Several professional career advisers are harping on the do's and don'ts of networking right now (h/t Alexandra Levitt, among others). This is among the toughest skills to develop when pursuing a career and building your portfolio in the fields you are most passionate about, especially if you are not exposed to training programs in school or at work that help you with the process. Family and friends will attest that I am, by no means, an expert on it, especially when I am forced to stand face-to-face with someone I know little or nothing about in an awkward social setting.
Experience also have taught me that the benefits you reap from networking are directly related (and in some cases, magnified) to the investment you make in building relationships and maintaining them actively. A networking contact I have known, advised, and sought advice from in my professional field over the last eight months surprised me earlier this week with a random "thought of you email" that included a forward of some very valuable information. These moments when valuable, applicable knowledge present themselves from someone else are not possible without developing the contacts and relationships that encourage others to make the extra effort on your behalf, and vice versa.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
What's on your mind?
In addition to this blog's weekly column and occasional (for now) mentions of additional developments in career and life enhancement, I would like to open the floor for questions that I can help find the answers for. Whether you are about to graduate or are starting college in the fall or need help figuring out the next step after the "other shoe" dropped recently, please pass along any questions by email to alwaysachieve@gmail.com. I will do my best to offer some advice from the perspective of a fellow career seeker. Thank you.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Do they really need an "expert"?
Individuals who pursue personal passions in their professional lives devour every piece of information and acquire any type of relatable experience in order to grow their profile and understanding. Career advisors and life coaches, just like the one I heard speak a couple of weeks ago, encourage us that one of the best ways to increase opportunity, through jobs or leads, is to become a recognized "expert" in our chosen field.
I am as guilty of this as the next overachiever. When asked this past week about what I like about my real job, I simply said, "it lets me be a geek." As someone who read ten times more non-fiction than fiction as a child, analyzing public policy and evaluating financial information are second nature. My strong personal interests towards my career facilitates an intensity the encourages me to reach out to fellows in the field when they pose questions on listservs or at meetings. I love running workshops at conferences, and I make the time in my busy schedule to engage in scholarly-level research (though without the abundance of resources found on a college campus).
If you were to ask me about the externalities in the evolution of the politics-administration dichotomy, I could tell you just about anything you wanted to know. However, does this make me the most desirable person to hear about this subject? Is my immense knowledge and pursuit of "expert" understanding in my personal passions going to encourage opportunities for future employment, especially in the academic sector I desperately want to be part of?
Not exactly. Many times, being an "expert" is the opposite of what an employer or potential customer wants. In the current job climate, more knowledgeable candidates are being turned away for those few available positions in favor of recent graduates and the less experienced. The reasons are several, from the fact that the responsibilities of the positions make the more experienced appear overqualified, to recent findings suggesting that experience often serves to inhibit one's ability to adapt towards achieving success.
Becoming an expert can also make someone arrogant or unappreciative of the abilities of others. This opinion piece from a New York food critic on her displeasure with the "child foodie" movement could easily come across to a reader as a "sour grapes" diatribe from an industry elitist. She does make some salient points throughout her column, but the tone wreaks of the vitriol of someone jaded by her superior knowledge and abilities, unable to appreciate what others without her background might be able to contribute.
True expertise is achieved when one recognizes the limits of their own knowledge and experiences, embraces the ideas of others, and finds ways to incorporate new skills and concepts into their intellectual reference. As many people I help with issues in my profession, I do my best to ask just as many questions to the same group. While I am using this blog to offer tips that can help others in their personal and professional growth, the process of writing and researching these pieces and the feedback from readers are just as valuable in my own development.
Even if you are an "expert", regardless of your actual age, it is important to convince employers and customers (current and potential) that your knowledge and background only encourage you to learn more, serve more, and appreciate the thoughts of others more. Real experts find a lesson in life every day, enabling them to maintain a professional focus that leads them to always achieve.
I am as guilty of this as the next overachiever. When asked this past week about what I like about my real job, I simply said, "it lets me be a geek." As someone who read ten times more non-fiction than fiction as a child, analyzing public policy and evaluating financial information are second nature. My strong personal interests towards my career facilitates an intensity the encourages me to reach out to fellows in the field when they pose questions on listservs or at meetings. I love running workshops at conferences, and I make the time in my busy schedule to engage in scholarly-level research (though without the abundance of resources found on a college campus).
If you were to ask me about the externalities in the evolution of the politics-administration dichotomy, I could tell you just about anything you wanted to know. However, does this make me the most desirable person to hear about this subject? Is my immense knowledge and pursuit of "expert" understanding in my personal passions going to encourage opportunities for future employment, especially in the academic sector I desperately want to be part of?
