The Headhunter Dad

One Job to Rule Them All!

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 12:35:00 +0000

80% of project management work will be taken over by AI by 2030.

While this Gartner finding sounds ominous, you should read the sentence again to see that it is saying work (or tasks) and not jobs. Project Managers will need to adjust and deal with new technologies for sure but the demand for someone to be responsible and lead teams to completion on time and under budget will only grow.

For the last 8 years I have been working in the IT recruiting sector. One of the hottest roles in that time has been (and continues to be) Project Manager.

The more jobs I came across and the more I learned about what a PM does, the more suspicious I became that the skills of a Project Manager are likely useful for many other jobs as well (thus the title to this article). So I tried a little Google experiment, "Do _____ jobs need project management skills?" filling in the blank with multiple job titles. After getting positive responses in the search results indicating that Sales, Finance, Marketing and Human Resources all benefit from project management skills, I tried ChatGPT asking, "What are the top 5 jobs that do NOT need project management skills?". ChatGPT quickly gave me the following list: Retail Cashier, Truck Driver, Customer Support Representative, Factory Worker, Receptionist.

As the Headhunter Dad, albeit a little older and with children who are no longer toddlers, I wanted to see what project management related skills we could supply our kids with early on to give them a leg up on the increasingly competitive international job market. I know from my own experience interviewing recent college graduates for positions such as recruiter, sales, or marketing how good a successful project looks on a resume. It shows me that they can take responsibility, most likely they dealt with problems and solved them, they led a team, had some organizational skills and attention to detail, were probably a bit cross-functional, and so on. Exciting things to see on a resume for any job.

Rather than just go with my gut on project manager skills, I reached out to my good friend Google again and came up with a basic top 10 list thanks to an article on the Bright Network website:

Frequent readers of the Headhunter Dad articles will likely have a sense of deja vu looking at this list. The highlighted and linked skills are all ones we have discussed in the past. However, this is the first time I have seen so many of them bundled together under one job title.

The Harvard Business Review has a list of "next generation" skills they believe will be required of Project Managers. While I do not disagree with this list, I get the impression that HBR cannot allow themselves to just agree with the perfectly good list above and needs to impress the rest of us with their high level of thinking. I doubt there is a single item from the above list that any PM would give up to gain one from the HBR list.

Organizational Awareness
Data Acumen
Cross-functional Collaboration
Decision Making
Willingness to explore and adopt new technology
Financial Acumen
Process and Framework Expertise
Customer Centricity
Growth Mindset
Ability to Coach and Motivate Teams

Not to be outdone, Forbes had this to say:

The project management industry is witnessing unprecedented growth, and is set to increase in demand over the next few years, with a predicted 25 million needed to fill the gap across various industries globally. Some of the most popular sectors with opportunities for project managers include technology, construction, manufacturing, and finance.

Recognizing that Project Managers will be in demand is all well and good but let's get back to the value of project management experience and the relevant attributes of a Project Manager for helping our kids to become more marketable and competitive in their job search. As mentioned, we have covered several of the attributes individually in other articles (Communication, Collaboration, Problem Solving, Negotiation, Time Management, Patience, and Leadership) so rather, how can we give our children actual project management experience?

I like starting with definitions. For this one I used a tool I have come to rely on, Perplexity. I asked for a simple definition of "project".

A sequence of tasks with a specific objective, clear start and end dates, and defined resources and constraints

Bringing this framework to our kids can be done without any major adjustments to everyday, chaotic, childrearing life. A little guidance to a typical chore will do the trick. "Clean up your room please." (a specific objective) can be followed with clear start and end times, "Now! and get it finished before you go out to play." Resources can be supplied such as reminding your son where the vacuum cleaner is and constraints such as having to do it himself. So far not so different We just need one last bit, helping our young cleaner to organize his work. I am a proponent of making people think for themselves and I believe this helps our kids to grow into confident adults if they are able to solve their own problems from a young age so in this case ask, "What are you going to work on first? When that is done, what is next?"

Napoleon Hill said that "Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought." If you can apply project management thinking to the various activities of your kids lives on a regular or even semi-regular basis they will start to internalize it. Do it yourself as well and while you are at it explain what you are doing to your daughter. She may ignore you or nod and go back to her games but kids listen to and absorb what is going on around them. Keep at it! Any child with a habit of breaking out tasks for a project and recognizing deadlines will have a headstart in school all the way through college and will be in a good position to present themselves competitively for any job. Who knows, these skills are so important that maybe not too far in the future our elementary schools will be preaching the education of reading, writing, arithmetic... and project management.

Write a blog article about how a father helped his son find an internship in the entertainment industry...

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 10:07:00 +0000

With all the buzz in the market I could not help wondering if ChatGTP would be able to help me become a more prolific writer. I had a draft of an article I wanted to write about the search my son and I went through for his internship but had been putting it off. I finally got around to it today and entered the title you see above as the prompt. The output came up with John and Michael as father and son. I have changed that to "I" and "him" to make it more authentic. All other edits by me and comments are shown in [brackets]. While I knew that ChatGTP could write well, the similarity between the real story and what this AI bot came up with is downright terrifying!

The Internship Search

The entertainment industry can be a challenging field to break into, especially for those who are just starting out. However, with the right guidance and support, it is possible to land an internship that can lead to a successful career. This is the story of how I helped my son find an internship in the entertainment industry and the valuable lessons we learned along the way.

My son has always had a love for the entertainment industry. He had always been interested in film and television production, and had even taken a few classes in college to learn more about it. [OK, maybe he took one class] However, like many students, He struggled to find an internship that would give him the hands-on experience he needed to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.

I knew that finding an internship in the entertainment industry could be difficult, but I also knew that with the right guidance and support, my son could succeed. So, I decided to use my own connections in the industry to help him find an internship.

I began by reaching out to my contacts in the entertainment industry [through Linkedin], asking if they knew of any internships that might be a good fit for my son. [Actually, I told my contacts that my son is interested in their industry and an internship and would they mind if I shared their email with him so that he could reach out and ask some questions. I think asking right away for the internship at there company would have been too aggressive plus I wanted my son to be the one who asked.] I also looked for opportunities on industry job boards and websites. [I did not do the job boards, I advised my son to do that himself] As I searched, I realized that many of the internships available were unpaid and that the competition for paid internships was fierce. [Actually, we realized quickly that there were very few companies offering internships at all, paid or unpaid.]

Despite the challenges, I didn't give up. I encouraged my son to apply for as many internships as possible [To speak to as many people as possible.] and to be persistent in his efforts. My son followed my advice and applied for several internships [Talked to many people]. Finally, after several months of searching, he landed an unpaid internship at a production company.

The internship was a valuable experience for him, giving him the opportunity to work on set, learn from industry professionals, and gain hands-on experience in the entertainment industry. The experience was challenging, but it was also very rewarding. I was proud of my son's determination and hard work, and knew that the experience would help him in his future career.

Our experience illustrates the importance of persistence and determination when searching for an internship in a competitive field like the entertainment industry. It also highlights the value of having a support system, like a parent or mentor, who can provide guidance and make valuable connections. With the right approach and support, it is possible to break into the entertainment industry and start building a successful career.

[Allow me to add some practical content here at the end. I did a search on Linkedin for anyone in my connections in the entertainment industry. I had a list of about 100 suitable contacts and sent roughly the same message to all of them:

Hi, my son is a rising senior at (name of college) and is looking for an internship this summer. He is very interested in (insert company name here) and I was wondering if it is OK for me to give him your contact so he can reach out directly to you for some guidance?

The response was positive and I would hand off the contacts as they came in to my son who would then send his own message to them. His message would ask them for some time on the phone or zoom so he could ask some questions and learn more about the industry. I helped occasionally after that with drafts of messages or recommendations on when to follow up. As ChatGTP pointed out correctly, persistence and determination are what won out in the end and he did find an internship at a production company.]

Next blog article? Write a winning college essay to help my daughter get into Tufts. Will have to see what ChatGTP has to say about that one!

The HeadhunterDad, AKA Lawrence Kieffer, is a professor of career studies at Temple University, Japan campus, the COO for Fidel Consulting an APAC Recruiting and Staffing firm focused on IT professionals, a devoted husband, and father of two amazing kids. Follow on Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook.

Image by kjpargeter on Freepik

Use your words!

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Sun, 27 Mar 2022 06:30:00 +0000

We all use words. Just that some people use them better than others. In my university class, I talk with the students every semester about the importance of first impressions and how the content (words you use) is not nearly as important as how you are dressed, how you move, how you act, how you sound. This infographic is the one I refer to when we discuss the biases that they will face when interviewing. A few of the uncomfortable truths from the study are:

First impressions are formed within 7 to 17 seconds of meeting someone.
Hiring managers claim to know whether they will hire someone or not within the first 90 seconds of meeting them.
The words you say account for only 7% of what creates a first impression.
67% of hiring managers said they have rejected candidates for a lack of eye contact.

While this is important to understand so that my students and our kids, as job seekers, know what they are facing and may take steps to prepare, it has the secondary effect of making it seem that what they say and how they say it never matters. That could not be further from the truth. A first impression is almost unconsciously done and as stated above, happens in less than 20 seconds. The interview, on the other hand, lasts 30 minutes to an hour. What our kids say (the content) during those additional 29 minutes and 43 seconds very much matters.

I want to draw your attention to an important point about content. Unfortunately, the facts are not always presented or received in the same way.

