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The Warning Signs of Career Disaster
May 12, 2005 by jim stroud
Many of us experience recurring dreams. Mine is that I’m driving down the freeway and I can’t read the road signs until I’m right up close. By then, it’s too late: I’ve missed an important exit. Fortunately, it’s just a dream. I wake up and all is fine. Unfortunately, many people have trouble reading signs-not road signs, but career warning signs.
A career warning sign is any change that indicates possible career disaster that could result in finding one’s place in the unemployment line. While warning signs may vary according to employment situations, there are four basic warning signs that apply in most employment scenarios.
Warning Sign #1
Your industry is experiencing a downturn. Telecommunications is a perfect example. A few years back, telecom was one of the fastest growing industries. Recruiters worked day and night to fill telecom positions at all levels. The first negative indicator was unmet earnings expectations. Those who paid attention left the industry. Persons who practice career management watch the growth trends within their industry and know to leave ahead of the crowd.
Warning Sign #2
Sales are down in your company. While not everyone within an organization is involved with sales, all jobs are affected by sales levels. When revenues decrease, profits are held steady by cutting costs, which often means cutting jobs. Persons can protect themselves by paying attention to sales levels within their organization.
While not all employees are privy to sales numbers, there are ways of finding pertinent financial information. Public companies must publish financial statements. It pays to take the time to study these documents to uncover your company’s basic financial status.
Employees of non-public companies, even without the benefit of public financial information, can also read the signs of declining sales:
* Work load decline
* The boss suddenly seems concerned over small costs, like office pens, copier paper, etc.
* The sales manager was just fired
* The sales department is going through reorganizationAlert employees are sensitive to such indicators. They keep their resume updated at all times and cultivate a growing professional network for potential future job leads.
Warning Sign #3
Management changes. Any management change has the potential to damage your corporate position. Be watchful during:
* Mergers and acquisitions
* String of short-term management tenure (e.g., three bosses in two years)
* Retirement or replacement of senior managementWise employees listen closely to new-management rhetoric. How dramatic are his/her promises to shareholders? What is the newboss’ track record? Does he/she have a reputation as a reactionary, axe-swinging job cutter, or as a strategic long-term planner who views employee reduction as a last resort? The first announcement of new management is the time to cautiously explore outside options.
Warning Sign #4
You’ve lost favor with your boss. While “gut feelings” are oftenthe first warning, some objective indicators are:
* A less-than-exemplary performance review
* No performance-based salary increase
* Your year-end bonus was much smaller than expected
* Your input is not requested at planning meetings
* Your suggestions are ignoredIf you sense your position on the corporate totem pole is falling, trust your gut. When jobs are at stake, yours will beone of the first sacrificed. These warning signs may seem obvious but are often sadly ignored by those who fear change. Rather than take action, they lean on false hope that loyalty to the employer will pay off in the end. Those who practice career management never confuse company loyalty with aversion to change. When career warning signs appear on the horizon, pick up your binoculars and read the signs clearly so that you’re ready forthe next appropriate exit.
Deborah Walker, CCMC
Career Coach ~ Resume Writer
Visit her on the web at: www.AlphaAdvantage.com -
Check out the “Push Up Your Career” Internet TV Show
May 10, 2005 by jim stroudWatch “Push Up Your Career,” an internet TV Show, Thursdays @10:30 AM EST only on the Power Network!
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Give me an effin’ job!!!
by jim stroud
Looking for work can be frustrating, but remember that its better to “never let them see you sweat.” Unfortunately, many jobseekers bring their anger to a job interview, write in their cover letters and fill it in their resumes. Sound absurd? Or, does it sound like you? Check this bit from a very interesting article I found. …negative attributes of a job candidate also catch the attention of hiring managers. At times, a job seeker can convey obvious hostility in his communication to hiring managers.
Matias had one client who came to her after being unemployed for three years. “In one cover letter he had written: ‘Don’t waste my time if you can’t meet my salary requirements of $85,000,’” says Matias. “Unemployed for three years, he was demanding, felt entitled, and was angry. But no one should ever write that on a cover letter.”
Another client had written to an executive about the possibility of doing an informational interview. Although it was clear that the executive wasn’t interested, the job seeker shot off a missive in which he asked: “Are you ignoring my questions about meeting with me?” With this aggressiveness, the job seeker lost all chance of even getting a referral.
“He put them on the defensive and he saw nothing wrong with that. He said, ‘He was ignoring me and I’m a human being,’” says Matias. No one is going to hire someone with excess baggage like that.
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As good as any other gig, I suppose…
May 09, 2005 by jim stroud
“Nurtured only by a handful of individuals around the world, Hand Shadowgraphy is a rare art form where shadow images are created with bare hands only. Imagine the amazing evolution of the docile, practical ,mundane shadow into a creative component of fiction and documentation, often complemented by music and sound effects.It is an art form which has immense possibilities and can be applied in different fields.Like any other art form, innovation is the buzzword here .”
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The Complete List of the 1,000 Top U.S. High Schools
by jim stroud
As a recruiter, I thought this list was invaluable. As a parent, I thought it was invaluable. When I was younger, the pressure was to get into the right college. Now I sense the pressure of going to the right high school will spill over to the right grade school, nursery and hospital to be born in. Still, this is good information to have. -
How To Reign In Life As A Referral King (or.. Queen)!
