Don't Skip Out on Your Upcoming Career Move "Prep" Session

For years we kept telling our technical resume/job search members they needed to get properly prepared before they rushed out into full-blown job search mode, even "passive" job search mode. We kept saying that those members who do see much better results, particularly in dramatically reducing the length of their job search time and the effectiveness of their resumes. But it just wasn't sexy enough...apparently. :-) [Or we weren't convincing enough, I guess.] Because we kept seeing heads nod in agreement but members rush out anyway into job board land and recruiter chaos (and attend network mixer after network mixer) without much of a "plan" other than trying a lot of things. (Or, worse, they marched into the promotion process, the highest stakes "career move" there is, without any leverage.)

So this year after introducing our concierge job search "launch" solutions to our resume portfolio offerings, we began tracking and publishing the results our members were receiving.  

(We decided that if we wanted our members to invest in what we were saying, then we needed to prove it!)

And, not surprisingly, the stats are overwhelmingly in favor of implementing some type of "prep" session into your upcoming career move efforts. Overall, our members beat the national average for job search length by 4 months (a 67% improvement; 169 hours recovered for the member) and the resume response rate (# of resumes sent before receiving first call/response) by 100% with 90% of our members cutting the response time in half or better. (See our Latest Member ROI.)  

But out of those stats, the members repeatedly driving down our averages were the ones that thought strategy first, execution second. (They averaged an 85% improvement over the national average in job search length, another 18% of time recovered over our other members.)  

Why all the fuss?

Here's the deal: Today's technical job search, whether you are currently employed, unemployed, going for a promotion, or a consultant is more of a "zoo" than it used to be, and all that corporate "goo" that makes up most hiring and retention practices is, well, a bit sticky. Not to mention the fact that the job search is an emotional, often reactionary, process.  

So the days of whipping up a resume and tossing it out to see what sticks "should" be over.  

That is, if you value your time and your career AND want to reduce the stress that comes with a career move. And who doesn't, really?  

But I know: What we should do and what we actually do are typically not the same things.

That's why, to make the mind shift easier, when I talk about a "Prep" Session, I am referring to a simple, low-commitment session with a big return that is conducted before you do anything else, NO MATTER WHAT TYPE OF JOB SEARCH YOU ARE CONDUCTING. The idea is to get you up to speed on where the market is today, how well you are positioned for the market you are targeting, and the steps that will get you better prepared for making that next move.

There's no doubt that if you read all the trend reports, soul-search until the cows come home, and obsess over your resume, you'll end up more confused than prepared.

So don't short-change yourself.

Take an hour, get a Prep Session (even if you're not looking to make that move until 6 months from now), and get some peace of mind that you have an authentic perspective going forward. (It doesn't have to be expensive or exhaustive. It's a "prep" session, after all.)  

The idea is that you start off on the right foot. And if you've worked as hard as I know you do, then you deserve at least that.

(I believe in it so much that it is now a mandatory part of our membership!)  

Listen. If you want to get good results, you do what works. Why do anything else?

When You're Not Sure What's Next in Your Career

One of our newest offerings at ITtechExec are our What's Next? solutions. They came out of several years of working with tech/IT/engineering professionals (and those who serve with them) and observing all the things they were doing to try and figure out what's next for them. The following Slideshare presentation details 11 ways we've identified NOT to figure out what's next in your career. Be careful...they just might surprise you.

When You're Not Sure's What's Next in Your Career from Stephen Van Vreede

Who Says "No" Is Always Negative?

I was speaking with a fellow parent a few years ago who has a son my daughter's age. While our two children were playing together at a birthday party (they were about 5 years old at the time), he was proudly telling me how he "never says no" to his son (of course he had just heard me say "no" to my daughter who wanted to suck on a lollipop while jumping in a bounce house). He told me that "no" is so "negative" and he doesn't want his son to grow up with that hurting his self-image.