Not exactly. Many times, being an "expert" is the opposite of what an employer or potential customer wants. In the current job climate, more knowledgeable candidates are being turned away for those few available positions in favor of recent graduates and the less experienced. The reasons are several, from the fact that the responsibilities of the positions make the more experienced appear overqualified, to recent findings suggesting that experience often serves to inhibit one's ability to adapt towards achieving success.
Becoming an expert can also make someone arrogant or unappreciative of the abilities of others. This opinion piece from a New York food critic on her displeasure with the "child foodie" movement could easily come across to a reader as a "sour grapes" diatribe from an industry elitist. She does make some salient points throughout her column, but the tone wreaks of the vitriol of someone jaded by her superior knowledge and abilities, unable to appreciate what others without her background might be able to contribute.
True expertise is achieved when one recognizes the limits of their own knowledge and experiences, embraces the ideas of others, and finds ways to incorporate new skills and concepts into their intellectual reference. As many people I help with issues in my profession, I do my best to ask just as many questions to the same group. While I am using this blog to offer tips that can help others in their personal and professional growth, the process of writing and researching these pieces and the feedback from readers are just as valuable in my own development.
Even if you are an "expert", regardless of your actual age, it is important to convince employers and customers (current and potential) that your knowledge and background only encourage you to learn more, serve more, and appreciate the thoughts of others more. Real experts find a lesson in life every day, enabling them to maintain a professional focus that leads them to always achieve.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Leavit's "skill" piece provides excellent perspective of C-A-R and resume improvement
In this week's "Reinvent" tip column for WSJ, Alexandra Levit provides a succinct plan for focusing career searches on passion-oriented skills. Identifying past examples where these skills created professional benefit through "Challenges-Actions-Results," as well as channeling the personal energy toward your passion with position-oriented "functional resumes," are excellent ways to invigorate a stagnant search or restart your pursuit of a better professional future.
I believe Levit will have more great articles to come. In the meantime, check out her blog.
I believe Levit will have more great articles to come. In the meantime, check out her blog.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Facing Up to the Time Value "Correction"
Unemployment, furloughs, and general malaise about our current economy create a devastating impact on anybody's asset portfolio. While many of our investments take a ride in the marketplace in a manner beyond our individual ability to control, one commodity we personally overstated in value in year's past is perhaps one of our most important today: time.
For the past several years, I noticed how many people, young and old, leveraged their bank accounts, personal contacts, and anything else of material value in order to avoid having to give up any extra hours or minutes, or even seconds, to the world around them. Fundraising for charities lost all matter of creativity and friendship-building, with the events held up as successes nothing more than opulent check-writing exercises.
Many friends and colleagues would buy just about anything on impulse if a salesperson or coworker told us it would save us time. Sometimes, the results were truly productive, such as with the mass adoption of PDA's, Blackberries, and the IPhone. I would imagine, though, that many are spending their newly found "free time" as permanent vacationers from their former employer trying to turn some of these doodads and high-tech trinkets into cash, or something that will help them get by another month out in the proverbial cold.
Time is valuable, but as every mentor (family or otherwise) taught me, it only benefits you in the way you use it. So often, those I saw so effective at saving time on the job or in public wasted it so frivolously at home or elsewhere. If you hung around a Starbucks or bookstore coffee house these past couple of years, you saw a lot of people withdrawing their time savings, doing nothing while enjoying a $4 latte.
What is important for us to realize about time is that it cannot be saved like any other investment to use so much later. Time is allocated to each of us equally in 24-hour increments a day. We can't "bank" what we do not use. Every hour and minute has the same potential to enrich our lives, as well as those who can benefit from our services as professionals or kindness as individuals of faith.
Every day for me today is as busy as I can make it. Even recovering from a cold this weekend, I am still trying to utilize every possible moment, whether it's helping my wife with an upcoming project or taking my daughter out for a drive amidst the late-winter rain and cold. When work arrives Monday, my internal schedule will be jammed with tasks and duties, followed by evening rituals where I have the opportunity to enjoy time with my family. Right now, every day is a full day.
Much of the reason why my time is utilized is because I am pursuing personal passions in my professional life, creating a career that applies my natural abilities and connects with my interests. So many took a different path in the past decade, simply accepting jobs that promised financial security or opportunities for systematic advancement. Unable to overcome the emptiness they felt despite their perceived professional success, many turned to the commodity of time. They have learned now, however, that time is not a commodity, but rather a resource that is only available as it arrives and passes.