What this means, is that two qualified job seekers of equal skill... actually, let's make it more dramatic and still accurate. Imagine two qualified job seekers, where one is more skilled than the other, presenting the same basic content in an interview, years of experience, knowledge of a certain technology, etc. After considering, the hiring manager chooses the jobseeker with less skill! What happened? The candidate with less actual technical skill used more convincing language and word choice than the competing candidate. Here are two simple examples that might help to prove my point. Candidate B is the one with less technical knowledge but better words:

Interviewer: How much experience in programming do you have?

Candidate A: I have a fair amount of experience in programming.
Candidate B: I have extensive experience in programming.

Interviewer: Why do you want this job?

Candidate A: This is a good move for my career.
Candidate B: This is a great move for my career.

The answers are not stating numbers so there is no deception here on the part of B. She may believe that her 3 years of experience is "extensive" and A may also believe that his 5 years are "a fair amount". The interviewer will hear two things that are not specifically said, only because of the word choice:

Candidate B is more confident about her experience than Candidate A.
Candidate B is more interested/motivated in this job than Candidate B.

These two points are more than enough to sway most interviewers and only with the slightest change in word choice. Multiply this through the entire interview and it will be hard for the interviewer to consider Candidate A at all.

As I am a Headhunter Dad, with an emphasis on Dad, I also want to bring this around to my kids. The words we use as parents are often as important as the point we are trying to get across. If a kid hears the word "stupid", which by the way is banned in our house*, often enough he is likely to believe that he really is on the lower end of the intelligence curve. I have mentioned confidence enough in my articles for you regular readers to know how important it is for our kids regardless of what path they choose in the future. The next time your son or daughter does something "stupid", try to align your response to the result you hope to achieve. I am guessing here that your goal is not to belittle your child and make them feel useless but rather to point out how they could have done whatever it was differently so that they can do better next time. Something along the lines of, "Well that didn't work out so well. What could you have done differently?" Or, "Looks like you were not really thinking when you did that."

We (parents, adults) all know the right words. We just get caught up in the moment and the things we heard as kids pop out without thinking. Take a breath, consider the impact of your response, choose better words.

* The word "stupid" is not actually 100% banned but its use as a substitute pronoun is banned. We are loosely allowed (although discouraged) to point out an action as stupid but we are not allowed to call someone stupid.

What do I tell my daughter?

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 12:55:00 +0000

I came in on my 14-year-old daughter the other day as she was applying mascara before heading out to see her friends. She is just a baby! I thought. Why does she need to look like a woman? Wait, is she a woman? When did that happen!!!??? My immediate next thought was that some boy would take advantage of her because she is so beautiful and wonderful and nice (oyabaka). I started looking up how a father should explain to his daughter about boys, about protecting herself.

"How to talk about boys with your daughter" resulted in 543,000,000,000 results. Contrary to my expectations, many of the articles were focused more on how I, as a father, should not exaggerate the dangers. Much of the advise was to have an open conversation about how some boys are nice, others are not. I am sharing the ones I found most useful below. Click on the title to follow the links to the original articles.

13 Lessons Dads Can Teach Their Daughters

The important takeaways from this article for me were about helping my daughter to understand the importance of setting boundaries, how to have real conversations with guys, encouraging her strengths, and perseverance.

3 Bad Lessons We’re Teaching Daughters About Guys

This article took the approach of pointing out what we should not do. Saying that the common approach is to scare our daughters with the message that guys are immature, dangerous, and only want one thing. While there are bad guys out there, applying that to all boys is not fair to the good ones and also may make it harder for our daughters to open up when one comes along. An open (clear) minded approach is best.

15 Conversations to Have with Your Teenage Daughter

This article was a bit broader in its coverage. Similar to the first article, boundaries and setting standards for herself is important. Valuable both daughters and sons, letting them know that no matter what, Daddy will be there. Encouraging her to believe in herself, be confident and self-aware. Be assertive, speak up for what she wants.

I am going to repurpose this article into an introduction for me and my daughter to talk about this stuff. After writing and publishing it I am going to make her read it and then we can discuss it in more detail. Use the tools you are given, right?

Being the HeadunterDad, of course I could not just leave it well enough alone so needed to get into job stuff too. I found most of the advice given around preparing our teenage daughters for high school, college and dealing with boys and life is applicable for their careers both before and after finding a job.

Boundaries: In the workplace, this can be a bigger challenge with bigger negative consequences. Knowing what is right for her, where to draw the line, and how to keep her focus at work can be learned early, while still in school, and it will stick with her.

Strength: I am a devout supporter of Gallup's discover your strengths. We are all good at some things and bad at others. She can be more competitive if she enhances her already existing strengths rather than spending all her time trying to fix a weakness. Help your daughter identify her strengths early on. This will lead the next item...

Confidence, self-awareness: Knowing her strengths will give her confidence. This helps her to say no to peer pressure, take on risks that may lead to bigger achievements, and raise her hand when the top job opens up. Help her develop this every day.

Assertiveness: This point struck a chord as there was a similar theme in my article, Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice. That's What Little Girls are Made of. "Women need to be independently and unapologetically decisive in order to succeed in a man's world". If she cannot ask for what she wants, she is unlikely to get it.

Re-reading what I have written, I realize that much of this is not a one-time conversation but something that we should be sharing with our daughters if not daily, at least often. Maybe you tell her you love her and that she is the best daughter quite a bit but when was the last time you told her the importance of setting boundaries? When was the last time you suggested to her that considering new ideas and new people objectively and with an open mind is the better way? There is no better time than the present.

How Nils van der Poel (who?) will help your kids succeed

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 13:11:00 +0000

Nils van der Poel, after winning the gold in the 5,000 and then 10,000 meter speed skating events at the 2022 winter Olympics, released his manifesto on training, titled, "How to Skate a 10K". The PDF is about 60 pages long but the first 30 pages are where the meat of the philosophy behind his program can be found. Not too long a read and very well written.

"Cut out the sub-optimal, and increase the optimal."

This was the basic premise of Nils' training. It was this line that made me think about how it might be applicable to our kids and their own quests for college entry, employment, overall satisfaction with life. A college admissions counselor explained to me the challenge that he faced reviewing the wide variety of applications from well-deserving young men and women. Is the soccer player more qualified than the violin musician? Is it better to do many different things or just one or two more deeply? While the answers to these questions change depending on which school and even which counselor you speak to at that school, there is some value to depth rather than breadth. The counselor I was speaking to specifically mentioned that the discipline it takes to become really good at one thing is more impressive and possibly indicative of someone who is capable of taking on the new challenges of college life.

"...the main idea of my training program was that you will become good at whatever it is that you train."

Pretty simple stuff right? He even quotes one of my favorite mantras, KISS (keep it simple stupid). What are your kids spending their time on? My friend once asked me whether he should add "Cost Accounting" to his resume. I responded by asking him if he wanted a job doing cost accounting to which he promptly said, "hell no". Are our kids spending time training on things that they do not really wish to be good at? Test-taking instead of knowledge acquisition (there is a difference). The goal may still be there, college, career, etc. but there are many paths to success, and working on something that our sons and daughters will hope to continue with seems a more enjoyable and sensible approach.

While our kids are stressing and putting in the hours, sweat, and tears to please us, compete with their peers, live up to teacher expectations, and hopefully following their own dreams, the mental stress can be unbearable. The 5-2 training day approach by Nils offered mental relief in that his rest days (the 2) were never more than 5 days away. Are your high achiever children putting in 7 day weeks? Perhaps recognizing that a guy who went out on weekends drinking with his buddies and still knocked out not one but two Olympic gold medals with a world record as a nice little bonus. Perhaps a little break from Calculus on Saturday won't ruin her chances at getting into Stanford? These quotes, in particular, struck me as worth remembering

"...in order to be able to train at a high level I also needed a good social environment."
"When the training wasn’t going great, perhaps something else in life did and that cheered me up."

The final bit that I took away from Nils' document was about confidence. I have written many times about the importance of confidence in applications, interviews, and life. According to Nils, confidence comes from voluntary confrontation with challenge. He emphasizes "voluntary". Choosing to take on the challenge, working hard to surpass or achieve helps to build the mental strength to take on the next "hard thing" even if it is a different domain. This last quote was a hard one to read. I found myself looking back with some guilt and a little sadness remember the times when I took the more aggressive approach when my son or daughter just needed to hear "I believe in you".

"What I needed from my coach during the race was confidence. I told him prior to races what I wanted him to say to me as I skated. He said things like “You’re so good”, “looking strong”, “I believe in you” which made me feel more confident. He avoided saying things like “Come on, push it!” because it just made me feel as if I was not pushing it at the moment, which I of course was."

Thanks to Jeff at Inc. for his article was the one that first brought Nils to my attention: The article in Inc.

You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose...

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Sun, 06 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000

... but you can't pick your friend's nose. At least that is how the saying goes. As a parent, I sometimes think it should end with ...you can't pick your kid's friends.

I have spoken often about the impact we have on our kids as role models. Even when we think they are not paying attention, they are watching... always watching. The decisions we make, the way we respond to other people, the attitude we display about work, family, life, is all taken in by our super observant kids. In research done at Ohio State University, the observation habits and focus of 4-5 year old children were compared to adults. They concluded that adults focused their attention on specific things when learning a task or new subject while the kids were paying attention to everything! Can you recall your spouse yelling your name at you while watching TV and being surprised at why she was angry? Then adding to that surprise when she said she called you 5 times before you answered. Yet, your 4-year-old playing happily with her blocks in the living room will suddenly comment on the conversation you and your wife are having quietly nearby. I am getting a little off track here. My point is that our kids are listening and absorbing the good and the bad from us so we should endeavor to represent the good as often as possible.

