Tag Archives: Education

Student Loans: Expense or Investment

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The burden of student loan debt on individuals, particularly young unemployed ones, is certainly starting to get a lot more attention in the media. College costs have experienced higher rates of inflation than for most consumer areas. The American Institute of CPAs for example reports that for the 2010-2011 academic year alone, 4-year state colleges for in-state students rose 7.9%, while for out-of-state students the rise was 6%. The inflation rate for 4-year private colleges was 4.5%. This compares to a general consumer rate of 3.9% for the past twelve months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Consumer Price Index, a measure of U. S. inflation. 

Among the economic complaints raised by recent protests of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that student loan payments are creating too high of a debt position for young people trying to enter the workforce. In fact, it could be said that this issue is one of the significant catalysts of the movement. Starting out adult life faced with ten or twenty years to pay off tens of thousands of dollars of debt in this economy with no job is enough to make anyone scream. 

In my own personal life, I sense the anxiety. My daughter recently graduated with a 4-year degree and between my Parent PLUS loans and her Stafford loans we are looking at substantial debt. For my portion alone the Federal government is giving me up to thirty years to pay this off and from where I sit right now, I’ll need that much time. If it takes me thirty years to pay off this loan, I’ll be 88 years old! I have real doubts that I will live that long. 

My situation is indicative of a situation facing the generations right now. I am a Baby Boomer who has always believed that education is an investment. I have bought into the notion that there is a direct correlation between the level and quality of one’s education and the number of career options and earning potential one has throughout life. 

Even recent statistics have supported this view, such as the fact that of the 9.1% unemployed in September 2011, 78% have only a high school diploma. My daughter on the other hand is looking at her amount of student loan debt more as an expense right now and is truly questioning whether the B. A. was worth it. Time will tell. I still think the college education gives her a higher launching pad for her career and hope the debt will not diminish that advantage. 

I was chatting with a businessman from Belgium a few years ago over lunch. We were in Boston being trained to administer and interpret the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. I asked him about the income tax level he lives with in his country, and he did say it was quite high, if I remember correctly close to 50%. 

But he did not seem that upset after seeing my jaw drop. When I asked him why he was not outraged he cited two reasons. One, he does not pay any medical expenses and felt that he and his family received good medical care. The other reason was that one of his children, who was at the time enrolled in a university, could attend at no additional expense. He seemed content with the concept of receiving quality service for the high taxes he was paying. 

I do not know which system is best, the European or the American. But I do know this. The system that promotes the greatest amount of education for the most people will be in a better position to compete in the 21st century global economy. If higher education is not pursued by more and more Americans because it is seen as too much of a crushing expense, then it will diminish our talent pool and our competitiveness. This is a situation to be avoided. 

Regulating Your Digital Footprint

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is not news that people go to the Internet first for information on just about anything these days. But it may be news to some that this includes recruiters, hiring managers, and just about anyone else who is trying to locate talent for their businesses and organizations. 

About 90% of all recruiters and 50% of all employers perform web searches before making a hiring decision. If you are trying to find a new job, transition to a new career, or seek new business opportunities you need to have a presence online. Can you imagine anyone in 2011 making a claim of professional greatness and not being found online? It is unimaginable. 

Your digital footprint refers to all the web information there is about you out there. It can come from many places, including social networking media, profile and biography pages you may have established on your own or that exist on employer and association web sites, blogs, forum and message board postings, chats, and even political or religious contributions that you have made. Even if you are committed to not being online, it is hard not to find yourself there somehow. 

If you are serious about regulating your digital footprint — and you should be — there are five things to strive for: 

  1. Your presence should exude self-confidence and be in multiple locations.
  2. A positive professional image should be displayed.
  3. A consistent and keyword rich value proposition should be present across all platforms.
  4. A clear and memorable career brand should exist.
  5. There should be no digital dirt or negative unprofessional content about you found in searches.

Above all, never assume that anything you write or post online is anonymous. 

Begin regulating your online presence by seeing what it looks like now. Google yourself in quotation marks and find every reference to you on the first three search ranking pages. Assess what is being shown about you. Is it positive or not? 

