Are you an impulse-promiser?

"Time gets away from me! I have to live up to all my commitments – and the list keeps getting longer." That's how "Robert" began a recent conversation with me.

You’re heard of impulse buyers – they walk out of the mall with boots (although they haven’t seen snow in years), books (they need more shelves to hold volumes they haven’t read yet), or a kitchen gadget (because someday they really will learn to cook).

But I meet many more folks who are impulse promisers. Robert, for instance, offered complimentary seminars to promote his business. He always ran out of time – so he’d promise a bonus seminar, also complimentary.

Now he was in real trouble. The seminar
participants hadn’t expected a bonus. They were delighted with Robert’s information-packed offering. But once he promised more they expected him to deliver. And when he realized he had overscheduled, they became angry and disappointed.

Were these participants rational? Maybe not.
Human? Definitely.

And, like most generous people, Robert had trouble saying no. Would he speak to his neighbor’s lunch group, even though they were not really in his target market and he had appointments booked tighly all afternoon? Would he contribute to a colleague’s special project? Yes, yes … and forever yes.

Here’s an exercise I designed for impulse-promisers like Robert.

What amount of money would you be comfortable spending impulsively during a single visit to a store? Ten dollars? One hundred? If you’re an NBA superstar, maybe ten thousand.

Call this amount Giveaway.

And how much would you want to think about before you commit to spending? For instance, most people would ponder their budgets before buying a brand-new car or a house in a certain price range.

Call this amount Investment.

Most people offer promises the way they
impulse-buy. So before you promise to do something – hold a free class, serve on a committee, speak to your friend’s club, attend an extra meeting – recognize that you're offering an Investment, although it feels like a Giveaway.

Make promises the way you make thoughtful investments. Ask for more time. Know what you can offer before you’re faced with a choice. ("One hour a week? No way. One hour a year? Maybe.")

Impulse-promisers can say, "I need to check my calendar" the way they’d say, "I need to review my finances" before committing to a new sports car or a new house. They'll be surprised how much time they've been spending. As Robert said, "I feel I’ve gained two hours a day!"

P.S. Before you feel guilty, nearly everybody has been an impulse-buyer and an impulse-promiser at least once. You can get better.

And that’s a real promise!
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If you’d like to review your own pattern of promises, I offer consultations on an hourly or programmatic basis.
http://www.cathygoodwin.com/coaching.html or reply to this ezine and we’ll set up a time to talk.
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Print Finished for Executive Jobs, say headhunter

The print media is in serious trouble, having been overtaken by the internet as the primary source of executive job advertisements, according to the boss of a leading executive search firm.

Grant Montgomery, managing director of Sydney-based executive search firm, E.L Consult, which publishes a monthly index on recruitment trends called the E.L Index, says gains in executive jobs advertising on the internet is far outstripping the print media.

The E.L Index incorporates trends in executive-level jobs placed on the Internet and the major metropolitan newspapers. The latest figures from the index show that although the number of executive-level jobs is rising, it is the internet that is seeing commensurate growth, and not the offline sources such as newspapers.

"At this stage in the cycle the press should be chock-a-block with executive recruitment advertising. Although the newspapers have seen some improvement in the all important display job ads, it has been nowhere near the improvement that should be expected," Montgomery says.

Read more here

Singapore's Corporate Leaders Uninspiring

Study finds private sector leaders to be poor developers of talent, future leaders

Much has been made on how the Singapore Government plans its leadership succession well in advance - but the same cannot be said of corporate and organisational leaders in the country.

An extensive three-years study of leaders in Singapore has found them to be poor developers of talent and future leaders. They themselves stumbled into their leadership roles rather than were deliberately groomed for these.

Adapted from TODAY. By Sheralyn Tay

Résumé Quiz: Will Your Résumé Stand Out in a Crowd?

A top quality resumé is essential to your success. Companies have hundreds of job seekers vying for open positions and hiring managers review hundreds of resumés for each job. Is yours good enough to grab an employer's attention?

Take this quiz to see if your resumé would be picked out of the competition:

QUESTION: Is your resumé one page?

ANSWER: Brief, one page and concise works best. Employers scan resumés with a 15-20 second glance. Be a skillful editor, deleting the portions which are not relevant or least helpful to your securing that particular position. Emphasize your more recent experience in the last five to seven years. Use different resumés to target different job titles.

Read more here

Resume Makeover: Before & After

When Carter Sieck asked if I could improve her resume based on the resume writing advice I am known to dispense on a daily basis, I gladly took up her challenge.

