Resume: The longer it takes to find a job, the more you’re apt to tinker with your resume. If you’re trying to be all things to all people, you may have a document that’s too fuzzy and too long for the interviewer who hasn’t the time or disposition to plow through your prose. Focus your thinking and you’ll focus your resume.

Objective: If you’ve done a variety of things and held a variety of positions in a variety of companies, focus your objective by specifying the position you seek. When responding to an advertised position, include key words that define the opportunity and correspond to your experience.

Summary statement: You don’t need one. It’s redundant. Your resume is a summary statement.

Simplify and clarify: Bullet-point your accomplishments and reinforce them with quantifiable facts and figures that are evidence of your success.

Personal information: Stick with the essentials of name, address, telephone number, and email address. If you’re a college graduate, include the name and location of your school, your degree and area of specialization. If you had a 3.0 or better, include it. If you didn’t, don’t.

Affiliations: Include professional and civic organizations and leadership roles/chair positions you’ve held. Do not include religious or political affiliations unless you seek their employment.

Selecting your references: Ask permission from individuals you’ve worked for and believe to be professionally savvy, connected, and reliable. If they’ve moved, find them and describe the position you seek and the organization in which you’d like to work. Ask for their reaction to what you’ve shared. Listen closely to their response and the degree to which they are supportive and encouraging. If you detect a note of hesitation, check it out. If they appear cool to the whole idea, rethink your objective or find another reference.

Networking: If your efforts appear to have fizzled, don’t give up on this most important search strategy. Networking opens doors to opportunities that can’t be reached in other ways. It’s a fact; more jobs are available than are advertised. Your quest is to find them. To do that you’ll need to talk to the people who know where they are.

Before you start making random calls, be sure you can succinctly describe what you do best. Then look for people who specialize in the field you want to enter or continue working. If you don’t have natural access to them, talk to people you know personally, who work in jobs that interface directly or indirectly with these people. If you’re not sure what your friends, neighbors, and acquaintances do and where they work, find out. Ask them.

Networking is a technique that enables you to connect your questions to the information you need, that takes you to the people who know, who in turn can introduce you to the jobs you want, and those who hire for them.

Yes, I hear you. Networking may not be for you if you don’t like to ask favors of people you know and like, or of people you barely know and don’t know if you like. You may be reticent, hesitant or reluctant to get out there and meet and greet. Get over yourself. You say you want a job, one that’s better than the one you currently hold or the one you no longer have. That’s going to take courage, creativity, focus, and connections that you’ve yet to fully tap. Start networking.

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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Let’s begin with the “Don’ts”:

Don’t engage in a whisper campaign against management. In fact, don’t whisper about anything, even surprise parties. Don’t huddle in small groups, or large groups, or groups of any size.

Don’t hide. Don’t keep your head down. Don’t duck responsibility. Don’t shrug your shoulders. Don’t argue, defend, or attempt to explain why you’re arguing, defending, and explaining.

Don’t look for your boss. And if you locate him, or her, don’t make unreasonable requests (“You’ll protect me, right?”) or ask questions they can’t answer because 1. They don’t know and would rather not say, 2. They do know and have been told not to say, 3. They don’t know what they don’t know and that’s pretty embarrassing.

Don’t hang out with dooms-dayers, nay- sayers, boss bashing, hair tossing, eye rollers and co-workers prone to public meltdowns. They’ll drain the energy you need to stand upright and get your job done.

What should you do?

Push the negativity aside. There’s plenty you can do, and ought to do, every day to stabilize yourself and the people who work with you. Opt for solutions instead of problems. If you want to ask questions, ask what you can do to help in the transition. If you want to stay busy, focus on increasing the company’s revenues or improving its profitability. If you want to manage your emotions, control what you can and let the rest of it go.

The company is reorganizing. You should, too. Take inventory of your habits, behaviors, systems and processes and determine the ways you can save yourself and other’s time, energy, money, and aggravation. Instead of saturating yourself with blame for the situation you’re in, do something about it. If others are advancing because they appear to know more than you, do what they do; study, learn, and apply what you know in ways that can make an immediate difference for the organization. If they have the style and you have the substance and style appears to be winning, improve your style. Invite others to speak, to share their opinions, and add yours to theirs. Build bridges with ideas and connect ideas to actions that benefit the company.