It is highly probable that you are sharing your name with others. Note how often this happens. You may even find that old information once confined to paper has now been converted to digital format and is available online. 

Now that you have a baseline, get started managing. There are three fundamental steps to establishing a digital footprint that you control: 

  1. Have a well written resume with a distinct value proposition that serves as your image anchor.
  2. Build a basic online by completing profiles on Google Profiles and ZoomInfo.
  3. Set up a business networking presence by having active accounts with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

All the above-mentioned websites are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) rich meaning that they will rank high during web searches. 

There are additional sites and features to consider opening accounts with such as MyWebCareer, Google Alerts, Reputation.com, Vizibility, Ecademy, and BrazenCareerist. Taken together these will give you a lot of power to control your cyber appearance. 

Some management techniques to know when using these sites include: 

  • Fill your profile with tangible competencies. 
  • Be aware of the privacy settings, set them accordingly, and check them frequently for usage changes. 
  • If sharing a name with someone, differentiate yourself, such as “John A. Smith, Senior Marketing Executive”. 
  • Use headshots taken by a professional photographer. 
  • If you cannot remove digital dirt, then bury it by creating enough multiple positive presence points that the bad stuff gets lower search rankings. 
  • Untag yourself from friends’ Facebook tags. 

Follow these suggestions and you will be well on your way to managing what the online world will learn about you. And you don’t have to be a control freak to want or need that level of self-authority. 

Education and the Unemployment Rate

Posted on by Bill Ryan

I read a couple of interesting statistics the other day in a National Journal article about the widening talent shortage among many American companies. The first was a citing about a study done by ManpowerGroup, a Milwaukee-based workforce consultant, showing that 52% of employers cannot recruit skilled workers for their open positions. The other stat, this time by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that of the 9.2% of Americans currently unemployed, 78% of them have only a high school education or less. 

These numbers are surprising, and they tell me a couple of things worth noting regarding our stubbornly high unemployment rate. One is that the rate might not be so high if Americans would get educated and trained in areas of shortage and need. The other is that thinking you are going to get ahead in the 21st century with just a high school education is not preparation for the future. 

The public and their proxy the media love to play the blame game for the high unemployment rate. It is the Democrat’s fault or the Republican’s fault. It is greedy Wall Street or lazy Europeans and so on and so on. Instead of finding fault, perhaps we need to hold up a mirror and look into it. We could lower the unemployment rate and all the misery associated with it significantly if we would further our education in strategic ways. Education is one of the best ways out of this mess. 

I rarely hear or read the mainstream media report about this lurking education gap as being a contributor to the unemployment rate and I pay attention to a lot of news. Why do you think that is? Why is the national anchorperson hesitant to say that too many of the unemployed are lacking in the right kinds of education? Perhaps there is a concern that to say so might be perceived as elitist or that someone’s feelings may be hurt. There is an elephant in the unemployment room that is being ignored and not fully discussed. And we as a country do ourselves no favors to avoid it. 

We should address this issue head on. If we could be delivered news we could really use such as where the human resource shortages are and what is involved in preparing to fill them, we could be much better informed. Let us hear more reports about the skills deficit for a change instead of this constant obsession about budget deficits. Let us agree that without a vigorous push for high quality education at all levels, then our chances of competing in the world marketplace are greatly diminished. 

School districts and universities need to be more engaged in this conversation as well. Of course, their mission is to provide a broad range of learning opportunities to the greatest number of people. But by not identifying and shifting resources to address critical shortage areas of the economy they are denying our workforce significant solutions needed now. Academic advisors and counselors need to work more aggressively to align emerging talent with areas of employment need. 

Let us try harder to see education as the benefit that it is. There is too much of an attitude that views education more as a cost than as an investment. Education can provide individuals with practical skills, a critical thinking ability, and confidence to succeed. It is among the best self-help techniques society can do for itself. 

We can do more to reduce unemployment than to just wait for banks, corporations, or government to release more money. We can be smarter about creating a congruence between hiring gaps and workforce development. 

Recognize Your Career Successes

Posted on by Bill Ryan

We are largely driven to enhance our careers by the need to feel successful. The urge to link our efforts with purposeful outcomes is a primal motivator for the professional person. The desire to make a difference for others and ourselves gets us up in the morning. Capturing success may be frequently elusive, but it is a goal most think is worth pursuing. 

