Career Coaching

Who Says It’s a Man’s World

Posted on by Seniye Groff

With a byline of “The Girls’ Guide to Corporate Domination” how could you not be interested in “Who Says it’s a Man’s World”? Emily Bennington has written an intriguing book full of advice, tools and action-oriented mantras for women trying to find their place in the workplace. The book is divided into six sections: self-awareness, social skills, personal effectiveness, team development, leadership and toolbox. Each section begins with a core principle, bulleted-list of what you will learn and a quotation of, “What your coworkers are thinking”. Bennington contends that if the reader selects three goals from each of the five sections to create an action plan and complete the goals in 60 days they will be a rock star and be promotable. She offers a career plan template on her website to complete this task.

Bennington writes with a snappy and humorous style, which engaged me right from the beginning of the book. She uses tons of real-life examples and quotes from executive career women. I love all the tools sprinkled throughout the book and the action plan items are realistic and achievable. Read this book several times, take time to create the suggested action plan and then take action. This book is the tool you have been waiting for to set your career on the right path!

Taking a Break From the Workplace

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Lately I have been coaching several stay-at-home moms that are considering going back to the workplace now that their kids are older. It is a big decision and lifestyle change. Although, the decision can be daunting, I believe that there are several employ-able skills that happen when you stay-at-home.  But re-entering the workplace takes some active participation, on your part, and even some soul-searching.

First of all, consider your goals. Ask yourself, “What do I want to accomplish by going back to work?” It is money? skills? purpose? being a part of a team? Whatever your answer is, understand what is driving the call to action.

Next, consider what type of role you want. Do you want to return to your previous career or try something different? Know that if you are re-entering your previous career, things have changed.  You need to find out what has changed.  Keep in mind that trying something completely different is not impossible, but certainly a more difficult road to take.

It might be a little to late for this bit of advice, but do not let your network dry up while you are on the mommy-track.  Keep in touch with your business contacts.

Most schools are begging for volunteers, so it is likely that you have done lots of volunteering.  Write out how that volunteer work tied to business results.  Take on some leadership volunteer roles, work on a team, raise funds etc.  Ensure there are transferable skills from all your hard-earned volunteer hours!

Keep up your resume.  I worked with someone recently that had not updated their resume in 10 years!  Yikes!  By keeping it current, you are always ready for a potential gig and by having to update your resume consistently, you are reminded of all those business-related skills you are using.  And when you are updating your resume, think about accomplishments, quantifiable numbers and successes.

Keep up your LinkedIn profile.  What?  You don’t have one?  Yikes!  Get to work on it immediately. Linked In is a very important recruiting tool.

Related to LinkedIn, you need to keep up with technology.  What are the productivity tools being used in the workplace?  You need to know, and further more, you need to know how to use them.

Hopefully you have been doing this all along, but make sure you are subscribed to (and reading) industry magazines.  Again, you need to have current information on the hot topics in your industry (or the one you aspire to make a leap to).  On that note, read at least one business book a year.  Again, you need to speak the current business lingo and know the hot topics in today’s competitive market.

Working with temp agencies are a great way to make a foray into the working world while you are trying to figure out your next step.  Make some calls and schedule some informational meetings so that you can learn what types of jobs and skills are in demand.

Hopefully,  I have given you plenty of ideas to get you started.  Feel free to contact me if you want to hire me for some one-on-one coaching.

 

 

How Effective are those Job Boards?

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Someone in my network shared this information with me and since I thought it is pretty valuable, I am sharing it with you. Here are some great tips for getting the best results possible. I hope you will find some helpful information here.

Monthly visitors to job boards:

· Google (search) 170+ million  Note: Optimizing your key words will pay big rewards

· Twitter (search) 43+ million   Note:  Be sure to tweet your jobs

· Indeed.com (search) 22+ million   Note:  The most visited job board

· Monster.com (category/search) 17 million   Note:  A strong paid job board

· CareerBuilder (category/search) 14 million   Note:  A strong paid job board

· SimplyHiried (search) 5 million

· GlassDoor (search) 2 million

Of course, your industry may have specific boards that get more traffic, but this is a great starting point.

To gauge the best way to position your job, talk to your current top performers:

· Where did they look for a job? What job boards did they use?

· What words did they search for in search engines?

· What attracted them to your company? Why did they accept your offer? Why do they keep working there?