If others appear to be advancing because they know the people you don’t know, do what they do. Put yourself out there. Introduce yourself to people you need to know and reintroduce yourself to people you need to know better. Go to meetings, get involved, get going on initiatives, and get back to the team with what’s happening. Get to know people who easily connect to people who have influence. Ask them what they need, and respond by telling them what you’ve done and can do and how you can be part of the solution.

If others are advancing because they have something to say; say something. Register opinions, offer perspectives, and advance ideas without having to be asked. Say what you mean like you mean it, without apology, hesitation, or fear of being second-guessed. Say it because it’s part of the answer, not part of the problem.

If others are advancing because they make decisions, be a decision maker. Get involved and involve others. Be informed and inform others. Re-affirm, re-think, re-invent, and re-organize yourself so that you add value to whatever comes next.

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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executiveand career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Do you know how successful businesses grow and which leadership skills keep their growth on track?

Ongoing research has determined the stages every successful business passes through as well as the leadership skills necessary to prevent stalling or retrenchment. Does your organization have the talent it needs to grow or reach its five year plan?

Working with an executive coach, you can assess where your business is in the growth cycle, identify which leadership skills are critical to keep your business on track at each stage and help you develop and/or recruit the talent you might need.

Research has identified:

1. the stages of growth for small companies and the talent a company needs at each stage and to keep growing
2. the capabilities needed at the individual, team, and cultural levels to deliver on a company’s strategic plan
3. how successful executives develop and how they differ from those who derail
4. how to accurately assess and develop the necessary leadership talent and organizational capability

By applying what ongoing research is showing us, we can zero in where a company is in its growth cycle. You can identify the talent you need to continue growing and spot where any gaps exist.  Then, you can develop action plans to bridge them.

Executive Coaching

Does your organization have the talent it needs to reach its five year plan?

How does your organization find, select, develop and retain people with the talent it needs?

“What do you need to be good at to succeed?”
Many executives are discovering that coaching improves their leadership impact or that of their high potential leaders. In the process of coaching we ask, “What do you need to be good at to meet the challenges facing you over the next year?” Coaching strengthens the skills that are critical to success. To bring clarity to the process, we provide executive level 360o feedback. These data contribute to an action plan that becomes the basis of coaching conversations. The power of 360 o feedback is more than its information; it’s in the coach’s ability to combine this with other information to have transformational conversations with the client.

A Transformational Experience
An Action Plan is created to promote insight, growth and integration of new thinking and behavior; it drives the transformational experience. It is also used to measure results. Coaches tackle business issues and dilemmas. They challenge assumptions and auto pilot behaviors. Coaches serve as partners in thought leadership, offering new ideas, fresh approaches, and innovative solutions. The coaching relationship is confidential, supportive, stretching and enlightening. Our expertise in human behavior enables us to help people change, improve and achieve their potential. Being external to the organization assures the confidentiality needed to bring about transformation.

Action Planning and Measuring Results
Monthly coaching looks at what’s working and not working, what’s missing, and what’s needed to produce what’s missing, what kind of leader you need to be, and the legacy you want to leave. Each month we assess where you stand against your Action Plan. We assess leadership and business challenges, learnings and accomplishments, what’s missing, and what’s next? The discipline of coaching keeps people focused on their goals and Plans, and encourages them to create new opportunities for action and results.

If Behavior Were Easy to Change, It Would Have Changed By Now
Executive coaching impacts leadership gaps that have been showing up on people’s 360-degree feedback for 15 plus years. Would you like to reach your leadership and business goals as well as advance your career? Would you like to develop the talent in your organization? Would you like to learn how executive coaching can help you achieve these goals? Let us use our advanced training and experience in human behavior to bring about transformation.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Pamela Corbett is an executive coach, career and outplacement counselor, organizational consultant and psychotherapist with her own practice, Spectrum Psychological Services based in Winston-Salem, NC. Licensed in North Carolina and trained in clinical psychology (Penn State and Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Pam is a certified Master Practitioner of NLP and is certified in the entire suite of Career, Leadership, and Organizational Architect Tools. Pamela has been providing executive assessment, development planning, coaching, and training through her own business and as adjunct faculty with the Center for Creative Leadership since 1986. Pam’s earlier work experience includes a veterinary hospital start-up, television production, insurance claims negotiation, inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy, and teaching at Wake Forest University. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

If you’re creeped out where you work because half the population is whispering and the other half is hiding out, do yourself a favor, tune it out, turn it off, and do your job.