In today’s world, being successful implies there is continual growth and improvement. Some professionals are fortunate to find they have chosen a job that allows for and even rewards career development. New, novel, and stimulating challenges are always being presented, which provide opportunities for repeat successes. These people are happy with their jobs. They do not want to or need to enter a job search. They feel successful where they are. 

However, for many others, the chime of achievement is not sounding at their jobs, or at least not enough. This group feels stuck. For them, work does not offer enough pay-off. Boredom and too much routine have set in. These people are just as professional and talented as the above group. So, what is going on? It is called reaching a plateau. 

Here is a very typical scenario. We finish our formal education and get a job, or series of jobs, which may or may not be related to what we studied in school. Eventually we settle into a “decent enough” job. The salary is okay, co-workers become friends, and we start experiencing our first professional successes. We feel grown-up — we have arrived.  

But give it five or ten years and the dull weight of a been-there-done-that attitude takes hold. Work weeks start to feel too long and weekends too short. Frequent funks and a sense of stagnation start to become the norm. Inertia now seems to guide us more than the exciting quest for work gain. 

This becomes the time to strongly consider a career defibrillator. You need to get back to feeling worthy. Now you could look for a job change, or redefine your role with your current employer, or you could go entrepreneurial. Whichever route you take to rekindle career happiness will involve enlisting one fundamental practice to place you in the most advantageous position to reach this goal. That is to determine clearly and to be able to communicate effectively what success means to you and how in the past you have gone about attaining it. 

When you can identify your unique success metrics, you are then able to claim your professional value. You can cite contributions that have benefited others. With this self-realization you know what ball to keep your eye on. It becomes easier to envision yourself in situations, in which you can practice your craft and again be successful. 

So how do you measure success for yourself? Here is an exercise for distilling career success and happiness into practical and powerful statements, which can be used as guides for future work. This is a way to promote yourself to those who may be able to provide opportunities for future successes. 

Begin compiling a record of your greatest hits. List the achievements of which you are most proud. Have these statements contain actual, and if possible, quantifiable results. Look for the ways you found remedies to problems, resolved issues, mediated conflicts, assisted in growth, created novel solutions, improved efficiencies, and so on. For example, 

  • “Created systematic process for client interactions, deal flow, and follow-up.” 
  • “Grew occupancy from 67% to 88%. Steadily increased average guest satisfaction to 99%.” 
  • “Ten+ years of administrative, volunteer, and team experience in the coordination and implementation of educational, nonprofit, and community service projects.” 

With this valuable insight organized in your mind and on paper you are then prepared to chart a course for continuing career fulfillment. And when your work is successful, your life is greatly enhanced. 

Looking At Work Experience Gaps on Your Resume

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Among the abundance of things worrying the job seeker today is the work history gap on your resume that occurs when there is a break in the employment chronology brought on by any number of reasons— most often by having been laid off. 

Conventional wisdom has been and continues to be that having a period during which you were not employed is a detriment to finding future employment. The well-founded fear is that a hiring manager will check to see if there exists an employment gap when reading your resume, and if finding one, will instantly draw the conclusion that this indicates you are a flawed candidate. 

Being seen as out of work is still very much considered a stigma, which is unfortunate given how much unemployment was foisted upon so many. But this is the reality facing job searchers. Gaps in your resume’s employment experience section make finding a new job even more difficult. 

Obviously, avoiding gaps is recommended when rewriting or updating your resume. However, lying on your resume by stating false employment that did not really exist to fill in time is not recommended. So, what can be done? 

Job and career counselors typically advise that employment downtimes be accounted for with some type of professionally meaningful pursuits, such as schooling, training, interning, or volunteering. Furthering your education can be advantageous but has that annoying consequence of costing money at a time when it is in short supply. On the other hand, offering an organization or company free work in exchange for useful experience is cheaper and potentially a powerful way to approach explaining in the future how you spent your time between jobs. Let us examine the options of interning and volunteering more carefully. 

