Tag: Professional Development

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Untitled front coverKnow Yourself, Grow Your Career

Are you ready to create a self-guided vision for your career? Would you like help doing that?

Do you want to discover your own personal value proposition (PVP) equation and how it can help give you clarity and increase your professional worth?

WHAT IS A PVP EQUATION?

A personal value proposition equation takes into account your interests, values, preferences (collectively priorities), skills and talents (collectively strengths) and combines them with existing or potential roles that benefit from what you offer (market needs). 

Here’s the equation:

Your Priorities + Your Strengths +

Market Needs =

Your Personal Value Proposition

Often we are hyper-focused on one set of factors, based on our current situations and outlook for our careers, such as:

  • our strengths (actual or perceived),
  • our own needs and priorities, or
  • what we expect (without outside verification) is needed by employers or clients,

without truly understanding any of these in depth or considering how they work together. Know Yourself, Grow Your Career helps you analyze and synthesize each part of the equation, so you can bring your highest personal value to the marketplace. As a bonus, Units 9 and 10 of the book show you how to take your personal value proposition and turn it into an authentic and compelling brand and elevator pitches.

Anne Marie Segal is an executive coach, author, resume strategist and member of Forbes Coaches Council. She is founder of Segal Coaching, author of Master the Interview: A Guide for Working Professionals (available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and through local booksellers) and a frequent public speaker in New York, Connecticut and beyond.

Image credit: Adobe Images.

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Young woman showing her heartfelt gratitude

For professionals who work day-in and day-out in a macho work environment – where you  “eat what you kill,” and if you don’t produce, you don’t eat – gratitude is often a foreign notion.

More common are words like merit, grit, earning and climbing.

Gratitude can seem soft, vulnerable and passive.

Yet the more mature we become as professionals – and, in fact, as people – the more we can appreciate, if not “what we have been given” (which sounds as though we had no hand in it) then “what we are fortunate to have” (which is the result of luck and hard work).

While we may have made many of our own breaks, we still caught breaks.

Gratitude can indeed be strong and active, as can we when we invite gratitude into our lives. Meditation, playing with young children, hiking, singing, surfing… There are many ways to get ourselves into the right mindset to drop the macho masks we must (or fear we must?) wear every day.

When we are vulnerable, we are also open and approachable. 

We connect with others through shared purpose.

We have the capacity to create, integrate new ideas and expand from our current point of view.

We break out of the negative feedback loops that often plague us.

We can achieve change that is the necessary element of growth.

We realize that we are not in control of every detail in our lives. Rather than fighting against the current, we learn to live and breathe in the natural flow.

What will gratitude teach you this year?

 

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girl on a rock
Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone (Adobe Images)

I welcome my first guest blogger, Melanie Glover, a personal friend on the career path journey. Melanie is a young attorney and certified personal trainer who writes about professional development, health, nutrition and exercise at Balanza and Beyond.

Melanie Glover
Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

Every time I have pushed myself outside of my comfort zone, it has hurt.  But I have not once regretted it. 

It was the beginning of my legal career, and I had to cover a hearing for my supervisor.  The hearing was supposed to be simple and straightforward.  It was not supposed to take long.  However, everything turned out how I least expected. 

The hearing that was supposed to last five minutes lasted five hours as I waited for other attorneys to take their turns with their clients before the Judge.  I came back a second and then a third time; I went back and forth with the Judge on the record; and I interacted with my client.  I was not prepared for that marathon day in Court when what I had been expecting was a five-minute hearing.  At the end of the day, I just wanted to hide:  despite my all-afternoon efforts, we would have to appeal.

I confess:  I felt like I had let my client and myself down. 

The hearing was supposed to last five minutes.
It lasted five hours.

Then, after several months, I took a step back and reflected.  I learned practical things, such as (1) always to take my Statute with me to Court, and (2) to always be prepared for a hearing to last all day. 

But I also learned a deeper lesson to apply to life in general both in my professional and personal lives.  I learned that undesirable situations might just bring a person to the edge of discomfort only to come out on the other side with a fresh perspective, a new relationship, or some other productive and creative energy or opportunity.

That day I felt less than my best self in front of my colleagues, the Judge, and my client.  But after further examining the experience, I realize that I also made a valuable friendship with another attorney who went through the same experience by my side.  And out of that friendship, I have been able to commiserate, receive advice, and even give advice.  In summary, I have learned that even what seem to be the most challenging situations at the time can still produce hope; you just have to look – and practice looking – for it.

