When you decide that employment inertia is no longer working for you or you find that economic conditions beyond your control have thrust you into a job or possibly a career change, then you need a plan. The better you accept and strategically deal with change, the more likely a positive outcome can be realized. 

As a career transition specialist, I have determined ten important steps that must be followed to form a complete plan. As you read the steps below, assess for yourself if you have a grasp on some of these or if you need to develop and refine certain ones. You will know that you have mastered most if not all ten steps when you feel deep contentment with your career. 

My pick for the ten practical basic steps to career development are: 

1. Choose your “industry“. It may be as clear-cut as pharmaceuticals or physics, or it may be a hybrid like combining social work with animal rescue. But whatever you decide, be clear that you are in a field that you care about and would like to grow in.
2. Determine and promote your value proposition or unique selling proposition, including a branding process. Everyone needs to market themselves if they are to find career options and opportunities.
3. Having a strong resume.  Prepare a resume that highlights your significance and employment value. It is more relevant today than ever before. Make this a document that has you truly shining.
4. Distribute cover letters that open doors.  In general, the more targeted a cover letter is written, the greater are your chances for an interview. But also consider the cold cover letter that can make a hiring manager sit up and take notice.
5. Maximize the power of LinkedIn. It is a small jump from a solid resume to a powerful LinkedIn profile. Someone who may consider you for an interview or to hire you will most likely look for your LI presence. Be there and look good.
6. Know job search best practices.  Still looking in the newspaper for who is hiring? Job search techniques have been identified that will increase your chances of getting the work you want. Become familiar with what works and do not waste time and energy with what does not.
7. Networking, networking, and networking. No longer just a job search tactic, networking is a systematic cultivation of people who can be a valuable resource for career opportunities. Build and maintain a rich network of such contacts. Smart professionals are always networking, even and especially, when they are employed.
8. Develop your intellectual capital through research. Know as much as possible about trends, practices, threats, and strengths in your chosen industry and/or with key companies. This will increase your credibility and professional instincts. Adding to your expertise should never stop.
9. Practice informational interviews. As a subset of the last two mentioned steps, informational interviews assist you in building a knowledge base and learning from people in the know. Set up short fact-gathering sessions with insiders to expand both your intellectual and your social capital. 
10. Strengthen your job interview performance. Be well prepared for all types of job interviews. This is not just about memorizing answers to common questions. It is about leveraging confidence, knowledge, and skills to craft a presentation that leads to a satisfying career move.

Implementing a plan consisting of these ten steps will better position you for the work life you desire. Make no mistake, doing all of this is a lot of work and it is not easy. But as the world of work moves increasingly toward one in which the professional is the primary caregiver of themselves, it is a necessary one. 

Any career transition strategy must include evidence that the job seeker or job changer is involved in continuous learning. With competition for jobs tighter than ever, it creates a buyer market for hiring managers and recruiters. They can select from among the best in the talent pool and part of being the best is for the professional to be engaged in their field through a never-ending process of learning and refinement. 

I would recommend to any client going into a job interview that they make sure the interviewer knows that they are enthused and energized by their line of work or chosen profession and that they are constantly seeking ways to grow and learn more deeply and broadly about it. 

Now this does not have to mean just taking formal classes or matriculating into degree programs, although doing so can certainly count as concrete evidence. Additional continuous learning techniques can be accomplished through on-the-job-training, networking with those possessing expertise, joining and following relevant LinkedIn groups, getting involved with professional association activities and resources, and the one I would like to focus on today, the informational interview. 

This method is great for targeted learning about types of jobs. It is all about information gathering and when done well can leave you much more knowledgeable about where you want and do not want to go with your career. As an added benefit, informational interviewing can expand your network and serve as a self-promotion or marketing tactic that may pay off with learning about interesting and new opportunities down the road.  

The first thing to know about informational interviews is that they are not job interviews. The purpose is to ask proven professionals for advice and insight. They can help the job seeker learn more about specific careers, industries, and companies, resulting in you knowing much more about each than you did before. 

To do this well, however, you need to be someone who can reach out to these people in the know and make a request for an informational interview. In many cases this may mean making a cold contact — everybody’s favorite thing to do! But with practice, even the most introverted among us can get into the outreach zone. 

Keep this in mind, most people like to be asked about what they know and are good at. Who does not like to talk about themselves? Many current pros probably did some informational interviewing when they were considering transitions and feel it is appropriate to give back.   

Finding people to interview will require some homework. LinkedIn and Twitter along with other face-to-face networking through professional associations, Chambers of Commerce, alumni associations, professional journals or other publications, workshops, conferences, and social events can all turn up interesting people with whom to speak. 

Once you identify some potential contacts, approach them first in writing by explaining who you are and provide some professional background along with a specific purpose of your contact and your contact information. Request a twenty-minute time slot. (If lucky, it will go longer). Determine with them if face-to-face, phone, or Skype is the best way to talk. 

Never go into one of these ill prepared. Get as much background information together by visiting the organization’s or industry’s web sites beforehand along with pre-determined questions ready to use. 

You are asking them about things like: 

a typical day 

workplace environment and conditions 

necessary training and education requirements 

anticipated job prospects 

company and industry culture 

earnings potential 

typical company and industry career paths 

what their recommendations and warnings are 

best practices 

how they stack up with the competition 

I am sure that you can think of others. Hopefully, the conversation will begin to flow and take on a life of its own. 

As you conclude, ask if there is anyone else they can recommend for you to interview. After all, this is part of your continuous learning plan. There is always more to read and someone else to meet. 

The recent mass firing of an entire high school staff in Central Falls, RI is remarkable on several levels. And one of these is that there were many teachers fired who had not only a history of loyalty to the school and community but had years’ worth of positive evaluations or performance reviews. 

No one can argue that an organization, whether a school or business, should have a fair and effective means of determining whether employees are working to capacity and serving as a valued resource. A solid employee appraisal process gives management an opportunity to present positive feedback and to point out ways in which employee performance may need strengthening. 

It is a time when organizational and worker goals can be reviewed and aligned, and if relevant, obstacles to optimal performance can be identified and remediated. Through continuous refinement, the performance review process can add potency to organizational operations. 

But what happens when performance reviews are just an empty meaningless management tactic that really holds no operational value or legitimacy? That appears to have been the case in Central Falls.  

I had an opportunity lately to speak with some of the current and soon to be former staff of Central Falls High School and as would be expected they were disgruntled with what occurred. But the one single complaint that was heard most often was the one concerning the apparent lack of weight given to performance reviews. How can it be, they rightly ask, that teachers who had proven their merit through a negotiated performance review process did not have that process factor into their dismissal decision? All the effort placed by administrators into evaluating staff was wasted, since their assessment work had no bearing when it came to a mass firing. 