One well-known father, Aristotle, had a son Nicomachus and a daughter Pythias. Perhaps we can assume he took a philosophical approach to child-rearing. He is quoted as saying, "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man." This idea is repeated in more modern studies that our kids develop the most between age 0 and age 7. It is not definitive though and not universally agreed upon. If you have teenagers in your house you have probably noticed that they are NOTHING like the sweet, wonderful angels they were at 7...

But, our kids are not living in a bubble. From 3 years old, the average child heads off to pre-school where a typical class size is about 15 kids. From that day onward, our kids are observing not just Mom and Dad but also Gottschalk, Guido, John, Rashn, Nazli, Keiko, Nándor, Azat, Sally, Kalju, Oihana, Rachna, Noah, Rahul*, and Ms. Janet (the teacher). Those 3 hours a day quickly jump to 7 hours from Kindergarten or first grade. Add additional time if your kids are taking the bus. These are prime time hours as well. Our kids are now seeing us rushing in the morning and then tired from work in the evening. The majority of interaction is happening with friends and teachers. What about the weekends you say? Sure, and that is great if you can make time for your kids after catching up on everything you put off to the weekend (laundry, lawnmowing, fixing the sink, grocery shopping, writing blog articles). As they get older, the question may be, can they make time for you? My son (college age) came into the kitchen just yesterday and said to my wife, "Long time no see." Both of them have been busy with work and had not seen each other for 2 or 3 days even though we all live in the same house.

Here is what we know:

Kids learn and develop through observing and responding to the actions and attitudes of the people around them.
They continue developing well into their teen years.
From age 3 onwards, they spend an increasing amount of time with people other than their parents.

Therefore:

Those "other people" have an increasing amount of influence on how our kids turn out.

Generally, your choice of schools and teachers for your kids will be limited to your level of income. The more money you have the more choices (private or boarding school). That is a subject for another article. I have been thinking more about my kid's friends recently. We know that employers like to see mature applicants with focus and energy. They want confident new employees who are willing to work hard and put in the time and effort to grow and learn on the job. Are your kid's friends helping or preventing your son or daughter from getting there? Should we really be choosing their friends for them? I am going to argue for "yes" here and suggest that the most powerful tool in your arsenal is the playdate.

A playdate happens somewhat like this:

Parent A: (calling on the phone or texting) Hey, would you like to have a playdate next Tuesday?

Parent B: Sure, let's do it at our place at 3pm after school.

Parent A: Perfect, see you then.

Parent A brings their child over to Parent B's and the two kids play happily for an hour or two while the parents drink whatever beverage they prefer and chat. Simple right? Yes, it is only for an hour or two but there is a carryover effect. The 2 kids, having had a chance to play and get to know each other better in a 1 on 1 situation, are now more likely to connect at school and play together at school thus increasing the amount of time they interact.

For kids up to middle school, you can make this work. It gets more complicated but still possible into high school. In the teen years, the kids need to be seen as an add-on to the outing. For example, going out to eat at a restaurant with your other parent friend and inviting your teen to tag along (the other parent doing the same). If the restaurant is one they like they may go for it. I have seen this work as well with activities such as go-carts, billiards, camping, shopping, and sporting events. The impact from the friend is lessened for older kids as their relationships at school have solidified somewhat but there is the added effect that your kids will interact and observe the parents more when sitting at the same table in a restaurant than the 5-year-olds will playing with legos at the house with their friend. As with just about everything that seems to matter in parenting, it will take effort, time, and probably money. Maybe step one is getting to know who your kid's friends are in the first place?

* Random preschool student names thanks to the Random Name Generator: https://www.behindthename.com/random/

How to prepare your 10 year old for his annual review

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Thu, 13 May 2021 14:39:00 +0000

Employee reviews are an annual event in most companies. My company is no different and every year on April 1st, we start the process. We use an approach to reviews that was inspired by the Headhunter Dad's Dad. Each employee, regardless of their role or seniority in the company, is asked the same 3 questions:

What did you do last year?
What will you do next year?
What can your manager do to help?

We have found that this allows us to have more open conversations with each individual about what they personally feel was their contribution. We had previously worked with a questionnaire asking the employee and their manager to rank various areas of their job. For example,

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest rating, how would you rate yourself when it comes to data management and reporting?

Any guesses on the average self-rating from employees? 4.8. Manager ratings tended to average a bit lower. The new approach with open-ended questions has worked well and while we have found it necessary to add a few hints about what to write, even our quietest people have become bolder throughout the process.

So much for the introduction, as I was saying, it is appraisal time now (one of the reasons HeadhunterDad articles have been sparse) and we are just finishing up with 23 of them. As I was writing my own feedback and comments last week for my team, it occurred to me that I was repeating myself again and again with the types of critical comments I made and likewise, had only a few praiseworthy points that were spread among the better performers. Apart from the sales results which are by necessity the biggest part of our reviews, the following came up for more than one employee.

On the positive side I was encouraging about knowledge of the job, flexibility about extending working hours and recognizing the demands of the job, being supportive or cooperative to the team, pace (urgency), maturity, confidence, consistency, energy, and eagerness to learn.

The negative comments were inevitably about being disorganized, narrow-minded thinking, lack of creativity (interesting that I did not praise others with having creativity though...), lack of confidence, coasting after a success, being unwilling to admit ignorance or own their mistakes, ignoring the basics, and not speaking out more often.

I am a strong proponent of "Now, Discover Your Strengths" by Don Clifton. He subscribes to the belief that we are better off focusing on our strengths rather than spending time on our weaknesses. In that same vein, I think we can help our kids more by showing them the way to impress their bosses at work through the positive points mentioned instead of always trying to avoid the negatives. Many employers are likely to overlook a small negative in light of a strong positive. Let's teach our kids to be confident. Help them to understand the value of learning and to develop an attitude of continuous improvement. To invest in whatever job they accept and give it their full effort. These are all attributes that can be learned early and the workplace will not be the only place they are appreciated.

The evolution of the HeadhunterDad

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 12:04:00 +0000

When this series of articles first began, back in 2010, I wrote an introduction titled "After You Teach Them How to Fish, You Must Teach Them How to Get a Job as a Fisherman" to explain a bit about why I started writing in the first place. Back then I was thinking of providing skills to my kids that would prove useful to their careers, like typing maybe or perhaps getting them started on programming at an early age. I made it clear that I was learning as I go having only been a parent for a short 9 years at the time.

As I wrote and learned as a parent, educator, and recruiter, my thinking evolved and shifted towards softer skills and how to help our kids acquire them. The following is an updated introduction to the theme of the HeadhunterDad.

These articles focus on what we as parents can do for our kids to help prepare them for the future of work. The goal (at least the first goal) is the help raise a young adult who is able to identify something that interests them and then position them to get that job when they graduate from college. It emphasizes an early start rather than waiting for our kids to reach college. It is silly to talk to your 5-year-old daughter about the differences between interviewing for the job of economic analyst at a major bank vs CPA at a big 4 accounting firm. However, the reality is that much of what employers look for in those interviews is learned by our kids well before they choose a major and often in elementary school or earlier!

When interviewing a new graduate, employers are often going with the presumption that these fresh young kids know nothing at all of any real value. The accounting students still need to pass the CPA, the marketing majors may be fetching coffee and making copies for the first 6 months and even computer science majors have been working within the academic bubble (with a few expectations). So if these companies are not looking for hard skills, what are they looking for?

Seeing through the eyes of my students as they apply for jobs each semester and dealing with hiring managers on a daily basis, I would say that 90% of hiring decisions involving new college graduates are based on:

Confidence
Problem Solving Skills
Grit (perseverance)
Communication Skills
Maturity
Courage
Integrity
Curiosity
Honesty

... just to name a few. I don't know about you but I cannot remember any classes with these titles in college. It is possible, that much of what these employers are evaluating in our kids is learned in the first 6 to 12 years of life when we parents had the responsibility of instilling the right attitude and lessons. Scary, right? You knew you were responsible but never realized how extensive that responsibility was. We really might be to blame for all our kid's failings as adults!

Being average is not failure, as long as you are on the right side of average.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 13:09:00 +0000

Back in March, I wrote an article suggesting that in the future, when jobs are scarce, being average would not be good enough. It was a great article (the author humbly informs his readers) but not so great that it could not have been challenged. Since nobody else is stepping up to the plate I thought that in the interest of providing a balanced viewpoint I would give my own rebuttal. Fortunately, I had some help and while looking through unpublished drafts of my article ideas I came across one titled "Being average is not failure." I stole the idea from Mark Manson's blog article back in 2015. He had written "In Defense of Being Average". For those of you who do not know Mark, he is also the author of the bestseller, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck".

In my previous article, I argued that it would become necessary for our kids to be the "best" at what they do in order to stay competitive. The opportunities for regular kids with regular skills and capabilities would end up competing with artificial intelligence and robots for some jobs and the millions of other regular people for the other ones. The sweet, high paying jobs would go to the elite at the far right of the bell curve.

Bell curves are a nice segue into the next part of my article where I present the counterargument or at least a partial counter. Mark uses a bell curve in his article to explain how almost everyone is average. In the curve shown here, anywhere from 68% to 95% could be considered average, more or less. He points out how unrealistic it is to expect to reach the top 0.1% of achievement or ability. I agree with this. He then goes on to say that it is OK to be average as long as you continue to strive to be better than average. I agree with this too!

That is the end of my agreeing with the counterargument. Now I am going to start shifting back towards my original premise. The bell curve Mark uses in his blog tends to lump everyone into only 3 categories; really bad, really good, and average. I like this curve better (found on an article about assessments and standards in school) and am borrowing it here (with attribution). Mark's approach only allows for a comparison with the 0.1% at either end and then everyone else in the middle being equally average. If we consider the future of work and that perhaps 50% (a random number) of jobs will disappear then being on the right side of average on the bell curve (the blue 34%) means you are still competitive. Our kids do not need to be in the top 0.1% of their vocation, just the top 50%.