For those with time on their hands, use it to identify and embrace those personal passions that can lead to professional success. Recognize that the hours available today will only be available today, just like tomorrow expires at its end. The key is to take advantage of the day available, morning and night. Build upon what you knew at its beginning, the knowledge, experiences, and values you learned from days, months, and years past. Apply this background to grow in some manner or way each day, whether through accomplishment or learning lessons out of failure. Regardless, if time is used to its potential, you will end the day with more than what you started.
For the past several years, I noticed how many people, young and old, leveraged their bank accounts, personal contacts, and anything else of material value in order to avoid having to give up any extra hours or minutes, or even seconds, to the world around them. Fundraising for charities lost all matter of creativity and friendship-building, with the events held up as successes nothing more than opulent check-writing exercises.
Many friends and colleagues would buy just about anything on impulse if a salesperson or coworker told us it would save us time. Sometimes, the results were truly productive, such as with the mass adoption of PDA's, Blackberries, and the IPhone. I would imagine, though, that many are spending their newly found "free time" as permanent vacationers from their former employer trying to turn some of these doodads and high-tech trinkets into cash, or something that will help them get by another month out in the proverbial cold.
Time is valuable, but as every mentor (family or otherwise) taught me, it only benefits you in the way you use it. So often, those I saw so effective at saving time on the job or in public wasted it so frivolously at home or elsewhere. If you hung around a Starbucks or bookstore coffee house these past couple of years, you saw a lot of people withdrawing their time savings, doing nothing while enjoying a $4 latte.
What is important for us to realize about time is that it cannot be saved like any other investment to use so much later. Time is allocated to each of us equally in 24-hour increments a day. We can't "bank" what we do not use. Every hour and minute has the same potential to enrich our lives, as well as those who can benefit from our services as professionals or kindness as individuals of faith.
Every day for me today is as busy as I can make it. Even recovering from a cold this weekend, I am still trying to utilize every possible moment, whether it's helping my wife with an upcoming project or taking my daughter out for a drive amidst the late-winter rain and cold. When work arrives Monday, my internal schedule will be jammed with tasks and duties, followed by evening rituals where I have the opportunity to enjoy time with my family. Right now, every day is a full day.
Much of the reason why my time is utilized is because I am pursuing personal passions in my professional life, creating a career that applies my natural abilities and connects with my interests. So many took a different path in the past decade, simply accepting jobs that promised financial security or opportunities for systematic advancement. Unable to overcome the emptiness they felt despite their perceived professional success, many turned to the commodity of time. They have learned now, however, that time is not a commodity, but rather a resource that is only available as it arrives and passes.
For those with time on their hands, use it to identify and embrace those personal passions that can lead to professional success. Recognize that the hours available today will only be available today, just like tomorrow expires at its end. The key is to take advantage of the day available, morning and night. Build upon what you knew at its beginning, the knowledge, experiences, and values you learned from days, months, and years past. Apply this background to grow in some manner or way each day, whether through accomplishment or learning lessons out of failure. Regardless, if time is used to its potential, you will end the day with more than what you started.
Monday, February 23, 2009
WSJ Adds "Reinvent" Column
In odd synchronization with the launch of my blog, the Wall Street Journal launched a new career column for their Sunday edition. "Reinvent" appears to be a weekly column featuring relatively young and successful career consultant Alexandra Levit, who will tackle the personal and professional renewals so many are facing in the current climate.
Her introductory piece displays a great deal of potential, and the sliver she provides of her own story indicates that her presence as a columnist is made possible by focusing energies on skills and interests related to her personal passions.
Levit comes to the Journal with success as a speaker on career issues and the writer of three books, including the well-regarded They Don't Teach Corporate in College (I need to look at this one). She is often published in newspapers and has an active, substantive career blog. All of this is worth taking a look if you need some ideas.
Her introductory piece displays a great deal of potential, and the sliver she provides of her own story indicates that her presence as a columnist is made possible by focusing energies on skills and interests related to her personal passions.
Levit comes to the Journal with success as a speaker on career issues and the writer of three books, including the well-regarded They Don't Teach Corporate in College (I need to look at this one). She is often published in newspapers and has an active, substantive career blog. All of this is worth taking a look if you need some ideas.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
We're not missing the skills or ideas, but the mentality
A few weeks ago, I posted Nancy Lublin's recent column in Fast Company on the current corporate exodus to the public sector and how many of those looking for careers in charity do not possess, in her opinion, the appropriate credentials. As a former nonprofit and current government employee, I agreed with her general observation that many in the for-profit world now out of work do not appreciate the limited (if any) resources, high demands, and necessity to succeed in spite of uncontrollable adversities that she, I, and our brethren face on a daily basis.
