Tag Archives: New Hampshire

A Few Interesting Survey Results

Posted on by Bill Ryan

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.

You Really Must Be Busy!

Posted on by Bill Ryan

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!

The New Education and Today’s Workforce

Posted on by Bill Ryan

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

Career Development in the Learning Organization

Posted on by Bill Ryan

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.

Organizational Onboarding

Posted on by Bill Ryan

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.

Job Fair Reflections

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The second state wide Job Fair and Career Expo sponsored by NH Department of Employment Security and WMUR-TV appeared to be a smooth operation. It will take some time, of course, to know how many attendees will get jobs as a result of this event. But at the last job fair in April, despite its being most known for getting overrun by too many people, it actually produced north of 350 jobs for New Hampshire citizens.

As one who volunteered to work at the fair I got only varied snapshot views. I didn’t get much time to see the employers’ booths. What I did see seemed to be heavy on commission sales jobs. I guess a job fair is a place to refill high turnover ranks. In the early morning I parked cars. I noticed right away, once folks stepped out of their cars that the crowd could be divided into two groups, those who dressed for success and those who did not. True, not every job required a coat and tie, and if your work history has been in jobs that did not require that attire, then you very well might not show up at a job fair wearing one. But on the other hand, showing up in “casual Friday” mode is not a useful tactic. Fortunately, as the day went on my admiration for the attendees increased.

I then performed resume reviews along with about five other professionals for four hours. About 35-40 people met with me looking for feedback and any advice that might give them an edge in this competitive environment. I applaud these people for sitting and waiting for a long time in order to speak with one of the reviewers. It shows a strong commitment to their job search.

However, I continue to notice that too many resumes are not showing the principle of professional branding. Good resumes need good leads that let a reader know right away who this person is and what they want to do. This simple notion still has not yet penetrated the conventional wisdom of resume writing. There are other improvement details that come up in these reviews of course, but none as important as building this paper as a self-marketing document. I also offered a presentation to about fifty people on the topic of career transition. The group was attentive and took notes more diligently than many graduate level classes that I have sat through.

Fewer people showed up to this job fair than in April. I wonder why. The unemployment picture is no better. Was it that too many thought there would be a repeat of an overwhelmed venue? Was it because many are starting to think that the Recession is coming to an end? Was it because people are starting to give up looking for a job? (Let’s hope it’s not that one!) Whatever the reason, I’m more inclined to be impressed by those who threw themselves into a hard day trying their best to navigate an uncertain event with more than 5000 others. When you are out of work and wanting to work, looking for a job is your job. Making a job search plan and pounding away at it as you would a job for which you were hired is what needs to happen.

So, to those who stick with fighting against the odds and getting themselves back up each day to try yet again, I say congratulations. The NH Job Fair and Career Expo had many of you in attendance. I really, really hope that many of you find that a satisfying job came as a result of the fair.

Working the 2nd Big NH Job Fair and Career Expo

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The second of two job fairs this year jointly sponsored by WMUR-TV and the NH Department of Employment Security is being held Thursday August 27 at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon. 150 organizations are scheduled to be there allegedly looking to fill 1100 open positions.  A large turnout is again expected as there was in April, but this time the venue should be better able to accommodate the crowd.

Job fairs like this one can be worth your time to attend. But to get the most out of going, some preparation is necessary so that you can maximize the experience. Approach this like it is a hard day at work. How you conduct yourself may make the difference between getting a job or not. Here are some do’s and don’ts that I recommend you consider prior to going to the fair.

Know who the employers and recruiters are who will be present at the fair. The WMUR site has a list at http://www.wmur.com/money/20264097/detail.html. Plan on visiting primarily those booths that matter to your hiring and career goals.

Have a well prepared resume and elevator pitch ready to present to recruiters. Both should reflect a professional job candidate who knows him or herself well and who can answer the question, “Why should we hire you?” What you do not want to do is to just drop off a resume and move on.

Research the companies, and if possible the open positions, that are available. Know the economic status and workplace culture of the company you plan to visit and be prepared to speak with their representatives in a way that shows you have done your homework.

Ask the recruiters intelligent questions that show you know about the company and that you care enough to have researched them. However, now is not the time to ask about salaries and benefits.

Display a professional demeanor. Refer to the recruiter by name and have good eye contact and a firm handshake. Dress appropriately. And at the risk of sounding like your mother, don’t fidget with your hair or say “um” and “you know” a lot, and don’t forget to smile. These things do matter!

If you are recently out of college, be prepared to talk about your GPA. If it is less than 3.0, then hopefully you can refer to a higher GPA earned in your major.

Even if a company is hiring outside of your field, it may still be worth networking with the recruiter to see if they represent a company that may be worth tracking for future opportunities.

At the very least, this is a time to practice your presentation with a recruiter. Do not let them intimidate you. They actually like speaking with potential employees. That is why they are there.

Use the time at the fair to network, network, network… and not only with just recruiters. Mix it up with other job seekers and any other professionals with whom you come into contact.

It is not a good idea to go on with recruiters about how bad your last job was or the philosophical issues you had with previous colleagues. Also, don’t take the stance of being desperate even though that is probably how you feel. Saying that you’ll do “… anything, anything, just please give me job!” rather than presenting yourself as qualified for something specific is not good form.

Even though we seem to be entering the mixed blessing of a jobless economic recovery do not be too discouraged to pick yourself up and throw yourself into this and other job fairs. I’ll be there to do resume reviews along with a workshop entitled Career Transitions from 2:30-3:25. I hope to see some blog readers there.