First of all, let me say that your resume is the first impression -- whether on paper or online -- that a prospective employer has of you prior to an interview. A great resume will make the decision-maker sit up and take notice of your talents, experience, and accomplishments presented in a strong, polished format.

Remember, your resume has to stand out from the crowd -- or more accurately, the stacks of other resumes piled up in front of the Personnel Director or senior executive in charge of hiring for any given position. In addition to presenting your career experience, you have to set up the resume in such a way that the hiring authority can quickly scan down the page and see at a glance what you can bring to his/her company.

Read more here

Treat yourself BEFORE you deserve it

Q. "I’m working on a huge project – and it’s hard to keep going. I promise myself rewards: I’ll treat myself to lunch – just as soon as I finish three pages a day, five days in a row And of course each day the project seems bigger and I feel more overwhelmed."

A. Your project may be a book, a new business, a dissertation, or a new system. When people keep pounding away, often they start feeling like a child who refused to eat his spinach – and old-fashioned parents who keep serving the same tired vegetable over and over. "You’ll get ice cream after you eat every bite," they threaten.

Yuk. That’s how people become junk food junkies who cross the street to avoid the health food store. Applied to deadlines, we get people who call themselves lazy and give up too soon.

Karen Pryor, author of Don’t Shoot the Dog (which is about people, not dogs) remembers going through a defiant teenage phase. Her parents didn’t lock her in her room (although they may have been tempted). Instead, they surprised her with an extra set of horseback riding lessons -- her teen passion.

Pryor felt her rebellion and anger melt away. And now, as an expert professional trainer, she emphasizes the motivational power of unearned rewards -- an extra-long break or a handful of extra treats, just for fun, every so often.

When faced with a dreaded task, do you force yourself to keep working when you’re no longer productive? Or do you keep feeding yourself the same task, over and over, like warmed-over spinach? Stop and enjoy some leisure time.

Leisure is not to be confused with crashing on the sofa and watching television. Leisure means engaging in energizing, joyful, stimulating activities. Examples include attending a live cultural or sports event, hiking, doing something creative, or even (you knew this was coming) walking the dog along a new path.

Don’t be surprised if you have to force yourself to take even an afternoon off. Achievers often fight the whole idea.

Following a layoff, my client Melanie had been researching a career change for what seemed like forever. "I think about it all the time," she said. "I’m constantly on the Internet, looking up new sites, revising my resume, looking at my notes. I feel I can’t afford to take time for fun."

When pressed, Melanie admitted she hadn’t accomplished anything useful for the last two weeks. So an afternoon – especially on Saturday–- probably wouldn’t set her back very much. She spent an entire afternoon driving through the countryside, stopping at roadside antique stores (her passion) and enjoying the scenery.

Back at work on Monday, she sent me an email: "I had a breakthrough idea – a whole new area to explore." Melanie’s energy crackled through the phone when we talked later that week. I wasn’t surprised when she found a new position a few weeks later.

Lessons Learned: When you’ve been working hard with no result, or you’re resisting hard and getting nowhere, time for a treat. If it’s true leisure – think protein instead of sugar candy – you won’t get addicted to a lazy lifestyle. But if you keep forcing yourself, you can get caught up in a never-ending cycle of meaningless activity.

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If you’d like to explore your own need for leisure, I offer consultations on an hourly or program basis.
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Be prepared to sacrifice close ties after a promotion

AN INTERNAL promotion can be a godsend. More money, better prospects, no awkward settling-in period.

But hang on. What's that nagging feeling at the back of your mind? Could it be the prospect of managing your peers — the same people you've worked alongside as an equal? Just how will you lay down the law with your former drinking buddies?

For the newly-promoted, such concerns are often cause for anxiety.

Magazine production controller Oliver Heath, who was promoted above older colleagues as head of department after just two years at the company, recalled: "What made my promotion even more of an about-turn was that I was the youngest in the department — 24 at the time. "I didn't know how I was going to be able to gain their respect without them thinking of me as some kind of young whippersnapper."

Heath's worries were compounded by the treatment of his predecessor. "We all used to moan about her behind her back, say she wasn't up to the job ... Now I was in her position and was wondering what they'd be saying about me."

As a result, his early months as a manager were marred by concerns about upsetting the applecart.

This, says Stuart Duff, head of development at Pearn Kandola psychologists, is an attitude to avoid at all costs.

