Looking for a new job is a typical reaction when you acknowledge your unhappiness with your current role. In these difficult times where competition is high, you may want to ask yourself “Is this what I really want?” What if there was a way to move forward without leaving behind job security and embarking on a stressful job search? Lateral Moves shows you how this may work for you.

Keeping your career advancement within the confines of your current employer isn’t such a bad idea, particularly if you like the job, but find your work colleagues or manager unbearable, or if you like the culture but not your specific job. Both of these things can be changed and it would be a shame to give away the security of a job and your accrued benefits on the strengths of a personality clash with someone who may end up leaving the company soon after you go!

Of course you need to come to terms first with what it is you like and dislike about your job, the people and the company. As long as the issues aren’t deal-breakers such as workplace bullying, the company’s looming financial collapse, a repressive culture, or an industry you just plain don’t like, then it may be worth investing in your future with your current company and removing yourself away from the deadbeat team mates or the inadequate manager and steam on forward with your own career.

Intrapreneurship

The word “intrapreneur” is based on “entrepreneur”. Just like an entrepreneur starting his or her own business, intrapreneurs observe opportunities and gaps in the workplace that can be leveraged. The intrapreneur sees what is wrong, works out what he or she can do to fix the problems, and then sells these ideas to people of influence. In that way, you are altering your own job description a bit at a time to incorporate something that gives you satisfaction and adds value to your employer.

Ask yourself:

• What is everyone complaining about most here?
• What can I do to fix the problem or ease the issue?
• Who is an open-minded mentor in this company who will listen to my ideas?
• What can I do to make sure i can take ownership of my idea and see it through?
• What talents do I have to contribute to implementing these changes?

Going up the Ladder

Make an appointment to speak with your human resources department to discuss your career. They may be very supportive of your ambitions and dreams and now that you have made them known, they may be able to place you in a program for advancing within the company. On the downside, they may raise performance issues that have stopped you from moving within the company of which you are unaware. While this may seem daunting, take it as a positive. Information is power and with this knowledge you can now adjust your attitude or performance to show you are attempting to reform and grow.

Influence your manager on the importance of multiskilling to learn other people’s jobs. As you become more productive, you will also be considered somewhat indispensable as the only person who has a big picture view of the department or team. You will become the “go to” person which may then place you in a position to be considered for a team leadership, management or training role.

Observe the wording the vacancies used for higher positions. Find out about them. Understand what other people do. It will provide you with a direction post for what skills you are missing and what you need to do to acquire them to be a contender for the roles you want.

Keep your ear to the ground. Be political and know what’s happening. Don’t be the last to know. People who walk around in a dream, or alternatively are too busy complaining, miss out on tidbits of information. If that tidbit is someone considering leaving or about to hand in his or her notice, then it’s time to ramp up who you talk with and decide how you will position yourself for the soon-to-be vacant job.

Same Job, Different Place

Like the job but the people leave a bit to be desired? Like the job but the manager is hopeless? If you work for a state, national or international company, think about a transfer to another branch, department or division.

Take on Short-Term Assignments

Short-term roles can be a secondment to a different department or a special project. It can be a study grant, a job-sharing initiative or research. You could become a union representative, a fire warden, or a health and safety officer — all jobs that expose you to different levels of the company and different people than you would normally come into contact with.

Short-term assignments help by:

• Offering opportunities to be seen in a new light
• Enhancing your profile in the organisation and exposing you to new people
• Developing new skills for upward mobility

Whatever You Do…
Don’t stand still! There comes a time when you need to stop complaining and start taking action! Think about what you want, lay the foundation for getting it and engage a positive attitude.

You’ve tried everything you can to get a job over the past year. Your hopes have been raised, they’ve been dashed, raised again and dashed again. The couple of interviews you’ve scored, they’ve told you you are over-qualified or under-qualified or you’ve failed to connect in some way. Whatever you’ve been told, it hasn’t been what you wanted to hear; those three words—You are hired”.

What you have been doing is not working. If it had worked, you’d be sitting in a new job by now, or at the very least, you would have attended more than a handful of interviews in a year.

