Tag Archives: Social Media

The Data Dilemma

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Data-driven decision making has been the rage in business for some time now. The collection of data based on what are determined to be key performance indicators specific to a business is used to justify the outcome of higher quality organizational decision making, which in turn drives the formation and execution of business strategy.

Data aggregation can be crucial with tasks as basic as answering difficult questions to more sophisticated functions such as developing and testing hypotheses and formulating theories. Further benefits of having vital information available include risk evaluation, resource allocation, program and policy assessment, and performance measurement. The use of data is seen as a more efficient means of implementing these activities than would be the case in relying on intuition, hunches, and observation alone.

It is hard to argue against the utilization of data in running a business. McKinsey reports that data-driven organizations are twenty-three times more likely to attract customers, six times more likely to retain those customers, and nineteen times more likely to be profitable.

It is not difficult to find examples of how data-driven decision making has led to business success. Anmol Sachdeva, an independent marketing consultant, has researched several. For instance, Red Roof Inn positions their hotels near airports. They figured out how flight cancellation data and weather reports could be combined to increase their bookings. Netflix compiles user data concerning watch time, location, and programming preferences to predict which shows will become big hits. Coca-Cola leverages social media data to determine who mentions or posts pictures of their products. With this data, personalized and targeted advertising has led to a four-time increase in clickthrough rates.

In short, data collection has become the proverbial game-changer for business. By helping organizations pinpoint the factors that better address challenges and boost productivity and profits, data and its astute analysis, is now an essential component of business success.

However, despite the advantages of focused data there can come a point in which the zeal to collect information can become extreme and intrusive, particularly for employees. Of course, it is reasonable to expect that management would want data to make improvements in productivity among their workforce. Performance metrics can be used to spot shortcomings, training needs, and specifics for employee performance evaluations. An organization that leans toward a results-only performance model for their employees need objective data more than a manager’s potentially skewed or biased interpretation of how employees discharge their duties.

Quantification can be misused if it is used to go beyond the reasons stated above. There are now too many documented instances of employees being excessively monitored such that the workplace has become a surveillance culture. A career cannot thrive in a context where someone is always looking over your shoulder. Questionable monitoring may be the result of management wanting to identify organizing threats such as unionization communications. Or maybe the surveillance is used to spot ways of automating tasks so as to reduce the workforce. In extreme cases, data may be applied to limit wage growth, exploit labor, or even discriminate.

Amazon may be the poster child for such data fanaticism. Brishen Rogers, an associate professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, notes how in 2020 Amazon sought to hire two “intelligence analysts” who were to use data analytics and other means to find “labor organizing threats” from among the Amazon workforce. The company goes on to insist their outsourced delivery providers hand over geo-locations, speed, and movement of drivers to use however the company wants. Inordinate corporate surveillance has also been chronicled at Uber, Lyft, Tesla, and Apple.

Inappropriate use of data results in loss of privacy, greater stress. and increased pressure on workers. The workplace can become a place of distrust and fear, not an environment conducive to innovation, high morale, and career enhancement. Instead, let’s insist that data collection be ethically construed, transparent, and legally justifiable.

 

Questioning the Future of AI

Posted on by Bill Ryan

When I drive my E-ZPass-less car through the tollbooth on I93 in Hooksett, NH, I intentionally swing to the right to hand a dollar to the tollbooth attendant. When checking out from a shopping trip in a big box store, I prefer paying a person at a cash register rather than using the self-serve payment scan system. 

It is not that I am some sort of crotchety Luddite who shuns digital progress. I pride myself on maintaining some decent level of technical functionality as I age. But I have come to question why those who design and build our Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are obsessed with things like automation. In fact, the more I investigate AI the more surprised I am that AI is being utilized so narrowly, unevenly, and menacingly. 

The AI movement is powerful, significant, and potentially authoritative regarding how our personal and work lives will be lived in the coming years. The scale of its reach places it in a class far beyond the technological tinkering improvements we generally see with new phone models or app developments. Machine learning is far more enigmatic than a better video camera or gaming platform. 

Momentous changes are likely in a broad range of fields from mechanics to medicine and are expected to reshape work and modify markets. Many of these transformations will be welcomed, perhaps cherished, but others perhaps should not happen at all. 

When looking at AI today it seems too much of it is focused on building systems that either automate functions, collect data, or conduct surveillance. This should be concerning. The likelihood of jobs being lost, governments and companies holding vast quantities of our personal information, and our personal freedoms becoming threatened is not some far-fetched paranoid delusion, but an ugly scenario we should work to prevent. 