So why did the school district bother with performance reviews? One of the reasons why they occur is to identify employee training needs. Given that this school had a history of low-functioning students from low-income homes, it seems reasonable to assume that staff training needed to be better concentrated on improving student achievement with a challenging population such as this one. 

One wonders to what extent this training happened. Is it reasonable to assume that all the teachers were so incompetent that they were incapable of addressing the serious educational needs of an admittedly difficult student body? I think it was easier to just fire everybody, rather than to try building an effective training program. 

Another important function of performance reviews is to diagnose weaknesses to better address organizational inefficiencies. When an organization deteriorates to the point that its shortcomings are overwhelming, the question arises as to whether the blame lies more with the workforce or the leadership. 

It is difficult to see how this school was well administered. Education is difficult, but it is not particle physics. A more strategic attempt to use performance reviews as part of a plan to better target and mitigate organizational imperfections could have been a more humane and intelligent approach to strengthen the school. 

Perhaps the most important reason for having performance reviews is that they provide opportunities for employees and management to have frank and solution-oriented discussions of workplace issues. People do not go into teaching for money and prestige, but to try making a difference in their communities and to the lives of youth. It is one of those jobs that combines art, science, and passion to produce competence and effectiveness… not unlike many jobs out there. 

Members of an organization need to be able to collaborate forcefully on making quality decisions and solving problems. Institutionalizing improvement measures internally is paramount for an organization in crisis. 

Can you imagine the lack of cooperation and trust between management and rank and file that results in the firing of every employee? This is a case study of organizational failure. 

There are some questions that just should not be asked in an interview. In fact, Human Resource professionals know that legal complications can occur if questions that are too probing crop up during that check-out-the-potential-employee event. 

Of course, an employer wants to know who they are getting. Why should they hand the keys to the castle to someone who is incompetent, a self-aggrandizer, or worse? The drive to mine as deeply as possible into every aspect of the job candidate is intense when what is at stake is spending cherished company resources onboarding and training in hopes a value-added asset has been acquired. 

However, there are rules as to how far an interviewer can go. Specifically, interviewers should stay away from the following: 

• Are you a U.S. citizen? (Of course, the employer can ask for proof of eligibility after the candidate has been hired.) 
• What is your native language? 
• Are you married? 
• Do you have kids? 
• How long have you lived here? 
• What religion do you practice? 
• Do you plan on becoming pregnant? 
• How old are you? 
• What clubs do you belong to? 
• When do you plan to retire? 
• Do you have a disability or chronic illness? 

And this is not the complete list of no-no questions. Clearly, privacy rights are being weighted in favor of the job candidate. Or are they? 

Have you filled out a job application lately…especially for a professional position? There is a major healthcare provider in New Hampshire that has a job application that looks downright 1984-Big Brother-ish in its line of questioning. Although I haven’t conducted an exhaustive study of statewide applications, my hunch is that these guys are not alone. 

Questions asking the applicant’s age, ethnicity, race, Social Security number, driver’s license number, whether they have a disability or are a veteran, are just some of the intrusive inquiries made on this application. This begs the question, why can employers examine so closely a job seeker’s past in an application, but not in an interview? 

Here is part of the answer. Job applications become legal documents in that the applicant must sign that all information given is true. Notice that interviewees do not have to swear on such a Bible. This is useful for screening out applicants with past criminal convictions or other unwanted behaviors. Companies can use the application to check for truthfulness and integrity, which protects their organization and the people who work there, from disreputable people. 

Another issue is that employers are required to file U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reports with the federal government. Applications standardize the hiring process and can be used as documentation that shows employment discrimination is not occurring. Discrimination is much harder to prove in an interview.    

Two additional points about the discrepancy between questioning on applications vs. during interviews: Human Resource professionals should be the ones viewing completed applications, chuck full as they are with private information. When a receptionist, for example, is the one handling the app, then that is evidence of a shoddy operation. 

Also, let us not assume that all applications are in perfect synch with EEOC guidelines. One Boston professor informs me that, “I have found many job applications with prohibited questions on them. If someone doesn’t complain to the EEOC, then the practice will continue until someone does.”  

Job applications and interviews are governed by the same EEOC rules. Unfortunately, it cannot be safely assumed that all employers will follow those rules. Like it or not, diligence and knowledge about what is appropriate and what is not is yet another task falling to the already overburdened job seeker. 

Given the poor hiring climate, many workers who are lucky enough to still be employed are simply grateful that they are. Because of this, now may hardly seem like a time to analyze and rate your employer to see if this is a good place to work or not. Among the consequences of the Great Recession is that the workforce is less concerned about personal career goals and more accommodating to our bosses since they have been benevolent enough to keep us on payroll. This is the attitude we should have during down economic times, right? 

I sure hope not! If we have reached a point where furthering our career aspirations is considered an ill-timed luxury we can no longer afford, then we are in a Depression. Acquiring and retaining top talent should never go out of style for any organization and finding those workplaces that honor this operational approach should be paramount for the individual professional looking to advance in their avocation. 

Now of course, during these recessionary times employers are having to revisit strategic assumptions to see if they are still appropriate given cash flow and revenue constraints, changeable government interventions, and workforce transformations. But then conducting a SWOT analysis periodically is a good thing anyway. 

As companies look out over this unpredictable landscape, it is in their short and long-term interest to attract and keep the most qualified workforce possible. To not do so leaves businesses vulnerable to leaner and sharper competition, some of which will emerge from this Recession as relative winners. 

For the professional wanting to be positioned with a strategic and forward-looking organization there are a couple of key corporate initiatives to look for and lookout for.  When I hear from some clients how they are treated by supervisors or about the lack of operational discipline displayed by their employers I am amazed these places are still in business. 

Mismanagement, paranoia, intimidation, poor communication, and in some cases downright rudeness are all in full swing. I recently heard of a dedicated professional who put in over twenty-nine years with the same insurance firm and did not receive even a thank-you upon retirement. Bad corporate behavior aside, if an employer still relies on the traditional motivational model of rewarding employees with greater amounts of responsibility and pay as they march lockstep from associate to senior management, they may find that today’s workforce will not be impressed. 

Enlightened and enterprising expertise will be looking for companies that get it. Among the most important strategic components are employers’ talent management and continuous learning programs. Management systems that are serious about quality recruitment, onboarding, retention, succession planning, and employee development are the businesses most likely to not only attract and keep high caliber talent but are in a better position to succeed. 