While many of our kids will not be the next Zuckerberg or Jobs, by putting in the time and energy they can stay "ahead of the curve".

Stop saying no... sometimes

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 13:17:00 +0000

How much of what we stress about with our kids could be resolved by eliminating this two-letter word from our vocabulary? If I look back over the last 20 years of parenthood, the most stressful moments inevitably revolved around me telling one or both of my children to do something or alternatively to stop doing something. I am sure that my efforts were both effective and necessary in some cases. "Don't cross the road without looking both ways and waiting for the light." for example is something I did not want to leave for my kids to figure out through trial and error. But, along with the obvious life-saving restrictions were many MANY situations that were not clearly necessary. Did I need to tell my son to walk on the sidewalk instead of dancing along the edge and climbing on the low wall next to it? Was it soooo terrible that my daughter wanted to play in the sandbox even though it was soaking wet from the rain earlier that day?

My fear is that the denials and restrictions are affecting their personalities in ways that could have a negative impact on their futures. Attributes like creativity, confidence, curiosity might all be curtailed. If a child is told to stop every time they think of something new to do or try they will very quickly come to mistrust their own instincts. Acts that arise from creativity or curiosity and are promptly halted or worse, punished would no longer be viewed as "bad". Martin Seligman in his experiments in the '60s showed that dogs who were shocked right after a bell was rung started to react to the bell as though it were the shock itself. Repeated conditioning in this way will result in our kids being hesitant, self-doubting and passive.

Back when I was in high school, the HeadhunterDad's Mom was studying for her Masters in English Literature, and for one of her assignments, she was reading a book titled Last and First Men. She told me about how it followed the evolution of mankind from our current civilization to the distant future, more than two billion years from now. I tried reading it back then but could not get through it. I picked it up again a few years ago and was able to finish it. I remember one iteration of the evolution clearly and while horrifying, it also held a strange appeal that I grew to appreciate more having had teenagers of my own. In this version of humanity (some million (billion) years from now) the youth, upon reaching puberty, were expelled from the towns and cities where the children and adults lived. Lifespans were much longer by that time and adolescence could take decades to get through. During that tumultuous time, the crazed teens lived a violent and decadent life of excess. They formed tribes, mated randomly, waged war, and generally ran amok. With no parents or other authority figures present they could let loose all their hormonal-driven urges. Those who survived, eventually returned to the cities with a calm and maturity having outgrown the wild years and I guess, "got it all out of their system."

This may sound eminently reasonable from a societal perspective but I am sure the parents of the teens who do not come back from the wilds would disagree. So, we probably won't be seeing this Lord of the Flies scenario played out anytime soon but perhaps the idea is correct for a younger age group? Ones who are not quite big enough to hurt others with their experiments. Perhaps we can allow our toddlers and elementary school-age kids to live a bit freer than we are currently permitting. Let them experiment, explore their world, and learn to trust their own decisions.

Do what you love, better than anyone else, and the money will follow

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 13:18:00 +0000

The saying “Do what you love, the money will follow” (Marsha Sinetar) would be more accurate if it instead stated, “Do what you love, better than anyone else and the money will follow”. There are many artists living hand to mouth and only one Picasso. Economics (and common sense) explains that prices or salaries will rise when demand increases. Demand, for our purposes, of certain skills or abilities will always be linked to supply. If there are many candidates available in the market for a particular job (supply) and the number of open positions (demand) is low then the employer can offer a lower salary as they have several candidates to choose from. When there are fewer candidates than there are jobs, the salary will rise.

In brand and corporate strategy, there is another aspect that comes into play with supply and demand, barriers to entry. This term first coined by Bain and later brought to the mainstream by Porter refers to the difficulty face by new entrants/competitors to the market. As in corporate competition, the same applies in individual competition for jobs. The easier the job (or in some cases the easier the job is perceived to be by management) the more candidates will be considered suitable therefore a large supply and low salary.

USA Today printed a list of the 25 lowest paying jobs in the US. Careers in agriculture, baking (US$28K), beauticians, food service fill out the bottom of the list. However, also on the list are jobs like nursing (US$26K) which seems to me to be a bit unfair. Especially these days when nursing staff and health care professionals have been standing between us and the COVID virus. Of course, not all beauticians are created equal. The average beautician may only earn a relatively small salary because the overall supply of average beauticians is large. But the supply of "excellent" beauticians is decidedly smaller. Less supply = higher demand = higher price/salary.

There is value in all work but as we can see, there is not always a lot of money to be made if the role your son or daughter is interested in is one that is historically low paying. Do we tell our son that he should give up his dream of being a social worker and focus on becoming an architect (US$115K) or a dentist (US$97K)? I often tell my students that they will be working for a minimum of 40 years, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day so why choose something that doesn't excite you? The short answer? Our kids should not compromise if they do not have to. There are going to be many choices in their future and many times when they will have to choose the less desirable option due to family, money, life! Why force it so early in their career when there is still room to make mistakes?

I assume that most of you agree with me and want our kids to follow their dreams and pursue the careers that are most interesting for them. But, like me, I also assume that you want your kids to live a comfortable financial life as well. How can you have both when your daughter or son wants to be a baker?

This brings us back to the discussion of supply and demand and a simple solution. If the market salary for an average baker is too low then we need to prepare our kids to be above average. We owe it to our children to share the realities of life with them and prepare them to make an "educated" decision. We need to do more than just encourage them to follow their dreams and passions but also show them what is required in order for them to be successful in that career. Joël Robuchon, who started as a pastry chef, was estimated to be worth about US$16,000,000 at the time of his death in 2018. He invested the time and effort to build his career and grow. He did not stop at the first restaurant he worked for but continued to learn and push himself. This is the attitude that will set your child apart from the median.

Talk with your kids, encourage them to follow their dreams and to go for the career that excites them but also share what you know (and what you can discover) about the challenges they will face and the hardships they will need to overcome. Don't settle for average.

Confidence vs Optimism or... I think I can vs I hope I can?

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:12:00 +0000

I am very much a "glass half full" kind of guy. We can get into semantics about how it depends on whether you start with an empty glass and add water (filling it up so it is half full) or if you start with a full glass and pour out half (emptying it so it is half empty) but I still look at life's silver linings more often than not. I believe that being optimistic makes me a happier headhunter. I expect every candidate I introduce to get hired (even though I know that the statistics tell a different story). Apparently, it also makes me a healthier headhunter too. According to Harvard Medical School:

Research tells us that an optimistic outlook early in life can predict better health and a lower rate of death during follow-up periods of 15 to 40 years. Harvard Health Publishing

Being so darn bright and cheerful all the time got me to thinking about how to encourage my kids (and yours) to be optimistic as well. Then I thought, "Is there a difference between optimism and confidence and is it better for our kids to be confident or optimistic?" Is confidence when they think they "can" do something and optimism when they think they "might" be able to do it?

George, Charles and Noah (Merriam-Webster) define confidence as a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances. They define optimism as an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.

The definition of confidence sounds almost mathematical in its precision. There is a distance that your son has successfully jumped before so he knows that he can jump the same distance again.

While I think optimism is a good thing, the above definition carries with it an unfortunate hint of wishful thinking. Like the high school student who doesn't study for his exams but still thinks he might somehow get an A. The belief that good things will happen through no effort on our kid's part is not what we are striving for. I want to see my son anticipate the best possible outcome from his own actions.

"Things will work out" sounds more like optimism than confidence. Can your kids be confident and pessimistic at the same time? How about optimistic but not confident? My wife would say that she is not pessimistic but rather realistic.

Optimism allows our kids to view obstacles and problems as temporary. Pessimism brings about a "what's the point?" kind of attitude. We can take this a step further and imagine a confident young woman but with a pessimistic outlook. Even though she is sure of herself when it comes to her personal skills and knowledge, she hesitates to take on new challenges and opportunities.

I want my kids to have a sense that if there is the possibility of either a good outcome or a bad one, the good one will at least have an equal chance of coming true. Why start anything new or take any risks if the belief is always that it will not work out? The difference seems to be that with optimism there is a sense of external causality and with confidence, it is more focused on one's own internal capabilities.

I am going to go on record here and say that if you can only have one (both is best) then optimism will take you further than confidence. With optimism, even if you are not sure of your own capabilities, you might still be hopeful enough to try that new thing, say yes to the opportunity offered and apply for that job you are not 100% qualified for.

We have covered confidence several times in this newsletter but how do you raise optimistic kids? For those of you who have been regular readers of the Headhunter Dad you may not be surprised that "modeling" the right behavior is at the top of the list. If Mom and Dad are acting pessimistic and complaining all the time, guess what, the kids are going to do the same. Be positive and focus on what is going right in your life. At least around the kids. The second activity is actually the same as discussed in the article about building confidence. Encourage them to take on new challenges. They will fail sometimes (many times) but when they succeed, make a big deal about it. As they get older the successes will be stronger memories than the failures and help them to develop both confidence and optimism. Who knows, maybe some of this positive thinking will rub off on you too.

The Gamification of Parenting. Should we let them win?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 09:31:00 +0000

In a recent gin rummy match with my 12-year-old daughter, I totally dominated, winning 3 straight games in a row of our 5 game tourney. I am the master of gin rummy! We had bet on the game (chores not money) and she was grumpy after the 2nd loss and miserable after the 3rd and final loss. She went off to her room for the evening and I did not see her again until the next day.