Focus on what’s in front of you and encourage others to do the same.

Take care of yourself but remember some rules still apply: conduct personal business on personal time.

If you’re looking for a job, you need to know what the right one looks like. Combine your strengths with your skills, your likes with your values and you’ll begin to see the where, when, and how you add value.

“Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you.” People will treat you as you treat yourself. If you downplay your abilities, understate your attributes, keep your head down, and your voice on mute, others will likely think that you haven’t the will or the want to do more. Speak up, take credit for what’s yours, share credit for the rest, and ask to do more of what you do best.

This is the time to let go and glide. Life might be taking you down corridors you’ve not traveled, to places you’ve not wanted to go, but if you’re flexible and go with the flow you might arrive at destinations far better than those from which you have departed.

Make a job of looking for a job. Shower and dress for your search. Conduct it outside, in the light, with people you know and people they’ll introduce you to. Get away from your computer, get out of your slippers, and take off that ratty robe. You have work to do in networking meetings, with job search groups, and at job fairs.

Turn down the noise and tune out the static. Pay attention to facts, not opinions. Pay attention to actions, not rumors. The more you listen to a cacophony of voices that know less than you but talk as though they know more, the more you’re stuck in the quick sand of stress. Take action.

If you think you’ll lose your job, don’t worry about it, do something about it. Assess your strengths, update your resume and polish up your self esteem.

Pretending that all is well when it’s not, won’t make it so. If you substitute worry for awareness, and distraction for action, you’re an accident waiting to happen. Ask questions and seek counsel from those trained to provide it: Financial Advisors, CPA’s, Career Coaches, Therapists, Social Workers, and Religious Counselors. Take one step, then another, until you regain your sense of equilibrium with the world as it is, not as you fear it might be.

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Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started he own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Most organizations need their managers to handle changes and transitions quickly and effectively. They need to integrate into the company, come up to speed in new roles, handle promotions and provide value as quickly as possible.

A performance coach can help.

That’s because coaching is a customized process designed for the manager’s individual situation. Coaching will help the manager strategize, integrate, learn quickly and be accountable for their transition. A coach will help the manager understand his or her strengths, and hone in on any specific barriers that may impede their success while providing additional support and accountability.

A coach can help determine whether it is new skills that the manager needs, or a different way of addressing and thinking about problem solving.

Here are some Sample Coaching Scenarios.

The Promotion:  “I’ve been promoted into a new leadership role and I need to hit the ground running. I want to be successful from the start and add value early on. How do I make sure this happens? How do I get to know my new team and get some early wins?”

One of the most exciting times for a manager is a promotion into a new role. Of course, along with the new title and compensation comes the responsibility and need for new skills and broader perspective. What are some of the keys to success when handling this type of transition?

• Understanding and Outlining expectations early.
• Assessing your team.
• Setting priorities.
• Developing a 120 day plan.
• Communicating, communicating, communicating.

Research has shown that one of the biggest mistakes a newly promoted manager makes is assuming that the technical skills that won them the job will be the same ones they should use to successfully manage and lead in a new role. Many simply do not have an approach taking on new responsibilities. A coach can help them plan and ensure they are clear on their responsibilities, and adding value in their new role as quickly as possible.

The Coaching Approach: Initiate a candid conversation about the expectations for Maggie that comes along with this new promotion.

• Start with a discussion about what’s expected of Maggie in her role.

1. How is that different and the same from her previous job?
2. What is Maggie’s boss requiring of her?
3. Who are her key stakeholders now?
4. What does her new staff need to know about her?
5. What do they need to do their jobs well?