Among the specifics employees want to see institutionalized are: 

• Complex and challenging assignments 
• Utilization of coaches and mentors 
• Frequent assignment or client changes 
• Engaging and relevant training activities 
• Opportunities for employees to build portfolios by continuous refinement of marketable skills 
• Team effectiveness development 

…and much more. 

Watching also for leadership that intelligently attempts to determine necessary metrics for driving decision making is a sign of an attractive employer. You cannot manage it if you cannot measure it. Therefore, managing talent requires innovative and effective means of judging the efficiencies of interventions such as those mentioned above. 

Do not let the Recession be an excuse for putting your career development on hold. Find those employers who want to build continuous improvement learning organizations through comprehensive employee advancement. If you are fortunate to work for such a company, give them all you have. For they too should be rewarded for being such a wonderful place to work. 

It is not at all unusual to see written or to hear oral descriptions from job seekers giving their pitch for why they should be hired with phrases like, “…with over thirty years of experience in…”, “…over two decades of dedicated service in…”, or “I am a Systems and Network Administrator with over 25+ years of …”  

Naturally, these references to long-term experience which have been devoted to a particular career are meant to convey expertise, commitment, and reliability. There is also a strong dose of pride in being able to make the claim that one’s chosen career has been focused on building significant levels of knowledge and mastery. The mature diligent career-oriented worker deserves to feel esteemed for such an undertaking. 

Unfortunately, these claims of longevity can be job search killers for the older workforce cohort. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that age discrimination does exist. And announcing that you are relatively old does place you at a disadvantage when it comes to career or job shifting later in life. 

The obstacle of age discrimination comes at a particularly inconvenient time. Part of the recessionary fall-out is that older workers are being forced into retirement. Even without the down economy this generation of workers have come to believe that leveraging honed skills over many years would better position them for encore careers of their choice. 

Yet for many, the choice is staying with what work you are lucky to have or accepting early retirement. Not surprisingly, many older workers have been laid-off or have had their workloads increased to make up for those who were recently laid-off. The decision-making and negotiating power they thought they would have at this time of life is not there.  

Yes, there does exist the federal Age Discrimination Employment Act (ADEA) designed to protect workers aged 40+ from discrimination in hiring and other employment related situations in workplaces with at least twenty employees. Many states have laws covering discrimination in workplaces with fewer than twenty employees. Specifically, the ADEA: 

• Prohibits job advertising from mentioning age. 
• Prevents age limits from being set for training & development programs. 
• Restricts retaliation against workers filing violation claims. 
• Prohibits employers from forcing early retirements. 

But it is not too difficult for the company who wants to shun older workers from doing so. Job descriptions can be written in ways that are within the letter of the law, but which include items that make it difficult for the older worker to comply. 

So, why does age discrimination exist? In a way it seems counterintuitive to discriminate against the older worker. It is not hard to identify advantages to having more mature employees. They tend to have a proven work ethic, are not as concerned about work/life balance as younger workers are and have deeper levels of wisdom and proficiency. From the point of view of younger recruiters and hiring managers however, older workers conjure some unflattering images like: 

• old school thinking and lacking innovation 
• working at a slower pace 
• more costly in salaries and benefits 
• not having future long-term viability 
• not as tech savvy 

The list goes on. It is enough to make the plus 50 workers’ blood boil. I can hear them saying, “We’ve earned the right to be hired! We’ve paid our dues!” 

Nevertheless, if you are older and looking for work you need to update your resume, write new cover letters, and refine the way in which you describe your value to hiring personnel. So, face facts. You may have earned respect, but you have not earned that new position any more than any else has. You still must make the case for why you are the best candidate. 

If you are truly at the top of your game, then show it in your value proposition. Know what that company is looking for and convince them that you are their guy or gal. They are going to be looking for the greatest value at the lower cost. Present yourself with that in mind. Resting on past laurels will not get you that new job. Attaining it will. 

There is always something that others find annoying in each one of us. Maybe it is that we want the freedom to concentrate on a task of our own choosing, which leaves others feeling that we are too distant and not connected enough. Or perhaps, it is that we always need people around us for conversation and for bouncing ideas off of, which can annoy others who may think, “Can’t [he or she] just be out of my hair for a while?!” 

It could be that we seem too nonconventional, or too commonplace, or too quick to decide, or not decisiveness enough, or, or, or… Give it time and frequency and we can start to think we have major faults. Our self-concept takes a hit, and we find ourselves vowing to others that we will try harder to be better. 

Yet these alleged deficiencies may be indicators of personal strengths and workplace potential. A big problem with determining one’s own worth through the critical eyes of others is that it can cause us to veer away from an unfettered self-examination. It is hard to confidently express your own value when you feel overwhelmed or at least tainted by what you are told are weaknesses that keep recurring repeatedly. 

It may be time to reframe the deficits as benefits. Do you find yourself in a job that calls for multi-tasking when you just want time to develop a concept in a distraction free environment? Are you tired of working in isolation when you strongly wish you could be part of a cross-disciplinary team? In general, are you being required to function in a manner that is not congruent with your true, innate interests, aptitudes, and passions? 

Fortunately, the human collective is not split into two pre-ordained groups, those with natural talent and good luck to always succeed and those who are losers and who are never going to amount to anything. Everyone has the potential to prevail and contribute, if only the right set of circumstances align allowing everyone to perform at their best. There is a lid for every pot. 

It becomes necessary for each of us to know what we can do well and to seek those opportunities and situations by which we work in energizing ways rather than just managing our weaknesses. Take the time to consider the behaviors you have that seem to put others off. Ask yourself, is the behavior really your problem to fix or is it that you are somehow misplaced? 

In many cases, problems at work are the result of being constrained by doing things that we would rather not do. Perhaps, we are being directed to perform tasks we somewhat enjoy, but in ways divergent from our preferred way of doing them. It is likely that we will each execute at our best when our work is an expression of our interest and skill combined with the freedom to choose the course of progress. 

I like to give clients an exercise of drafting their ideal job description. It is not an easy thing to do for many. But I recommend trying it, so that you can design a template of what to strive for. Give yourself time to imagine that perfect employment scenario. When doing so, think of what your chronic “weaknesses” are telling you. These “deficits” could be gateways to workplace conditions that are unfulfilled. 

Of course, we cannot always get what we want, but we can sure try. The method of achieving a productive workforce should involve optimal placement of each employee.  However, it is up to everyone to get to the place where both you and your employer each receive maximum value for the work you do. The best way to manage a weakness is to turn it into a strength. 

Every professional should be able to state their value proposition. No longer just a business school term, value proposition has relevant meaning to all successful individuals and organizations alike. 

Career development in the modern era rests on the premise that each professional has a uniquely blended set of talents, interests, aptitudes, and experiences that is worth something to someone else. Finding a timely fit between the value provider and the value consumer is the challenge of the career climber and job searcher.  

