So how do you make sure, that when the managers all sit around a table and discuss who should be let go to meet the corporate goal of “10% cost reduction”, your name is most likely to be stricken off the list of candidates? It’s really very simple, as Dilbert would say “If you’re indispensable, they can’t fire (or promote) you”.

You must step up your efforts to execute a smart Internal PR campaign. You must learn how to educate your boss - and her boss - about all the wonderful, clever, cost-saving, money-making, collaborative, innovative things you do on a daily basis.

For instance: Each time you do something “out of the ordinary” for a co-worker, send them an email thanking them for the opportunity to help out. When the inevitable reply comes thanking you for the help - forward that one to your boss. When you’ve stepped in to turn a tricky or delicate situation with a customer around - whip off an FYI email to your boss, and copy the customer service manager on it (unless they’re the same person) to let them know that you handled the crisis, and saved the day.

Don’t overdo it, and don’t do it for the “normal, every-day” stuff you’re paid to do. Occasionally—say once a month—write a memo about the extra tasks you completed, and, if possible, calculate how much money you saved (or earned) for the company. The better you can demonstrate your value on a regular basis, the less likely the company will be to sacrifice you to the “cost reduction demon”.

Recommended Reading: "BRAG! The Art of Tooting Your Horn Without Blowing It", by Peggy Klaus (ISBN 10:0446692786). Peggy debunks all the myths that keep you from letting people know how well you’re doing. She says: “To brag is to talk about your best self with pride and passion in a conversational manner.” And make no mistake: It’s part of your job to let your boss(es) know what a GREAT job you’re doing. And when your name does come up, the reaction around the table will be: “Heck no, we can’t let [Mike] or [Jane] go! The place would fall apart in days! Pick someone else!

Imagine the following scenario: one morning, you walk into your local super market, and stand there for a few minutes, looking lost. Sure enough, somebody will approach you, and ask how they can help you. “I’m here to buy some food” you say. The store clerk smiles nervously, and is bound to ask you “What kind of food, madam?” With a determined look on your face, you answer: “Lunch. I’m here to buy lunch food.” No matter how determined you are, you’re not helping the clerk help you. “What kind of lunch food, madam? Hot or cold? Sandwich or salad? Meat or vegetarian? Packaged? Frozen? Ready-made? Fresh??”

You get the picture. My point is: the more specific you are, the easier it is to walk you to the correct aisle in the super market. Likewise, the easier it is to put you in touch with the right kind of people, who can help you with information and advice relevant to your objective. If this means, that you have 4, 5, or even 10 different resumes, each with a different - but specific - objective, then so be it.

As Dr. Phil says: “You’ve got to name it, before you can claim it”. If you don’t know exactly what you want, and say exactly what you want, nobody will be able to help you, let alone give you what you want.

See: http://www.analytictech.com/networks/weakties.htm

Weak ties—as opposed to the strong and intimate ties we have to family, spouse, close and dear friends—have proven to be much more effective in exploring the world of job opportunities, precisely because people we don’t know intimately often move in greatly different circles—social and business—than we do ourselves.

In the illustration, you’ll see a number of partially overlapping ovals - these represent groups of people. You are at the centre of these groups, or networks of people.

Networking is this simple ... You know Ann, one of your office pals, and Ann knows Sue and Jim. What if Jim happens to be working in an industry you’re interested in? Well, if you go and talk to Jim, on Ann’s say-so, Jim might think highly enough of what you have to offer, to refer you to his boss—who might be interested in hiring you.

See also: SPM Group’s White Paper on The Strengths of Weak Ties

Source: Granovetter, M. (1982).
The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited.
In Marsden, P.V. and Lin, N., editors, Social Structure and Network Analysis, pages 105--130. Beverly Hills: Sage.

