FORTIFY YOUR OASIS

Safe to take a vacation?

2011-07-26T10:17:00.000+01:00

Image: the wonderful Despair.com

A client phoned me to tell me she was going back out to the market. I was surprised, given that she had been with her new company, in a senior position, for less than four months. [She works in the funds industry and had moved her family to mainland Europe to take up this very senior role]

"I had an interesting conversation today Rowan. I rang my boss in New York to tell him - not ask him, tell him - that I was taking next Friday off, given that the following Monday is a public holiday. Here's how the conversation went ...

Me: Just to let you know, I won't be here on Friday, I'm taking the day off to take advantage of the long weekend.
Him: You can't do that.
Me: Why not? the month-end will be locked from the previous weekend; I've bedded down all the staff in the three months I've been here, there won't be any problem ...
Him: Yeah, but you still can't do it. What kind of example would that be for your people?
Me: What do you mean? I've got 23 vacation days in my contract [god bless European contracts!] and I haven't taken any time off with my family since I got here.
Him: Yeah, you may have 23 days in your contract, but just try getting taken seriously in this company if you take 'em.

And then he hung up on me! So, I'm out of here Rowan. Polish up my CV, it's time to find a job with a civilised company."

She embarked on a rapid job-hunt, served her notice a couple of weeks later, and joined a competitor company in the same country.

I am fascinated by the mindset of companies like that. Many years ago, I had a client who used to sit in his office, late into the night, doing crossword puzzles, waiting for his Japanese boss to go home. And his Japanese boss was sitting in his office, doing god knows what, waiting for the shihainin to go home - because the culture in that company was that you couldn't go home until your boss had. This was monumentally stupid, as it was a commodities trading firm, where useful work could only happen in the window when the markets were open. The uber-boss was probably sitting there, balancing his cheque-book, enjoying the rush of exercising his power, making his subordinates spend so many pointless hours sitting at their desks.

Even in a depressed market, how long will you tolerate this kind of neanderthal nonsense before you become a flight risk to your company? Unfortunately what I'm hearing from seminar audiences is that in a depressed market, the depressing answer is that neanderthal behaviour has become the norm and that 'civilised' companies are few and far between ...

This interview is over!

2011-07-19T12:19:00.007+01:00

My client – female, mid-40s, stellar CV in PR and Communications – walked in the door for an interview with the CEO of a well-known plc. She was ushered in by the CEO’s PA; he was sitting behind his desk, writing on a Post-it note and, without eye contact, waved her to a chair in front of his desk.

As she pulled the chair back from the desk, he stood up and said, “You’re way too old for a position like this (Director of Corporate Communications) aren’t you?”

My client, paused, placed both of her hands on the back of her chair and levelly said, “Hmmmm, interesting opening gambit. Let’s see now – either:

You haven’t read my CV at all, and my age has come as a surprise to you – in which case, you’re simply unprofessional or

You’ve read my CV, but couldn’t work out my approximate age – in which case you’re an idiot or

You’ve read my CV, know exactly how old I am, and you’re opening the conversation in this aggressive, and illegal, tone just to see how I’ll react when I’m supposed to be off-balance – in which case we’re back to unprofessional, with a dash of pig-ignorance thrown in for good measure or

You’ve read my CV, know exactly how old I am and you’re opening the conversation in this aggressive, pig-ignorant tone because that’s your normal style – in which case you’re an arsehole.

I’m plumping for the last option. Good-bye.”

And she turned on her heel and walked out.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you can tell pretty much everything you need to know about an organisation by the way they hire and the way they fire.

Related Posts:

When to turn down a job offer

How to quit your job

Advice from a commencement address

2011-06-14T15:09:00.001+01:00

You could be forgiven for thinking that Conan O'Brien is a pretty unlikely source of advice on career management - until you watch this. If you want to jump to the Big Fat Hairy Point bit, it's about 17 minutes in, but I found the BFHP piece all the more excellent because it's such a sharp contrast from his light opening and body material.

Great stuff, which should be listened to by everyone leaving formal education for the first time and will no doubt be liberally plagiarised by commencement speakers all over the world - in the unlikely event that I am ever asked to address my Alma Mater, I will certainly be lifting entire chunks from this. Enjoy.

RSS Readers may need to click through to the post.

Advice or graduates regarding wild bears (2007)

Bullying in recessionary times

2011-04-20T11:36:00.001+01:00

From the Sunday Times:

TOUGH TIMES ARE A BOON FOR BULLIES
The pressures of the recession are contributing to a rise in workplace harassment - by Gabrielle Monaghan

Nelson Muntz - funny in The Simpsons, awful in real life.

In the recession-hit workplace - where managers are under pressure to cut costs and staff are stressed out from longer hours and less pay - bullying and harassment are thriving, according to HR advisers and employment lawyers.

"There has always been an undercurrent of bullying in the world of work but it's worse now because of the kind of pressure everyone is under," said Rowan Manahan, the managing director of Fortify Services, an HR consulting firm. "More time is being spent in disciplinary hearings over untenable behaviour. The old-world courtesies previously afforded to employees have gone out the window because employers are in survival mode."

