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I hear it all the time. Unemployed people tell me that because of the current economy they are willing to take any job just to get by. They write their resume to fit every job posting that comes along. They are willing to expand their job search to cast the widest net possible. They search the Internet for ”fast hiring jobs” and “free resume examples” to copy what others have done, believing that they will increase their luck by increasing the volume of resumes they send out.

Let me offer a bit of free career advice as to why this is a BAD IDEA!

If your resume looks like everyone else’s you increase your competition. If a hiring manager sees 15 (or 50 or 500) resumes that all look the same, then his/her hiring decision becomes a lottery. Make your resume stand out by emphasizing solid accomplishments from your past.

Narrow the target of your job search. It’s a bit counter-intuitive, and most people don’t want to rule out any job opportunity. But, narrowing your job search is actually a good thing. By narrowing your job search target you will be able to rely more on your network of friends, family and former colleagues to pass along specific opportunities. If your job search target is too broad, they won’t be able to help you.

Rely on your network to find job opportunities for you. At least 60% of all jobs are found through some form of network connection. Most jobs are never posted online (i.e. Monster.com, or CareerBuilder.com). In fact only about 5-7% of people ever get a job this way. By letting your network know exactly what kind of new job you are looking for, you will allow them to help you find it.

So the next time you are asked what kind of job you are looking for, don’t say, “any job will do.” Be specific about what kind of job you are looking for and let your network help you find your next career opportunity.

In business, every manager lives by an equation that helps describe profit or loss.  This equation is called the Income Statement and it looks like this:

Revenue (or income) - Expenses = Net Revenue (can be profit or loss).

Money in minus money out equals net revenue. The goal of every business is to increase revenue and decrease expenses so they can turn a profit.

Every business is in business to turn a profit. Without a profit, a business cannot sustain itself.  (BTW – this is true of non-profit organizations and governments as well. They just call it something different.)  Profit is made when the cost of providing the goods or services is less than what they sell for. In other words, if I sell a book for $20.00 and it cost me $10.00 to produce it, I have made a profit.  If, on the other hand, I can only sell the book for $7.00 even though it cost me $10.oo to produce, I have made a loss.  If I keep losing money this way I will not be in business much longer.  I think you know why.

In order for a business to stay alive it must have MORE expenses less than revenue.

Now here’s why that’s important to you as a job seeker.  EVERY manager is concerned about this little equation all the time. It’s their job. They are supposed to help the company make a profit. When a manager goes to hire someone, they have to do the math and figure out if paying your salary and benefits will help turn a profit or turn into a loss.

As an interviewee, your job is to help the hiring manager see that you are a good “investment”. The way to do this is to give proof on your resume that you have helped your former or current employer make or save money. When you show results, your resume gets read.

I sat in the train station last week watching a hectic, bustling bunch of too busy people. Worn out road warriors trying to conduct business on their cell phones, or find a place to plug in their computers. Kids screaming, laughing, shouting and crying. Elderly couples clutching their handbags and watching everyone with a suspecting eye.

Theses people were frantic. They were anxious. They were most certainly NOT enjoying life.

Then I noticed the family in the plain clothes quietly talking to each other near the corner of the station.  They seemed oblivious to the hustle and bustle around them. They quietly waited for the train as if they didn’t have a care in the world.  This Amish family caught my eye.  Not because of what they were doing, but rather because of what they were NOT doing.  They were not caught up in the frantic nature of the day. Instead they were enjoying just being in the presence of each other’s company. As a recent New York Times article proclaims, we are certainly “wired for distraction.”

I watched for a few minutes and thought, “sometimes I wish I was just a little bit Amish.”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to live without my laptop, my iPhone, or my flat screen television (with ESPN and the Food Network).  I don’t want to live without electricity or flush toilets.  But sometimes I wish I was just a little bit Amish. I wish I could force myself to unplug and enjoy things as they unfold, rather than always pushing, pushing, pushing.

How about you? Do you ever want to unplug? Do you ever wish you were just a little bit Amish?  Well you can be, you know.  All you have to do is turn off everything and read a book. . . . which I think I  will do right now.  Peace!