The biggest observation I have made about the current market of job seekers, both the experienced and those joining them fresh out of school, is that while they possess an immense, diverse wealth of knowledge and skills critical to success for any industry or profession, they lack the mental toughness we all must possess to restore our footing and create success in our forever-changed economic landscape.
Newscasters and reporters appear ever ready to display the downtrodden lots of unemployed white-collars every chance they get, giving them the chance to cry, whine, and beg for opportunities with anyone listening. This does nothing for them and would only encourage me to avoid employing them altogether. If their current life circumstances are supposed to resemble true adversity, then the lives of our grandparents, those in the squalor of third-world countries, and those who defend our freedoms and interests abroad must be spiritually-condemning.
Mentally-speaking, the unemployed lack the toughness to first realize that complaining will get them nowhere, and second, to understand that in many cases, their future rests not with another gratuitous corporation of "sugar daddy" employer, with the personal, individual management of their skills and abilities in the open marketplace. In other words, regardless their chosen field, they are best to approach the future, as many successful individuals already have, as entrepreneurs.
Lublin's mentality, while focused on serving others effectively and efficiently, is far more entrepreneurial than most of Wall Street or the corporate offices of the world prior to last fall's meltdown. Any person looking for work, before thinking about restoring their position in salary or benefits or anything regarding their personal needs, should first be prepared to sell their worth, desire, and passion to any employer or investor. It is no longer about what a company can offer you, but how you, a single person, can take whatever is made available to you (no matter or much or little) and turn it into a benefit that GROWS the company from where it is now.
Of course, this makes it all the more important to link your professional goals to your personal passions. Unless you look at your work as a personal endeavor that you are committed to completely and unequivocally, you are not going to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to have any chance of success. Forget comp time, overtime, or even vacation time. In fact, be ready for perhaps the most hellish professional experience known in this country, the daily grind of an entrepreneur.
Our joined path has past beyond the rolling hills and lush meadows, and long, rocky, mountainous, road of treachery awaits. Just like every other stock your 401(k) may own, time no longer has that much value, and neither do privilege or entitlement. Expecting to give all that is needed and more will not happen unless you believe in what you are doing, and that is where the passion needed to grow everyday is so desperately needed to build a mentality of achievement.
The biggest observation I have made about the current market of job seekers, both the experienced and those joining them fresh out of school, is that while they possess an immense, diverse wealth of knowledge and skills critical to success for any industry or profession, they lack the mental toughness we all must possess to restore our footing and create success in our forever-changed economic landscape.
Newscasters and reporters appear ever ready to display the downtrodden lots of unemployed white-collars every chance they get, giving them the chance to cry, whine, and beg for opportunities with anyone listening. This does nothing for them and would only encourage me to avoid employing them altogether. If their current life circumstances are supposed to resemble true adversity, then the lives of our grandparents, those in the squalor of third-world countries, and those who defend our freedoms and interests abroad must be spiritually-condemning.
Mentally-speaking, the unemployed lack the toughness to first realize that complaining will get them nowhere, and second, to understand that in many cases, their future rests not with another gratuitous corporation of "sugar daddy" employer, with the personal, individual management of their skills and abilities in the open marketplace. In other words, regardless their chosen field, they are best to approach the future, as many successful individuals already have, as entrepreneurs.
Lublin's mentality, while focused on serving others effectively and efficiently, is far more entrepreneurial than most of Wall Street or the corporate offices of the world prior to last fall's meltdown. Any person looking for work, before thinking about restoring their position in salary or benefits or anything regarding their personal needs, should first be prepared to sell their worth, desire, and passion to any employer or investor. It is no longer about what a company can offer you, but how you, a single person, can take whatever is made available to you (no matter or much or little) and turn it into a benefit that GROWS the company from where it is now.
Of course, this makes it all the more important to link your professional goals to your personal passions. Unless you look at your work as a personal endeavor that you are committed to completely and unequivocally, you are not going to be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to have any chance of success. Forget comp time, overtime, or even vacation time. In fact, be ready for perhaps the most hellish professional experience known in this country, the daily grind of an entrepreneur.
Our joined path has past beyond the rolling hills and lush meadows, and long, rocky, mountainous, road of treachery awaits. Just like every other stock your 401(k) may own, time no longer has that much value, and neither do privilege or entitlement. Expecting to give all that is needed and more will not happen unless you believe in what you are doing, and that is where the passion needed to grow everyday is so desperately needed to build a mentality of achievement.
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