There is progress and then there is degeneration. AI could give us either or both. As an analog, I think of my attitude ten to fifteen years ago about social media. Then, the crowdsourcing of unregulated input from the global community augured richer and more transparent conversations about any number of topics. Or so I thought. Today social media looks like a cesspool of disinformation and disgruntlement ushering in social breakdown. Not all innovations should be welcomed. 

In our democracy, while we still have one, the general public needs to be actively engaged in monitoring the AI powers that we have and weighing in on policies to determine what AI engineers develop. Living with a laissez-faire attitude of, ‘Well, whatever the markets come up with will be fine. Markets know best.’, can lead to costly and offensive ruptures in the very framework of society. Citizens should insist that AI be deployed in a generally advantageous manner as described by utilitarian philosophers like Jeremy Bentham — “the greatest amount of good for the greatest number”. 

Instead, it looks like AI development is being driven more by the acquisition of corporate profit and power than by what benefits society. One does not need be a wild-eyed Socialist to question whether a disruption as encompassing as AI could potentially pose hazards to society. Those who control the development and deployment of AI will have a lot of authority and say in how our economy operates and how our future day-to-day lives are experienced. Concentrations of power have traditionally been held suspect in America. Well, we have one in the making. Let’s pay attention. 

The ultimate direction AI takes does not have to be decided solely by engineers and corporate C-levels who find business in selling only surveillance and automation tools. AI could be targeted to complement and improve the work done by real people, while also creating new activities and opportunities that keep workers gainfully employed. We have a choice — let AI rule us or we rule it. Hopefully, we will choose wisely. 

Applying Technology in Hiring

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Human contact, whether through professional networking, social connections, or by earned reputation still matters significantly and should in no way be minimized when describing the recruitment and hiring process. If anything, it is paramount. However, another very important track to cover when developing one’s career is the one driven by existing and emerging technologies meant to streamline and optimize the employment process. 

Today this ranges from online job boards advertising positions to Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that parse resumes for HR and recruiters. Also, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools, designed to assess the employability of candidates, are now present.  

How to advantageously position yourself for these digital aides and gatekeepers needs to be a key component of a well-planned career growth strategy. Let us take a current look at each of these technical features. 

Online job boards are not very new, in short supply, or complicated. They are little more than interactive web sites that post job descriptions from employers. More recent are job search engines like Indeed and Simply Hired that rummage the internet aggregating job postings from a variety of sources. 

These sites are seductive in that they give the appearance of a job store with profuse amounts of positions just ready for you to pick up while shopping. A common and ineffective ploy is to spend hours responding to jobs on the boards with the only thing generated being recruiters trying to lure you to high turnover 100% commission sales jobs.  

Nonetheless, working with job boards is not a complete waste of time and decent jobs can be yielded. Recommended is to spend about 10% to 20% of your job search time utilizing the boards while being careful and discriminating about what you respond to. 

ATS software allows recruiters to organize vast lists of applicants and their pertinent criteria such as qualifications, employment history, degrees earned, etc., which are most useful to hiring managers when determining who to contact for interviews. For those of us trying to secure an interview we need to be mindful of preparing resumes (and LinkedIn Profiles) that are keyword-rich with contextually used terms aligning our skills and knowledge with responsibilities and deliverables mentioned in job descriptions. 

Therefore, given the need for an ATS-friendly resume that simultaneously is attractive for human readers the challenge is to strike a visually appealing format that won’t confuse the ATS. This can be tricky. If you want a designer resume that looks like those on Pinterest, then forget about passing ATS muster. And with so many companies employing ATS the best strategy may be to pay homage to the many conditions needed to not be digitally rejected in a millisecond, while adding enough optics, and of course solid content, to not have your resume look like just another slice of white bread. Achieving this level of resume optimization is a necessary goal. 

The latest trend, which is expected to proliferate in use and sophistication, involves the impact of AI in hiring decision making. There is a growing perception that relying on a candidate’s skills alone is not consistently producing better employees. The evolving thought is to assess personality more with the goal of finding a well-rounded and compatible colleague.  

To this end, AI is being deployed to identify personality traits gleaned from resumes, online profiles, social media presences, video appearances, you name it. Apparently, this is seen as less biased than human observers. We shall see. (Cannot algorithms be biased too?) 