There is an old story about a college professor who brought to class one day a bag of sand, some pebbles, some stones, and some large rocks.  She pulled out a large glass vase and asked the class if any of them could put all of the items into the vase.  Several students tried, putting in the sand first and trying to get the rest of the stones around it.  None succeeded, until one brilliant young student came to the front of the class.

He put the large rocks in first, followed by the stones to fill in the gaps.  Then came the pebbles with a bit of shaking. Finally he poured in the sand and the class saw that everything fit just fine.

The point is to put the large rocks in first.

So it is with our life, our business, our career.  Put the most important things first (the large rocks) and everything else will fit!

Once you know the trick, this doesn’t seem so difficult.  Why, then, do so many of us spend our days running from appointment to appointment, falling behind, and not accomplishing the most important things?  I believe the key is in identifying what the large rocks are.  Most of the time they are not what we think!

One of the most helpful tools I have found for identifying and keeping prominent the large rocks in my life (or business), is an annual strategic planning retreat.  I take time away for a day or two in order to focus on the big picture.  What is my life purpose? How does my work/business reflect that purpose?  What are the key things I need to accomplish this year in order to live up to my life’s purpose?

Taking time away helps me to see the big picture — to identify the large rocks.  Once I have done that I can simply ask myself at any time during the day, “does this activity help move me towards my goal(s)?”  If the answer is “no”, then I give myself permission to stop what I’m dong so I can focus on what really matters.

Do you take an annual strategic planning retreat? If not, I encourage you to plan one RIGHT NOW!  It will help you put the big rocks first, which will allow you to fit everything important into your life!

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If you are going to be in the Portland area on November 17, 2010 I’d like to invite you to join us up at Mt. Hood for a one day strategic planning retreat! You can go to this link for more details >> http://seminars.careeradvice4u.com/strategic-planning-retreat-at-mt-hood

“It’s Friday morning and I promised Sally I would have a report to her by noon today. I am nowhere near completing that task, although I can’t really say what I have achieved this week. Where does the time go?”

“I wanted to carve some time out to spend with the family this month, but it’s the end of the month and we haven’t had a day to spend with each other. Where does the time go?”

“Today is my birthday. I turn another year older. They say wisdom comes with age, but I don’t know. I had such high hopes for my life when I was 25. . . but those hopes and dreams have not become a reality. Where does the time go?”

One thing is certain — we have a finite time on this earth to accomplish the things we were created to accomplish, to live out our dreams, and to be the people we want to be. If we don’t give our attention to the important things, they will not get done. Busy-ness steals our time away from us! Once the time is gone it can never be replaced.

The remedy for this is to have a clear idea about who you are and what you want to accomplish.

What is your mission in life? What is your vocation? Your life purpose? How do you want to be remembered? What will be your legacy?

I encourage you to focus on the one or two BIG things that need to be done today (this week, this month) that will help you accomplish your life’s mission. Focus on these few things and everything else will take care of itself.

He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

Edwin Markham

The spate of political ads has me thinking about this famous poem by Edwin Markham. It seems like the most effective thing our current political system does is to draw circles around “like-thinking groups” — circles that exclude others.

This doesn’t seem to me to be a very good way to build a nation.

It’s also not a very good way to build a business, yet I see so many companies doing just that.  They draw circles that exclude or (get rid of) good employees. They draw circles that undercut their competition. Circles that separate management from line workers.

So I ask you, gentle reader, what kind of circle can YOU and LOVE have the wit to draw that will bring others into your circle?

Networking is about finding opportunity to draw other people into your circle.  Are you a quality networker?

Happy Hunting!

Related Posts:

• What Is A Personal Brand And Why Do You Need One?
• How to Work With A Recruiter In Your Job Search
• Why A Great Resume Is Not As Important As A Decent Network

Marketing professionals tell us there are typically two types of marketing campaigns: “push marketing” and “pull marketing”.