With rare exception, most of us do not sit around spending our time crafting our value proposition. It is generally easier to find something else to do which is more fun. It is fair to say that most of us view the task of defining our one-of-a-kind value proposition as a daunting job. Where do you start? Are we talking about a clever, pithy phrase or a doctoral dissertation? 

I do not think that there is a hard and fast rule. So, what I will try is to demonstrate what I think is a reasonable attempt at writing a value proposition statement. I will use myself in the context of what I think I do well, which is to provide career coaching and resume/cover letter writing services. Note the length and depth of my statement. It is not as brief as a seven-word self-description, but it is not a thesis either. 

Bill Ryan’s Value Proposition 

Leveraging my extensive experience as an educator, I offer clients customized guidance in career coaching and proficient preparation of resumes and targeted cover letters. My service approach consists of the following features: 

• Listen actively whereby the client feels heard and understood. 
• Quickly perceive presenting issues.  
• View the client’s issues and goals developmentally based on age and work experience. 
• Assist the client to plan strategically with an unclouded vision of desired outcomes. 
• Apply task analysis to the creation of an action plan. 
• Help clients determine their own career momentum but be directive when necessary. 
• Always encourage, boost, applaud, and if needed, challenge. 

There it is. Fairly concise. No heavy lifting to write this.  

And the use of bullets is deliberate. Dismayed as many literary traditionalists may be, these days we absorb information in chunks or snippets, rather than in long essays. Bulleted points can be more economic to write, and they force you to think of your attributes and traits, the elements that make up your value proposition. 

What are the characteristics that make up your value? What is your specific contribution to business, the community, the world? Defining your worth is the first step to finding the best opportunities for expressing your value through what you do every day. 

I encourage you to try this exercise. Allow yourself to think of the value proposition piece you write as a dynamic document. It is fine for it to be something susceptible to many drafts and continual revision. You will want to revisit it frequently, always refining and attempting to make your value proposition statement as true as possible to what you have to offer the workplace. 

An issue is starting to heat up that I believe will have significant impact in fields such as career development, workforce management, and the evolving nature of the employee and employer relationship. It involves the proliferation of private, entrepreneurial, and independent contractors and the hiring or contracting of them by companies. 

Projections are that a growing part of the future workforce will be made up of independent contractors providing relatively short-term project-oriented solutions for business. Where conflict may arise is in the legal enforcement of how employers classify and treat those among their workforce as to whether they are categorized as employees or independent contractors. 

Both federal and state laws have a history of protecting worker rights from employers who would seek to deny workers’ compensation coverage and other benefits to their employees by classifying these workers as independent contractors. In New Hampshire, for example, legislation became effective January 1, 2008, revising and broadly applying a consistent definition of “employee”, thereby increasing worker protections enforced by the New Hampshire Department of Labor. 

In the Federal government, Senator John Kerry introduced legislation in December 2009 matching a House bill that would increase the burden of employers to classify workers as independent contractors. The point being to secure workforce protections like workers’ compensation, Social Security, Medicare, overtime, unemployment compensation, and minimum wage for the greatest number of workers. 

It is good to know that the government is out there looking out for the little guy, and it undoubtedly keeps many employers honest. However, I am afraid that an unintended consequence of these protections may be to discourage employers from contracting with independent providers at a time when many of these workers want to work self-reliantly and to be free from the long-term obligations of an employee status with an organization. 

Employers may want to reduce legal compliance pressures by just hiring full or part-time employees and not take advantage of the strategic talent options available from independent contractors. This creates a challenge for highly motivated and skilled individuals who want more control over how they work. And it is to them that the burden lies in convincing business that contracting with them will not come with onerous worker protection strings attached. Otherwise, their dream of working creatively from one environment to the next will be in jeopardy. 

Independent contractors need to be noticeably clear with themselves that being independent means just that, on your own. Income and benefits both must be generated by the private worker. A networking trend that may help independents is in establishing exchanges or guilds that can negotiate for benefits such as health insurance. By using the economies of scale, independents may be able to provide for themselves the benefits they need but should not expect from traditional employers. 

Another area independents need to be clear about is in the language, terms, and conditions of their contracts. Contracts will have to be written in such a way that the independence of both the contractor and the hiring company is maintained. To write such a contract, both parties should be clear on the definition of “employee” for the state in which the working relationship is to take place. 

For example, in New Hampshire the recent redefinition of the term “employee” contains eleven conditions that must be met to exclude the independent contractor from employee status. And all eleven conditions must apply! Going into these contractual arrangements armed with this kind of knowledge places the independent contractor in a stronger position, because then they are then able to mitigate the concerns and reduce the hassles for the hiring company. 

There are many benefits for both parties in having temporary project-based contracted work. Despite the predictions of its imminent expansion as a practice, planning and foresight will be more necessary than ever. Here is yet another case in which adaptability and an orientation toward change will be called upon for success to be achieved. 

By now most professionals know how to strengthen a resume in a time of increasing recruitment efficiency and robust job competition. Attention needs to be paid to the use of effective keywords. 

Keywords are those industry buzzwords that let recruiters and hiring managers know which job niche you may be best at filling. Better yet, keywords alert Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that you may be worth interviewing, if the system has been programmed to highlight resumes with the keywords you have included in your resume. 

ATS is currently in use by many large corporations. It becomes an attractive tactic when the number of resumes submitted far exceeds the human eyeball-capacity of an organization. 

The technology is just a variation on standard search methodology made famous by Google. Instead of yielding web pages based on a set of search terms, resumes are selected based on a set of keywords specific to the position being filled. If you as a job seeker are being asked to upload your resume in plain text or rich text formats or to paste it into a web/database field, then chances are it could be screened by ATS. For your resume to not be rejected in a millisecond, it is necessary to have the right keywords which will prompt a selection. 

The challenge for job seekers and resume writers is to identify relevant keywords and embed them into resumes in a way that looks natural. Submitting a list of words and calling it a resume will not do. Resumes must be prepared in such a way that they can be read by an ATS and a human. 

How does one find out if they are utilizing the best keywords in their resume? There are several ways of doing this. For those seeking a new position in what for them is the same industry they have built their experience, then many keywords should be already known. It may just be a matter of systematically generating a list of terms directly related to your background knowledge and inserting them strategically into the resume. 