When we reflect, we learn.  And when we fall, we do not have to stay defeated.  We can stand back up, and we can learn from the tumble.  Coming to a positive conclusion after enduring hard circumstances is not comfortable.  In fact, it can be a bit reckless; but it is unexpectedly worthwhile. 

When we fall, we do not have to stay defeated.
Search for that unexpected gift.

My overarching advice for young professionals is to search for that unexpected gift – a lesson, relationship, or new skill – in difficult circumstances.  Searching deep and wide for the good within the bad is definitely a practice that I have had to acquire intentionally.  But those trying situations have allowed me to practice seeking the underlying positive message despite the adversity. 

Guest post insert and image © 2016 Melanie Glover. All rights reserved. Originally published at Balanza and Beyond on July 22, 2016. 

1468170729742 (melanie glover)

Melanie Glover is a young lawyer and certified personal trainer who blogs about creating a healthy, balanced lifestyle through tips on fitness, nutrition, and self care.  Her blog is a personal endeavor to help others become the best versions of their personal and professional selves and can be found at Balanza and Beyond. Melanie’s book on an American’s view into a Spanish kitchen, Fusión Cultural, is available on Amazon. 

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Address Strong Superhero Success Professional Empowerment Stock
Is your childhood fascination keeping you from your dream job today?

Are You Judged By Your Email Address?
A Resounding Yes!

If you have an email address that starts like any of the ones below, or something similar, and you have wondered why you have had a hard time getting any traction in your job search, this is a post you need to read.

superboy7

batmanrocks2014

777goldrush

pushmybuttons29

bestrunner550

krisandstevesmith

kevinandamysdad

tommmons7

I’ve called this post “Immature Email Addresses Need Not Apply” because I can tell you from countless conversations with recruiters and hiring managers that they LOVE to see goofy, inappropriate, overly personal or hard-to-read email addresses. It makes their job easier. Resume, meet trash can. (Well, they actually cringe to see them with otherwise highly qualified candidates, because it puts everything else about the candidate’s application into doubt.)

Recruiters and hiring managers LOVE to see goofy, inappropriate or hard-to-place email addresses. It makes their job easier. Resume, meet trash can.

One of the important vetting points for a job candidate is to determine whether he or she has good judgment. Whether you’ll be a law firm associate, marketing manager or receptionist, if you don’t have good judgment, you are missing one of the essential elements that makes a good employee. So demonstrating your bad judgment in the very document that is meant to market you is clearly counterproductive to, if not fatal for, your chances as a job candidate.

You would be surprised how often I need to say this to clients, and it is not only junior people who have never held a job before. I have had this same conversation with executive candidates who have been in the workforce for 20 years or more.  I would guess that everyone knows someone who has the “wrong” type of email address to grace a professional job application, but few of us know how to tell our friends that they need to change it.

Don’t use an email address that includes your street address, is awkward to type, alludes to your hobbies or religious beliefs, or is anything other than an easy derivation of your name. Outside of a professional context (a world that is admittedly getting smaller and smaller with social media, if not disappearing for most of us), you can email from butterfly2000@gmail.com, soccerhead4769@hotmail.com or whatever you like, but not in the job search or on work-related matters thereafter, if you want to be taken seriously.

Keep your resume out of the trash can.

Judgment. It’s that important. Review every aspect of your resume and other career documents to see if there is any hint (or shout) of bad judgment, from an immature, unprofessional, irrelevant or hard-to-spell email address or otherwise.

Email addresses are not the time and place to get creative.
Not when you are in job search mode.

People often want offbeat email addresses to express their individuality. That’s great, go crazy, but create a new one for your job search. In a very small number of highly creative fields, a call-attention-to-your-uniqueness style of email address can work (although none of the above addresses are actually creative, just off the mark). In almost all cases, however, the tried and true combination of firstname.lastname@emailserver.com is the best bet. In addition, some career experts recommend that Gmail and Hotmail are the best servers to show that you are a tech-savvy candidate. If the firstnamelastname combination is not available, lastnamefirstname, firstnamelastname10, firstnamemiddleinitiallastname and other combinations of one’s name and initials make your email (and, by extension, your job application) easier to find and retrieve among a pool of hundreds or thousands of candidates, so you can get the call for the interview and job offer.

On a similar note, if you use your married name professionally, don’t use your maiden name in your email. If you use your middle name as a first name, don’t start your email with your “real” first initial (unless it is also on your resume), so if someone wants to start typing your name, they know which letter comes first (which often populates the “To” field in their email message).  If you have a difficult to pronounce or spell last name that is 29 letters, consider shortening it to 5 or 8 letters in the email, cutting it off at a natural breaking point. In all cases, what you are trying to do is make it easier on the person recommending, interviewing (and, hopefully, hiring) you.