1. The resume has no objective. If you can’t articulate what it is you’re looking for, specifically, you’re leaving it up to the junior HR clerk, who gets stuck with the screening process, to decide for you.
2. If there is an objective, it’s usually a self-serving one (I’m looking for a great job, with fabulous benefits, interesting challenges, and opportunities for rapid advancement). Who cares what you want?
3. It’s all about what you’ve done for other companies. Frankly - no-one gives a hoot about that; they want to know ‘What Can You Do For Me?’
4. TMI - Too Much Information. Contrary to popular belief, it is not good practice to list everything and the kitchen sink. You’re just providing ammunition to the screener to say ‘yeah, well, we don’t need that’
5. NEI - Not Enough Information. Not about what you’ve done before (see #3) but about Who You Are. Generic resumes are also utterly boring, and completely devoid of any personality.
6. Orphaned Achievements: If the resumes even list achievements, they do so without specifying your actual role and contribution, how they were achieved, or what the results were.
7. Confuse ‘skills’ with ‘tools’. Skills are things you can do (for them); tools are things you use to get results. And telling people you can use The Internet, and Word and Excel, these days, is like telling people you know how to use a rotary dial phone ...
8. Excessive Use of Buzz-Words. ‘dynamic leader’, ‘people person’, ‘problem-solver’, ‘results-oriented’, ‘self-starter’ --- C’mon people! Let’s try and be a bit more original here; surely you can come up with better words to present yourself? Define your strengths, and articulate them creatively - that should get you noticed.
9. Contain the phrase ‘References are available on request’. Well, duh. That’s kind of like kicking in an open door, isn’t it? Leave it off; it’s understood.
10. List hobbies, personal interests, and volunteer activities indiscriminately. Don’t include any of these, unless there is a direct connection to the job you’re applying for; if you’re applying as Executive Director of a non-profit foundation, then, by all means, let them know that you have successfully raised thousands of dollars for your kid’s soccer team. Otherwise - skip it.

This list could probably be expanded - up to 20, or 30 reasons ... but I think I’ve made my point.  If you want to do something about your resume, and increase your chances of getting the job you want - contact me. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are; I have worked as a career consultant in Europe and North America - and a good resume is a good resume, regardless of where you are. What’s to lose?

Reading J.T.’s post reminded me of the 1937 quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." What this means in the workplace, in my opinion, is that you always have a choice as to how you are perceived. You can decide how to respond to negative stereotypes, how to behave when people disrespect you, and how to change the minds of corporate skeptics. This is true for management and employees alike; and doing nothing to correct the wrong impressions is a decision, too.

The often-mentioned “sense of entitlement” is one of the main “beefs” my executive coaching clients bring up when they talk about their staff’s attitudes. While this may be in part a generational thing, it is common knowledge that “a sense of entitlement” is the source of a lot of whining in the workplace. “I put in my time, now I should get the promotion” or “How come so-and-so got into that choice project, instead of me? Management screwed up again”.

The North American workplace, by and large, is a meritocracy. If you do your job well, exceed expectations, are pleasant to be around, have a positive work ethic, and can be relied upon to help your co-workers, chances are that your efforts will be recognized. You can accelerate that process by conducting a strategic Internal PR campaign, but it starts with your attitude. Nobody “owes” you anything, not even a job. So if you want to keep the job, start thinking about what you’re doing to earn it. I wrote a post about this not so long ago, and just recently updated it: click here to read it.

So, having said that it’s a quality issue more than anything else, people with strong soft skills and competencies in wide array of disciplines are going to be very much in high demand. In knowledge and information intensive industries, such as software development, the shortage is projected to become critical within the next year. Good news for job switchers and seekers - in a world of scarcity, prices tend to go up, after all. The general expectation is that for mid-level and senior specialists and (project) managers, market rates may go up as much as 15 - 25% over the next 18 months or so.

So how do you know whether you’re being paid well, or being under-paid, or whether an offer for a new job accurately reflects your market value? Well - do you know what value you bring to the organization? Can you articulate the tangible and intangible impact you have had - or will have, based on your track record - and can you translate that into real $$?

Don’t worry - most people can’t, either. But if you are ever going to be successful negotiating real market value for yourself, you’d better start learning where you bring value to the company - and how much that value is. And you need to start documenting your successes now - well in advance of a performance review, or the final interview of a job application.

It may seem a daunting task, and one that you probably think only the people working in sales are able to do. After all, they can point to the number of sales per quarter, the average revenue per sale, the reduction of cost to close the sale, the average margin per sale, etc. But what about someone in customer service? Or someone in the A/R department? Or someone writing marketing copy? How do you measure the value in that?

When you think about it, a company only hires people to do things that are worth doing (although we probably at some time have all worked in jobs that didn’t feel like that). Worth doing to a company means ‘saves them money, or makes them money’. Start by focusing on all the ways in which your work contributes to one or both of those goals. Compare before and after situations - what has changed as a result of your efforts? And has that change resulted in a cost savings or in a revenue increase? Or has it contributed to a better customer experience? Equally important and valuable, since happy customers tend to generate higher sales, both their own, and from the people they recommend your company to. Better customer service both saves money (you figure out how much) and earns more revenue (you find out how much). If you can’t lay your hands on exact figures - guesstimate. But be realistic; this is no time for exaggeration. That only backfires, as you probably know already.

If you can articulate your value, and can provide documented proof of the monetary value of your efforts, entering into a salary negotiation becomes a much less one-sided conversation, and will help you resist ‘taking the job, because they’ve offered it’. And it will help you understand where your true value lies - and companies will understand it, too.

Good luck in 2009/10. And if you’d like some strategy help and advice - you know where to find me.