At any rate, developing a consistent brand and value proposition that includes both your technical talents and your work style/interpersonal characteristics across all platforms may be wise for presenting to human and technological appraisers alike. 

Being prepared for the changes and encroachment of technology into hiring decisions, and by extension career development, has become imperative in today’s employment world. 

The Continued Evolution of LinkedIn

Posted on by Bill Ryan

The professional, business, and employment social media online platform LinkedIn is at it again, but in a bigger way this time. As individuals who regularly use LinkedIn to source talent, post jobs, display professional profiles, or network with other users we know that LinkedIn frequently tinkers with the interface to “improve” usability. It has always been a dynamic and growing service and one must assume they are doing something right with $3B+ in annual revenue and 460+ million user accounts worldwide. Not bad for a novel concept that first went live in 2003. 

The latest big set of changes has been rolling out for the past couple of months following the completed acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft in December 2016. Time will tell of course if this will be a good move for both parties. Let us hope this deal does not go the way of doomed Microsoft ventures like Nokia’s handset and aQuantive software. However, given the financial heft and prominent position in the digital services market Microsoft enjoys it is reasonable to expect that this takeover will boost LinkedIn’s standing and influence in the career and employment services space. 

Without getting into the weeds of all the many new minute interaction changes of the website, and there are enough, so that a new learning curve has appeared to get familiar with the site, it nevertheless appears to someone like me that I am increasingly finding LinkedIn to be my digital place to go to work. And I am not alone, Logging into LinkedIn.com is becoming my virtual commute to a real job. 

As in a traditional workplace there are those I work with frequently and closely on a project, those I know remotely, and those I am reaching out to as potential sources of value and opportunity. It is in these areas of taking connectivity among professional people to a more functional, transparent, and far-reaching level where LinkedIn holds great promise. 

The effects of globalization have thankfully become a hotly debated issue politically, but in the world of e-commerce impacted as it is by the powers of social media and crowd sourcing, the players are not waiting around for slow moving governments to set the rules. Global inter-connectivity and commerce is just starting to get ramped-up via international platforms like LinkedIn. It looks like we are heading into a world in which small-scaled and remote outreaches among millions of entrepreneurs, freelancers, microbusinesses, and small businesses across the planet can be exchanged 24/7. 

LinkedIn, and now by extension Microsoft, are betting on this proliferation of e-business, so much so that there is a mission to “economically graph” the world through its site. What does this mean? As Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s CEO puts it, they are committed to digitally mapping the global economy by building a profile for every member of the international workforce and for every company in the world. 

Further they intend to digitally list every available job in real refreshed time, list every skill needed to perform those jobs, and identify every school or training facility providing the skill instruction needed to perform these jobs. Facilitating an efficient, timely, and rich flow of information that connects these dots completes the goal. 

Given this infrastructure the potential for enriching current employment, business development, and career needs while also fulfilling the talent requirements for the innumerable jobs of the future seems highly likely. 

An expansive vision of the possibilities e-commerce and e-networking can deliver should be embraced. Many new careers can be made from leveraging a dynamic global economy. Engaging in international business does not any longer have to just be reserved for large multi-national corporations. If one can get a higher quality business or career solution from New Zealand rather than from New Hampshire no matter where in the world one lives, we should expect that to be the new normal and compete appropriately. 

Promote Your Expertise with LinkedIn

Posted on by Bill Ryan

There are significant reasons for sharing your career field expertise with others. Doing so, 

  1. a) establishes you as a qualified and trusted resource among colleagues, management, and customers;
  2. b) aligns you with other experts, thereby enhancing your comprehension and skill capacity;
  3. c) better positions you for future career advancement opportunities; and
  4. d) brings you the profound satisfaction that comes from becoming an emerging master within your profession.

LinkedIn, the professional social media platform where we have all heard we are supposed to be present, has developed into an excellent tool for communicating, sharing, and promoting your expertise. Utilization of LinkedIn and its core features can result in you having the means of crafting a powerful and multi-dimensional message for all those seeking the sound judgment and competence you can provide. 

Given the LinkedIn development team’s commitment to dynamism and continuous improvement, today the site is a fine-tuned mechanism for you the career specialist to hone and project your know-how. Let’s review the ways this can happen. 

I predict the online profile/portfolio hybrid will eventually replace the traditional resume. I cannot say exactly when this will happen, but we seem to be headed in that direction. Easy access to your profile will be mandatory and expected. So, there is no better time than the present to start getting on with this trend. 