"Some employers feel that there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians, and make life difficult for older, expensive employees," added Manahan. "When, as an investigator [for bullying cases], you question their behaviour; many are genuinely mystified. But their victims suffer issues such as insomnia and anxiety states."

He describes the workplace as a "turf war" and says that some employees are making a "land grab" for colleagues' territories because they see their own job under threat. "If you are not politically savvy and don't understand what's really going on, it can come as a horrendous shock to you."

While the stereotypical bully may be an Alpha-male boss screaming abuse at minions cowering in the stationery cupboard, the reality is far less dramatic. "It tends to be more insidious than that. The kinds of people who habitually bully do not necessarily throw crockery at you in front of 29 other staff."

By 2009, almost half of the Irish workforce had experienced bullying, with seven in 10 employees too frightened to report it ...

...

Bullying and harassment are particularly acute in workplaces accustomed to rigid hierarchies, such as schools, universities and the public services, reveal Manahan and Scott-Lennon.

...

With a dearth of job vacancies in the recession, workers who feel they are being bullied are more likely to put up with it, out of concern the alternatives are unemployment or a drawn-out court case that will affect their income or future career. Until Irish courts award damages similar to those in the US - where victims of bullying have received millions in compensation, in part because of the loss of future employment prospects - victims here are more likely to keep schtum.

"I have testified in the High Court in these cases, and there is this fear factor that, even if you win the case, you'll 'never work in this town again'. It will be a Pyrrhic victory, because it doesn't do your career any good," Manahan said. [Indeed, for every case that I have seen proceed down the legal route, there are 15-20 who decide to stay schtum, put up with it, or vote with their feet.]

...

Even if a company does not have a policy that documents what amounts to inappropriate behaviour [and let's not forget that to do this is now illegal in Ireland!], Manahan recommends the following litmus test for managers or employees considering whether their comment or actions are suitable: would you be happy for your mother to know about it?

Full article in the Sunday Times.

Related Posts:

Toxic bosses

Bullies = impostors?

No more Mr Nice Guy

A great book on the topic

Pssst! PowerPointy goodness over here!

2011-02-25T14:38:00.000Z

I don't usually point to my Preso blog from here, but in case you've missed it, there's a very popular vid featuring yours truly over here. Lots of juicy PowerPointy goodness to be had!

Mastery. Once a nerd ...

2011-02-07T18:42:00.000Z

At a recent job-hunting seminar, I asked the audience if they had ever mastered anything. 100 people in the room. No raised hands.

"Nothing? No-one?" I asked. I then went on to admit that, gigantic nerd as I am, I had mastered the Rubik Cube in the early 1980s and that back then, I could solve it in an average time of 30 seconds.*

I talked briefly about other things I had obsessed about - Frisbeeing and martial arts - and how much work it had taken to get really skilled at these various activities. I then went back to the audience and started asking questions:

"How many people here have ever achieved Grade 8 in a musical instrument?"
"How many people here have ever represented their school? Their college? Their county? Their country?"
"Has anyone here ever won a medal at a major event?"
"Had anything published?"
"Graduated cum laude?" and so on ...

With each of these questions, various hands were raised as people started to realise the things they had achieved - albeit in activities that did not relate to their job-hunt. The group then went on to talk about how much work had been involved in mastering their chosen activities and, by extension, how much work was needed to stand out from the crowd in a job hunt.

We've talked about this before here at the Oasis - being really good at your chosen profession is not enough, particularly in an arid market. Career management and job-hunting require skills that are probably completely different to the skills that make you good at what you do. So think back - think of something you have mastered in this life and think how much work that took. You might have only won by a nose or gained first place in the examination by half a percent. [I was beaten in the national Rubik's Cube championships in Ireland in 1981 by 0.2 of a second - bitter ashes]

What does it take to stand out in your field? How much of it is reputation? How much is track record? Attitude? Sheer donkey-work? Do you know? Do you know?

Find out what it takes in your arena. Then look at yourself in the cold light of day. How do you measure up? This is foundational stuff - you need to know this. It is only when you have this basic information under your belt that you can start to present yourself to the market in the appropriate way.

* A couple of people came up to me during the breaks in the seminar and expressed doubts as to my ability to solve the Rubik's Cube, then or now. I didn't have a Cube with me - I'll make sure I do in future - so this wee vid I did today will have to do. The fingers aren't quite as quick as they used to be, but I'm still in touch with my inner nerd!

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Competence and impostors

Stay within your time!

2011-01-22T11:48:00.000Z

Don't go over your time. Ever.

Except, maybe, if they give you a standing ovation and refuse to leave the theatre, chanting "More more more!"

But in a business environment? A meeting? A presentation? No.

If you're the senior person in the room, you are being an asshole and setting a bad example for your troops. If you're not the senior person in the room, you might want to look up the phrase "career-limiting move."

I am constantly aghast at how often business people blithely run 25 or even 50 percent over their allotted time. I worked with an NGO a few years back, selecting the new CEO. For the second interview, we included a 12-minute "my vision" presentation. In the briefing document we stressed that the presentation would be timed and that it was to be "strictly 12 minutes." I told each candidate as they stood up to deliver:

"Imagine you are delivering this presentation on CNN. Unfortunately, the satellite will pass out of coverage in twelve minutes' time, cutting you dead. So you need to be really mindful of the clock. Go."