Best of luck to you!

Working From Home

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Working from home. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Think of the pressures that get relieved. No commuting, no having to put up with people you would rather not spend time with at a workplace, dress however you like, the convenience and comfort of having all your stuff around you. What is not to like?

Working at home is the fantasy of many and the reality for some. I am a year into being one of the “at-home” workers. To be clear, I work at home part time, but it is a whole lot more than had ever been the case throughout most of my working years. The experience has given me some perspective on the relative productivity and satisfaction that can come from this arrangement.

Also, with much of the workforce either proactively structuring their careers for an at-home work setting or because they are being driven into staying at home due to layoffs or furloughs, the home-as-office scene needs some examination.

When I retired from my primary career a year ago, I knew that I would be working out of a home office, at least some of the time. I put some money and sweat equity into making a home office that I love. It is designed and decorated the way I want, and it has the gadgets I want, including a custom-built computer. The view out of my two windows is New Hampshire country. I feel lucky to have it.

But to be honest, in the months leading up to “working” in this space I was afraid that I would not be very productive. I expected to be distracted by all the things that typically need doing around the house and I thought that I would miss being around people. In my career as a teacher, I was surrounded by students and co-workers throughout most of my day. Could I be disciplined enough to get something done working alone in a home office?

I have to say, it has been good. I can remain focused and when it comes to my one-man career development business, I am able to work at a pace that usually feels relaxed and is surprisingly constructive. Of course, a big advantage that I have is that my kids are grown. I do not know how a home office worker could get anything done with young kids in the house!

I also have a part time job that is separate from my business. It is based in Manchester, about 18 miles away. Much of that job could be done quite effectively in my home office. But this employer has given me a beautiful office in which to work that is housed in an extremely attractive building. I do find for this job I travel to the Manchester office to be most productive. There is something psychological going on there which I have not yet figured out.

But what is clear to me is that there is some nuance between work tasks and work settings that should be considered if you find yourself employed at home. Whatever that relationship is, it would be wrapped up in the type of personality traits you have. To oversimplify, the extraverts may have a need for web conferencing and multiple data lines to interact with people more, while the introverts may be satisfied with a less people-oriented environment.

Making your work profitable and worthwhile at home requires assessing yourself openly and determining what type of work will satisfy you in that setting. Peel back the layers of the work-at-home fantasy and see if this is practical. Some parts undoubtedly will be. Intentionally consider what your balance of assets and liabilities is. Working from home has become an option for a greater number of us. But like every major life decision it requires some clear-headedness. 

The Advantage of Networking

Posted on by Bill Ryan

One of the great advantages of living and working in New Hampshire is that it can be a relatively close-knit community both socially and professionally. Our individual path often crosses each other’s paths. It’s not unusual to hear through our workplace networks about how each of us is progressing or not. The twists and turns, dips and rises of your career journey are on display, for better or worse, in this state than they might be in a more densely populated setting. This being the case, how we conduct our careers should be influenced by this openness. 

If you’ve had a reasonably successful career, this level of exposure may help set the stage for future opportunities. More to the point, if you have been smart about establishing and maintaining valuable professional relationships, then you are better positioned for landing on your feet if a sudden work transition is forced upon you. Layoffs are an epidemic in New Hampshire right now as they are elsewhere. The decreasing level of job security is resulting in growing uncertainty among workers across industries. Being prepared for how to react to a job termination is a wise move to make during these tough times. And a significant part of this preparation should involve an understanding of networking.

Networking accounts for anywhere from 75% to 95% of all the open positions filled in the U.S. Employers can often be reluctant to advertise for jobs, preferring instead to be notified of the so-called passive job candidate, that is a referral from a trusted source. Your task is to become referenced, tested, and known by colleagues, both present and former, who can attest to your qualifications. While still employed you should be not only building relationships that will enhance your career but achieving an expertise by which you become better known. This makes it easier for your referral contacts to describe you in terms that make your value more readily apparent to potential future employers. 

One inaccurate perception of networking is that it is all one way, in that it consists only of others doing something for you. If that were true, networking would just be another word for exploitation. Networking works best when it is reciprocal such that both parties are prepared to give to one another by leveraging common interests, enlisting each other’s support, and sharing information, values, ideas, advice, and of course referrals.  

Approaching a networking contact by first reaching out to help them is a sound proposition. If you have already secured yourself as a colleague or contact who is quick to aid others, then it won’t seem disingenuous when you are reaching out in hope of getting some support coming back to you.  However, if your work style has not been of the open and cooperative type, then quality networking will be more difficult to accomplish.  

Giving of yourself to others may not always have short term benefit, but it can certainly set the stage for longer term utility. And besides, like your mother told you, it’s a nice thing to do! 

New Hampshire has the potential for being a network-rich environment. In many ways, this small pond makes it easier to become a big fish. The best way to strengthen yourself while employed, and to prepare for a time when you may suddenly not be, is to enhance and strengthen the kind of employee you are. Networking should not just be a tactic deployed after a layoff, but rather a skill that you are developing all the time. When done well, the personal and professional relationships you build will benefit you no matter what your employment status becomes. Networking is not only practical, but also enriching. 

NHBR Debut

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The New Hampshire Business Review has picked me up as a contributing writer! My debut appearance can be found at http://nhbr.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090703/INDUSTRY18/906309929.

I look forward to contributing more pieces concerning the intersection of career development and New Hampshire business news. Please look for more pieces and let me know what type of topics you’d like to see covered. Your suggestions are very much welcomed!