LinkedIn allows you to tell your professional story in the first person without the constraints of resume conventions. Fill out your profile as completely as possible. Use the Summary to introduce yourself in an engaging manner that discloses how your journey began, how your passion was ignited, and where you see the industry and your role in it headed. 

The Experience section should be packed with accomplishments — the more quantifiable the better. 

The Skills & Endorsement piece should be keyword-rich, and your headline needs to communicate your career title, not your current job title. Oh, and don’t forget a professional headshot, not a detail cropped out of a wedding picture. 

LinkedIn’s advancement in becoming a repository for work samples, slide shows, videos, and yes, your traditional resume among other valuable pieces, has been a smart move permitting professionals to now have the means to post performance evidence that can speak louder than words alone. Populate this area with artifacts that pop and make your efforts shine. Show future employers and potential business opportunities what level of quality you can deliver. 

Blogging and publishing online pieces where you expound on industry-related topics and issues of the day is now available with LinkedIn. Have something of peer interest to write and the readers will come out of the woodwork. Let this feature be a megaphone for your expertise. Clarify current trends and best practices. Showcase pertinent strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats impacting your terrain. Detail the steps that need to be taken to improve conditions. Be a regular contributor and become a respected voice. 

Perhaps, one of the strongest elements in LinkedIn is the Groups. Here is where you can boost your industry presence and generate and cultivate high value connections. Involving yourself in timely and relevant subject matter with other experts and stakeholders benefits all participants and deepens your career association. Not only can you increase your visibility, but you can amplify your knowledge to those wanting and needing to hear your input. Also, being able to contact individuals directly gives you favorable circumstances for building that all important professional network. 

I still hear from too many clients something that goes like, “Yeah, I’m on LinkedIn, but I don’t really know what to do with it.” Well, I hope this is in part, somewhat illuminating to you in this cohort. In short, if you are serious about your career, you need to be serious about LinkedIn. 

When Did the Job Seeker and Employers Become Mortal Enemies

Posted on by Bill Ryan

In my last piece I shared with readers the perspective of a long-term job seeker who had engaged in the job search process and the employment success she eventually found. Of course, for many others who ultimately get hired, “success” can often mean being underemployed or taking a pay cut from their previous position. It is a difficult pill for too many to swallow. 

For this piece a very different job seeker viewpoint, that of Linda Norris. As you will see the arduous hunt for employment can leave the searcher questioning what has gone wrong with the selection process. For many trying to obtain employment today, it has become an agonizingly slow, frustrating, and demoralizing slog. Below are the comments of an actual job seeker with a professional background and what she has found to be the new normal. In short, a daunting and often frightening search for work.
 

In years past, a job seeker would create a clear, concise resume, purchase a few local and city newspapers and apply for new jobs. The process would continue with a few phone calls, one to two interviews, a salary discussion with dual party agreement and a few distributed benefits brochures. The candidate would agree to the new job description with all its trimmings, dress professionally and start their new job. 

Then the internet arrived and the race for every company to get their job postings online. This worked for several years, until the arrival of Big Data, job coaches, job recruiters, job boards and concierges, job consultants, online job applicant profiles, pre-pre-employment online testing, candidate profiling, and other assorted job seeker tools that employers now use to weed out, but not hire candidates. 

Job seekers today must sort through a maze of confusing, conflicting, often out of date job boards and misleading employer web pages. There are lengthy job applications, which consume hours and hours of job seekers online time and resources. 

We are expected to willingly participate in online Pre-employment testing, Pre-Candidate quizzes, candidate profiling, multiple resume and document uploads, software testing downloads, Skype interviews, video conferencing from home, and multiple, time-wasting phone screens. 

Many job application interviews run into 5-hour stretches. These multiplex, invasive candidate selection processes are like the torture methods used in the Middle Ages. While the job seeker is not actually tortured physically, they often are intellectually. 

Once the online job seeker profile is completed and submitted, then there is the Candidate’s Application, EEO statement, resumes/documents to upload, the Pre-employment tests, applicant’s job scorecard and the applicant’s dashboard to be reviewed. After that there is ongoing, internet searches of the applicant to gain insight to their inner thoughts and deeds. If they have a Facebook page, a Google page, etc. this too is evaluated before the candidate can be hired. If the candidate rejects social media, then that rejection is also interpreted. 

