Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Get Work at a Small Company

From my colleagues at the Wall Street Journal and John Crant, a career coach and founder of selfrecruiter.com, here’s some terrific advice if you’re seeking work at a small company:

What approach should a job seeker take when beginning to look for work at a small business?  Start by finding just one individual with a similar background or skill set as yourself. Do a People Search on LinkedIn to find this starter profile. Now search their current employer’s name to find other individuals with similar functions. Look at where all of these individuals worked before. Some places will be larger companies that you have heard about, but many will be these smaller companies that you have never heard of before.

What are some qualities to highlight during the interview?  Highlight your abilities to work independently, without the need for too much support. Illustrate through example where you have taken the reigns and have worn several hats at once. Show them that you can bring significant industry expertise to their team. Of course, be sure to convey that you are a team player too.

Is networking more important than in larger organizations? Smaller organizations are much more like families. Contact and network with several individuals within the company, and work to build rapport with contacts you uncover. As your dialogue with the company evolves and people begin to discuss you internally, you will have already laid a foundation of chemistry.

Students Need Personal Branding Too

Those of you who are current students need to be concerned about your image beyond how you portray yourself in interviews.  Here are some statistics to illustrate how your world has changed:

• 45% of companies conduct background checks on social networks (Careerbuilder 2009)
• 10% of college admissions officers conduct background checks on social networks (Kaplan 2009)
• Hiring is down 7% for the 2010 graduating class (NACE, September 2009)
• 63% of job-hunting college grads aren’t cleaning up their social network profiles (CollegeGrad.com, September 2009)
• 71% of college admissions officers receive friend requests from applicants (Kaplan, September 2009)
• Employers receiving 49 graduate applications for each vacancy (Association of Graduate Recruiters, July 2009)
• 59% of college grads send out 30 or more resumes as part of their job search (CollegeGrad.com, May 2009)

These developments can be scary, so to address them my friend Dan Schawbel has just launched Student Branding Blog, which is an offshoot of his successful Personal Branding Blog that will deliver career and personal branding advice for high school, college and graduate students.  The blog, with the support of experienced college career counselors and recent graduates, will help students capitalize on their own unique abilities. If you’re a current student, I highly recommend checking it out!

Office Politics Dos and Don'ts

DO - Set boundaries as to how you use various social networks (e.g. Facebook for personal, LinkedIn for professional) and make sure you communicate those boundaries so that feelings aren't hurt.  DON'T let your boss and co-workers catch you chatting and playing with Facebook applications when you should be working.

DO - Use your real name on Twitter to network with people you wouldn't have the chance to communicate with in real life.  DO - send them valuable information or interesting tidbits about their field.  DON'T - get caught up in the heat of the moment.  Before you post something on Twitter, think about whether you'd want to read it on the front page of the WSJ.

DO - Pursue friendships in other departments and with friends of your co-workers.  DON'T ever date a boss or a direct report, and DON'T date an immediate co-worker unless you can handle seeing that person every day if the relationship goes south.  

DO - Reply to all only if every person on the string really needs to hear what you're saying.  DO - check (always) the list of people in the TO and CC lines before sending any e-mail.  DON'T hit reply too quickly in case that Reply to All function is accidentally on, and DON'T use e-mail for negative or controversial discussion. 

DO - Deal with loud talkers by saying nicely that you're on the phone with a client and ask if they would mind keeping it down a bit.  DON'T allow your desire to avoid confrontation affect your work effectiveness.

DO - Get negative emotions off your chest by venting to a close friend or family member.  DON'T complain at work at all - people won't like you.  DO - think of ways to turn a bad situation into a more positive one and approach your boss and co-workers with solutions instead of problems. 

 DO - Have fun at Happy Hour, but keep it to a one or two drink minimum.  DON'T - drink at lunch or during daytime business meetings.  DON'T - get drunk with co-workers even in evening, social settings.  You'll end up saying or doing something you regret. 

 

The Ability to Learn is Your Most Important Skill

When employers talk about desirable skills they look for in new hires, they usually mean things like marketing, IT, budgeting, and project management. But what about the ability to learn?