(Although I know our respective kids were a long way off from considering each other as "marriage material," I couldn't help my natural tendency to start moving my daughter away from his son...judge me if you must.)

I'll never forget the conversation because 1) I was taken aback by his self-confidence that he was doing the right thing (and that I was so old-fashioned) and 2) it reminds me of the career services/hiring world of work.  

A "no" is "always" taken as a negative. And it is "always" linked somehow to your self-esteem.

We seem to live in a world that dislikes the word "no," so much so that we go to great lengths to avoid hearing it or using it or acknowledging it.  

Yet, there it is anyway!

Recently, I wrote about positive thinking and your career, and in that post, I talked about how proper preparation leads to true positive thinking because it allows you to have a foundation for it. Expanding on that is the idea of "negative preparation."  

Negative preparation is a strategy that allows us to anticipate obstacles or the "no(s)" we might encounter on our way to a goal.

In other words, we learn to expect a certain amount of "no" in our quest to advance or progress. By preparing for these negatives, we can better form our argument and have an answer to respond to them. Lawyers do this when preparing for a case. Good sales staff do this when preparing for objections in the sales process.

And part of the preparation is understanding that often the counterarguments brought up along the way have less to do with us personally and more to do with the other party's perspective, a perspective that might have some validity to it and that we can grow from.

Of course, sometimes even with negative preparation, we still might ultimately get a "no" or lose a case or argument, but the idea is that it helps you fine-tune for the next time around. (Furthermore, I think all of us can come up with a time when we can be thankful for "unanswered prayers.")

For some reason, however, negative preparation rarely gets applied to job seekers. Job seekers are told to "think positively" and to "brand" themselves, to have the "right" credentials, and to present themselves as a "team player." They are also told that if they have certain limitations, such as lack of credential and over- or under-qualified, then the world is against them...personally. And the best they can do is hope for the best.

It's odd advice if you think about it.  

Hoping for the best is not a strategy. And a "no" is not "always" a personal slight.

Yet because the job search process is so emotional, we often lost sight of these things. We take rejection hard and rarely use it to make us better prepared the next time around. In other words, we only see it as a negative. And that negative usually has a significant impact on how we come to view ourselves.  

It's hard for us to remember that although our careers are personal, the marketplace is not.

The market functions on different principles than we do, and by watching what it says "yes" to and what is says "no" to we can adjust to meet it better (aka strategy). Because it is "always" saying "yes" and "no"...always (and usually more "no" than "yes"). The question is are you prepared for it?

Or are you going to be like my fellow parent's son, unprepared when someone says it to you? Because sooner or later, they will. (I'm positive about that.)

Executive Job Search Strategies for CIOs and CTOs

On Tuesday, October 14, at 12pm Eastern, I had the opportunity to participate in a TweetChat hosted by @BlueSteps called #ExecCareer. This week the topic turned to CIO and CTO candidates. You can view the questions and my responses regarding job search strategies at the following link through Storify:

https://storify.com/BlueSteps/executive-job-search-strategies-for-cios-and-ctos?utm_source=embed_header

Getting Around "TUIT"

I encountered Zig Ziglar ~15 years ago at a leadership conference I attended in Lancaster, PA. Shockingly, and sadly, at the time, I really didn't know who he was. I was young, supposedly well "educated," ambitious but green, very green. And so when he came up to me and shook my hand, I had no idea who this guy with the interesting name was other than the main speaker at our conference.

It wasn't until sometime later, after he had passed away, when I was in desperate need of learning how to grow and develop my own business, that in getting more "educated" I came across Zig Ziglar quote after Zig Ziglar quote and realized just how influential he was from a sales standpoint but more importantly from a character and leadership standpoint.

He came to mind the other day when I was speaking with a client who was telling me that he was "going to get around to it" in regard to some career management issues we were discussing. It reminded me of Zig, that leadership conference, and his "round TUIT" (too-it) cards.