For those job seekers transitioning to a new or related industry some keyword research may become necessary. Here are some ideas on conducting that research: 

1. Study online job boards for postings like or similar tothe kinds of positions you would consider pursuing. Note the industry vocabulary that is frequently used in both the headings and body of these postings.
2. Identify the terms used in descriptions of your chosen profession in industry publications, professional associations, and the Labor Department’s Occupation Outlook Handbook web sites.
3. Look at the profiles of professionals with similar positions on LinkedIn to see the terminology they are using to describe themselves.
4. Poll your professional network to get their keyword suggestions.
5. Staffing agency professionals, particularly those dedicated to niche recruiting, can be a source of appropriate nomenclature.

So exactly what kind of words should you use in compiling this all-important keyword main list? 

• Words that are industry and job specific 
• Words that highlight the job candidate’s experiences and qualifications 
• Words that refer to hard professional skills 
• And words that indicate useful “soft” personal attributes for the position. 

As an exercise, try writing your own ideal or fantasy job description. Which words are you using to describe the occupation? 

It is not enough to craft a resume with a killer profile, quantifiable accomplishments, richly worded qualities, and which is aesthetically pleasing. It is also imperative to populate the resume with the right keywords to land you that interview which could change your career and your life. 

If it is not too late, I have a New Year’s resolution suggestion to make to all professionals, whether unemployed, underemployed, or gainfully employed. The suggestion is to simply define yourself. 

Do so succinctly and economically. Define your value. What do you offer? How does your work community benefit from your input? Being able to professionally and exclusively define yourself is an advantage. To become known and recognized as a quality and reliable asset is a core utility of career development. The career gain that can be realized spreads across all employment scenarios. In fact, venturing forth without a way to define yourself leaves you at a disadvantage during a time when competition for great jobs is increasing. 

Large corporate institutions, as we have traditionally known them, are undergoing a transformation. It probably began way back with the growth of middle management but is now characterized as an increasing reliance on more horizontal teams that can cross-pollinate ideas and result in synergistic production.  

Many executives are becoming more coach-like in their function. Employees are desired for their ability to get along with others, have a strong work ethic, and to be creative problem solvers. Hopefully, your self-definition incorporates all these virtues. 

We know that small business is a major force in driving the economy. When small businesses start hiring, we can expect an easing of the high unemployment rate. What drives small business? People with ambition and smarts do. In the same way that an entrepreneur figures out and communicates their value proposition, each of us should be able to do the same. Being able to provide solutions, improvements, and advantages to the marketplace is the grist for small business employees’ definitions. You would not want your business to be a white bread commodity, so why tolerate it for yourself. 

The Internet has created a new entrepreneurial landscape that didn’t exist twenty years ago. In the decade just completed, expansion of information access by way of increasingly sophisticated gadgets coupled with the growth of social interconnectedness is spawning innovative and constructive self-employment opportunities. In the upcoming decade we can expect more information filtering and selection technology demanded, and perhaps created by, end users. Staying with this evolution curve can be the brand basis for many neo-entrepreneurs. 

Whatever your career direction or place in the workforce, knowing your niche, your unique importance, and your significance will advance your position with existing and developing prospects. And just as important as knowing your positive traits is to become skilled at presenting and displaying them. Be in the mindset that others, be they upper management, colleagues, customers, or clients need you and that your talents are worth acquiring. Find the self-marketing techniques that are right for you. Promote yourself with the confidence that comes from knowing who you are. 

So, with the start of this new year discipline yourself to go through some simple exercises. What I recommend involves selecting descriptive words about you. Begin with a single attribute that makes you employable such as “trustworthy”, “competency”, or “adaptability”. From there try seven word phrases like, “a valued professional expert solution management specialist”, “take impossible projects and make them happen”, “Communicate. Steer the ship as needed. Deliver!” Eventually, craft a complete sentence about yourself. Some examples include: 

“I offer focused and deliberate care to the patients of this facility”. 

“My extensive knowledge of CAD software and ability to work hard results in high quality production.” 

“Accomplished professional with a track record of improving educational and operational performance through vision, leadership, and team building.” 

Try it. Go forward into 2010 and beyond with your own definition of your worth. The benefit of doing so is within reach. 

The priesthood is not a career. It is a devotion to service that does not differentiate into work time vs. home time or time-on and time-off. Being there 27/7 only begins to describe the commitment that a religious practitioner, whether it be priest, rabbi, swami, imam, or monk gives to others and to the deep pursuit of their beliefs. 

Assuming most of the clerical have not chosen religious structure and order merely as an insecure refuge from independent decision making or worse yet, as a place from which nefarious acts like child sexual abuse can be perpetrated, then much wisdom may exist among those spiritual advocates. From them we all can learn something about the ever-elusive contentment to a career. 

Let us visualize an idealized image of a pleasant, complacent, and content religious person. There is peacefulness and gentleness about them. Their faces read warmth, acceptance, non-judgment, and understanding. They have taken the time to contemplate life’s big picture and as a result are comparatively self-actualized, free of the many distractions that keep most of us from such a state of equanimity. 

How is this condition achieved? Has God chosen to touch only a selected few, while the rest of us are relegated to scraping by the best we can? I do not think that is the way it works. The serenity that can come from living and working a life of unambiguous purpose is available to all. As in most things in life, it boils down to choice and luck. 

We can strive for deep dedication to what we choose to do for our work. In fact, to do anything less is most unfortunate. Seizing each day for growth, service, and creative expression is always an available option no matter your level of experience or attained income. 

Martin Luther King once talked about a little shrub growing on the side of a hill amongst redwoods. That shrub being dwarfed by the larger trees nevertheless was innately compelled to reach for the sun, to find whatever narrow shaft of light as could be found, and to optimize its situation. 

The poise and demeanor of the religious adherent is accessible to those who choose it. Such a devotional approach is available to the rest of us as well. A life of full measure can result from amply developing one’s career. 

Divine intervention, if you will, does of course play into this religious example. The best of intentions and attitude can be severely challenged by unfortunate circumstances. There is an American mythology stating that financial reward and career satisfaction comes only to those showing the pluck and courage to independently achieve greatness despite all the odds. 

Yes, the right combination of brain and brawn can find bounty in our free market society. The one prerequisite that seems to not receive mention in this equation, however, is that of luck. Be incredibly grateful that disease, a debilitating accident, tragedy beyond your control, did not rob you of the life you know with all its grand accomplishments.  

Or, as Malcolm Gladwell writes, whether the circumstances of the timing and location of your birth give you an unearned advantage. True success with work and life at the devotional level considers both efforts exerted, and blessings bestowed. 

I know there are many who think they are happy to simply go to work, do your job, and come home to live your “real” lives. But for most, what you do for work and the way you do it is inextricably tied to the vibrancy of your lives. 

I recommend getting to that place where you feel your work belongs to you and that you intentionally and lovingly make your contribution. Having allegiance to work that is passionate is a pursuit worth following. 