• Data gathering/Interview phase – Feedback and planning.
• Action Planning with Maggie and alignment meetings with her manager.

The New Job: “I’ve just landed this great new job. I want to get off on the right foot in the company. How do I get up to speed quickly and not step on landmines?”

Joseph has landed a new job in a different company as a business unit head for a group of engineers. This is his second managerial job. He is excited and a little nervous about the change. This job will be a larger scope of responsibility with higher visibility and there are some issues he needs to address right away. He also needs to learn the company, the politics, the stakeholders and his new team’s capabilities.

The Coaching Approach: Develop an entry plan with Joseph to address what he needs to accomplish over the next 100 days. Break up the priorities and “to do’s” in 30, 60, 90 day increments so he maintains focus and momentum, address issues and come up to speed quickly.

The Promotion. New Skills: “I’ve been in this job for about 6 months now and I am getting feedback that I need to be more strategic. What does this mean and how do I go about it?”

A mid-level sales manager, Chris has been top salesperson in his unit for the past four years. He is eager, motivated and committed. He’s seen as a star in the making. His manager is leaving the company to retire in one month. Chris has been tapped as his replacement. He is eager to show the team how sales should really be done. His manager is concerned that Chris understand that his focus is not going to be on being a great salesperson any longer, but in teaching others to be great salespeople and in managing and motivating others.

The Coaching Approach: Initiate a candid conversation about the expectations for Chris that come along with this new promotion. Help him understand the shift in requirements from his last role to his new one. Work with his manager and Chris to develop a transition plan as well as a plan to address his first months in his new role. Assess his current skills and identify any gaps in skills that will need to be addressed going forward and how to build these.

Rocky Relationships: “I don’t know what everyone complains about. I get the job done. Period. If people’s feelings are hurt, that’s their problem. I’m a straight shooter and I like that about myself. But they say my approach is too forceful and it’s holding me back. I don’t want to change who I am, but I evidently need to do something different. I just don’t know.”

Richard has been in his role for three years. He is known as a “no-nonsense,” “take no prisoners” type of manager. He has made great contributions to the company, but recently his level of turnover has started to increase and getting people to transfer into his department is difficult at best. There are rumblings in the company amongst his peers that his style is causing a lot of friction working with units other than his own. Richard is not sure why these things are happening but he’s having a harder time getting projects accomplished. He feels that he’s a straightforward person and doesn’t want to change that about himself. He would like to be put forward in the company for a more senior level position, but has been told that he’s “not ready.”

The Coaching Approach: Help Richard develop a fuller picture of his strengths and weaknesses and raise his self-awareness of his interactions and their impact on others. Assist him in putting together a development plan to address issues that may be holding him back.

• Start with a discussion of what’s expected of Richard in his current role with both Richard and his manager.
• Discuss Richard’s aspirations with his manager and find out what he sees as Richard’s needs to address before he’d be considered for another role.
• Obtain additional feedback from Richard’s key stakeholders either through interviews or 360o feedback tool.
• Use other assessments, if necessary, to round out Richard’s profile.
• Spend time with Richard debriefing the feedback, and developing a plan to address those areas that will make the most impact.

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Yes! You may use this article by Executive Coach Melodie Howard in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Melodie Howard’s firm, In Perspective Consulting, focuses on designing and executing sustainable systems for development. Her particular specialties are: succession planning, corporate values, performance management systems, senior leadership competency development, executive coaching, 360o feedback and talent management. Melodie’s previous experience includes serving as the Group Director of Organizational Development for leading international re-insurance company, Partner Reinsurance, Ltd., based in Hamilton, Bermuda. She continues to work with them on a retained consultancy basis. Prior to her role at PartnerRe, Melodie spent 16 years at the Center for Creative Leadership in both operational and profit and loss responsibility roles. Melodie received her Master’s of Science in Organization Development from Pepperdine University in August of 2000 and a B.S. in Psychology from Guilford College in 1980. You can find Melodie’s profile on TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Linchpin by Seth Godin

To see a cool video of Jacqueline Novogratz describing how she recognizes a linchpin, click here: http://vimeo.com/9566384.