Take for example, Eduardo. Eduardo is originally from Venezuela where he was a leading executive for a mining company. He’s led mergers and acquisitions that have reaped millions of dollars, he’s negotiated huge contracts, and he was known as a mover and shaker in the business world. Today, Eduardo is working in Melbourne Australia as a department manager in customer service for a telecommunications carrier.

And he hates it.

It’s dull, he is unappreciated and he’s been stuck there since he arrived in Australia about 15 months ago.

This wasn’t his plan, but he felt that employers would find his outstanding achievements and career background daunting and his opportunities would be limited if he held out for a senior-level role. Eduardo wanted to find work quickly; to settle in and start making a life for himself in Australia. He was prepared to take a giant step backwards if it meant a quicker settling-in period. His resume, a skeleton of what it could and should have been, provided precious little information and certainly none about his substantial business achievements back in Venezuela.

For the past year, he has sent this resume to apply for so many jobs, he’s lost count. Eduardo is despondent. Is this all he can expect? To be a departmental manager in customer service for the rest of his career?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting a different outcome.

If Eduardo hasn’t made any headway in more than a year, then something needs to change. He simply cannot expect that the resume that hasn’t caught the interest of anyone is going to suddenly become something it isn’t. He can’t expect that a weekly visit to search for advertised jobs on a Saturday is going to do anything but fail, as it has for months on end.

What does he have to lose if he changes his strategy? So far, he’s dumbed down his experience to get a job he hates. His resume fails to inspire anyone, and any attempts to apply for roles for which is is qualified, fail immediately as nothing in his resume shows him as anything other than an overly ambitious and unqualified departmental manager.

What would happen if Eduardo took a new approach?

What if he decided to embrace his experience and lay claim to his achievements as a successful businessman? What if Eduardo stopped trying to sell himself as being something he isn’t, and instead, showed the confident demeanour that allowed people to see his authentic self?

What if… indeed.

Time will tell if taking the risk of revealing his true experience and taking it to the market, will yield good results. The probability that he will do better, is encouraging. Eduardo can talk confidently about what he knows, he won’t be continually altering his interview responses to tone down his experience, or remember what is and is not on his resume. By making a new pitch, by taking ownership of his skills, knowledge and experience, Eduardo will no longer hide behind a pretence easily identified by search consultants. He can claim his true business achievements, he can demonstrate that he is a genuine, credible contender, and with that comes the conviction, poise and courage that he’s been afraid to reveal until now.

Have you been doing the same thing over-and-over and expecting a different outcome? Perhaps you need to consider changing your job search strategy. After all, what do you have to lose?

It’s probably fair to say that most jobseekers have a story or two to tell about recruiters and those stories are not always complimentary! Primarily it’s through the frustration jobseekers feel; the lack of control in the process, the “brick wall” they experience and the conviction that if they could just get in front of the employer themselves, they could nail the job.

Well, like most matters, it’s a two-way street. Some candidates can’t be a walk in the park for recruiters either! So today we’re going to talk with Mary E. Clark, Director of Professional Recruitment Australia, a Brisbane-based recruitment company to understand the other side of the job search.

Let’s begin!

How do you feel about candidates who are not ambitious? For instance the 50 year-old candidate who has never risen above System Administrator?

Mary: First, I would consider the circumstances surrounding this unambitious candidate. Is he bored, under-utilised, not channelled in the right role, under a great deal of personal stress, using the role as a filler job while studying some other passionate interest, suffering from a lack of self confidence? There are so many external forces affecting a candidates’ outlook.

The glass is “half full” to me. I view a 50 year-old systems administrator candidate as someone who is passionate about systems administration and is fulfilled in his or her career. Until…my instincts-–which are a collection of learned experiences and not a sense, advise me otherwise.

“To love what you do and know that is matters–what could be more fun?”

Have you ever told someone he/she was “over qualified?” Was that just a euphemism to mean something else that you were bound by client confidentiality not to release?

Mary: You must be authentic in your relationships. Conversations have to be real. Use candour especially when it comes to a candidates’ career. While many fear “real” it is the unreal conversation that are costly for the individual and the company. I have found when the conversation is real, the change occurs before the conversation is over and we tackle goals together. Fortunately, my clients believe as I do and allow me to fully disclose interview feedback. One of the reason many clients and candidates seek my recruitment expertise is because I am brutally honest.

