in the office.

It’s a universal truth that the person doing the trash talking always looks worse than the person who’s being trashed, even when the criticism is deserved. Stay above the fray at all costs.

7. Speak up. At 23 years old, I was hired to run a program for the Pentagon, and I’ll never forget my fear of speaking up as I sat in a sea of military leaders. The biggest shift in my career came when I took a quantum leap out of my comfort zone and started sharing my thoughts in staff meetings.

One day, they were trying to come up with a new approach for the program’s curriculum, and I sat there, mentally poking holes in all of their ideas. After they’d exhausted their options, I finally just let loose with my suggestions.

My input transformed the work we were doing, and my role on the team became more significant overnight.

It can be terrifying to put yourself out there, but the employee who’s still coming up with ideas long after the creativity fountain runs dry is a huge asset to any organization.

Over the course of a few months, Amy started to realize that having a voice in the workforce is like a muscle that grows stronger with frequent use. With each step forward, her self-consciousness loosened its grip and she became confident about seizing opportunities. She felt empowered to step up, regardless of whether it was to run a meeting or fix the copy machine.

The standout employees are the ones who behave like leaders, even when their title is Intern. The irony is that when you’re more focused on the results than the promotion, your title will change faster than you can even imagine.

If you don’t believe me, guess who’s now managing her company’s brand new office in London?

That would be—you guessed it—Amy.

 

Forbes.com | Arpil 3, 2015 | Ashley Stahl

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