Educational GPAs are evaluated, from grade school to college. The amount and fluency of foreign languages spoken or not spoken, is a criterion for hiring a job seeker. The candidate’s neighborhood, city, and state are also used as criteria for hiring. Driver’s license numbers are requested on applications, so that driving records can be interpreted, even library cards, overdue books, and fees paid are subject to interpretation by a future employer. 

What does all this invasion of a candidate’s privacy have to do with a new job? How does all this over-detailed, invasive micromanaging of a potential candidate’s lifestyle prove abilities to an employer? 

Why has the job seeker been placed in the position of being a mortal enemy, all for want of a job? 

Six Characteristics of Success in the Modern Workforce

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Entering this twenty-first century, post-Recession, globalized, and digital workforce can be daunting. Whether you are young and just entering the job search fray, middle aged and trying to maintain or build upon your competitiveness and value, or mature and desperate to stay relevant, securing meaningful work that is well compensated is still a major challenge. 

Just look at the principal obstacle facing us. Job creation is anemic. Sure, it is better than a few years ago, but way too many workers are either underemployed or have given up looking. While Wall Street booms, employment lags. Anxiety remains high for even the employed who still seem reluctant to leave jobs they have, but do not like, for fear of not finding anything better. Why is this? I see several reasons at play. 

  • More and more wealth and power are continually concentrating on the very rich and they do not appear incentivized to be creating many jobs with it. 
  • Perhaps because of #1 the incomes and purchasing power of the middle class is shrinking, which depresses both demand, supply, and jobs. 
  • Globalization has increased competition and innovation, meaning if you are not an over-caffeinated go-getter, you are finding yourself at the back of the line. 
  • Technology expands productivity with fewer workers needed to produce than in the past. 
  • The nature of many jobs is changing. New and ever-changing skills and knowledge bases are in increasing demand. 
  • Government is being constrained to help. There seems to be nothing government can do anymore that is welcomed. Imagine trying to start a Roosevelt-like CCC program today? There would be a revolution from the political Right. 

What’s a job seeker to do? To begin with realize it is tough, but not hopeless. There are characteristics I believe it is wise to possess that will increase your chances of being seen by employers as valuable and desired. These traits transcend most careers and specialty areas and have as much to do with attitude as with training and education. Here is my list of must-have work style attributes for the times in which we live: 

  1. Stay Connected: Build and cultivate your network however you can. Meet face to face, connect on social media, join and participate in groups, volunteer, email and text, and outreach, outreach, outreach. Isolation can be a career killer.
  2. Stay Optimistic: Project hopefulness and positivity. Downers are a turn-off for people, especially co-workers and bosses. Sure, there is a lot going on to depress us, but being angry and negative rarely builds dreams or improves challenging situations.
  3. Stay Confident: Showing a can-do spirit prepares a person for difficulties and inspires others. Confidence, along with its cousinsself-motivation and goal-orientation, generates an energy that leads to high quality outcomes.
  4. Stay Technologically Current: Be curious about the skills and products surrounding us and which define our times. Keep an eye on the latest innovations that will shape our future. Resist the urge to be a luddite who thinks the old ways were always the best ways. Truth is the good old days were not in many cases.
  5. Stay Diverse: Accept and thrive on a multiplicity of ideas and perspectives. Get energized by all the richness inherent in different viewpoints. Varying ideas come from the mixed gender, ethnic, racial, and multigenerational makeup of workforces. The more sources of input the higher the likelihood of success.
  6. Stay Educated: Embrace lifelong learning as a key to staying abreast of current trends, best practices, and what works in your field. Continuous training and education enrich you professionally and will make you more of an asset to employers both current and potential.

Reframing the dismal jobs picture as an opportunity to better your employability and improve your position as a valued employee is one way to cope and perhaps succeed in the modern workforce. 

Career Web Services Review

Posted on by Bill Ryan

It is no secret the Internet is where people go for almost everything from house hunting to car buying to job searching. Although I, and most career advisors, will not tell you to sit for hours searching for jobs on Indeed.com and CareerBuilder and call that a job search, there are nevertheless some interesting and potentially beneficial job search related services popping up on the web besides job boards. 

Here are four applications that attempt to combine and leverage well tested and proven job search best practices with the ease and power of Internet use. Conceptually I find these apps promising, but I want to be clear that I am not endorsing them. At best I have dabbled in them and do not claim to be a power user. But as more of our functionality, including career development, becomes digitized it is worth seeing what the entrepreneurial class is cooking up out there. One never knows where the next great Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn will come from. 