Only two out of five candidates stuck to their time ...

Execupundit, wise man and all-round seer Michael Wade nails it.

"... and I'd like to thank the Dolly Grip and the guy who brought me those little moist towelettes and my kindergarten teacher and ..."

Related posts:

Timeliness (from the preso blog)

Making time for rehearsal (from the preso blog)

Not getting interviews? Is your CV getting read at all?

2011-01-11T11:22:00.006Z

An enjoyable back and forth on the CV Clinic at Guardian Careers last week. Here is the final comment I made that day, having read oodles of queries from job-seekers who probably had average-or-better CVs, but who weren't getting any interviews.

I find it interesting to note that many of the queries here are about CVs - but only to the extent of getting that CV onto the right person's desk. It seems to me that many of the problems being presented here today centre on 'Route of Entry' rather than CV per se.

I don't find it surprising that a job-hunt that is centred on recruitment agencies, online applications and the occasional directly advertised job is proving frustrating for the hunter. The signal-to-noise ratio for those first two routes is such that no matter how good your CV is, you risk not being noticed.

Don't get lost in the noise - "Your CV? Ah yes, I'm sure I came across it the other day"

It is a given that you need a superb CV.

It is a given that you need a CV that is tailored to each potential employer's needs (this might only involve tweaking 5-15% of the content of your CV, but that 5-15% will be the bit that makes one particular employer go "Aha!" when they read it).

It is a given that you need to be able to talk about achievement and contribution rather than just responsibilities and duties.

What is not a given is this - How do you ensure that your beautifully-crafted CV gets read at all?

All of our mothers probably uttered the same piece of advice to us when we were children - "Don't talk to strangers." And yet, the majority of job-hunters spend the majority of their efforts on doing precisely that.

I suspect that we need a Clinic looking at how to reach out in the marketplace to people who are not complete strangers. I work with employers every day and they don't want to waste time, money or management effort talking to time-stealers. And let's face it - the screening and selection process is enormously time-consuming. In a market where time = money, the most useful thing you can do as a job-hunter is to save an employer some time.

So assuming you can get your CV onto the right desk, it needs to reflect that at the very first glance. The employer needs to be thinking, "Yes! This person is right in the frame of what I am looking for to fill this vacancy."

90% of CVs that I read utterly fail to do this.

They are generic, one-size-fits-all, self-centred, documents. Read back through all the advice from the experts here - it all says the same thing. WRITE WITH THE READER IN MIND. 90% of people nod their heads at this advice when I meet them at seminars or correspond with them in a setting like this. And yet 90% of the CVs I read are average-to-poor.

Write with the reader in mind. Really. If you can do that, you will be head and shoulders above the competition.

This combination of right CV on the right desk at the right time is very rare ... Think long and hard about how you are going to achieve that. The full clinic is here with lots of good ideas from the assembled experts, well worth a look.

The lost art of the coherent sentence 2

2011-01-05T12:29:00.001Z

I had forgotten this amazing piece from Joseph O'Connor on the topic of being inordinately fond of the word "like"

RSS readers may need to click through to the post

Big hat-tip to Matto for reminding me of this one – it really, like, brightened up, like, my day? Ya know?

The lost art of the coherent sentence

2011-01-04T14:03:00.003Z

I have noticed a problem when interviewing entry-level candidates in the recent past. These are well-educated, beautifully-presented candidates, with good CVs; but they have a problem.

The problem is they sound like morons.

Why? Because they pepper their speech with qualifiers and irritators and because they don't seem to be capable of uttering simple, emphatic, declarative sentences.

Now, on the one hand, this is a good thing - it makes my job as an interviewer much easier as I can winnow out the most incoherent candidates with relative ease. On another hand, this makes my life much easier because my career management practice is kept busy by unsuccessful candidates who come along to Fortify "looking for a few pointers" on where they are going wrong at interview. On yet another hand, it makes me very sad that the combined efforts of parents and teachers are producing a generation of people who sound like idiots.

I came across an article in one of the Sunday newspapers a while back that captured this for me. The reporter interviewed a series of teenagers by the simple expedient of leaving her Dictaphone in the middle of the table and then WROTE DOWN EVERY WORD those teenagers had uttered. Here's Holly, aged 16, from Dublin:

I like going out with my friends and, like, we sometimes go to the cinema, or just, like, go to someone's house and just hang around or, like, we'd go to the Wes [a teenage disco in Dublin]. Like, it's not bad at all, like, I love going there.

You'll find it's all different schools going there and, like, all, like, my friends are in different schools as well, so it's good. I was thinking of doing event management, and then, like, maybe doing a business course first and moving on to that. I think they have like, a bad reputation, but like, not all teenagers are bad. I don't know any that would be rebellious.

I have, like, just a good amount of freedom, like, not too much but, like, I'm allowed go out a lot and, like, go out with my friends and stuff. Like, my parents wouldn't be really strict, but they'd be, like, normal strict, like. They wouldn't let me go off to town at night, like. If I'd want to do something, my parents would give me money. So I wouldn't really know anything about the recession.

Mostly, like, my sister Georgia would be my influence because she is a model, but, like, she's always been, like, my sister – she hasn't, like, changed or anything because she's in the newspapers and stuff.