Jacqueline is the founder and CEO of Acumen Fund (acumenfund.org) a fast-growing non-profit that is pioneering the idea of patient capital.  Acumen funds entrepreneurs that build significant for-profit companies that do business with the poorest people in the world.

As many as 10 years ago in the March 16, 1999 Wall Street Journal,  a study by Psychologist Vonda Mills, showed that 275 women in management roles were better able to maintain perspective when there were a variety of places toward which they could direct their energies.

Gender aside, anyone who works anywhere will tell you the same thing: the more possibilities you are working on, the better able you are to cope when some just don’t work out.

Anytime you define yourself by one person or thing; a job, a mate, a community, even a value, you are more apt to be disappointed, even devastated if something happens to change or break the connection.

The greater the damage, the longer it takes to return to creative and productive thinking.

The following scenarios, names changed, are illustrative:

Joe Haskins, Vice President of Operations, had dedicated his career to one company. He put his work before everything and everyone else. His children didn’t know him, his wife didn’t like him, and his neighbors didn’t recognize him. When his company was sold, his division was reorganized, his department was reengineered, and his job was gone. Like everyone else, Joe was escorted to the parking lot, where his belongings were delivered to him in a box.

The locks were changed, the passwords altered. He was physically whole and emotionally broken. He lost his identify along with his title and didn’t know where he was supposed to find himself.

Carol Ferral was a third year attorney with a prominent law firm. Now she’s unemployed and unsure of what’s next. For as long as she could remember she wanted to become a lawyer. Her teachers, parents, and friends agreed that she had made The Perfect Choice. Carol was a standout student and attended a top tier law school. Despite her intellectual prowess, she was surprised to find her student colleagues to be more difficult, more competitive, more solitary and more aggressive than she had anticipated. It was a foreshadowing of what her brief legal career was to become.

Carol was smart enough to make it, but not tough enough to take it. Whatever she thought it would be, it wasn’t. Add to that mix, a staggering law school debt, and a long line of disappointed hometown boosters who couldn’t believe their gal couldn’t hack it. To her credit, she had the savvy to cut her losses before her job eroded her emotional capital. Carol had no idea what else she would do, she just knew it would have to be better than this.

Here’s the bottom line. Hackneyed expressions like “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” and “always hedge your bets” were coined by those who learned their lessons the hard way, and by those who told them so.

Figure out what your innate strengths are, and if you don’t know (ironically, few of us do) ask those who know you best. Once you are clear about what you bring to the table, you’ll find that there are many places that can benefit. You are not limited to one field, one company, or one geographical area. Once you realize that, you can network your talents more effectively and efficiently. Your story is a simple one: this is what I do best and here are the ways that I can benefit your organization.

There is freedom in knowing that there are options available to you. Flexibility is a basic requirement of employees now and going forward.

Here’s what else it’s going to take: the ability to handle a variety of responsibilities, an increased need for quick response, and a thirst for challenge. The more you’ve got, the more you’ll get. Take charge of yourself and you’ll take charge of your career.

* * * *

Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Technology: Most employers assume a twenty-something candidate has computer skills. And most assume those over 50 don’t. List in your resume any computer applications in which you’re fluent and any certifications you’ve earned.  Make sure employers know that you have the skills needed to do the job for which you’ve applied and that you have both experience and technical know-how.

Ability to Learn: Speaking of certifications, consider returning to school to earn certification in other skills that are in demand, ex. project management, human resource management, web design. Some employers assume older workers have obsolete skill sets and are resistant to learning. Not only do the additional skills make older workers more competitive but recent schooling is evidence of initiative and learning agility.

Flexibility: Older workers are sometimes thought of as inflexible. But an advantage a seasoned worker has over his/her younger counterpart is his or her extensive experience. Make sure your resume information demonstrates your flexibility as you successfully managed the variety of challenges handed to you.  Showing flexibility, especially in your people skills coupled with your work experience, is a real win.

Each year AARP lists the top companies for older workers (www.aarp.org). Best opportunities currently are in retail, health care and teaching.