I’m particularly interested in what to do with the persistent candidate? Is it a good strategy for the candidate to keep on calling? How is the recruiter relationship best handled?

Mary: Persistent candidates are simply in search of accurate information. It is the core of a recruiter’s role to provide candidates with enough information to make informed decisions on their careers. If you think the phone call from a persistent candidate is an intrusion to your day then you are in the wrong business! That call is an opportunity to potentially have a candidate become a client. Sun Tzu states “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”. So, my advice to the candidate is if your strategy is to keep calling a recruiter to ask “What are you doing for me?”, present some tactics each time to develop your career plan. Such as, what courses you are enrolled in, certifications you have recently received or technology user groups you are participating in or results from a Teckchek assessment (www.teckchek.com). Give us something we can sell to our clients and differentiates you.

What is your pet hate when it comes to resumes?

Mary: Pictures. Save your picture for LinkedIn or Facebook profiles. A recruitment agency database is not for social networking.

Also resumes with heaps of colours and decorative fonts. This creative flair is too distracting to my eye. Most recruiters read in depth at least fifty resumes in a day. So content over appearance is my recommendation.

What is your pet peeve when it comes to job candidates? (I had an interviewer tell me that some candidates text or are casually slurping coffee as they walk in the door).

There are two things and they are intertwined. First is when a candidate is late to an interview with me and does not call to let me know. The second is when you advise a candidate not to do or say something in the client interview and they do so anyway. My conclusion is most candidates who do not value the role of the recruitment company therefore do not value my time (so they are late) and do not value my insight and expertise (so they mess up in client interviews). If the candidate was invoiced for my time and expertise like a lawyer or accountant would do for a similar consultation — I think they would then listen to my advice!

The more you know about someone the greater you can influence them.

Can you give an example of the worst thing said or done by the candidate during an interview?

Mary: This is rather funny now. Five minutes into an interview, a very polished candidate asked to be excused to go to the toilet. He never came back! I waited along with a client representative for 10 minutes staring at each other. At first we thought maybe he got lost coming back to the conference room but he vanished from the building. I called his mobile to see what happened but never got a reply. The client commented to me “Wow Mary, I heard you interrogate your candidates in an interview but wow!

Mary E. Clark can be contacted at: www.pra.com.au | www.linkedin.com/in/maryeclark
Results through Connectivity, Participation and Knowledge

Let’s face it.

Styles change.
Times change.
Expectations change.

Fairytales change… not so much

A fairytale may be a cautionary tale at its inception, but over the years fairytales take on a legend-like status and despite wide ranging cultural, technological, commercial and lifestyle changes, these fairytales remain stubbornly at the forefront of our minds, entrenched and unquestioned.

Let’s dispel a few of today’s resume writing myths now.

Myth: A résumé must have an Objective as an opening statement

The tepid, cringeworthy statements made by applicants who state the obvious-—“I want a position that offers a challenge, working with a committed team of people in a progressive environment”—-have to be the most hackneyed statements committed to paper. A show of hands, please, from those who want to work in a treadmill position, surrounded by bored deadbeats, in a potentially bankrupt and stultifying atmosphere!

Myth: A résumé must be a complete chronicle of work history, concentrating on duties and responsibilities.

If you are 55 years old, do you intend to explore in depth the highs and lows of the paper route you had when you were 13? Or if you’re a contractor, are you making a list of every project you have worked on since you started your apprenticeship? We can just see the typical recruiter reaching for the painkillers at the very idea!

Myth: A résumé must provide a list of references and their contact details. References can be your friends, your coworkers, or Auntie Mary – anyone who has a good word to say about you.

Of course your Auntie Mary, coworkers and friends will have something good to say about you. The issue is whether they will be able to answer questions about your employment history and performance, since this is what your next employer will be looking for. Imagine the startled responses from your friends and Auntie Mary when the recruiter asks: “…and tell me, can you give me an example of how Cecil generated revenues in a saturated consumer market?”