He used to give out these circle cards with the letters "TUIT" on them whenever someone told him they were going to get "around to it" sooner or later. He would then say something like, "Great! It just so happens I have a round TUIT right here. Now you can get going."

In other words, he was letting the person know in a humorous way that saying that you are going to "get around" to something is basically a silly excuse. He was "freeing" them from all those good intentions. As a business owner, it's been a great challenge for me. One I ask myself regularly,  

"Well, are you going to do it, or aren't you?"

When it comes to our careers, 95% of us seem to manage them based on the "round TUIT" principle. We start off with grand ideas, get beaten down a little by the corporate "goo," hope for greener pastures, get tired out from our personal lives, and pray for a savior (but only one that will make it all so much simpler for us). In other words, we want it all (or at least better than what we have now), but we don't really intend to do much about it until we're forced to.  

That's the career management strategy we know and, well, apparently love because that's what we do. (Myself included at times.)

Also, there's a segment of the 95% who believes they must have everything figured out all the time or else suffer the consequences of a "rash" decision. (This group loves the "getting around to it" syndrome because it is so comforting.) Little do they realize, however, that in the marketplace "haste does NOT make waste," stalling does.  

The more you stall, the more you lose.

Ouch. That hurts. But it's true. Corporate "goo" has a way of clouding over the realities of the marketplace. It makes its professionals forget that they are part of the supply-and-demand cycle (so...capitalistic, I know!). It makes them think that things move along slowly and that time is meant to be tied up in a lot of activity (not necessarily accomplishment). It makes them (you, me) forget that they really can be "proactive" with their careers (beyond paying thousands and thousands for more education for little ROI). It does all that until...

POW!

One day the world drops out, the company sells/changes management/lays you off/fires you/pigeonholes you into a role you don't want....  

Whatever it is...when it comes, it comes. And there's no more getting "round TUIT."

At both ITtechExec and NoddlePlace, we've made a conscious effort to focus on the 5% who understand, like Jack Welch, that "speed is imperative." Not because they want to take uncalculated risks or do something foolish, in fact they come to us to ensure that doesn't happen, but because they want to do whatever they can to take back control of their careers and build in protections.  

In other words, they're tired of waiting to see what happens and hoping they will get around to it. They're willing to do it "afraid" or maybe even a little bit less prepared than they would normally like!  

Are you?

6 Tips for Sticking Out Your Holiday Job Search

It's that time of year again. That time when mixed emotions, nostalgia, sentimentality, joy, anxiety, regret, and depression, all float around us for 6 weeks like some deranged version of the Nutcracker.  

And if you're in career move mode or job search mode, it's an even more confusing dance.

For on top of the typical feelings that come with the end of one year and the beginning of another, you have the emotional baggage that comes with any type of career move (internal or external).

If that isn't bad enough, everyone, everywhere seems to have an opinion on what it's like to go through a job search during the holidays that range from complete despair to unfounded optimism.

This year, to help curb some of the mixed signals you might be getting as you wade through the job market zoo during the holidays, I've put together a no-nonsense report called "6 Tips for Sticking Out Your Holiday Job Search."

(I'm probably one of the few who thinks that the holidays can be a positive time for the job seeker if you're willing to think and act a little differently than most!)

Click to download the complimentary report: 6 Tips for Sticking Out Your Holiday Job Search

Positive Thinking and Your Career

If there's one thing people, especially people in my line of work (career services), love to talk about it is "attitude."  

Usually right on the heels of use of the word "attitude" comes the term "positive thinking."

Positive thinking is touted as the best way to get through life. It makes you, at least on the surface, seem happier. It might even add years of good health to your life. It makes you more pleasant to be around. And, well, it's just so much more positive!

I mean, isn't it better to think positively than negatively?

Now, if you're like me, all of this discussion makes you cringe a little. That's OK. It should.