What does that mean for you? If you’re one of those A-players he talks about, and you’re looking to change employers? Or you’ve been a top-notch contractor, but you’re looking for the right employer that will look to you for innovation and intrapreneurship?

What it means is that you will have to work so much harder to stand out from the [Mediocre Talent] crowd. You will have to get very much smarter about developing your business contacts, investigating and researching companies’ needs, and prospecting for potential opportunities. While you may have been able to secure interesting and rewarding work in the recent past, using resourceful, but basically traditional job-hunting techniques, you will need to radically change your game.

To get to the next level of the Art of Getting Hired by the Right Company, you’re going to need help. This, then, is the primary purpose of your jobhunting activities: to get help. From whom, you ask? From all the people you know, your business and personal contacts, and from the people they will refer you to.

Mind you, when you meet people in the context of hunting for a job, the one thing you don’t talk about is how you want them to give you a job, or a job lead. You want their help, to be sure, but the help you’re looking for is information, feedback, suggestions on how to stand out, and - above all - introductions to hiring managers and influencers. Your purpose is to meet these people before there is a vacancy. Your goal is to identify their problem, and help them understand that you are the solution. If you do that well, you’re saving them, and yourself, a lot of time, effort and money.

In addition, now might be a good time to invest in a coach. Having a good coach can make the difference between searching for 6 months, or for 4. Just as elite athletes would not be at the peak of their game without the guidance of a coach, if you want to stand out in a positive way, it helps tremendously to have someone by your side to keep you focused and injury (screw-up) free. You can’t learn to run a marathon from a book, and you can’t train to Win the Hiring Lotto from behind a computer screen, either. I’m just sayin’ ...

Oh, they’ll accept your résumé all right, and they may even talk with you, and tell you what a great candidate you are. They’ll keep you dangling, on the off-chance that an “easy fit” could come along. What they’ll tell you is that they are going to “aggressively market you to employers”, and that they are “already thinking of positions you would be perfect for” ... trust me: in many cases that’s marketing-speak; they’re just stringing you along.

It’s important to remember just WHO their client (or potential client) is: an organization with a vacancy that is not easy to fill ... not you. To the agency, you are just a commodity. It’s also important to understand, that when there is an actual vacancy - even if it is one that you think you would be suited for - a company’s willingness to take risks becomes even less than usual. You’ve heard of the expression “must be able to hit the ground running?” What that means in practical terms, is that the company wants someone who has done it (whatever “it” is) successfully before, and will not screw up. The recruitment agency is going to most want to please their client - and will not promote a candidate who could fail, or who has not worked in that capacity or in that industry before.

So, while it may seem like an easy way to have other people do your job-hunting for you - you’re going to have to do it yourself, the hard way, by developing and leveraging your business contacts and uncovering the opportunities that don’t get advertised.
In a competitive market, it’s really the only way you’ll find out about senior positions before they become vacant, and because you’ll have established connections to executive teams and board members, you’ll be contacted when the position does come open. 

In the space of hours, one great find can be brought to the attention of hundreds of thousands of people. I try to pass on information whenever I think it has value, is interesting, or challenges conventional wisdom. To illustrate my point:

On April 14, 2009, a 47-year old, decidedly frumpy-looking woman, from an obscure corner of the United Kingdom, auditioned in Week 5 of the ITV show “Britain’s Got Talent”. Today, April 16th, a Google Search on the name “Susan Boyle BGT” returns over 2800 unique entries. Hmmm, you might say, that’s not much.

However, the YouTube video of her audition - singing “I Dreamed a Dream”, from the musical Les Miserables, has been viewed ... wait for it ... 14.8 MILLION times. And counting. Sometimes, a find is so spectacular, so unexpected (And Susan’s voice is absolutely stunning, astonishing, magnificent; as was the look on Simon Cowell’s face when she started singing), or so engaging, that it whizzes around the globe in no time flat.

Here’s a link to a post that I’m confident you’ll find interesting, and will appreciate the unvarnished and blunt truths: http://www.howtonailaninterview.com/

(Got to love Twitter - if you’re not on it yet, hurry and sign up. It’s rapidly replacing email and email marketing.)

Anyway, this article talks about one of the Great Frustrations of mid-level, middle-age, mid-career professionals: One day they’re told they’re really overqualified for the position they’ve applied for, and the next day, they may hear how actually, they’re underqualified. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, it seems?

As it turns out, JT & Dale, are the online personas of Dale Dauten, much-admired (by me) author of “The Gifted Boss” and many other great titles, and J.T. O’Donnell, a career strategist (like me) who runs the site CareeRealism.com

Great read, and trust me, these two know what they’re talking about. Enjoy!