* * * *

Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Pamela Corbett is an executive coach, career and outplacement counselor, organizational consultant and psychotherapist with her own practice, Spectrum Psychological Services based in Winston-Salem, NC. Licensed in North Carolina and trained in clinical psychology (Penn State and Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Pam is a certified Master Practitioner of NLP and is certified in the entire suite of Career, Leadership, and Organizational Architect Tools. Pamela has been providing executive assessment, development planning, coaching, and training through her own business and as adjunct faculty with the Center for Creative Leadership since 1986. Pam’s earlier work experience includes a veterinary hospital start-up, television production, insurance claims negotiation, inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy, and teaching at Wake Forest University. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Assess your career options with a fresh eye and new perspective.

• “I’ve spent time developing my technical skills and have been rewarded for my expertise yet. I’m feeling less than fulfilled in my work. I need to take a long hard look at my options.”

Take Charge of Your Career

As you reflect on your career, you may identify certain key points, or places along your career path where a critical milestone was achieved, or significant lesson learned. With our busy lives, it’s increasingly rare to find time to do such reflection. Yet, it is by doing such an assessment that you can find clarity and a sense of purpose in your work.

Reflection Questions:

• What are the obstacles that get in the way of you achieving your next career goals?
• What classes or executive education have you taken in the last 3 years?
• What is your portfolio of skills and experiences?
• What legacy do you want to leave if you depart your current job?

Case Vignette:  Barry

Successful as a regional sales manager, Barry has recently started to rethink his next career move. While he enjoys the perks associated with his job, Barry finds himself feeling less than fulfilled. He thinks about the success he had as a sales person and wonders if going back to a job that involves closer interaction with customers would be just what he needs. On the other hand, Barry thinks that it may be time for a completely new direction: new industry, new job function.

A Coaching Approach for Barry

• Initiate a candid conversation with Barry about his career.
• Utilize assessment tools including multi rater surveys and career profiles.
• Work with Barry to identify several career paths.
• Engage in action planning.

* * * *

Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Melodie Howard’s firm, In Perspective Consulting, focuses on designing and executing sustainable systems for development. Her particular specialties are: succession planning, corporate values, performance management systems, senior leadership competency development, executive coaching, 360o feedback and talent management. Melodie’s previous experience includes serving as the Group Director of Organizational Development for leading international re-insurance company, Partner Reinsurance, Ltd., based in Hamilton, Bermuda. She continues to work with them on a retained consultancy basis. Prior to her role at PartnerRe, Melodie spent 16 years at the Center for Creative Leadership in both operational and profit and loss responsibility roles. Melodie received her Master’s of Science in Organization Development from Pepperdine University in August of 2000 and a B.S. in Psychology from Guilford College in 1980. You can find Melodie’s profile on TheCoachingAssociation.com.

Company of One – Create Your Own Job Security

Do you know how to create your own job security and why it is important? The secret to building your own job security starts with getting the job/s that are right for you and then managing yourself as if you were a business. To borrow a phrase from Transitions author William Bridges, think of yourself as a “company of one.”

The Old Contract

Before the 1980s, if you did a good job for a good company your job was pretty safe.  Corporate America traditionally fostered the loyalty of its employees by giving and increasing their benefits: insurance, tuition, child care, retirement plans, fitness centers, subsidized cafeterias, to name a few. Longevity was rewarded with promotions and raises. The tie was so strong, even if a great opportunity came along outside of your company, too many perks made it hard to change companies. The implied contract was simple: stay here, do good work and we’ll take care of you for your career.

Then came that big wave of 1980′s  downsizing with a second phase of “right-sizing” in early 2000 and now we are experiencing a more than 10% unemployment rate in 2009.  Companies laid off employees by the thousands: downsizing, right-sizing, re-organizing and restructuring. The need to be lean, productive and profitable was, and is still, inescapable. But if you were paying attention, what you saw were talented people and tenured employees alike being shown the door. It’s not different today. What gives? Work hard. Stay put. And you still lose your job?

Managing Your Career

The contract was broken. Companies no longer provided job security.  Job security hasn’t gone away, but it did change hands. It is now up to us. We are “companies of one” and we need to manage ourselves that way.