"When you become the boss, you need to be willing to sacrifice some of the closeness you may have previously had with your colleagues. Those who fail at management have often … put their need to be liked ahead of their commitment to the company and the role they have to perform."

Read more here

Identify your problem, resolve it

Make more progress than you think possible

EVEN the most energetic person is lazy about something, and career is the biggest area of weakness for most of us.

We're frightened of failure. We're unsure of our capabilities. The market seems soft with not many jobs around. We don't know enough about the competition. It all seems overwhelming. When we are daunted by a problem we must take two important steps to resolve it.

First, we must stop putting it at the back of our minds, pretending that other matters are more pressing.

Second, we must break the problem down into small chunks and then deal with each one in turn. That way, it will stop overwhelming us. You don't get to the moon without first getting out of bed.

In the series that follows, I am going to show you how to review your career, decide where you want to go and how to get there.

If you do follow it through thoroughly you will make more progress in your career than you ever imagined possible.

Where have you got to? Think back to when you began your career. Can you remember what your aspirations were? Did you want money — I mean, really want money, to the exclusion of everything else? Was your concern to be powerful, to make a difference by influencing what you saw as a very unsatisfactory order of things?

Did you want to be interested in the world in which you live, or to be more educated about a particular aspect of it? Were you aiming to be pre-eminent in your chosen field? Did you want to make life better for others?

Read more here

Search for the perfect match for that job

Companies now look not only at academic qualifications, but also at 'softer' skills.

AS companies look beyond pure academic qualifications to focus on other — softer and less easily quantifiable — attributes of a potential employee, getting that job increasingly means more than filling out a form and tackling a few predictable questions in a job interview.

To find the perfect match for that position, employers are now turning to other forms of assessment, such as character tests and scenario-based appraisal.

Mr Wong Kwai Wah, vice-president of the Singapore Human Resource Institute, observed that such measures are fast gaining popularity.

"It sends a strong signal to the candidates that the company takes its hiring process very seriously and only wants the best," he said.

One well-known petroleum firm here has been known to put its interviewees through numerous rounds of interviews over the course of a week.

Said Mr Paul Heng, founding president of the Asian Association of Career Management Professionals: "They meet with peers, subordinates and high-ranking managers throughout the day. It can be very stressful for the candidate as it's tedious and time-consuming."

Read more here

Getting Googled

It may not sound pleasant, it may even sound vaguely illegal, but career experts are telling job seekers that if they aren't ready to "be Googled," they'd better get ready.

A recent poll conducted by Harris Interactive shows that 23 percent of people search the Web for the name of potential business contacts before meeting them. A variety of outcomes are possible when individuals engage in what AIRS calls "Peer Search."

But search experts say there is no reason to accept search engine results passively. Writing a Web "Blog," where searchers can get examples of critical writing and thinking skills, sending out press releases to publicize an idea or paper, and becoming involved in a user group are all listed as ways to increase your Web profile. "There nothing that's more important," says Tim DeMello, founder of the professional profile site Ziggs.com, "than the way your name is presented online."

Click here for the full article

Managing Time vs. Managing Conflict

David began with, "I have a major time management problem. As an editor, I often get two clients calling with assignments. They call around ten AM and both want their projects completed by mid-afternoon. Then a third client calls around lunchtime with a crisis. So I have too many projects – all at once. The next day the phone is silent."

David’s dilemma made me think of Jennifer, who worked for two bosses, Blue and Green. Blue would give her an assignment to be completed by noon.
Green would call five minutes later with another assignment – you guessed it – to be completed by lunchtime. Jennifer was stressed and frazzled all day long. She had to negotiate with her internal customers – her management team – to set up a service delivery schedule that would be fair to everyone.

Whether your customers are internal or external, the key is to design consistent policies to avoid conflict.

1. Train your customers from the get-go.

Clients typically are nice people who have no clue about what it takes to deliver your service. For example, one client sent me a project, along with a ten-page single-spaced set of "notes." When I called with a question, she asked, "Can’t you just read the notes?" I explained that I might spend an hour searching for the answer to my question -- and I would have to charge accordingly. Sometimes clients will pay the fee as long as they get to remove themselves from the fray – but sometimes they’ll prefer to become more involved. It’s up to you to give them that choice.

2. Develop a conflict resolution plan before you need it.

As you face conflicting demands, develop a system so you won’t have to play referee every day. You can insist on 24 hours notice, command extra charges for rush jobs, or adhere strictly to first come, first served rules.