I’m not kidding. Let’s say a 20-something employee, we’ll call her Amy, starts a new job as a sales representative at a Fortune 500 software company. She graduated from college fairly recently and has never done sales before, so her boss expects her to have lots of questions as she proceeds to develop her first client relationships. He guides her through the process patiently, explaining in detail how to communicate the product’s value proposition, and how she should go about getting a meeting with a decision maker.

After all the time he spends, the boss hopes that Amy can take what he told her and apply it to her next sales situation. But the boss is taking for granted the fact that Amy has the ability to assimilate new information, and that she instinctively knows how to harness it in a variety of circumstances. However, this is actually a pretty rare skill. Most people will need to hear similar instructions repeated time and time again, just because the scenario is slightly different than last time.

Employers frequently test for this skill during the hiring process, often in the form of behavioral interview. This type of interview demonstrates how a candidate acted in past job situations. How should you prepare for it? First, think of a project with which you were tasked in a prior job.

Consider the details, including the type of assignment and the expected result. Next, create a list of the steps you took to complete the task and solve any problems that came up during the course of the task. Finally, practice explaining your results and what you learned from the initiative. This last part is the most important because employers want to know that you can put all your terrific experience to use for them and dive right in on your start date.

Dream Job Spotlight: Andrea Rubin, Director of Marketing, Yelp.com

I love profiling fabulously successful young professionals, and this time around, I decided to feature someone under 30 who has made it to the top ranks of a very twenty-first century organization.  Check out Andrea Rubin, Director of Marketing and Community Management of Yelp.com, talking about how she got to this point in her career:

AMEX Study Shows Small Business Optimism

For the first time since September 2007, the majority (55%) of small business owners have a positive view of the economic environment and its impact on their ability to grow, according to the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor.  Concurrently, more firms are at risk of going out of business (17%) than six months ago (11%), due in part to personal funds being tapped out: one-third (32%) say they are using personal or private funds to manage cash flow challenges.

While there appears to be a widening divide between healthy and struggling businesses, even the healthy businesses are proceeding with caution. Fewer firms have hiring plans than at any point in the eight-year history of the Monitor and plans for capital investments equal the record-setting low from Spring 2009 (42%).  Other findings include: 

• Nearly seven-in-ten entrepreneurs (68%) are “stressed out” by the economy and three-in-ten (31%) say that the current economy has caused them to question their decision to become an entrepreneur.
• Gen Y is least concerned about the economy: 48% expect their business to grow regardless of the economy vs. 27% of Baby Boomers, 22% of Gen Xers and 28% of SBOs overall.
• Manufacturers are the most positive: 33% see the economy improving and expanding opportunities for their business vs. 26% of SBOs, 28% of business services companies and 22% of retailers.

Is America Losing Its Competitive Edge?

A new survey released by my Business Roundtable committee, Project Springboard, reveals that the United States is at risk of losing its competitive edge and American workers’ economic potential by not addressing business’ growing demand for a better educated and better trained workforce. American workers’ unmet need for further education and training is exacerbating today’s unemployment problem and portending long-term trouble for workers and businesses – even after the economy recovers.

The survey shows a glaring and growing need for workers with higher levels of skills and credentials, sharply contrasted with employers’ modest efforts to provide training and workers’ reluctance to pursue education and training because of serious obstacles holding them back. Key findings include:

• Employers expect to see an increased need for a better skilled workforce, with 65 percent of employers surveyed saying they will require an associate’s degree or higher for most positions.
• Looking ahead four years, employers say their greatest need will be workers with more
  technical skills, higher degrees or certifications, and improved skills or better qualifications.
• Half of employers say they currently have such a serious gap between their needs and employees’ skills that it affects their productivity.
• Eight in ten workers – regardless of income or education level – show keen interest in pursuing further training and education.
• The majority of workers say they would be very likely to pursue training or education if the obstacles they face could be overcome by such initiatives as programs with flexible classroom hours or enrollment periods, tuition reimbursement, online learning or programs designed and managed by local business leaders.