Yes, it should. And here's why:  

"Positive thinking" is not mind-numbing optimism. Nor is it mind control or "mind over matter" even. But yet that is often how it is presented.

In fact, thinking like that can bring a lot of negativity into your life. (I mean, what happens when it doesn't work?)

But let's face it: We all do it anyway...even the pessimists among us. We have been socially engineered to think that if we just "hope for the best" or "only see the bright side" that these good thoughts we've put out there will reward us for our good attitude.

I actually thought I was immune to it until I found myself telling my daughter the other day to "think positively" and to change her "attitude." What parent hasn't said that a time or two? (Of course, it didn't work any better with her than it would with me.)

All of my life people have said I was "easy-going" and generally a "happy" guy. But what they really didn't know was that I was more like an ostrich with my head in the sand. True, I wasn't stressed out and tense, and I was always smiling and shrugging things off.  

But that's easy to do when you just refuse to face the facts about anything!

I went through life "avoiding negativity" until one day I realized that I was incapable of dealing with certain situations and with really connecting with people. In other words, my positivity was actually causing me a lot of negativity!  

So what is positive thinking then if not perpetual optimism or wishful thinking (or in my case, pretending not to see what you really see)?  

A positive attitude or outlook is really only achieved, at least in any meaningful way, by preparation.

Yes, preparation. We can't go through life (or our careers) denying that bad things happen or acting as though life should really be only how we want it to be. Doing so assumes a level of control that we simply don't have.

In my mind, preparation means facing life as it is, not as it ought to be, recognizing that throughout your career in particular, you are going to face obstacles, especially if you plan to take any risks (and I hope you do! God bless you if you don't in today's market). Whether it has been my corporate career, and especially in my entrepreneurial one, a lot of people and things generally seem to try to thwart my plans and goals. All the optimism in the world doesn't get rid of them or work around them. Instead I must prepare to face them because as soon as I work around one, another always seems to pop up. (I am positive about that!)

Now, it is impossible to "prepare" for everything. There is a reason people turn to faith, after all.

Yet what I've discovered is that by preparing to face objections and other obstacles along the way, especially in my career, I've grown more confident and more, well, positive. I can discern between what is and is not a real impediment. I'm not just hoping something comes along and rescues me. I do my best to create pipelines of opportunity, understanding that some will work out and some probably won't.

Either way, though, this approach attracts many more well-matched, positive opportunities than just believing they will come because I want them to and, hey, I'm a good guy and work hard so I deserve it.

So while it is true everyone prefers to be around someone more positive than negative, that's only surface-level living. We can all "fake" the right attitude for a while to get by. But a real "positive thinker" has a foundation behind it. The next time you're wondering either how it is you change your attitude about your career or why you're optimism isn't panning out the way you'd hoped, stop and think about the preparations you've made. Are you really ready to face certain obstacles that come up? Have you thought about the different objections that will stand in your way?  

Maybe the biggest issue is that you haven't given yourself an actual "reason" to be positive. Or, perhaps worse, you're being positive for no "reason."

What Is a Job Search "Agent" Anyway?

This whole thing started when I heard someone emphatically "yell" over social media that he "would NEVER EVER use job search services."

(Note to self: When someone starts "yelling," and using extremes like "never" and "always" [especially in all caps], that's a very good sign there's a need out there, probably more of one than you even realize....)  

It has been my experience that we have the "kickers and screamers" of the world to thank for the rise and spread of innovation.

And I get it. Change is not always a good thing...or it certainly doesn't seem like it is. What we deem as "innovation" is not always what's really best for us as individuals and as a society. So it's fitting that we should have someones who kick and scream about it. The problem is that the more they kick and scream, the more they expose the truth:

Change isn't just coming; it's already here, and we have to deal with "what is" and not "what ought to be."

So after my social media "friend" did his best to shout at the universe, going on to say that he knew everything that there was to know about job searching, that he was the best networker in the world, and that he was the master of Indeed.com, I knew then that I was on to something important. I had been looking at ways to move our company away from the traditional "resume-only" style of firm that could not really determine its ROI into one that could not just produce top-quality documentation but also play a part in the job search process for our client members.