Most of the guys that I hang around with, like, we're really good friends, so I wouldn't mind if I went out with no make-up on, but, like, then I would go out with make-up on, but if I didn't have any make-up on and I met them on the street, like, I'd say "Hi." I wouldn't, like, mind.

Is it just me, or does Holly seem to have difficulty uttering a simple sentence?

Is it just me, or does Holly sound, like, just a little uncertain - about everything?

Is it just me, or does Holly sound like a gushing, incoherent, half-wit?

I'm not trying to be cruel or mean here folks, I'm really not. But I wouldn't hire Holly to put up a shed in my garden, much less to represent my company to ... like, anyone.

I have written about this before and referenced the film Clueless with Alicia Silverstone, in which she brilliantly parodied this vacant, Valley Girl mode of delivery. It seems to me that a whole generation missed the joke - because they started copying her! One of the commenters on that post remarked: "Ten years ago, talking like this was satire. Now it is how US vice-presidential nominees articulate their views. Sigh." Sigh indeed ... Have another little read of those words of wisdom from Holly:

I like going out with my friends and, LIKE, we sometimes go to the cinema, or just, LIKE, go to someone's house and just hang around or, LIKE, we'd go to the Wes. LIKE, it's not bad at all, LIKE; I love going there.

You'll find it's all different schools going there and, LIKE, all, LIKE, my friends are in different schools as well, so it's good. I was thinking of doing event management, and then, LIKE, maybe doing a business course first and moving on to that. I think they have LIKE a bad reputation, but LIKE, not all teenagers are bad. I don't know any that would be rebellious.

I have, LIKE, just a good amount of freedom, LIKE, not too much but, LIKE, I'm allowed go out a lot and, LIKE, go out with my friends and stuff. LIKE, my parents wouldn't be really strict, but they'd be, LIKE, normal strict, LIKE. They wouldn't let me go off to town at night, LIKE. If I'd want to do something, my parents would give me money. So I wouldn't really know anything about the recession.

Mostly, LIKE, my sister Georgia would be my influence because she is a model, but, LIKE, she's always been, LIKE, my sister – she hasn't, LIKE, changed or anything because she's in the newspapers and stuff.

Most of the guys that I hang around with, LIKE, we're really good friends, so I wouldn't mind if I went out with no make-up on, but, LIKE, then I would go out with make-up on, but if I didn't have any make-up on and I met them on the street, LIKE, I'd say "Hi." I wouldn't, LIKE, mind.

Is it just me or is that far too many uses of the word LIKE? I was at a marvellous evening of storytelling some months back and shared a few pieces and thoughts with the audience. When I read out those gems of Holly's, the audience rocked with laughter and I'm sorry to say I don't think they were laughing with Holly ...

UPDATE: The male of the species does this too. The ubiquitous filler-word for females is "like", the males seem to favour "ya know" and "sorta" – frequently with an interrogative lilt in their tone. Why are these people afraid of sounding like they know something, like they're sure of something? Are certainty, lucidity and knowledge completely outmoded concepts now?

Must-see

Taylor Mali slamming on speaking with conviction

Guardian Careers podcast

2010-11-29T13:11:00.000Z

Hmmm - apparently, I'm a "Brilliant interview guru" now. How shiny is that!? Well that's what the nice folks on Guardian Careers seem to think. [Thank you Kerry]

Great fun chatting through the ins and outs of the sweaty-palms experience of the modern job interview. I hope you find a thought or two that may help. We talked about:

How much prep is enough?
Mindset - butterflies in the tummy, good or bad?
Is it possible to do something extra to establish rapport with your interviewer?
"Do you have any questions for us?" Killer questions to ask.
Should you chase them after interview or is it as case of "Don't call us, we'll call you"?

Clickety click to hear all the juicy stuff (my bit starts about 9 minutes in)

Telling the truth in a job interview

2010-11-01T12:44:00.001Z

My number one piece of advice to candidates for job interviews is to drop the mask and be themselves. Everything after that is tactical. If you are not sufficiently confident to speak your mind and talk at a meaningful level about your approach in the workplace, then you probably aren't going to get hired anyway; and if you do, it may well be into a square peg in a round hole situation.

I work every day with people who are having difficulties in their working lives and the majority of them will point to unpleasant episodes in those working lives arising from untruths.

"Hey! Don't forget I got an A+ in my Ethics paper ... although, to be fair, I did cheat on that exam."

The untruth may derive from an employer 'embiggening' a job description to try and attract high-flying candidates. Employers do this all the time – dressing up job titles or hiding the reality of a stagnant (or toxic) corporate culture behind weasel-language in their corporate creed. Naive job-hunters lie all the time too, thinking that once they get into the company that somehow, everything will magically sort itself out – candidates constantly suggest that they have a skill or talent that they do not or take credit for something they didn't do; and hence cannot transfer into the new job.

Why would you do this? What healthy relationship can be formed on the basis of both sides misrepresenting themselves from the outset? The only possible explanation under the relationship analogy is that the party who is spouting untruths is looking for a quick, no-strings, probably exploitative, encounter and is not going to respect you in the morning. It doesn’t work in love and it certainly does not work in the world of work.