Push marketing is best represented by the guy who says something like, “If you don’t come see me today I can’t save you any money.” If that conjures up images of used car sakes people and slimy insurance salesman, well it should. Most of us do not have the luxury of pushing too hard, lest we push them away for good. If you are truly the only game in town thus may work, but for most of us this is NOT the kind of marketing in which we can afford to engage.

Pull marketing, on the other hand, can best be portrayed by the ice cream truck that treks it’s way through your neighborhood on a hot sunny day. Can you hear the truck driving down the street blasting that annoying rendition of Joplin’s “The Entertainer?”  Annoying perhaps, but when she stops her customers come running out of the woodwork waving their money.

How would you like to have that happen at your business? Would you like potential employers to seek you out? Of course you would! We would all love to have people come running to us, eager to give us their money! That’s called pull marketing.

Are you tired of pushing people away? Try pull marketing.

What could you do TODAY that will pull people towards you?  What will you do TODAY that will make customers come running to your business?

Personal Brand Related Posts

• What is a Personal Brand and Why Do You Need One?
• Your Personal Brand – Tips From A Branding Expert
• Important Personal Branding Links
• 7 Key Ways to Promote Your Personal Brand
• Use LinkedIn to Promote Your Personal Brand
• What Everybody Needs To Know About Writing A Blog To Promote Your Personal Brand
• What YOU Can Learn From Leonardo Da Vinci’s Resume

I hate to break it to you, but you are just like everybody else.  There are hundreds of people who do what you do. Whether you are a sales person, a personal trainer, a massage therapist, a lawyer or a dentist, in your service area there are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people with your occupation who provide exactly the same services and products you do.

The problem with being like everybody else is that it makes it difficult to answer the question, “Why should I hire you rather than that other person?”  If you can not demonstrate why you are unique, the only thing that sets you apart is your price. So you cut your margin. Or you are wiling to take a smaller salary. Or you lower your price. Once that happens, everybody loses because you can’t compete on price. Someone is always willing to go lower.  Instead, you have to compete on value (or perceived value).

How will someone distinguish YOU from everybody else who does what you do?  If everyone else is just like you, then why would someone hire you rather than that other person?  How will you set yourself apart from those other people so you can find the perfect clients or land the perfect job?  THAT is the challenge.

Here’s the good news. . . There may be hundreds of people who do what you do, but there is only one YOU.  You have a unique set of skills, abilities, knowledge and experiences that make you different from everybody else who does what you do.  The secret to finding the perfect clients or landing the perfect job is to set yourself apart from the others who are just like you.  What makes you irreplaceable?  What specific and exclusive traits distinguish you from everyone else who does what you do?  What is your one-of-a-kind, distinctive, exclusive, unique value proposition?

When you can discover and leverage your unique value proposition you are on the way to the perfect job. When you can set yourself apart from everyone else your business will begin to grow like crazy!

So I ask you once again, what makes YOU so special? Figure that out and you’ve got it made!

Happy Hunting!

Personal Brand Related Posts

• What is a Personal Brand and Why Do You Need One?
• Your Personal Brand – Tips From A Branding Expert
• Important Personal Branding Links
• 7 Key Ways to Promote Your Personal Brand
• Use LinkedIn to Promote Your Personal Brand
• What Everybody Needs To Know About Writing A Blog To Promote Your Personal Brand
• What YOU Can Learn From Leonardo Da Vinci’s Resume

Has this ever happened to you? At the end of the day your spouse or your boss asked you, “what did you do today?” and you had no answer. Of course it has. It’s happened to all of us!

It wasn’t that way when you started the day. You set out to do something good or important. In your efforts to search for a job or complete an important business project you threw yourself into it heart and soul. You were busy all day long and yet, at the end of the day (or week, or month) you wondered if you really accomplished anything important. How did that happen? You were busy, but not productive.

One of the problems many of us face is that we don’t have a system for defining, achieving and measuring our effectiveness.  We haven’t set specific goals for our business, project, or job search. Because we have not set specific goals, we don’t know when we have been successful at achieving your goals. . . or even if we HAVE achieved them.