First, to clear up some semantics: By interning I mean engaging in a non-monetary exchange, whereby the intern provides a novice-level professional service and in turn receives a documented benefit from the organization, such as professional oversight or instruction. I see volunteers as providing a service which is either an organizational need or enhancement, while expecting little to nothing in return except for an emotionally satisfying feeling and/or for the opportunity to list the experience on one’s resume. 

If considering interning, check to see that the organization has an established policy, and if so, that you agree with its terms and conditions. If it does not, either look elsewhere or get involved with the development of a new intern policy, thereby giving you a say in the arrangement. Note, volunteering can raise complications for both the volunteers and the enterprises taking them on. 

In general, the considerations from both parties should be focused on whether the tasks being performed by the volunteer are compensatory or not. The rules are defined by state labor law, employment discrimination legislation, and by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The latter essentially puts the kibosh on volunteering with for-profit private sector companies along with federal, state, and local governments. It is just not allowed. 

Most people’s professions linked to the private sector or government would appear to present a challenge to the volunteer looking for a place to offer services. Fortunately, the FLSA does not deter you from volunteering in public, charitable, or religious facilities. So, perform whatever service feels right in those cases. 

When approaching any kind of organization about interning or volunteering, especially one that also hires employees ask the following questions: 

  • Would your service in any way violate the FLSA or state labor laws? 
  • Would you be displacing or replacing an existing paid employee? 
  • Would you be performing work that is normally paid employment? 
  • Will the intern or volunteer duties require a contract or to be documented in some way? 
  • Do you have control of your hours and level of work intensity free of coercion? 
  • To yourself ask, “Is this worth it to me?” 

Filling in that troublesome work history time gap on your resume is worth some effort. If the reason for the absence is elder, child, or personal care, or possibly even bereavement, then insert it in the professional experience section as a “job”. But if the gap occurs because you were let go from your previous job and it is taking you six months or more to find another, then consider interning or volunteering. Just go into whatever you do with your eyes wide open. 

The Job Interview

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Job interviews are about as eagerly anticipated as root canals. Even if you have been out of work for a long time and are desperately wanting to reenter the workplace, the necessary step of performing well during a job interview can be daunting. Interviewees tend to think the practice is akin to an interrogation or grilling, the result of which can be a harsh judgement, like getting voted off the island. They can be stressful enough to make even the most seasoned professional anxious.  

The job interview can be a faulty procedure and not always reliable. We have all heard of how someone can shine during the interview only to lead the employer to feel buyer’s remorse once the candidate is on the job. Notice how subjective interviews are. One wonders if there should be a more objective way of identifying talent before the job offer is made. 

For most hiring situations, however, there needs to be a subjective screening component. The interview provides just that and is not going away anytime soon. Think of it this way. The interview provides a much-needed opportunity for dialogue, in other words, a two-way conversation. Here is a chance for each of you to check each other out. It will help the pre-interview jitters if you can go into it feeling that you have some control over the situation. Even if they offer you the spot you do not have to accept it unless the potential employer passes muster with you. Go with some questions prepared that show you are inquiring about them.   

But, of course, the harsh truth is that you must convince a hiring manager or team of interviewers that you are a fit for the position and the organization. If you have not had an interview in a while and are wondering what to expect from an upcoming one, you might be helped by considering some likely scenarios. I have had many clients brief me on how their interview experiences have gone and here is what I can confidently generalize about them: 

  • Go into an interview prepared. To think you can wing it, no matter how professional and experienced you are, is taking an unnecessary risk. 
  • Be ready to talk about yourself as a relatively short introduction. Here is where you present your value proposition. This intro should also describe how your skills and qualifications are a fit for the position. 
  • Know and be prepared to describe how much onboarding and induction training you will need. You are a cost to the employer. They may want to know how much expense you may be at the start of employment. 
  • Have a response to the dreaded, “What are your weaknesses?” question. I recommend having two weaknesses to which you are ready to admit. But frame them as challenges you are actively managing. Have at least one example for each, describing how you have recently and positively addressed the challenges resulting in good outcomes. 
  • Show that you are developing your career by having specific short and long-term goals to share. 
  • Get ready to talk about how well you work both independently and as part of a team. 
  • Be able to furnish information about the employer. Let them know that you have researched them and have a couple of questions designed to learn more about them. 
  • A large and likely category of interview questioning is known as behavioral questioning. This is where you talk about how you handled or would handle realistic situations and challenges on the job, whether fabricated or actual from your past. Always think of presenting your answers such that it is clear how you added value to the circumstances. 

