A job search today is not your Mother or Father’s job search  “ I have some ideas as to how I am going to approach this and would like for you to take a look and give me your thoughts. My response was as usual, “talk to me first as to what you are thinking and then send me your draft [s].” The lady I was helping methodically walked me through her thought process and how she was going to take it and transfer it to marketing collateral. I realized after hanging up that a job search today is beyond anything that we have ever witnessed in years past. The day of just sending out a generic resume is a thing of the past. There is an entire cottage industry that has been built around resumes and LinkedIn bios. Bringing your “book” to a job interview I have friends that are former HR professionals who have hung their shingles out as resume writers, or shall I say, designers of resumes. Two of the industry best are Careers Done Write(Debra Wheatman) and The Resume Crusade (Chris Fields) Part of my job history was in the design and creative industry, and it was a given that when you interviewed, you had to bring your book (that is, your portfolio). ...
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 How are you going to deal with a new culture? Do you think the leadership style in another country will make a difference? I know that you can be very opinionated, but you may need to tone it down in another country. Questions about workplace culture have always intrigued me. What is a successful model so that you are accepted into a new environment? What if you are rejected? How can you get a sense up front to make the changes to increase your chance of success? What will you have to give up — and what will they have to give up? These are all interesting questions, and they are all relevant. Compromise or adjustment? Choose one All of our lives we have participated in culture adjustments. For instance: - Going to school for the first time;
- Changing schools;
- Starting college;
- Joining clubs or fraternities;
- Starting a first job;
- Changing jobs;
- Finding a partner;
- Marrying into a new family.
These are just a few that pop out as I think back over my life. The funny thing is that we all make adjustments and compromises in order to be successful. In compromising, we let go of something so that we can create a balance in a relationship. In making ...
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I applaud you for having the gumption to make this move. Are you are really going to do that?Are you kidding me You aren't afraid to move to another country Moving to the Middle East? Bon Voyage, I am so happy for you.All these comments came up over the past month as I completed yes completed my career bucket list I had always wanted a CHRO (chief human resources officer) role since the day I got involved in HR. My other checkpoint was that I wanted to live life as an expat
Checking off the list Lo and behold, these opportunities came in one package and allowed me to check off the last two items on my list. Career aspiration done, fineto, was how I tweeted So I resigned my job and eagerly accepted the new opportunity — an opportunity that would allow me to move to another country and head up an HR department. My wife will be joining me later, and my two magnificent kids were our biggest cheerleaders. Having traveled throughout the world, this move was no big deal, really. My wife was somewhat of a skeptic, but she knew me, and, she knew what I wanted and we worked it out ...
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“We spent literally an hour trying to decide which whether the to use a period, capital letters, or the size of the boxes in the presentation. All this discussion went back and forth for so long that I could not believe we could waste all this time on something so trivial. But then again, all of our prep meeting are like this. It seems more time is spent on this than the actual content.” As my friend told me this, I could just see her stomach churning as she was regretting going into work for the prep session for yet another monstrous deck. I had lunch with a CHRO friend of mine last week when she told me the story of a vendor presenting a 70 plus PowerPoint slide deck. By the time they were finished, everyone was just plain exhausted and worn out. But did they get they content right? Well, yes and no. Lots of slides. Rethink your presentation PowerPoint has taken over corporate endeavors. You know it is a “major” meeting when someone has a deck of slides. When I see that my thought always is — what in the hell did we use before deck? We talked it through, I think. I remember reading once about a CEO who would wait until people came in with ...
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 “You mean to tell me that you tried to forbid someone to look for a job for two years until the program that they are in is completed? Are you guys nuts?” I picked up the phone and called a friend who worked there and we both kind of shook our head. He felt the same way as I did. He said the company wanted to keep these folks under lock and key so they could watch their investment. You’re hired — and you can’t look for a job Sometimes I wonder just where my HR folks are when these type of things are crafted. You do not need a PHR or SPHR to realize that this was not the way to go. You do not need an HR certification to realize that this would not work. The No. 1 problem is, how do you enforce this? Do you require everyone to turn their cell phones at the front gate? What type of message do you send to your new hires that they will then tell their friends? Who gets deputized to corral all the miscreants who were ...