Assurances that Cecil is a nice person with good manners and a love of stray animals is not exactly what the employer is looking for. This raises the subject of selecting appropriate references, which, incidentally, should be a separate document.

Myth: Education must include all subjects taken in high school and the results of each subject, followed with any University studies, subjects, and results.

This could be a reasonable suggestion if you are a new graduate. Just one full-time employment engagement since graduation, though, catapults you from student to experienced employee, and therefore, using valuable paper real estate to explore unnecessary information is a poor use of a limited resource. An employer will be looking for the real-life experiences and achievements of a potential employee, rather than an impressive list of classes studied by a new graduate.

Myth: A résumé must be no longer than four pages, and one is not enough.

This is one of the most important pieces of information you will ever hear about résumé writing that really will stand the test of time: Your résumé needs to be long enough to tell your story and to hold the reader’s interest—and not one word longer. It’s a little like a party. If it’s no longer interesting, starts to get repetitive, and you start to look at your watch—it needs to come to a close. Immediately. If that story has to end at two pages, three pages or four pages then that is where it has to end. Cutting out vital information to fulfil some arbitrary page preference is just madness. What part of your experience and skills do you want to leave out?

Or, as Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) so eloquently said: “The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.”

Myth: An employer needs to know about your personal life to know you as a person. It it vital to disclose all personal information.

Are you an entrant in the Miss World Contest? Is a weekend lottery draw of lucky birthday years offered to candidates? Does parenthood make you more reliable or less reliable? Does bungee jumping qualify you for that accountancy position? No matter how many ways you look at it, personal details on a business document never make a great deal of sense. Employers and recruiters are not, as you may think, looking for hidden clues to your leadership or other strengths in a listing of your hobbies. If your experience does not indicate your strengths, nothing will.

Myth: A skills section, indicating that you have excellent communication, interpersonal and organisational skills, is essential.

Are you aware that nearly every résumé is filled with these terms? Do you think that being a communicative, team player with excellent organisational skills makes you unique? Does that mean that the surly customer service representative slouching, yawning, and slamming your credit card through the machine at the department store yesterday included the same wording on his résumé? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

Myth: A résumé should reflect the following time-honoured format, without deviation: Objective, Personal Details, Skills and Education, Professional Experience, Hobbies/Leisure Interests and References.

So, should this time-honoured format be used if you are a barrister? A CEO? A nurse? A mechanic? Are all these occupations so similar as to follow the same career template? Marketing is marketing wherever it is applied; to win potential buyers (employers) you need to target their buying (hiring) habits. Do dishwashing liquid advertisements look the same as jeans commercials? Of course not! They are targeting completely different audiences with completely different needs. Remember that the next time you reach for a one-size-fits-all template!

Myth: It is important to name the document and any other piece of information with a subheading to circumvent any potential for misunderstandings. The document must be headed “Résumé,” the telephone number labeled “Telephone,” the job title labeled “Position,” the employer’s name labeled “Employer,” and so on.

Anyone with the authority to review your résumé will have the aptitude to understand what your document is without seeing a title, and will understand quite well that “7 Smith Street, Melbourne” is indeed an address. Readers are unlikely to misunderstand this information as being anything else. No one likes to be talked down to, as if he were unable to grasp the most basic information.

Myth: The font used in a résumé should always be Times New Roman or Arial, as these are standard fonts. Graphics or clip art should never be used on a résumé.

While using a calligraphic script typeface can be decidedly ill-advised and plain silly in many cases, there are numerous sophisticated, easy-to-read fonts that will add pizzazz and are standard across the majority of computers. Try Gills Sans, Baker Signet, Verdana, Palatino Linotype, and Book Antiqua for some interesting and conservative typefaces. Two typefaces can be combined, but the use of more than one is dangerous for a design novice and therefore, it’s best to use one typeface overall, leaving your expression of creativity and power to the words on the paper. Clipart used sparingly and in the right circumstances can be enormously effective. A child skipping or a red apple on a teacher’s resume, an airplane launching into the sky on a travel resume, or embedded Excel graphs showing a salesperson’s performance over previous years can be tasteful and exciting. Research your intended audience and industry, and err on the conservative side. If in doubt—don’t.