I am a career consultant who likes to write resumes. It seems that many of my ilk either like delivering the coaching/consultancy/guidance part or the resume part, but not both. I do not totally get that. I see the two as inseparable, two sides of the same career services coin. 

What I like about beautifully written resumes is their economy. By that I mean maximum impact with minimal resource. Powerfully describing a person’s professional value and work highlights in one to two pages can be a beautiful thing. 

Now, I know the point of a resume is to land you the job interview and that is particularly important. But let us take a step back for a moment and view the well-crafted resume as a finely polished piece. Some are truly impressive. There can be an aesthetic to balancing text and lines and bullets with fonts and headings and slickly arranged information. Sometimes, the eye can flow across the page effortlessly while the data and intended images materialize into a package that leaves the reader thinking, “This is good!”. 

Okay. By now I have firmly established myself as a resume nerd. Now, don’t you want a resume nerd writing your resume or advising you on how you can improve yours? 

For those of you still reading this blog, let us look at some of the features that make a great resume. One of the most useful exercises any job seeker can do for themselves is to write a concise, economic, yet powerful and informative professional summary or profile. Being able to describe yourself and to display your value in three to five sentences indicates that you are self-aware, confident, and forward leaning. 

Furthermore, this does not and should not have to be a static piece of writing. Every three months or so I pull out my resume out and rewrite the lead. I cannot help but to continue tinkering with it, always trying to gain some improvement. Here is my current version, which is positioned on my resume just below my contact info: 

Career Expert, Educator, Program Developer 

A motivated and independent professional currently demonstrating effectiveness in customized career development and educational program enhancement. Expertise working with individuals in need of career and education related guidance through vision and a drive for continuous client improvement. Adept at educational program expansion and development on behalf of organizations. An educator involved in the implementation of curriculum development, advocacy initiatives, and learner management. Excellent interpersonal, group presentation, and written communication skills. 

Just in reading this again for this blog I am seeing that changes can be made. A month ago, it looked fine. As soon as I am done with this blog, I think I will mess around with it some more. 

Does this mean that I am indecisive? Perhaps, but I think all of us frequently undergo some micro self-perception changes. Also, it is good to try continual perfecting. How many times do you reach total purity? For me, not so often. 

Another thing I like a lot about a well-done resume is to see a collection of professionally written and unique personal achievement statements in the Qualifications section. When I see a resume with those statements, I know I am reading about someone who is in touch with their accomplishments. Being able to show clearly and with specifics how you added quality to past positions can seriously give your history cachet. 

It is, oh, so easy to put off writing or revising your resume. I know that for most people it is rated as being more obnoxious than paying bills or filing taxes. But if you can put yourself into a proud autobiographical zone where documenting your working past can be artful rather than miserable, then you might just get a lift out of the result.  

Not nerdy enough to find that zone? Call me. I can help. 

It has been interesting to notice that one of the consequences of the Recession is the growing discrepancy between traditional management practices during belt-tightening times and the changing nature of talent acquisition. Recessions naturally cause a thinning out of businesses. Typically, we think of it as a Darwinian consequence of the weak giving way to the strong. However, it is worth noting that some of the survivors may have made it through this round of business closures but could be setting themselves for a loss of competitiveness in the longer term. 

Businesses throughout all sectors are looking for ways to do more with less. Layoffs, furloughs, and redundancies are resulting in a leaner workforce. Added responsibilities being given to the employees who remain, coupled with their fear and uncertainty about job security are beginning to compromise employee performance. 

Of course, there are ways to streamline processes, but in general reducing staff usually means diminishing productivity. How can management cope? One tactic being used is to double up positions. That is, taking two job positions, laying off one of the employees and giving the remaining employee much of the workload of the laid off employee. 

Money may be saved, but from a performance improvement perspective it is a disaster. At best, it is a short-term fix, but not a long-term productivity solution. And since there do not appear to be plans for mass hiring anytime soon, even with an improving economy, employers will be trying to do more with less for some time to come. 

Meanwhile, workers are receiving a harsh lesson in employment economics simultaneous with the ongoing information revolution. The Recession is accelerating the career development phenomena of workers relying less on organizations for full time employment and security. The Internet is providing increased opportunities for online training, research, and the means to enhance exposure and networking. 

Technology is making it easier for the ambitious to become entrepreneurial. This combination of a sour economy with a growing robust web is pushing the American workforce closer toward becoming a free-lance nation. 

Is management prepared to take advantage of this shift in workforce dynamics? This is what may separate the best performing companies of the future from the too-slow-to-change failures. 

I think it could very well be likely that the following scenario becomes commonplace: Optimizing employee performance and productivity will increasingly be focused on outsourcing by businesses to match the highest quality talent for the right job. Full time employees, who have been squeezed in with too many on-the-job responsibilities, will be replaced by targeted, on-demand, just-in-time contracted resources who will provide better performance in accomplishing specific tasks. 

As needs change, so does the specialized talent. Entrepreneurism grows and becomes increasingly focused in niche areas. Together, businesses and the new entrepreneurial class find each other through ever more sophisticated job boards and social network media tools. Innovative management and concentrated expertise forge a workplace that becomes more nimble, adaptable, and clever. 

Change is occurring. Which companies will be leveraging it for success, and which will not start becoming clear soon. 

Among the interesting disciplines to track, which can have some bearing on the field of career development, is urban studies and its cousin, demographics. Just as a demographic change in basic assumptions occurred fifty or so years ago, resulting in greater population mobility driven by employment opportunities, we are now possibly on the cusp of another such megatrend. 

This time, population mobility may be slowing down. Is this a back-to-the-future swing? Perhaps a bit so, but it is not entirely being driven by a regressive return to the good old days. Two significant factors may be at play according to Joel Kotkin of Chapman University, http://www.joelkotkin.com/ among others. 

One is that Generation X, the workforce cohort roughly between the ages of 30 and 45, appears to be placing traditional family values at high priority in that they elevate the importance of family to that of career. This is expressed to a degree very differently from the Greatest Generation and the Boomers who felt that work came first. 

If a better job offer came from Bakersfield, then kids help pack up the station wagon, because we are leaving Binghamton. Apparently, these Xers are finding that establishing community roots and multi-generational family ties has tangible benefits like reduced stress, anxiety, and social/familial isolation. 

The up-rootedness, high divorce rates, and latch-key acceptance of their parents have helped to push Xers toward stability, pragmatism, and the concept that makes Boomer managers everywhere cringe, work-life balance. 

And can you blame the Xers? An unintended consequence of trashing the traditional values of the Greatest Generation (and don’t get me wrong, many of them needed challenging) was that we pushed our kids to become socially more conservative in some deep ways. Some serious good has come out of the way Xers were raised. They were instilled with the desire to be good parents and it is not a big leap from that value to the one of wanting to be a solid member of a local community. 