Maybe, sadly, I wasn't going to be able to help my social media friend here, but he did confirm for me that obviously there were other people I could help.  

That's when I met Sue. (Well, actually, I already knew Sue, but I hadn't realized that our paths would cross in such a significant way. So maybe I should say that I "re-met" Sue.)

If ever there were an answer to prayer, music to my ears, or a sight for sore eyes (you get the drift), Sue was it. Blending a unique background in managing both IT and telecom day-to-day operations with extensive hiring and recruitment experience for small/mid-sized organizations as well as for a prominent Fortune 1000 company, Sue has been up close and personal with HR, and has had to wade through layoffs, acquisitions, and corporate restructuring. (That means she's a veteran of the job market zoo and has been so deep in corporate goo that nothing surprises her anymore!)  

She was the exact person I was looking for to serve as our Job Search Agent at ITtechExec and NoddlePlace.

We had already transitioned to meet current job market demands with a successful "resume portfolio" approach. And after spending time as a career adviser to TechRepublic, Dice, and CIO.com, and seeing the confusion in the job search realm, especially when it came to tech, I knew we needed to develop solutions in that area to meet today's reality. Too many candidates were approaching the market from an outdated perspective.  

So even if they had great documents, they didn't have the proper job search approach to go with them.  

We needed to find ways to move candidates, active and passive, out of the job board addictions they were in and into more proactive (and effective!) approaches.

So, together, Sue and I started shaping 4 "NoNonsense" job search solutions that she conducts on behalf of our client members once their resume portfolios and brand messaging has been developed. In other words, she isn't there just to tell you how to do things (coach you); she actually participates in launching a portion of your job search on your behalf.

Perhaps the best part is that the 4 solutions Sue conducts are all meant to make it simple for you to move beyond the comfortably, but largely ineffective and demeaning, world of job boards and online postings. Using a 3-step model for each solution, called Write the Vision, Make It Plain, and Run With It, she guides you by:

• Setting a strategic vision for your job search (putting together a practical, easy-to-follow plan for how/where to spend your time based on your goals and limitations. (Strategic Visioning Intro Session)
• Matching you with recruiters who are best suited for you and your goals and helping introduce you to those recruiters. (Recruiter Matching)
• Building strategic LinkedIn connections focused on your target industry and goals and helping you engage with those connections in a productive way. (LinkedIn Network Building)
• Profiling employers who meet specific parameters set up for you and reaching out to contacts at those employers on your behalf. (Employer Profiling)

It's been an amazing journey over the past year as we have successfully married our resume/brand messaging solutions to these job search "launch" solutions so that by the time you leave us not only do you have top-quality materials, but you also have some traction in your job search.

Just over the past few weeks:

• I've witnessed two members get first and second interview invites for jobs NOT posted anywhere from our Employer Profiling solution.
• I've watched Sue make a strategic connection for another member at a high-profile tech company through our LI Network Building solution that he has been trying to get in with for a long time. He now has had a couple informal informational interviews with this connection and has met a couple other contacts as a result.
• And I've watched numerous others get connected with recruiters who are well aligned with their goals through the Recruiter Matching solution, not to mention the members who've walked away with a clear strategy for how they should spend their limited time and resources on their job search.

So although I know this post is a bit "promotional," please bear with me. We're all more than a bit excited! It's hard not to be when you see such progress being made.  

It's what's taken us from a traditional "resume-only" firm into a full-service job search firm that holds itself accountable for the work it does. We're measuring our ROI, comparing against national averages, and seeing amazing results.

So although I wish my social media friend well with his "NEVER EVER" mantra, it's awesome to see our members becoming part of that 5% who recognizes the hiring "zoo" we're in and are willing to move out of the familiar and into today.