Participating on this committee was a terrific experience and I look forward to sharing some of our deliverables to the Obama administration with you next year!

When a Goal Flops

Have you ever pursued a goal only to eventually realize that it’s just not working out?  This has happened to me, and I can tell you there’s nothing more frustrating.  After all, we usually don’t achieve goals because A) we purposely set them aside to focus on something more important or B) we get too busy (or lazy) and don’t give them the time and attention they deserve.   

But what about the times when we do everything we should do to make something happen, and we’re persistent about it, but despite herculean efforts we just don’t see results?   For example, from the time my friend was a child, she wanted to be an actress.  After she graduated from college, she attended workshops, spent money on headshots, went on hundreds of auditions, and networked like mad.   But several years later, my friend still had no results to speak of save one walk-on part on a network sitcom. 

My friend realized that the cosmos was trying to tell her that she was meant to do something else, but she had been tuning it out.  She started listening, and recalled how she’d helped a friend in marketing come up with one of the most successful brand names in that company’s history.  Now she’s an extremely successful independent naming consultant, pulling down a six figure salary and loving every minute of it.   

Sometimes, we may think we’re destined for something, only to find out that there’s an entirely different plan in place for us.  When you keep hitting a brick wall despite trying your damndest to achieve a certain outcome, perhaps that means you should look at other possibilities.  As a unique human being, you have your own brand of genius to offer the world – even if it’s not exactly what you thought at first.

Your Career is a Corporation

I recently had the chance to talk with Martin Yate, one of my most-admired authors in the career advice space.  Martin and I chatted about how most of us will work for nearly half a century, changing jobs roughly every 3-4 years.  We agreed that now is the time for all professionals to take charge of their own careers.  Here was Martin’s advice:

“Certain transferable skills like communication, time management and organization, teamwork, creativity and leadership are transferable and sought by all employers in all professions and ease the transition from one job to another.  Now while these skills are critical to success, there is another skill, perhaps the most important of all that enables you to better navigate the rocky road between jobs and as you climb the promotional ladder. Smart professionals think of themselves as Me Inc., a financial entity much like a corporation, which must maintain a steady cash flow over half a century.

With Me Inc. awareness, you immediately have a serious commitment to profitability and are constantly developing Me Inc.’s products and services against the needs of your customer base, the employers who hire people like you. Me Inc’.s success demands ongoing initiatives for research and product development (skill building based on market trends), Marketing and PR (establishing personal credibility, positioning, visibility and branding), Strategic Planning (development of defensive and offensive career management strategies), and a state-of-the-art sales program (resume, job search and interviewing tactics).

Tomorrow’s successful professionals will be those who develop the critical job search and career management skills that allow them to navigate the twists and turns of a long and rarely secure work life.”

Martin always challenges me to think about career development issues in new and innovative ways.  Hope he did the same for you.

The Next Gen of Job Boards

UnitedWeWork.org, a new job site, says that it’s seeking to connect job seekers with employers in a more personalized and humane way that’s free for everyone.  The model has been compared to that of the popular dating site eHarmony; instead of listing available jobs and applying to each one, job seekers create one profile which includes their skills, experience, education and desires and the job-matching network connects them with recruiters who are filling appropriate positions.   

Similar to the idea of eHarmony’s matching technology, United We Work utilizes QuietAgent's smart matching technology, which isn’t just based on job titles or keywords.  Intuitive yet complex, the site is perfect for anyone open to a career transition and/or relocation because the job seekers are matched with positions based on compatibility of skills and strengths – not just on past experience in that exact position.

UnitedWeWork sends members real-time status updates for each job seeker; allowing them to feel empowered by understanding what the process is; if the job has been filled, or if the employer needs more time to decide. 

 While anonymity is still a critical concern for some job seekers, every user is entirely anonymous until they choose to reveal their identity.  Additionally, each user’s profile can be set up to exclude any employers by domain names.

If you’re job hunting, it’s definitely worth checking out!