I remember as young Boomer, we thought we were so gloriously liberated. We were the generation of change, quick to challenge old assumptions and antiquated behaviors. Well, as it turns out, living life free of the shackles of anyone over thirty inspired us counterintuitively to become workaholics. We worked more hours per day and more days per year than most industrialized societies. 

We have gained much wealth and ego fulfillment, but we do not seem to have induced our children to emulate us. Now, as we near retirement, the truth that we have not been as liberated as we thought we were has become evident. Yes, Boomers have redefined the workplace, but not as we envisioned thirty to forty years ago. 

Secondly, technology is allowing for reverse mobility. With advances in cloud computing, telecommuting, social media, and teleconferencing there is less need to physically travel when the contacts needed for work can increasingly be had at home or the local office. This in combination with the corporate trend toward decentralized workplaces allows productive, high-quality work to be done locally, if not at home. 

At some point soon, home-based employees or subcontractors will surpass the number of those taking mass transit to work, resulting in more availability to family, friends, and local businesses. Ubiquitous computing means that contacts can be ever-present. Face to face can still happen. It will just be remote. 

As Xers make their mark on the world it will continue to be interesting, if not entertaining, to see what kind of hybrid lifestyles they will make out of traditional and novel values. Perhaps, the result of their efforts to achieve individual work-life balance will be a more widespread and beneficial social balance between individualism and strong communities. Now, that would be an accomplishment. 

Your resume is a relatively short, but powerful document. I know that not all of you believe that, but really, it is. Face it, the number of ways to get a hiring manager to consider you for an interview is limited. So, you want a strong, captivating, informative, and achievement-oriented page or two that will open doors and give you a chance to present your case.

It is your concise and economic autobiography of your work history, accomplishments, brand, and most of all your potential and value. Taking significant time and effort to craft this all-important testimony cannot be over-emphasized. You may spend your entire career never marketing anything, but when it comes to resume writing, everyone is marketing themselves.

Now for those of you who believe me (and a million other career consultants) that the resume should be as I just described it, be aware of just how much enthusiasm you apply to the effort. Here is what I mean.

A key and consistent tactic encouraged by resume writers everywhere is to quantify your achievements. Data can help a benign description of a task carry more impact and make more of an impression. Take, for example, the following work history task:

“Managed a call center.”

OK. Now compare this terse sentence to:

“Efficiently managed a 24/7 call center employing twenty-five, having expertly handled a 31% increase in volume over a twelve month period.” Big difference, right?

Therefore, it is important to try turning the tasks that everyone writes on their resume into quantifiable accomplishments. It improves the impression you present of your work history immensely and may just show more clearly the value you can add to a potential employer.

But be careful. It is not that easy to do if you are trying this for the first time. If you have not been keeping track of your accomplishments in a quantifiable way, then it will be difficult to look back at your past and start revising your history so that it reflects how much good stuff you increased and/or how much bad stuff you decreased.

In fact, you may find it so hard to do this task you may be tempted to embellish just a little bit. Avoid that. It can lead to you becoming disingenuous or worse. It is like the PTO treasurer at your kid’s school who takes a $20 bill out of the till they are managing, because they are a little tight that week and after all, who will know? Before long, they may become a part-time and long-term thief.

It could work like this with the resume, too. You might start with a little white-lie about the amount of profits you helped a former company make and before you know it you’ve got an engineering degree from Dartmouth.

Assume that a background check will be conducted on your resume. The more responsible the position is that you are applying for, the greater the chance that a background check will be conducted on your resume, if the firm is serious about considering you. They may initiate a check using their own in-house resources or they will contract the investigation out to an employee screening firm. Does it mean they catch everything? Perhaps not. But why take the chance?

Most importantly, don’t fabricate who you are. Take pride in your achievements. Sure, there will be resumes that will sound more power-packed than yours, but you are who you are. Highlight what you have attained in a clear, dynamic, and honest manner. If it sounds sparse, then you may have just set some goals for the future of your career.

Juice your resume, don’t fluff it. You’ll sleep better knowing you have a compelling and forthright chronicle that puts you in the best light.

I recently read about some interesting career related results from a survey done in September to 1000 small business Intuit Payroll customers. Among them:

*44% reported planning to hire in the next 12 months.
*60% expect business to grow over the next year.
*Affording benefits to attract new talent will be daunting.
*90% believe offering a health insurance benefit will retain quality employees.
*New businesses are more bullish than old businesses.
*50% expect to be looking for multi-talent with soft skills, i.e., “people person” who is “Jack-of-All-Trades”.
*79% have hired a friend or family member.
*22% of them said it was a mistake.

I attended a “Speed Networking” event in Concord recently and I heard it again, “You’re a career coach and resume writer? You must be really busy during these times!”

How I wish. I hear this line, or some variation of it, frequently as I try to promote myself and my business Ryan Career Services LLC. After all, it makes sense to most people. There is a severe Recession going on with a lot of people either unemployed or underemployed. There must be a lot of folks looking to get assistance in such a constricted and competitive job market. But it is not the case.

My stock line in response to the “You must be really busy” exclamation is to say, “No, I wish I were busier. I am finding that it is really hard competing with people’s need for food and shelter.”

I guess that is what is going on. I can only fantasize about how many potential clients have my services on the back burner, just waiting for more secure times, so that they can make an employment move. I have seen several surveys recently indicating that large numbers of the currently employed are waiting for better economic times before venturing into the job search market again. And as for the unemployed… for them it is easier to understand. Their funds are very limited and it is hard for them to decide to allocate money to career development.

However, I would argue that for both groups, the unemployed and the underemployed, dedicating time and yes, some money, to reviewing their career status, and strategizing and preparing for the future are resources well spent. I am amazed that there are smart people out there who still think in this day and age that looking in the newspaper classifieds is a job search and that networking simply involves taking one or two former colleagues out for lunch.

The good news is that formulating a career enhancement strategy is not full time work for a client and it is not particle physics. It simply takes some focus with someone who is aware of the best practices in career development and who can tailor these conventions to the individual client. I love this work and cannot wait to help more of you!

So, here is my unabashed pitch. If you think you know of anyone (…and come on! You do!) who could use help figuring out how to navigate the rough seas of establishing their career or simply even rewriting their resume or a cover letter during these stormy times, then please pass on my name. I really should be busy and I really, really want to be!

When thinking about the future of America’s workforce I can’t help but think of any changes that may or may not be happening in the way this workforce is now being educated.