  1. VIZIFY — In this age of versatile multimedia it can seem odd we still place so much on a black & white paper or word-processed document called a resume. Vizify asks why don’t we spiff up that boring old doc and present it instead as a visually more appealing graphic display? Here is an opportunity to import resume and online profile data, essentially your value proposition or professional brand, into a graphical bio. This can then be included on email signatures, QR codes for business cards, and online profiles to show a brighter side of you. For job candidates looking for placements in more hip work settings this may have possibilities.

[Vizify was acquired by Yahoo! in 2014.] 

  1. JOBS WITH FRIENDS — Here’s a cool idea. We all know (or should!) that networking is the best route to go for finding meaningful employment. I recommend to clients they spend at least 70% or more of their job search time outreaching to contacts in their networks in searching for employment opportunities. Jobs With Friends identifies all your social media connections and friends and gives you tools for finding who they list as their employers, what the current job openings are where they work, and a means of asking for referrals from them to give to their employers.

[Jobs With Friends is now a service offered by CareerCloud.com.] 

  1. PERFECT INTERVIEW — Although this is an array of multimedia interactive interviewing solutions for job seekers and HR departments there is one feature, I’d like to focus on called Interview Coach. Ever notice how being videotaped can be a great learning tool? Watching yourself played back teaches you more about your performance than any other method. Interview Coach places you in front of your computer and webcam, shoots tough questions at you from professional interviewers, and records your responses. You get to see how you answered and can then better refine your interview technique.

[This service is still alive and well in 2022.] 

  1. VIZIBILITY — Here is a service that totally gets the future of career development and brand management tied into one’s online identity. Vizibility tries to cover all the bases by offering the user data analytics to show how often you are being searched, mobile business cards, ways of finding common social media connections, your Google ranking, online identity sharing, and other ways to help you push your profile to potential high value decision makers. If you believe exposure leads to opportunity, then check this one out.

[Vizibility is now vizCard, maker of digital/mobile business cards with analytic features.] 

As clever as these and other services are I think it is best to view them as tools to help the job searcher implement tried and true practices such as networking, self-promotion, and determining what efforts are time wasters vs. what has value. It is hard to imagine at this point that good old face-to-face communication can ever be completely replaced by web-based services. But meanwhile, have fun seeing how career and software-as-a-service development merge in some innovative ways. 

Know What Your Performance Evidence Is

Posted on by Bill Ryan

“Hiring me will add value to your operation.” 

“I am prepared to take on the biggest challenges and come out a winner!” 

“You can count on me to tackle all obstacles and generate profit growth simultaneously.” 

Having the confidence and drive to be strongly competitive in this dog-eat-dog hiring climate is great. The meek unfortunately do not appear to be in the lead in inheriting this earth in any way that says employment success. Reaching out, promoting, in short, selling yourself is as combative as ever in employment and those with the stomach and skill for it can come out ahead. 

But making claims of greatness can be as fragile as a house of cards in the wind unless there is substance to back up your superlative declarations. You cannot call yourself a star performer if there is not some credible performance evidence to show in fact you can do the things you said you could do. 

Knowing what counts as solid performance evidence in your field and being able to clearly cite examples of your achievement in these areas boosts your standing among those making hiring decisions. These deciders can be listening about your performance affirmations at a networking event, job fair, or in an interview. They can be reading about them in your resume or on your LinkedIn profile. However, it is that they learn about those valuable accomplishments of yours that scream, “I’m qualified!”, the better off your career can be. 

So, what really matters in the work you do? Is it meeting quotas, raising profits, mitigating threats, improving lifestyles, expanding market share, stopping hunger, bringing joy to others, elevating student test scores, saving lives, or any number of the important things that show you have done what you were hired to do? We all have a rather limited set of crucial outcomes or objectives to realize in our jobs. Knowing exactly what they are and keeping track of your attainment of these goals is a good place to start identifying your performance evidence. 

Examples of execution carry more weight when they are quantifiable. Numbers can take a statement from subjective to objective, from opinion to fact. But be strategic about the quantities you select in your power statements. 

Now let us say that I am trying to prove to stakeholders that I am an excellent retail store manager. Do I talk about how demanding it is to track inventory, handle customers, and make good hourly-wage hires. That may all be true, but they do not speak to key performance indicators. Instead talk about numbers of units sold and employees supervised. Mention specifically how much you reduced operational costs and grew annual sales. Point out the increased percentages of surveyed customer satisfaction ratings and improvements made in associate training sessions. 