OK, so then I felt bad. I didn't really rub it in when she lost and I was a good winner (I think). But when your kids are sad you want to do whatever it takes to cheer them up. This got me to thinking about whether the games we play with our kids will have an impact on their career prospects in the future. More precisely, not so much which games we play with them but rather how we approach that competition.

The science of confidence, as we have discussed several times in this newsletter, points to overcoming adversity and succeeding as the origin of self-esteem and self-confidence for our kids. If they try something and fail and never try it again, they will only remember failing. Apparently, it does not matter what the activity is as long as it requires some effort on the part of our kids. If it is easy or there is too much luck involved then it will have less of an impact on their psyche. Doing the hard things to get better and seeing that there is a reward for not giving up is what gives our children what they need to take on that next challenge, and the next and the next.

Following this train of thought as it applies to games, it does matter what the game is. Chess for example which is 100% skill (there are no dice and no luck of the draw) should work well. Beat the pants off your kids a couple times and as they learn more about the game and get better they eventually win and build confidence. A game like Candy Land which is based entirely on which card you draw is all about luck. Most kids will realize that they are not really contributing to the win. Age may matter here though. a 3-year-old playing a luck-based game may still feel good about themselves when they beat Mom or Dad while the 15-year-old knows that it is luck.

Age brings me back to the main point I want to resolve. Should I let my kids win and if so, should it be sometimes, occasionally, often? If you let a 3-year-old win they will not know that you did it. They may even develop some of that valuable confidence we are trying to instill. A 15-year-old on the other hand will at least suspect we let them win and I bet that it would have the oppositive impact from what we are trying to achieve. What if you continue to win to the point where your kids no longer want to play with you, do you force them to continue playing? If you let them quit are you missing a chance to teach them that if they keep trying they will eventually overcome?

As with most of my articles, I dove into the internet to see what others had to say about this and could not find a consensus. It seems like everyone has let their kids win at some point and everyone thinks it is OK to let kids win... except when you should not let them win. Maybe the Headhunter Wife is correct (as she usually is) and it is not a big deal either way and I am just overthinking it. What do you think?

It's never to late, probably...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 00:31:00 +0000

It is never too late to start something new. Granted, when talking about a career that needs to be taken in a more general sense. At the age of 50, the Yankees are not going to sign me to start as shortstop for them no matter how many hours I spend at the batting cage nor how enthusiastic I am about being a part of the team. However, I may be able to find a way into a sports-related job even though I have not done it before.

This phrase, "it is never too late" can be seductive though and I use seductive in the same way that Greek sirens were seductive. Ulysses met an island of sirens in the Odyssey where they tried to lure him and his men to shipwreck with their enchanting singing and beautiful voices. He escaped but the analogy holds true. If our kids follow the path of "least decision" they may find their careers shipwrecked.

Nevertheless, as our kids can expect longer and longer lives thanks to better diets, exercise, and medicine, there is time for multiple careers and late bloomers. Figuring out what they want to do is not something our kids necessarily need to be rushed into.

One of the biggest challenges our children face though is their own preconceptions. When our kids are 18, they think they are adults and there is no time for anything. How many college graduates do you think there are, who upon graduation, decide to go back to college for a completely new degree? Granted there is a cost but I warrant that most consider the additional 3 to 4 years more than they do the expense. When your daughter is 23, looking ahead to being 26, graduating (again) seems like it will be too late and too old. This is reinforced by all her friends who are graduating and getting into jobs now. Our kids are growing up in an environment where starting something new may be perceived as going backwards rather than what it actually represents, shifting to a new path.

Not all careers are created equal. My brother was able to start a successful career as a high school math teacher at the age of 35. However, there are also careers where youth is considered more strictly than others. The big management consulting firms like to hire young consultants and are rarely willing to bring in a 35 year old junior consultant without impossible to find expertise or some other consulting experience. Banking can be like that as well. The issue is actually less about the potential of our kids to deliver value to the company but rather existing stereotypes and outdated attitudes about age that still persist in many companies.

“It’s never too late to become who you want to be. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

As a parent, I hope that I will be able to instill in my kids the drive and willingness to go after the career they discover and crave no matter when they figure it out. Sure, it may be harder to make it happen when they are 30 instead of when they are 22 but it is amazing what motivation and passion can do. Do you think a 22 year old starting and staying in a career they took for lack of any other idea will have a more satisfying life than the 30 year old who quits to start over doing something she loves?

Sugar and spice and everything nice. That's what little girls are made of.

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 07:26:00 +0000

Raising a son and a daughter I can't help but see differences that I am tempted to believe are gender-related rather than environmental. Both of them were raised by the same parents in the same house so it has to be something else right? The younger one, the girl, is more studious, more obedient, more willing to give up something to make the other happy. The older one, the boy, is more focused on his own stuff, less thoughtful about others at times, and decidedly less studious... But I only have two kids. This ad-hoc experiment would be more decisive if we had two sets of fraternal twins with a boy and a girl as the older ones and another set of a boy and a girl for the younger. Maybe I would discover that the younger ones, both male and female, were more studious than the older ones. Or, maybe I would confirm my suspicion that girls are different.

My real concern is about my daughter's future. If there are differences (and I believe there are) then do we need to help our little girls to grow up in a different way from how we raise our boys. And, if so how? A quick search on Amazon came up with 6,000 results for "raising daughters". I am sure that the advice is all well researched and suitable for a dedicated parent. But I am a headhunter! I have very specific concerns. Will my daughter be competitive in the job market? Will she be promotion material in the corporate world? Will she love what she does for a living?

A few years ago I wrote an article about raising my daughter to be the next Carly Fiorina. It was a good article and helped me to see that, at least according to Carly, I could raise a girl to be aggressive, successful, happy, and proud of her accomplishments. But these days (my daughter was 7 when I wrote that article) it seems more likely that Carly was an outlier and that my daughter with her willingness to let someone else get ahead because they would be sad, is a problem. The other related article I wrote about being too nice addresses this issue very directly with the following quote:

"...if you let everyone cut in front of you on line then you will never reach the front."

The nursery rhyme* that gave me the title for this article is worrisome. Is it saying that girls are all "nice" or is the rhyme encouraging a stereotype for women that results in them all becoming "nice"? And what does that say about the boys with their snakes and snails and puppy dog tails!

I digress, let's focus on two questions. What, if anything, do girls need to do/say/act differently to succeed in their careers and how as parents do we prepare them for it? The various studies and opinions floating around identify several possible... "weaknesses"? I hate to use this word for what is in almost any other situation a virtue but the reality is that in corporate life where men and their ways are still the norm, weakness is the most apt term. I had planned to list a few but reading through the literature there was an obvious theme to all the points. Women need to be independently and unapologetically decisive in order to succeed in a man's world**. In other words, they can't admit mistakes, they need to skip the consensus and push their own opinions and look out for their own advancement. That sounds more like snakes and snails than sugar and spice to me.

What can we do to help our daughters to grow up to be independently and unapologetically decisive? To start, self-esteem we covered in Dads, Daughters and Self-esteem. Re-read it if you need a refresher. Basically Dad's need to be more involved with their daughters and supportive of their interests and activities. How about decisive? Seems like that would be related to confidence as well. If your daughter is unsure of herself she is more like to second guess herself. Try encouraging and supporting your daughter's ideas, no matter how silly. When she makes a decision, accept it and act on it. If it does not work out then give her a chance to make another decision. Learning that the downside of a bad decision is not the end of the world is what will give her the confidence to speak her mind in the future. Add to this exercise a message on apologies. I like the phrase, "Don't apologize, fix it." Teach our girls to focus on the future rather than dwelling on what has already happened. Being nice and apologizing may help our daughters to get along with their co-workers but moving past their mistakes will help them get ahead.

*This catchy nursery rhyme is most commonly attributed to Robert Southey (1774–1843)

** Arguably and not addressed in this article is the genuine possibility that our daughters can be successful and happy in their careers without competing with the boys on the boy's playing field. Grist for another Headhunter Dad article?

The attribute every candidate needs but no company requires.

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 22:46:00 +0000

While the title of this article is not entirely accurate, statistically it is mostly correct. In a search on Monster.com, one of the top global job boards, there are 16,106 jobs with the word for this attribute in the job description. In contrast, a search for communication comes up with 968,170 jobs (an almost 6,000% difference!!!). Even coffee has twice as many results with 34, 585. Francesca Gino in her HBR article on the subject states that managers are more likely to stifle this attribute than to encourage it. This is despite common assertions (backed up by various studies) that employees with this characteristic are better problem solvers, more engaged in their work, and overall more successful in their careers.

Why is such an important quality ignored by the majority of organizations when there are such obvious benefits. Perhaps the following quote by Albert Einstein gives us a clue:

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

What manager wants an employee who is constantly questioning why they have to do something or do it in a certain way. Most businesses have set processes and procedures and simply need an automaton to complete the task the way they have been told. Even firms who publicly seek "problem-solvers" are not looking for people to discover new ways of doing things. They just want them to deal with issues that come up so that they can quickly get back to their routine jobs.

In a 2017 article in the Atlantic, curiosity is an indicator for future academic success. The author points out that it seems to be linked to happiness and satisfaction in relationships as well. From an academic standpoint, curiosity is being compared to IQ in its ability to predict success in school. It is interesting to consider though how very little curiosity is actually "required" to achieve that success. Our kids do not need to wonder at how a caterpillar can transform into a butterfly, they just need to be able to select "metamorphosis" as the right vocabulary word from the four options on the multiple-choice test. Our education system, at least in most schools, from elementary up through undergraduate is based on regurgitating facts and ideas that are considered "correct".

So while it is not specifically necessary for our kids to be curious in order to do well in school and life it is most definitely a plus. We all want our kids to be happy and that makes it worth the effort to encourage curiosity in our children.