Working for a company? Get everyone to agree on a rule for setting priorities. Match your communication style to your organization’s culture. If nobody wants to negotiate, or if you’re working late on everybody’s projects (while the folks who assigned those projects left hours ago), your challenge becomes, "how to deal with unreasonable bosses."

3. Design your promises ahead of time.

When a client’s on the phone, it’s so tempting to say, "You only want to pay X dollars? No problem." Or you invite everyone in a class to send questions, which you promise to answer within 24 hours.

Off the phone, you realize you’ve just committed to an hourly rate that’s a fraction of your normal fee. (We’ve all done this at least once.) Either you deliver a half-baked solution or you put in lots of unpaid overtime. And either way, you’ll find yourself resenting the client and wondering why you got into this business in the first place.

Lessons learned: Conflicting demands? You’re not facing a time management challenge. You’re looking for a new strategy -- a way to mesh your preferred working style with the needs of your clients – and a set of policies to protect you from your own generosity.

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As a career/business consultant, I’m happy to help you work through your own time challenges and conflicts. See http://www.cathygoodwin.com/coaching.html
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Fortunes 100 best companies to work for are creating new jobs

America’s best employers are creating jobs, absorbing high health care costs, and improving internal communications. These are the most important trends gleaned from the data for FORTUNE’s "100 Best Companies to Work for" list by Great Place to Work® Institute, the global research and consulting firm that compiles the list for the magazine each year. The list appears in FORTUNE’s January 24th issue on newsstands January 17th.

The “100 Best” companies showed a net increase of 22,590 jobs this year, as opposed to a net loss of 14,679 jobs last year. Marriott added the most new jobs, with a net increase of 3,679 positions; while Genentech had the largest percentage increase, with 24 percent growth by adding 1,286 jobs.

On the healthcare front, 20 of the “100 Best” companies do not charge some or all of their employees any premiums for their health insurance. Of the 38 firms that changed their coverage policies over the last year, 13 of the “100 Best” actually decreased the portion that is paid by employees. Of the firms that did increase their premiums, most did so by less than 2 percent. Stew Leonard’s, a Connecticut supermarket chain, only charges premiums to its most highly compensated managers.

Click here for the full article

Hiring for 2004 hits five-year high

Employers hired workers in 2004 at the fastest pace in five years, with overall payrolls rising by 2.2 million. December's job growth was a bit lower than expected, with the unemployment rate holding at 5.4%.

President Bush called the numbers "very positive," but economists weren't quite so enthusiastic. One said the year went out "like a cow: beefy but docile."

The Labor Department reported Friday that employers expanded their payrolls by a net 157,000 in December, bringing the year's increase to the highest level since 1999. That year, 3.2 million jobs were created, based on a government survey of businesses. In 2003, there was a net reduction of 61,000 payroll jobs, the department said.

Click here for the full story

Working With Executive Recruiters - The 7 Commandments

When an executive recruiter hunts your head keep these 7 commandments in mind:

1) Take the recruiter's calls. You never know. Many happily employed executives have been surprised to learn that there are better career opportunities elsewhere.

2) Know who's doing what. Get to know the associate or junior partner who is handling your assignment - not just the big name partner who may have called you initially. Big search firms typically operate on a two-tier system with the partners handling the client. Unless it is a very senior position, junior associates handle the legwork.

3) Request the position specification. Always ask the recruiter to send you the written position specification before expressing interest in a search assignment. If the client is a public company, the recruiter should also send you the annual report, 10-K and marketing materials.

4) Never fax your resume on demand. You need to see the position specification to customize your resume for the position. Wait a day or two and if you are still interested, tailor your resume to match the job requirements.

5) Don't assume you are being offered a job. Many are called in the course of a search but few are chosen. Those appearing too eager reduce their desirability.

6) Be prepared. When you meet with a recruiter in person, have a firm fix on how to frame your background to best attract the recruiter's and the client's interest.

You're on stage all the time. Don't assume that recruiters or employers aren't listening if they stop taking notes. Keep in mind that recruiters are always gathering information about you. Never lower your guard!

These "7 Commandments" appear in The Road to CEO by Sharon Voros an ExecuNet recommended resource.

Career Goals for the New Year

Well, 2005 is here and we're all psyched up for the New Year. Chances are, even if you're not the type of person to write out a list of formal resolutions, you at least have some thoughts running around your head about how you can make this year better than the last. Here's the problem, stats show that most people drop their resolutions by February, and forget about them entirely by spring.