It seems to me the world of work isn't working very well these days. Gee, I wonder why?

Manahan’s Mantra [so very boring, I know]:

IF YOU HAVE TO LIE TO GET YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR, THEN THIS ISN’T THE JOB FOR YOU.

Stop - an idea worth spreading

2010-10-29T17:13:00.001+01:00

Last weekend, I kicked back and read two books cover to cover. It was a bank holiday weekend and I was going to be taking some time off this week anyway, but She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed didn't seem to be too impressed that I was chilling out to the level that I was. When I go home tonight, I am going to show her this TEDx Talk from the amazing Scott Stratten.

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(Okay, I have to admit it. I did get off my ass on Monday and I hung a good-sized mahogany door with no assistance, practically herniating myself in the process. Joints popping? Delayed onset muscle soreness without the delayed onset and "sore" not being in any way an adequate term to describe what I was feeling? Middle age? When the hell did that happen?)

Enjoy your weekend. Try doing nothing. Nothing.

Related posts:

Slowing things down

Work-life balance

The curse of masculinity?

2010-08-31T10:50:00.000+01:00

From the Irish Independent :

THE CURSE OF MASCULINITY

Masculinity is an 'illness' that can lead to isolation, loneliness and fear. Simply put, men wrongly always pursue short-term gains ahead of long-term interests. By Ailin Quinlan

Photo credit: The wonderful Sandra Leidholdt

A president begins an illicit affair with an intern at the White House. He is 25 years her senior. The affair is discovered. There is a huge fuss, which eventually dies down with only minor damage to his reputation. He is married to a beautiful and clever woman who has given up a great deal to support him in fulfiling his ambitions.

A cabinet minister is discovered to be having an affair with an actress 20 years his junior. It emerges that apart from enjoying sucking her toes, he insists on wearing the shirt of the football team he supports while they are making love. His wife and the mother of his three children forgives him, although the disclosure of the affair by the actress costs him his career.

A male MP is found dead from asphyxiation after indulging in a perverse and dangerous form of sexual activity involving bondage and the deprivation of air during orgasm.

There's no end, in fact, to the stories of successful men whose identities have been subverted by sex, money and violence, says psychoanalytic psychotherapist Adam Jukes. Barely a day goes by without a story of a man involved in compromising, illicit or illegal behaviour, from sex to violence or financial corruption, he observes. These men all have one thing in common - their masculinity - which, in his controversial new book, Is There A Cure For Masculinity?, Jukes likens to an illness or personality disorder.

"Every major non-geological disaster in history has been man-made, from climate change to the credit crunch and from warfare to genocide. Men's denial of vulnerability and the need to consume and acquire are intricately connected." Masculinity, argues Jukes, is like an illness acquired in early boyhood. It is, he believes, built on a 'fault' created during the Oedipal crisis and is hugely destructive.

...

"That's why men engage in risk-taking behaviour. We think with our willies and our willies are not very intelligent! The reason masculinity is not fit for purpose is because men will always put short-term gain ahead of long-term interest. Men are the ones who gamble, who commit most of the crime, rape and murder, and who indulge in risky sex."

Much of male behaviour - the quest for power and status, chronic sulking, workaholism, risk-taking, infidelity - is a paradoxical defence against men's overwhelming feelings of weakness, vulnerability and humiliation, Jukes argues.

But not everyone agrees. Masculinity is not an illness acquired in boyhood - it's just the way men are, says career consultant and author Rowan Manahan. Men are simply "hard-wired" to be risk-takers and competitive, believes Manahan, whose job brings him into regular contact with everyone from entry-level employees to boardroom executives.

Yes, he acknowledges, masculinity often means men are less inclined to put their hand up to seek help because they don't wish to reveal their vulnerability - but masculinity is not all bad, insists the father of two girls.

"Masculinity is also a good thing because since the dawn of time men have been wanting to make better tools or fly to the moon - we're constantly pushing the boundaries. However, I'd also say that it's a bad thing because there's a lot of adrenalin and testosterone-fuelled stupidity happening around us every day," he says.

"We're pretty un-evolved for coping with the modern world. Men still share about 90 percent [I actually said that homo sapiens shares circa 95%] of their DNA with chimps - look at the behaviour of traders in any boardroom of any financial institution! It's like the beach volleyball scene in Top Gun but without the baby oil - all chest-thumping, high-fiving and willy-waving!"

"We are cavemen in good suits. We all have an inner caveman; he's the voice in our head which tells us that after a long day in the office we can come home and do nothing and contribute nothing because we have completed the day's hunt."

...

Full article is here.

Follow-on rant to come

CVs - falling at the first hurdle

2010-08-27T10:41:00.006+01:00

I took part in a live Q&A on the Guardian's career site in the UK his week addressing readers' problems with CVs and cover letters. There's some really smart advice there from some really smart people, I highly recommend a look-see. My summary thoughts on the too-many-CVs-in-the-pile problem:

It has become clear to me that the vast majority of job-hunters do not realise what happens when a recruiter/HR-type is going through a pile of CVs. Inevitably there is the quick First Pass which considerably whittles down the pile and then the more detailed Second Pass through the by-now much smaller pile of CVs. Depending on initial volume [just look at the BT apprenticeship this year with over 24,000 applicants!], there can then be a third or even a fourth pass before the employer is down to the all-important Shortlist.