There will likely be more questions than these, but by preparing and having responses ready for typical questions you are fortified for what may come. 

Cover Letters Examined

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Since we are moving toward becoming a paperless society the question often comes up in the context of job searching, whether cover letters are still necessary. The short answer is yes. 

Typically, when attempting to get the nod by an employer indicating you are to be hired, there are three initial doors through which you must sequentially pass — cover letter, resume, and interview. In each case you have an opportunity to make an impression. Also, in each case you have a chance to progressively present yourself in greater depth. The starting point is with the cover letter. So, let us examine this tool in more detail. 

The cover letter is your self-introduction. Its purpose is to get the hiring manager interested enough in you so that they will want to review your resume, which in turn will hopefully prompt an interview. There are some useful assumptions to make about such an introduction. One is that the hiring manager has a lot more work to do than time in which to do it. They are pressured and probably stressed. Also, they have a staggering number of applicants for very few jobs. 

This encourages the hiring manager to find reasons for eliminating applicants, since they must reduce a huge number to a very small one for eventual interviews. Finally, they have seen boring and generic cover letters time and time again. One with just enough distinction and relevance to catch their eye is what they are hoping to find. 

So, with these assumptions in mind, be prepared to write your cover letter in as targeted, economic, and powerful a way as possible. Pack as much punch into the fewest number of words as you can. 

There are three basic parts to a cover letter — the introduction, the body, and the closing. Here are things to keep in mind when writing each of the three parts: 

There are four different ways to write the introduction or opening: 

  • Traditional, in which you simply give your reason for writing, as in, “I am writing to express my interest in…” 
  • Creating curiosity, in which you begin with a stunning achievement, such as, “After a five-year commitment dedicated to the welfare of Somali refugees, I am now ready to add value to your…” 
  • Leveraging referrals, in which you mention the name of a trusted resource, as in, “Following the recommendation of your colleague Jim Hudson, I am eager to speak with you about…” 
  • Emphasize your headline, in which you point out your value proposition, as in, “As a Network Systems Analyst with extensive business development experience I…”  

The body is the most important part of the cover letter. It is here where you make the sale. Whether you do so in brief paragraphs, bullets, or some combination of the two, describe pointedly why you are qualified for the specific position to which you are applying. Nothing speaks to qualifications better than actual accomplishments and results you have realized from your career thus far. Just like we are more inclined to purchase a mutual fund with an impressive performance history, the same goes for a job candidate who can claim rich achievements. 

Since your resume should have a store of these attainments, harvest it for summary items to put into the cover letter body. Just be sure to paraphrase and rewrite so that your cover letter does not look like a copy and paste job from your resume. Also, the more you understand the employer and their needs the more direct your selection of relevant accomplishments can be. 

The closing should be, you guessed it, brief. It should also execute two things. One, confidently express why you deserve a closer look by the hiring manager, and two indicate your expectation for a follow-up with the company. For example, “Acme’s services, market prominence, and expansion potential are very appealing. I am convinced my skills will advance me as a key player within your company. I will contact your office in one week to inquire about when it might be convenient to meet. Thank you for your consideration.” 

As the saying goes, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. So, make your cover letters count. 

Four Strategies to Keep Your Career Relevant

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Traditionally, we have thought of a professional as someone who is very dedicated and practiced within a relatively narrow, yet focused type of work. They choose to not be distracted by trying to be too many things to too many people. Instead, they get really good at delivering a limited category of a service or a product. 

Specializing has served the workplace well since ancient Mesopotamia and for the most part it still does. But there is growing evidence that changes in the 21st century work model is ushering in a new definition of what it means to be a professional. 

The talent and skills required by a global marketplace, which is characterized by intense competitiveness and rapidly evolving commoditization, are in an increasing state of flux. For a professional going forward, expecting that only one skill will keep them marketable and employed for the long-term is becoming unrealistic.  