When I started researching how to instill curiosity in my kids it was perhaps not terribly surprising that "positive reinforcement" came up as the first suggestion. One of my favorite books growing up was "Why are there more questions than answers Grandpa?" (out of print and $795 on Amazon!) by Kenneth Mahood. In the book, a young boy drives his Grandfather crazy with endless questions like, "Would hitting a nail on the head give it a headache?" or "Can my funny bone tell jokes?" Finally, the old man sends his grandson to clean the attic where he finds a book to answer all his questions. Much hullabaloo ensues and our young hero succeeds in turning the tables and the book ends with Grandpa asking all the questions. The grandfather in this book is an excellent example of how NOT to encourage curiosity. If asking questions is viewed by our kids as a bad thing they will stop asking and eventually stop wondering.

The other approach for raising curious kids is one you will recognize from many of my previous articles, role modeling. Kids mimic us and learn what is acceptable early on by watching what we do and how we act. If we ask questions, take the time to satisfy our curiosity, show enthusiasm about learning new things, then our kids will likely follow our lead. Make an effort to verbalize your queries so that our kids see and hear what we are thinking. Rather than doing a quick search on google quietly to find an answer to your question, wonder out loud about it and maybe even ask your 3 year old what they think about it!

“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

How much are you going to pay me?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 10:12:00 +0000

Teaching our kids about money is something that can start at a very early age. Yes, perhaps the end of cash will happen in our lifetime. Maybe our kids will see a day in the (near) future when they don't need a wallet anymore. I imagine my grandchildren someday asking me, "Grandpa, what's a penny?" But, even as how we pay changes from coins to cards to bytes, I doubt that we will return to a barter system anytime soon. So, the idea of money and how our kids handle it is going to be important.

In my previous article about marshmallows, we learned that money, and saving for something can help our kids learn about delayed gratification (which is a good thing). Kids and later adults who have learned to put off a small reward now in exchange for a larger reward later are more likely to advance in their careers and in some studies were shown to be just plain happier. Keep in mind that this does not work if there is always enough money available to get what they want without having to save and wait. We all want to give our kids everything but tightening the purse strings can make for a better lesson.

In addition to the discipline our kids can learn from saving, there are more practical reasons to start them early with a few bitcoins of their own. With their own money, they will need to understand budgeting (spending less than they earn). Having money of their own makes any discussion (lecture) about investment just a bit more interesting. It is not so hard to make up easy to understand examples to explain interest and compounding returns. "What if you could put that dollar under your mattress and when you take it out the next day instead of 1 dollar there were 2 dollars?" With an understanding of what a "dollar" (or yen or rupee or peso...) is our kids can start to see what the costs are for basic things they have lived with their whole lives. You might be surprised at how little even the teenagers in your house know about actual costs. I recall a Mother at my son's school talking about her older daughter. She had recently returned home for the first time since heading off to college. The daughter, with a dismayed look on her face, came up to her Mom and shared a discovery she had made living on her own, "Mom! You would not believe how much toilet paper costs! Who knew?" The Mom rolled her eyes and responded with, "Who do you think has been stocking our bathroom your whole life?"

This preamble leads to my real question. Should I pay a weekly/monthly allowance or is a pay-per-job approach better? I am leaning towards the pay-per-job option. A regular allowance seems like it could be quickly perceived as an entitlement. Even if we assign tasks that need to be completed to "earn" the allowance, I can imagine that 1) the money will not be enough of an incentive to do the work or 2) We will end up paying anyway even when the work is not done. This would create a bad precedent. The downside of the pay-per-job approach is there are chores that I think should be "part of the family" jobs like keeping their room clean or clearing the table after dinner. If a culture of "How much are you going to pay me to do that?" develops we are again, not building positive habits. I remain undecided...

Wait for it...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 10:47:00 +0000

I love the "Second Marshmallow" test. My wife and I have been annoying our 2 kids with it for the last 19 years. Whenever one of them starts whining about wanting something immediately we will respond with "wait for the 2nd marshmallow". The first time we say it, we have to then explain what we mean by it. By the hundredth time, they don't care and are just exasperated with us. But my wife and I still get a kick out of it.

What is the "Second Marshmallow" test you ask? Well, back in 1972 a psychologist at Stanford University decided to run an experiment. 16 boys and 16 girls aged between 3 and 5 years old were invited to participate. Each child was led into a room and seated at a table. A marshmallow was then placed in front of them at the table. The child was told that they could eat the marshmallow now if they wished. However, if they waited for 15 minutes without eating it, they would then get not only the original marshmallow but 1 additional marshmallow!

The researchers were trying to determine when we learn control. How old are we when we can decide to delay instant gratification for a bigger reward later? I am not going to get into the results of the initial experiment. For this article, the follow-up studies and findings are much more interesting. Angela Duckworth summed it up nicely in the following quote:

"Children who had been able to wait for fifteen minutes for their treat had SAT scores that were on average, 210 points higher than those children who had rung the bell after thirty seconds."

But, the findings were not limited to SAT scores, 20 yeas later, the adults who had shown the ability to wait had "lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents..." ¹

If we know that kids that can delay gratification generally go further, how do we train that in our babies? Seriously, if our kids can grow into adults who can consider two job offers and then take the one that offers long-term growth over the one with the big upfront salary won't that be a good thing?

One suggestion I read was to hide temptation. While I can understand that it is easier to delay gratification when the item of desire is out of sight, I am not convinced that it teaches our kids control. The idea of control is to manage their desire when the temptation is right there! But... maybe there is a way to take advantage of the "out of sight, out of mind" function of our kid's brains. Teaching our kids the tools for self-distraction might be useful. When patience is required, talk about how you often come up with fun things to do to pass the time (role modeling is more effective than preaching). "When I have to wait, sometimes I sing a song to pass the time. Shall we sing one together?" Feel free to plug in whatever age-appropriate distraction you think is suitable.

If you have read my other articles you know that I am not completely opposed to bribery. Rewards can have some impact here as well. When our kids show that they can wait, or exhibit other aspects of self-control, reward it. Ideally, rewarding them as a surprise rather than promising them something upfront. Positive reinforcement generally works well to create habits.

Money, yes money can help to teach control. Giving your child an allowance or the opportunity to earn money from chores then opens up the chance for you to teach them about saving. I like to get kids started with a bank account early on rather than the piggy bank but for these purposes either should work. Saving is inherently about delayed gratification. If your daughter keeps putting pennies into her bank she will eventually have more pennies and can buy something bigger. This approach aligns nicely with the challenge above of visible temptation. Most things your kids will need money to buy will not be sitting around the house and in sight all the time.

Finally, don't let your son see you eating that cupcake at 3pm. Contradictions with what you do and what you see will erase all credibility. Maybe this will help us to learn some self-control as well!

¹ 40 Years of Stanford Research Found That People With This One Quality Are More Likely to Succeed

Grades matter... except when they don't.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 01:28:00 +0000

I recently finished reading the story of Barbara Corcoran. She famously relates her tale of going from being a D student to owning and running a billion-dollar business rubbing elbows with Donald Trump in the real estate market in NYC. She is not the only one, Simon Cowell of American Idol fame did horribly in school. Further back, Winston Churchill while capable in English was a flop when it came to math and science. OK, so there seem to be some similarities with the above examples, all sales and presentation types, not a lot of scientists showing up here. How about Einstein, Darwin, Faraday, Bell, even Edison? Look it up, they all had problems in school with their studies and grades yet somehow came out on top.

I remember attending a presentation during my MBA reunion a few years ago. The speaker was the former Head of R&D for Honda back when Honda was just getting started in the 1970s. He was retired and a regularly speaker about innovation. His talk at my reunion was no different. While the advice he gave and insights on how to develop new products and "think outside the box" were interesting, the one part of his talk that stuck with me for the last 10 years is what he said about grades and elite college graduates.

He explained that in the 70's, Honda was not well known and they struggled to hire people. Many times they had to take candidates from the mid-tier or lower colleges. Often hiring "C" students. However, he went on, at this time Honda was at it's most innovative. More ideas, more patents, more growth. As Honda grew and gained fame they were able to hire from the best schools and stopped considering the "C" students. What he found over the years was that the elite "A" students were excellent managers but terrible innovators. He explained that the discipline and tunnel vision required to learn and produce the "right answer" all the time in school, either reinforced a pre-existing lack of creativity or outright taught the students to think inside the box. He theorized that the "C" students were more creative because they had more rounded lives growing up. Rather than spending all day, every day studying, they were reading comics and playing baseball and doing stupid things with their friends. All activities that later on gave them a wider range of experiences to draw on when solving problems.

So, when do our kids really need to share their grades anyway? Maybe twice in their lives? Sure, our kids need to maintain a certain level in order to stay in school and not get kicked out but if they can just get by, when else does it matter? College for one, if our kids want to be accepted into a selective college the first criteria they look at will be their high school GPA. After college, maybe the company they apply to will want to see their college grades. There was a convenient survey done in 2007 and reported in the New York Times claiming that 66% of employers ask for GPA and more than half of them would not consider a candidate with a GPA under 3.0. It would seem, that without decent grades our kids cannot get into college and will not get a good job...

Not necessarily. Can you guess what these colleges have in common? Bismarck State College, Boston Architectural College, City University of Seattle, CUNY–College of Staten Island, and Dixie State University? All of them have a 100% acceptance rate for rising freshman. And if you did the math above for companies checking GPAs for incoming graduates you would realize that while 66% of employers do ask for a GPA, 60%* of all employers either do not care about GPA or are OK to consider relatively lower GPA scores below a 3.0 (generally a B). So, yes, our kids can get into college with poor grades and yes, they can get a job with poor grades after college. But that does not mean they are going to be the next Barbara Corcoran or Simon Cowell. What did Winston and Charles and Alexander do that set them apart?