· Include this information in the job ad and description. Sell why it’s a great place to work!

· Job ads should be different from the job description. Often, only the top two or three lines of a posting will show in the job board listing, so use those first few lines to entice them to click and look further.

. Most searches are based on job location, so include the location in your job ad and job description.

Focus on job seeker vocabulary rather than your company’s lingo:

· Avoid acronyms they may not understand

· Use generic job titles they might search for rather than your unique title for the job

Look at competitors’ ads for good words (not just in your industry but companies who need same talent you do, Example: if you are looking for a front desk person, look at customer service ads).

Also check LinkedIn Profiles of people you’d like to hire and include words they use in their Profile.

Perform sample searches for the types of jobs you are posting and look at how competitors are presenting similar opportunities, then do a better job than they do.

Use multiple variants of words as keywords if you can add those through your applicant tracking system or careers page:

· accounting job/accountant job

· programming job/programmer job

· front desk job/customer service job/receptionist job

SEO Book Key Word Tool has a free subscription for key word search tool, what words are people searching for, etc. Use those words in your title.
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/?goback=%2Egde_2476011_member_207477710

What it Takes to Build a Team

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Team?  What is it really?  There are thousands of articles, books, seminars and courses on team but Talent Management (August 2012) has a great article of what it really takes.  Anderson argues that “high-performance teams regularly challenge each other for their best thinking.”  How often have you seen that everyone goes with the flow or is afraid of asking a tough question?  Afterall, if you ask a tough question and your team-mate cannot answer it, you run the risk of making them look stupid or incompetent.  So how do you ask the tough questions without putting people on the defensive?

Anderson states that the first step is to change the rewards and recognition.  “To build any team, members must understand what’s in it for them and be able to tie that to their own rewards and recognition.  Once they are convinced their own needs are going to be met, most can begin to think more as “we” rather than I.'”  The next step is to work in facilitated dialogue sessions.  In these session shared goals are identified.  There also must be a thought and action shift (and lots of trust) to move to the next phase.  We are talking about a serious cultural shift in the way teams, and companies, do business.  Ultimately, “teaming in new ways, collaborating across organizational boundaries and sharing resources in new ways”  are the path to nirvana when it comes to the future of teamwork. 

Check out the article and tell me what you think!

How to Boost Employee Career Satisfaction

Posted on by Seniye Groff

An article is this month’s Talent Management caught my eye.  Probably because employee satisfaction is at the top of my mind right now since someone I recently sat down with to do some career coaching asked me, “I am 60% satisfied with my job.  Is that enough?”  First of all, being able to distill it to such an exact percentage was impressive to me.  But more importantly, was the fact that he was willing to settle…in other words being 40% dissatisfied is okay.  But is it really?  And how much can we change or put up with depending on what is truly important to us?  Granted, humans are adaptable creatures, but the ever elusive “happiness” can really make or break the experience, as well as, what we are willing to do to get it.

Taylor’s article states that “employees want to be informed about goals and expectations and how their roles fit within them.”  Obviously if employees feel like they know what they are “shooting for” and feel that the work they are required to get there uses their skills and abilities and is truly interesting to them, you bet they will help leadership get to the end goal!  Taylor suggests there are nine ways companies can boost career satisfaction:

  • “Place people in the right roles according to strengths, skills and interests.
  • Tap into talent in the cloud.
  • Use a pool of pre-screened, reliable talent.
  • Create an employee loan initiative.
  • Cross-skill people so they can use different skills on demand.
  • Create a dedicated pool of flexible, just-in-time talent.
  • Create a demand-driven talent marketplace.
  • Restructure work in terms of smaller, discrete, skill-based projects.
  • Define jobs more broadly.”

Read the full article to get more detail on the bullet points and then drop me a line and tell me what you think.  I am pretty sure you will agree, if companies tried some of these strategies, 40% dissatisfaction wouldn’t even be in the picture!

Managing Difficult People

Posted on by Seniye Groff

It is a fact of corporate life-you will probably have to manage or interact with a difficult person at some time or another.  I love Talent Management Magazine and always seem to find informative articles on a variety of topics.  In this month’s issue, Pelan’s article titled, “Managing Difficult People” has some sound advice.