If vetting a candidate, which would you rather hear or read about concerning that person’s accomplishments: 

“Reduced expenses related to manufacturing operations.” or “Reduced costs, inventories, and cycle times of manufacturing operations, resulting in 52% – 68% gross margin increase, 4% –10% annual inventory turn increase, and 25% cycle time decrease.” 

Or how about this: 

“Managed operational and capital budgets.” or “Furnished operational and capital budgets for 18 commercial properties, comprising over $30M in expenditures for over 3.5 million square feet of space.” 

Not all professions embed the collection of performance data into their jobs like sales, financials, and medicine, among others. Sometimes it may be necessary for you to do your own quantitative logging, even if it is retrospective. 

Sure, it is a hassle, but in less than an hour, and maybe with some help from those who know your work well, you can compile a generous list of quantitative achievements from your recent past. This information can then be presented as demonstrations of your good efforts and workplace worth. 

Communicating in terms of performance evidence to hiring managers and recruiters strengthens your position as a job search candidate. So, go ahead and announce with confidence your capabilities and potential, but reinforce the message with the important deeds that count. 

The 70/20/10 Career Model

Posted on by Bill Ryan

70/20/10. It is a development model that is turning up in a lot of different places. I think it should play a role in career development as well. (My apologies to anyone who has gotten to this realization before me. If so, I have not yet seen your work.) 

So, what is it? Let me explain. I see it is a breakdown of time and energy spent on evolving an undertaking. Think of it as 70%/20%/10%. Some examples of its application may help: 

In education: Learning often comes from recognizing problems and the need to solve them. According to this approach 70% of our time is spent performing day-to-day and challenging tasks that contain problems we ponder by trying to think of solutions. 20% is occupied by interacting with others to collect data useful in solving these problems and 10% comes from formal course work or training to build one’s expertise. 

In business: To be innovative (and what business does not need to be?) requires what Eric Schmidt of Google says is a 70/20/10 approach. 70% should be on basic operations, i.e., making the doughnuts. 20% of the time should be spent dedicated to experimenting with different ways of implementing the core business. 10% should be on completely novel concepts not related to the core business. 

Diet: Livestrong promotes eating 70% proteins, 20% fats, and 10% carbs. 

Social Media Marketing: There is a posting rule for business to get the most ROI exposure while on social media. It goes 70% brand building, 20% sharing others’ posts, and 10% advertising and promotion. 

Job Search: Heck, even I and other career types find we recommend to clients that when job searching spend 70% of the time networking, 20% reaching out to recruiters, and 10% on job boards. 

70/20/10. It is infectious. Isn’t it? Perhaps even elegant. 

This is what I am thinking in terms of using this formula in career development. Assuming we want to mature and progress in our careers it may be useful to have a grand action plan for doing so. This plan should be easy to remember and not very complicated. Starting with 70/20/10 is good, because it is easy to keep in mind. Here is how I propose using the 70/20/10 career plan: 

70% of our time, energy, and spirit can be committed to practicing our craft. This is what we do to attain our 10,000 hours, Malcolm Gladwell’s mastery threshold. It is what gives us our sixth sense of professionalism. Sure, we may be on cruise control to some extent, but the repetition, the deep experience, and the number of times you can say, “I’ve seen this one before,” will over time build expertise. 

20% is what we devote to trying things out of our box. We allow ourselves to play a little with our career. The rule now is to think creatively and experimentally. The time has come to approach the same-old with a fresh perspective and novel approaches. Embrace change and look for new ways to perform tasks and meet responsibilities. Always improve and refine. Do not get locked into thinking the 70% is where 100% of your time should be spent. Allow yourself to play with the 20%. The 20% is not to be set aside. It is crucial. 

10% of our work time, yes 10%, is spent doing something completely different. It may be difficult to see that it is even tangentially related to your day job. Are you an accountant? Spend 10% of your time watercolor painting. Are you a parole officer? Spend 10% of your time learning how to play the clarinet. Are you an artist? Spend 10% of your time studying nutrition. But here is the connection, be mindful of what new things you learn and how they may have applications to your fundamental work. Remember, you are looking for new avenues to grow professionally. And maybe you will enrich your life at the same time. 

70/20/10. Lots of possibilities with these numbers. Think of using them with your career. Growth, purpose, and success may result.