What makes it easy for me to chuck your CV into the bin on a first pass?

Sloppiness - typos, spelling errors, inconsistent formatting. Too careless to get your written representation of yourself drop-dead PERFECT? Bye bye.

Square Peg Round Hole - I specified 7 requirements for the job and you only have 3 of them? In a buyers market, I don't have to change my wishlist, because there are going to be plenty of candidates in the pile who hit 6 or all 7 of my requirements. Bye bye.

Wordy - this can either take the form of lousy writing, which feels like a first draft, or simply having very little to say and taking a lot of space and time to say it. Bye bye.

On the second and subsequent passes, I am reading more closely, looking for the value that you bring, looking for personality, looking for maturity, team fit, enthusiasm and all that good stuff. In short, I am looking for smart people who will fit in to my team and who will get stuff done. Does your CV say that to me? My three reasons for dumping at the latter stages of the sifting process:

You buried the lead - I find it hard to find the good stuff about you on your CV. It might be there, but if your ordering of paragraphs/bullets or your self-deprecating language make it hard to find, I'll probably give up fairly quickly.

All 'tell' and no 'sell' - you delineate responsibilities, but don't talk about what difference you made. If I have completed my first pass and I still have 20 CVs left on the pile for a Management Accountant job, I'm going to shortlist the ones who have 'over-and-above' items on their CVs. Don't spend all day telling me about your core functions. Everyone in the world with that job title has those responsibilities. What else did you do, or what difference did you make within the core functions? Spend time and space on that.

You fail the Turing Test - In other words, there is zero personality coming through in your CV and you sound like a dalek. You are going to be working with and for other human beings. Let me get a glimpse of your personality from the way you write your CV and covering letter. People hire people they like - does your CV make me like you?

What am I missing? What other horrors make you wince and reflexively dump a CV in your bin?

Just how expensive can a typo be?

2010-08-12T09:30:00.005+01:00

IT looks like Verizon are dodging a bullet caused by a typo in their pension plan that could have cost them $1,670,000,000 - and no, that figure is not a typo.

Full story here.

Meanwhile, The Telegraph publishes OnePoll.com's list of the most commonly mis-spelt words in the UK. The top 10 are:

Separate

Definitely

Manoeuvre

Embarrass

Occurrence

Consensus

Unnecessary

Acceptable

Broccoli

Referred

There's a nice quote from the pollsters in the article: "The fact we judge other people's intelligence by their written word, yet don't like to be judged ourselves, means we should all pick up a dictionary once in a while.''

Amen to that.

UPDATE: It's not just me!

H/T @MartinShovel

Now repeat after me ... #5

2010-07-15T15:13:00.005+01:00

Loose / Lose

It would appear that there is a gargantuan, international conspiracy afoot, a conspiracy pursuing, with ruthless efficiency, the goal of causing a major blood vessel in my head to EXPLODE! Some examples of my latest bugbear, randomly grabbed from Twitter [emphasis mine]:

jobrosupdates_n Joe admitted he was the first of his 3 brothers loosing his virginity and that he will not tell the name of the girl Sat Jul 10 20:02:51 2010

ZodiacFacts #ZodiacFacts A #Libra rarely loose their temper, but the two or three times in their lives that they do, everyone remembers. 5:27 AM Jul 13th via web

celseyy okay, why am i loosing LOADS of followers?:( 36 minutes ago via web

Aliceweight How To Loose Weight Healthy – Weight Loss Programme – How To Loose ...: How To Loose Weight Healthy - Weight Loss ...

How To Loose Weight Healthy – Weight Loss Programme – How To Loose Weight After 40 | The Weightloss Blogger

Kagirl2014 Whats it mean when im loosing clumps of hair? ugh! more problems. about 2 hours ago via web

Is it just me? Because this one drives me c-r-a-z-y-! Are we sitting comfortably?

Loose - rhymes with goose, moose and juice. Loose is almost always used as an adjective:

He wore comfortable, loose-fitting clothing to his Pilates class.
Loose lips sink ships.
She pulled the scrunchie out of her hair and shook it loose.
"Daddy, I have a loose tooth!"

Lose - rhymes with booze, cruise and glues. Lose is a verb:

I love to lose myself in the music.
Did you lose some followers on Twitter today?
If he does that again, I'm going to lose it!

Just to confuse us all, Loose can be used as a verb, but this is rare and usually in a somewhat archaic sentence form:

Robin Hood loosed an arrow at the Sheriff's head.

I appreciate that once again, this is a phonetic problem. The double O in "loose" looks like it should be pronounced "ooooooo" as in "loooooooze." But it isn't, so learn the difference.

Pop Quiz - there are two CVs from people of similar background, education, training and experience and one slot left on the shortlist. One of the CVs is letter-perfect and the other has three errors in it. Assume that the decision-maker is remotely literate. (a) Which CV is going in the bin? (b) Why is it that the only people who have a problem with the answer to that question are careless, sloppy writers?

