Earn

Want to ‘future proof’ yourself? Seven tips right here…

Hi there lovely readers. Let’s talk about that career of yours. Do you ever find yourself taking your job for granted? Figure that just ‘showing up’ will keep you employed? Believe you’re indispensable? Fact is, no one is (I earn my crust rebranding hundreds of folk who thought they were), however, there are things we can do that will go a long way to being so. Being a critical part of the team may not guarantee you job security when downturns occur, however, being a substantial contributor to your employer’s vision can certainly contribute to ‘future proofing’ yourself. Here are my top tips for doing exactly that. Your welcome!

First up, a reality check…

First up, it helps to do a quick pulse check – ensuring your career and development are consistent with those of the company.  Do their values align with yours? Do you have a sense of what’s essential to the company? Understand their goals? How your skills and experience might align with those goals? This is a great way to identify any projects the company’s working on where you might add the most value. Pulse check done and ready to give it all you’ve got? Read on!

Think like a champ athlete…

Elite athletes continuously work at fine-tuning their capability to compete at the highest level, channelling valuable lessons on how to become exceptional at their job. Not just the physical attributes that come with their territory, we’re talking the tactical – making every effort to be a great teammate, communicating well, knowing how to work hard, being able to multitask, exercising discipline – skills that come with an athletic mindset. Now that you’ve aligned yourself with the company’s goals add these vital elements into the mix.

Give yourself a personal review…

Don’t wait for your annual performance and feedback review, do your own. Taking the time to do this will help you ensure you’re on track with your personal goals and expectations and those of the company. Secured a great outcome from something you did recently? Jot it down! Keep track of those accomplishments as well as any training, feedback, projects, and where possible, add in the metrics (and be sure to add these into your resume too).

Make a note to review your progress regularly, set new goals, and look at what you’ll need regarding skills and support to get to your next milestone. Such self-checks can help you ensure you’re keeping on track with your own career development and shore up areas that may need improvement. Quantify to reinforce your readiness for when next you’re up for a promotion. This way you can confidently justify why you think you should be promoted.

Speaking of metrics…

Right, you’ve been recording your achievements including the quantifiable outcomes and now, as you set your new goals, consider the metrics that are going to matter and include them as part of your next goal plan. Whether it’s bumping up sales, improving efficiency, reducing costs by a certain margin, be sure to look for decisive measures to which you can contribute. Companies value employees who are focused on finding ways to raise the performance bar, and as you now know, proof of your capacity to actively add to the company’s bottom line can go a long way during those wage rise reviews.

Take ownership…

Ownership is essential to being invaluable. Whether it’s a project assignment or even a simple spreadsheet think about what it means for the company and what its goals are. I was once a learning and development manager in retail (a role often considered dispensible) and, after identifying that a third of the real estate was devoted to product that had the least turnover, wrote and delivered a program that taught staff to drive the associated sales counters as if they personally owned them. The bottom line outcomes were significant and cemented the value of training. Taking full responsibility and applying strategic thinking to your work sends the message that you are immediately supporting your boss and team in a new and valuable way. Take ownership for and treat your work as if you own the company and are acting in its best interest.

Speak up…

Being afraid to show that we are imperfect or don’t know something can get in the way of our performance. Don’t be scared to communicate with your boss and team. Ask questions to ensure that you fully understand assignment instructions, essential to ensure you’re performing in the best possible way for your company.

And while we’re speaking up, why not vocalise to your boss that you are open to learning. Ask for opportunities to collaborate with other teams, be vocal about your ideas, and if you see training that will improve your skills in a specific area, make a case for it.

Make the boss look great…

People value those who help them do their jobs better. My boss prefers to focus on the metrics. That’s his schtick. The value I bring comes from coaching him on my understanding of social media marketing and how it applies to the company, our candidates and our individual personal brands. This in turn helps him appear knowledgable (in a field that really doesn’t interest him) in the eyes of his peers. Thus I coach upwards on my subject matter expertise (and make him look great) just as he coaches me on the big picture measures.

Get inside the head of that person you’re working for, or alongside, and figure out exactly what they’re trying to achieve, the context, and ask ‘How can I help you achieve that goal?’  Once you know where you fit in and the metrics you should be focusing on, you can rank your efforts on those tasks and initiatives. Good luck! Oh! And would love you to share your own suggestions in the comments box.