What does a business do to stay viable? It responds to needs in the marketplace (or creates new ones). Like that business, we need to:

(1) know what talents we have (or can develop) and we enjoy using, then

(2) market them where they’re needed.

Talents and Interests

Do you know what your talents are, especially those you enjoy employing? Are there skills you need to strengthen to remain successful? Are you getting regular feedback? Do you ask for it? Do you know other ways to get it?

Successful people are self-aware: they accurately assess their strengths and weaknesses, their impact on others and ways to change what they’re doing if their impact is counterproductive.

Are you ready to move into the driver’s seat?

First, determine what skills are critical to success on your job. Consult performance reviews and job descriptions. Make your own list, then interview your boss and those who depend on the work you do for what they think is important to the success of your position. You can also ask Human Resources for their assistance.  If you are unemployed reach back to your former colleagues and supervisors.  You need this information to help guide your next steps.

Second, evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. Consider asking your boss or HR for a multi-rater or 360 assessment. If your company doesn’t offer them they or you can contract with a coach or consultant who specializes in assessment and development. When done correctly, these assessments collect quantified and anonymous feedback from the people who work “around” (hence, 360) you- your boss, peers, direct reports, and others. The information is for development purposes and should be confidential to you. If that option is not available, start by rating yourself on the list of critical skills you developed. Then ask the others who provided lists of skills they thought were important to rate you on them. Look for similarities and differences. Any blind spots? What do your performance reviews say? Consult any psychological or vocational assessments you’ve taken in the last couple of years.

Continuous Learning

We used to depend on our employers or bosses to give us feedback, tell us what to work on and send us off to some training event. Well, that didn’t happen very reliably before and there’s less reason now to expect or wait for that to happen. Remember, you’re in the driver’s seat now.

Once we’ve targeted what we need to work on, we need a development plan. There are professionals (for example coaches, management consultants, psychologists) who specialize in customizing plans to clients’ needs and helping them achieve the goals of those plans.  If you’re creating your own development plan it should include target behaviors that define improvement for each skill being developed, sources of ideas for new behaviors and/or improved skills, assignments in which new behaviors can be practiced, sources of and methods for ongoing feedback and strategies for maximizing the learning experience.

Who can help you? Coaches with backgrounds in human development use their expertise to help bring about the desired change and growth effectively. Mentors and learning partners are other sources of help.

Do you know how to market yourself?

It’s no news that the marketplace is changing rapidly. In a very short period of time our economy base has shifted from manufacturing to service to knowledge. Outsourcing to off-shore locations and the economic downturn is quickly changing the employment landscape. At a minimum, we will change jobs at lest seven times in our working lives.

Marketing yourself is simply monitoring and adjusting to changes and emerging needs in your company and industry and maintaining your visibility in both places. We accomplish this through the relationships we establish and maintain in both places. It is through these relationships that we learn company and industry news as well as help others learn about us. It positions us should our current employment cease or a better opportunity opens up.

Talent alone does not guarantee a job, as we’ve already seen. There has to be a need for our talent and those who need it have to know we have it. In short, we need visibility.

We’ve learned that those who keep their skill sets current with job demands and stay connected with their networks have little difficulty landing new positions. We’ve talked about the first steps in that process, how to match your skills with those in demand. What happens if you lose your job or become unhappy in the one you have? Do you know how to launch a campaign to get the next “right” job for you?

An earlier version of this article appeared in Strategy published by Winston Salem Journal and the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce.

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Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Pamela Corbett is an executive coach, career and outplacement counselor, organizational consultant and psychotherapist with her own practice, Spectrum Psychological Services based in Winston-Salem, NC. Licensed in North Carolina and trained in clinical psychology (Penn State and Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Pam is a certified Master Practitioner of NLP and is certified in the entire suite of Career, Leadership, and Organizational Architect Tools. Pamela has been providing executive assessment, development planning, coaching, and training through her own business and as adjunct faculty with the Center for Creative Leadership since 1986. Pam’s earlier work experience includes a veterinary hospital start-up, television production, insurance claims negotiation, inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy, and teaching at Wake Forest University. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.