May 05, 2005 by jim stroud
You are a powerful person of influence and I should know who you are. If I am speaking to a CEO, then this is not a preposterous statement. However if I am speaking to a customer service representative of a small coffee shop, then you may think that I’m talking to the person behind you. Let me assure you that no matter your station in life, this statement holds true. You have in your ability to reign as a “referral king” (or “queen”) and reap untold
fortune by leveraging your network of important people. As such, you have at your disposal a goldmine of job leads to exploit.
Is that a yawn I hear? Let me read into your mind.
“Jim,” you say to yourself, “What can you tell me about networking into a
job that I don’t already know?”
I’m glad you asked that -
Life with Bill…
May 03, 2005 by jim stroud
To all concerned, I am now on the Microsoft payroll effective immediately. Google was a groovy gig, but Bill gave me an offer I could not refuse. (Ask me about the benefits. WOW!) I am SO happy and can truly see myself here for the long haul. Stay tuned for further developments…
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Recruiters must (now) do more to earn their money…
by jim stroud
The U.S. executive-search business is reviving after three years on life support. But fierce competition and fee cutting during the recession have changed the dynamics between recruiters and their corporate clients.Leading U.S. search firms are celebrating their first annual revenue gains after three years of losses. U.S. professional fee revenue for the 25 biggest firms grew 20% in 2004 over 2003, the first such increase since 2000, reports Hunt-Scanlon Advisors, a research firm in Stamford, Conn.
Still, those firms’ $1.135 billion in 2004 domestic revenue remains far below the high watermark of $1.720 billion set in 2000. “We are still about two to three years out from reaching that apex” again, increasing pressure for lower fees and more services, says Scott Scanlon, Hunt-Scanlon chairman and CEO.
It once was standard for retained-search firms, which generally fill upper-level jobs paying at least $200,000 annually, to collect retainers even when they didn’t complete an assignment. (By contrast, “contingency recruiters” fill lesser-paying jobs and get paid only when positions are filled.) During the heady job market of the late 1990s, retained recruiters could count on fees averaging about one-third of a candidate’s first-year compensation.
When the job market dried up, recruiters reduced fees, agreed to delay payments until they met certain performance targets and provided additional services. Now, corporate clients are making those recessionary changes permanent — largely by holding recruiters more accountable and sometimes linking fees to targets. The new practice of paying retained firms’ “contingent” on a performance goal has been dubbed a “container” or “retingency” arrangement.
“We’re now applying the same rigor and discipline to search as we do to our other big corporate initiatives,” says Eric Elder, senior vice president of executive recruiting for Bank of America Corp. in Charlotte, N.C. “We have managed the number of failed searches down to practically zero.”
Mr. Elder says he and colleagues have become “maniacal” about receiving weekly progress reports from search firms.
READ: As Talent War Resumes, Recruiters Jump Hoops to Earn Their Fees
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Oh yeah? Yeah!!!!
May 02, 2005 by jim stroud
Do you have a bully in the workplace? Its not as uncommon as you may think.I found Tim Field’s UK NationalWorkplace Bullying Advice website, an EXCELLENT resource online detailing the psychology of a bully, how to deter the behavior and how it applies to the workplace. Here is a snippet from the website:
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Why do people bully?
The purpose of bullying is to hide inadequacy. Bullying has nothing to do with managing etc; good managers manage, bad managers bully. Management is managing; bullying is not managing. Therefore, anyone who chooses to bully is admitting their inadequacy, and the extent to which a person bullies is a measure of their inadequacy. Bullies project their inadequacy on to others:
a) to avoid facing up to their inadequacy and doing something about it;
b) to avoid accepting responsibility for their behaviour and the effect it has on others, and,
c) to reduce their fear of being seen for what they are, namely a weak, inadequate and often incompetent individuals, and,
d) to divert attention away from their inadequacy – in an insecure or badly-managed workplace, this is how inadequate, incompetent and aggressive employees keep their jobs.
Bullying is an inefficient way of working, resulting in disenchantment, demoralisation, demotivation, disaffection, and alienation. Bullies run dysfunctional and inefficient organisations; staff turnover and sickness absence are high whilst morale, productivity and profitability are low. Prosperity is illusory and such organizations are a bad long-term investment. Projection and denial are hallmarks of the serial bully.
Bullying is present behind all forms of harassment, discrimination, prejudice, abuse, persecution, conflict and violence. When the bullying has a focus (eg race or gender) it is expressed as racial prejudice or harassment, or sexual discrimination and harassment, and so on. When the bullying lacks a focus (or the bully is aware of the Sex Discrimination Act or the Race Relations Act), it comes out as pure bullying; this is an opportunity to understand the behaviours which underlie almost all reprehensible behavior. I believe bullying is the single most important social issue of today.
Bullying…
is a form of abuse, and bullies – and unenlightened employers – often go to great lengths to keep their targets quiet, using threats of disciplinary action, dismissal, and gagging clauses. What bullies fear most is exposure of their inadequacy and being called publicly to account for their behavior and its consequences. This makes sense when you remember that the purpose of bullying is to hide inadequacy, and people who bully to hide their inadequacy are often incompetent.
Check out: Tim Field’s UK National Workplace Bullying Advice website.
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Mentors are Human Beings too…
by jim stroud
In the past months the reality captured in the title of this article hit me with the magnitude of lightning in a heavy storm. The person in whose footsteps I had followed for the past seven years had been changing like a leaf on a tree: something must have happened in his life, which caused him to wander from what everybody had considered to be his purpose. His career,which he had valued and esteemed so highly in the past years, suddenly didn