I have seen CV after CV dumped for mistakes like this and there are no two ways about it - people who can spell, who have taken the time and trouble to learn off all the myriad of rules and exceptions in the English language; they are very harsh and judgemental people. I know, I'm one of them. While I will admit that this stuff irritates me at some basal level, I don't dump your CV with any sense of pleasure, malice or superiority. Please believe me when I tell you that I have no feelings whatsoever about your CV ... or you. When I am in the hiring chair, it's just a numbers game. I have too many CVs on the pile and carelessness/sloppiness like this makes my job of whittling down the pile just a little easier.

SUMMARY: If it is a 'doing' word in your sentence, you almost should almost always be spelling it L-O-S-E. If it's a 'describing' word in your sentence, then it's almost always going to be L-O-O-S-E. (rhymes with Goose, Juice, Moose, Spruce, Noose, Truce, Mousse, Recluse ...)

Be altruistic about this and save an old curmudgeon from an aneurysm; or be selfish about this and stop yourself from looking like a sub-literate, incompetent clown. Either way, get it right.

Up with this I will not put!

Vizzini: "He didn't fall? In-con-ceiv-able!"
Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

PS: Since I started writing this post (about 20 minutes ago), there have been 217 tweets with the word "loosing" in them - and in every single one of them the usage was incorrect.

UPDATE: Crimes Against English very kindly notified me of the excellent little website - loseloose.com - so it's not just me then ...

Thinking outside the box

2010-06-30T14:07:00.001+01:00

I was blown away by a remark from a near-11 year-old yesterday. She was talking about a good friend of hers - a lovely, well-mannered, but very quiet child.

"She's not like her mum or dad at all, they are a bit hippie if you know what I mean. I guess they really think outside the box. But Emily ... Emily is so tightly folded up, she doesn't even touch the sides of the box."

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ...

Article - Give yourself an edge

2010-06-08T16:43:00.001+01:00

From The Sunday Business Post:

GIVE YOURSELF AN EDGE

When looking for a job, there are many ways to ensure you are better prepared than the next person, writes Rowan Manahan

The recession has brought about two principal areas of difficulty for people in the market for a job. First, there are those for whom the downturn has meant a massive drop in openings and opportunities in their sector. The obvious examples are architects, quantity surveyors, conveyancing solicitors and certain types of engineers. The buoyancy and expansion these professions enjoyed in recent years has declined catastrophically and these job-seekers are desperately trying to reinvent themselves as they approach the market. The second group, which to a large extent encompasses the first, faces a broader and simpler problem: there don’t appear to be any jobs to apply for. That is what I want to address in this article.

Cast your mind back ten years. Back then, a job-hunt consisted of checking the appointments pages of newspapers on a weekly basis, perhaps registering your CV with a couple of trusted recruitment agencies and then sitting by the phone waiting for 'the call.' Now, those appointments pages make for very thin reading, and the recruitment agencies have taken as bad a beating as estate agents and the motor trade. Worse than that, the first thing you know about most job openings is the ‘Company Announcement’ puff piece that Joe Bloggs has been appointed to a job you would have loved to apply for, but you didn’t hear so much as a whisper about it.

For anyone job-hunting in Ireland now, there has never been a more divergent jobs market. On the one hand, we have 439,000 people on the live register [the official register of social welfare recipients], more than at any time in the history of the State; on the other hand we still have 1,887,000 people working here. Excepting the bubble of the last few years, this is the largest workforce we have ever had. In a workforce that large, with all the ebb and flow of human activity, job opportunities arise every day. Why then are they so hard to spot?

Simply put, the way in which employers are seeking out talent, and the way in which successful job-hunters are competing in the market, has irrevocably changed. If you want to hunt successfully in the current climate, you need to think like an employer. How does that employer fill a vacancy? The short answer is quickly, cheaply and with minimal risk. The hiring process may take a considerable time, but the employer is looking to minimise the amount of time he/she spends trawling through piles of CVs and interviewing large numbers of people. For middle management positions and above, employers are following the mothering wisdom of “Don’t talk to strangers” – and are making fast, zero-risk hires of people who are in some way known to them.

This means that the old approach of a low-key, passive, job-hunting effort on your part is unlikely to bear fruit. Talk to any outplacement or career management company in your vicinity and they will tell you that 50 per cent or more of management jobs are filled through “some level of personal contact.” And that is in a good year. In tougher times, that percentage rises steeply. So yes, you must register and follow up with the key placement agencies in your sector; and yes, you need to peruse the major papers and recruitment websites and yes, you need to closely monitor the “jobs with us” sections of company websites. But those should not be the bulk of your job-hunting efforts.

The bulk of your exertion needs to be directed toward reaching out, sharing information and asking smart questions to an extended circle of family, friends, colleagues and beyond. Despite what we have discovered about cronyism in certain circles in Ireland; in the wider job market, neither nepotism nor the old school tie result in someone landing a plum job very often. What does happen is that you hear about an opportunity or a change in a company you are interested in. You might hear a nugget of information that allows you to adjust your approach for a forthcoming interview – perhaps an insight into the interviewer’s mindset or just a kernel of knowledge that other candidates won’t have.

You need to reach out both in the online and offline world. Online, Linkedin.com should be your first port of call. You can put a detailed CV up there and then start connecting with everybody in your phone book and email lists. This is immensely valuable when you are trying to research a company/industry and realise that you are just one step away from a bunch of people who know that company or industry. You can ask for an introduction to those people and engage in a quick email exchange to find out what you need.