The workplace of the future will be demanding talent that is continuously involved in learning and development, such that it is nimble enough to transfer aptitudes to alternative and hybrid jobs. Allowing yourself to be too limited in scope, or worse yet, to give into complacency and inertia, are the career killers of the hereafter.  

What every pro wants to do is to be as prepared as possible for an uncertain and unpredictable workplace in the coming years. Since no one can be expected to be knowledgeable and skilled in everything, it becomes necessary to have a preparedness plan that builds from your current skill base. To help, I suggest four strategies to keep your career development options open moving forward: 

  1. Showcase in a compelling format the breadth and depth of your skills and accomplishments. To do so, begin with a basic assumption, which is that every employer will have only one thing on their minds when considering you for employment, “What can you do for me?”

The wider your range of capabilities, the greater your chances of being able to answer their question. By being equipped with a portfolio and resume that highlights your adaptive talent, you are ready for the changeable needs of employers. Show that you are as dynamic as the businesses you hope to work for. 

  1. Learn and practice skills that are transferable to multiple situations. Being skilled at something is, of course, good. Having skills that are transferable and can be applied to a variety of circumstances is even better.

So, what are these skills? Remember that as a professional you never give up keeping up with your field of expertise. By staying current, you can be on top of the turns and twists your profession is undergoing. This heads-up knowledge allows you to adjust and reapply your competence as necessary. Be ready to not only say, “I can do this,” but “I can do this and that and if needed blend the two with…”. 

  1. Accept being a lifelong learner. No news here. Learning does not stop with graduation. Growth is constant. Embrace it. Catch and enjoy the excitement of learning more and studying things that are new.

Move out of your comfort zone sometimes, as well. The more secure your attitude of continuous improvement, the better you can leverage your expanding capabilities towards career enhancing opportunities. Again, your never-ending research and networking will inform you about what content to master.  

  1. Seek out employers who care about your career along with you. Smart employers know about the correlation between engaged employees and productivity. And one of the best ways to keep your talent engaged is to let them know they are valued and to show it by offering job descriptions that encourage growth and development.

Choosing places to work, in which management actively seeks to plan for success in tandem with their workers that result in productivity for both parties, is the goal of progressive professionals. 

Given an uncertain work future producing jobs that did not even exist a few short years ago, it is best to be proactive rather than reactive. The early bird still gets that worm. However today that bird is multi-talented and searching for new ways to meet new challenges. She keeps an ear to the ground and an eye on the horizon. 

Finding and Keeping Needed Talent

Posted on by Bill Ryan

One of the greatest challenges for employers the world over is locating, hiring, and retaining employees who bring highly productive value to their companies and organizations. Such employees are, of course, the lifeblood of any successful workforce. The employer who establishes the means of recruiting and properly managing the right talent represents quality leadership within a winning enterprise. 

For the most part, there is a broad and deep talent pool to fill many job positions. If anything, the Recession has added available workforce capacity eager to be found and employed. The industry areas that seem most deficient in expertise are engineering and intermediate to advanced levels of IT. Even in recent years, these have been under resourced areas. This lack of strength probably will not improve until we do a better job of attracting and educating more young people to STEM careers or Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. However, outside of STEM careers vast talent shortages do not appear to be the case. Nevertheless, matching skills with where they are needed continues to be a perennial and daunting challenge. 

The best recruiters know where to go to find the most competent. They are well-connected, expertly networked, and a constant presence at tried-and-true feeder sources, such as schools and certain businesses. Getting and paying for high caliber recruiting and staffing services is certainly an option for companies seeking candidates for open positions. But the question emerges, can employers do more for themselves internally and procedurally to keep the flow of talent inbound and the loss of talent minimized? 

Yes, employers can do more. Now, rather than present the readers with a bulleted list of techniques, I would like to focus an answer to the above question toward a more fundamental management and human virtue…kindness. Anecdotally, I hear it all the time from smart, experienced, hard-working, people — the single biggest reason why people do not like their jobs is because of poor management. I am not talking about managerial weaknesses that can be simply remedied with some training. This issue is much larger. It involves management’s use of intimidation, fear, inflexibility, weak ability to communication, and overall poor soft or people skills. 