Let's commit to making this year different, at least with respect to our careers. Here's my challenge to you: put together a career advancement plan for yourself. Call it "THE 2004 [YOUR NAME] CAREER ADVANCEMENT PROJECT." Below is a list of some career goals to set for yourself as part of your project. Use them all, select only a few, or add some of your own. The point is to do it, stick to it, and make 2004 the year that your career takes a quantum leap forward!

Continue reading...

Making Sure You Are Hiring The Best

How to make sure the people you find are the best ones available out there? Sure, you can ask you recruiters to give you 2-3 more resumes just to have somethig to compare on (like the way you have to get at least 3 quotations to buy something), there isn't much things else you would do to make your hiring effectively.

That is, getting the candidates you want.

You can help your recruiting staff in a number of ways. By taking a few minutes to do these things, you will find the recruiting process faster and more satisfying, because you will be getting candidates who meet ALL of your requirements.

1) Learn about the recruiting marketplace. Whenever managers are asked what is key to their success, they say their people. But if you were asked, would you know what the demand is like for the kinds of people you are seeking? Do you understand why salary demands are what they are? Do you have a grasp on how many people of a particular type might be available in your area? These are questions to discuss with your recruiter and to get information on in order to appreciate the issues both you and your recruiter face. While it may seem easy to find people given this slow economy, the reality is that there are still shortages of many kinds of people and that this slow time does not necessarily mean easy recruiting.

2) Get to know your recruiter. If your recruiter is new or has not worked with you before, it will be impossible for her to know what you are really looking for. Even an experienced recruiter who knows your specialty thoroughly will have to get to understand those subtle traits that you find compelling. Let the recruiter spend a day shadowing you and discuss how you mange. Let them attend a staff meeting or a briefing. The better the recruiter and you know each other, the more likely you are to see great candidates.

3) Get to know your best performers. Spend at least a day or two thinking about your best performers. Who are the people in your department you would like to clone, if you could? Try to put why you think they are so good into words. There are a few questions that you can use: What does this person do on a regular basis that pleases you? What positive behaviors do you see regularly that you believe makes them successful? Are there stories you can tell about a time an employee did something you found exceptional or notable? Take some time to talk to the recruiters about past or current employees who you view as exceptional.

4) Working with your recruiters, develop an assessment process. One of the best ways to make sure that you and your recruiters are in synch on what kinds of people to look for is to put together a process for assessing candidates. You can work together with the recruiter to develop a series of questions that will help you both decide on the traits, skills, and qualities you need. These can become interviews questions and can also be used to measure how well the recruiting process is working.

5) Ask you recruiter about how you could use a formal assessment tool based on the competencies and cultural fit you need. There are many tools that can be used to help you and your recruiter determine how well a candidate meets your specific job requirements. The best of these are developed for your specific needs and are reliable, legal, and add a level of consistency that is missing from interviews and other more informal approaches.

By taking a few minutes from your busy day and working with your recruiter as a partner, you can improve the speed in which you fill positions and increase your satisfaction with the candidates you see and with your recruiting partner.

Adapted from Electronic Recruiting Exchange.

Many Throw Away 'Clown Shoes Jobs' To Start Home Businesses

Unemployment has driven many qualified workers to take what tedious jobs they can. But, discovering themselves in deadbeat jobs with abusive corporations who nickel and dime them, many rankled employees quit to start their own home businesses.

“My *** Job is *** clown shoes!” reads one blog. “Basically, my job can be done by someone with the intellect of a melon.” It is a frustration echoed by many co-bloggers buried in infradig nine to five jobs with the benefit of a less than adequate paycheck.

Their situation is exacerbated by long-term unemployment statistics, and the fear that any job is better than none. Of the eight million workers classified as unemployed by the Labor Department, 1.74 million or 21.7%, had been out of work longer than six months. In fact, unemployment lasts on average about twenty weeks.

Read the full press release here.

It just make you think more humanly on your lowly paid staff/colleagues, doesn't it?

Craigslist costs newspapers

Earlier on last week I blogged on Craig's List as one of the most important resources on the today.

It was then reported on CNN that the the popular community Web site that generates more than 1 billion page views each month, has cost newspapers in the San Francisco Bay area $50 million to $65 million in help wanted ad revenue, according to a new study.

Read the entire news here.

Makes you wonder why newspaper still charge a bomb to advertise when we can get something similar done online.