Barbara claims to have had 25 jobs including teacher and waitress before getting started in real estate. Simon started in the mail room, was broke by age 32 and had to move back in with his parents. Churchill led a disastrous campaign while in the military during WWI and was summarily demoted! The more I read the more examples like this come up. Every success story with a struggling start has at least one example of failure early on.

What is the common theme? Perhaps Edison states it best:

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

*Please check my math! 100% minus 58% of 66% equals about 60%

The HeadhunterDad, AKA Lawrence Kieffer, is a professor of career studies at Temple University, Japan campus, the COO for Fidel Consulting an APAC Recruiting and Staffing firm focused on IT professionals, a devoted husband, and father of two amazing kids. Follow on Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook.

If you force your kid to do something over and over again does it become a habit?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 07:46:00 +0000

Growing up I remember being told that it takes a month to form a habit and a day to break it. My assumption is that we are talking about difficult habits, like getting up an hour early every morning to exercise. The easy to manage habits are probably learned quicker and take longer to forget. More recently I came across this study from University College London where they discovered a much broader range, 18 to 254 days to create a habit.

Given free rein, our kids will develop all sorts of habits. Some may end up being beneficial but a whole bunch will be bad. Michigan Medicine has a great list. Try reading these imaging your kids continuing these into adulthood!

Thumb sucking
Head banging (?!?)
Teeth grinding
Nail biting
Nose picking
Hair twirling
Masturbation...
Breath holding

There are some good points in the Michigan post about how to deal with bad habits but I want to know about good habits. Specifically, are we doing the right thing as parents by strictly enforcing the traits we deem to be positive? I know from personal experience that compelled repetition can work. The HeadhunterDad's Mom would not move our car until she confirmed that every single person had a seatbelt on. Today, I don't even think about it; sit, buckle, go. It feels strange to be in a car now without the seatbelt fastened.

There are many habits that will make a difference to our kid's careers if we can instill them early on. At the very least, these will help our kids to stay competitive with their peers in school and in their jobs.

Politeness (say please and thank you)
Be responsible about money
Play to win
Don't put things off
Eat healthy, get plenty of sleep
Take criticism well
Be a problem solver, not a criticizer
Ask questions
Be organized

To answer the question posed in the title of this article, yes, forcing our kids to do something will help them to develop that action as a habit. That is a good thing. The negative is not in the habit but rather in how we enforce the repetition. I found several articles and reports on how the military-style of parenting can be detrimental but this one, in particular, seemed to bring it all together in one place. Issues such as bullying, anger, depression, rebellion, and lying are all potential side effects of taking too harsh an approach to the kids. While anger and lying are bad, one additional consequence stood out to me, the lack of development of self-discipline. If our kids only ever have to do something when we tell them then they never learn to manage themselves.

Never fear, there are alternatives. I am only going to focus on two, most of the other methods seem to be a derivative of these. Bribery is one I have a love/hate relationship with. It works, paying for the desired action is a tried and true resource for parents. Think about why you are sitting at your desk today and honestly tell me if you would still be there if you were not getting paid. But there is a darker side that may have you dealing with a ruthless toddler who insists he gets paid for every little thing. Use sparingly.

Better and more adaptable is role modeling. If you want your kids to be comfortable asking questions then ask questions yourself and make an effort to be patient and responsive when they are brave enough to ask something of you (no matter how ridiculous the question). Role modeling combined with making your kids perform the desired activity helps to take away the sting of being ordered around (which nobody likes). "If Mommy is doing it too then I guess I can do it." The seatbelt example I mentioned falls under this category, my Mom always had her seatbelt on before she turned around to check on the rest of us. Focusing a bit more on practicing what your preach will have a more positive impact than the much more popular "Do what I say, not what I do." We may all develop better habits ourselves in the process.

I want to be a teacher when I grow up

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 11:25:00 +0000

A few years back I researched the career path and wrote an article about what it takes to become a Film Director. This was for a friend whose son was interested in this field. The son has since entered college for... economics. Perhaps the subject of this article will be more prophetic.

This is the second of several case studies (in planning) detailing the game plans for a variety of jobs. By working backwards from the goal (to get a job) we can come up with an outline of what the ideal next 10 years look like. As a parent, we can can then guide our children towards successful and fulfilling careers! Not all jobs require advanced planning but many benefit from a little foresight. Colleges and employers tend to like it when a student or applicant can show that they have been interested in something for more than the 10 minutes it took to look at the list of majors or want ads.

So I asked my 10 year old the other day what he might like to do when he is older besides professional soccer player. He responded that perhaps a teacher would be good, specifically a grade school teacher. For those of you who are wondering, teacher comes in regularly in the top 5 for jobs as chosen by elementary school students. The other common ones are: President, dentist, astronaut, athlete, military, farmer, pilot, doctor, policeman and fireman. If you have not figured it out already, each of the jobs are ones that a typical elementary school child either comes in contact with or finds easy to understand.

Now teaching often gets a bad rap for being low paid. Some studies have pointed to the hourly rate for a grade school teacher (including after hours grading and preparation) to be below minimum wage.

This blog on teaching lists the pros as: bonding with students, summer vacations and holidays, connecting with other teachers and staff, and always learning and continuing to grow. To this I would add that there seems to be less of an age ceiling in teaching than in some other positions I have seen. The cons mentioned are: trying and failing to help difficult students, salary, lack of support from administration, continuous professional development requirements.

With the negatives of long hours, often low pay there are indications that demand will increase. Even with technology and robo-teachers there will be demand for instruction and humans who can help other humans to learn will be needed. Some publications put the annual growth in teaching jobs at 5% while this article claims that there is already a shortage.

After much digging, I learned that the path to a teaching job varies depending on where you want to end up. Elementary school is different from High School (where math and science are in demand) and a HS career plan is different from a college professor. I did not look into private tutors or other kinds or educators this time.

In my son's case and for the purposes of this case study, we are going to assume that he will become an Elementary School Teacher for 3rd graders (not specialized in an area such as math or biology, a generalist) working for an international school in Tokyo, Japan.

To be a teacher (just about anywhere in the world) your child will need a bachelor's degree, ideally in education at a liberal arts college. I found mixed opinions on whether the school matters but three themes seemed to be common among discussions about this issue. First, if your child graduates from a top school then yes, he will stand out when competing with candidates from other lesser know colleges. Second, GPA matters. If a future teacher does not care enough about education to focus on their own grades, how will they deal with the kids? And third, location, location, location. An elementary school will look favorably on the graduate from the college down the street.

Later on a Master's Degree may add a few percentage points to the salary but is not necessary for that first job. A certification may be required however depending on the location. Most states in the US require one.

Based only on the requirements above, instilling some discipline and awareness of the importance of a good GPA seems like a good move for a parent. With admissions officers considering kids from all over the world these days adding a second language as well will keep your child in the competition. In my son's example especially since we are talking about teaching at an international school. Learning a second language well enough to brag about it on a college application requires an early start.

The typical extracurricular activities and volunteer experiences in middle school and high school can be aligned with teaching by focusing on interactions with smaller kids. A part-time job as a tutor in HS might convince even a skeptical admissions counselor that your child is committed to becoming a teacher.

Connections can help and while they can be built in college it does not hurt to start earlier. Teachers and school administration professionals network and talk. If you (the parent) have teachers as friends, bring your kids along to meet them and give them a chance to connect. It will serve not only to build a future network for your child but likely your kid will also learn something about their future profession.

While writing this I could not help going back to the pay issue and began to think that maybe more important than learning how to teach for a future teacher is to learn how to manage one's finances. Teaching does usually come with benefits such as health and occasionally pension. There are the summer vacations and other holidays as well. Start young with savings. When Grandma gives your daughter some money for her birthday explain that she can use half for anything she wants but that the other half will go into her bank account. It is still hers but "saving means not spending." As the kids get older you can bring up stocks and bonds and mutual funds and bitcoin and how these things can potentially make that savings grow. If your child can manage his money well, he can hopefully enjoy some of the perks. Maybe good advice for all of us.

Your kids don't need to know what they will be doing 40 years from now, just what they want to do now.

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 02:36:00 +0000

What do you want to do today?

In the class I teach at Temple University we usually wrap up the semester with career planning. There is an exercise we do where the students are asked to come up with a snapshot of their dream life when they are in their 60s. There are many who say they will be retired having achieved their dreams and saved enough to live comfortably. Another large group says that they are CEOs of their own companies. One even said he would be living on Mars. Once we establish the details of their life way out into the future we work our way backwards a decade at a time staying consistent with the future vision. We end up at present day with the students at their desks and the final question is, "What should you do now?" The purpose of the exercise is to show the students that "impossible" dreams are achievable and that the first small step towards that future can begin today.

But if you kids are 7 or 12 or even 19, do they have to plan that far ahead for today to be important? Can they skip all the future decades and go straight to, "What should you do now?" How different is their vision of 40 years in the future going to be from their hopes and dreams about right now? Wouldn't what they want to do now, effect what they are going think they want to do in the future? Your ballet dancer is going to want to be a ballet dancer in the future and want to do ballet today. Your soccer player likewise is going to be the same.

Perhaps we are expecting too much of our kids. We push them to figure out their future with the belief that it is necessary to give them an edge in the increasingly competitive job market they are going to have to navigate. I certainly believe(d) that having goals and focus makes our kids more attractive to employers. However, recently I have begun to think that the planning and discipline that is required to chase after a difficult future is not the selling point I thought it was. The passion that shows through in an interview when our kids talk about their current interests (assuming they are related to the job at hand) are much more attractive to interviewers.