There is no question that effective communication skills are mandatory when working on teams-especially given that most teams are diverse, global and even virtual, at times.  Pelan argues, “When employees understand their communication style, they can modify and adjust to improve their situational effectiveness.”  There is no doubt in my mind, though, that without the awareness of one’s style and how to adjust the style based on the situation and personality, it is pretty difficult to navigate the slippery slope of a difficult personality.  I highly recommend taking an assessment such as Myers-Briggs or DISC to help you determine your communication style.

Some tips for handling problem personalities:

  • “Recognize the situation and clarify in writing.
  • Define action steps.
  • Use assertive and objective language and use ‘I’ statements.
  • Be prepared to disagree assertively or to state an opinion.
  • Use appropriate body language.”

Check out the entire article to learn more.

Results Without Authority

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Just finished writing my review for Tom Kendrick’s book “Results Without Authority”.  If you are a project manager, or just tasked with managing projects, this would be a good book to add to your bookshelf!

Tom Kendrick’s “Results Without Authority” shares strategies, tips and tricks for project managers and the projects they manage.  The greatest challenge for a project manager is to keep a team and project on task, even though the team does not ultimately report to the project manager.  Kendrick believes that three things can keep a project moving forward:  project process, influence and metrics or measurement.  The first half of the book explores these three elements.  The second half of the book examines when to use these elements throughout the project.

Kendrick has a no-nonsense, practical approach to managing projects.  He gives key ideas and the end of each chapter and sprinkles the chapters with lots of example stories.  Although this book is dense, with more information than most 267-paged books, this is a book you will refer to time and time again.

Structured Mentoring

Posted on by Seniye Groff

I have created several mentoring programs, both for clients and for teams that I managed when I was an employee.  I really believe that both the mentor and the mentee gain from this relationship.  For the mentor, they gain skills such as how to give feedback and how to provide direction and they are sharing their knowledge, which builds self esteem.  For the mentee, they receive real-time feedback on actual work and hear real-life scenarios and solutions.  Furthermore, if you do it right, you will balance the skills of the mentor and the mentee so that both learn from the relationship.  For example, if as an instructional designer you need both solid writing skills and adult learning theory, put two people together-one with awesome written communication skills and the other with formal adult learning theory knowledge.

One resource that I found valuable when creating a mentoring program was the book, “Making Mentoring Happen” by Kathy Lacey.  Also, in the May 2012 issue of Chief Learning Officer there is an article titled “Breathing the Same Air is Not Enough”.  Although the title is a bit hokey, the main point is dead on.  Oftentimes, companies believe scheduling informal lunches or chats can be considered mentoring.  With that type of setup, it really is only a conversation; the mentee never gets to really dissect real issues.  There needs to be expectations, an action plan, scheduled ongoing meetings, accountability and follow-up.  According to Lollis, “Mentoring needs to be approached with intention and structure.”

Before I launched my mentor program, I provided training for both mentors and mentees.  Both parties need to know expectations, how-to’s and to be given tools to be used to be successful in their respective roles.  I even gave them a list of questions to help get the conversation going, as well as, provide more thought-provoking discussions beyond “How’s it going?”  And don’t discount the possibility of a mentoring program if team members are at a distance.  Mentoring is totally possible with today’s tools such as Skype.

Another article from the May 2012 issue of CLO. 

 What has worked with mentoring programs that you have been exposed to?

Your Brain on Apps

Posted on by Seniye Groff

Your Brain on Apps was another interesting article in CLO’s April 2012 issue: 

http://www.smsepub.com/publication/frame.php?i=103474

Read the article to learn more about how mobile learning should be used to support formal learning and provide performance support.  Since “humans work much better with smaller chunks” (of information) over time,  mobile learning is an obvious solution for job aids, checklists, references and other performance support tools made available just-in-time.

A Critical Eye on Coaching

Posted on by Seniye Groff

CLO’s April 2012 magazine had a great article on the benefits of coaching as a leadership development tool. There is a difference between general performance based coaching which happens on a daily basis and executive coaching which is tied to a senior leader’s strategic goals.  Either way, both types of coaching is focused on changing behavior and skill development and requires a committed partnership mindset.

According to Edwards, there is a “six step process for effective executive coaching engagements:

  1. Business need evaluation
  2. Engagement scope, strategy and approach
  3. Coachee assessment
  4. Goal setting/action planning
  5. Coaching engagement delivery
  6. Evaluation and measurement.”

  Read the entire article and additional info:  http://www.smsepub.com/publication/frame.php?i=103474