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Columbia University’s Journalism School just appointed a new dean. The uproar was astounding, to say the least. The new dean’s “alleged crime” is that he comes from a background of print [think newspapers and magazines] and he is taking over the training ground for the next generation of journalists whose skill set has changed. This new dean (his name is Steve Coll, an author and former Washington Post managing editor), and while having impeccable credentials, he is not versed in social media and reportedly does not have a Twitter account. And while a Twitter or Facebook account should not be a requirement for a job, having them should be taken into consideration if you are going to be training students in an industry that has been decimated by social media. You should be well versed in the annals of digital media Industry changed but skills set did not In my prior life, I was Vice President of Human Resources for Martha Stewart Living. Our primary revenue generator was our magazine, which at one time as thick as a copy of the Yellow ...
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"We need to have a discussion on your work ethic.”  This message was the response sent in reference to an email that was mailed at 9:20 pm on a recent evening. The recipient was still at her desk toiling away. The sender, her boss, was already home. When I saw this woman a few days later, I asked her to tell me about the work ethic conversation her manager mentioned. She said, in a matter of fact manner, “Oh, she does not want me working that late every night.” Nothing was mentioned about the department being short one person, or, that the one person they were short had left because of long hours. Getting close to the problem I asked her what would she do if she were in the position to bring in that one person to solve this conundrum. She methodically walked me through her department’s organizational design and made a pretty good business case on the fly. I was impressed, to say the least. Business and team success are determined by how well the inner workings of the organization are in sync. There is no mystery behind that. The closer you are to a situation, the better you are able to come up with an answer. Real answers are hard to come by ...
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Even though she didn't put in the $20, the crew at Keller Williams decided to kick in a bit of their winnings — they won’t say how much. “As a team, we put together a fat pile of money,” Finkelstein Reader said. “If we do the right thing and always care about other people, the right thing will happen to us.” “Creating workplaces everyone wants to be part of” A new hire had just joined the company as the team members were putting together a pool to purchase lottery tickets. She did not have the money to pay hr share since she had not gotten paid yet and just did not have any extra cash. She politely declined to join in the pool. When she returned to work the day after the drawing, she saw the celebration going on in the office and was told that yes, they ...
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 “Twenty-first century leaders might benefit from thinking of themselves as being in the center of a web rather than on top of a pyramid” — Dr. Ben Dattner. When I read that statement over at Smart Brief as their quote of the day, I was pleasantly surprised to see my good friend Dr. Dattner being quoted. He is a nationally known organizational psychologist that I have worked with numerous times over the years. His recent book, The Blame Game, is centered around two words that causes so much angst in an organization: the dynamics of credit and blame that is percolating 24/7. Today’s problems, yesterday’s solutions Both these statements are powerful new ways of looking at both leadership and the people that make it happen. And both these statements get to the heart of it: We can’t solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions. If you think of how change has come to our lives, especially with the advent of social media, everything is different. ...
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 When did you know? “When I caught that pass and realized that I was about to score a touchdown, that is when I knew. I have replayed this scenario numerous times since the time I was a kid playing in my front yard. Now I am in the Super Bowl and it is happening” What were your childhood dreams? When we were all kids, we all had dreams of being “something.” We were very clear when someone asked us about it. As we progressed through school, those career goals sometimes changed. When we entered college, we were (in some ways) forced to choose a career. When my kids were in college, I heard many stories of people changing their major numerous times. Sometimes, those choices would severely limit their market potential. In a lot of cases, they were mandated to make that choice in order to graduate. What I found amazing with this football story is that this person kept that dream alive. I am also sure that he had days of doubt and wondered whether he would ever really make it. Fulfilling that dream Human Resources is a field that is now ...
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