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Why You Didn't Get Hired
Tweet Share on Facebook April 27, 2009 Comment (18)The job looked perfect for you. The description matched your experience and skills so perfectly, you could almost visualize yourself at your new desk. But now you're staring at a rejection E-mail and can't figure out what happened.
No matter how qualified you think you are for a job, there are all kinds of reasons that you might not have been chosen. Here are some of the most common:
1. Your qualifications aren't as strong as you think they are, so your assessment of your skills isn't in line with the reality of the situation.
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Good Lessons From Bad Jobs
Tweet Share on Facebook April 24, 2009 CommentPut a new supervisor in a room with a bunch of experienced ones and odds are the veterans will talk about their mistakes. Variations of “watch out for this” and “never do that” will outnumber the more positive pointers.
So it goes with jobs--it is not unusual for us to glean the most powerful lessons from the worst situations. Consider what can be learned:
Poor supervision: Make a mental note of how you felt when a supervisor didn’t pitch in, lied, took undue credit, or played favorites. Vow that you will never duplicate those sins.
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Written Up at Work? Sign on The Line
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2009 Comment (74)Part 1. A friend (non-HR professional) once said that if an employee won't sign with a full signature on the provided signature line on a written warning/write up/etc., then the refusal is defined as insubordination. True? She maintained that it won't suffice as evidence of having received the written action to simply initial the usual disclaimer sentence, that employees' signature doesn't mean agreement to the content of the written action.
Part 2. Depending on your response to part 1 of this question, I suggested to my friend that a written response/explanation regarding subject matter in written action submitted within a reasonable time frame by the employee would be acceptable in lieu of a signature at the time of the written action. What are your thoughts on this from a HR, employer or supervisor perspective?
I want everyone to repeat after me: I will sign my warning/write up/action plan. I will sign my warning/write up/action plan. I will sign my warning/write up/action plan.
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Take the Slow Road to Success
Tweet Share on Facebook April 23, 2009 CommentYou have big dreams, and you're committed to success. You have a million things you want to do before yesterday at noon and you're running at mach speed. You're moving so fast you can scarcely breathe.
Want to know a way to get more out of all that effort you're making? It may seem counterintuitive, but here it is: Sloooooowww dowwnnnn.
When you live your life in a frantic whirlwind, your effectiveness begins to diminish and your vision gets clouded. You start putting more energy into getting less result.
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Do Women Have a Competitive Advantage Over Men?
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2009 Comment (45)And, if so, why do men still earn a dollar for every 77 pennies women earn? Why are men’s small businesses larger than women’s small businesses?
It shouldn’t be like this.
Because when it comes to running anything—a family, a business, a country—women possess extraordinary leadership qualities. We’re more intuitive, more patient, and we tend to share more, which makes us better at motivating. We’re tenacious and we’re great problem solvers (if only because we’ve always had to make do with less). Even more important, we excel at doing many things at once.
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Dear Former Employee: It's Not Your Fault
Tweet Share on Facebook April 21, 2009 Comment (1)A hypothetical look at what an honest CEO might write to a laid-off worker in today's economy.
I am sorry we had to lay you off last week. I really am.
It is a failure on my part. I should have seen all this coming. I knew our products were outdated. But, heck, they were still selling. And well, too. I thought we had years left, not months.
So don’t take the layoff as a sign that you did something wrong. It wasn’t you, this time. Other times, maybe, but not this time. It was me.
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The Problem With Thinking For Other People
Tweet Share on Facebook April 20, 2009 Comment (1)The internal dialogue: Whether we're talking to other people in our heads or talking to ourselves, all of us conduct our own personal conversations--that no one else ever hears. (Some of us do it more than others.)
Thinking conversations through before they happen can be a useful tool in your workplace arsenal, but it is important to use the tactic sparingly. If not, you open yourself up to a whole world of hurt.
Next time you find yourself carrying on dialogue in your own head where you are speaking for your fellow office workers, here's what you can do to validate or reject the thoughts...
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What Makes a Hiring Manager Fall in Love?
Tweet Share on Facebook April 20, 2009 Comment (5)Some hiring managers are flooded with well-qualified candidates for any job they post, no matter the economy (but especially this economy). When you’re up against dozens of strong candidates, it's the smaller things that will help you break from the pack and emerge as a clear top contender. These are the things that transform you from one of many solid candidates who could do the job well, to the candidate an employer is dying to hire.
When I'm faced with an overload of qualified candidates, here are some of the things that can make me "fall in love" with one candidate in particular:
Do what you say you're going to do by the time you say you're going to do it. For instance, if you tell me you're going to send me a writing sample by Monday, send me a writing sample by Monday (or update me accordingly). If you send it Tuesday without explanation, I'll notice. It will even end up as a note on your application.
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When Management Gets Ambushed By Small Things
Tweet Share on Facebook April 17, 2009 Comment (1)We shy away from details because we don’t want to micromanage.
At the same time, we are reluctant to create systems because we don’t want to be bureaucratic.
And then we wonder why we get ambushed by small things and why our performance is inconsistent.
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Change Your Assumptions, Change Your World
Tweet Share on Facebook April 16, 2009 Comment (8)Are you creating virtual barriers to your dreams? Sometimes the assumptions we make build walls between us and our aspirations that are far thicker than any external obstacle we’re likely to meet. And the wild thing about assumptions is that they are nothing but electrical impulses firing away in your brain. Poof! Nothing more than that.
We think, “I can’t do something like that,” or “They would never say 'yes' if I asked,” or “There’s only one way to accomplish that.”
I’ve seen all those assumptions--and many more--prove to be patently, demonstrably false. And they were all assumptions that people unquestioningly held to be true (sometimes without realizing it). Each of those seemingly impenetrable walls were shattered by asking one simple question: “Is that true?”