Keep your eye on the prize. The purpose of a job search is to get the job. 

Anne Marie Segal is a career coach and résumé writer for attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs. She is currently completing her first book, on job interviews, which will be available in early 2017. To join her monthly mailing list and receive a preview of the chapter on value propositions, please click here and write “Book Preview” in the comments section.

 

[Note: Any reference to actual email addresses in the above is unintentional. These addresses are cited for illustration purposes only.]

© 2016 Anne Marie Segal. All rights reserved.
Photograph above from Adobe Images.

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shutterstock_424911079 (hands)

My daughter is nine. Lately, she wants to be an actress. She saw a casting call for Descendants 3, and she is ready to head to Vancouver (we live in Connecticut) to audition, if I will just say yes.

As we read through the requirements, among other things, you must submit a resume that lists your acting experience. My daughter has been in a few local shows at her school and the community center. It is “real” acting, but not necessarily the type that is valued by casting directors. I watch her scour the internet for information and other opportunities, quite devoted and pumped up (as only someone who is just reaching double digits in age can be).

An acting coach’s website pops up in one of her searches about whether a certain agency is a scam. “Oh, a coach could be helpful,” I tell her. “She could let you know how to prepare for your big break. What to learn, where to look for opportunities…”

My daughter turns to me, scoffs and delivers a classic line. “I don’t want a coach, Mom. I just want a job.” Other than the addition of my maternal moniker, she sounds like a few of my clients, if they would just be honest with themselves and me.

Yesterday a prospect pointedly asked me how fast my clients get jobs, as if that were a true measure of my success as a career coach. I gave her the honest answer, which is that “it depends.” I know there are some coaches who make promises – an interview in X weeks or a job in Y months. The truth is that I have clients who get an interview the same week we start working together, and I have others who struggle for some time after that. As I said to the prospect, there are three factors at play: (1) does the person have clarity on what he/she wants, (2) does he/she have skills that the marketplace needs and (3) is he/she ready to go?

Coaching is not a job placement service, but I do have prospective clients who contact me all the time wanting me to “find them a job” rather than help them do the tough but satisfying professional development to prepare themselves for their job search and interview process. They want a magic shot or shock to their system that will make the pain go away (pain of unemployment, pain of a toxic or numbing job, pain of not advancing, etc.) rather than being open to learning a better approach that will serve them in the short term and long term. By contrast, my clients who have the most success are the ones that have or can acquire the three points below.

Clarity. To be successful in a job search, you need clarity on what you are seeking and what roles will actually be a good match for you at the present moment. Notice I did not say “to find a job” you need clarity, but rather to be successful in your search. There are many people who are quite good at finding new jobs, only to be continually disappointed with the results, because they do not ask themselves what they really want to achieve in the short term and long term. There are others who struggle for months to find something, only to realize after starting a new role that it is not what they expected. In both cases, you are better able to find a match for your interests, talents and values if you have invested the time and energy (with or without a coach) to understand what those are.

Skills. What are the hard and soft skills, from strategic thinking to asset-backed financing or from stakeholder engagement to Hadoop – or, as in my daughter’s case, the ability to act, sing and dance – that are required by the targeted roles? Can you demonstrate that you have what it takes or are able to quickly get up to speed, closing the gap? In some fields and roles, in which skills are easier to acquire and there is a huge demand for each open position, you will almost always need to demonstrate your accomplishments in advance. In other cases, and with forward-thinking hiring managers, what you need to demonstrate is an understanding of how the role contributes to the organization, the ability to solve problems and an immediate aptitude and readiness to acquire the needed skills to make that happen.

Readiness. Let’s return again to that last point, readiness. I sometimes describe it as having the “light turned on,” like a cab that is free to pick up passengers. The single most important indicator to job search success, which I notice every day among my clients, is an ability to stand ready for the opportunities that life presents. In fact, cultivating readiness is often a central element to the coaching process – whether we discuss, for example, how to prioritize networking opportunities or present one’s value proposition to the specific audience at hand – and it can be the one that yields the greatest results. Readiness includes openness, self-confidence, responsiveness and an ability to (leave one’s baggage at the curb and) live/work/be in the moment.

Anne Marie Segal is a career coach and résumé writer for attorneys, executives and entrepreneurs. 

© 2016 Anne Marie Segal. All rights reserved.

Image above: Shutterstock.