In the offline world, you have the added advantage of getting some face-time and leaving a lasting impression on the people you reach out to. Either way, your approach must be symbiotic – share your ideas and information, follow up with people you have talked to and make sure that your networking effort is a two-way street.

Other strands you should be pursuing:

Companies don’t exist in a vacuum. Start nosing around on the supply chain and the customer channels to find out what’s really going on in the company you are targeting.

Talk to government agencies locally and nationally about your sector – Enterprise Ireland, IDA, SFI, County Enterprise Boards and so forth.

Get the macro picture by talking to TDs and MEPs. They will have access to white papers and top line research that pertains to your industry.

At a more immediate level, spend time with the head of your industry body and talk about the past, present and future of that industry with someone who is completely plugged in to the sector. Read the trade publication and other articles that relate to your field.

If you are taking a course, don’t be a wallflower. Use Linkedin to stay in contact with your classmates, lecturers, guest lecturers etc.

Build a profile for yourself – give a talk at a breakfast briefing, write a couple of pieces for your trade magazine, start a blog, guest on a radio programme talking about your area of expertise.

You are not directly saying “Gissajob” to any one of the above, but it’s always possible that the subject might come up in conversation.

There’s an old joke about a camera crew in the Serengeti who are sniffed out by a pride of lions after the wind unexpectedly changes. As a ravenous lioness approaches, the sound man calmly kneels down and tightens the laces on his running shoes. “What the hell are you doing?” hisses the cameraman. “There’s no way you can outrun a lion!” “I don’t need to outrun the lion,” says the sound guy, “I just need to outrun you.” And that, in a nutshell, is the modern job-hunt. You just need to be one bit smarter, one nugget better-informed, one smidgen better-prepared than the next candidate. So get out there and start talking …

Rowan Manahan is the MD of outplacement firm Fortify Services and the author of Where’s My Oasis? and Ultimate CV

Motivation - just a bit more than carrot and stick?

2010-06-02T15:34:00.001+01:00

Great talk here from Dan Pink with an interesting (although I did find it a bit distracting after a while) presentation style behind it.

RSS readers may need to click through to the post

Dr. Dan Ariely picked up on the same research for his book The Upside of Irrationality and added this lovely zinger to what Mr. Pink is saying above:

"Financial rewards are often a two-edged sword. They motivate people to work well, but when these financial rewards get very large they can become counterproductive and actually hurt performance. If our tests mimic the real world, then higher bonuses may not only cost employers more, but also hinder executives in working to the best of their abilities.

When I presented these results (the MIT and Indian studies) to a group of banking executives, they assured me that their own work and that of their employees would not follow the pattern we found in our experiments. I suggested that with a suitable research budget and their participation, we could examine their assertion, but they were not interested. [Emphasis mine] I strongly suspect that they were too quick to discount our results. I’d be willing to bet that for the vast majority of bankers, if not for all of them, a multimillion-dollar compensation package could easily be counterproductive because of the stress involved in attaining it, because of the fear of not getting it, and because it takes their minds off the job and focuses their attention on the large bonus."

I'm looking forward to reading Mr Ariely's book.

Remember those old 'Positions Wanted' adverts you used to see?

2010-05-13T23:37:00.001+01:00

There's updating an idea and then there's pure genius:

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H/T: @carolmahoney

Hacking Ignite

2010-04-29T18:20:00.000+01:00

Heard of Ignite? They had me at the strapline - "Enlighten us, but make it quick"

I got to do my monkey-boy flipchart dance at Ignite Dublin a few weeks back, I hope the satanic overtones are more obvious to you once you've seen his Master Plan.

When typos go very very bad

2010-04-09T12:28:00.000+01:00

I read a CV last week that had 17 spelling errors over the course of 4 pages. Most of them were underlined errors in MS Word - by which I mean that the software realised that they were mistakes and highlighted them to me by underlining them. The remainder were transposition errors - "form" instead of "from" occurred twice for example. When I pointed this out to the person he said, "I did that CV on my wife's computer and it doesn't have a spellchecker."

Typos matter.

This highly qualified, immensely able professional has been representing himself with this CV for quite some time now. I dread to think of how many opportunities he has disqualified himself from.

Typos matter.

The Huffington Post has a story on a typo that resulted in a 1,000 unnecessary days in an Indonesian jail.

Typos can be very very bad ...

BONUS - the Science correspondent with the Daily Telegraph was obviously very excited about CERN'S latest attempt to bring the universe to an end under the mountains of Switzerland.

Click to enlarge

Origin of the job interview

2009-12-11T12:30:00.000Z

I have long maintained that we are cavemen/women distinguishable from our forebears only by the fact that we wear a better class of animal skins. It would appear I am not alone in this belief.

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Now repeat after me ... #4

2009-12-10T11:50:00.000Z

"And you're definitely definite about that?"

D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y

Not definately.
Not definatly.
Not definently.
Not definantly.
Not definetly.

And you could try defiantly, but I wouldn't recommend it.

There's only one way to spell that word and it is is d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.

Up with this I will not put!

Vizzini: "He didn't fall? In-con-ceiv-able!"
Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."