I have implied in past blogs, perhaps actually I have been more direct, of my angst regarding the nation’s public school systems and their general lack of progressivism. School systems, along with their government partners, seem to be more concerned with transforming themselves into test-prep academies rather than institutions committed to fostering the kind of wide-ranging, boundary free pioneers needed for this century’s workers. Having worked for two public school districts over a thirty-one year period I feel I’ve earned the right to talk.

America’s greatest strength moving forward in the world marketplace is our capacity for innovation, creativity, and willingness to work hard to pursue new and better ways to solve problems and to achieve a better world. Our public school systems are not set up to prepare today’s students for this kind of mission. Anchored in traditional practices that were more suited for preparing a hierarchical management-rank and file workforce arrangement means that we as a nation are missing a really big opportunity.

To be fair, many public school teachers are saints. They put up with a stressful job to perform a valuable public service when, let’s face it, many of you would not dare touch it with a ten-foot pole. Also, even though no one mentions it, because of the inadequate teacher student ratio the main task of the public school teacher is to manage large numbers of kids first, educate them second. A school administrator cannot keep the most astute pedagogical expert hired if they cannot keep a lid on a class of twenty-eight seventh graders.

So what’s the alternative? Believe me, I am not even close to having all of the answers, but every now and again I run into someone who is much further down the trail of progressive thinking on preparing the future workforce. James Paul Gee is just such a person. He teaches education at Arizona State and he gets it. Below is a link to an eleven minute interview with him that is fantastic if you care at all about the future of education, which is the same thing as caring about the future of the American worker and our place in the world.

He uses the context of video games to make some very interesting points. I don’t play video games (unless you count a few months of Space Invaders in the mid-eighties as being a player) and I am enthralled with the point he makes.

Check it out. I’d love comments on this one!

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video

I have been sharing with you a series of pieces designed to get you to critically examine your current place of employment to see if it is meeting your individual career development needs. When you think about your job, is it consistent with the life role you want to be playing? Are you deriving professional satisfaction from your work?

I have seen more than one survey lately that indicates that as soon as the economy improves and there are more job opportunities again many workers are going to bolt from their current job for greener pastures. It is yet another indicator that too many of you are misplaced in the job you have now.

As a result, I have been suggesting specific organizational characteristics that you should be looking for to see if you can pinpoint the source of angst or conversely what makes your job a keeper because it provides you with a means for developing your career.

Two practices that I have written about recently are onboarding and performance reviews. For this piece let us look at the commitment your employer makes to have the workplace be a learning organization.

As an employee, you should have a clear sense of how important it is for leadership to attract and retain knowledge capital, i.e., smart and talented people. It should come as no surprise that a great number of talented employees often leads to a greater chance of organizational success.

Management that sets the acquisition and retention of knowledge workers as a priority is something to look for and to value. They understand the concept that smart people always want to keep on learning. Therefore, having embedded learning initiatives at work that advance both the company’s and your professional interests indicates a positive climate for career development.

Of course, learning initiatives at work should be an expression of organizational strategy, but ask yourself if they also contribute to your career improvement strategy.  A fit in this area is desired.

So, what do I mean by learning initiatives? To start with, they form the framework of making your workplace a learning organization. These initiatives can be typically judged by determining the quality of the training and development programs and the organization’s way of implementing knowledge management.

To be successful, there should be a high transfer of knowledge and competencies from those who know to those who do not. This can be accomplished explicitly through well designed manuals and structured practices or tacitly through the caliber of individual employees sharing and support. Superior training and development and knowledge management occurs when talented people are encouraged and rewarded for not only being the best, but by spreading their intelligence around. This must be evident at a cultural level. Organizations that encourage isolation and keeping effectiveness under lock and key, accessible only to a privileged few, will not do.

It is good if you are learning on the job while helping to address organizational strategy. For a true knowledge worker, gaining talent and competency while at work is an incentive to stay and grow. You feel more accomplished and experience greater satisfaction in your career.

However, none of this can be realized if you as an employee are not in sync with your employer’s business strategy. There should not be a big gap between this strategy and your career development. It is possible for the two to grow together.

Also, by having the attitude that capturing and sharing expertise is good for all involved, you contribute to making not just a learning organization, but a nice place to work.

What about your workplace? Are its learning and knowledge features enhancing your professional growth or not? If thinking becomes rigid and innovation discouraged career development will not occur. Know how your employer approaches this important topic.

In my last blog I began to examine methods that employees can use to determine if their current place of employment was meeting their own career development needs. To review, career development can be defined in two ways depending on one’s point of view. From an organizational viewpoint, career development is seen as the procedures necessary to advance employee value to meet organizational strategic demands. From the view of a worker, career development involves the integration of cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and contextual factors that determine employment decisions, work values, and life role, such that a profound satisfaction with what one does is achieved.

Of course, the employer knows that you work for them, but how well is the employer working for you? Last time, I wrote about whether a fit existed between the organization’s goals and yours, and whether individual advancement within the organization was based on true merit. 

This time, let us look at another evaluation point an employee can make about their employer. This involves evaluating their onboarding process. Onboarding refers to the way the organization brings new employees on board, i.e., assimilation or orientation. How this is done reveals some interesting information about a company’s treatment of employees. Think about it, at your work were you thrown into the fray or eased in gently with a measured flow of training and information? 

If done well, an organization’s onboarding process should encourage employee productivity and loyalty. It would inform the new hire about work processes and standards, benefits and other legal necessities, culture, logistics, performance expectations, mission, vision, and values. If this is crammed into one day and then you are on your own, the message to you becomes individual survival is valued more than group acculturation.

However, if onboarding is dispersed over time and in reasonable increments, hopefully including a one-on-one mentor, then you are left feeling that your long-term engagement and commitment to the organization is important to your new employer. It is simple really. If they care about you, then you are more inclined to care about them.

I like to see an onboarding process take up to a year or more. Naturally, the data dump would be more front-loaded, but over time there should be targeted check-ins with newbies to see that questions and other issues have been adequately addressed. Over this time, I would like to see that a trusted mentor has been assigned to shepherd you through the induction phase of your employment. This increases efficiency, while providing an emotional bond to the organization.

But this process also gives you a chance to see how other departments within the organization handle the treatment of new employees. Human Resources, Training and Development, and Management should all have a role to play in onboarding. Also, besides a mentor I would want to know what co-workers and immediate supervisors are like in their introduction to new hires.

Onboarding is just one of several areas that I will be highlighting in the coming weeks as I suggest ways for you to examine employers to see if they are providing you with career development opportunities. In most cases, there are not bad employers and there are not bad employees, but there can be bad fits. Avoiding a mismatch is one of the first steps to advancing your own career development while working for someone else.