Myth: Little white lies will never be discovered.

They will. Businesses constantly perform background checks as a result of having been burned too many times. There are firms devoted entirely to verifying employee claims, and if you have misrepresented yourself, there is a good chance you will not only be found out, but also be asked to leave your employment no matter how good your performance has been or how long your tenure. Integrity still means something to many business-people and it is a fundamental part of their belief system. Put simply, lying is not worth the risk.

So here are just a few resume myths. Have you been guilty of thinking that the way things used to be done are the way they’ll always be done?

Last week we followed Richard. A Chief Operating Officer made redundant from his company, Richard is highly talented; a great leader who would be an asset to any company. There was just one thing wrong.

Richard was resistant to change. Put simply, he never trusted himself to step outside his comfort zone and frankly, never wanted to, due to his uncompromising beliefs. Sadly, ten months into his financially and emotionally draining job search, Richard was frustrated, humiliated and at a loss to understand where he was going wrong. Read Part 1 to come up to speed now.

Let’s rewind the last ten months, and look at how it could have been a much, much different story.

Richard, a Chief Operating Officer with a multinational company has survived many restructures, mergers and acquisitions in his time, but this time he was out of luck. Fortunately, Richard’s experience with the world told him that C-level roles aren’t often long-term engagements and at his level, the wait for a similar role may be a long one. Consequently, he made sure upon acceptance of this last promotion, that he negotiated a severance package should he be made redundant. It was smart to create a contingency plan. The 52-week payout provided Richard with that important financial buffer that would allow him to sustain his current lifestyle and be strategic about his next job choice. Yes, Richard was smart and intuitive in his negotiations and it has paid off.

Despite only being a few weeks away from work, Richard finds his mind straying now and then to the restructure that brought about his termination and he wonders if he could have done things better. Should he have been more assertive or more of a contributor? Did he not make the right strategic alliances? Increasingly these thoughts appear randomly and he starts to feel a mixture of anger and a little anxiety. While he could keep these feelings hidden to fester over time, he confides in his wife Sally, who is not just supportive—she has an idea. Sally has heard of a job loss recovery program that provides stress relief and guided visualisation through audio tapes that will help Richard work through the confusion of feelings. Of course, Richard is receptive to the idea. Allowing himself to release emotional baggage from his prior employment seems like an important step to him and with an open mind, he begins the two-week program. (Buy here) Rapidly he begins to feel the benefit of visualisation; he sees himself perform well at future interviews—confident of his abilities and free from the self-limiting thoughts that came from grieving the loss of his job.

Richard decides to remain social. It really is a vital part of the job search and as he meets with friends for coffee, he starts to pick up on clues… a project that has soured, a senior executive who is failing or operations in disarray following a merger. Instinctively he knows that he can act on these clues; seek out decision makers and start building a case for his hire. Of course, he’ll need a resume; and he knows just where to go. One of his friends couldn’t stop raving about a resume he had written by a professional resume writer and has passed on the writer’s business card to Richard who immediately checks out her credentials, website and samples and decides on-the-spot to delegate the writing of this important document to an expert.

Meanwhile, as Richard commits to the process of the resume development, he takes advantage of the $3000 worth of outplacement services he was provided by his former company as part of his severance. The central city location, free use of office services, the opportunity to work through the lists of employers provided, and the coaching, counselling and camaraderie found there, makes this a valuable experience for Richard.

Richard’s attitude is good and people warm to his friendly, open demeanour. Being well liked, he is always meeting with friends for coffee, and those friends have provided him with insights to approach decision makers, present his resume and business case and pitch for an opportunity to lend his considerable expertise to solve their problems. His extensive support network on Twitter and Facebook has helped him feel part of a friendly community and he’s been flattered and touched by the amount of people who have offered their help and support.

Tomorrow, Richard is attending a second meeting with the Managing Director of the Asia Pacific region of a multinational company where they will discuss a role that the MD would like to create just for Richard.

Things are going well. Very well. And Richard’s in the right place emotionally and financially to embrace any opportunity that presents itself because he stepped outside his comfort zone and declared himself open to new ideas and new ways.

How do you see yourself? Are you Richard Part 1 or Part 2?