Nothing will drive talent away more effectively than by having in place leadership that either practices, encourages, or allows for an abusive work environment. In fact, there is a Healthy Workplace Bill, which has been introduced into twenty state legislatures since 2003. In New Hampshire, this bill known as HB 1403 was introduced and let die in committee in 2010. 

In this day of interactive social media does anyone really think that word is not getting out loud and clear about where employees should not work if they want respect from their boss? Talent will be drawn to companies and organizations where smart and self-motivated employees can develop as professionals. Places with vision that encourage exploration and innovation, where decision-making results from a collaborative process. But at their core, those companies that establish as a cultural foundation respect and kindness will find talent wanting to stay. Consequently, by noticing the strengths and benefits each person can bring to the job and actively cultivating them yields positive results for any business.  

Effective leadership can bring about the kind of work climate which attracts and retains talent. Unfortunately, talented leaders are hard to find. Peter Drucker, the godfather of modern management theory, said that the two most important attributes of leadership are self-awareness and honesty. Practicing those virtues in combination with a basic decency for fellow colleagues would seem to be a good place to start.  

The best and brightest employees are not interested in heavy-handed rules, imposed methodologies, and stay-in-line-or-else tactics. Developing a talented workforce begins with collegial trust and a humane attitude. 

Four Ways To Improve Your Resume

Posted on by Bill Ryan

So, let’s assume that you have not yet started on that New Year’s resolution of rewriting your resume, which of course assumes that you made a New Year’s resolution to rewrite your resume. (You did, didn’t you?). Having a current and well written resume is the single best thing you can do for yourself, if you are thinking about transitioning to another job or career, or if you are trying to get back into the workforce after a too-long layoff. 

As is the case with many such tasks that can be easily dropped down one’s priority list, the hardest part is simply getting started. Once you do pull out that old resume you may find that the rewrite job looks to be about as much fun as doing taxes. Then there is the question of what needs to be done to make your resume a winning one. Is it just updating the contact information and work history, or is there more to it than that? This is a writing exercise that can be daunting and frustrating. You may find yourself thinking of postponing this resolution until next year. 

To help make your resume rewriting a little easier I am going to focus on what needs to be done to make it very readable to hiring managers and recruiters, who are the types of people most likely to look over your resume someday. Think of them as your audience. Know their world. It consists of lots of scheduling, running reference and background checks, conducting interviews, debriefing clients or managers, communicating with their network, and all under constant time pressure.  

They do not have the time or interest to read your autobiography, nor will they be attracted to a boring chronology of your past jobs with nothing substantial to set you apart from the vast crowd. You have got about fifteen seconds to make a good first impression. Consider the following questions when rewriting your resume: 

  • What is your functional and industry expertise? Do not make the reader have to infer your skills by looking at work history. Have a lead section or summary that quickly informs and emphasizes what value and talent you would bring to the employer. Categorizing core competencies and special technical skills prior to any list of previous jobs will allow you to be in or out of the hiring ballpark in a hurry. 
  • Where are you on the work-level hierarchy? It should be established very quickly if you are a laborer, assistant, manager, executive, or contracting consultant. This can be highlighted in the lead summary and by bolding or capitalizing current and previous job titles. You need to make it easy for the reader to position you where you want to be positioned. 
  • What have you been up to for the past ten or twelve years? A clearly written chronology of your most recent and relevant past employment should be displayed. And yes, gaps in your work history are a problem. Not what laid-off workers want to hear, I know. So, what can be done about employment gaps? Hopefully, you will be able to show that you tried to remain current and viable with your profession while you were out of work or caring for an ill or elderly family member. Perhaps, you received further education and training, or volunteered and maybe interned, to continue maintaining and developing expertise. Also, in most cases, what you did before, say 1998, is not going to be that important to someone hiring in 2011. 
  • What have been your significant accomplishments? In this chronicle of your employment there should be points about what you have done that has made a real contribution. Refer to tangible measures like revenue and profit increases, lead generations and conversions, savings in costs or resources, or anything else that shows you have improved processes. Think of it as compiling your greatest hits. 

You may not be successful with all your New Year’s resolutions, but if you can get this one right, it just may be enough to make 2011 the year of positive change you hoped it would be.