Based on ‘How to become indispensable at work this year’  BY GWEN MORAN

Posted in AT WORK, Earn | Comments Off on Want to ‘future proof’ yourself? Seven tips right here…

Krug Champers to Resume self sufficiency

Hello lovely readers. You know what? Having now helped over 10,000 transitioning candidates develop effective personal branding strategies and campaigns to drive career success, it’s a given that I’ve seen a few resumes along the way. As a result, friends often ask if I might review their resumes as well. Now to be honest, after a day coaching folk on how to take their resumes from bog standard to kick ass, attention-grabbing, strength marketing, scan-bot loving documents, it’s kind of the last thing I want to be doing in my leisure time! Unless your reward for my efforts involves a crate of Krug Private Cuvée Champers, an extended holiday in Bora Bora and a bevvy of gorgeous…oh sorry, where was I?

Let me offer you a five-step editing plan that will help you take your resume from okay to pretty damn impressive without that expense…you’re welcome!

Editing is more than just giving your resume a once-over to eliminate egregious typos and grammar mistakes. It’s about looking at it with a critical eye, then making changes to ensure it’s the best it can be. And that’s what you want for your resume, right? Sooo..first up:

1: Consider the Resume’s Aim

On that first read, ignore typos and formatting and think about the overall message your resume is sending. From the top down, ask yourself the following:

Contact details:

• Is my email address professional? (‘sexybeast@hotmail.com’ just won’t do ok?)
• Have I added my LinkedIn URL below my email address and mobile number?

Insider tip – Hotmail addresses have a propensity for landing in the junk mail folder – consider an alternative such as Gmail, outlook etc., just for your marketing purposes

Executive Summary:

• Does my summary start with my ‘functional title’ e.g. ‘Sales Executive’ with expertise in….’
• Does my title follow with skills as they relate to the expectations of the job for which I’m applying?
• Does it summarise the actual strengths and experience I’ve articulated in the body of the resume?
• Does my summary sell me well enough to entice the reader to read more?

Insider tip: Summary should ‘summarise’ strengths depicted in the body of the resume and vice versa.

Career History:

• What makes my experience stand out amongst similarly experienced candidates?
• Are there gaps between the experience on the pages and experience required for the job?
• If so, what can I add to supplement those gaps?
• Are my responsibilities nicely summarised in a tidy three line job scope sentence?
• Do my achievements demonstrate what I did with my responsibilities that made a difference in my past jobs?
• Do my accomplishments answer the critical questions – ‘Why? (Challenge) How? (Actions) and So What? (Results)
• Have I quantified results as proof of outcomes?
• Have I started each achievement with an action verb?
• Have I edited my accomplishments back to sharp three line sentences?
• No more than 10-12 years history included?

Education/Professional Development:

• Have I included the name of the institutes from which I gained my formal qualifications?
• And listed the most relevant professional development courses I’ve attended?

And…
• Is there anything in the document that doesn’t need to be, such as photos, fancy graphics, hobbies, date of birth, marital status?
• Does the overall text sell me as the perfect candidate for the role?

Insider tip: Quantify the results in achievements where possible. The critical difference between an average resume and a brilliant one.

2: Scrutinize

Now to editing. Walk through your resume again and look at every section, every sentence, and every word and determine if there’s a better way to get your point across:

• Is this the most robust possible language I can use?
• Can anything be said more clearly? Or in fewer words?
• Have I used technical language that someone outside my company or industry might not understand?
• Have my acronyms been spelt out? (Don’t assume the reader will understand them)
• Are there any words I’ve used repeatedly? Can they be replaced with more creative language?

Insider tip: Send your resume to your selected referees, ask them for feedback and adjust accordingly, after all, they’ll be the ones substantiating your claims when called for a reference.

3: Double Check Facts and Stats

Now review your resume again, this time asking yourself:

• Are the companies I’ve worked for named the same thing today?
• Are my position titles accurate?
• Are my employment dates correct?
• Are the stats I’ve used to describe increases, budgets, savings and achievements (reasonably) accurate?

Insider tip: Another reason to seek referee feedback. The facts need to weigh up with their recall.