OK, if I ask my son what he wants to do while he is watching TV, he is going to say, "watch TV". While there are plenty of TV-related careers, nobody gets paid only to watch. There are a few kids out there that might say “I want to bake a cake.” rather than “I want to eat a cake.” but my guess is that they are in the minority. If your child is (like most) focused more on consumption than production when you speak to them, you may have to tweak the question a little bit, but it can still be about the present rather than the future. Since all jobs/careers are designed around production of some sort, ask, "What do you want to make (or create, or discover, etc) today?"

The great thing about kids, especially the smaller ones, is that if you ask this question every day for a week, you will get 7 different answers. How fantastic is that!? 7 career options. With that kind of inventory you can then follow the Headhunter Dad's Dad's advice and consider all the things your kid is interested in and choose the one that he can make a living at.

Can you imagine if your own career was currently built around what you chose to do freely as a kid?

The most valuable career skill in the future starts with an H

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 03:01:00 +0000

The world is changing. The job market will change with it. Our kids are growing up in an increasingly competitive world. Many jobs that require only average skill will be replaced by machines and computers and the remaining mid-level careers will be fought over by the ever growing global population of college graduates.

From 2010 to 2019, the percentage of people age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher jumped from 29.9% to 36.0%.

If there are 10 positions for accountants in the market and 50 kids applying for those jobs how will the hiring manager decide? Average will not cut it, why higher a weaker candidate when you can afford to take the best of the bunch. Our kids will need to be better than average to make the cut.

"No problem!" you say? Yeah, me too. I think my kids are awesome but there is a problem. Even if they get that accounting job, there is a more dismal fate awaiting them. The day that their position is replaced with an AI calculator and the company no longer needs a human accountant. All the time and study preparing to be an accountant and now nobody wants one. There is only one thing they can do at this point...

Hustle!

Hustle is technically a verb but in reality, it is the attitude that counts. Are your kids ready to hustle to find a way they can continue to add value? Can they think outside the box and re-make themselves. Other phrases that convey the same or similar thinking are, land on your feet, never give up, quick on your feet, maemuki (Japanese), grit.

The Cambridge English Dictionary apparently does not agree with my own personal definition of hustle. I always thought of it in a positive way, using creative or alternative approaches to succeed. I can remember my own father saying things like "You gotta hustle!" referring to school or applying for jobs. Maybe it was misused but it made sense and stuck with me. Mr. (Ms.?) Cambridge defines it as:

to make someone move quickly by pushing or pulling them along
to try to persuade someone, especially to buy something, often illegally
energetic action
a dishonest way of making money

I like my definition better. Mostly because it would not work with this article if I use the Cambridge meaning!

It is not all bad news though. We as parents can actually endow our kids with this critical attitude. Last week's article about resilience discusses similar themes. If you unbundle the idea of hustle you get creativity, resilience, energetic, motivated or driven and maybe a little bit devious. A Forbes article, albeit about entrepreneurs, gives the following advice on how to develop hustle:

Create a Compelling Vision
Don’t be Afraid to Fail
Keep trying

I am not sure how relevant it is to ask your 12 year old to write down his vision. It seems like it might be a little much. However the idea is to teach them to keep their eyes on the prize. The accountant job is not the goal, to have a financially rewarding and emotionally satisfying career is the goal. If that is clear then losing the accounting job is just a bump in the road rather than a brick wall. When you kids are working on something whether it is a new lego set or a school project try asking them what they are doing and see if they can see a step or two beyond the immediate activity and see the bigger picture.

2 and 3, are about the same thing. resilience and confidence. Give your kids chances to try and fail and try again and succeed. That is it, nothing complicated. Make them keep trying till they get it and they will learn that they have what it takes to succeed.

The only constant in this new world our kids are entering is that adaptability, just like it was for our caveman ancestors, will continue to be the most important attribute for survival (success). They gotta hustle!

What happens AFTER the test is more important than what your kid scores ON the test

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 14:01:00 +0000

The alternate title for this article was "Why a B is better than an A". Even though the one chosen is longer and therefore statistically not as marketable, I figured it told the story better.

My daughter recently came home with an 86 on her science test (gasp!). She studied for it and at least from my point of view she seemed to make a legitimate effort at preparing. She was disappointed that her grade was not an A but there were no tears and she was confident that she would do better next time. I am satisfied and think she did well. Of course, I want her to strive for excellence but not to the point where it causes an ulcer.

Why is her 86% better than getting a 96% on the test? Blasphemy you say? Sure, higher grades are generally better but allow me to explain. There are two key lessons learned from a less than stellar performance on a test.

The first is that just because her teacher said, "OK, pencils down class." does not mean that the test is actually finished. Did your daughter talk to the teacher? What did she get wrong? Can she ask for extra credit? Did she explain to the teacher that she only needs a B+ to bring her GPA up to an A and this class is the only one where it is questionable. Did your daughter mention to her teacher that this particular class is her favorite? One thing that our kids need to learn is that you can negotiate almost anything. School policy shmolicy, we are all human and susceptible to all that comes with our humanity (like guilt, sympathy, vanity, compassion...). Even teachers! Let them learn early that they do not have to meekly accept all that life throws at them.

The second point is a bit more serious. There seems to be a pandemic running amok through schools now (apart from COVID). This one is causing strong young men and women to avoid taking risks for fear of failure, increasing anxiety, and producing an unwillingness to make decisions without peer support or authoritative guidance. This article from Psychology Today, while from a few years ago, is an early indication of what we see today. Resilience is on decline.

This ability to bounce back is a better trait to have than good study habits. In the world beyond academia, grades are rare and life is mostly pass or fail. When was the last time your boss handed you back a report you had written and said, "I'd give this about a 76%. It is passing but not by much." While there may be a few managers like this, most of work-life is either pass or fall. Did you get the sale or did you not get the sale? It doesn't matter that you prepared all week and did a great presentation hitting all the key points for the client. Did you get the sale or did you not get the sale?

The resiliency to bounce back and learn something from a bad grade is a trait much more valuable in the workplace than knowing all the answers. Because, many (most?) times in life, the right answer is not clear. Recovering and moving quickly towards another solution is critical for success in business. So embrace that 86% and teach your kids that it is OK to get a B (occasionally).

Silver Linings - Making the most out of Distance Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Lawrence) — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 11:31:00 +0000

Monday, August 25th, my daughter returned to school. She went for two days and then was home again for two days. This is the hybrid model her school has adopted to reduce student density on campus. She has multiple masks in her backpack as P.E. and Choir both need to have a different mask. The hand washing culture has reached almost cult levels of indoctrination and

COVID-19 is a horrible disease. Even those who recover can still have symptoms for months afterwards. The economic repercussions are likely to be felt for years to come. But I am an optimist. I believe that we will invent a vaccine and that things will go back to normal. And, to quote my most intelligent brother who studied in China, “The characters for CRISIS also mean OPPORTUNITY.” With all the changes we are dealing with as a family, there are certainly opportunities to help our kids and their future careers.

First I want to share a few observations of things that happened without any planning on my part. Benefits that may not have come about if it were not for our forced changes in work/life habits.

The Headhuter Dad’s wife is a disciplined women with a strong sense of obligation. She is working from home now due to COVID and she is on conference calls throughout the day with her colleagues. She communicates in both English and Japanese depending on the call. There is an aura of competence you can almost see when she is at work. For our daughter, I am very happy that she has a chance to see what a confident and successful woman looks like. She gets to hear how she interacts with adults in a work environment that would not normally be visible to her. Sure, my daughter probably wishes mommy would get off the phone and play Uno with her but that is what the weekends are for.

My son who is now into his 2nd year of college is also home and studying online for the 2nd semester in a row. He loves not having to get up early to ride the train to classes but certainly misses spending time with his friends. I think that the enforced idleness and continuation of life at home for him has been a bit of a spur to get him thinking more about work and careers. If for no other reason than to find a way to get out of the house and away from is overbearing parents!

Both children have had to learn how to communicate through video calls which even without COVID was becoming more common with global businesses. Sure they were at ease with electronics before this. I think that if I slipped their phones into their hands while sleeping they would both immediately start texting. But texting, even with the occasional selfie still has a feel of anonymity to it whereas a video call is really “in your face”. Video call presence is definitely a useful skill for interviews and business communication afterwards. I see it being used throughout all aspects of my day job as a recruiter.

Here are a few other ideas for what else can we do in the midst of global changes and quarantines to help our kids prepare for the future:

If your child’s school is not teaching classes online you can still give them a chance to practice their video presence. Set up a call with Grandma and let your son lead the call. Host a family dinner with another school family and force your kids to stay on camera and actually talk!
Practice your listening skills with your kids. Since you are bound to be thrown together more often now since you cannot go out, stop talking and be open to what they bring up (see the relevant HHD article here).
Watch a movie together. What? "How is that going to help my kid and his career?" It will require some input from you either during or perhaps better after the movie but take the opportunity to share what you know about the different jobs people are doing in the movie. A lot (all?) of kids have no idea what it means to be a stock broker, doctor, plumber. The only career they see day in and day out with any detail is teacher!
Get more involved in the classes and work your kids are doing in school. Grades do matter. If we are more actively supportive about what they are learning perhaps our kids will take a more focused interest in their studies. Time and energy are certainly components of learning but motivation ranks right up there. If our interest in our kids and what they are doing helps them to become even a little more motivated it can translate into real world results, maybe an A instead of a B.

Lastly, and I know that this one isn’t particularly related to careers and jobs for my kids, we have had the opportunity to spend more time together as a family in the last 6 months than in the last 6 years. That has to count for something.