A professor of mine in business school famously said, “if you can measure it, you can improve it.”  I wasn’t sure what he meant at the time, but as I have spent more time pursuing both life and business objectives I have begun to understand.  Setting specific goals allows us to measure our effectiveness at our work. Having a system to measure the outcome of our activities allows us to improve on what we have done in the past or achieve want to get done in the future.

Here are some tips that will help you develop a system for defining, achieving and measuring goals.

1. Make time to set goals.  It is said that every hour spent on planning saves 5-6 hours in execution. The simplest way to get something done is to set a goal to accomplish it.  For your business you want to set chronological goals (annual, monthly, weekly and daily goals) as well as project goals. The same is true of your job search – and here’s an important hint: applying to jobs on the Internet is NOT a goal you should set for more than 30 minutes per day! Schedule time for planning and goal setting. I recommend you block out a couple of days each year for strategic planning and setting annual goals; a half day each month to set monthly goals and a few minutes each week to set weekly goals. Be sure to make your goals specific and achievable.
2. Define clear objectives.  Objectives are the steps required to accomplish a goal. They formulate your action plan for accomplishing your goals. Your objectives should be measurable so you know when you have accomplished them. They should be realistic and time bound as well.
3. Keep track of your progress. What metrics or benchmarks will you use to mark your progress.  Set the tracking mechanism up before you start, that way you will be able to prioritize and focus on the parts of the project or goal that are the most important. If you need to let something fall between the cracks, make sure it’s not the most important thing. Setting metrics and tracking your progress will help you keep the first things first.
4. Make mid-course corrections as needed.  Things seldom go exactly as planned. Life happens. Things break or need to be replaced. People get sick. Money runs out before the project is complete. The successful person is able to step back and make course corrections if necessary to accomplish their goals.  In order to be effective at this you must focus on the ultimate goal or objective – not the action itself.  Remember, it’s easy to forget your objective is to drain the swamp when you are up to your eyeballs in alligators!

A mentor of mine used to say, “plan your work, then work your plan.”  He was a wise man! If we follow that advice we will have fewer days (weeks, months, years. . . ) where we get to the end of the project and say, “gee what HAVE I accomplished?”

Happy Hunting, friends!

Dr. Sean Harry
Career Management Solutions

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— @ WiseStamp Signature. Get it now

“I’m not smart enough to start my own business.”
“I don’t have enough experience to get this job.”
“I don’t deserve to be successful.”

Are you plagued with thoughts like these?  If so, they are probably keeping you from moving forward with your job search, business plans or even the ability to deepen important relationships.  Negative thoughts can be discouraging or even debilitating, but you don’t have to let them rule your actions! You can beat negative thoughts and negative self talk with a few simple steps.

In his recent book, “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness“, Dr. Daniel Amen calls this negative self-talk the “fortune-telling ANT.”  These ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts) can cause anxiety, stress, inaction and even problems with our physical health.  If you are a job seeker or an entrepreneur you are, no doubt, intimately familiar with ANTs.  They are the little voice inside your head that tells you that you aren’t smart enough or good enough or experienced enough.

The good news is that these ANTs can be killed quite easily.  Here’s Dr. Amen’s recipe:

Step 1 – write down the event that is causing you stress or anxiety.

Step 2 – Notice and write down the automatic negative thoughts that come to your mind when you think of this event.

Step 3 – Label those thought as a fortune-telling ANT. Amen writes, “Often, just naming the thought can help take away its power.” (Amen, p. 98)

Step 4 – Talk back to the ANT – or squash and kill it. Chances are that the negative thought is only partially true. Squash the ANT by bringing in as many positive responses as possible.  For instance, if the ANT is telling you that you don’t have enough experience, make a list of the experience you DO have.  Counter the ANT with facts.

Dr. Amen offers the above 4 steps to kill ANTs.  To that I add this fifth one:

Step 5 – Make an action list of 2 or 3 things you can do TODAY that will prove the ANT wrong.  Being proactive will help you prove to yourself that the ANT is wrong and you are right.  Thus, the ANT stays dead longer!

You don’t have to be held hostage by your negative thoughts.  You can beat your negative thoughts with these few simple steps.  Now, go and kill those ANTs!

Happy Hunting!