4: Double Proofread

You can review your document for hours and still fail to notice that you’ve used ‘lead’ instead of ‘led’, ‘there’ instead of ‘their’, ‘manger’ instead of ‘manager’. Don’t rely on Spellcheck alone. Proofreading one last time is a step you can’t neglect. More questions to ask:

• Are there any typos? Wrong word usage?
• Do each of my bullet points end with a period (or not)? Either is fine, be consistent.
• Are my commas in the right place?
• Is my sentence structure grammatically consistent?
• Is everything written in past tense?
• Have I removed all personal pronouns, e.g. ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘our’?
• Are the pages numbered in the footer?
• Is my name on each page in the header?

Insider tip: When proofreading, it’s helpful to read your resume from the bottom up. Again, have someone you trust review for grammar and consistency.

5: Aesthetic Appeal

Now it’s time to give it a final once-over with a designer’s eye, considering:

• Does each page look visually appealing?
• Are the pages overly cluttered?• The font too small? Difficult to read?
• Bullet points used for easy readability?
• Do the headings stand out?
• Is the font size and formatting for each section consistent?
• Does the layout make sense?
• No more than three pages max?

Insider Tip: Avoid templates with fancy symbols, fonts and layouts – they are the bain of recruiter’s lives for they’re challenging to extrapolate info from and the scanbots can’t always parse the necessary info that will get you to the ‘read’ pile.

Editing your resume to ensure it’s sharp and focused, sells you effectively and is error free can be exciting, challenging and rewarding all in one. Why? It reminds you of just how much you’ve accomplished in your career. And that boosts your confidence. Which in turn better prepares you for typical behavioural interviews. And the opportunity to negotiate salary because you now know your worth. And ultimately it can land you that job!

Oh! And if you need someone to share your celebratory Champers with, you know where to find me!

Go ahead! Make my (work) day!

Deadlines, deadlines, work harder, more efficiently, step up that productivity, make the most of every hour, focus on urgent and important, important not urgent, focus, focus! It’s no wonder we feel exhausted by Tuesday, celebrate hump day Wednesday, hoover Crispy Cremes Thursday and yearn for a wine or five Friday.

Thing is, lovely readers, we read numerous hints and tips for maximizing productivity, less so about maintaining our mental health. I’ve always found navigating that fine line between professional productivity and personal happiness challenging so I’ve rounded up a heap of super, personally tested, ‘well being’ suggestions …five at a time…one for every day of the week and easy to implement. Read on for how to Shake it up, Create a New Ritual, Reward, Sweetie Reward, Do Your Block and Celebrate your Day…

1) Shake it up

Same ole, same ole? Stuck in a rut? Bored with your routine? Shake it up! Get off the bus, get on your bike, or hoof it. Even if it’s jumping on the bus one stop later and off one stop earlier. I like to swap the bus with a ferry ride on occasion, standing up front, wind in my hair, absorbing the beauty of this fine city from the water. Ask a friend to lunch instead of filling your keyboard with crumbs. If feasible, spend a few hours in the afternoon working in a different spot than usual. Switching it up is bound to give you a fresh perspective.

2) Create a New Ritual 

Make the morning count by setting aside just 15 minutes to gather your thoughts and create your daily goals. Don’t need to get too complicated with this new morning ritual, just focus on one or two of the most important things and create a plan. I block those minutes in my calendar to avoid interruption. Taking time for yourself will help center and focus you, meaning it’ll be easier to recognize what makes you happy and plot the steps to get there.

3) Reward Sweetie Reward

If you don’t love the things on that list in front of you, try a tad of self incentivizing bribery. ‘When I finish this report, I’ll go grab a coffee from my fave place down the street,’ or ‘I can meet with my friends tonight for happy hour, but only if I finish making this presentation.’ You get the drift?

4) Do Your Block

A quick walk around the block can clear the cobwebs, boost your mood and make you feel damn good ‘cos you’re also contributing to the 10,000 steps we should be taking per day to maintain fitness . Grab a co-worker you’ve been meaning to chat with and turn it into an active outdoor meeting. Oh! And avoid the doughnut shop ok?

5) Celebrate the Day

No, not with that jug of wine! On the home commute take a few moments to write down three good things that happened today. I find this helps me focus on the positives, closes the day and puts a smile on my dial. Thinking about what you are grateful for—and very clearly identifying those things—has been proven to offer social, psychological, emotional, and even physical benefits including better sleep, less sickness, and improved happiness.

How many will you implement? Love to hear your thoughts and stay tuned for my next five!

Posted in Earn | Comments Off on Go ahead! Make my (work) day!

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